After responding to Corrosive Rabbit‘s thread about character backgrounds yesterday, I realized that I wanted to go into more detail on this topic.
I’ve been GMing since 1989, but it’s only been in the past couple of years that I’ve formulated this approach to handling PC backgrounds. I’ve never put the whole thing to the test, but I’ve used most of the pieces to good effect — and seen them used by great GMs, too.
The two most common tacks I see GMs take (and have taken myself) are requiring lengthy character backgrounds and not requiring PC backgrounds at all. The problem is that five pages of background may not be useful, but zero background means zero GMing fuel for you.
This approach falls somewhere in between those two, and hits the high notes that I’ve found to be most useful.
Why are PC Backgrounds Important?
There are are only three reasons why character backgrounds are important:
- Some players have fun creating them (not all players do, though).
- They give your players a guide to roleplaying their characters.
- They provide you with hooks to create a more personal, dramatic campaign.
If you generally require detailed character backgrounds from your players, or bribe them with XP or other in-game benefits to get them to write long backgrounds, ask yourself whether you’re doing so for any of those three reasons. If not, don’t do it.
In the past, I’ve required lengthy backgrounds and then never used them, and I’ve seen other GMs do the same thing. I think I required them because I thought it was the “right” approach, even though it’s the completely wrong approach for a lot of groups.
Knowing nothing about the PCs at the start of the game isn’t an option either, though, so you need to find the sweet spot where you get useful stuff without forcing your players to write too much material.
Players and PC Backgrounds
Over the years, I’ve found that players tend to fall into three groups when it comes to writing backgrounds. They either:
- Love writing backgrounds, and write long ones whether you ask them to or not.
- Hate writing them.
- Or prefer to develop them over the first few sessions of play.
The problem is that unless you’re running a pure hack-and-slash game, you need at least some material to work with. So how do you satisfy all three types of player?
Ask for What You Need, and No More
As the GM, you want every PC’s background to contain hooks you can use to draw the party into adventures, craft encounters that play to their allegiances and otherwise customize the campaign to your players’ interests.
And that’s the key element: Background-wise, all you need is the stuff that lets you create a more personalized campaign — one that centers around the stuff your players are interested in. Anything else is just gravy.
Instead of asking for too much or too little background material, just ask for a few things you’re guaranteed to be able to use to improve the game, and let your players decide what else to provide (if anything).
What you ask for should be discrete (each element can stand alone, and doesn’t need a lot of context to explain) and simple, but lay the foundation for other background stuff. For instance, you could request:
- A bit of info about a living, non-enemy NPC who is important to the PC.
- Something the PC is passionate about (an ideal; a person, place or thing; a goal).
- A living rival or enemy NPC (or organization).
Those three are pretty basic, and may not work for your campaign, but they hit several high notes.
For starters, two of them are about characters that you can then create yourself and introduce into the game — boom, instant personalization. The third makes a good default motivator: if a PC is passionate about X, that player is interested in seeing X come up in the game, and will perk up when it does.
They’re also pretty simple, and shouldn’t take long to create — so they should be less of a chore for players who hate writing backgrounds. Some players who don’t generally write long backgrounds will respond better to being asked for three small, short things, rather than feeling like they have to write a novel.
Players who prefer to develop their characters over the first sessions of the campaign shouldn’t mind being asked for three things like this. You’re not forcing them to define everything about their characters, and what you are asking for will likely lead in interesting directions as they continue to craft their backgrounds.
And lastly, the folks who are just hardwired to enjoy writing backgrounds will provide what you need, and then some — there’s no downside for them here, either.
Use the Whole Buffalo
Your players have gone to the trouble to craft useful GMing hooks for you to use, so make sure that you use them. There’s nothing worse than being asked for background material, providing it, and then never seeing it come up in play.
And since you only asked for useful stuff, rather than seven generations of each PC’s family tree (or other things that aren’t likely to come up in play), it should be pretty easy to accomplish this goal.
Don’t wait too long, either: Just as you shouldn’t hoard your best ideas, don’t be stingy with working in background elements, either.
So to sum up:
- Only ask for a few elements, and ask for things you know you’ll be able to use.
- Let your players find their own sweet spot for the rest, whether it’s writing a lot more, writing nothing else or figuring it out as the game progresses.
- Use every single thing that you asked for — not all at once, of course, but at some point fairly early on in the campaign.
What do you think of this approach? Have you made mistakes when it comes to requiring lengthy PC backgrounds? How did you find your own sweet spot?
