Backgrounds: Character perception or Reality

[Crothian]

When character write backgrounds in your campaign, or when you write your character's background for a campaign; is the background reality or is it just the chartacters perception of those events?

For instance, the classical parents killed by orc. Where the characters parents actually killed by orc, or is that just what he believes?

 

[Nightfall]

Maybe they were imaginary orcs.

 

[Thanee]

I usually write from a 3rd person perspective, so... reality for me.

If the orcs would have been disguised humans (or whatever), I would have written it into the background and said, for example, that my character believes them to be orcs.

Bye
Thanee

 

[BSF]

It matters not to me, whether I am the DM or the player. As a player, I will write the events that shaped the character. If the DM latches onto one of these "facts" and changes it to make an interesting campaign hook, that's great. I also try to leave a little ambiguity and a few hooks anyway, so however the DM needs to tell the story is cool.

As a DM, I will take creative license with backgrounds if I can make the game fun by doing that. I try not to change something so dramatically that the player won't recognize it. I want them to look back on it and realize how it tied into their character later on.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Character's perspective. If the backgrounds involve something the PC wouldn't know about, the player shouldn't either.

But...

I only take very slight liberties with backgrounds, and I don't do that often. People tend to write backgrounds that make the character who it is--and that's the character they want to play. I've seen DMs completely rewrite character backgrounds after the game has begun, and it's ruined the campaign for the player. So any changes I make are still in line with who/what the character is--they just may not be fully aware of the details.

 

[Saeviomagy]

1. It's the character's background from the perspective of the character.

2. Rewriting the events around that is the GM's prerogative.

3. GM's should be trying to make the game fun.

To sum up - the GM should mess with the background all he wants, PROVIDED that it's not in such a way as to lessen the enjoyment of the player.

In the 'parents killed by orcs' example - it's no good just lumping it out as "haha, we killed your parents! And we're not orcs!". You could potentially have an entire plotline which culminates in the PC discovering some ulterior motive to the murder of his parents, which may or may not involve orcs.

Personally I think it would be awesome if a DM took my backstory and twisted it into something new. Especially if it leads to some good roleplaying moments - the 'parents killed by orcs' character gradually and grudgingly has to accept that there are things worse than orcs, or worse still has to team up with some orcs to track down the real killers.

It's the stuff good fiction is made of.

 

[Raven Crowking]

A character's background is from the character's perspective; ie, what he or she believes to be true. Unless the character is extremely dim, however, or has amnesia or something, most of what the character believes to be true probably is.

No problem with Empire Strikes Back moments, though! ("No, Redgar, Mialee is your father!")

RC

 

[Mouseferatu]

("No, Redgar, Mialee is your father!")

I think, under those circumstances, your player may have larger issues than the fact that you tweaked his background a little.

 

[jollyninja]

i usually leave enough empty space there as a player for the dm to mess with if he wants. ie important mpc's to the character ect but only list them as percieved by the character and general public. if it turns out that kindly old uncle seymore has been feeding orphans to a pack of werewolves every few weeks then i'm just glad to have provided the dm with an adventure hook. never trusted him anyway, it's like he was trying to hard to be nice all the time

 

[rbingham2000]

1. It's the character's background from the perspective of the character.

2. Rewriting the events around that is the GM's prerogative.

3. GM's should be trying to make the game fun.

To sum up - the GM should mess with the background all he wants, PROVIDED that it's not in such a way as to lessen the enjoyment of the player.

In the 'parents killed by orcs' example - it's no good just lumping it out as "haha, we killed your parents! And we're not orcs!". You could potentially have an entire plotline which culminates in the PC discovering some ulterior motive to the murder of his parents, which may or may not involve orcs.

Personally I think it would be awesome if a DM took my backstory and twisted it into something new. Especially if it leads to some good roleplaying moments - the 'parents killed by orcs' character gradually and grudgingly has to accept that there are things worse than orcs, or worse still has to team up with some orcs to track down the real killers.

It's the stuff good fiction is made of.

Definitely. To use a modern example from a video game, Max Payne is a maverick cop who lost his wife and daughter to some killer junkies hopped up on a nasty designer drug called Valkyr. And to make matters worse, after the first few missions, he also gets framed for the murder of his DEA partner and has his fellow cops after his hide. He starts out believing that Lupino's mob is behind the Valkyr trade and the murder.

As with any good film noir-style storyline, Max eventually discovers that some very different and very ruthless people are really behind his troubles (I won't give specifics because some of you may not have played Max Payne or made it to the end).