Backstory - How Not To

[The Shaman]

Rereading your posts, I still get the strong impression you see little point to them, however.

Since my first post in this thread begins, "I have little use for backstory or background," then I would say, in this particular instance, you're spot-on.

What I didn't say was that no one else should have use for them, either. In fact, I said the exact opposite, right there in my first post. Many of your comments directed at me seem to overlook that, or ignore it.

 

[Mallus]

I'm a big proponent of role-playing games as a kind of fiction, I don't have much use for long, elaborate backstories. I'm much more interested in the stories that emerge during play.

I think the longest backstory I've written, for a superhero PC of mine, was two or three paragraphs, with most of the length being an attempt to explain how he could be the ancient Egyptian god of Mexican wrestling. Hint: it involved time travel and post-Singularity BS science!

My current PC's backstory is as follows: he was a poet who performed in the disreputable artist's quarter. Now's he's a paladin of a New Age-y cult that preaches Manichean self-improvement culminating in personal apotheosis ie they believe in fighting evil in order to level up! Also, he like fireworks, Pernod, and mice (he's a Dragonborn), roughly in that order.

That's all the background I needed for 2.5 years of campaign.

I do like to continually amend my character's background, though, as I think up new material. PC's are fictional characters I'm writing. Most of that writing is done through play, but some of it isn't, and I hate to have a character limited by however creative I was feeling at the time of chargen.

 

[GhostBear]

My character backgrounds generally come from one or two central ideas that I flesh out. [...] From there, I wrote about a page to tell that background in a more story-like format, but that little blurb was the essence of her backstory. [...] I'm also playing a character in a 4e game that has essentially no backstory. [...] She has a personality, but her motivations are vague

This is what I find to be true about characters with little to no background. They may have a personality, and they may be interested in doing X or Y or Z, but the motivations are not there. It inhibits character growth. In order to grow, you need a starting point from which to grow in the first place. You can't grow from nothing.

On the other hand, characters with extremely detailed backgrounds can be similarly stifled. The more detail you add, the more set in stone things become, and the less flexible that character is for future story telling. They often end up being just as static as the character with no background.

Think of any popular comic book character. Batman. Spiderman. Whatever. Their lives have been so fleshed out that it is very difficult for them to "grow backwards" without breaking some other portion of their backstory.

 

[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

For the record - finding out that his undead ancestor had an active interest in him scared the jellybeans out of the paladin. Then he went and did some research, and found out that dear old gramps was really bad news.....

Not the reaction I was expecting, but he spent the next time he had to deal with grandpa watching him like a snake. Knowing that he was in the presence of evil made legend.

He does not trust the creature.
He does not like the creature.
The thing scares the bejeezus out of him, and at this point there is nothing he can do about the thing....
And the thing trying to be friendly only made it worse.

Mission accomplished!

The Auld Grump