I have found backstories to be an interesting side issue in character creation. If someone wants to play the mysterious stranger, with no family or connections, that's ok too, but I rarely encounter that. I've started campaigns with all of the characters knowing one another and some of them related and they had big backgrounds that gave them motivations. Those generally lasted a long time. But I've had "five strangers meet at the caravan hiring hall" too and that lasted a couple of years.

https://sites.google.com/site/grreference/home/05-the-black-mountain/at-the-high-point-inn

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;971742Worse! They slow the game down.

How do they slow the game down if they're done before the game starts? Serious question no snark intended.

Quote from: Voros;971737Backgrounds are the thin edge of Communism in gaming, obviously.

I don't get it. It seems like something to file under "Its an old school D and D thing, you wouldn't understand" then Live and Let Live.

Quote from: Nexus;971769I don't get it. It seems like something to file under "Its an old school D and D thing, you wouldn't understand" then Live and Let Live.

I suspect there is some degree of backlash to the smug, "more roleplayier than thou" attitude of some of the heavy background advocates of the late '80s and early '90s or similar experiences with that type.  The ones that I knew during that timeframe were too pathetically sophomoric to take anything they said seriously, and for me they were easy to avoid.  I can see how they would create a bad impression on someone that was working out how (and if) to use backgrounds.

Sometimes it feels like 90% of internet battles over RPGs is defensiveness over defining one's own turf in battles that took place in 1991, or 1977, or 2003.

There are legitimate reasons not to want backstory in characters (for the most part a desire to facilitate forward-looking and forward-derived plot hooks/motivations). However, it is legitimately not that big a deal.

Quote from: Nexus;971769I don't get it. It seems like something to file under "Its an old school D and D thing, you wouldn't understand" then Live and Let Live.

It's true that some Grumpy Old Bastards frequently come across as Grumpy just to be Grumpy and that doesn't help.

However, it also seems like there's a little bit of the "you must state publicly that you accept contrary preferences as perfectly valid or be branded the One True Wayist" going on.  At which point, of course, the Grumpy Bastard says "Nah, I don't give two shits what you do, and I still think it's stupid, and have an extra helping of go fuck yourself on top."

Add that to the normal "Every argument seen on a topic on the Internet gets rolled in and conflated with everything anyone else ever said on the topic." and statements on both sides are viewed through a lens where everyone starts with a chip on their shoulder.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;971745I have found backstories to be an interesting side issue in character creation. If someone wants to play the mysterious stranger, with no family or connections, that's ok too, but I rarely encounter that. I've started campaigns with all of the characters knowing one another and some of them related and they had big backgrounds that gave them motivations. Those generally lasted a long time.

I'd love to understand how big the backgrounds are (paragraphs, pages?) and how all the information helped.

Frank

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;971779I suspect there is some degree of backlash to the smug, "more roleplayier than thou" attitude of some of the heavy background advocates of the late '80s and early '90s or similar experiences with that type.  The ones that I knew during that timeframe were too pathetically sophomoric to take anything they said seriously, and for me they were easy to avoid.  I can see how they would create a bad impression on someone that was working out how (and if) to use backgrounds.

Yea, that's part of the problem for me, and to me, a big background may signal a "role player not roll player" type, who probably won't really fit my play style well. I DON'T consider it a success if we played for more than 15 minutes without the dice hitting the table.

Now that isn't to say that there are play styles where a long background is relevant AND the dice hit the table with regularity. Or that a play style where the dice hardly hit the table isn't enjoyable to those that play that way.

At this point in this discussion, I really want to understand how those of you GMs who like long backgrounds utilize them, and what constitutes a good long background, and what flags you might see that indicate a bad long background. Such knowledge would help me when a player who might enjoy my play style comes up with such a background, and I can point out how parts of their background support the play style they are used to, but don't help my play style without just dismissing them outright.

Frank

Quote from: CRKrueger;971782It's true that some Grumpy Old Bastards frequently come across as Grumpy just to be Grumpy and that doesn't help.

However, it also seems like there's a little bit of the "you must state publicly that you accept contrary preferences as perfectly valid or be branded the One True Wayist" going on.  At which point, of course, the Grumpy Bastard says "Nah, I don't give two shits what you do, and I still think it's stupid, and have an extra helping of go fuck yourself on top."

Add that to the normal "Every argument seen on a topic on the Internet gets rolled in and conflated with everything anyone else ever said on the topic." and statements on both sides are viewed through a lens where everyone starts with a chip on their shoulder.

Ask my wife about grumpy old bastards... Yea, this is a real problem. I will try not to be such a grumpy old bastard, on the flip side, I hope those grumpy young bastards will accept that other play styles are valid as well :-)

Frank

Quote from: CRKrueger;971782It's true that some Grumpy Old Bastards frequently come across as Grumpy just to be Grumpy and that doesn't help.

