D&D General Background Vs. Backstory

[Doug McCrae]

In my experience, half my player's character fail to surpass 1st level, and even fewer make it to 3rd.

I started rpg-ing in 1982 with B/X and I've almost never experienced games this deadly, the only exceptions being a few oneoffs of D&D, Call of Cthulhu, and Paranoia (which is intended to be a parodic satire of old school D&D). It's very rarely the norm these days, and probably wasn't by the mid-late 80s.

 

[hawkeyefan]

For those of you who expect players to provide a backstory, how deadly is your game?

Mine is no where near as deadly as what you describe. We’ve been playing 5E since it came out in one long campaign (with veeeery slow progression) and three PCs have died. Two others died but were Revivified before it stuck.

Those PCs who died were then replaced. And we’ve also had a couple players join along the way. I started these new PCs at a level that fit with the rest of the party. So in those cases, especially, a backstory was kind of needed. Doesn’t have to be incredibly long or detailed, just kind of “what have you been doing and where have you been” kind of thing.

With such a high lethality rate in your game, how do you handle replacement characters? Do they start at level 1? Or join at party level? If so, do you and/or the players come up with any ideas to explain these latecomers?

I’ve never understood the bolded bit. Lethality level is whatever the DM sets it at, regardless of edition.

Lethality is in the eye of the beholder. Especially the disintegrate ray eye.

Well, while I agree that the DM can indeed control the lethality of his or her game, how much work is needed to turn it up will vary greatly by system.

Old school death at 0 hp and a cleric who didn’t even get any healing until second level? Pretty easy to kill those PCs.

5E short rest healing and death saves and an abundance of healing sources makes it a bit tougher. You really have to go out of your way to kill PCs at a high rate, or they need incredibly bad luck with the death saves.

 

[Lanefan]

If it doesn't come up during play it doesn't exist.

Which makes it a chicken-or-egg situation, as backstory can't come out in play very well without there first being something to base it on...

We're not writing novels. I expect back stories to be 1 paragraph.

...which often doesn't have to be much if any more than this.

 

[Lanefan]

Maybe I'm explaining it poorly, I'm distracted by a lot of things today, but trying to picture a game where most of the characters die before level 3 makes me wonder what the point even is. I'd stop running the game, my players would leave, because we couldn't advance a story beyond the opening act.

This assumes the (or a) story requires higher-level characters in order to advance, which isn't necessarily true; you can get a prefectly decent story out of a series of 1st-2nd level adventures, while at the same time laying some groundwork for other stories that may or may not come to fruition later.

Who cares why the goblins kidnapped the merchant and stole her jeweled necklace, half the party died in the fighting and the other half died when we headed out to try and get to the next town. Only one person made it through both fights and as the most senior party member they decided to get us all killed going somewhere else.

Heh - my current campaign started close on 11 years ago with Keep on the Borderlands. One starting character made it through while watching the rest of the party membership turn over three times - and the players loved it!

That one starting character then died in the next adventure, but most of the rest of 'em made it through.

But yes, a true TPK puts a rather hard stop to proceedings. Fortunately, even at very low level adventuring parties are extremely resilient things, although their individual members might not be.

 

[Chaosmancer]

This assumes the (or a) story requires higher-level characters in order to advance, which isn't necessarily true; you can get a prefectly decent story out of a series of 1st-2nd level adventures, while at the same time laying some groundwork for other stories that may or may not come to fruition later.

Heh - my current campaign started close on 11 years ago with Keep on the Borderlands. One starting character made it through while watching the rest of the party membership turn over three times - and the players loved it!

That one starting character then died in the next adventure, but most of the rest of 'em made it through.

But yes, a true TPK puts a rather hard stop to proceedings. Fortunately, even at very low level adventuring parties are extremely resilient things, although their individual members might not be.

They can be, it just puts undue pressure on it I think.

 

[Lanefan]

With such a high lethality rate in your game, how do you handle replacement characters? Do they start at level 1? Or join at party level? If so, do you and/or the players come up with any ideas to explain these latecomers?

