Quote from: jeff37923;1046579Were your cats in it?

Not this time. I didn't put them in on purpose before, they just came over. Anyways, if they were always in it, there wouldn't be the element of surprise.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1046569So you want monopoly pieces?  Single dimensional 'characters' that only have one thing in mind:  LOOT!  

Nope. Seen lots of cool well characterised PCs developed in play without a prewritten backstory.

Edit: Possibly unfair, but your "So you want monopoly pieces?" line did remind me of this...

"I'm going to use the character's backstory if I feel like it. I'm not going to use it if I don't feel like it."

There, done, now where did I leave that beer:D?

Quote from: S'mon;1046598Nope. Seen lots of cool well characterised PCs developed in play without a prewritten backstory.

Edit: Possibly unfair, but your "So you want monopoly pieces?" line did remind me of this...

LOBSTERS!

Thing is, your 'reason' to adventure IS a backstory.  Because motivations are informed by personal, previous life experience.

'Why are you adventuring?'

Possible Answers:

'It's all I know.'  Possible histories, mercenary soldier, street thief, wandering squire (former or otherwise.)

'I want power.' Do I really need to spell this one out?  And there are very valid reasons that don't involve megalomania.

'I have X goal and need to get X.' Another back story!  And another, and another.

And here's the thing, the DM IS using their player's backstory when they run a game and asking that very question.

One more thing!  /Uncle  What about those games that aren't your simple monster mash dungeon crawls?

This November I'm running a City Watch campaign, where players will be playing medieval 'cops'.  Are backstories and histories bad here too?

No back story works in nothing but a dungeon crawl where the most interaction with NPC's is the barkeep or shopkeep where you sell your loot.  But in a Hex Crawl, where there are villages and kingdoms interspersed with places to explore, where plausibly there would be NPC's to deal with...

So in the middle of a country, in the middle of a map, a bunch or random adventuring types, whom have apparently, sprouted from the earth like soldiers from the hair of Son Goku/Son Wukong, are expected to be treated with respect in a world that doesn't know them?  What if a player walks into a village on your map, decides this is where he came from, is he now ejected from the game because he had the temerity to actually create a hook (even if he just wanted a free place to sleep and eat for a night) that the DM can use to give hints at adventure?

And I've come up against an issue with the 'Adventure Coupon' maligning I've been seeing about.  Let's say the DM decides to let player X suddenly claim this village as home.  So the Adventurers are S&S types who want to adventure on their own, seek it out, but as they don't know what exactly is in the hex, they ask around at the local inn, or even locals.  And a bunch of them mention undead barrows, a ruined castle and some goblin warrens, but NOT ONE OF THEM asks for help, letting the players decide what to do.

Are those Adventure Coupons?  If yes, then every single D&D game with a Hex Crawl gives them out.  If no, is it because players have a choice to go and pick one from many?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1046677No back story works in nothing but a dungeon crawl where the most interaction with NPC's is the barkeep or shopkeep where you sell your loot.  But in a Hex Crawl, where there are villages and kingdoms interspersed with places to explore, where plausibly there would be NPC's to deal with...

So in the middle of a country, in the middle of a map, a bunch or random adventuring types, whom have apparently, sprouted from the earth like soldiers from the hair of Son Goku/Son Wukong, are expected to be treated with respect in a world that doesn't know them?  What if a player walks into a village on your map, decides this is where he came from, is he now ejected from the game because he had the temerity to actually create a hook (even if he just wanted a free place to sleep and eat for a night) that the DM can use to give hints at adventure?

For my newest campaign (a play by chat on Dragonsfoot) I'm currently running 'Morgansfort & Beyond', which has lots of NPCs, set in the Wilderlands of High Fantasy near the City State. PCs are a Skandik from Sea Rune, a medieval Englishman, and an Elf - that's their total backstories. They are adventurers, looking for adventure, exactly what is up to them. They decided not to take the princess of Modron they rescued in their first adventure to her unwanted arranged marriage - they made a moral decision to let her stay with them incognito (plus her 1st level Cleric skills are handy). In Morgansfort They get the typical amount of respect due wandering adventurer types who kill unwanted goblins and don't rape the barmaids.

It's not rocket science.

I am cool with PC backstories...but you get 100 words.

That's PLENTY of words to give the GM ideas and create a strong roleplaying framework for the player.

My players have been very happy with it. 100 words forces players to focus on whats important, tighten their ideas and revise their concept. Or just write less.

