Just wondering what lengths players in your games have gone to try to avoid having a backstory or to explain other weird in character habits?
My first example is a guy who wanted to play a race not in my campaign world. After asking him to at least develop a reason that it might be there. He came back with this wonderful story.
Him: Well the deity of chaos spotted us across the cosmos and found us humorous and funny so he gave a wizard a vision of our race to help him open a gate to our world however the gate exploded killing the wizards and disentregrating his corpse and leaving me with amnesia.
Me: Okay so when your character regains his memory whats his backstory?
Him: i dunno he has amnesia I'm sure you'll think of something.
I've actually seen GMs forbid backstories.
I guess I'm somewhat guilty of this. About 90% of my characters' back stories are one sentence long: "I'm a mercenary." I find that keeping a simple backstory makes it easier for the GM to fit me into the games setup. Every GM has a story of 'that one guy' with a five-page story for his character that has nothing to do with the setting.
I dont ask for much simply why you are an adventurer and why you chose your class. Maybe explain why you have odd feats or things like that.
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I like back stories, but ultimately I find they're only so important. If the campaign is very teleological, then destinies are so vital to the scheme that backstories are a requirement, but these campaigns tend to also require quite a bit of DM fiat and railroading of the story.
I did DM a campaign many years ago where all the players knew they would die by the end, but heroically; epic deaths, sacrificing for humanity and all that jazz.
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Backstories are fun and useful, but not all that necessary.
HOWEVER, when someone wants to considerably change the campaign world, backstories become vital--like the OP example. If I were the GM in that example, I'd say, in an confident, flippant manner, "Nah, that doesn't happen. Choose a race in game."
Especially if you're a first level character, you shouldn't have a lot of backstory. The story is what's going to happen, not what's already happened.
Character Backstory is overrated. Having an idea of what motivates your character (and why) is much more useful.
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A backstory is a good way of knowhing WHY something motivates a character.
I require a one to two page backstory from my players. I have rejected backstories not detailed enough and also backstories too detailed. There is no need for the character's entire genealogy.
If a player comes with some ridiculous and setting breaking backstory, alter it to fit the setting.
I also do not accept a one sentence backstory. "I'm a warrior" is not a backstory. It's two words that mean squat. If a player is going to engage in Role-playing, he/she needs to know his/her character's motivations, hopes, fears...etc...and a single sentence cannot define that.
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I require a one to two page backstory from my players.
LOL...
Sounds more like a writing assignment than getting together with a group of friends to have fun playing a game...
Do you grade on a curve? ;-P
What happens if a player has no writing skills? Or lacks a real ability to put words to paper?
I mean, there is nothing wrong with requiring a player to have a character back-story, but requiring an essay seems a bit extreme to me...
I agree with Hama. There's TMI, and not enough.
Too much, and your poor character may never find out who kidnapped his sister, or why he's actually the true heir to the crown, or get XP for all the rollicking adventure that got him to the start of this story. It may never go that way.
Too little, and there's no explanation for why he has weapons and armor, or a spellbook, and all this stuff a commoner would never be able to afford.
A little background on where you're from, how you got to have a sword and some armor, how you learned to play a lute or cast a spell, and a few personality traits is enough. Unless your GM wants to cater to an intricate backstory (I never do; I have my own story to tell), it's not needed. You should be able to give a brief background and let your character develop through play. He'll probably change over time.
You're at 0 XP, basically a nobody, barely tougher than a commoner. You'll be interesting later! XD
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I think if a DM is going to require more than a few sentences of backstory, he is required to sit down and hash that story out with the player.
This avoids the player spending too much time on a story that will never get used. If the player comes up with a 2nd son of a minor noble outcast from the Shining City, and the DM's story never gets closer than three countries away from the Shining City, and the character is never recognized as such, then he might have just told the group he is an arrogant fop overconfident in his training. Because the in game effects are exactly the same.
I had a player choose to be an alcoholic cleric of St. Cuthbert excommunicated from his church for aiding a divorced woman the high priest had also excommunicated. Over the course of the game, he worked with the church as an unaligned adventurer, until he died in a rescue mission. When brought to the temple for a raise dead, the party discovered his plain holy symbol had been transformed back into the symbol of St. Cuthbert. Thus, I worked his backstory into the campaign, as a tale of reconciliation.
