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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7115291" data-attributes="member: 97077">One thing I've concluded over the years is that someone who is good at writing a backstory is not necessarily a good roleplayer.In fact, in my experience, there is a strong correlation between someone who writes up a long backstory and being completely flat during actual play. It's like they get it all out on the page, but when playing, you don't ever see it manifested to any great degree. Except, of course, when we get to the "My character wouldn't do that..." stage when they point at the backstory as a reason not to engage with some game element. And for some reason, it's that moment that is seen by many (again, in my experience) as the height of roleplaying skill. Ugh.I saw this very thing recently with a group I joined late in their campaign to replace a player that had to bail. It's a rotating DM system, so I got to run a game as well to see this player from both sides of the screen. They are 13th level and play like once a month, so this game has probably been going for well over a year. One of the players is pretty much silent during the game except to chime in with what his character won't do, which is frequent and annoying as play must effectively halt while everyone else works to convince him to go long. (I could write a whole thread on just that silliness, but won't for everyone's sake.) Anyway, when my stint as DM was complete, it passed to another DM who suggested the next leg of the campaign take place in the aforementioned player's character's homeland. It was a place the party hadn't been yet and made a lot of sense as a follow-up to my offering. The player expressed interest in it, stating that getting back to his homeland was his character's goal as stated in his backstory. The rest of the players were like "Really?" The player sounded a little annoyed that the rest of the players had no idea this was what he had been wanting to do. But here's the thing - if you leave it on the page and never say a thing about it during play, how can you be miffed at the other players? And we're talking about a group that's been going for well over a year! If the rest of the players barely know a thing about your character after all that time, then that's because you failed to roleplay that character in a way that shows the backstory elements.So as I said in my original post, show, don't tell.</blockquote>

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