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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 ?
Depends on how lethal your campaign is. Nothing discourages a player like investing weeks of work in a background for a new character only to have that character die in the first session.
For me, I find out where my character came from and what he is like after his sheet hits the table, not before. I might have some few factoids about his past, but for the most part his backstory is written by the events of the campaign.
Adding a free feat won't imbalance anything at all, especially if you pick it for him based on his backstory.
I'm not that interested in where you are from or that you have done before we start playing. I want to know who you are and what you do pretty much tells me that - whether I am a DM or a Player.
As a Player, how would I know most of this? - either you told it all to my character, or I don't know it.
As a DM, an overlong or overly detailed backstory 9 times out of 10 contains cringe-worthy (for me) plot elements I don't appreciate, and am simply not interested in layering into my not-very-deeply-wrought campaign setting/arc/milieu...
I've been in PbP recruitments that asked for very detailed backgrounds, and others that are fine without them. The former are a major PITA for those that don't get chosen.
I agree with those comments that overlong backstories are often just that. Overlong.
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Background story can be good and bad for different reasons
Pros:
It gives the player a backdrop...something that even during writing the character may help the player flesh out their character more
It gives the GM a chance to see what the player " thinks" of their creation and what direction they can see the character going and what sort of growth is possible
And finally...for RP reasons it helps the GM hold players to their character...and can help people that are new to RPing (the GM and other players can give tips to play the character they want)
Cons:
Having a fully fleshed character with some crazy backstory can keep players from growing within the world.
Example: a fellow gamer of mine made a character for our new campaign. We started at 6th level. His character was apparently a personal body guard to a sheik or king or something. This creates a few issues in game. First off his character is very confrontational due to the fact that he is used to everyone listening to him in his backstory. Second, this creates the same tension within our group for the same reason. Third, persoanlly i have no idea why anyone that was a personal body guard to someone so important would be with our party
Players adding or wanting g mechanical goodies. This being someone writing a backstory and attempting to brow beat the GM into okaying some bonus of one type or another just because if "fits the character"
Now I'm all for giving something to the players if they write good backstory...but it should be small and should definitely be chosen by the GM
Background is COOL. As a player, it helps me to flesh out the character, a lot. I usually start with one sentence which I believe will sort of represent my character, and let things flow naturally from there.
I LOVE backgrounds - they help me to "fall in love" with my character, and I don't mind (actually I kind of like it) if the GM weaves parts of my background (motives, family members etc) into the actual storyline.
My backgrounds are usually written in the first person, or are a recollection of a particularly meaningful dialogue.
The last background I wrote started with this sentence:
"It royally sucks to be the only sorceress in a family of wizards". Meet Barbara "Barbie" Schmidt, CN sage sorceress.
Of course I get a little disappointed if my well-thought backgrounds don't get some reward for the effort (even a trait would do, really), but I don't fuss about it... too much.
Edit: one more thing, I usually search the net for a picture (not a drawing) for the character.
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Personally I like having extensive backgrounds for my characters.
However, not everyone likes to write and some are just very bad at it. ;)
So, as a DM, I usually expect at least the follwing:
Why are you here? Why do you do whatever it is you do? What are your plans for the immediate future and what it you long term goal?
The last two are the most important ones as they give a feel to what the charater will be up to (or work towards) as I tend to play mostly sandbox.
Also, I usually tell them I might add details not given in ther backstory if it fits. Or steal the ones that are there. Nothing derailing, but just to involve the characters a bit more. It ist one thing to kill a noble. It is another to kill the noble responsible for the taxes that drove your father's business into bankruptcy.
So I guess the reward for having a better backstory is more influence over the following story (which makes sense to me).
Ask yourself: what's the point?
Seriously. The traditional reason for backstories was to give the DM material that the player approved of which they could use to involve the character. To personalize an adventure so that the player felt invested.
If you're running a homebrew game, that makes a lot of sense. If you're running an adventure path, there isn't very much room to make things personal in that sense. The BBEG isn't going to turn out to be a PC's long-lost abusive uncle who betrayed the family, leading to blah blah blah. There's just MUCH less wiggle-room to actually use backstory elements.
So I think that a short one-paragraph background is useful for the player, but when running an AP anything more is pointless.
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Before the game you were a level 0 character. You get one paragraph to tell me who you are, where you're from, what you want and why you can't have it.
Answer those four questions and you have enough for me to incorporate your backstory into the game.
Here's some examples of characters I have created:
"I'm 'Lucky' Jim Kidd, an escaped slave from Cheliax. I want to be a free Captain of the Shackles to hunt down slavers with impunity and to amass wealth. I can't do that because I don't have a ship or crew."
