or Background limits character.

Okay prepare yourselves for a bit of a rant.

Recently I met ...let's call him Fred. Fred's a pretty passive player, not reactive mind you, passive. He loves to game. He's pretty okay when it comes to the roleplaying stuff, a "has his moments" kind of player. So, I already told you guys about my Burning Honor campaign, right?

Anyways everybody comes up with these way cool tragic detailed filled - nothin' fancy, no overboarders - character backgrounds, but when it came to Fred all he said was, "No idea, man..sorry, I'm not too good at this kind of thing".

So I'm like, "Just give me somethin'...you know somethin' to work off" and still nothing. Now this guy was not trying to be problematc or anything, but his wife who also games, told me that he really does not "do" this part well.

So I say, okay just answer three questions then. What's your name ? Got any family? What is your character currently doing and how long has he been doing it?

So, he gives me his character's name and "have a wife and two kids and my uncle lives with us...no other family and I joined the Road Wardens when I reached the required age and have been doing this ever since". And this my friends is all he wrote.

But we'ev had three sessions now, and it's fantastic. I mean the way how I see it, is that charcters should evolve during play. And when one starts out with very little, there is room to grow. All the other players seem preprogrammed so to speak, but this character seems to be real and changing. Every reaction is a discovery, not something based on any pre existing notion of what this character would do based on his background.

And don't give me the "hooks" that came with backgrounds...because you know what, as a GM it's my job to throw stuff out there. It's my job to present opportunities for players to discover their characters.

I'm really beginning to think, that detailed backgrounds really limit characters and players. Esp for contemporary games. I mean realisitcally we don't live very eventful lives. There is nothin' much to say about "our" backgrounds. The great thing about your character having an adventure, is that something out of the ordinary happens. That's the beginning. That's where you develop a character.

So, maybe I'll get some mundane characters in the beginning, but I'm convinced that as the campaign progresses, they will become extraordinary.

Okay, rant over.

Regards,
David R

I like the middle ground on this issue.  A few background details are nice, and  I do appreciate a few hooks to work with, but too much is a drag.  Especially if the player is LOOOONG winded.  I do not want to read pages and pages of bad writing.

BTW, although it was quite sparse, the background your player came up with seemed kind of cool to me.  Particularly the uncle detail.

Although the background was a bit slim I'm not a fan of extensive character backgrounds.  I like to develop the characters with my players much like a TV series and I'll even allow a few continuity gaffs to creep in if it works for all parties.

This also allows me as a GM to introduce aspects of a players background (with their permission of course ) as an integral part of a scenario; long lost siblings; rich uncles; black sheep etc.

Seems to me your player needed to be helped along a bit, but with your help came up with just enough background to satisfy both of you.  I think many GM like to have a little bit of background from their players, but prefer to see it kept somewhere between a paragraph and a page.  

The problem that crops up frequently when players write many pages of detailed background is the same one that frequently occurs when a GM proudly announces: "I've been working hard on this game, guys!  I wrote 20 pages this weekend!"  In both cases, they've stopped role-playing, or interacting with the rest of the group to create a fun story (and kick ass, shoot the breeze, and munch on Cheetos, etc.) and are now writing fiction all by themselves.  They can get less and less interested in input from anyone.

There are exceptions to everything, of course; I have seen great players and GMs write long backgrounds and adventures.  But they're the exception in my circle, where 2 to 6 paragraphs can cover a lot more ground in the long run by providing story hooks but not finished stories.

Someone once said that "Character background is what you have at 10th level"*, and while I don't think it's absolute, it's a good way to think now and again. Find out who the character is by taking him there.  Start with a clear, simple personality and motivation, and the hooks can fall into place later on.  For now, just drive.

Sure, I like detailed character histories, too, but I myself don't exert myself to create them because, then, I'm exerting myself and I feel as thought I must excel and be real interesting.

Which is why I like the "One-Line Character Concept" idea.  

"A morose warrior-poet who seeks to kill the man who stole his wife."  "An aging IISS administrator who wants to get out from behind the desk and be First In again."  "A rebellious teenaged hacker who wants to impress the girls with his slick cowboy skills."

Those guys are easy to pick up on, and the adventures are out there, waiting for them...

*Or similar.

