GM writing PC backstories

[niconini]

I have been playing pathfinder for about six months now, listening to pathfinder podcasts for about a year, and playing 5e for the last two years. I am preparing currently to run strange aeons with a standard four person party and I am thinking about writing some of the PCs backstories for them, but not really telling them much about themselves. Since their lost memories are a huge part of the story, it seems like it would be interesting to have them tell me a bit about themselves (where they're from, their early childhood, and their current personalities/motivations/goals) and then write most of their backstory for them. I just think it seems like the amnesia aspect won't be as interesting if they know their backstory but simply have to pretend to not remember it, or if they simply don't remember the last year or so when they were working for Lowls. Any thoughts on if this would go well would be incredibly helpful.

[The Black Bard]

I did something similar to this, so I'm gonna give the same advice I gave myself:

Make sure your players are okay with this! For a lot of players, backstory is something they consider "theirs" and get real upset at the idea of the DM tinkering with it. Even a partial backstory like your idea. So definitely explain the concept, how the PCs amnesia and where they come from is important to the story, but their backstory needs to likewise FIT the story, so you might have to take liberties with things.

Now, like I said, I did something similar. I warned my players that I would likely majorly mutilate and chop around backstories, just to keep the "discovering the truth" element sharp. So I wanted very barebones stuff, and in most cases, I got it. All my players were onboard, but at the same time, one did go a bit more detailed. While I was able to change a couple parts of his without making it unrecognizable, I had to take a different approach to really give the "big twist" that I was putting in all the others. So with that character I ended up changing the entire class they had prior to amnesia (nothing in the AP says they have to re-learn their old classes!).

I did also ask for a secret, a thing that would interact with the backstory (or not) and be in a sealed envelope shown during session 1 so everyone would know it wasn't pulled out of thin air when it was discovered later on in the game. My group hates retcons.

I can post some more detailed stuff, like what I did with backstories, but I won't clutter up the board unless you want it. Hope some of this helped!

[Shaun Hocking]

I gave my players a choice. Either they could have all their memories up to the last few years or they could have almost no memories at all (apart from a something like an image or scene or a fondly remembered name). One of the players drew up their own backstory but the other five have all gone in knowing next-to-nothing. Even with that they all clearly had (unstated) expectations and it's been fun to confound and twist those expectations. If your players buy-in to that, I'd recommend it for upping the atmosphere and themes of the AP.

[Tasfarel]

I told my players not to bother with their backstory. But as The black bard said i don´t wanted to take that entierly out of their hands. So i gave them a choice. Either they could provide me with some raw structure which was not so detailed or if the got no clue i could overtake the whole process.

Now they got their memories back and they where all very satified with it. I also gave my players the opportunity to fill in their own backstorry, provieded by me. If i get something i´ll pour it into the game as it is proceeding.

[niconini]

The Black Bard wrote:

I did something similar to this, so I'm gonna give the same advice I gave myself:

Make sure your players are okay with this! For a lot of players, backstory is something they consider "theirs" and get real upset at the idea of the DM tinkering with it. Even a partial backstory like your idea. So definitely explain the concept, how the PCs amnesia and where they come from is important to the story, but their backstory needs to likewise FIT the story, so you might have to take liberties with things.

Now, like I said, I did something similar. I warned my players that I would likely majorly mutilate and chop around backstories, just to keep the "discovering the truth" element sharp. So I wanted very barebones stuff, and in most cases, I got it. All my players were onboard, but at the same time, one did go a bit more detailed. While I was able to change a couple parts of his without making it unrecognizable, I had to take a different approach to really give the "big twist" that I was putting in all the others. So with that character I ended up changing the entire class they had prior to amnesia (nothing in the AP says they have to re-learn their old classes!).

I did also ask for a secret, a thing that would interact with the backstory (or not) and be in a sealed envelope shown during session 1 so everyone would know it wasn't pulled out of thin air when it was discovered later on in the game. My group hates retcons.

I can post some more detailed stuff, like what I did with backstories, but I won't clutter up the board unless you want it. Hope some of this helped!

Thank you this was incredibly helpful! I've talked to a couple of the players and so far they are down with it. They have never been the type to actually go too in depth with their backstories, and I was always the player to go way in depth with them, so they were fine with me writing the majority of theirs.

I would love to hear how you handled their backstories, if/how you tied them into the story and such. I have some ideas already but anything else would be helpful, thanks!

[Isthill]

I've mentioned this in other threads, but when I wrote my player's backstories I asked for a few things from each of them that they really wanted or didn't want in their backstories, then worked within those guidelines and what they were planning on building to make an "evil" version of that character.

So, the charismatic oracle who wants to save people used to be a cleric of an elder god who left people alive to convert them to his evil religion, the scholar wizard who is focused on getting revenge on Lowls used to be a researcher bard who worked with him to satisfy her own morbid curiosity, the intelligent and tactical fighter who thought he might be a fallen god was a raging and violent barbarian, and the CG inquisitor of a CN deity was an evil antipaladin. Taking their choices and inverting them.