"I'm Ash Q'Asheem and Sharumander a Summoner and his Djinn. We want to be free of each other. We can't do that until Sharumander atones for crimes against the goddess Sarenrae."
4 questions for immediate compelling characters with in-built GM hooks.
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Before the game you were a level 0 character. You get one paragraph to tell me who you are, where you're from, what you want and why you can't have it.
Answer those four questions and you have enough for me to incorporate your backstory into the game.
Here's some examples of characters I have created:
"I'm 'Lucky' Jim Kidd, an escaped slave from Cheliax. I want to be a free Captain of the Shackles to hunt down slavers with impunity and to amass wealth. I can't do that because I don't have a ship or crew."
"I'm Ash Q'Asheem and Sharumander a Summoner and his Djinn. We want to be free of each other. We can't do that until Sharumander atones for crimes against the goddess Sarenrae."
4 questions for immediate compelling characters with in-built GM hooks.
Loving it DM. More than this strains credibility for me.
And not because I can't write a thousand pages of backstory. At almost 40 years of age, I've seen a few things. ;)
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I wrote a background story for my last character that was 8 pages long. A guy playing in the game I'm starting up next month made that look like a child's book with a 16 page background story that had my eyes watering up a few times throughout.
DM_aka_Dudemeister - I like those 4 questions. They are perfect for giving the DM what he needs from players who aren't as into the story or just new to the game. I'll certainly use those in the future.
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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 ?Depends on how lethal your campaign is. Nothing discourages a player like investing weeks of work in a background for a new character only to have that character die in the first session.
For me, I find out where my character came from and what he is like after his sheet hits the table, not before. I might have some few factoids about his past, but for the most part his backstory is written by the events of the campaign.
Adding a free feat won't imbalance anything at all, especially if you pick it for him based on his backstory.
Yeap this is me too. I guess I should have mentioned our playstyle is combat as war and leans towards lethal side of the scale.
I don't make any characters without at least a somewhat interesting background. As previously stated, what would be the point?
I went and made a folder of almost 20 pre-generated characters (you know, in case an adventure springs forth). I treat it like walking in to an adventuring guild or tavern; I describe the character, with about a paragraph of backstory (as if other PCs are looking for helping hands). Sometimes they come with baggage, and others come with their own goals or quests (that may take awhile to complete). My fellow players know I can hold my own in a tight situation, so they just choose which guy they'd actually enjoy the company of throughout the adventure.
Seems legit.
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Backstories are fun. As a GM, I like them so I can use them in my campaign and tie my players into it more. Not necessarily kidnapping their NPCs all the time, but other cool things. But, I usually only need a page (if that) and maybe just some bullet points for important things for their character.
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Can I recommend the game page tool? The four questions and so forth are a very good idea, but I won't DM for four PCs with four different long-term goals.
Here's a link to the "Same Page Tool" http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/the-same-page-tool/
There's also the optional 5th question if the GM doesn't have a party origin story in mind:
"How do you know the PC to your left?"
I'm a firm believer that character creation should begin with a discussion at the table.
"How do you know the PC to your left?"
This is important. Each PC should know at least 1 other PC in the group as part of the backstory/Session-0 planning.
Very Respectfully,
--Bacon
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Some of my favorite characters have come from having a background written up beforehand, but I don't think I'd ever make it mandatory, or "reward" those who write up a backstory. People tend to build their characters in different ways, and I'm fine with that. I'm not just talking about RP vs Min/Max (though I do try to keep that in line, as there's nothing which sucks the fun out of a game as much as having half the party who is made obsolete by the other half, simply by virtue of making optimal vs suboptimal choices; not even bad choices, like a 11 INT wizard or stuff like that, just non-optimal choices, also one of the reasons I don't like the game above low-mid levels), but more importantly, I'm talking about how some people can show up with a fully built character, with every event since childhood written out, and their entire character psychoanalyzed before they show up to the first session, while others only have a vague notion of their character at the beginning, but begin to feel their characters out to organically develop the ins and outs of their characterization over the first few sessions, and some of the best characters I've seen have come from both camps, so I see no reason to reward the former over the latter.
As a DM, one thing that bugs me is when you have a setting and ideas about the campaign, whether it be an adventure path or a custom made game, and a player shows up with this whole back story that doesn't fit with that. Mr. Real Roleplayer has his brilliant concept and lengthy back story and he doesn't care that it doesn't work with your plans. He's such a brilliant thespian that of course you'll alter your campaign so his character can have his epic arc. And then he'll have the spotlight and all the other players will be second stage to him.
