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Hello,
Since I've read the discussion about RP>Min/Max, I was curious how you and your group handle background stories.
I am a HUGE fan of backgrounds and usually write at least 2-4 pages for my character.
Maybe it has to do with my first group or my background as a writer, but I just want every player in my group to write a background story for his or her character.
Do you think my expectations are too high ?
How do you handle the Situation ?
What if 1/4 characters comes up with a very nice story , would you Award him/her an additional feat ? Or would it be too broken ?
I would take a look at the story feats from Ultimate Campaign.
These are much more limited, but still give a tangible benefit for creating a story, along with maybe provoking a new background idea.
That, and I don't feel comfortable giving a whole feat for a background.
Those who wouldn't normally create a background now will, just to get that extra feat.
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It's hard to say if your expectations are too high, simply because I don't know your players ;)
Expecting it of a group of random Pathfinder players you've just thrown together is almost certainly too much. Expecting it of an RP-focused group you've put together purposely for that kind of game certainly isn't.
Personally, I handle it by ensuring anyone wanting to join my group knows what sort of group it is, and what we'll expect of them. Any new person joining is committing to playing the same style as the rest of us.
I've given people extra feats before, along with all kinds of other mechanical tweaks, in order to make the rules fit their character concept. I wouldn't use it as a reward, though - that feels too much like giving a dog a biscuit for performing a trick (also one of the reasons I'm much happier running XP-less games and no longer giving out RP awards)
My group takes role-playing seriously, with all six of us players having really well thought out background stories, all that tie into plots and character arcs.
For most groups, they tend to be more casual. Nothing wrong with that though. But as a DM, if your game is much more based around role playing, I don't see anything wrong with expecting players to have at least a minimal backstory.
For stories, you could use traits, which are half feats essentially, chosen at character creation. You can also use hero points as incintive as well.
Me personally, I would reward in-game roleplaying. A player can have an amazing backstory, but they might not role play at all at the table.
I generally request at least 1/2 page of backstory, and I give my players a bonus trait related to the story. Expecting 2-4 pages might be a bit much, since we arent all terrific writers.
Your expectations may be a BIT high, but not too high. A trait is generally not too much.
However, I would never force anybody to do it. Some people play the game for mechanics, others for story. I try to balance them (I like both). So just make sure you have players that follow the same expectations as you.
How I treat background stories and campaign journal entries:
I treat them as an encounter equal to the character's CR. I leave this available to all of the PC's so they can all get some bonus XP (or to spend their gp on training), and since not everyone is a writer, they only need to clear about 500 words to qualify for a backstory award.
I only allow 1 journal entry per session though.
Additionally, if the back-story is particularly epic, I am willing to award a -story- feat as outlined in the Ultimate Campaign book, or a teamwork feat if appropriate.
Very Respectfully,
--Bacon
Some people just don't like to write pages of background and it wouldn't be fair to award a single player because he does. You can talk about it with your group if they think a character should have a special feat or item because of his background, but don't penalize the others for not handing you a print-out.
Personally, I do much of it in my head and additionally write down 101 Character Questions to get a good impression on what my character's character is.
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I love it when characters put together a well written background that gives me easy hooks and plotlines to work with throughout a campaign. The problem is, most times, about 1 in 5 players do this.
So far the only good solution I have found is to run a 0-level prequel before an expected campaign, so players can develop their characters interests, personalities, and quirks prior the actual game start. Even the most unimaginative players can come up with a decent backstory after a prequel run.
That being said, I am eagerly looking forward to trying out the new background tables and their links to the story feats found in UC. It may prove to be a quick and easy way to throw together the framework for a good background story. If so, this one section would make the price of UC a worthwhile expense.
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Meet Imket Anum, my pfs Tetori. He is min maxed to be an unbeatable grappler. He also has a pretty detailed backstory.
He is a Phamet dwarf (just retconned from Ouat). He was a jeweler in the Ouat caste who's wife was a warrior. As a jeweler who's wife was a warrior he has always followed Faylana, but he was content to stay with the clan and ply his trade while his wife served as a bodyguard for a wizard.