Quote from: David R[...] the way how I see it, is that charcters should evolve during play. And when one starts out with very little, there is room to grow. All the other players seem preprogrammed so to speak, but this character seems to be real and changing. Every reaction is a discovery, not something based on any pre existing notion of what this character would do based on his background.

That's good that this guy comes up with stuff in play, but my experience is that usually players don't. If they're not imaginative about their character before the campaign, they won't be during it, either. The player who says, "I know the character has no friends, relatives, enemies, personality traits, or history - but these will develop in play!" - no, they don't. The blank character remains blank.

I think it's related to the thing of how some players want their characters to be cool, and others want their character to do cool things. Some players are quite happy to have 157% Sword skill, and never use it - they're just being cool. Others get a big thrill when their character scores a critical hit - whether it was a critical hit with 4% skill or 99% skill they don't care - they're doing cool things.

My experience is that the player who won't give you any character background is often also the player who wants to have a character who is cool, has high numbers next to a big list of abilities; the player who has the character background doesn't match so well the "do cool things" one, because sometimes they're so attached to their background that they're constantly disappointed by the game sessions not being like it.

I think the best way is a middle way, make your character like a chess game - only a few different pieces with different moves, but from those different pieces and moves develops a different thing - from simplicity develops complexity, an "emergent system" in fancy-talk.

So for example in my current game group we're running through a lawless postapocalyptic world, and one of the players took a character with the traits, "law-abiding" and "loyal to family" - and the other PCs, not law-abiding, are his family. So with just two background or personality traits, this creates complexity in play; his behaviour isn't arbitrary or simply adventurous, there's an internal tension which is expressed in external tension, "what the fuck are you guys doing?! You can't do that!"

He didn't need a big long writen-up background for this, he just wrote down two traits. But then in the group are others who won't even do that - they just wrote down lists of abilities. Their characters aren't as interesting, and no stories originate from their characters - things happen, but those things have no pattern or point to them.

Quote from: David RAnd don't give me the "hooks" that came with backgrounds...because you know what, as a GM it's my job to throw stuff out there. It's my job to present opportunities for players to discover their characters.

The GM throws out the hooks, but the player has to give the GM something to hook into. By the kind of background and personality you give your character, you're telling me the sorts of adventures and stories you'd like to experience.

For example, a player who writes of their character, "was orphaned as a child by attack by evil wizard and seeks revenge" is obviously looking for a different kind of adventure or story compared to the player who writes, "had a loving family and looks after his old uncle, expects to inherit the lordship of the land when he dies." If those two players wrote nothing, I might give each stuff that bored them.

Quote from: David RI'm really beginning to think, that detailed backgrounds really limit characters and players. Esp for contemporary games. I mean realisitcally we don't live very eventful lives.

I don't know that they limit anyone. On the contrary, they can open things up. I suppose if it were a novel-length background, both player and GM might say, "well shit, where do we go from there?" But if it's just a paragraph of two, or a list of personality and background traits, I see that as opening up possibilities.

I think the key is for things to be inspirational, for there to be obvious sources of tension - the classic clashes of love vs duty, fear vs desire, and so on.

Our lives seem uneventful, but mostly because we're used to them - they seem quite eventful when we describe them to others. And background isn't just about events, it's about personality and depth. Just because a character doesn't have some great tragedy or triumph in their background doesn't mean there's nothing to them, no depth or interest. The tragedy and triumph can come later, with the decisions they make - but what shapes those decisions? Why choose one thing over another? As the actors like to say, "what's my motivation?" Why does the PC give a shit about this adventure?

Quote from: David RSo, maybe I'll get some mundane characters in the beginning, but I'm convinced that as the campaign progresses, they will become extraordinary.

Good luck. I'm hopeful for you, but I'm not optimistic. If your player can't think of anything much before the campaign starts, you won't find them much more imaginative during play.

I think little or no background is okay. Some of the best games I've run have been with pcs that have minimal background.

I know what you're getting at David, it just seems to me that there is a lot of variables that are assumed to be fixed.  To name a few:  character generation system, campaign premise, genre, advancement system, etc...  I've designed campaign structures, with system x, based on players like that and for some games it's needed, others not so much.

The important thing is knowing who your character is.

David almost gets it right, background detail is sometimes irrelevant.  I've had characters whom I had whole life stories for, and characters I had a couple of lines for, as well as characters I had absolutely nothing for beyond class and race.