Sometimes, asking for a detailed background can be a curse. I have one friend who would insist on putting everything he thought was cool about a setting into his character’s background. Other players may create patently outrageous backgrounds, and there’s nothing worse than having a player hand you a background that he worked on for days, only for you to tell him it’s crap.
I generally ask each player to tell us a little about his or her character during chargen. Since chargen usually takes up an entire session, I can usually incorporate some of the info into the next session. Keeping the question open-ended allows me to see what is important about the character to the player.
Sometimes, its better to know what the players DON’T want you to mess with. Nothing brings a session to a screeching halt more than a player objecting to what you just did to their character without their permission.
I’m in agreement with Martin’s suggestions. I’d add two things (already discussed in the forums):
First, encourage the players to integrate their PC’s background with at least one other PC. This helps lay the groundwork for group cohesion and avoids any awkward “why are we together, again?” questions.
Second, building on the “passion” request, have the player spell out a few high-level goals for their PC. Granted, some PCs are envisioned as aimless drifters, but even in that case there should be some reason that s/he gets involved in the adventure.
As for lessons learned, here’s a couple big ones I got recently.
The first really just echos Walt C’s last comment above. One of my players loves coming up with detailed backgrounds, but when he submitted it to me there were parts that didn’t jive with the setting I had developed. Thankfully he’s an easy-going guy, and we just talked through it and came up with alternatives that fit.
The second has to do with parts of the PC’s background that are secret. This same player came up with a cool idea that his PC might be the long-lost sister of another PC, and the three of us discussed it and agreed — AWAY FROM the rest of the group. During some role-play at the next session, there was some OOC discussion about motivations. The other player (“brother” PC) blurted out “So, is Monda really Stalker’s sister?” By the exasperated look on his face I could tell the first player was really bummed that his neat secret had been blown.
One thing that I do normally ask for, even if it’s not part of a formal background, is some explanation of the character’s motivation to adventure.
I’m not looking for anything in particular in response to this question. The answer, “GOLD!” is equally as valid as, “I quest to recover the fallen honour of my family and to reclaim the heirlooms stolen from us by the evil duke.”
Basically I just want a very basic idea of what will drive the PC to go creeping around in undead-infested tombs, dank dungeons, and fetid sewers, rather than staying home and opening a tavern like a rational person. This helps me too, as I can then include elements in adventures that I know will provide the player with an easy reason as to why his character is willing to risk life and limb (and sanity and soul and various internal organs).
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I’ve got one player who has a fairly detailed background. Separated from his parents, lost in some magical woods, grew up and earned the respect of some elves. I’ve had several times when I’ve brought his background into play. I sometimes feel that I give him an unfair amount of spotlight, but it’s only because he’s the only character in the 7-player party who’s put any thought at all into his character’s background (or, at least, who’s told me about it).
What I’m planning on doing starting next session is just asking everyone one question each session for bonus exp. I’ll use the answers to build on previous questions and get them to flesh out the character as time goes by.
Sometimes it’s the GM’s fault!!!
I think part of the problem with players not creating backgrounds is that they know nothing about the setting/world. Even when you play in published “known” worlds, the players still don’t know the tone and the focus of the campaign.
Before asking for backgrounds, the GM should first introduce some general facts about the life of the common people in the area, some hints on the direction of the campaign, etc. The GM can also offer some generic “themes” of characters, which are like starting packages for players to build on.
For example, if your game will involve nobility and royalty, give the players some description of the major noble families, and let them choose their relationship and loyalties.
Rust came up with an excellent addition to the rules (this is in the post, but thought it should be re-printed on the blog):
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The last 4 games I’ve run I’ve required the players to write a current crisis situation for their characters. Its sort of like a background but it adds a bit more. It has worked great and I’ll never run a game without doing it from now on.
Basically you have them write where they are, why they were happy and then ask them to include something that would throw their character in crisis, that threatens their happy existence.
From that information given to me by the players I let my ideas about the campaign and NPCs crystallize. Without this situation of crisis presented by the players I can’t run the adventure and know for certain the players are really jazzed about it.
Here are some examples of what my players have come up with:
>A noted town guardian returns home one day to discover her two children are missing.
>A low level thief tries to secretly leave his fathers guild to peruse sorcery. Soon after he leaves, his father goes missing and his brother tries to strong arm him back into doing more for the guild.
>A merchant-assassin has been instructed to investigate a mysterious ship that just entered town, but not to kill anyone, yet…
>A monk’s teacher has sent him away from his school to learn from the people of the town.
