D&D General Background Vs. Backstory

[Chaosmancer]

@Chaosmancer You chose to defend the group you seem to want called "people who write backstories". I don't care if you are part of that group or not, but your choice to defend them without attempting to address the issue by dismissing a problem common enough within that group for @Coroc to mock it with his "good luck with that " comment in post 101 along with others from other posters over the last six pages of this thread makes it very clear that the problem in question of sheltering "self entitled jerks" (as you put it) within the group of "people who like to write backstories" is something that group should acknowledge within itself & put more effort into addressing rather than dismissing as an aberrant observation of specific individuals.

Given your desperation to find offense and continued insistence on dismissal rather than addressing the problem it looks like we are done here @Chaosmancer

If you want to walk away, feel free, but I'm still trying to figure out how this is a confusing stance.

Don't be a jerk.
Don't be a spotlight hog.
Don't cheat.
Don't try and hide cheating, spotlight hogging and jerkitude by writing a backstory.

These are not mutually exclusive, and they have nothing to do with writing backstories. I am not "dismissing the problem", people who act the way you have described are a problem, but they are not a problem because they write backstories.

I mean, why is it my responsibility as a person who writes backstories to police all jerks? Do I need to police the guy who buys the module and reads it ahead of every session so they know the secrets? I disapprove of that practice, but I also buy modules, because I am a DM and I find useful material in them. Do I need to police DMs who create DMPCs and lord over their players? I've created characters who have adventured with the party before.

Heck, do I need to police all people who hog the food and leave a mess at the DMs house? I went to a friend's house to game for months, ate there too, am I responsible for policing all people who do that?

The only claim I have made is you are conflating two communities as being the same just because they share one specific action. Writing Backstories. And, like them, dislike them, write them, have horrid expeirences of marysue overload with them... you can't blame everyone who writes a backstory because some people try and take advantage of it to cheat the game and hog the spotlight.

 

[Legatus Legionis]

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[Salthorae]

Even so, I use a random background generator for all my players.

Xanathar's has some fun tables for these if people don't want to come up with their own!

I have a whole questionnaire I give to my players (nothing is required!!) to get their thoughts flowing on who or what they envision for that character. Or they can roll stuff to get their creative juices flowing. Or they don't have to have a backstory at all. I prefer it but don't require it.

 

[prabe]

Xanathar's has some fun tables for these if people don't want to come up with their own!

I have a whole questionnaire I give to my players (nothing is required!!) to get their thoughts flowing on who or what they envision for that character. Or they can roll stuff to get their creative juices flowing. Or they don't have to have a backstory at all. I prefer it but don't require it.

Be careful with those tables. It's possible for someone to roll up a lot.

I'm with you on preferring but not requiring a backstory. I've had some issues with people writing up some extensive backstories, with what I'm willing to presume are the best of intentions, so I'm probably going to ask players in future campaigns to keep them to under 2,000 words, including a section that unpacks bonds, traits, etc. (I don't use Inspiration, but I think they're a good tool for the players, and I'd like to see them.)

 

[Lanefan]

Most of the groups I have been apart of were always more concerned with creating history thru adventuring, and not with background/backstory.

Even so, I use a random background generator for all my players.

Just like they roll there stats.

We roll for social status (9 levels)
We roll for order of birth (from only to 1st to 12th)
We roll for Parent's marital status (if PC is a bastard, social status is 1 level lower)
We roll for each parent's:

• profession (adventurer, farmer, other)
• current status (living, missing, deceased)
• if dead, cause of death (natural, unnatural, supernatural)
• if dead, roll of sub-table(s)

We roll for siblings (m/f, profession, status, dead, etc.) just like one's parents

This all speeds up the creation process, makes it uniform for everyone, and prevents players from making their background as "Crown Prince of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire" sort of thing.

Yeah, we do something similar but only once the character's proven it's going to last longer in play than it took to roll up. Or when we get around to it later; doing this always involves the DM, which means it's tough to do mid-session.