It is very much a subjective thing, and up to the DM to know his style and the style of his players.
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A defined back story is hardly necessary to have a game filled with meaningful roleplaying. Often, having an established back story interferes with this by nailing histories down when they could instead be linked on the fly in interesting ways to the events of the campaign.
Typically, my back story is little more than a sentence or two worth of characteristics that I've gone over a couple times in my head. It's almost never written down anywhere.
I guess I'm somewhat guilty of this. About 90% of my characters' back stories are one sentence long: "I'm a mercenary." I find that keeping a simple backstory makes it easier for the GM to fit me into the games setup. Every GM has a story of 'that one guy' with a five-page story for his character that has nothing to do with the setting.
I guess I'm 'that one guy', difference being, I do my homework on the setting and work with the DM to come up with something that's appropriate to both the setting, and the direction they want to take the game. Example; our first game started in a town near a large forest. My character was a ranger, from a village deep in said forest. I would give him my ideas as to where my character came from, and I'd let him work in the specifics as to what was appropriate to the setting.
Although, this has not been for a long time. DM's just don't seem to have the time/interest for back stories these days.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I like backstories for my characters.
That said, sometimes amnesia has its place.
I had to create a replacement character, mid level. I made a Battle Sorcerer/Ruathar with the draconic template. She had an improved familiar (pseudodragon who adopted her). I told the GM "Her backstory's simple. Her first memory is standing in the wreck of a demonic cult, naked covered in blood (likely from the cultists laying all around her, she's not sure) and her sword and claws dripping it. Her familiar 'adopted' her later. She has no knowlege of her past, except that some elves recognized her as 'elf friend' after she saved a villiage. Knock yourself out.
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A defined back story is hardly necessary to have a game filled with meaningful roleplaying. Often, having an established back story interferes with this by nailing histories down when they could instead be linked on the fly in interesting ways to the events of the campaign.
Typically, my back story is little more than a sentence or two worth of characteristics that I've gone over a couple times in my head. It's almost never written down anywhere.
+1.
My character's backstory starts pretty damned minimal, and fills in as I continue to play him/her. To do otherwise is only to invite continuity problems, or to spend far more time on an extensive backstory that is never even slightly touched upon.
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We all play the game a little differently, and I think that backstories are certainly a matter of preference. Two quick points from my own experience:
1) Backstories shouldn't be a chore. Instead of the "I require a backstory or else" approach, take a positive tack and maybe reward backstories with a bonus trait if the player ties it into his/her backstory.
2) We've all had the player at the table who plays the same character every game. Oh they have different names, and even different classes, but it's the same character. Having that player sit down and come up with a backstory is a great way to have them break out of the same old rut.
Otherwise, have fun with them. Character creation should be a fun experience, and if a backstory enhances that experience then go for it.
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As a GM, I take my player's expectations of backstory as the first indication of the type of game that they want.
It is not for me to set a requirement, but rather to look at what they bring me and what it tells me about their expectation for the game. Certainly with Adventure Paths and the like, it can be a great convenience to have a very light, adventure-prone backstory. An elaborate dramatic backstory can also be great, but that sets up certain issues that I will later need to resolve.
Either way, I have only one genuine requirement, before characters are even created. Backstory or no, they must be the type to answer the call to adventure, and work as a team. They can be evil, ugly, temperamental or strange, but when that plot hook drops they must be the type to say "yes please" and take it up. I am not running a game for boring coward PCs. It's an adventure game, and PCs must be adventurous, if not adventurers outright.
My first time DMing solo, I asked my players to roll up characters at level 1 and then give me a 2 or 3 paragraph summary of significant events in their character's pasts, and a short list (3 minimum) of NPCs I might be able to use that were somehow tied to them, for instance an old rival, an ex-girlfriend, your buddy from the academy, stuff like that. The group didn't HAVE to be good alignment, but they were told they would be on a good path, and if that didn't sit well with the character vision to rethink it.
