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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 5213000" data-attributes="member: 3820">At those extremes you're in trouble, but I feel it only fair to note that these extremes are pretty rare, and I've never seen them in play myself. I've heard enough horror stories to believe they're not purely theoretical, but "detailed backstory" in itself is not really the problem. I think it's not about the principle of detailed backgrounds, but more about specifics of methodology -- should that detailed backstory be created in a vacuum, without talking to other players or the DM beforehand? In my experience, if you get everyone talking about possible backstories over a meal before anything is committed to paper, you avoid a lot of potential problems. The backstories become conversations, not recitations -- which means that everyone's more likely to actually listen, something that works in the player's favor. Of course, a player who's a heavy control freak may not respond as well to this methodology, and may write up a backstory solely for the purpose of creating a "binding contract" -- but I think that should be recognized as a potential result of gaming with control freaks. The person is more responsible than the concept of player empowerment is.Edit: Though I should note that "more complicated than the GM is comfortable with" is definitely a stopping point no matter what. If the GM isn't comfortable with incorporating more than a page, the player should be okay with the idea that a long backstory isn't something the GM is going to reference.</blockquote>

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