Quote from: Nexus;971845Speaking for myself, its a false dichotomy as one leads to the other. I like creating a backstory as it grounds the character in the game, make them more 'real' and connected like a fleshed out person and not as pile of numbers on a peice if paper that seemed to spring from the earth and start doing stuff for reasons. I'm invested in the character, I want to see what happens to it, how their story (there's that word) again goes and how it ties into their past. The background gives e something to hang their future reaction too and their personality. People are shaped by their past and I like to know something about when I start playing a character. Its easier to get into their head when there's something there to get into. Really when a character isn't developed for me I'm not really invested in the game since they character feels flat and more like playing piece moving around an imaginary board than a character.

It seems like again this notion that 'backstory' has to be some kind of novel and that that novel is always going to be some kind of masturbatory story of awesome accomplishments like bad fiction. Background should be appropriate to the game and its premise. If you're supposed to playing fresh out of the gate. Also backgrounds aren't, IME, written in isolation in some secret cave to be revealed until the writer shoves them in the gms face. They are partially collaborative with gm veto over things that they just don't work for his vision of the game.

Jesus on a dead tree, two fucking paragraphs of blargal-blargal-blah-blah-blah which doesn't answer the fucking question, as if I need this shit explained to me. Yes, I get it, you can't just play pretend without first communing with Stanislavsky's ghost. Whatever-the-fuck-ever helps you hit your marks on time, trouper.

Which is another reason I dislike backstories, by the way - most of them suck because most gamers can't write to save a baby's life. Acuity and concision are the two most important modes of Papa's built-in, shockproof shit detector.

Fuck.

Quote from: Nexus;971845The difference suggested between in game and background event doesn't work for me since not it 'really happened especially not to the player. Its all imaginary just one thing involved rolling dice and the other didn't. One isn't more real, IMO, than the other. The method of creation is different and one is more interactive and social than the other, however.

To me, this is complete fucking insanity, because here's what I hear when I read this shit: 'Not playing the game is the same as playing the game, 'cause imagination.'

I roll the dice, I move my little shoe token to Oriental Avenue, I hand the banker-player a hundred bucks of play money, and I get a little pretend deed in return is not the same gawdamn thing as staring at the fucking pieces in the box. Not even a tiny bit.

Quote from: Bren;971835While I agree that for the vast majority of people those things that happen during play and are then retold and reflected on are play are remembered far better than something they went off in isolation and wrote up all by themselves .
 . .

Then that was the point to stop typing.

Quote from: Bren;971835False choice.

While I agree that for the vast majority of people those things that happen during play and are then retold and reflected on are play are remembered far better than something they went off in isolation and wrote up all by themselves and then never reflected back on. Those aren't the only two options in gaming.

...

There are three advantages I see to at the table 'history' over outside written history.

The way I read what you wrote, you are in agreement with Black Vulmea.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;971837Write all the backstory you want, but...

1) Don't expect me to remember anything that isn't contained in bullet points in a total of 25 words or less.  I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday, don't expect me to remember some obscure detail of your 20-page backstory

2) Don't write a backstory incompatible with the clearly-stated assumptions of my game, which includes starting at first level

Yea, that would totally work for me, except I might be a bit more lenient with the 25 words or less...

Point 2 is very important, but so is point 1, which I would read to mean communicate to the GM in a functional way what is important to the GM about your backstory so I can utilize it as appropriate.

Frank

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;971838The campaign with the biggest back stories began with my telling the players "After this campaign wraps up, let's start one where you are all young nobles in Old Meyoss (a big city which they knew about but it had never been the site of a campaign) but all of you have serious issues. Maybe your family lost all of its money, maybe you are out of favor with the government and the Bureau of State Security, maybe both. Maybe it is something I haven't thought of." They all had some weeks to come up with back-stories and I stood ready to edit, especially to avoid duplication. I got:
1: The son of the Chief of the Constabulary. His father was in hot water with the other nobles because he had gotten the government to allow his constables to arrest nobles and interfere in some of the crap they pulled. They also looked down on him because he had a job. The kid was proud of his father but most of the other noble kids avoided him.
2: The daughter of a noble house of the previous rulers of the city. Differing in both ethnicity and religion from the new rulers, the Sha are still a large minority and mixed-race people are probably the majority. I had outlined all that in my description of the setting but Joanne fit her character into it. She had the least money problems of all of the characters but the greatest social problems.
3: A youngster whose father had been a very important city official but had been arrested, tried secretly and executed by the Bureau. He and his family had the cash they had on hand and the house they lived in. He was probably the worst off. Maybe his social problems were greater too.
4: A young man who had gone against the wishes of his rural minor-noble family and come to the city to study at The Stone House, a school for Earth magicians. His mother sent him a small allowance but that only provided enough for his food and tuition.
5: A young woman who had inherited a little money from an aunt and gone against the wishes of her family and attended The School of Three Swords. The upper classes of the city, except for the Sha, are pretty patriarchal and she faced great disapproval.
This all impacted how they became allied, got involved in minor quarrels and a few duels, and eventually combatted the big problem facing the city, it was lousy with vampires.