Yes, I do, in fact, have sand in my vagina. A pirate's occupational hazard.

Quote from: CRKrueger;971782However, it also seems like there's a little bit of the "you must state publicly that you accept contrary preferences as perfectly valid or be branded the One True Wayist" going on.  At which point, of course, the Grumpy Bastard says "Nah, I don't give two shits what you do, and I still think it's stupid, and have an extra helping of go fuck yourself on top."

It's fun seeing my posts and posting style interpreted by others. Especially when it's spot-on. Well done, Mean Green.

Oh, and hey, Nexus? I don't give two shits what you do, and I still think it's stupid, and have an extra helping of go fuck yourself on top.

And you never answered my question.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;969171What exactly are they invested in? Daydreaming about how cool their characters are when not facing challenges that bite back?

Since my posts so offend your delicate sensibilities, let me see if I can phrase this in a more acid-balanced, safe-for-all-time-zones way.

In my experience, many - but by no means all - gamers who write extensive backgrounds do so not to gain mechanical advantage - though those certainly exist, and I have encountered them - but because they already have an idea how they expect the character's 'career,' for lack of a better term, to play out. Their backstories tend less toward prequel and more toward foreshadowing, projecting conflicts into the game which hasn't even started yet. Given that anything in your backstory never occurred in actual play, it's not part of the shared experience around the table that develops from playing the game, a shared experience that includes dealing with hazards and challenges together.

Now, tell me, which provides a deeper form of investment: writing stuff down that never happened, not even to the player writing it, or reflecting on events and situations which arose from playing the game together?

Quote from: Black Vulmea;971819Now, tell me, which provides a deeper form of investment: writing stuff down that never happened, not even to the player writing it, or reflecting on events and situations which arose from playing the game together?

False 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.

First, a lot of what happens at the table that should be remembered isn't. Hence many GMs find they need to remind players of the important or relevant parts of what has gone before. Whether this occurs as an adventure write up or at the table in play these reminders are needed because players don't remember all of what has occurred at the table. In addition, some players really don't reflect on much of what happens in play. For them play is almost exclusively what happens at the table while they are at the table, not after or outside of play at the table. So there is little if any of the reinforcement from reflecting on events and situations which arose from playing the game together. Unless reminded, they forget details, nuance, and sometimes even the basics of what happened altogether. So those players might be a wash for whether written backstory or played in game is more of an investment. Might be, except for the fact that they are also the same sorts of players who don't reflect much on any pre-written background they create.

Second the writer may reflect as much or more on their lone creation than on some past events and situations of play. I suspect some narrow segment of background writing aficionados fall into that category. For reasons I'll mention later, I don't think having that guy or gal in the group is actually better for play at the table though.

Third 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.

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

1. Its is almost always remembered better. Stuff that happens at the table (even if it is not reinforced afterwards with retelling and write ups) will be remembered better than anything that is written up and not extensively reflected on. (There are various learning theories that explain this. I'm way to lazy -- and care too little -- to look up the references.)

2. At the table play is shared history. RPGs are a shared experience. (And even play with a single player and GM is still a shared experience between the two.) Shared at the table history reinforces a common view of the characters and their histories. And a common view is necessary for anything more than a very superficial interaction between the players and their PCs. In addition at the table history is shared nearly equally between the players and the GM. Aligning player views and GM views is a good thing for a shared activity.

3. Shared history takes advantage of other people's memories to help fill in the gaps between any one person's recollections and what actually happened.

Quote from: CRKrueger;971782It's true that some Grumpy Old Bastards frequently come across as Grumpy just to be Grumpy and that doesn't help.

No, I really AM grumpy.

Quote from: CRKrueger;971782However, it also seems like there's a little bit of the "you must state publicly that you accept contrary preferences as perfectly valid or be branded the One True Wayist" going on.  At which point, of course, the Grumpy Bastard says "Nah, I don't give two shits what you do, and I still think it's stupid, and have an extra helping of go fuck yourself on top."

You like me!  You really like me!

Write 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

Quote from: ffilz;971788I'd love to understand how big the backgrounds are (paragraphs, pages?) and how all the information helped.

Frank

The 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.

Here goes nothing...

QuoteNow, tell me, which provides a deeper form of investment: writing stuff down that never happened, not even to the player writing it, or reflecting on events and situations which arose from playing the game together?

Speaking 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 fanfiction. Background should be appropriate to the game and its premise. If you're supposed to playing fresh out of the gate you don't write "How I saved the world..." novellas.
 
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.

The 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.

But end of the day, its all just preferences. Backstories aren't required if something doesn't want them. Wanting them doesn't make you a 'better' role player But there's nothing objectively inferior or Badwrongfun about them. I don't get the urge to prove either case