The theme I tried to stick to was how making different choices in response to trauma leads to being a good or bad person. I outlawed paladins as well, since I felt like they would steamroll this campaign and not be as fun to work with, but it could be an interesting route for a player.

[Daeryon]

The way I've handled this is:

#1. I give the players full permission to write their backgrounds. My deadline was that they had to have it in to me by the end of In Search of Sanity. If they did not want to, they could give me permission to write their background. (I was suprised how many said "you write it").

#2. I made clear to them that I had full editing rights to their stories, but I would talk it over with them.

#3. I made clear to them that their stories had to END 2 years ago.

#4. I made clear to them that I owned the last 2 years of their stories.

#5. When I designed the last 2 years, I kept in mind the character and tried not to do anything completely out of bounds.

So examples:

A Swashbuckler wrote a detailed 3 page story of her birth, early life and adventures around Golarion with a pirate crew of Gripplis.
I wrote about how they were attacked by slavers during a sea battle and the Swashbuckler was captured and sold into slavery. Weirali bought the Swashbuckler and gave them to Lowls. While working for Lowls the Swashbuckler was largely hired muscle. Lowls had promised freedom and a small boat in exchange for loyal service. Little did the Swashbuckler know that Lowls would double-cross them.

A catfolk figher let me write their background. She was a savage from an isolated tribe in the Mwangi. etc etc. Caputured by slavers, bought by Weirali, given to Lowls as a joke (Since he hates cats). Lowls hated the character and made her sleep in the barn, and work the gatehouse. She was forbidden in the main house.

A Cleric of Irori (Lawful Good), let me write their background. The background is they were actually a Lawful EVIL cleric of Irori who was very interested in the Elder Gods and worked for Lowls voluntarily.

Etc.

[uafbum]

I got lucky with my playgroup. They were on board with the idea that, from book 1 their characters were in their hands to decide what they would do, but that their past was entirely within my purview (i.e. the "blank slate" start). We are running with the "Players remember nothing about their past at all" rather than the last 5 years, and it has been interesting to see how the backstories I had written up and been keeping secret have been very close to what the players have created. I've been able to enhance some of the encounters by playing up memory recollections when they find out certain information (like learning about the bar brawl in book 2, obv the revenant, and for one of the players the defunct Iron Maiden in the fort triggered an unpleasant memory), and the Dreamlands excursions have been giving them more glimpses into their past actions more and more, leading up to when they complete book 3 and regain their memories. I will admit, I've added some personal touches to the dreamlands quests that will be giving more hints and glimpses of the players' pasts.

If your party is on board with it, it really does help enhance the aspect of rediscovering who they are (and deciding if that's who they want to be).

Another option, would be what Benchak's group did, and have the players write each other's backstories (round robin style) and remit it to you.

[Benchak the Nightstalker]

Like uafbum says, I had my players write each other’s backstories, round robin style. It was one of the highlights of our Strange Aeons game.

My rules for it were:

—Leave off the past ~5 years for me to fill in.
This was so I could handle the stuff about how they came to work for Lowls, their various crimes in Town, etc.

—Include a flaw or moral failing of some kind.
One of the big themes in the AP is coming to grips with the fact that you were a bad person in your former life, and having to confront the question of whether or not your fate is already sealed by those past actions. We ended up with a good spread of character flaws. One character was a former drug addict, another was an Ex-Groetan who sacrificed her friend in an end-times ritual, etc.

—I will adjust as needed to make the backstory work for the campaign.
I ended up using almost all of them as-is, with little to no adjustment. I did have a slight advantage in that one of my players was Jim Groves, who wrote book 6, and so knew the broad strokes of the AP’s plot. He wrote the backstory of the character who was a former slave, and tied the whole thing in to the events of Book 4, even name dropping some NPCs from that book.

—Include an Easter Egg in their starting equipment, or on their person.
This wasn’t a rule I came up with, but something that a few of my players did on their own, and everybody seemed to really enjoy it. For example:
One person’s backstory explained that they got their sword as a gift from their sister, so the sister’s name was engraved on the blade.
Another person was an ex-Groetan, so when they woke up they discovered strange moon symbols tattooed on their back.
This made the scene where they find their equipment super fun, because instead of just being standard adventurer stuff, it turned into a little pile of clues. The player who found the sword assumed that the name on the blade was his, and so started off the AP going by Nym, only to later learn that his name was something else entirely—so who was Nym?!

The best part of the whole thing was at the end of book 3, when I got to hand out their backstories. Not only was it a delight for them to learn about who they were, they also got to have fun showing off their work to each other.