>A troubled police officer finds a box full of evidence about his father’s murder on his front porch one morning.
As you can see, some of these backgrounds and situations are more helpful than others.
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It’s fairly simple and also gives the GM a great way to get all of the characters together besides the standard, “you all meet in a bar…” I’ve gleefully stolen it and added it to my list o’ character questions.
@Lorekeeper: Sometimes it IS the GMs fault, indeed. Surely no truer words have ever been spoken. I had a GM who had been detailing out this custom world for a few months. He basically asked for a page of background without even telling us anything about the world. With what brief description he did give, he left us not knowing whether the game was set in a magic fantasy world or a sci-fi one. Turned out to be Renaissance (clockpunk?). Once we got the genre down, it was a bit easier. In all, he actually turned out to be an exceptional GM. I even ask for GMing advice from him. It was just that one oversight that turned out to be the best advice he could give.
As for my take on character backgrounds, I’m quite guilty of asking for too much information that I never get around to using. Right now I am GMing a group who despises backgrounds, though. So instead, I prepared a numbered list of plausible parentages, cities of orgin, reasons for having met the party (for starting off the first session in medias res), and the like.
During the pre-session, I had them select from the list, or even roll dice to determine their backgrounds. Those that would rather write out the character’s history had the option to do so. Only one person did. Others used mixtures of rolling dice and choosing. I even had a sibling connection begin this way by having two PCs roll the same result for parentage.
Afterward, I made sure that the characters I made played an active enough role for the PCs to get attached to them. Some sessions later, a PC sacrified his life to save that of the NPC from a randomly generated background…so I guess it worked with him at least. Might be an intresting alternative for GMs who know that a few members of their group are types that hate background writing.
It’s a good approach; you get what you need without browbeating the players for what you want. I think I’d encourage the players to add to that list by making sure they know it’s a bare minimum. More is better, generally speaking.
I also try to schedule some one-on-one time with the players as they come up with ideas to make sure their concepts fit the setting. Email and IM work fine for this.
Corrosive Rabbit: As a former bartender and restaurant supervisor, I can attest that rational people are rarely if ever associated with restaurant, bar, or tavern ownership. I’d even go so far as to say that insanity is a prerequisite. 😉
For my current D&D game, I tried something different. I knew I wanted to create a new homebrew world, so I told the PCs to create characters using any published D&D 3.5 resource (and that I would allow third party stuff, as long as I could review it and ok it first), and to write their backgrounds using as much or as little detail as they wanted.
Once I had their backgrounds, I designed the game world around them — which is to say, anything in their background became the truth of the gameworld. It was an interesting exercise that ended up with a fairly eclectic setting. The party consists of a mummy samurai, a half-fey bard, a nomadic horse archer, and an elven wizard.
It’s going to be weird (campaign is just getting going), but the PCs seem happy thus far as they get to play whatever oddball characters they want, yet still have them fit seamlessly into the game world. They also put a lot of extra effort into their backgrounds, as they knew that it would all go to shaping the world, as opposed to being set off to the side once play started.
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Ars Ludi also came up with a great way to boil your character’s personality and background into one sentence (I’d link it, but I can’t find the blog post).
“A (personality trait) (profession) is (personality goal).”
For example:
A forlorn air pirate is seeking the City of Gold.
A vengeful princess is engineering the downfall of the empire.
An out-of-luck sorcerer is looking for his true parents.
A tired gunslinger is waiting for someone to finally out-draw him.
A bored bureucrat is plotting the ultimate office prank.
“half-fey bard”
Must … resist … emo … comment.
Martin, I’m totally on board with this approach. The player could pass on most of this information through a few simple lines – hopefully no one is that lazy 🙂
brcarl – You make some interesting points. Linking players together can do wonders for group cohesion, and a couple of lines of info about their passions can help the GM in the future.
Telas is right too about this approach, you’re not forcing the players to write more information that absolutely neccessary, so the players should think you’re a commie GM. Love this approach.
If/when I ever get around to running the Buffy series that’s literally been kicking around my head for more than 2 years, my list of questions will run like this:
1) Tell me how you know at least one other Cast Member, and what you think about them.
2) Describe your relationship with at least 1 Guest Star — this could be good, bad, or indifferent. Include both how you feel about them and how they feel about you.
3) Why is your character not going to run screaming from all the things that go bump in the night?
4) Suggest at least 1 detail for somebody else’s character. You have to use at least one suggestion made for you, and can use all of them. (This is designed to help the players get into a groove with each other.)