Ok, cool, how big were these backgrounds? How many pages? Given the campaign premise, all sound fine, and I could see several paragraphs from each being useful though your short descriptions go a long ways.

Quote from: Bren;971835Third backstories can be created (or heavily edited) as a joint exercise as part of character creation. While I hear there are some new games that do that, even fairly old games like Star Wars D6 and Runequest 3 (see especially the Vikings and Land of Ninjas supplements) suggest doing exactly that. The collaborative creation provides some of the same advantages of table play including reinforcement by repetition and the greater knowledge of the group over a single individual. So the choice isn't write it up once and no one else thinks about it ever again. Collaborative writing takes advantage of two of the advantages of at the table history.

Oh, I meant to say something about this...

A joint exercise eliminates most of the issues I have with longer back stories, however, I would argue at that point, you are actually writing up something from in-game play. It's a different kind of play, it's not following the procedures your game uses to arbitrate player action, but it is still role play. In one sense, role play starts the moment the players (and GM if your game has a GM) start talking specifics of the game in order to start creating characters and placing them in a setting and situation.

So for me, the real problem back stories are those written in isolation, not based on anything that is a collaboration between the players (and GM). If it's written ONLY to inform the player, that's fine, but if the other players (and GM) are expected to affirm any of it, then it needs to be part of a collaborative effort.

I actually don't think any of us are actually in disagreement. Some of us may not enjoy the types of games where a longer back story may be appropriate, but I don't hear anyone expecting Gronan to memorize a 10 page back story. I don't hear anyone here expecting to write in an heirloom magic item or other in game advantage into their back story without approval from the GM.

Frank

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;9718371) Don't expect me to remember anything that isn't contained in bullet points in a total of 25 words or less.  I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday, don't expect me to remember some obscure detail of your 20-page backstory

I don't have an explicit limit, but I really like bullet points (and have since I reached a certain level of responsibility in business). And I'm not going to remember anything too long or involved. I have enough of that to remember as the GM with the stuff I make up. Remembering stuff other people make up is more difficult for me so I need it to be more concise.

On an unrelated point this is also why I find making up and running my own stuff to be easier than running published stuff. Published stuff needs to be good enough to overcome that added effort on my part.

Quote from: Nexus;971845Speaking for myself, its a false dichotomy as one leads to the other. I like creating a backstory as it grounds the character in the game, make them more 'real' and connected like a fleshed out person and not as pile of numbers on a peice if paper that seemed to spring from the earth and start doing stuff for reasons.

I get that. I haven't a roleplaying game where absolutely nothing about a character's background was known. At a minimum all systems I've ever seen have species (if there is more than one) and the character's past profession (even if that is simply a D&D class). Social rank is also fairly common as is some sort of cultural background even if it's as simple as Nomad, Barbarian, or City Dweller - though mostly I've seen those rolled for or paid for with a point buy. So its not that anyone is suggesting no background at all.

QuoteIt seems like again this notion that 'backstory' has to be some kind of novel and that that novel is always going to be some kind of masturbatory story of awesome accomplishments like bad fiction.

Yeah some folks need to show us on the doll where the bad backstory man touched them. :rolleyes:

QuoteThe difference suggested between in game and background event doesn't work for me since not it 'really happened especially not to the player. Its all imaginary just one thing involved rolling dice and the other didn't. One isn't more real, IMO, than the other. The method of creation is different and one is more interactive and social than the other, however.

One is experienced as an event and has no output other than memories (though often, but not always, the event is retold after the fact). Solitary writing is more a process with an output than it is an experienced event. So it is more real in the same sense that a baseball game you played is a real baseball game and in that sense is more real than a story about a baseball game you wrote. Which was never anything but imagination.

Quote from: ffilz;971866The way I read what you wrote, you are in agreement with Black Vulmea.

Nah. He's being a bit too extreme. And unlike Gronan, BV's too young to acceptably be crankier than am I.

Quote from: ffilz;971872So for me, the real problem back stories are those written in isolation, not based on anything that is a collaboration between the players (and GM). If it's written ONLY to inform the player, that's fine, but if the other players (and GM) are expected to affirm any of it, then it needs to be part of a collaborative effort.

I agree.

Quote from: Bren;971876One is experienced as an event and has no output other than memories (though often, but not always, the event is retold after the fact). Solitary writing is more a process with an output than it is an experienced event. So it is more real in the same sense that a baseball game you played is a real baseball game and in that sense is more real than a story about a baseball game you wrote. Which was never anything but imagination.

