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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6408107" data-attributes="member: 4937">I find that it's pretty much impossible for me to DM if the PCs lack a backstory.  Not just because I want to write to it, as you do, but because I'm generally not do only D&D's core gameplay of kick in the door, kill the orc and take the pie anymore.  Additionally, since I've pretty much stripped all the flavor baggage out of my core classes, the classes themselves (at least for the most part) don't necessarily imply anything about the character's profession or social standing.  You class isn't your character in the way it might be in say OD&D or BECMI style D&D.  So NPCs don't even know to address a character or interact with him if I don't have some backstory - to say nothing of jumping through the story hurdles of why this person becomes attached to the other PCs.Agreed.  Though for the most part I don't have players who won't write a backstory unless they are given mechanical incentive and reason to do so.  I have a few that give me the one paragraph treatment, and that's fine and I'm ok with a player not having story much less melodrama as a primary goal of play, but without knowing at least something - nationality, ethnic group, social class, profession, age, family and clan ties (if any), and so forth that places the character in the setting, I'm pretty much unable to RP to the character any more than I could RP an NPC without some basic idea of who he was.  You have to draw me a picture, as it were, of who the PC is - even if just a stick figure and most convenient stereotype - before I have enough inspiration to start a scene with the character.   Even if I'm going with something like, "Ok, you are all in a tavern.", the innkeep and the barmaid are going to speak differently to Bart the 1st level fighter who is not from around these parts, Bart the 1st level fighter who is a local bravo, and Bart the 1st level fighter who is clearly of a noble family from the capital.  Additionally, backstory even as small as, "Younger son from disgraced noble family that has lost title and lands.  Set out with his remaining inheritance to redeem his families honor and fortune.", can stumble into existing plot, or provoke new ones.  A backstory as short as that can imply connections to NPCs immediately, whereas if everything is just sort of vague I can't set a hook into anything or stage anything in a way that includes you in play naturally.An NPC without a backstory can acquire a personality and identity on the fly because I have the right as GM to make one and shape the character.  But a PC without a backstory is essentially a non-entity that I don't have the right to touch - barring implied permission like, "My character has amnesia.  He has no idea who he is and no memories prior to this morning."</blockquote>

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