I'd almost rather have the casual players without much background who just go along with your game because that's what the game is. If the players can be a little more invested, work out a short back story that fits your game, and go from there, that's the ideal.
Ask yourself: what's the point?
Seriously. The traditional reason for backstories was to give the DM material that the player approved of which they could use to involve the character. To personalize an adventure so that the player felt invested.
If you're running a homebrew game, that makes a lot of sense. If you're running an adventure path, there isn't very much room to make things personal in that sense. The BBEG isn't going to turn out to be a PC's long-lost abusive uncle who betrayed the family, leading to blah blah blah. There's just MUCH less wiggle-room to actually use backstory elements.
So I think that a short one-paragraph background is useful for the player, but when running an AP anything more is pointless.
I somewhat disagree re the APs. Hopefully from info from the player guide and from the Gm the player can use that material as a springboard to involve their character in the campaign's action from what's been shared. Also, there's no reason why in an AP the gm can't swap stuff out from the campaign and insert characters drawn the player's backstories. I've certianly done a fair amount of that in the APs I've ran. I imagine there are a few out there that this might be harder to do (second darkness comes to mind). I think APs benefit enormously from personalizing content and getting players to invest in their character, setting etc.
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As a DM, one thing that bugs me is when you have a setting and ideas about the campaign, whether it be an adventure path or a custom made game, and a player shows up with this whole back story that doesn't fit with that. Mr. Real Roleplayer has his brilliant concept and lengthy back story and he doesn't care that it doesn't work with your plans. He's such a brilliant thespian that of course you'll alter your campaign so his character can have his epic arc. And then he'll have the spotlight and all the other players will be second stage to him.
I'd almost rather have the casual players without much background who just go along with your game because that's what the game is. If the players can be a little more invested, work out a short back story that fits your game, and go from there, that's the ideal.
I'd concur with you it doesn't help when a player comes up with a concept entirely disconnected from the rest of the group or the premise. (i.e. insisting on playing an elven ninja in a viking campaign). One of the things that has entered talk in rp circles the last several years is borrowing the always say yes concept from improv theatre. What is often forgotten is that for this to work the player also need to yes to the DM (i.e. ok guys I'm running a gothic horror themed campaign set in this particular city, the players respond by building characters that have a stake in the city and somehow play to the premise). As a DM I don't want an overly long background but I do want the player to build something based from the context I've provided.
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 something to say about GMs who screw with a character's back story...
My gaming group once did a Vampire: the Masquerade campaign. In that game, you used development points to create your character (basically, you spent points for benefits and got points back for flaws which, combined, made the background story).
Anyway, I got the distinct impression that my GM did not like the character I was playing as I designed it. He decided to destroy some of the RP fluff I had given my character (and one of the benefits I had spent considerable development points to give my character while he was at it), and ultimately ended up destroying any fun I had playing that character. The worst part was, he thought that destroying those things would "fix" what he perceived as a problem with my character.
I personally like to limit myself to anywhere from a few paragraphs to a page. Any less, it doesn't feel complete; any more and now I'm just writing.
As for my players? Well, that's a spectrum. I generally throw out 3-5 questions like "what's your family", "where were you raised," or "what's your most significant memory." I've had a player answer these with sentences, paragraphs and even pages, but my favorite was the following:
Q: Where is your character from?
A: Village
Q: Detail your family
A: Elf
Q: What is your most significant memory?
A: Amnesia
The best was: the male player was running a LG female elf paladin (Iomedae)1. These answers literally left me with nothing to work into the game.
See my players aren't what I'd call "roleplayers". Most of them want to get together with friends, vent about work, discuss pop culture and then occasionally be a murder hobo. A couple of the players who've cycled through my table have had more RP desires and I've catered to them best I can. My core buddies however are more about mechanics than fluff.
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I don't know if its been brought up yet, but backgrounds are are almost always required to be selected in a play-by-post(PbP) here on the forums. That being said, you can go to any given recruitment thread and read dozens of "applications" being put in because they're the only way to sell the GM on your character. In games where there are lots of strangers competing for a few slots, backgrounds are extremely useful.
One of the most memorable 'rewards' for my backstory I've received was the equivalent of a trait. Not quite as powerful as the feat, but still helps to differentiate my character from others. My rather savage character spent a lot of time in her youth climbing, and, because I had limited skill points at creation that had to be spent in Knowledges and other sundry adventurer skills, I couldn't actually spend one in a non-class skill, and had a low strength to boot. So I said she got scraped a lot, was okay with the occasional fall from a tree; just liked to spend time in the limbs. I got the made up trait, Branch Jumper, which gave me +1 to climb and made it always a class skill. A level later, I took advantage of this (I still have only a +2 to my rolls, but she's roleplayed to be the type who just keeps on climbing that tree, no matter how many times she falls.