When it comes to creating fiction, I honestly don't see a difference. It all nothing but imagination. Really playing baseball is actual physical activity as opposed to reading a story about a baseball. Those things feel completely different not even really comparable whereas rpgs and writing feel much closer to together. But that's probably why I'm  "hippie storygamer" Its a different POV but I can see it even if i don't share it.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;971863Acuity and concision are the two most important modes of Papa's built-in, shockproof shit detector.

OT but people misunderstand Hemingway all the time. He was never claiming that concision was the end all and be all of writing. There are many great writers with a looser, baroque or rambling style. This is a guy who loved Proust, Dickens and Thackery, far from 'concise' writers.

Concise writing is a good policy for journalism and amateurs but fiction can take more forms and approaches than that.

Quote from: ffilz;971869Ok, cool, how big were these backgrounds? How many pages? Given the campaign premise, all sound fine, and I could see several paragraphs from each being useful though your short descriptions go a long ways.

That was your main question and I didn't answer it.

The guy whose dad was the Chief Constable wrote me a note saying pretty much what I said in his character description and we decided that he had been away training up as a knight for a couple of years and returned to find that the other nobles had pretty much turned against his family. Not a whole lot written. Joanne typed a one-page summary of her character being a Shah noblewoman and I approved it. It surprised me because it put more difficulties in her way. The guy whose dad had been executed wrote a page and I told him to cut out the bit about making his way alone in the slums. That might happen in the course of play and he might gain connections in the criminal underworld but he couldn't have them at the start of play. Bruce asked me what could make a rural noble family cut all connections with a second son, or at least threaten to, and we decided that taking the money he had for good armor and a war-horse and enrolling at the Stone House would do it. Not much written. The last player had always played magicians and she wanted to play something closer to her real self, she was a rugby player. So  we worked out the character together.

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https://sites.google.com/site/grreference/home/05-the-black-mountain

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;971917That was your main question and I didn't answer it.

The guy whose dad was the Chief Constable wrote me a note saying pretty much what I said in his character description and we decided that he had been away training up as a knight for a couple of years and returned to find that the other nobles had pretty much turned against his family. Not a whole lot written. Joanne typed a one-page summary of her character being a Shah noblewoman and I approved it. It surprised me because it put more difficulties in her way. The guy whose dad had been executed wrote a page and I told him to cut out the bit about making his way alone in the slums. That might happen in the course of play and he might gain connections in the criminal underworld but he couldn't have them at the start of play. Bruce asked me what could make a rural noble family cut all connections with a second son, or at least threaten to, and we decided that taking the money he had for good armor and a war-horse and enrolling at the Stone House would do it. Not much written. The last player had always played magicians and she wanted to play something closer to her real self, she was a rugby player. So  we worked out the character together.

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https://sites.google.com/site/grreference/home/05-the-black-mountain

So no books (1 page is long, but manageable), and the one player who wrote too much into his background was ok with your edit. Sounds cool.

It's unfortunate that some of us have run into folks who aren't cooperative with their back stories and get crosswise with the GM. Really though, when that happens, it's not really about the back story, it's about the player and the GM just not being compatible. Sometimes it's due to a player who has been abused by previous GMs and feels like the only way to have an interesting character is to write it all as back story. Other times it's just a player who doesn't understand the cooperative nature of the game and is self centered. Those experiences color the GMs (and other players) who have them, but should not sour us to back stories in general.

So hats off to folks who are willing to be cooperative and write something the GM can use.

And if you really are a frustrated author, save your masterpiece for the proper venue and when you find such be open to editing. In the meantime, if you also want to play RPGs, play them, don't try to ram your fiction where it isn't wanted...

Frank

Quote from: ffilz;971918And if you really are a frustrated author, save your masterpiece for the proper venue and when you find such be open to editing. In the meantime, if you also want to play RPGs, play them, don't try to ram your fiction where it isn't wanted...

Frank

Or find a group/GM that's more compatible with you and play with them.

Quote from: Nexus;971894When it comes to creating fiction . . .

I'm not creating fiction. I'm playing a game.

Quote from: Voros;971909OT . . .

Thank you for letting me know right off not to bother reading the rest of your post.

Quote from: Bren;971877He's being a bit too extreme.

When did 'create your character and start playing' become "extreme?"

'cause we need to figure out when and where that happened and go kick it in the fucking slats.

Quote from: Bren;971877. . . BV's too young to acceptably be crankier than am I.

Quote from: Nexus;971894When it comes to creating fiction, I honestly don't see a difference. It all nothing but imagination.

This.  Whether created in isolation or done at the table, events in the game are all just made-up. Someone who writes a backstory making their PC King of the World is no different from someone who plays Chaotic Crazy at the table - they're both suborning a group activity to their need to be the center of attention.