When the wizard and his wife went missing, he dropped everything to find her. Eventually she and the wizard were found in the desert, their bodies desiccated. Vowing revenge, he started researching the area to try to find the thing that did this, but there was no trace. However the wizard was searching for a lost enclave of ancient osirion knowledge.
To help find what they were looking for, he has joined the pathfinder society and is working within the osirion faction to try to discover the truth. To honor the memory of his wife and focus his anger, each morning he punishes a training dummy until the imprints of his rings are left in his fists, following the obedience of Faylana in the process.
I type between a half page and two pages, then try to incorperate little pieces into play. If the GM isn't party to this, then it only comes up in choices I make or conversation with NPCs and other PCs.
When I run a game I always ask the players to give me a half page consisting of anything they like, such as backstory, personality, appearance, motivations, etc. I am usually let down by the results, so... the lesson it to do what makes one's self happy and let others do the same, instead of getting worked up over expectations.
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I am in the "Backstory? I havent lived it yet" camp. I certainly dont mind having a place the character came from. Also, its nice for them to provide NPCs that are close to them to add to the campaign. I really like the campaign traits Paizo has put out. Those would be the story feats you speak of at my table.
However, pages on how heroically awesome they are or all the things they did but cant seem to repeat now at level 1 dont work for me. Also, I dont want to be reminded during play about x feature on page y of your character backstory. Characters for us dont come alive until we play them at the table. YMMV.
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It varies depending on the game. I know I wrote about two pages of backstory for both of my characters in a local Kingmaker campaign. My PFS characters aren't quite as detailed, but I still have some idea of where they come from, and what makes them tick.
I'm not sure that you should award good backstory with something like a feat. Then it feels like bribery. I know I would prefer if a GM acknowledged an interesting backstory by working it into the campaign somehow. Our Kingmaker GM is quite good about this. My first character (who died) had a sister, who was part of another adventuring band in the wilds east of where we were operating. She would send me letters, so I got a little bit of info about what was going on in that area. My current character is from one of the Brevoy noble houses, so the GM uses that to feed me info about what the noble houses are plotting and scheming. That feels like a good reward to me - extra role-playing effort from the GM in return for extra role-playing effort from me.
This is the first I've heard of "rewards" for a background story. I guess I always thought the story was its own reward.
That said, I think an extra feat or small mechanical tweak to make a character concept work are fine, so long as they don't imbalance things. Whatever makes it fun.
For my part, I like to come up with a short, concise background story. If you can’t describe your character in a single paragraph, he’s probably too complicated.
After our current game where one character had a background with details that were used in the game (and no one else supplied anything), he said that everyone had to create some kind of background or there would not be traits allowed. It wasn't so much '[GASP!] NO TRAITS What fore shall we ever do?!?'. It was more like we knew the GM was serious that only one person had included details for the game. Hopefully we have each created something that can be used for the game that doesn't clash with the others.
I would encourage players to write a background by offering an extra trait for using the background generator in ultimate campaign and then forming that into a cohesive story. I think 2-4 pages may be a bit much, but 1 page is reasonable.
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However, pages on how heroically awesome they are or all the things they did but cant seem to repeat now at level 1 dont work for me.
There's a difference between the background story you write for a 1st level character and one you write for a character beginning at 10th level. If your background has your character doing things he couldn't possibly do mechanically, that's a problem with your story, not background stories in general.
I subscribe to the 10 minute background, though I find it usually takes me longer.
Sometimes for fun, friends and I assign each other a race/class combo to make a 10-min background for within the time limit, to see how we did.
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Wow. Reading this had made me realize how many campaign starters sound like the beginning of a joke.
"So a fighter, cleric, wizard, and rogue walk into a bar..."
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My take on backstory is that it's generally not worth the effort, for two main reasons.
First, my experience has been that most GMs will use your backstory to force you into things you wouldn't otherwise do. Some family member gets kidnapped, or your hometown gets razed, or some other similar tragedy occurs. If I take the time to write up a family and hometown, it's because I want to have a family and hometown, usually so that I can go visit or retire there. If the GM is going to take that away, where's my incentive to spend the effort to write it? If it's only going to be used as a lever against the player/character, why doesn't the GM write it up himself?