I think that mechanical benefits for crafting, professions, and performances would be very in line for good backstories. If you spent your whole childhood playing around in your father's bakery, you should be slightly more likely to know about Profession (Baker) than someone born to nobility, for instance.
Our GM grants a Hero point to all backstoried characters, and he's damn lenient about what counts. "Was a slave from childhood under *blank*'s evil control, rescued last month by *other PC* and now travels with them." Hell one person said a vague goal they had because "I've always wanted to" and he accepted it.
I made up a questionaire in a google doc for myself and our friends to all answer. Just prompts, no need to fill it all in, just questions to ask yourself to see if there is any inspiration there. Useful because I organize session times through that doc as well.
I make involved backstories with my characters, maybe a page or so. I even wrote pre-game journals for 2 of them detailing how they got to the game's starting point. But before I put in an active assassination plot or KOS vendetta, I talk to the GM to see, first if he has a different (better) way he wants to use the character, or second if my idea works for him. Course, I love to write.
The others use the prompts to good effect and in game I can really see them referencing those choices they made early on while they roleplay. Seems like just hammering out a few personality traits makes a big difference for early forays into RP. We're all noobs together though, never played with anyone else so I've no idea if we're the norm, hell maybe they just filled out the spreadsheet to humor me because i was so pleased with myself :P
, but she's roleplayed to be the type who just keeps on climbing that tree, no matter how many times she falls.
Mine was so similar! A derp of a Sylph who so badly wanted to fly that she frequently leapt from small to moderate heights attempting it (using featherfall). She's covered in little scars because of it.
I know the prd. Says its good to reward backstories granted of says with hero points
Character Story: GMs can award a hero point for the completion of a written character backstory. This reward encourages players to take an active role in the history of the game. In addition, the GM can use this backstory to generate a pivotal moment for your character concerning his past. When this key event is resolved, the GM can reward another hero point. Alternatively, the GM might award a hero point for painting a miniature or drawing a character portrait in the likeness of your character, helping the rest of the group visualize .your hero..
Then again it says... Group Service: The GM can award hero points for acts outside the game as well. Buying pizza for the group, hint hint lol
And paizo and m ost people thought backgrounds were important seeing as they dedicated a whole chapter to it which can be found don't click :)
Just my thoughts feel free to ignore
Ninjad. With hero points lol took to long looking for link on phone...
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 ?
One option is to offer major benefits to those who make in-depth back stories. You could allow those who have extensive back stories and who stay in character to level using the FAST progression system, while everyone else uses the MEDIUM progression system.
This will, on average, allow them to be one level higher than the other party members, BUT their money is not increased.You do not want to PENALIZE people, but instead REWARD people for doing what you want them to do.
So:
In-depth backstory + psych profile (MBTI can be nice since it offers 16 personalities as a starting point that can just be the entire profile) + goals, desires, and whatever else you want to throw in.
Fulfill these requirements and you use the fast progression system, otherwise you use the medium progression system. Effectively this removes "Role-playing" experience from the game as rewards, and implements it as being "always on" and reducing the amount of XP needed to level.
Not Role-playing = Medium experience progression.
Role-playing = Fast experience progression.
This is not "broken" because the character is only, at max, one level above his peers. Money plays a massive role in character power. Furthermore the Role-Playing character has to remain in character or gain a negative level that cannot be removed unless he gets back in characters, and this can be applied or removed at any time by the DM.
NonRole-Playing character rules:
You can make any character and play it as "you." You are not required to make a back story, and you are allowed to be as min-maxed as you wish. Your character can "appear" out of thin air without needing to have had a back story or previous profession. You are not bound to act within a certain schema, and your character's goals can be the same as your own personal goals for the character, such as "level up, get money, become moar powerful!" You are not subject to any major penalties if you act out of character, because you never stated that you would ever be in character.
Role-Playing character Rules:
You must write a four (4) page background of your character stating the members of his immediate family defining at least who his Father, Mother, and at least one direct sibling or best friend. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO KILL THEM! Your family must be alive, or at least one member is to be alive. You are not Batman. You must define what type of parents your character's parents were: were they strict, loose, aloof, easy going, abusive, etc..
