How much back story for a low-level PC?

[Odhanan]

As a player, I'll come up with a basic concept for the character. What's happening in the actual game as it is being played is what gradually constitutes the character's backstory.

As a DM, I'll generally be comfortable with one to a few paragraphs/sentences.

 

[IronWolf]

(I also have to wonder... how is a 1st-level character so important they have hooks?)

Adventuring is a risky lifestyle, it is surely easier to stay at home and do menial work to earn enough coins to scrape together to put together a living. So for those that choose the adventuring path what led them to set down that path? Even as a 1st level character starting out there must have been some motivation to leave home or even take on these riskier activities - what led to that?

The background doesn't have to be especially heroic or anything - especially for a 1st level character - they are still new to the whole adventuring thing. But certainly there must have been some event that started to lead them down this path.

Not trying to force folks to write massive backstories, just trying to provide an example of how even a 1st level character is apt to have a few lines that help fill in how they go to where they were - even if it isn't especially heroic.

 

[The Ghost]

I actually didn't mean it hyperbolically at all. Building an organized criminal organization from scratch isn't going to take a lot of in-game time? Even at a relatively abstracted level? I disbelieve the illusion.

What about it is time consuming? Setting up a base of operations? Setting up a front? Setting up a fence? Finding operatives? Finding marks? Buying off the authorities? In 3.5/Pathfinder I can abstract all of this through Appraise, Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Intimidate, Knowledge (local), Knowledge (nobility), and Sense Motive rolls. How much time does it take to roll a d20? A couple of sentences of dialogue between the DM and player and some DM arbitration and we are good to go.

Sure, in a game like 3.5, you could just say, "I take the Leadership feat this level, and all my cohorts are going to be rogues. I've founded a Thieves' Guild! Huzzah!" I guess at that point, there's little substantial difference between doing that and pre-creating a thieves' guild as part of your background, though, and saying that you're an apprentice member of it at the start of play.

And if there's no substantial difference, why would anyone object to the one and not the other?

By playing it out in game we are rolling dice, engaging NPCs, and allowing the other PCs the ability to influence the situation, whereas writing it out in a back-story does none of that. In my opinion that is a fairly substantial difference.

 

[IronWolf]

What about it is time consuming? Setting up a base of operations? Setting up a front? Setting up a fence? Finding operatives? Finding marks? Buying off the authorities? In 3.5/Pathfinder I can abstract all of this through Appraise, Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Intimidate, Knowledge (local), Knowledge (nobility), and Sense Motive rolls. How much time does it take to roll a d20? A couple of sentences of dialogue between the DM and player and some DM arbitration and we are good to go.

I think people are on two different wave lengths as to the level of detail. What you describe to me barely touches the surface of organized crime, even in the fantasy world. So rolling d20's for skill checks on some of this seems a very high level of abstraction. Which is completely fine if that is what works in your game and for your players.

But I think for those that think this takes some time we would be expecting more detail on these events. Take the fence for example, say you do the d20 skill check for finding a fence, what about if the first couple of checks fail? I would think word would get out on the street that someone is looking for a fence and possibly cause future consequences. That takes time.

Setting up a base of operations can take some time as well unless abstracted to a great degree. Who handles affairs while the character is off adventuring? What happens of undo attention by local authorities or competing group?

Some of these latter examples are the types of details that would likely surface in some of the campaigns I play in. Now, the way we handle it is to handle a large majority of this type of thing on our group's message boards - so we are able to obtain what we want in detail without drawing time away from our time together in actual game sessions.

Again, I am sure how much detail people want varies from group to group. But that is likely why some people think building an organized crime setup for a character during a session could potentially steal the spotlight from other players if handled in session.

 

[Neonchameleon]

So what? The player character never saw that in her mother. That doesn't change her backstory. Her backstory is still intact, word for word.

And yet she mysteriously learned arcane magic, jumped up 10 levels, studied Necromancy, and turned herself into a freaking member of the Undead in just a few years. Something that takes most non-adventuring wizards the best part of 50 years, often more. And that's starting when their brains are young - and asuming that the spells are accessible (whihc in the case of lichdom they normally aren't.)

At this point, unless she went adventuring and put herself in danger every day and was forced to draw on resources beyond herself, you've smashed most of the worldbuilding you've done. It now apparently takes three years at night school to make yourself a lich and tenth level spellcaster. At that point, all lower level threats become instantly risible.