So, I get one guy who basically waters his character down to "He's an aasimar paladin of Sarenrae, who never met his mother and his father was cruel to him, so he went off to become a paladin." Which has more recently been distilled into "I see him as having been created for enacting Sarenrae's will." And he means that in a very literal sense. He thinks his character was an immaculate conception and role plays his character like an outsider who has no desire to engage in mortal delights like drinking, or dancing, or ANYTHING but Sarenrae and killing her enemies. Which is fine, but boring as hell for me as a DM. His NPC list had one random person (deceased), his estranged 'father,' and his first instructor, also deceased.
The next guy is a rogue. His back story sounded a bit more interesting: his parents died in some tragic accident and left him to take care of his sister, who has some strange illness and is basically paralyzed. He played it up for a while until the adventure had to take him away from town. Then, outside of the game one day he asks me "Hey, can you just kill off my character's sister? I don't want to tie him down." His NPC list consisted of his deceased parents, his paralyzed sister, and his sisters caretaker (who he was paying to watch over her with money he was stealing as a rogue). I eventually caved because when he threatened to reroll, the new character was worse. Now his story is: "My sister is dead. I have no reason to do anything except get stronger." Woo-hoo DBZ!
Next, my girlfriend sits down with me and asks about where her specific tribe of people comes from and goes on to telling me about some interesting NPCs she's thought up, and she ends up being the story-driver for the first part of the game. She comes from a village far to the north and is search for a rare herb to heal a magical wound on her love-interest. Her grandmother is the village elder there. Her other NPC is a girl that she grew up with with levels in aristocrat. This is the FIRST time this girl has shown this much interest in the game, I should note, as otherwise, her stories have been as bad or worse than those above.
The last guy wants to play a duelist. I was leery of that at first but didn't want to tell anyone no for anything and I thought I could make it work. But his backstory made NO SENSE where that was concerned. He was supposed to be a bodyguard for some big-time criminal, but he found out about some bad thing this criminal did so he killed him when the opportunity arose and fled. Then at some point he joined a pirate crew (and her rolled entire character sheets for some 10-15 of them)and floated his way over to the continent where the game was taking place. His NPCs were: the entire crew of that ship, the deceased mob boss, and some random other person who I have long since forgotten because it was entirely irrelevant.
The first two guys I have just given up on as trying to play "people" and am pretty much letting them play adventuring robots. They still interact with the story, but its just THEM, not their characters. The g/f loves her character, and the rest of the group resents her for having an awesome story, and because she's my g/f. She "gets special treatment" despite the other three having amassed more wealth, getting more solo DM time, and having more things thrown at them to engage their characters in the game to balance her out. The LAST guy has been a total nightmare to DM for. Throwing potential story encounter to him based on his background, and he has literally turned away from the table and laid on the couch and told us to "wake him up when the game starts."
Sadly, I share an apartment with the other three guys in the group. Not bad in-and-of itself, just that we can't exclude the last guy from the game.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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My first time DMing solo, I asked my players to roll up characters at level 1 and then give me a 2 or 3 paragraph summary of significant events in their character's pasts, and a short list (3 minimum) of NPCs I might be able to use that were somehow tied to them, for instance an old rival, an ex-girlfriend, your buddy from the academy, stuff like that. The group didn't HAVE to be good alignment, but they were told they would be on a good path, and if that didn't sit well with the character vision to rethink it.
** spoiler omitted **...
Spoiler to your spoiler
So, I get one guy who basically waters his character down to "He's an aasimar paladin of Sarenrae, who never met his mother and his father was cruel to him, so he went off to become a paladin." Which has more recently been distilled into "I see him as having been created for enacting Sarenrae's will." And he means that in a very literal sense. He thinks his character was an immaculate conception and role plays his character like an outsider who has no desire to engage in mortal delights like drinking, or dancing, or ANYTHING but Sarenrae and killing her enemies. Which is fine, but boring as hell for me as a DM. His NPC list had one random person (deceased), his estranged 'father,' and his first instructor, also deceased.
