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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kigmatzomat" data-source="post: 1859052" data-attributes="member: 9254">Backstories are, to a large extent, useless in starting campaigns.  1st level yabbos simply don't have much experience.  In those games I provide the starting locations (i.e. you can be from these 3 villages) and ideas of the types of backgrounds you can have (village 1 is farming, village 2 has a small gem mine, village 3 a lumber mill) and a general trend, if not motivation (this game will involve a lot of traveling and will need characters able to interact with guardsmen and minor officials without being jailed in the first 10 minutes).  Games with advanced characters require at least an hour or two to sift through simple histories and come up with decent contact points.  Perhaps the best game where that occurred was when I was a player in a VtM game and the GM had us write up our *very* experienced characters in the same room.   It cut down redundancy, streamlined the party politics, and got a few basic group tactics hammered out.         Of course I've also seen massive game disintigration occur when DMs disregard backstory and get completely opposite reactions from players.  At the same time, I've seen more than a few players chuck their own history and descent into hack'n slash.  IMO, events that occurred outside of the game are only potential history and can be rewritten at any time by any participant.  Heck, I don't even require players to specify an alignment for a few sessions.  Gives people more wiggle room to find a character that fits.  "Hmmm, this LG alignment chafes; perhaps I should get a LN. Or am I more then NG type?"</blockquote>

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