"Sire! The goblins are invading from underneath. This young warrior leads a group who claims they can deal with the threat."
"No. They will be slaughtered. Fetch ... the slightly bored housewives."
​

For that matter, the entire concept of staking out "territory" is already indicative of that, IMO. Isn't gaming supposed to be a collaborative effort, after all?

Yes. And the DM is the one failing to collaborate here.

[quoet]That question sounds rather disingenious. Setting design is a collaborative effort at the personal level like this. The player can tell me what her character knows about her mom. Anything that she wouldn't know is fair game for the GM to elaborate on.[/quote]

Whenever the PC is out of the room, the mom turns into a cloud of butterflies and flutters away? What? It's something that the PC wouldn't know. And is a GM elaboration. And does less damage to the worldbuilding than turning the mother into a Lich in a few short years.

In this case, her mom turning into a lich is a natural (if extreme) evolution of the player's own concept of the mom as bitter and disillusioned about her family.

It's about as natural as claiming that she was a God who was simply slumming it as a mortal. And less extreme - it doesn't put lichdom (or godhood) in reach of a significant proportion of the world.

Clearly the PC just underestimated the depth of mom's anger.

And that she was super-intelligent, had a fixation on living forevever, and was capable of becoming a great arcane spellcaster. Her becoming a cultist and making a pact with the dark might have been plausible. A lich is not.

Which, granted, several of you who have a problem with this scenario have also said that you're not big fans of player backgrounds anyway, so at least you're consistent there.

I am a fan of player backgrounds. I'm also a fan of good worldbuilding and reasonable consequences. This is made of fail and openly turns the rules of the world into "Because the DM said so". There is no sort of consistent logic or rule to it.

 

[Umbran]

(I also have to wonder... how is a 1st-level character so important they have hooks?)

Hooks have nothing at all to do with importance.

Take a first level fighter - a nobody. Make him a nobody's nobody, in that he was a poor farmboy before he took up the sword. But, he had a twin brother that went missing under mysterious circumstances when they were young. The PC is not yet "important", and the twin need not be an important person in the world, either. But the twin is important to the PC - he has an event and a person in his history the GM can expect he'll be motivated to deal with going forward.

Hooks (or loops, as he puts it) are merely convenient places to hitch the character to world events in a personal manner. You don't need to be important to have things that are important to you, if not the rest of the world.

 

[Dausuul]

So what? The player character never saw that in her mother. That doesn't change her backstory. Her backstory is still intact, word for word.

Ahh, so the problem is that the player didn't elucidate her image of her mother clearly enough. What she should have written was:

"My mother is bitter and angry. She is not insane. She is not an arcane spellcaster. She does not have an Intelligence of 15+ and she does not want to become undead. She is also not a mind flayer, an android, or a gelatinous cube wearing a mask and a wig."

 

[Desdichado]

I am a fan of player backgrounds. I'm also a fan of good worldbuilding and reasonable consequences. This is made of fail and openly turns the rules of the world into "Because the DM said so". There is no sort of consistent logic or rule to it.

No you're not. Your strongest objections ignore the obvious example of PCs, which in every edition of D&D since 2000, at least, can go from 1st to 10th level over the course of a couple of weeks of intense dungeoneering. Or less, even.

If the PCs can do it, the PC's mom can do it.

Heck, maybe the PC's mom was digging through dad's old things in the basement and came across some magic item that granted her some wish or miracle spells or something.

There's tons of ways to explain that that makes sense. You're just not willing to entertain the idea because you've fixed it in your mind that it's "impossible." For some reason.

 

[Doug McCrae]

a gelatinous cube wearing a mask and a wig.

I have to find a way to use this one.

 

[Desdichado]

Ahh, so the problem is that the player didn't elucidate her image of her mother clearly enough. What she should have written was:

"My mother is bitter and angry. She is not insane. She is not an arcane spellcaster. She does not have an Intelligence of 15+ and she does not want to become undead. She is also not a mind flayer, an android, or a gelatinous cube wearing a mask and a wig."

At this point, I honestly have to ask; why is this player so invested in keeping her character's mom in this static environment? Why is she so invested in, "this is my mom; this can't possibly be what my character thought of my mom all her life, but my mom was secretly something else."

Why not have a mom who was a doppleganger? Why not have a mom who's a frog who was polymorphed and awakened by a kiss, but never told anyone? Why not have a mom who seems like the fantasy version of June Cleaver but who secretly sacrificed all the character's best friends to Orcus after she left town to increase her own power? Why not have a mom who turns into a horde of butterflies every night like a bizarre Ladyhawke?

NPCs can't keep secrets from the PCs now? Seriously; why not?