Backstory - How Not To

[TheAuldGrump]

Ummm, I read my players' backstories. I run Spycraft, which has mechanics that reward backstory (called 'Subplots' in Spycraft.). I use similar techniques in my Pathfinder games.

I love it when my players set the hooks in their own mouths take an active part in helping me run campaigns.

Seriously, it's part of the job, and both an important and enjoyable part at that.

In my current Pathfinder game the paladin mentioned in his character write up that he is decended from an infamous lich, fully expecting the lich to show up as a villain. I am looking forward to his reaction when the lich shows up and asks 'so, have you made me a great great grandfather yet? Is there a girl your interested in, does she know how to cook?

How am supposed to learn these things if I don't ask? You don't call, you don't write....'

I am running the game in Eberron, so I am thinking about giving the lich a crystal ball 'photo album'.

The Auld Grump

 

[arscott]

Backstory is bad. Background is good. Because the story should be happening now--But background is something that helps make the story come together.

I like taking backgrounds and going in unexpected directions with them. Agents abducted you and put a chip in your head to track you? Turns out the tracking is only a side effect--the chip is there to prevent the psychic god-being that lives in your head from manifesting and subsuming your human consciousness.

One particular twist I had planned that I unfortunately never got to use: The character was hunting for a twin brother that had dishonored his family. I was planning on having the twin brother show up in the first session only to get unceremoniously killed off by an NPC -- and then rise from the dead to continually menace the PC and his fellow partymembers

 

[steenan]

I like the backgrounds short and tasty.

What I put in my characters' backgrounds and expect from my players:
- Important events that caused the character to became who he is or that illustrate his central traits.
- Plot seeds to be used; ideas for plots the player would like to see in game.
- Relations with NPCs what tie the character to the setting.

What I don't like to see in character backgrounds:
- Overly cool and heroic deeds. Place for such things is in game. It's a very bad idea to put something in the backstory and then fail to match it in real play.
- NPCs, places and topics that the player does not want to be used and adressed in game. It's not a museum, with things lying safe under glass, it's a living world.
- Unnecesaary color and detail that make the backstroy longer without giving any useful information or inspiration.

Background for a young, inexperienced character should be 1-3 short paragraphs or a bullet list with about 10 items. An experienced character may get more, but it should rarely exceed one page of text and never exceed two.

 

[Haltherrion]

As I mentioned on another recent thread, it is possible to have too much of a good thing in PC backgrounds- so many good hooks that it is hard to use them all. But that is not typically an issue for me; usually only some of the backgrounds have hooks that ought to be reasonably included in the campaign. So, the problem of having something in a background that by rights out to matter but can't be worked in, doesn't happen for me. Usually the character background elements that really matter (in terms of affecting the campaign direction) can be worked in at the appropriate time.

As to your specific proposal, I can see it working but it rubs me wrong. It seems a little too flexible and a little too suspending of disbelief. If you are going to be that flexible about retroactively defining what matters for a character, it seems that the character is too much of a blankslate, waiting to be filled in with whatever happens at the moment that seem interesting.

It seems to me the character should have some existence beyond the exigencies of the campaign. Your method could make PCs a simple reaction to the campaign events, defined entirely by what happens in the game. A believable character ought to be defined by both what happens in the campaign and the larger view of where he came from and what that past meant to him, IMHO

 

[Starfox]

I just prefer the backstory be short and sweet with a couple vague hooks (see above) rather than some half-baked amateur novella. Players can flesh it out more in game as their character gains experiences.

A very nice summing-up. In my OP I wanted to express a point and perhaps overstated it a bit. Of course, SOME backstory, or the thin outline of a backstory is nice. You need something to outline your character. But the tabula rasa approach works very well even for that.

In my current Curse of the Crimson Throne, one of the player characters was a Swashbuckler with a blank background - he ddn't even have a name. Not he is an established student at the Osric (?) fencing academy with deep hooks into the plot as well as the younger son of some minor nobility. As we move on, we may select one of the named noble houses of Korvosa or otherwise have his family fleshed out. I do this background development by reading how the player plays his character, judging what would fit his playstyle, and offering him backgroud options.

