How much back story for a low-level PC?

[Neonchameleon]

Actually, yes there was a swath of bodies in her wake - she was threatening a very powerful nation with her hordes of undead and magical abilities.

That's starting to get somewhere - although only starting. It bridges the gap from L7 (assuming wizard - Animate Dead). Of course necromancers have always been NPCs and PCs have not been able to do what they can (meaning that Hobo can no longer rely on "PCs can do it"...)

 

[Neonchameleon]

Not always. Going by plenty of stories you here around EN World PCs wake is more a comedy of errors then a mountains of killed foes. It all depends on the style of game and the base game doe not assume anything on it.

Oh, I didn't say that the PCs always got the right guys or did things well. Simply lots of foes and challenges.

 

[NewJeffCT]

And as normal, you read, discard the bits you can't answer (i.e. most of it), and declare victory.

If she had adventured. If she had changed the setting. There would be a huge trail. She'd be either famous or infamous. Being a PC creates waves. And large ones.

So, the players are near the PCs' home town, find out the mom died, then leave and move on. The adventure then continues on the next continent.

The players are then zapped back in time due to the lich's magical artifact - where they encounter the lich, who has been waiting for them for over 100 years, building her power while she terrorized the planet.

 

[Ariosto]

How much depends on the game. As a player, I am interested in playing the game. Creating the scenario is more the dm's duty.

So, it is like a lot of things in that there's a dialog. If the dm sets up an initial condition that asks a lot of questions, then a lot of answers are the result.

For D&D, I tend to find that questions about what a character supposedly has done before play do not command much attention, especially when we are still in that 'before play' period.

To get playing is the first order of business. The way the game is set up -- talking TSR-D+D -- a character that survives to second level is more likely to be around for a while than is one just rolled up at 1st. Generating one of, say, 4th or 5th level is likely to entail a bit more work.

A different game might be all about ramifications of pre-game biography. In a single-session game, for instance, the characters' lives might be pretty certainly at their ends!

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Of course necromancers have always been NPCs and PCs have not been able to do what they can.

That's a pretty big always to throw out there. Untrue. Many games allow players freedom of choice, even down dark paths. And some even view necromancy as a neutral tool used by both good and evil. Your declaration is quite ridiculous.

 

[The Shaman]

But why is it that it's only OK for the DM to create off-screen, not the players. Why do you (or the campaign authors) get to create stuff outside of the game but not the players?

I never said anything about "the DM." I said "my preference as a player and referee." It's an important distinction.

But as for me and how I prefer to run games, it's because the events of the game make up the only meaningful backstory in which I'm interested; backstory begins on the second night and consists of the notes from the first night's game.

Because I want the players to show me their characters, not tell me about them.

Because I prefer the conflicts of the game to arise from what the aventurers do, in actual play, not from something written into the game before play begins; I don't want the players to approach the game as fortune tellers or - even worse - prophets.

Because I'm not looking for plot hooks or writing adventures per se; the game is whatever the adventurers do, and I just make the world respond with genre-appropriate verisimilitude.

Because I prefere adventurers doing stuff - make friends, make rivals, show loyalty, commit betrayal, win a fortune, lose a fortune, issue a challenge, pursue a vendetta, run for the hills, whatever - to players introducing stuff.

I, for one, don't mind allowing the players to share in minor world-building if they want to.

I, for one, am not you.

In a similar discussion elsewhere, another poster succinctly summarized my approach to backstories:

I see what you're saying here: background is alright as long as it doesn't impinge on the shared imaginative space of the other PCs by forcing them to play out someone else's backstory projected into the future of the game at the table. I.e., backstory is just that: backstory. It shapes personality, but it doesn't drive action.

 

[The Shaman]

And may I add, with all apologies to the gamers involved, lich-mom is so friggin' trite.

Seriously, I lost interest in Star Wars the moment Darth Vader said, "No. I am your father."

 

[Imperialus]

Well I haven't read much more than the first two pages but assuming we haven't veered off topic too much I GM Shadowrun and I generally just ask for a sentence or two about the relationship that a PC has with each of their contacts. I also ask them to give me three plot hooks about their character, again just a sentence or two but it gives me something to connect their characters with the campaign.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Of course there are indications that they are special. 1) named. 2) called out in a PC's background.

Either you are not understanding the argument, or you are choosing not to address it. It I haven't been clear about what the argument is, I aplogize. However, this seems like bad faith to me.


RC

 

[Zhaleskra]

Of course necromancers have always been NPCs and PCs have not been able to do what they can (meaning that Hobo can no longer rely on "PCs can do it"...)

Actually that sounds more like a house rule. Which is fine, just please don't state it as if it's actually in the rules as written or rules as intended. No edition of D&D I've played (AD&D 2-2.5, D&D 3.0-3.5) has ever separated specialist wizards along NPC/PC lines.