Oh you could have fun with this. Picture him encountering an aasimar cleric of Cayden Cailan, who's CG, and very, um, carnate. He drinks, whores, eats, farts, etc. Someone who considers his heritage a blessing because he can enjoy all the earthly pursuits that an outsider wouldn't 'get'. Like the Paladin he beleives he was immaculately conceived. Have him show up now and again and try ot get the Paladin drunk, going to a party etc. (Bonus if cliche points if their father was the same guy)
Bonus, Nymphs, dyrads, anything that has 'roll in the hay' as a motivation. When he falls (and with charm magic, he *will* fall eventually) to the perky nymph, the brewing fae, the Dwarven 'greeting ritual' ("What do you mean you won't drink w/us? Dwarven hosptiality not good enough for you and your shiny armor?") etc. How he handles it will provide oportunities for DM and player.
Edit: Just to clarify, I don't mean "Screw the player out of paladin powers" I mean "Put conflicts up for the player to work through." I am writing this assuming temperance isn't part of the Paladin oath.
We all play the game a little differently, and I think that backstories are certainly a matter of preference. Two quick points from my own experience:
1) Backstories shouldn't be a chore. Instead of the "I require a backstory or else" approach, take a positive tack and maybe reward backstories with a bonus trait if the player ties it into his/her backstory.
2) We've all had the player at the table who plays the same character every game. Oh they have different names, and even different classes, but it's the same character. Having that player sit down and come up with a backstory is a great way to have them break out of the same old rut.
Otherwise, have fun with them. Character creation should be a fun experience, and if a backstory enhances that experience then go for it.
Back stories are a way to urge players to add more to the game than "guy with sword". Without motivation, some players will, as WarEagleMage said, play the same character over and over. Or rather, play themselves over and over.
They don't have to be completely filled out, nor does everything in the backstory have to ever come out in the game.
A good player will add detail as it comes up in game; he put skill points in crafting, weapons, and at some point mentions he had an uncle who was a weapon smith. Or he doesn't.
But with a good GM, that could add to the game. "I'm looking for a crafter's mark on the sword. My uncle was a weapon smith and always put his mark on his work."
GM wants the players to go to a certain area already, and realizes here's a way to do it. "You do find a crafter's mark. You show it to the local smith and he says that's the mark of Gerrel Truesteel, a smith from the village of Greenleaf, about thirty miles north of here."
Also, as Evil Lincoln says, a backstory gives the GM an idea of what the players are interested in for the adventure.
Players expect the GM to have more depth to the game than buildings with false fronts and nameless, bland npc's. If they want a world where there really is something over the next hill, the bartender has a story to tell, and the dungeon has a history behind it, why shouldn't they put some depth into the characters they take into that world?
Bricks without straw are more easily made than imagination without memories. - Lord Dunsany
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well some times having back story can bite you back (i know when i GM the more involved the back story the more likely the player will get screwed)
i also think that if you let your players play 2-4 sessions they get a good hang of their characters and can then make good back stories for them (my most memorable characters with the best backstories have come from playing them first then making their backstories)
I'm gonna give my 2 coppers. Everyone mostly hit the major points I wanted to make but I'll just re-iterate because I'm in a good mood and feel like typing. Backstories make your character more than a sheet. They allow for you to develop and evolve in ways stat blocks cannot let you. To illustrate what I mean, I'll invoke, "The Empire Strikes Back." Luke discovering Darth Vader is his father is something that I refer to as a non-mechanical level up. It is character development and something that is a lot of fun. Sometimes, most of the time, more fun than a new level in a class. Your character grows stronger mechanicaly as the game goes on why shouldn't the things that motivate them grow and evolve over time, too?
I typically tie backstories to plots and subplots. Sometimes its hard to motivate a chaotic neutral rogue to go after a theives guild.. but when they betray his best friend from his backstory and make things personal... well then it is a matter of revenge!
Also, by crowd-sourcing your NPC names and ideas to your PCs, they'll come up with people they care about unlike Joe Fighter, the blacksmith of Sadtown. It invests and immerses the player into the game a little more by giving them a little more creative control over the world.
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As much as I love Pathfinder, this is why I am drinking more and more of the HERO Sixth Edition Kool-Aid.
