Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[Thomas Shey]

I'm talking more about the people who claim their 1st level Fighter is "Champion of Greyhawk, Slayer of the Great Wyrm Magnus, ....."

That can be a little odd. I've got a player in my 13th Age game who came in as the "Champion of Concord" (one of the major cities in the default setting), and that'd have been a bit odd for a 1st level character (even though 13th Age 1st level characters are probably more like 2nd Level in most D&Doids and aren't assumed to just be any Joe Shmoe), but the player outright said its more a case where she was in the right place at the right time and her reputation far exceeded her ability at the time or what she actually did.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

the player outright said its more a case where she was in the right place at the right time and her reputation far exceeded her ability at the time or what she actually did.

I have loved doing that to my players. Their characters get one public win, and then suddenly everyone is asking them to do stuff wildly out of their league and attracting notice from serious bad guys. For every person who wants to buy them a drink, there's two more people who are going to cause them trouble.

 

[Scribe]

Yeah. It's a great one. I thought about posting it when it dropped but didn't want to deal with the push back.

I wish I could tolerate listening to people talk so I could watch youtube sometimes, but...I really cannot. I can listen to my wife, my son, but outside of that, 'for fun'? I cannot listen to people talk anymore.

Too much time working from home maybe?

 

[Staffan]

For me, the issue of backstories depends. In a typical game of D&D/Pathfinder or similar games where you start out at 1st or 3rd level, the character doesn't have much backstory because they're a freakin' n00b.

In a game/campaign where you start out with experienced characters, I like having some backstory, but mostly devoid of detail. Things like "They worked for about a decade as a covert operative and served in various hotspots around the globe", but without specifying which hotspots and when. This tells both the GM and the player what sort of things could have happened, and provides fertile soil for the GM to come up with "old friends" to serve as adventure hooks.

I also think these things work best when worked out together with the GM and to some degree the other players. This lets everyone figure out if and how they know one another from before the game. Maybe our covert operative had a run-in with the journalist another player is playing. I also agree with Matt that they work best when they tell you who you were and to some degree who you are, but not who you will be – unless everyone involved has agreed that this is what the campaign is going to be about. Being a revolutionary who wants to overthrow the corrupt republic and replace it with a benevolent theocracy is not a great idea. A revolutionary who saw the error of their way is a different matter, or maybe one who was arrested and exiled.

 

[TiQuinn]

That can be a little odd. I've got a player in my 13th Age game who came in as the "Champion of Concord" (one of the major cities in the default setting), and that'd have been a bit odd for a 1st level character (even though 13th Age 1st level characters are probably more like 2nd Level in most D&Doids and aren't assumed to just be any Joe Shmoe), but the player outright said its more a case where she was in the right place at the right time and her reputation far exceeded her ability at the time or what she actually did.

I've done the backstory thing, and I like them but want them to be at best a paragraph. My problem is not any one backstory - it's having 4 to 5 backstories that wildly vary, and finding ways to make them relevant. As I've gotten better as a DM, I mitigate that by setting ground rules and context - a starting point for the backstory and then letting the players go after it, but even then, it really depends on the campaign that I'm running. Ultimately, there are players who get into that, and love the effort of seeing their backstory reflected in the game, and there are players who could care less. Over time, I just tend to make it not as big a deal.

 

[prabe]

I think backstories for level 1 characters can be fine, so long as the players realize they're writing backstories for level 1 characters. These days I tend to give the players some details about where things are starting off, and ask them for people or things their characters are connected to--or at least know--there. Since I'm writing my own adventures, it's easy to incorporate whatever I get in the way of backstories or whatever into stuff.

These days when I'm writing backstories for fun, they tend to be in the 500-1000 words range, which seems fine. As GM, I've gotten backstories from players ranging from a short paragraph to like 11,000 words (I've had players who didn't give me backstories, which is also fine) and in principle I've been fine with any of those, though very long backstories do have issues with signal-to-noise ratio, in addition to being prone to the "how is this a starting character?" thing.

 

[dragoner]

I tend to keep backgrounds relatively short & sketchy nowadays, to root the character lightly in the world (and allow for flexibility if the DM needs something to be different) and inform how I play the character. 1-3 paragraphs if that, most of the time.

I can come up with more if the particular game really calls for it (maybe Vampire?), but hopefully I'm working with the GM on it at that point, to really root the character in the setting.

A few sentences usually do it for me, though I have done three paragraphs when the feeling strikes me.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I have loved doing that to my players. Their characters get one public win, and then suddenly everyone is asking them to do stuff wildly out of their league and attracting notice from serious bad guys. For every person who wants to buy them a drink, there's two more people who are going to cause them trouble.

That was essentially what the player was sending me permission to do.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I've done the backstory thing, and I like them but want them to be at best a paragraph. My problem is not any one backstory - it's having 4 to 5 backstories that wildly vary, and finding ways to make them relevant. As I've gotten better as a DM, I mitigate that by setting ground rules and context - a starting point for the backstory and then letting the players go after it, but even then, it really depends on the campaign that I'm running. Ultimately, there are players who get into that, and love the effort of seeing their backstory reflected in the game, and there are players who could care less. Over time, I just tend to make it not as big a deal.

I don't even think its really necessary to make them relevant; often they're just to inform how the character will be played. I'm not sure any of Ked's backstory every mattered to anyone else in the game (well, other than my wife, who was playing Ked's girlfriend (and later in the campaign, wife), so the interaction of the backstory's informed how we were both playing) so it was a reminder of where he came from and how he was going to react to things. If the GM had decided to spin off from that, that would have just been gravy.

 

[overgeeked]

I wish I could tolerate listening to people talk so I could watch youtube sometimes, but...I really cannot. I can listen to my wife, my son, but outside of that, 'for fun'? I cannot listen to people talk anymore.

Too much time working from home maybe?

I get that. I can’t stand listening to most people, outside of immediate family and friends. But I love me some useful information dense video essays.

The gist is that the PC’s backstory is for the player to realize the character and they should not expect the referee to read any of it at all. And that the backstory should set the PC up for being free to adventure, not include plot elements the player wants to force on the referee.