Second, starting at first level is really not that interesting, especially after you've done it a half dozen times already. Low level characters have few interesting options, in or out of combat, and when someone insists that your backstory has to match what you would have been capable of at (or worse, before) level 1, the scope of that story is extremely constricted. There's only so many things a Ftr 1, or a Rog 1, or even a Wiz 1, can plausibly do, and after the first few they start to blend together.
Now, if I were able to start at say, 3rd or 5th level, my character would have interesting choices to make. It could actually do something interesting, and that would be worth writing about. However, PF and in particular the Paizo APs do not encourage that. Every campaign, for some reason, has to start with dirt farmers, street urchins, and "wizards" who have 4 spells and then they're unable to meaningfully contribute for the rest of the day.
I wish that weren't true, but that's been my experience for the past several years.
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Our backstories tend to be short, just because we typically start at 1st level. We haven't really done much yet.
I subscribe to the 10 minute background, though I find it usually takes me longer.
Sometimes for fun, friends and I assign each other a race/class combo to make a 10-min background for within the time limit, to see how we did.
We use this too, though I do encourage players to go above and beyond this if they feel like it. I tend to hero point for just doing one and extra for more effort put in or giving me easy plot hooks to use.
Our backstories tend to be short, just because we typically start at 1st level. We haven't really done much yet.
For those situations I'm a fan of my character having once been a mighty something, but is now a washed up has-been.
Our backstories tend to be short, just because we typically start at 1st level. We haven't really done much yet.For those situations I'm a fan of my character having once been a mighty something, but is now a washed up has-been.
Never considered that ... then again, that reminds me too much of RL.
I have one player that pretty much always does a backstory, even if it is short. The only problem is that he usually write his backstory before he knows anything about the campaign world. This causes some oddities.
I would love if the first session of any new campaign was creating characters and developing backstories.
How I treat background stories and campaign journal entries:
I treat them as an encounter equal to the character's CR. I leave this available to all of the PC's so they can all get some bonus XP (or to spend their gp on training), and since not everyone is a writer, they only need to clear about 500 words to qualify for a backstory award.
That is a very cool idea. I'll have to see if I can get my players to agree with that.
My take on backstory is that it's generally not worth the effort, for two main reasons.
First, my experience has been that most GMs will use your backstory to force you into things you wouldn't otherwise do. Some family member gets kidnapped, or your hometown gets razed, or some other similar tragedy occurs.
That's a noobie mistake. As a GM, I always ask if I can meddle with a PC's background before I do so. I won't say exactly what, but as an example, one of my players from a previous campaign added his sister into his backstory. She seemed like an interesting character, so I asked him if it would be alright if I threw her in the line of fire during an adventure. He said it was okay.
So I turned her into a sort of blessed character that could turn into an angelic form (very powerful) for a very short period of time/day. Once a certain evil npc learned this about her, he was trying to manipulate her into working for him.
It ended up being a great adventure hook.
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I love making back-stories for my characters. Not only do they offer the dm hooks for plots and story making, but they also really help me get into character and get some emotional investment into them. My favorite character had a good 3-5 days put into writing and detailing her history. The end result was only 5 pages or so, but it can be made much longer if I included every detail involved.
Hello,
Since I've read the discussion about RP>Min/Max, I was curious how you and your group handle background stories.
I am a HUGE fan of backgrounds and usually write at least 2-4 pages for my character.
I usually get very into character creation as well. My last long term character had a 2 or 3 page background story. The GM seemed to like it and it made it a lot easier for him to weave my story into the campaign he was running.
Maybe it has to do with my first group or my background as a writer, but I just want every player in my group to write a background story for his or her character.
Do you think my expectations are too high ?
Maybe. I think character backgrounds are great, however not everyone gets that invested in a character before they have even sat down to play that character. It can also make for very good character building and RP when you let a character come into play with only a vague background and slowly build their background through the story and through interactions with other party members and NPCs.
How do you handle the Situation ?
When I have GMd I tend to have a minimum list of things that I want to know about a character. It is basically just a detailed character description with some questions about personality, family, and a few other things. I give each player the list and tell them they can write as much as they want and be as detailed as they want, but this is the minimum I would appreciate.
What if 1/4 characters comes up with a very nice story , would you Award him/her an additional feat ? Or would it be too broken ?