Another player has much stronger opinions, read the Guide to Korvosa and decided he wanted to become an arbiter. This lead on to a search for a martial arts teacher, which meant I ave to decide how that would work out in Korvosa. We might play out a flashback scene about how he got into the martial arts community. In this case, the player was much more proactive, but still had his background develop during play.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I don't like mini-novels, but I love to see background which
a) helps inform how the PC is roleplayed (and which helps me to have NPCs respond appropriately)
b) provides useful hooks

I love Chainsaw's example of 'Old Man Halgron' for instance.

I also love chargen systems which provide backgrounds. Mongoose Traveller fleshes out the original traveller chargen very nicely in this respect. My own Starguild OGL game has a section which is all about creating NPC relationships in the characters background.

Cheers

 

[Ryltar]

I guess that everyone agrees that PCs that have a reason to be involved in the story are a good thing. Still, I wonder how much of this debate in the end boils down to the level of motivation and/or the general disposition of your players? For example, in my campaign, I have one player that would best be qualified as a tag-along. He highly enjoys roleplaying his character, however, he just can't get himself to do a background writeup no matter how many times you ask. With this player (type), making up background as the campaign goes along would definitely fail as a concept, because it requires players to be proactive and provide the DM with ideas and input: 'Ooh, I know - that sign over there is the sign of a thieves' guild from my home city, which I was involved with back when ...'. Isn't going to happen anytime soon.

Therefore, the most general suggestion I can give is: do what works for your players on a case-by-case basis. Have the ones that like doing that come up with backgrounds before the campaign starts, but also make it clear that you are looking for additional input to flesh out the characters at any given time. This may result in some very detailed characters, while others are 'mere shells', but in my experience, there is a kind of player that is happy just playing the game as it is. If you were to force a background upon them, that'd be a lot of work that (probably) would go to waste.

 

[Rel]

I've told the story here before of how we used to have big, multi-page backstories submitted for some of the PC's. Then, for an Eberron campaign I started, I instituted a rule: "You get 100 Bonus XP if you submit a background of half a page or less. You get a 100 XP Penalty if you submit a background longer than that."

The problem that I'd encountered which led me to that was conflicting backstories that carried over into play. And the longer the backgrounds were, the more chances for them to conflict. When Player A had background that said:

"It was only last summer when the Orcs of the Western Hills burned my village, murdered my parents and carried my little sister off into slavery."

And Player B had a background that said:

"My father was a crusader against the Eastern Infidels and died fighting them. I've vowed to recapture his sword, which is my birthright!"

Then my campaign typically starts with this conversation:

Player A: We go WEST!

Player B: We go EAST!

Player A: No, WEST!

Player B: EAST!!

etc.


What I ask from the players now is to come up with interesting character motivations but to either do so collaboratively so that these motivations are planned to coincide or else to be flexible enough to change some stuff so that we can make it all work together. I absolutely LOVE incorporating character background into my campaigns. I do not plan gigantic plot arcs in advance and pretty much always base long term campaign goals on what the players want to do (they of course take into considerations the grand scheme of what other factions in the world are up to as well). So there is plenty of room for player input, so long as that player input doesn't cause inter-party strife.

 

[LostSoul]

I changed the skill list for my 4E hack so that most skills define the character. One PC has Savage Raised: Raised by Wolves; another has Savage Raised: Raised by a Verbeeg. Another has Born on the Streets of Stormwatch: Survived by working as a thug and Trained Warrior: Underworld enforcer.

Most of the skills require you to describe specifics about the skill, such as who and what raised you and what the relationship is; how you survived in the gutters of the last human city; and who trained you and what your relationship is with them.

While playtesting, character creation has (almost) always led to interesting and unique characters. ("Almost always" because some of the PCs focus on racial traits, which focuses on the PC's "dwarfiness" or "dragonbornity", but that's obviously not a unique thing.) It's interesting to watch players have only a vague idea, like "I want to play a Fighter" and, through picking skills, come up with a backstory and personality.

The backstory, personality, and specific details of how the character acts constantly comes up in play, since any action you take that's obviously related or associated with the skill is going to give you a bonus. That's what sells this sub-system for me; the backstory is always relevant to what's happening now, during the game, even if we're not specifically dealing with it.

 

[kitsune9]

As a DM, I require the players to give me a short background. I will do my very best though to work their backgrounds into the various adventures that I'll end up running, but for some players, they may get resolution early on in the campaign while others may see resolution toward the end depending upon circumstances.

Other backgrounds where their doesn't need to be any plot device, then I'll ignore.