Character Backgrounds

[jmucchiello]

We develop as we play. First level character haven't done much yet. The only reward I give for making a background ahead of time is that I will use that background in the early games. Making those characters get a bit more spotlight.

 

[Feliath]

What I do

Well, I, as a DM, try to allow all players to play as close to what they want as is possible, because, this is a game, right? And it's all about having fun, right, whether "fun" means "drooling angst" or "monster mayhem" to you? So with that in mind, along with the fact that a forced player is an unhappy one, I don't force my players to write background.

Instead, I offer an XP award of 50*level XP per item (loosely equates to page, modified by usefulness), to a limit of 5 items per level. (Remember, positive reinforcement is better than negative.)
"Item" also includes stuff like character journals and so on, since after a while it gets right ludicrous to write about what came before.

That way, you can skip it if it feels boring to you, but if you want to write, you can do so and be rewarded (You can get up to 1/4th of the XP needed to gain a level by writing stuff). Incidentally, all my players happily scribble away. Fascinating how XP can make boring things fun

Oh, I suppose I should mention that standard fighting XP have been heavily slashed (pun not intended) IMC.

It's all worked out fabulously so far, and I have sheaves of background material for all the PCs.

/Feliath

 

[seasong]

Depends on the campaign, for me.

A while back I ran a gritty, low-magic, farmer's children drafted into a distant war campaign. I had the players put together their family trees (four generations), brief family history, and a few notable ancestors... all set against a fairly detailed background of about 16 villages surrounding a 700-citizen "town". Then I had them describe their characters: basic motivations, major childhood scars, and 3 Windows of Opportunity (basically, three "unusual" or "unique" things about each character, such as being in a particularly rich or poor family, having an exotic appearance, being literate, etc.). Then I set about ripping them from their home and marching to war against an enemy they'd barely even heard legends of.

More recently, I'm running a super hero game where naught more than appearance and "publicly known powers" is defined at the beginning of the game - each of the characters has a slightly mysterious past, which they will reveal (or create) as the campaign goes on.

I think there's room for both (and all in between), depending on what you want to evoke with your campaign.

 

[nsruf]

I encourage my players to write up some background, but I don't require it. It is mostly for their own benefit anyway, i.e. giving them an idea how to play.

But when I start a new campaign, I try to work out a common background for the party with the players. Nothing long or complicated, just making sure that they have reason and inclination to work together.

 

[ladyofdragons]

does that questionnaire work well for you, ladyofdragons? we tryed one that had 50 questions, and the group thought it took way too long...

It does work for me. Like I said, not every question has to be answered. it's just the ones we found most pertinant to our D&D characters.

Originally posted by Bagpuss
Wow, 21 pages of some of the most irrelevant and unimportant questions I have ever seen. I can see that sometimes character development actually gets in the way of actually playing the game, or having a real life.

Boy, puss is a right name for you. I just said that it works for me, I'm suggesting it to anyone who might find it useful. And I do have a real life, of which a relatively small percentage goes to gaming. Last time I reviewed this questionnaire for my last character I created, we did it in a car, and thoroughly enjoyed passing the time.

 

[Drawmack]

Interesting. I like the idea of the XP award for journals and such I will implement that. With the background I don't do that but I heavily encourage them to write things into the background like a special sword (that they just might find out talks when they are 5th level).
There are a couple of things that I probably should have mentioned up front as well. I give the players a 9 page essay that I wrote on writting a good character background that includes a sample and is a step by step process to writting a good background. This is a Freeport campaign. It is dark and forboding. Some of the things I like in a background are immediate family, your relationship to them, you training, stuff like that. When you look at all this stuff, it really isn't hard to fill up three pages for a first level character and it also isn't hard to to give yourself a lot of cool stuff in the process.

 

[Bagpuss]

Boy, puss is a right name for you. I just said that it works for me, I'm suggesting it to anyone who might find it useful. And I do have a real life, of which a relatively small percentage goes to gaming. Last time I reviewed this questionnaire for my last character I created, we did it in a car, and thoroughly enjoyed passing the time.

I hope you weren't the one driving at the time.

 

[Gizzard]

For my current game, I laid out a possible starting scenario with general catagories that PCs might want to fit into. Then I bounced around ideas with the players up until game time via e-mail. Those who were more interested wrote up more; I think if I glued it all together the longest might be 3 pages. The shortest was more like a paragraph.

Its worked relatively well so far; definitely there is a built-up loyalty between certain characters because of their backstory declared that they had been friends together in the same city before setting out on their current adventure.

Doing this also allowed me to (try to) minimize inter-party conflict by giving early feedback on extreme character concepts. And its given me a chance to weave a couple threads of the module back into peoples backstory.

 

[Neo]

I have all my players write backgroundsl length is irrelevent, the incentive for doing a good job is between 100 and 500 EXP.

Backgrounds for my campaigns are pretty important as I rn campaigns with plots based on and around the characters, people they know things they seke and so forth, whereby the character the plot concentrates on moves ever four or five sessions depending on how much gets done and thus moves along each PC's personal plot a little more, whil as a whole everyones individual stories work towards the completion of a central plot that binds them together....

All in all it works well but is a lot of work and if someone drops out there isn;t always an easy rewrite possible without having to build a plot from the ground up again.

But Backgrounds are by far the most important thing to me, I'm personally not one of those people who can sit down make a character and think right who is he... the minute I start making a character his story is forming in my head and by the time he's done his concept, aims and background are all done.

 

[Telor]

I awarded a +1 increase in any stat (so long as nothing goes over the race cap) for those who wrote a nice backstory for their character in my campaign.

It worked very well. I don't like using XP as a reward since that is very easily gained with time. (Halfway to level 2 means jack once you're level 10). Having a character start with a higher stat is permanently beneficial.

Just my 2 cents.

-Telor