I don't know if I would award additional feats, but awards tend to come naturally in the story. The more info you have to work with the more you can tailor your story to your characters. Weave their personal histories into the campaign.
Some idea of who your character is and where they came from is nice but not everyone wants to read your 10 page backstory. We had a guy in our game that had one of these for every single one of his characters and they were a chore to slog through TBH. Not only was each backstory pretty much torturously written, his themes were repetitive so each 10 page back story was basically a rehash of the last one. It got to the point where the DM simply filed them in the big square bin *wink wink* for "later consideration".
Everyone believes they are a fantastic writer but this is just not true. Unless you are exceptional, your backstories are probably little more than an affront to the English language full of terrible grammar, run on sentences, spelling errors, sentence fragments, syntax errors and tons of other things that would make your English teachers weep openly. To be blunt, it's probably trite, unoriginal and angsty drivel because this is what most amateur writers produce. It's probably also in desperate need of an objective editor, one that would chop out a good half of what you've written before really getting down to business. And although it's probably very important and meaningful to you, the product of your deep creative and emotional investment, it's most likely no one else feels this way.
Remember that your mom is constrained by societal expectations to be kind rather than honest about the quality of your writing and her enjoyment of the same. Give your DM a break and keep it to a couple of paragraphs unless he or she specifically asks for more. Some folks might say I'm mean or that my DM was for throwing dude's backstories in the trash but I say it's more cruel to foist your terrible "art" upon your friends :)
In the group I play with we generally come up with back stories for our characters, but we rarely introduce anything from them into our campaigns. I don't bother writing mine down but I don't start building a character until I've come up with a story for the type of person I want to play. For the most part we just let our in-game actions reflect our character's stories without explicitly telling them out.
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I used to write out answers to something like 30 background questions. But it was a waste of time. These days, I give my characters 2 sentences max. "Elias was apprenticed to the wizard Melfian, and after becoming an Initiate of the First Circle, vowed never to set foot in a turnip garden again." There's no need for more.
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I enjoy multipage backgrounds to characters I get really psyched about. If I'm having bad luck and go through characters relatively quickly churn of characters I tend to just do the background generator in ultimate campaign.
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The longer I "have" a character, the more I want to flesh out a backstory. I may have started out with a paragraph at the beginning, but with my current character I'm up to at least 3 pages...
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i always come up with at least a paragraph of stuff...
honestly, IMO, you can't RP at all, and there's nothing immersive going on, if you don't have some idea of who you are, where you came from, how you learned what you know, and why you're adventuring.
as a GM i tend to reward players for creating backstory by weaving those elements into the game- not to force them into situations but by allowing them to reach stated goals and giving them opportunities to gain items, info, and abilities that will help them become who they want to be; occasionally they might run into someone from their past and get some kind of minor boon (a tip, an introduction to someone with some influence, maybe even a little coin or free room and board).
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I have once and it was a blast, but i used those as sort of like guidelines and fleshed the story out a little. Shes a gnome alchemist who was a child prodigy then ran afoul with the law. She had multiple relationships that didnt work out, she destroyed a reputation of a military official and is mostly neutral selfish (with a slight slant to evil)
So miss poor child prodigy whom grew up with her parents who were entertainers grew up happy and was a natuaral talent with alchemical substances. As She grew up (she was an only child) She started to gravitate torwards the wrong sort of fellow, the bad kind. Her relationships never seemed to work out. After several brushes with the law, she left her home and tried to start anew. She was hired by a local commander to provide a 'fireworks' show to impress the duke of his commanders pomp and circumstance only well it didnt quite turn out as planned and a mistimed explosion accidently hit the tent the duke and his family were watching the parade in.
Needless to say she is on the move again.
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I have had a DM go way too far.
He not only required a 3 page backstory, but a backstory for every magic, or special material item we had, or would get.
I met this challenge, and wrote a minimum 1 page backstory for every, single, item, I had, or wanted, in the future.
I had the feeling, he expected only one, or two items.
He was wrong.
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My epic mini novella I wrote mostly came up from conventions back in the days of living city. You can only travel to so many places with the same four people in every adventure before the 'meet and greet' sections of the blurb start to make you laugh a bit. It has pirates, and thieves, and sahaugin... cant be all that bad right?