In Pathfinder, I've done the "I NEEDZ A BACKSTORY" approach, which doesn't work that great as the people that want to write a backstory write a fully-fledged out one with hooks and all, and the ones that don't basically boil down to "I have no one to tie me down. They are all dead." I've even got ones where a player wrote it and wouldn't let me see it, and then when his character died, tried to use it to justify his new character, whose backstory I also couldn't see, getting all of his old character's stuff AND the WBL he started with. I've done bribery, which has the same problems as the previous method where people write the backstory purely for the Hero Point or the extra trait I let them have. The most success I have had so far has been the "Screw it, I don't care" route.
However, for those that do not know, in HERO you build your character off of points, and to get more points you take complications, which are things like Dependent NPCs that are always getting into trouble, Secret pasts that come back to haunt you, Psychological Complications such as Codes of Honor and Phobias, or past foes that are hunting you down for revenge. Makes it really easy to write a backstory as all I ask is that the players justify/explain all of their complications; if they don't they don't get the points for them, which are a significant addition to your character. Now, granted you can just take no complications, but then you are at a SIGNIFICANT disadvantage when compared to everyone else.
Spoiler to your spoiler
** spoiler omitted **...
That's a very interesting way to approach it. I have tried, with great difficulty. You'd have to know the guy in person to understand how awkward it is for him as a player to be confronted in such blatant fashion.
Last time I threw something at him that I was certain he would fall for, he had his character thank the people for the hospitality they had shown thus far, bowed himself out, and went to get a room at the inn. It's impossible, short of spell induced compulsion, to get him to break his character's veneer, possibly because there isn't one. He is like Batman, but not as much fun. The player cuts up and has fun over silly things that happen, don't get me wrong, it's the character. Like I said, I've just given up on it. They're having fun, whatever.
Doesn't mean I'm not going to have fun trying to make it awkward for him now and again. :D
Backstories make your character more than a sheet. They allow for you to develop and evolve in ways stat blocks cannot let you. To illustrate what I mean, I'll invoke, "The Empire Strikes Back." Luke discovering Darth Vader is his father is something that I refer to as a non-mechanical level up. It is character development and something that is a lot of fun. Sometimes, most of the time, more fun than a new level in a class.
This! My aforementioned rogue character just wanted to be level up, and in the meantime dig up dirt on a secret organization as part of what he believed to be a side-quest. As he investigaed, he ended up getting a symbiont like thing from the plane of shadow (basically the Shadow Forge ability from the 3.5 Tome of Magic) that allows him to create solid weapons from shadow stuff at will. It does other things, but that's more in depth. Since that point, and finding out that it's gaining intelligence, he is HOOKED on the character.
Still nothing really defining about his character's personality, but he really wants to "play" now as opposed to "just rolling dice all night with some friends."
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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<snip> The player cuts up and has fun over silly things that happen, don't get me wrong, it's the character. Like I said, I've just given up on it. They're having fun, whatever.
Doesn't mean I'm not going to have fun trying to make it awkward for him now and again. :D
And as long as your players and you as a GM are having fun, that's what matters.
Just wondering what lengths players in your games have gone to try to avoid having a backstory or to explain other weird in character habits?
My first example is a guy who wanted to play a race not in my campaign world. After asking him to at least develop a reason that it might be there. He came back with this wonderful story.
Him: Well the deity of chaos spotted us across the cosmos and found us humorous and funny so he gave a wizard a vision of our race to help him open a gate to our world however the gate exploded killing the wizards and disentregrating his corpse and leaving me with amnesia.
Me: Okay so when your character regains his memory whats his backstory?
Him: i dunno he has amnesia I'm sure you'll think of something.
I wouldn't call that a lack of backstory, I'd call it a stupid backstory. :-)
My two cents: I'm not a big fan of the 5+ page backstory, but at least having a personality would be nice. And preferably not a personality like "I'm a mysterious guy and I refuse to talk about who I am" or "I'm a lone wolf that likes to work by himself".
My approach as a GM is basically:
"You need to make a character along these broad lines depending on the campaign (such as Evil Lincoln's this-guy-needs-to-be-a-non-cowardly-adventurer); if you come up with a backstory, I will use those details and customize the game to include it. If you don't, I won't."
