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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quasqueton" data-source="post: 1858469" data-attributes="member: 3854">The difference in my experiences with PC backstories and most others here is amazing. I have never seen a PC's backstory enhance my gaming experience. I have on occasion had backstories actually hinder my DMing of the game.Too often I see backgrounds that are too elaborate for a 1st-level character. Hell, many backstories would make for grand adventures all by themselves. Yet, the PC has 0 xp to show for the grand deeds. The rogue who escaped from the prison, joined a band of gypsies, crossed the great divide, ran through the war-torn border, and is now in this town to meet the other PCs.Then there are the backgrounds that undermine (unintentionally) the precepts for starting the campaign to begin with. Or the ones that say the PC should be going in a direction either unrelated to where the DM intends, or actually is opposed to where the DM intends. The ranger whose family was taken by slavers, and he now is seeking to find and rescue them, although the DM wasn't intending to run a "against the slavers" type campaign.The backgrounds that set up a certain personality for the PC, but then the Player plays the character completely different. The happy-go-lucky dandy, court bard who ends up directly insulting everyone and picks fights with every NPC the party meets.The backgrounds that set an ending for the PC's adventuring career. The war-weary fighter just looking for a place to settle down and retire.I do not enjoy having to figure out a way to tie 4-6 diverse backstories into my campaign.To me, a PC's background is what happens *in game* from levels 1 to 4. I (as Player and DM) find it much more enjoyable when an old villain from earlier in the played campaign comes back into the PCs' lives, than when an villain comes from one PC's pre-game background. A villain who supposedly killed one PC's father in a pre-game write up is not nearly as exciting and motivating as a villain who killed a PC in the group's early adventures.I have actually created my current campaign series to pretty much negate a PC's background history. The PCs have come to a new continent, leaving their previous lives behind. 2.5 months and 3,000 miles seperate the PCs from their backgrounds. They are essentially "starting over" in the New World, to create their story *in game*. Quasqueton</blockquote>

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