I generally write a few paragraphs, I don't think I have ever gone 2 or 3 pages worth though... maybe one page at the most. I usually work any traits I want for my character into the story I write.
If I have a shared background between multiple characters, I write that stuff up separately.
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My take on backstory is that it's generally not worth the effort, for two main reasons.
First, my experience has been that most GMs will use your backstory to force you into things you wouldn't otherwise do. Some family member gets kidnapped, or your hometown gets razed, or some other similar tragedy occurs.
That's a noobie mistake. As a GM, I always ask if I can meddle with a PC's background before I do so. I won't say exactly what, but as an example, one of my players from a previous campaign added his sister into his backstory. She seemed like an interesting character, so I asked him if it would be alright if I threw her in the line of fire during an adventure. He said it was okay.
So I turned her into a sort of blessed character that could turn into an angelic form (very powerful) for a very short period of time/day. Once a certain evil npc learned this about her, he was trying to manipulate her into working for him.
It ended up being a great adventure hook.
I agree, its shows a level of inexperience as a GM. I had one very experienced player who joined our group that came to us with this sort of "background PTSD". His background was always "I am a loner orphan who has no friends and my hometown was destroyed by invaders", simply so the GM could not screw with his character using it.
I either leave the background alone, or allow aspects of it to be boons to the characters in the beginning. I do occasionally pull bad guys or NPC innocents from their backgrounds but not to kidnap them or do crazy stuff. For instance, one had a sister who owned a store in town, and the party came back from adventuring for several months (gaining about 7 levels) and found one of the local bullies from a gang harassing her. It was a confrontation, but one between an 8th level sorcerer and a commoner bully :)
Mostly I use the background as information about how the player perceives their character and what sort of things their character will respond to. You can get a feel for if they want to play a protector, redeemed knave, shy bookworm, outsider, etc.
I recently agreed to GM for a group of almost entirely new players. Only experienced player is my brother. Anyway, I encouraged the players to at the least, think up a basic background for their characters. I felt that it would not only help with character creation, but help ease them into the roleplay aspect.
One of the players wanted to be a spellcaster but couldn't decide on a class. I suggested coming up with a small backstory. She settled on a former halfling slave that turned towards an 'unknown' outsider for help in obtaining her freedom and now my group has a witch with a vengence patron. Mini-freedom fighter, should be interesting.
That said, I don't use their backstories more than reference and determining starting traits. The witch doesn't like slavery; I'll throw in a few slavers in this session so they can rage at them.
Depends on the campaign. I mostly DM and I appreciate some background and sense of where the character came from and some motivation but only a few concise paragraphs/bullet points. I also find simply talking to the player about their characters is often the best way to draw some ideas out. I do find the APs that I've ran provide some springboard for players of all types to concoct something and the traits are a helpful tool to elicit this from the more rp reluctant players and usually give some stake or motivation to the character to be involved (I can only speak for CoCT, CC and JR).
I always write backgrounds for the character I end up playing. I've found that it helps give my characters well character. Rather the Fighter X, I'm "Cipher, the worlds greatest gladiator of Katapesh". It also helps me think about how I want my character to act in-game since he's not just a piece of paper, but a man with goals, history, and passion.
but that's just me. Some GM's read it and use it. Other don't. I don't care either way since it's more for me then for them.
I don't see why to grant bonus Feats just for having a strong background story.
If you really don't like playing with people who can't do that,
choose not to play with them (or persuade them to change their playstyle), don't play favors.
If a background story and character concept would lead to an especially weak build, THEN a bonus Feat might make sense.
But story is not mutually exclusive with optimization, and good build don't need further help.
The most uber optimized character in the group doesn't need one more Feat.
I can get deep background stories, and the GM is welcome to USE that, although if they want to say "hey, your longlost brother Shmuel appears behind the bar of the tavern!" they need to really be solid on what that backstory is, so that differing assumptions don't come into play. If the GM isn't planning on doing anything like that, and there is no reason the plot would go near your former haunting grounds/family, then it's honestly less important to go super into detail, but you can still have a good background that lays out the tone and what you're about and what sort of conflicts you may have. That's something the GM or other players can use just as well.