The only difference with us is that we've massively expanded the secondary skills (a.k.a. professions) table, and 'social class' largely arises out of what you roll there (e.g. nobility is a small-chance option, slave is a bigger-chance option, etc.). So if you roll 'merchant' your social class is likely a bit higher than if you roll 'farmhand'; and once you've been on a few adventures your social class won't matter anyway as you'll either be richer than kings or dead.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yeah, we do something similar but only once the character's proven it's going to last longer in play than it took to roll up. Or when we get around to it later; doing this always involves the DM, which means it's tough to do mid-session.

The only difference with us is that we've massively expanded the secondary skills (a.k.a. professions) table, and 'social class' largely arises out of what you roll there (e.g. nobility is a small-chance option, slave is a bigger-chance option, etc.). So if you roll 'merchant' your social class is likely a bit higher than if you roll 'farmhand'; and once you've been on a few adventures your social class won't matter anyway as you'll either be richer than kings or dead.

That bolded bit sounds quite interesting, can you share any details on the skills?

 

[Lanefan]

Write-up for my game is linked below:

Blue Book - Part 2 - Rolling Up

Click on "skills and professions" once there.

 

[Coroc]

Again, you seem to be ranting about specific players and specific ideas. Nothing about writing a backstory means you think you are better than other people.

And, I want to take a side note to say that "Sorry, but my character would..." isn't always this grand sin against gaming. Yeah, "Sorry, but my character would totally stab you in the back and steal all the treasure." is a jerk move by a jerk player who is trying to hide that fact. But, I've also seen, "Sorry guys, my character wouldn't be able to kill him, he still loves his brother." Which can be an incredibly powerful moment in the story. Or, "Sorry, but my character would grab the kid and run, saving the life of an innocent is more important than saving the king right now."

Absolutes are never actually absolute. "Bad players say this" doesn't mean that "All players who say this are bad."


Also, to the point of GrimDark, I think you aren't fully understanding the point that Azzy was making.

The original usage of Grimdark was for the purposes of parody, when things were so dark, so drenched in violence and blood, that it almost became funny. I think the original Robocop had this, where it was so over the top violent that it was more comedic than terrifying. It's taking things far far beyond where they can still be taken seriously.

For a lot of people, Ravenloft doesn't fit that. And even what you are saying about escaped human experiments doesn't push it that far. IT could, you could rachet it up and up and up until it was Grimdark, but normal horror and grittiness is not Grimdark.

Or to put it in visual language

This is Grimdark

This is not

Yea you are right, only the second picture is outright creepy, what does the bloated water zombie try to inflict on Harley Quinn with his rodents, while surrounded by a drug addict, some evil cultist, the Type-o-negative singer, a knife wielding hobo disguised as an hobbit and a Michael Jackson imitator?

And now I notice it on third glance, where does this fish come from?

 

[Azzy]

Whatever it used to mean, now it just means "dark".
So first up, a definition. The term grimdark was originally a pejorative derived from the description of Warhammer 40k description (“In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.”)

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And then the writers of this subgenre took the “insult” and made it their own. By claiming their own work as grimdark, they striped [sic] the term of its ability to be an insult...​

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In fantasy, it usually means you have a dark fantasy setting (more on that later, but we’ll call this necessary but not sufficient) where the rose-colored paint has been scraped off your glasses.​

Source

Well, that's lame. Then again, I'm still likely to ridicule anything that unironically terms itself grimdark—you're still Gwar.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Well, that's lame. Then again, I'm still likely to ridicule anything that unironically terms itself grimdark—you're still Gwar.

Nowaday, "grimdark" is sometimes used as 0art of a Noble-Grim Bright-Dark scale.

Noble-Grim: how much of an effect individual actors can have on the state of the world (does the setting support "great men" or can change only be brought about systemically?)

Bright-Dark: the overall tone of the world (optimistic/pessimistic, etc.)

So going off of that:

Noblebright: the world's good, and you can help make it better!
Grimbright: the world's good, but good look helping it improve.
Nobledark: the world sucks, but you have the power to change that.
Grimdark: the world sucks, and you're powerless in the face of that.