As Lorekeeper said, sometimes PC’s don’t get enough information about the setting/mood.
Is the setting happy go lucky? Dark? Horror? Is it rated G, PG, R? Is it a story where the characters rise to exalted heights, or one where they fight a losing battle to the end?
Any of these moods can work, but if you don’t know enough beforehand, it’s hard to form the character & mentality. A character that can thrive in a dark and gritty setting comes off as silly in a more lighthearted one.
I ran a dark setting as a variant of the Warhammer world, gritty stuff. One of the character concepts given to me was for ‘Nimpy Fancypants’, Half-copper dragon gnome bard.
You get all types.
I really like how that’s set up – ask three questions, get three simple answers.
My group doesn’t really like long backgrounds, at all, and I don’t really ask for ’em (anymore). But I’ve found myself pretty much writing their backgrounds for them – so that our Dwarven Dragon shaman suddenly found himself a rival (a red dragon shaman) who was related the dwarf’s background (something the player told me a week into play and then didn’t really think about).
Problem is, the player didn’t really connect with it. And the same has come up a few other times, too.
So now, we’re background-lite. But I think this might be a good way to introduce things.
One thing I really hate is the long novel background that sort of works like this: “X did a whole bunch of heroic stuff, made enemies with an evil wizard, and lost his family’s +12 magical sword. He hates the thieves’ guild of Y, because of blahblahblahblah, and now they occasionally send assassins after him, which he has so far either fought off or evaded. And now, as a level 1 fighter, he is ready to begin his career as an adventurer…”
If you’re gonna write a background, it has to be stuff that’s not so crazy that you’d rather see it played out. I personally prefer “X came from a small village, got bored, and joined the army. A year later, his unit was disbanded. Now, he’s looking for work. So he’s an adventurer.” Works *So* much better, I’d say.
I’m the type of player that likes to come up with a long, complex background for my character, but I’ve found that my players prefer to make theirs up as they go along in the game. So now I do two things for them:
Tell them, in detail, what I’m going to do as “setup” for the first few sessions, and ask them to build a character that will fit that paradigm. I haven’t had a problem with really seriously inappropriate characters since I started doing this. Usually it’s the players telling me that they think their character “won’t fit” and I have to explain why I think it will.
Next, the players can decide, spontaneously in game, that they “own” some part of the game world. The NPC shopkeeper they run into is a cousin. The NPC wizard is one of their old adventuring buddies. They had a nasty run-in with priests of this god at some point. Thus their background is pretty much automatically integrated with the game and all I have to do is adapt to these new “ownership” situations. It works pretty well for everyone.
When I wrote my pdf of 365 character-building questions, one of my suggestions up front was this: just answer one or two questions for your character, rather than try to be exhaustive. Then, later, as your game develops, you can occasionally answer another whenever you want to add a little depth, explore your character further, or explore how your character’s been changing. That way you get the best of both worlds—info to make your character 3-dimensional and to give your GM something to work with, but you don’t have to put a lot of time & effort in if you don’t want to.
The irony of this is that so few people bother to read intros that not only have many people missed this suggestion, but a good handful have inferred that the presence of 365 questions means you’re somehow supposed to answer ALL 365 with regard to ONE SINGLE CHARACTER. Honestly, I can’t imagine a worse way to go—I think by the time you’re done you’d hate your character because you’d have burned out on it. The presence of so many questions was merely meant to give folks a variety to choose from so they could find ones they liked. 🙂
Hm… I have found a very different approach.
A GM in our area has insisted on playing the character backgrounds.
He runs Seven Seas, so certain details of the background are random. He then feels out the character backgrounds (by talking to his players) enough that he can run solo sessions with each character before they meet.
Yes, each player plays about a session alone with the GM.
What this does is change the rate of character development. When he gets to the first session together, all of the characters have already developed a voice and personality. And every player knows his character’s motivations.
We’ve gone along the whole gamut of background options. I’m a big fan of the method you suggest: a few key elements, not an undirected “write anything and I’ll work it in”.
Writing backgrounds is tricky– especially as the way you play your character often changes quite a bit from the way you imagine during the first session. Too much background can feel like a straight jacket…
(Corrosive Rabbit) Once I had their backgrounds, I designed the game world around them — which is to say, anything in their background became the truth of the gameworld.
I love this idea.
Jeff, your Buffy Q&A sounds like a great blueprint for kicking off collaborative character creation — I may just have to steal those questions myself!