In my games players are always allowed to play up to 2 PCs at a time, so if they lose one they've still got something to play.

Replacement characters can be brought in whenever it makes sense to do so, At the type of party level we're talking, they'll come in at raw 1st; later on as the average level advances I'll set a 'floor' at which new PCs come in, and this floor slowly rises as the campaign goes along (but is always lower than the average party level).

As for explaining the replacements, my assumption in any game is always that the PCs aren't the only adventurers out there by any means; and thus a new PC is simply someone who has done its adventuring elsewhere up till now (if not coming in at raw 1st).

Well, while I agree that the DM can indeed control the lethality of his or her game, how much work is needed to turn it up will vary greatly by system.

Old school death at 0 hp and a cleric who didn’t even get any healing until second level? Pretty easy to kill those PCs.

5E short rest healing and death saves and an abundance of healing sources makes it a bit tougher. You really have to go out of your way to kill PCs at a high rate, or they need incredibly bad luck with the death saves.

Yeah - 0e to 3e it's pretty easy to kill 'em off particularly at low level. 4e-5e not so much.

 

[atanakar]

I favor a strong campaign concept instead of detailled PC backgrounds*. For exemple, in my current campaign all the characters are sibblings of the same noble family. They rolled for age and the oldest (female fighter) is next in line for succession. She is the leader of the group. Add to that 5e backgrounds and it is enough to get the dice rolling.

(*I'm tired of orphans who's parents were killed in a violent manner, or mothers who died giving birth to PCs or half-assed and illogical backgrounds writtent to justify abusive builds.)

Edit:typos

 

[Vigdisdotter]

As a player, I've come up with back stories that were written down and referred to. I've also had character with no set back story. And I've also had characters where the DM handed me a print out of the back story.

Now that I'm starting to DM my own game--and I'm trying to get me players to do more then hack and slash--I'm going to get them to write up a short back story. Nothing too involved since they are first level and will be going through characters like tissue paper. But something to get my players thinking about WHO their characters are and HOW they tick.

It also gives ME something I can mess with if they start deviating from what they come up with ~_^

 

[aco175]

I like to see something, maybe a paragraph or two. Maybe not even written down but told at session one. I also like to see more of things that can help me make stories and adventures. Maybe the whole village was killed and the PC was taken away and forced to push a wheel around until he was big and strong, only to be pushed into a fighter pit. That's great, but tell me you have a vendetta against Thulsa Doom and now I have something. Tell me that your grandfather told you about a magical sword that his father once held that could defeat the dragon that terrorizes the village every 25 years and I have something.

 

[ad_hoc]

Which makes it a chicken-or-egg situation, as backstory can't come out in play very well without there first being something to base it on...

...which often doesn't have to be much if any more than this.

This is why I like the background system a lot.

Traits, ideal, bond, and flaw can all come up during play and have an impact.

Tell the character's backstory during play through their actions.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

In my opinion, if a character has no backstory at all, no past, no distinctive personality and he is just expected to die quickly in combat, I wouldn't call him a "character." It's a unit, a pawn.

 

[Charlaquin]

In my opinion, if a character has no backstory at all, no past, no distinctive personality and he is just expected to die quickly in combat, I wouldn't call him a "character." It's a unit, a pawn.

A character can have a distinctive personality without having a predetermined backstory.

 

[Shiroiken]

I will always create a backstory for my PCs, but I don't write a book about it. Generally a concept to flesh them out, a tie in to the campaign (worked out with the DM), and a few plot hooks the DM may choose to utilize (or not). I feel if it's longer than two pages it's too much, but I usually keep it to less than one. Even if the DM chooses not to read it or use it in any way, it helps me to RP my character.

As a DM, I've noticed that players always put in a varying amount of effort into their characters. Some put in too much (so I try to skim or ask for a tl;dr), while some refuse to do anything... ever. In fact, I knew one guy who would never backstory his characters, and if forced to do so would always be an orphan who never knew or cared about his family, a loner who self-taught his profession, choosing to live day to day (he always felt that such things were DM fodder to punish players).