I have made up a campaign and recruiting for a PbP game here that combines elements from Rise of the Runelords, Kingmaker, and influences from Game of Thrones. This game, by nature, requires a decent backstory because me, as the GM, I need to know where your characters stand on events going on in the world. I can't be having players rushing back to Brevoy to help their old grandma get rid of rats in her cellar when they have a kingdom to run! (I mean this is the 3rd time, grandma. Hire an exterminator!)
I think this backstory debate not only depends on the campaign, but on the relationship the DM has with the players. If you are playing with friends and everyone knows eachother you can get away with a little more because you trust one another. Since I don't personally know these players online, I have to trust they will work together and not ruin the game by backstabbing one another. (At least at EVERY corner. Betrayals should be dramatic!)
Backstory is an important thing for me, as both a player and GM, but it doesn't work the same for everybody. As a player, I want the backstory to help me decide how my character will react to situations. Without it, my character just feels flat. It can make behavior in place A different than behavior in place B, give motivations apart from the main story, and provide a useful lense to view the game world from. It helps me to define the character.
From the GM side, its more important to me. As Evil Lincoln said, its my way of knowing what the player is looking for in the game at the start. It gives characters goals and alows me to customize hooks to the players. It allows me to add in filler and take breaks from the primary plot. It allows me to sciphon off resources from the players, thus allowing me to give my players more rewards.
When a player doesn't have a backstory, I find the character to be flat. Sometimes they develop as the campaign progresses, but more times than not they turn into a a flat, fairly 1 dimentional character with some schtick. Often that schtick is mechanics related.
From the GM side, its more important to me. As Evil Lincoln said, its my way of knowing what the player is looking for in the game at the start.
Since this has been quoted twice (?!) upthread I feel the need to clarify...
Backstory shows me what the player wants.
A lack of backstory also shows me what the player wants.
I don't like to mandate it one way or another.
All of my players are awesome in my opinion, and some of them really do come to the table with barely any backstory. Something usually gets pinned down in the first half-dozen sessions, but it can be very cool to have a PC in the campaign who cares more about what happened after session 1 than before it.
If they show up with one, I know that they want that from the game. If they ask meticulous questions about the setting and future plot hooks, I know that they'll be very engaged with the setting. If they come with a short-story all written up that could exist in a vacuum separate from the campaign, I know that they'll really internalize their character's plot and they'll be fine if I throw them a plot hook once in a while.
Far from being mandatory in my games, the backstory is the player's first chance to telegraph to me what experience they are expecting, or hoping for. The "Lack of Backstory" (on-topic!) to me is every bit as informative as any kind of backstory. There is nothing wrong with creating a character who will be shaped by the game's events, rather than a backstory that will shape the game's events!
EDIT: Where you run into trouble isn't the presence or absence of backstory, but in having a player who doesn't respect or enjoy the themes of your game. Engaging players is the GM's chief task, and some players are more challenging than others to deal with for certain. And some are just jerks. Ban the jerks, and bend over backwards for everyone else.
When a character shows up with no backstory, I let it ride for a few sessions. Then I start pointing out things that happened in the previous sessions that should motivate the PC. "That guys screwed you over, remember?" "You wanted to go back and dig up that gold, right?"
Over time, gameplay makes for the best backstory. Anything you bring to the first session is meant to tide you over until the campaign has legs of its own.
The game I'm running currently all of my characters have essentially the same backstory. They were themselves in our time and then they were caught in a cross dimensional big bang which pulled them in and altered their bodies and minds removing anythingthat wasn't consistent with the setting they found themselves in. They don't really know who they are because they are hiccups of fate, but this allows for them to be wildcards which is making a very unique game currently.
When a character shows up with no backstory, I let it ride for a few sessions. Then I start pointing out things that happened in the previous sessions that should motivate the PC. "That guys screwed you over, remember?" "You wanted to go back and dig up that gold, right?"
Over time, gameplay makes for the best backstory. Anything you bring to the first session is meant to tide you over until the campaign has legs of its own.
Or the backstory becomes the campaign, as I have seen many times over. Some of my favorite campaigns were built out of the backstory that the players wrote, with the GM having nothing until the players wrote the backstories. It works wonderfully with the right group.
If they come with a short-story all written up that could exist in a vacuum separate from the campaign, I know that they'll really internalize their character's plot and they'll be fine if I throw them a plot hook once in a while.