From my side as GM, I'm getting better material and more usable material...and its easy to read, digest and remember.

Quote from: S'mon;1046682For my newest campaign (a play by chat on Dragonsfoot) I'm currently running 'Morgansfort & Beyond', which has lots of NPCs, set in the Wilderlands of High Fantasy near the City State. PCs are a Skandik from Sea Rune, a medieval Englishman, and an Elf - that's their total backstories. They are adventurers, looking for adventure, exactly what is up to them. They decided not to take the princess of Modron they rescued in their first adventure to her unwanted arranged marriage - they made a moral decision to let her stay with them incognito (plus her 1st level Cleric skills are handy). In Morgansfort They get the typical amount of respect due wandering adventurer types who kill unwanted goblins and don't rape the barmaids.

It's not rocket science.

So why did they betray their employer?  Why are they OK with being untrustworthy hires by anyone who knows of them?  What in their history made them decide that sort of action is OK?  (Not a moral judgement, but rather what informed their personal choice?)  Because if they suddenly do the exact opposite in an other situation, there goes consistency and NPC reactions go more or less out the window.

A back story is NECESSARY, if you want to make sure your players don't suddenly switch 'alignments' (Whether or not you use them, or the system has them) and suddenly they do something incredibly evil/scummy for anything other than, "Meh, felt like it."

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1046464Bullshit.  If players want to give me things to use against them, the less work it is for me and added bonus of players knowing they added a little something to the game, which invariably makes them happy.  And if your players are happy, they play along with you, than against you.  (and don't start on 'coddling' players, that's boring.  Give them a challenge, but don't TPK them because you feel the need to swing the e-peen around.).

Expletives aside, this!  Whatever invests the player in the game is a win-win for me.  And if they want to give me stuff to use, great.  Now, one character is still one of many, and no one gets to monopolize the spotlight.  But its really their story in the end.  I'm just the executive producer.

Quote from: Herne's Son;1046519For a long time, I tried to let my players run rampant with backstories. I seriously would get things of 25+ pages. Then after three or four campaigns ground to a halt because I couldn't tie all the threads together, I told my players I wouldn't accept backstories longer than 100 words. That was still a pain in the ass.

The last campaign I ran, I told the players essentially that "your backstory is your race and class. Give me -one- reason why you're adventuring." and we ran with it. Best campaign I ever ran (lasted 4 years before life intervened and we had to put it on hold).

Yeah, I don't do that either -- mostly because I won't read a 25 page backstory and my players know it.

These days, the only homework I ask for is the 3x3x3.  And I don't even ask for all that.  Just give me 1x1x1 and I'm happy.  I also ask for a single location that the hero likes to go to in town and why.  Think about it, when you go visit your home, or relatives, don't you have at least 1 place you like to drop in on?  A bar?  A FLGS?  A restaurant?  I figure the characters are no different.  So tell me what it is and why.  I find that between these two things, I don't really need a backstory.  And if you give me one, it's gotta be short.  One paragraph.  If its more than a page, I'm not gonna read it.  But if you give it to me, I'm going to try and use it.

Tom

Caveat: When I ran B/X d&d, I told my players explicitly NOT to get too attached to their characters.  Because old school d&d is ugly.  And if that's what you're playing, you don't want a player handing over a page of hard wrought backstory only to get sacrificed to Orcus in the first 30 minutes of play.  That's just going to leave a bad taste in their mouth.  So set expectations accordingly.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1046551I think, after having watched the video, that what stuck me most was the dichotomy between an emergent story and a prescribed one, If five players have all written backstories that contain NPCS, enemies, hooks and themes on which to base the campaign the best a GM can do is blend those things together, with perhaps a little room for his/her own input. It doesn't leave a lot of room for any surprises IME and can get predictable, contrived and bland.

Add a little chaos to the mix and roll your characters, roll their background and remember that less is more in some cases, because it leaves more to be discovered about your PC. Imagine the face of the player of Luke Skywalker finding out that his PC is the son of Vader, rather than writing it in a three page backstory and waiting for it to turn up.



No, because Traveller, like other randomly rolled life-paths are an emergent story. Your PC is "the Belter who Lived" and in CT that fkn means something. Or "crikey I'm the heir to a star-system, well fugg me" cos you rolled that, and not wrote it up like a kid writing a list to Santa and hopiing Dungeon Master Clause will green light it.

Oh and there is no badwrongfun, just as there is no goodrightfun. And that means backstories are not part of goodrightfun.