The only types of backstory that drives me bat-crap crazy is Mr Impossible and the WTF. Mr Impossible reads like the tale of an epic level character, defeating all kinds of super-powered beings... while still level 1. WTF is the history of a character that has no place in the campaign world at all, usually because the player refuses to get any input about the world beforehand (such as the ninja-samurai in a setting with no oriental culture).

 

[The Green Hermit]

I like to do a brief backstory for my PCs, no more than two or three paragraphs. If I was playing in an OD&D style game (Gary Gygax's group apparently didn't name their PCs until 4th level, the death rate was so high) I wouldn't do this. But then I wouldn't want to play Gygaxian D&D, except as a videogame.

This is basically what we do. Nothing more than two pages long, and they are usually just a couple of paragraphs.

I usually ask that my players supply either a short backstory (no more than 200 words) or complete a short character quiz that answers some key details (where do they come from, why are they their primary class, are they a leader or a follower, etc.). This is to be supplied by the end of the third session their character is in, to give them time to find their character through play. If they are having trouble with it I'll help them come up with something suitable.

So far it's worked quite well - enough information to give me some hooks for them but not so much that I have to agonise over how to fit their character into the ongoing campaign.

Would you mind sharing your questionnaire? Some of my players (i.e. my kids) struggle with character creation.

For those of you who expect players to provide a backstory, how deadly is your game?

In my experience, half my player's character fail to surpass 1st level, and even fewer make it to 3rd. Only a true master of the game manages to reach 5th and a 9th-level character is almost unheard of.

As such, writing a 2000 word backstory in one of my games will probably be waste of time. But if characters in your games are expected to survive for the entire campaign (arch?), I can see why you might be more demanding.

If the entire party dies, we reset shortly before the deadly incident. If even one person lives, though, the others create new characters, including backgrounds and a reason to join the party. (Once, I had a naive cleric who got lured to a goblin den with a "party invitation.")

 

[Monayuris]

I want the actual game to be the most exciting thing that has ever happened to my character.

So, backgrounds for my characters are usually short and boring.

 

[ccs]

What if players don't know the setting very well. How do they write a backstory that fits? How do they write a backstory that's relevant?

*Well, talking to the DM &/or other players helps.
We spend considerable time BSing during our games. It's not "Sit Down, Roll Initiative, OK it's 10pm here's some XP & thanks for coming." Since we're already discussing random stuff we might as well discuss character details too.
*You can Google just about anything! While sitting at the table waiting for the turn to cycle back to you!
*But nothing beats the time honored method of Make S(tuff) Up.
I mean, when we started as kids with the Basic set all those years ago? How do you think we came up with background details? About anything? That's right, we made it up. Often inspired by something we knew about (or thought we knew about )

As a DM? When a player doesn't know a setting too well? I just have them make up something & generally take care of making it fit on my end. If it's something too far afield we'll discus it a bit & something will be worked out. It'll be OK. And as they play? Then, like the rest of us, they'll acquire more setting knowledge & their next character will have a better(?) background.

Almost every game I've ever played in has had the players backgrounds created on the spot during character generation, and sometimes they get further detailed in play. We talk about what the setting is and about what type of characters we want and then we make them to fit.

I would be a little shocked if a player handed me a written backstory. What am I supposed to do with it?

You're supposed to mine it for ideas of course! Use details to help bring the world alive. Maybe something will spark an idea for a story arc. And discuss with your player if there's particular bits they want featured in the game.
Ex; In my Thur night game I've got a 1/2elf minor noble* from someplace called The Octopus Isles*. She's a socialite/party girl who ran away from court* to attend a Mardi Gras/Carnival type event*. She got stoned*, made a pact with some entity that she perceives as looking like a glitter covered salmon*, was then transformed into a purple winged Tiefling by said salmon*, and became a 1st lv Warlock*....
She then joined up with several adventurers she met** and headed off into the Southern Woods to "Save the Forest Queen"***.
Humorous adventures have ensued since.