Unfortunately, this has not been my experience with these players. Generally, I have found that those players want to dominate the game time more than the other players, and want to do it through combat. They feel like they are not playing the game unless they are killing things.
EL, you're one of the posters here I would love to game with someday
Aw shucks. Could happen someday, at Paizocon perhaps, or if you're ever in Upstate NY.
Or the backstory becomes the campaign, as I have seen many times over. Some of my favorite campaigns were built out of the backstory that the players wrote, with the GM having nothing until the players wrote the backstories. It works wonderfully with the right group.
Absolutely — that's what I mean about players revealing their expectations. It can take some finesse to make backstory-lovers integrate well with existing plotlines... being somewhat liberal with spoilers in an AP is usually a good thing when dealing with this type of player.
Unfortunately, this has not been my experience with these players. Generally, I have found that those players want to dominate the game time more than the other players, and want to do it through combat. They feel like they are not playing the game unless they are killing things.
Well, a jerk's a jerk. Jerks definitely happen.
A lot of the behaviors I used to associate with jerkiness (min-maxing, backstory-hogging, rules-lawyering, etc) have since been practiced in my presence by non-jerks. This has softened my opinion on the behaviors themselves. Now I just keep a watchful eye for jerkiness itself.
EL, you're one of the posters here I would love to game with somedayAw shucks. Could happen someday, at Paizocon perhaps, or if you're ever in Upstate NY.
What area? I'm in Schenectady and go into Troy often.
Or the backstory becomes the campaign, as I have seen many times over. Some of my favorite campaigns were built out of the backstory that the players wrote, with the GM having nothing until the players wrote the backstories. It works wonderfully with the right group.Absolutely — that's what I mean about players revealing their expectations. It can take some finesse to make backstory-lovers integrate well with existing plotlines... being somewhat liberal with spoilers in an AP is usually a good thing when dealing with this type of player.
Yeah, one thing I have noticed with a few people is that even if they write a backstory, they don't necessarily want the backstory to interact with the game at all. I've had experienced players give me backstories and then back away from the game when I start integrating it in. The same player might go hard and fast into annother similar interaction that doesn't focus on them. Other players, like me, want to have strong backstories that are worked into the plot. It gives me a reason to be there, and fuels my interaction with the game.
People are wierd.
'Course Schenectady is a couple hours out, if I'm not mistaken. Still, I pass nearby when I head back east to Boston.
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I require a one to two page backstory from my players.LOL...
Sounds more like a writing assignment than getting together with a group of friends to have fun playing a game...
Do you grade on a curve? ;-P
What happens if a player has no writing skills? Or lacks a real ability to put words to paper?
I mean, there is nothing wrong with requiring a player to have a character back-story, but requiring an essay seems a bit extreme to me...
I don't want to play with players who don't want to commit to the game. And writing a backstory is one way of showing that they want to commit.
If i want to just have fun with my friends i whip out Monopoly or Jungle Speed. When i game a tabletop RPG i game a tabletop RPG.
I don't grade. I use the information provided in those backstories to make players feel like their characters are deeper inside the game.
I don't require a backstory to be written in perfect language and grammar and i certainly do not need them to write something publish-worthy. A set of notes is fine. As long as it provides me with good information.
Two pages is not an essay.
I require a one to two page backstory from my players.What do you do when someone writes a backstory that's completely incompatible with the world/campaign...
Ask them to rewrite the parts that clash and give them information to consider that will make it more pertinent.
...another character's backstory?
The chances are slim to nil that the stories can't be reconciled to coexist somehow.
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This is why I said the DM is required to sit down with the player and hash the backstory out. That way the player doesn't waste time rewriting because it doesn't suit the DM. This is the most important part of a character gen session, making sure the party makes sense.
As a player, and a DM, I find a couple short paragraphs to be just about ideal. A few sentences to develop where you came from, and a few sentences to state a couple of goals. That's enough to derive a basic personality and provide support for feats, traits, and skills chosen. It also gives both the player and the DM a rough idea of how the character is going to develop without locking either the DM or the player in with cumbersome details that have to be worked around or changed when the campaign goes off in an unexpected direction.
