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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Merkuri" data-source="post: 5416608" data-attributes="member: 41321">Have you ever played the computer game "Planescape: Torment"?  Aside from being set in Planescape, the game's whole idea was that you played a person trying to figure out who he was and what he did in his past.  You don't even know your own name (you're referred to as Nameless for the whole game).  You slowly learn your own history as the game goes on.My character backgrounds generally come from one or two central ideas that I flesh out.  My latest character (in a 3.5e game) is a priestess of Farlanghn, the god of roads.  I thought about why she'd worship Farlanghn and decided that she grew up at a crossroads inn.  Furthermore, I decided that she was not born at that inn, but was a lost child adopted by the inn owners, and that there were strange rumors about her as a child - that she supposedly rescued lost travelers by leading them back to the path then disappearing.  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 prefer my PC backgrounds to read like a short story because I like writing them, but if pressed I could've squeezed that background into a paragraph.  One time I wrote a PC's backstory in the format of a letter she had written (though I never specified why it was written or two whom it was sent).I also generally like to leave holes in my background for the DM to fill in later, if he wants.  For example, I never said where this character's real parents are, and I never said whether the rumors about her were true or not (one adoptive parent believed in them, the other thought they were hogwash).  Some DM's I've played with have incorporated these things, others have not.  But I like to give the DM the opportunity to fill in some of my backstory holes and maybe use them to inspire game plots.I'm also playing a character in a 4e game that has essentially no backstory.  She was created quickly, and I said I'd fill in my backstory as time goes on.  I haven't, though.  She has a personality, but her motivations are vague, and I'm finding that as time goes on I'm having a harder time of putting a backstory to her.  Perhaps if we had a constant DM (we trade of DM duties from adventure to adventure for this campaign) I'd find it easier to flesh out her background, but it feels to me like she just leaped into existence during the first adventure.For me, at least, it seems like I need to have some sort of backstory for a character from the start, even if it's just a skeleton of a story, otherwise that part of the character's life won't ever get fleshed out.</blockquote>

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