*supplied by the Warlock player
***supplied by another player
**supplied by me, the DM: "The game will start with you in attendance at a Mardi Gras/Cranival type event where you will meet the rest of the what'll form the adventuring party. (and, knowing the players I've got) Try & keep this PG13...."

So. Now with this character my world has had an Island chain, a specific Noble Court, and a salmon shaped god/patron added to it. OK.... What to do?
1) Detail the Octopus Isles & it's Noble Court. (work with player on this)
2) Play the part of the inscrutable entity known only as The Salmon God.
3) Soon the party will discover that the Warlocks family has dispatched a variety of bounty hunters ala Empire Strikes Back to bring their daughter home.

And I've got stuff from 4-5 other players to work into play as well.

 

[reelo]

If the entire party dies, we reset shortly before the deadly incident.

You mean like "Load last autosave" in a videogame?
That's crazy!

 

[keynup]

Would you mind sharing your questionnaire? Some of my players (i.e. my kids) struggle with character creation.

Copy of Character Design Template

General Information Creator(s) Name of the players who helped design this character. Full Name The complete name of the character. Nickname or short name A nickname or short name (if the full name is too long to be used practically in-game). Image An image of the character. This ca...

docs.google.com

Doing this from my phone so hope this works.
Ita just a long questionnaire I came across somewhere. Use as you see fit.

 

[ccs]

For those of you who expect players to provide a backstory, how deadly is your game?

Well. If D&D were real, then I'd be a mass murder. My tables soaked in the blood of fictional characters.
Because I don't pull punches, I roll my bright yellow/black very easy to read dice in the open, & I'm not shy about TPKs. If that's how the dice roll (shrugs)....
But honestly it varies greatly based upon group, campaign, player actions, luck, etc.

Not providing me with some backstory though is a sure way to get a character killed. Because you've signaled that you're OK with playing a disposable Star Trek Red Shirt type. So I'll treat your character as such.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think PC's backstories require a bit of suspension of disbelief and gentleman's agreement among DM and players.

The reason lies in the original problem of D&D typical very fast level progression for the game's sake. If you think too much about how your level relates to your actual story, you'll have troubles. Most campaigns still start at level 1 for practical reasons: some players need to learn the rules, others have played already but are trying a new class and need to enjoy low-level features before moving forward, the DM might have an adventure that is simply designed for low-level PCs... If you write a long & detailed backstory for your PC, how are you justifying the fact that she's still only level 1? How can you have a "veteran of the ogre wars" who is a Fighter 1, or a Gandalf-aged mage who is a Wizard 1, only to see them quickly jump to level 3 or 4 after a few skirmishes with kobolds and giant spiders?

The answer is suspension of disbelief: just forget about trying to match your character's age and backstory with your level. Think that level only serves a playability purpose, to match the game with players' skills and with the adventure available. This will then make a long character backstory acceptable even at level 1.

The other potential problem remains, that of a highly detailed backstory possibly conflicting with the DM's fantasy world design. For example, if your PC's backstory include specific mentions of NPCs, organizations, kingdoms etc. then quite obviously the DM is forced to make them exist in the fantasy world, and may possibly feel the need to feature your backstory elements specifically in the adventures to make your PC feel more connected. This is very subjective, because some players might be themselves wannabe-writers of the fantasy world and write a novel in place of a backstory, while most players aren't probably interested, and at the same time a DM might find it useful to incorporate a PC's backstory elements into the adventure, while another will find it annoying. I don't think anything else than a gentleman's agreement can help balancing different ideas within a group.

For the record, I never require my players to define anything of their PC's past if they don't want it. It's a useful tool to help you roleplay your PC, but it should not be mandatory. I hate DMs which force everyone to write too many character details (particularly about a PC's family). I think the focus should always be more onto what happens during the adventures than what happened before.