Role-playing a Background

[trilobite]

I was going over the character backgrounds that my players have handed in for my new campaign and I came up with a idea. I want to role-play though some of the backgrounds with the players. That way it would be make more of a impression in their minds and give it some more emotion.

Example:
One background stats that two rival noble families conspired against his family and brought about it's down fall with the deaths of his father and older brother. I was thinking that was fine but I wanted to have the murderer of his father and brother as a villian NPC that will show up later in the game. But I want more impact that just saying. "Oh yeah this is the guy that killed your father and brother." I want the player to experience the event, see the murder so that later in the game when the villian shows up it will have more meaning.

I am planning to do with with everyone in the game. Pick a important event in their backgrounds that will have meaning later in the game and do a short role-play session. Do you think this is a good idea and not a waste of good gaming time?

 

[Alenda]

I was going over the character backgrounds that my players have handed in for my new campaign and I came up with a idea. I want to role-play though some of the backgrounds with the players. That way it would be make more of a impression in their minds and give it some more emotion.
...
Do you think this is a good idea and not a waste of good gaming time?

It sounds like a great idea to me, but it is ultimately up to your players. If they're all cool with it, then go for it!

Oddly enough, I just thought of a similar idea a couple days ago. I have a player in my group who LOVES to role play. In between sessions, he often asks if he can do a little solo roleplaying session by himself. (He's a thief, so we usually role play robberies and the like).

However, our last game session ended where the party was preparing to embark on an adventure, thus not leaving any time for the thief to go off on his own.
Because of this, I suggested that if he still REALLY wanted to do a solo roleplaying session, we could roleplay some of his character history.

He seemed pretty open to the idea, so hopefully your players will be too.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

You could start the game with the event having just happened, with the PC fleeing the country and the villain's henchment in hot pursuit. Assuming he gets away, having an occasional bounty hunter pop up would keep the premise in-play without dominating the game, possibly followed by rumors begun about the PCs family (devil worshippers, stole children to sell as slaves, etc.) started by the villain to help assure that, should the PC return, he has little sympathy or support from the local population.

I don't kow the exact situation of your game (not playing in it, after all), but that's how I'd have fun with it. It would also make peace of mind and redemption of the family name goals to stand alongside the vengeance/justice angle.

 

[Stalker0]

Rping backgrounds is a great idea, but I would do it 1 on 1 before game day. When you have 4 or 5 or more bgs to play out, that's one character who might as well just go watch some tv for 3 hours or so while the others finish.

 

[CCamfield]

Well, if there are enough NPC spots in a background story, you could have the other players take on those roles. For instance, in that nobles' conspiracy story, what if two of the players took on the roles of the father and older brother who got killed?

I think you'd have to lay out quite a bit - people would have to agree on how the backstory would go, obviously, and maybe the personalities of the NPCs - but it might be interesting and keep everyone in on the game.

 

[trilobite]

Rping backgrounds is a great idea, but I would do it 1 on 1 before game day. When you have 4 or 5 or more bgs to play out, that's one character who might as well just go watch some tv for 3 hours or so while the others finish.

I was thinking of doing it via email a week or so before the game starts.

 

[trilobite]

I was thinking of doing it via email a week or so before the game starts.

But now that I think about it, email would defeat the purpose of role-playing a background. It would not have the same visceralness as a face to face roleplay session.

 

[K'Plah Q'Houme]

It's a great thing to bring background storys into your campaign. How you eventualy decide to play it is offcourse important, but what's more important is, that you stick to the plot all the time, and never "forget" way you started it...
I'd would personally prefer to roleplay the background story 1 on 1 before the real campaign starts out. Maybe ask the players to make up some ideas of their own, before the 1 on 1 (concerning the 1 on 1 and what's going to happen in the 1 on 1), so that you are prepared and tension and excitment is added. Background stories needs a general consensus between DM and PC if they are to work as designed. That way the game is still open... and tons of fun

 

[Piratecat]

Sagiro did this: one on one, an hour per person, spread out in the weeks before the game began. For each person he ended where we would meet everyone else. It worked perfectly.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

Wish me luck, because this is exactly what I'm doing for my next D20Modern session.

I was tempted to do it in one-on-one sessions, but the thing of it is each of the characters has something odd about to be revealed in their past, and it doesn't 'add up' until all the pieces are put together. (The PCs met in what can charitably be called a huge coincidence, but they're about to see that it in fact was more than that.)

To keep it from just being four solo roleplaying sessions, I'm having players pick up supporting cast roles for the various stories. Hopefully that'll work. I'm usually against splitting up the party, but they've done it themselves in every session so far, so maybe taking it to an extreme will let them get it out of their system.