[uafbum]

I will admit, I cribbed the "Easter Egg" idea from Benchak's previous posts in the Astrapi Miros thread. And it's worked out very well in my campaign as well. The flaws aspect I've cribbed as well, though for my party I used the seven deadly sins (as they've already been tied into on other APs like RotRL and Shattered Star). I think two of my players have caught on to the sin I have in their background (lust and wrath), with the other three blissfully ignorant of theirs (vanity, pride, greed).

I did let my players know that they weren't good people in the past, and one of the players is dutifully trying to account for his past actions with current good deeds. I have a feeling one of my players will absolutely embrace their past backstory, and the other three will probably incorporate parts of their past with what they have played their characters as.

Also, definitely scour the forums for advice/issues/things you would change etc. It has more than helped me in preparing to run this adventure, knowing what others have done or had issues with!

[TheFlyingPhoton]

In my campaign, I told them they could give me as much of a backstory as they wanted, but be open to me changing it.

One player came up with zero background, giving me full permission to make it whatever I wanted. One player gave me an ultra-detailed backstory that, in any other campaign, he would have been the guy that writes a backstory that doesn't fit the campaign or the fluff of any of the mechanical options he picked (and the fluff of his mechanical choices conflicted with each other), and it was the background of a person who couldn't possibly be first level (but because it was this AP, it was fine). The others gave me one-note vague backgrounds that were extremely pliable (mainly it was "this is the category of my backstory and here's one event").

Thanks to what they gave me, the only changes I needed to make to backstories involved adding details rather than taking anything away or altering what they had given me, even the player with the ultra-detailed backstory (and that was largely thanks to the one player giving me a blank slate to work with, allowing me to tie their backgrounds together).

The only player that had a problem with the final results was one of the middle-of-the-road-backstory guys. His character had the personality of a certain Disney character, so we would make jokes that part of his personal background was the plot of that Disney movie. I never realized he actually wanted that as part of his backstory, so when I wrote them out, I did not include a plot summary of a Disney movie in the letter I gave him. He whined about it, so I declared that it was part of his backstory, it just wasn't written on the paper, but completely fit with everything else I put in there (both in terms of room for the events to happen and fitting thematically with the other events I had written). He still gave me crap over it for months.

[Tasfarel]

TheFlyingPhoton wrote:

The only player that had a problem with the final results was one of the middle-of-the-road-backstory guys. His character had the personality of a certain Disney character, so we would make jokes that part of his personal background was the plot of that Disney movie. I never realized he actually wanted that as part of his backstory, so when I wrote them out, I did not include a plot summary of a Disney movie in the letter I gave him. He whined about it, so I declared that it was part of his backstory, it just wasn't written on the paper, but completely fit with everything else I put in there (both in terms of room for the events to happen and fitting thematically with the other events I had written). He still gave me crap over it for months.

Wow, seems like a player to have fun with - i hate those kinds of poeple and probably would have dropped him for that. After all you are the GM and said it right at the beginning you might change it so it fits with the plot.

For my first group:

They got their memory back and here is a generall overview of their backstory´s where i used a mix of my stuff with their individual thoughts.

Danda is elderly gnomish bard which was part of an artistic group. Her children where killed during a coup on Lowls life some years ago during a privat show for some high ranked politicians. The poeple behind this coup where never been caught. Lowls promised her revenge, if she agreed to spy for him. She agreed

Wes is a young mage who worked for a secret society before he met Lowls. One day he was tasked to kill an elven politician and her family. Since he killed the she-elf and her husband. Killing the child in his sleep was to much for him. He ran away. Later he got caught by his former associates and was brought to the moon-prision in the dreamlands as pushinement. There he was bought from Wairalay and later on sold to Lowlth.

Cinty, an half elf cleric, failed her village as she was a young child. She met a young drow boy who ran away from home. Providing him with a map of her village, she doomed her clan. The boy was caught by his parents, they got the map and killed everyone at the village. Cinty was exiled for her crimes. Her uncle was a high ranking officer of an elvish secret service. He offered her retribution if she could spy on Lowlth and bring back some vital information about his plans and strange behavior in the last years. To get close to the count, she became his mistress.

Brüllwiesel got cast out by his clan when his bloodrager powers manifested themself. Later on he was caught by slavers and was destined to get killed by wolfs in an arena for amusemet. But he refuses his fate, killing the beasts with his bare hands. Afterwards he was given to Lowlth as a gift by his old buisness partner biting lash.

Agnes, a young human female got caught breaking into Iris hill. Her father got very sick and needed medicine. Cause her family was not very rich, she tried to steal the money needed. So she made a deal with the devil. From this day on, she "fetched" stuff for the count whenever he needed something he could not buy with money and Lowlth payed for the medicine, her father needed.

All lived in Iris hill for some time and all got introduced to risi back in the day.

For my second group i´ll post by the time they get their memories back

[Revan]

I pregenerated a seletion of characters for my players. If the campaign can hold together long enough for them to get to the point of recovering their memories, I'll give them the broadly drawn backstories I have, and let them fill in anything else from there.