The solution is probably quite simple. Don't give your character such extravagant backstories.
While this is reasonable and would solve the problem, I think in this case it also boils down to "just cut out your favorite part of the game." While trying different playstyles and approaches is a great thing, ultimately the best D&D is the one that lets you enjoy the parts of it you love the most.
I think its a far lesser sacrifice for the other players to just deal with OP's revolving door of characters than it is for OP to abstain from their favorite part of the game.
Personally, I like to take the other approach - a long backstory covering events from childhood on up, providing the DMs plenty of plot hooks they can use if they wish—though I also think many DMs do a terrible job integrating player backstories into the campaign, and would rather not have my backstory applied than have a heavy handed session where everyone else is bored because we’re focusing on a story no one else cares about.
Or, and I don't mean any disrespect, you did a terrible job of writing a background that can be integrated into the campaign? Because even if you realized it or not, you really pinpointed the problem with over-long backstories, that they can't easily be made a part of the main story. The more details you have fixed, the more the campaign have to conform to the backstory. If you have a more open backstory it's actually a lot easier to make it a part of the campaign.
A longer backstory also helps me feel my character is stuck in their ways some—it lets me know what the character has challenges and flaws they need to overcome, and explains why their challenges are something that cannot be overcome in a single session. That makes completing the character’s story take longer—they cannot just finish a character quest and say “oh, I am better now!”—they have to do a bunch of incremental growth moments to advance their tale… and might revert back to earlier behaviours based on triggers found in the longer background.
You don't really need an overly long backstory for this, though. You can just decide on the fly that your character reverts to earlier behaviours. And chances are, if those behaviours are only in your backstory, they haven't really been a part of the story so far.
But that is just my way of doing backstories - short or long or somewhere in between, the important thing is to do what works for you and for your DM.
This is a fair point. You have to work with your GM and fellow players.
What I think is more important than length or depth—a backstory should look backwards, not forwards. It exists to explain who your character was and what their current goals are—but does not exist to define who they will become. There are lots of players who get really married to what they want their character to become that they get tunnel vision—they are trying to force their character from point A to a foretold point B, which both inhibits natural, organic character growth, and takes some of the fun out of playing because you no longer have the mystery of “I wonder how the world will change my character” if you already know how you want your character’s story to end.
Another fair point that again highlights the potential problem with overly long backstories. If you are to fixated on the "perfect" backstory you might risk losing the fun that is exploring the present and future of said character.
You know, it seems rather silly to say “fair point” about something while simultaneously aggressively going against that point that you found “fair”.
Good thing I did nothing of the sort then. Have a nice day!
The solution is probably quite simple. Don't give your character such extravagant backstories.
While this is reasonable and would solve the problem, I think in this case it also boils down to "just cut out your favorite part of the game." While trying different playstyles and approaches is a great thing, ultimately the best D&D is the one that lets you enjoy the parts of it you love the most.
I think its a far lesser sacrifice for the other players to just deal with OP's revolving door of characters than it is for OP to abstain from their favorite part of the game.
Well, it seems that OP wanted help on how to stop the revolving door issue. Sure, if the other players don't mind that then OP can just keep it up. But since OP feels like the revolving door is a problem for them then, the crux is how to help them resolve that problem.
I think Sposta is on to something. As has often been pointed out in your character threads, one of the problems is that many of your characters already have a lifetime of adventures in their backstory. This means that when you actually sit down and play that character it will be hard for the adventure you'are actually playing to live up to your own background.
The solution is probably quite simple. Don't give your character such extravagant backstories. Instead of being the lost lovechild between a god and the fairy queen who has had to fight their way through the hoards of hell before level one, settle on something more fitting to the game. You can still incorporate what you want in your character (for example, the above mention character could be a tiefling with the fey touched feat) and you can ask the GM to throw some of that stuff into the story ("Hey GM, I'm thinking that my character might have some connection to the Feywild, is that something you can work into the story? Especially since they're an orphan who never knew their parents?"). That way you'll actually play all the cool stuff instead of just having them in your background. And you can do it with your fellow players as well.
Oh my god. THANK YOU. I am so tired of PC concepts that rely on overwrought, tragic backgrounds. Starting out as a relatively "ordinary person" can and does work. Maybe not in every setting, mind you, but it can certainly be an option.