You must define your character's personal goals, desires, sexuality (If no sexuality is defined, follow the rules of Paizo NPCs: they are all assumed to be bi-sexual), and any lovers that the character has.
You are entitled to two traits, but also must take two to seven drawbacks and additional traits to fill out your personality. Trait rules apply normally: there are nine categories, and you cannot pick two traits from the same categories. You are only allowed to pick the "extra traits" feat if you have at least two categories that you have not chosen from.
You do not start with bonus experience, but instead require less experience to level up. Start at level 1 with 0 experience.
You must agree that the DM can give you a permanent negative level that cannot be removed by any mechanical means if you step out of character (This negative level cannot kill you and is only applicable when you are one level above the level of the medium progression character, it is literally there to push you down to the effective level of the medium progression characters), and only by getting back in character can the negative level be removed. If you are convinced by a fellow party member, via an opposed diplomacy check, to do something that is normally out of character you can follow his lead without incurring the negative level.
EXPERIMENTAL:
Instead of gaining extra experience you can instead take a template and level normally, but you can still incur the negative level and you are required to fill out the back-story and everything else.
I had a d20 Modern adventure fall apart due to PCs not knowing or trusting each other, at which point I enforced friendly PCs. I've also played in several games where DMs assumed that "you all meet in a tavern works" when it no longer does, even after I told them of my experiences. So IMO every game needs PCs that already know and trust each other.Depends on the game. For more serial sandboxy type things it's important as a reason to get and stick together. For more plot oriented, AP type games, it's not so important. The PCs need a hook into the plot, once you've got that they come together automatically."How do you know the PC to your left?"This is important. Each PC should know at least 1 other PC in the group as part of the backstory/Session-0 planning.
Very Respectfully,
--BaconI would have trouble working with that. My characters tend to start off kind of sketchy and develop personality in play. Establishing past relationships often wind up clashing with how the character actually develops and trying to force it often means it never does.
And there are certainly better hooks than "You all meet in a tavern". That's likely to lead to trouble. Look at most of the AP setups. Give them a reason to work together. Mutual enemies. Differing personal reasons for the same quest. Something.
As a (lazy) DM, I always put it on the players. You can have whatever stand- offish, loner background you want, but You have to come up with a reason why you're joining the group.
As a (lazy) DM, I always put it on the players. You can have whatever stand- offish, loner background you want, but You have to come up with a reason why you're joining the group.]I would have trouble working with that. My characters tend to start off kind of sketchy and develop personality in play. Establishing past relationships often wind up clashing with how the character actually develops and trying to force it often means it never does.
And there are certainly better hooks than "You all meet in a tavern". That's likely to lead to trouble. Look at most of the AP setups. Give them a reason to work together. Mutual enemies. Differing personal reasons for the same quest. Something.
As a before game thing or an in-game "Don't be a dick, find a way to participate" kind of thing?
But then I'm not used to games where the adventuring group comes together and then looks for things to do. The quest comes first and the group forms around it.
I tell them before game, yes. Although I've been gaming with the same group for 15 years now so it's a known rule.
Not so much when do you tell them, but when do they have to come up with the reason?I tell them before game, yes. Although I've been gaming with the same group for 15 years now so it's a known rule.As a (lazy) DM, I always put it on the players. You can have whatever stand- offish, loner background you want, but You have to come up with a reason why you're joining the group.]I would have trouble working with that. My characters tend to start off kind of sketchy and develop personality in play. Establishing past relationships often wind up clashing with how the character actually develops and trying to force it often means it never does.
And there are certainly better hooks than "You all meet in a tavern". That's likely to lead to trouble. Look at most of the AP setups. Give them a reason to work together. Mutual enemies. Differing personal reasons for the same quest. Something.
As a before game thing or an in-game "Don't be a dick, find a way to participate" kind of thing?
But then I'm not used to games where the adventuring group comes together and then looks for things to do. The quest comes first and the group forms around it.
I might not be entirely sure what you mean but whenever their character conflicts with the game I guess. It rarely comes up really. We often do collaborate backgrounds. If we are doing a "great adventure thrust upon us" type scenario then you have to have a character that will participate.
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As a player, I find that a character is more fun to play when I have developed a back story for the character.
As a GM in a home brew campaign, I like to know something about the characters' personalities and backgrounds. It does provide plot hooks, although not the "your town has been leveled and your family kidnapped" sort of plot hooks. The majority of players do that to themselves. Back stories usually include some sort of traumatic event.
As a GM for PFRPG/PFS adventures, I find characters' backgrounds almost irrelevant. While I like to know something about the characters, I have not found a way to use the information.