Developing character backgrounds

[Duncan Haldane]

Hi,

I was wondering what methods people used to help their players build a character background when starting a new campaign or introducing new PCs.

For a while now I've been wondering about preparing a set of questions for the players to fill in.

eg "Why did you start adventuring?" "Tell me about the members of your immediate family" - that sort of thing.

My plan would be that the players fill this out, and send it to me. I go through noting down questions and items requiring review (eg, the name of the city should be ____), and then sit down and discuss it with the player.

(for a long time now I've tried to have a one-on-one session with players before introducing new character, and that seems to work well).

Once our discussion is complete, the player then make any necessary adjustments.

This background form would then be kept up to date during play, as the player introduces or expands any parts of their character's background.

I am hoping that such a system would create more complete, realistic characters, as well as giving myself more background to work with. (although I don't want to be the type of DM who uses every member of a PC's family as story hooks through kidnapping, murder, and even being the bad guy). I want to have the players feel that their characters are part of the world, and that the world is part of their characters.

So, tell me what you think of this idea, how you do it your games, and even if there are any products currently out that I should investigate for this sort of development (I remember some books from the late '80s-early 90s that had a whole bunch of tables you rolled your PC's background up on).

Thanks,

Duncan

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

I've seen a few very exhaustive lists of questions for players to fill out over the years. Yes, it does help building a more complete background, but usually a more complete individual background. If you want the group to have a cohesive background (ie they didn't just meet), you better talk to the whole group, or have the players decide amongst themselves how and why they met.

(I thought I had one such survey on my PC, maybe it's at work. I'll try to post it at lunch)

AR

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

Wasn't there an awesome list in a thread a few months ago? I tried searching for it but I couldn't find it. It was a list of questions for the individual characters background, as well as how that character came to meet up with the others.

And I agree, if you are making your own PCs background , great But if it's a group thing, the groups history should be agreed upon by all. That doesn't mean one PC can't "go bad" or turn on the party somewhere down the line, but the history should be agreed upon by all.

 

[Altalazar]

While a good list of questions can give you a lot to think about, I tend to prefer a more open-ended narrative, written by each player, about each character's background.

I think it helps to first give information about the campaign world - so they know what world their character grew up in. I have a list of nations, a map of the continent, and some information about each. I have documents about world history. I have lots of details on certain cities in that world. I have a list of customized dieties for the world. All of this information together tells the players what world they are being born into before they even think about making a character.

I think another important part of the process is having all of the players get together and discuss backgrounds together. This allows for the creation of a balanced party, this also allows for backgrounds for some or all of them to be enmeshed together and complement and build on each other. I find this can create a very strong party bond from the beginning, which sets the tone for the whole campaign.

One campaign set up that way started with everyone coming from the same small town, all childhood friends - and the first adventure was really the first "real life" adventure of them all upon reaching young adulthood, dealing with a situation that develops after a few of them are left in charge of the equipment shop owned by their parents.

Another group was a mercenary band. And so on.

I think it needs to be an interactive process, with perhaps some revisions, to smooth things out and make sure the background blends well into the world and with the other's backgrounds as well.

It is good to have some hooks in there for future plotlines, as well.

In several games, I've had players make up backgrounds long before the dice or character sheets have even been looked at. Then the character is created to match the background after the fact.

 

[Ruined]

My players each allowed me to take a hand in their character background, but for the most part I worked with all of the ideas they gave me. For the current campaign (which is the Story Hour linked in the sig), I ran a pre-game session for each player. I had three focal points for each character, and we ran through the various scenes. Some were just narrative/roleplay. Others were combats where the PCs were at lower level (all started at 3rd in game).

It gave each player a chance to feel out their character in a solo environment, and it gave me an idea of how they wanted to play the character. Also, I filled in various plot seeds I would pull from later, giving me a cohesive story and allowing for great foreshadowing. Any long-term campaign I do from now on, I'll use this method.

Oh, and to your question about character questionnaires: I think they're great, if the players have the time and inclination to fill them out. From my experience, some players hate 'homework', no matter how useful it can be.

 

[Munin]

I take a somewhat different approach to character development.

I've found that it takes usually between 3 and 4 game sessions (depending on how long each session is) for players to get a good feel for their characters.

So before the campaign starts I'm not really all that interested in detailed character histories, besides, I've got enough to worry about getting the game off the ground so the information is essentially useless anyway.
For starters I provide a basic framework that will allow them to build a basic history that fits with the campaign theme, but I don't expect much else.

Once the game is off the ground, I then start to hand out homework assignments that add depth to the characters. This does two things: it allows the players to focus on one aspect of their character's history or personality at a time, and it allows me to focus my search for adventure ideas, which is the main thing I want anyway.

A typical homework assignment might be something like, 'Describe one mentor from your youth and how he influenced your choice to become an adventurer.'

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

There we go...

AR

 

[Hand of Evil]

I do the twenty questions modifing the next question on the answer, it gives too many plot ideas.

Who is your father/mother? Are they alive? What happen to them? How about brothers/sisters? Who was your childhood best friend? Where are they now? How did you meet your current party members?

 

[DragonLancer]

As DM I am loath to give away any hints about what the campaign is going to be about, but this has caused some debate with one of my players.

The majority of my group come up with very basic character backgrounds. Basic but with everything I need to know and everything they need to play their characters. This paticular player spends hours working on a complex background and even writes in plot hooks for himself. Not so bad I agree. However, this player insists that every character should have their own plots, and that they should follow them regardless of what the campaign is about. Obviously I disagree.

Anyone else had players like this? What do you think?

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Just my own personal method of creating PCs. I gennerally prefer to create the character first (Race/Class/Stats/Feats) assigning all the stuff that is important to the character concept. This is not necesarily limited to combat options and could include things like Perform or Diplomacy. Only after I have the skeleton up do I go towards background. I then start thinking: How did this person get to this point? If the DM provided campaign resources I will try to figure out where such a character would fit into this world, if not I will try to come up with a generic background that can be fit into a number of places later. This background is then the muscles of the character. Finally comes the skin. This is where I then take the background and add in the remaining feats and skills that match the background such as Profesion or Craft. I will then generally provide a 1 page background story to the DM.

If the DM wants a survey or some other thing I will do it in addition to my own 1 page writeup. I will still follow this method if we are supposed to be an existing group. I will still create the general character I want first then using the same criteria as before think how did someone like this end up working for/with these people.

Maybe it is just our group but the one time I DMed for them I asked for such write ups and had no problem with my group complying. I do see the need for some written stuff since there is one part time player in our group who likes to continualy adjust his history to fit the situation and unless you get something in writing his backround will be completely different than what he told you 3 months before.