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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 8451850" data-attributes="member: 85870">So I'm thinking about two approaches I've made to character building recently, one for our Tiny Frontiers (Tiny D6 sci-fi), and one for D&D 5e (using a standard PHB). I think there's some really interesting "stuff" in the way you described setting up your The Between character, [USER=16814]@Ovinomancer[/USER]. Like others have already said, it's not that the rules (as you described them) prohibit "character imagination," it's that they specifically limit the range of imagination to just the initial, personal characteristics --- appearance, mannerisms, outward demeanor and general attitude. All of the backstory "stuff" is directly and pointedly stated to arise spontaneously through play. Having played a bit of Ironsworn now, I can understand where it's coming from in that regard. The advice postulates that there's no need to create long strands of backstory until the context/situation warrants it. And I think there's a lot of value to that, though I'd probably prefer a little bit more balance. For example, for my Tiny Frontiers character, the core premise was, "We're playing in the world of the Deep Rock Galactic video game, but you're not limited to only playing 'space dwarves'."So right off the bat, since I like the video game quite a lot, I decide I'm just going to go for the obvious, "I'm a space dwarf working for the Deep Rock Galactic mining company." But even that decision there carries a lot of implied backstory, if you're familiar at all with the video game. There's lots of implied fictional "spaces" that my character now automatically inhabits by virtue of making that choice --- and I literally haven't even glanced at the rulebook yet.In Tiny Frontiers, "space dwarves" would belong the "Nain" heritage---but as I'm building my character, I decide that he hates being called "Nain" for his race, and believes that returning to the appropriate "Terran" designation of dwarf is the preferred nomenclature. "Who came up with this 'Nain' designation anyway? Some uppity scholar in some stuffy university gets to decide how I refer to my own genetic makeup?", etc. etc. So now my question would be, would something like this violate the principle of The Between? Is this actual "backstory," or is it a manifestation of a personality trait? Both? Neither? For my 5e character, I was basically just trying to come up with something terribly incongruous, and ended up settling on a middle-aged, widowed halfling fey-pact warlock. Don't know why it came up that way, but it did. And in this case, for a fey-pact warlock, I at least had to come up with some basic backstory about how he came to become a warlock, how his pact was made, etc. I almost didn't have any choice in the matter, I at least needed to have something there to work with. So this is an interesting thought experiment to say the least. Don't have time now, but may have more ruminations later.</blockquote>

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