Agree, and I think the main point was not to allow highly detailed backgrounds to overwhelm the game, not to exclude back stories entirely.

In Star Wars Luke's father had been killed in the past, and it develops into he was a Jedi killed by Vader (according to Obi Wan). In Empire it turns out Luke's father WAS Vader. Leaving gaps and vagueness in a background leaves room for the GM to create these kinds of developments.

It is like some want to play the game before it even starts.

Quote from: Blusponge;1046701Caveat: When I ran B/X d&d, I told my players explicitly NOT to get too attached to their characters.  Because old school d&d is ugly.

The vulnerability of 1st level characters factors unti this a lot. If your player has written a five A4 sheet of backstory, the DM could feel that he/she has to fudge it if the character dies in the first adventure.

Fug that. If i thought I had a whinger in the group that had written a backstory and therefore felt he/she deserved impunity, I would make every die roll in front of the players (I usually do, amyaway) and watch the twat get his PC killed.

IME a defining charactersitic in OSR is that you must never over-estimate your PCs ability. Especially starting out.

I suspect somebody thinking their PC is the central protagonist in the groups "story" is likely to do that.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1046713Agree, and I think the main point was not to allow highly detailed backgrounds to overwhelm the game, not to exclude back stories entirely.

Agreed, absolutley. But then, some folks love a false dichotomy and a straw man to go with it.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1046713It is like some want to play the game before it even starts.

Indeed the emergent story is one you witness over the course of several sessions. The prescribed backstory is one that is brought by one indivual player as a script for them to act out. This has parralells with the GM railroadiing and writing out a story for the players to act out.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1046697So why did they betray their employer?  

It was a reward offered, they weren't employed per se. As for why - I don't have to care, that's up to them. I just present the consequences.

Why are they OK with being untrustworthy hires by anyone who knows of them? What in their history made them decide that sort of action is OK? (Not a moral judgement, but rather what informed their personal choice?) Because if they suddenly do the exact opposite in an other situation, there goes consistency and NPC reactions go more or less out the window.

A back story is NECESSARY, if you want to make sure your players don't suddenly switch 'alignments' (Whether or not you use them, or the system has them) and suddenly they do something incredibly evil/scummy for anything other than, "Meh, felt like it."


I completely disagree with you, this doesn't match my experience at all. Players who develop their PCs in play tend to play much better than the ones who create long backstories.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1046713Agree, and I think the main point was not to allow highly detailed backgrounds to overwhelm the game, not to exclude back stories entirely.

In Star Wars Luke's father had been killed in the past, and it develops into he was a Jedi killed by Vader (according to Obi Wan). In Empire it turns out Luke's father WAS Vader. Leaving gaps and vagueness in a background leaves room for the GM to create these kinds of developments.

It is like some want to play the game before it even starts.

Yes. This! George Lucas GMing FTW!

I've been thinking about this a lot since I started running Stars Without Number games over the past few years. The switch from characters with backstory to characters who have up front goals and very little backstory has been refreshing, but it has taken some getting used to as a GM. I always had final say over backstory ideas, but I liked having them around so I could mine them for adventure ideas. Now, having the players state their character goals gives me better adventure ideas. And if they have some bit of backstory that they really want, well, we can throw that in too, because it's just going to end up being a source of trouble for them anyways, right?

My players who have made the switch to backstory-light characters took some time to come around, but I think it's working out well.

The most interesting thing about the video, however, is the discussion of emergent-vs-prescribed narratives.  This too is something that I've changed drastically about my GMing. I encourage the players to build narratives and make their characters the big heroes in their stories.  Except I tell them to do it AFTER the adventure is finished. Because that is exactly what we do in real life when we process our experiences: each individual fits everything into a narrative that has himself/herself at the center of the drama. That's both a strength and failing of humans. We do it as individuals, we do it as society. History is still a narrative that has a beginning, a middle, an end, and lessons learned in the conclusion of the drama.

When the PCs are finished their absolute nonsense shenanigans that, at the time, was totally weird and made no sense, they will sit around the table at the tavern, and swap stories about the events. The same process should occur at the game table as the players and GM make sense of whatever madness occurred. Sometimes, it'll be easy to figure out a story, sometimes it will be more challenging. And just like in real life, the participants in those events will actually know that they're making history as they carry out some monumental task. We've all had those gaming moments where you know in the thick of it, that something huge is going down.  And sometimes you'll have no clue until after the fact, even if your companions are much more aware of the moment than you are.  That's cool too!

What if you just gave all the PC's the same backstory?