How much back story for a low-level PC?

[Doug McCrae]

It can vary a lot depending on the game system but I feel that one should be able to say everything important in a single paragraph.

The Bat-man
After witnessing the murders of his parents as a child, Bruce Wayne dedicated his life to waging war on crime. He trained his mind and body to a peak of perfection and, inspired by a bat crashing thru the window, became a masked crimefighter, the Bat-man. As Bruce Wayne he pretends to be nothing more than a shallow wealthy playboy.

 

[Storminator]

often it's just a hook or caricaturish ham, but that will usually develop into a stronger character over time.

My current 4e character is a caricature.

Backstory: He's a dwarf that grew up in the human city after his father left the ancestral homelands for reasons never discussed. Thrrak is determined to be more dwarf-like than any dwarf! But all he knows of dwarf culture is from watching the human theater companies' bigoted portrayal of dwarves.

And so far, we've built an adventure and a half out of that paragraph.

PS

 

[The Shaman]

The problem with this and the family legacy comment from Hobo earlier is the cross-over between player and DM domain. The player ends up defining elements of the world and their relationship to those elements usually in isolation from the DM and remaining players.

A secondary problem is the character's actions and experiences are at risk of being overshadowed by the defined backstory.

If the legacy is substantial, the player ends up defining aspects of the campaign setting. Of additional concern is a substantial legacy shouild have consequrences, potentially both positive and negative.

Those definitions and consequences work best in game systems that support or expect such detail -- Pendragon, Traveler, Hero, etc.

And I agree with this 110%, too.

 

[Desdichado]

The problem with this and the family legacy comment from Hobo earlier is the cross-over between player and DM domain. The player ends up defining elements of the world and their relationship to those elements usually in isolation from the DM and remaining players.

A secondary problem is the character's actions and experiences are at risk of being overshadowed by the defined backstory.

If the legacy is substantial, the player ends up defining aspects of the campaign setting. Of additional concern is a substantial legacy shouild have consequrences, potentially both positive and negative.

Those "problems" could be seen as desireable by some, though. I love it when my players take that much interest in the game that they're suggesting some small setting related stuff, i.e., the prominant local families that their character may have interacted with prior to the game starting. It can go overboard, and you've certainly described that risk, but you make it appear that that's just what happens, when I think in reality that risk is mostly pretty small. Rather, it can be a highly desireable state of affairs for the player and the GM to work together on developing some stuff that fits well with the rest of the campaign and embeds the character more deeply into it right from the get-go.

Those definitions and consequences work best in game systems that support or expect such detail -- Pendragon, Traveler, Hero, etc.

No, they work best when players and GMs actually talk to each other about character concepts and the campaign as they're being developed. There doesn't need to be anything systemic to it, it just needs to be something that they're willing to work together on.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

The problem with this and the family legacy comment from Hobo earlier is the cross-over between player and DM domain. The player ends up defining elements of the world and their relationship to those elements usually in isolation from the DM and remaining players.

I don't consider "defining elements of the world" as DM domain. I welcome my players to join in on this aspect of the game as often as they want. The point where it becomes "my world" is that, as DM, I have final say. And I try to use this ultimate authority with enough wisdom to still encourage my players to contribute without rerouting the tone I am trying to achieve in my current campaign world.

 

[The Shaman]

I don't consider "defining elements of the world" as DM domain. I welcome my players to join in on this aspect of the game as often as they want. The point where it becomes "my world" is that, as DM, I have final say. And I try to use this ultimate authority with enough wisdom to still encourage my players to contribute without rerouting the tone I am trying to achieve in my current campaign world.

And as a player I find this style of refereeing off-putting.

If I wanted to create the setting, I'd be on the other side of the screen, not running a character.

 

[rogueattorney]

"Hall is the sixth son of a modest farming family. With no inheritance to speak of and the prospects of working for his older brothers his entire life, Hall left his home to seek his own fortune."

That is as much background as I've ever written for any campaign as a player, and is more than I generally give or would expect as a DM. If a player wants to offer more, they're more than welcome to knock themselves out. If a DM expects more from me... <shrug> I'll find a random name generator somewhere and come up with the names of my brothers.

I generally don't mind the players "intruding" on my DM "space" by including nuggets in their pcs' backstory.

"Grot is a dwarf from the icy Northern Wastes." Well, now there are icy northern wastes in my campaign and dwarves live there. No big deal.

I do have a pet peeve about pc backstories, though. I've always thought of these pcs as "princesses," even though I don't think I've ever used the term out loud. Anyway, "princesses" are pcs with a ridiculously convoluted back story, usually involving royalty, kidnapping, and some sort of mistaken identity, just like a Disney Princess.

 

[Doug McCrae]

In the last campaign I ran, a player came up with a galaxy-spanning space empire as part of his back story, which hadn't been there before. I figured, what the heck, space is pretty big, there's room.

 

[Barastrondo]

I don't consider "defining elements of the world" as DM domain. I welcome my players to join in on this aspect of the game as often as they want. The point where it becomes "my world" is that, as DM, I have final say. And I try to use this ultimate authority with enough wisdom to still encourage my players to contribute without rerouting the tone I am trying to achieve in my current campaign world.

Yeah, pretty much. It really depends on the game in question, and what the players want out of it. I've found most of my players enjoy a little bit of content creation and a whole lot of exploration, and the slider bar on how much they can create (or feel interested in creating) varies by campaign. Sometimes they just want to create a classic "novice" character and see what the world throws at them. Sometimes they have a concept that I simply didn't account for, and I ask for some backstory/creation in order to rationalize it. And sometimes I have an off-the-wall game concept and I'd like the PCs' first reactions to what's possible to influence the game: an example would be if I were "creating" the Dark Sun setting, and when we were talking about what races would be interesting, one of the players had a neat idea for cannibal halflings and another started kicking around the phrase "half-giant."

If a player doesn't really want to create anything, there's no reason to force them to. On the other hand, if another player has some neat ideas for a thieves' guild and it doesn't hurt anything to incorporate them, that's also cool. I don't usually have problems with the players settling into whatever level of content creation they're inclined to expect. There are potential problems, sure, but mostly those are best addressed by making sure everyone's on the same page with what they expect the game to handle like when it's in play in the first place.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I welcome my players to join in on this aspect of the game as often as they want.

And as a player I find this style of refereeing off-putting.

If I wanted to create the setting, I'd be on the other side of the screen, not running a character.

What exactly would be "off-putting?" If the amount any of my players wants to contribute to world-building is zero, then they don't have to. I welcome it, not demand it. Many of my players don't want to run a full campaign, but still enjoy being involved in the creative process to a lesser extent. One player started with small contributions as a player in my campaign and it eventually encouraged him to run his own campaign, so I got a chance to play.