But background isn't always irrelevant.  In any character, any person, that personality had to come from somewhere, and sometimes that personality can grow for a player in first coming up with a story, and then finding how that story affected the character.  

It's just a matter of inspiration, and everyone gets it in different ways, and even individually it varies.  

It's a very fluid, organic process, that isn't really very predictable, and trying to pin down any specific method for finding the heart of a character is foolhardy.

It depends on the game format. For a one-short or short-term campaign you have to frontload, there's just no way. For a long-term or open-ended game frontloading is almost harmful, especially when it comes to PC motivations.

I may have spent all of one hour thinking about that PC's motives, and I don't want to be hit over the head with them for the next 12 months by a GM who thinks he's doing me a favor by constantly playing to my "flags."

Also, what J Arcane said. And David's player probably does know what his character is. Everyone does, funnily enough. He may just think it'll sound too vague or boilerplate when verbalized.

Okay everyone has raised interesting points..and I'll get to them, but for now I'll just continue from where I left off.  I need to ramble on a little more.

The dungeon - metaphorically speaking of course - or "why are we going into" it has always been my main concern when it comes to gaming. I suppose I'm talking about motivation...character motivation...when the answer or I think an answer which I casually dimissed before , "because it's there" had more going for it then I first thought.

I mean, this is the game part of rpgs which I've always kinda of neglected. Characters going for adventures, well, just because they're going for adventures. Some of my recent games have had this kind of "because it's there" vibe and the results have been pretty impressive charcter-wise IMO. Well there certainly is a difference which has been noticed by both my players and me.

The players in my OtE campaign for instance were discouraged from making overly complicated/detailed backgrounds. There were a couple of reasons why I wanted very little background info. The first, was because the events of the campaign happen over the course of twenty four hours, and I thought that I had more then enough "stuff" to keep them occupied without relying on their backgrounds. And the second, I wanted them to focus on events of the campaign (which were extremely complicated) without them thinking that events were some how tied to their backgrounds.

So yeah, they had very brief backgrounds...as one player commented, the briefest character backgrounds I've ever asked them to create - 'I can't tell anything about my character from this..." or variations of such, was a common gripe heard pre game. But so far the game has been - and don't y'all puke - a character study of folks under extreme professional and personal stress...all because of events that were totally independent of character background.

The same this is happening in my IHW series of adventures. Very little character background....my players are pretty interested in the setting/era, so it's not as though they don't know what's going on ....but not much background. I kinda of wanted this, not because I had any grand plan, but I thought their lives on the ship should be the focus of the game. Of course they have motivations but what's happening "now" dominates eveything. I'm not explaining this part right, I'll get back to it.

I think the way how I viewed an "adventure" as a narrative had something to do with the way how I ran...still run? games. A narrative esp with characters implies backgrounds and stories built on said backgrounds...and I think the way I'm going now, I'm more interested in the "heat of the moment" and seeing how characters develop without relying so much on backgrounds ...discovering who their characters are during the course of the campaign. A living document as opposed to something predetermined, character-wise.

Oh, I'm going to get badly whacked for this...

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David ROh, I'm going to get badly whacked for this...

Regards,
David R

I don't think so.

I'm going for a middle point. I ask for brief backgrounds, but don't force them. If a player throws me a hook, I'll take it if possible, but it's not mandatory. What matters is what hapens at the table. People is quite happy: the players who like long backgrounds can do them, and the people who don't bother with that is not pestered to do something that doesn't interest them.

I endorse and use the methods Rotwang outlines, though my initial sketches are often a lot less original than his.  "This guy is Conan."  "This dude is Han Solo."  "This guy is Batman."  In play I build an original character around that core of plagiarism.

Quote from: ImperatorI'm going for a middle point. I ask for brief backgrounds, but don't force them. If a player throws me a hook, I'll take it if possible, but it's not mandatory. What matters is what hapens at the table. People is quite happy: the players who like long backgrounds can do them, and the people who don't bother with that is not pestered to do something that doesn't interest them.

I agree with you, but am willing to take whatever players want to give me (within reason).  I even say, "keep writing more background and whatnot even between sessions".  What happened before is totally up to them and they can expound on it at their leisure.