Here's an exercise for you. Make a character with some extensive backstory, give him some strong personality traits, and RP that for a while.
Now make a character with no solid backstory. He could be an amnesiac who conveniently "remembers" things when you'd like to add more. Give him strong personality traits, and RP that for a while.What's the difference? One is a character with strong personality traits who is probably fun to RP whose backstory is already written. The other is a character who you're making s%!% up on the fly for with strong personality traits who's probably fun to RP.
The important part of roleplay is in the living, changing character, not whatever happened to him 8 years ago.
They can both be important. Having a backstory, or at least thinking the implications of some character developments through, gives you a lot more tools for your role playing. It gives you more ways to interact with and embed your character in the setting, and, by having this stuff written down, you give the GM and maybe other players more ways to interact with yor chsracter and integrat him into the narrative that is emerging.
As a GM, having this information makes my ability to produce relevant campaign hooks for your character easier. Denying me this information makes it harder and I probably won't be able to do as much for you as I can for players who are more interested in cooperating.
Who is going to lengths? The difficulty is irrelevant, unless the entire reason for it is "it is so easy there is no reason not to".
You perhaps? It is only page 10 of a thread which to me is about a player refusing to participate in the creation of a character and instead wanting to play a video game of numbers and optimization so they can "win" a storytelling cooperation event. If a player is not going to develop a character, not going to storytell and not going to cooperate, what the heck are they doing? Deliberately denying the key components of the event just to be spiteful it appears. We've had folks accidentally give a backstory without intending to more than once just on this page. It surprises me that there are folks who think that being contrary just to spite your game and your DM's best intentions are a good idea. Being willing to drag it out for 10 pages (soon to be 11) is also interesting. That seems to define great lengths.
They can both be important. Having a backstory, or at least thinking the implications of some character developments through, gives you a lot more tools for your role playing. It gives you more ways to interact with and embed your character in the setting, and, by having this stuff written down, you give the GM and maybe other players more ways to interact with your character and integrate him into the narrative that is emerging.
As a GM, having this information makes my ability to produce relevant campaign hooks for your character easier. Denying me this information makes it harder and I probably won't be able to do as much for you as I can for players who are more interested in cooperating.
And that is the logical consequence to not doing so. Yes, it makes it harder for the GM to facilitate your role playing, I acknowledge that. If you choose not to write a backstory, you are choosing to make it less likely taht your character will get its own "Day in the limelight" that other characters might get.
But what I'm saying is that a backstory or lack thereof does not in itself make or break a character.
Its amazing the distance some will go to avoid something which is rather simple. I mean, you don't have to go to great lengths to have a viable and simple backstory. It's not like that's hard.
But what I'm saying is that a backstory or lack thereof does not in itself make or break a character.
I agree, but it can disappoint the GM and other players or even violate the table etiquette. And for what gain?
Well, if you're the kind of person we've been talking about that doesn't go in for detailed backstories, you gain not doing something you don't wanna do.
It's possible for me to drive a car using my feet. Is it preferable?
It doesn't even have to be detailed it just needs to BE.
Well it will BE. Eventually, once it kinda organically grows. I have players that do this pretty much all the time. They just come up with characters and over time they think of something interesting that seems like it would fit and roll with it.
Because, in a game I run, it won't work if you don't have it. The campaign is built with the presumption that the payers have a past when the game starts and that that past can be used to immerse them into the game and if you aren't even willing to put a paragraph of effort into fleshing out a background for the character then I don't really see why I should be inclined to put even a paragraph of effort into entertaining them.
They do have a past. You just don't know it yet.
And seriously? The ol' "Why should I do work if you don't have to?" line?
But ignoring that, all of this applies to the GM too. If you don't like writing stuff...don't. Don't GM, you can bump back down to player and leave it to people who enjoy running games. Be their rules reference guy if they're a little shaky on rules stuff, but don't GM if you don't do it because you enjoy it.
That is part of enjoying it. Having a story. Having the world built collaboratively between players and gms, and immersed into it. It's the buy in that lets me enjoy the process properly.
If players are asking ME to run a campaign and spend the time to make it then I am entirely within propriety to say "this is the buy-in for me doing it". If you want me to run this game then you need to do this, otherwise, its no go. Sorry, but there is a quantitative difference in the amount of work a dm puts into a game vs the payers. And asking for the short amount of time it takes to write a paragraph or so is not some sort of onerous torture device,
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So it's only necessary for you?
What if it is? What if he's the GM, and people not making an effort -- even with help -- in coming up with in-world explanations for things impacts his enjoyment?
Is that unreasonable?
Is it unreasonable if a player, knowing this, still refuses?
In the beginning, ciretose was arguing that, no, it's not unreasonable for a GM to expect that of a player. He was told that he was playing the game wrong by expecting it.
That is Argument X, Adamantine Dragon, and (since I agree with ciretose that expecting that is not at all unreasonable) that is the argument I have stuck to.
It's not unreasonable for a GM to expect this. It is unreasonable for a player to refuse it if the GM expects it (and the player wants to participate in the game).
Things have gotten twisted around, including by you, into being a demand that ciretose justify his play preferences (that's Argument Z) ... and in that demand that he justify himself is implicit the claim that ciretose is playing the game wrong.
Why ciretose has that preference -- although I understand and share it -- is irrelevant, because ciretose never demanded that others share the preference or understand. All ciretose asked was that his preference be accepted and that he not be told that by holding it he was playing the game wrong.
Oh brother.
For my games? Yes. It is.
Naturally I don't RUN your games.