As an example, my current PC exists in the Dungeons of Drakkenheim world, which is by far one of the most grimdark settings out there. Yet she herself grew up in a stable country, in a quiet town, and she had a fairly regular childhood. No gods involved. No divine interventions. No grand prophecies. She was just a regular person who decided to try and become something more.
In short, my concept was simply this: if there were to be any tragic or mighty events in her background, such events were before her, not behind.
And oh boy. It just feels so much more natural to let that story unfold on its own.
To be honest, I think the OP needs to engage with us and with the problem more. I mean, this isn't the first thread they've started about the problem, so evidently we haven't been able to resolve the issue in the past. The problem this thread is having is that the OP has said, effectively, "I abandon my characters too often, how do I not do that?", but all that is telling us is the behaviour. If s/he wanted a solution simply to the behaviour, the answer is astoundingly simple - don't. But I think we all recognise that it's more a question about their motivations and changing ideas that are driving the behaviours.
Which we don't really know much about. The thread has seemed to have settled on it being that they're writing backstories that are too long and overdevelop the character, leaving the adventure to be unfulfilling. Is it that? We don't know. The OP hasn't really spoken this time about it. What's even driving the abandonment? It could be they're getting bored because their characters have all finished their arc before the game even starts. Or it could be that they're resenting their characters. It could be that they've not found a character they're comfortable with. Maybe it's a simple problem of the OP just really enjoys character creation to the point it eclipses the game itself for them. Maybe it's something else.
However, if the OP wants us to actually be of some help, they'll have to do some soul searching, and find out what it is that's pushing them into not sticking with characters. Once we know that, we can start offering solutions that might help them stick it out with characters for a longer time. Until then though, we're just shooting in the dark and projecting ourselves on to the OP.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
To be honest, I think the OP needs to engage with us and with the problem more. I mean, this isn't the first thread they've started about the problem, so evidently we haven't been able to resolve the issue in the past. The problem this thread is having is that the OP has said, effectively, "I abandon my characters too often, how do I not do that?", but all that is telling us is the behaviour. If s/he wanted a solution simply to the behaviour, the answer is astoundingly simple - don't. But I think we all recognise that it's more a question about their motivations and changing ideas that are driving the behaviours.
Which we don't really know much about. The thread has seemed to have settled on it being that they're writing backstories that are too long and overdevelop the character, leaving the adventure to be unfulfilling. Is it that? We don't know. The OP hasn't really spoken this time about it. What's even driving the abandonment? It could be they're getting bored because their characters have all finished their arc before the game even starts. Or it could be that they're resenting their characters. It could be that they've not found a character they're comfortable with. Maybe it's a simple problem of the OP just really enjoys character creation to the point it eclipses the game itself for them. Maybe it's something else.
However, if the OP wants us to actually be of some help, they'll have to do some soul searching, and find out what it is that's pushing them into not sticking with characters. Once we know that, we can start offering solutions that might help them stick it out with characters for a longer time. Until then though, we're just shooting in the dark and projecting ourselves on to the OP.
Well said. I think we're all kind of theorizing here since the OP hasn't engaged any of this feedback yet. But you're right, of course. Based on the OP's brief original statement, we don't have any real insight as to why these characters are being abandoned.
The solution may not be anywhere in the character creation process, but in a process of changing themselves as a player/person. Maybe there are attachment issues, or ADD issues, or some other issue that has not been dealt with yet outside of the game and the repeated character creation cycle is just a way to ignore the fundamental issue while getting a constant trickle of dopamine highs centered around a new shiny thing.
the problem with over-long backstories, that they can't easily be made a part of the main story
The length of a backstory has absolutely no bearing on how easy or difficult it is to work into a campaign
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Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
the problem with over-long backstories, that they can't easily be made a part of the main story
The length of a backstory has absolutely no bearing on how easy or difficult it is to work into a campaign
Yeah, it's OP's tendency to write backstories that are more fitting for a 15th level character than a 1st level character that would be the real issue when it comes to fitting into a campaign.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Thanks for all your comments everyone. I wasn’t ignoring you, I promise and I will go through the thread and respond to all your questions and points today.
I had not intended to leave you hanging, I was simply giving you all time to reply.
now that lots of you have giving suggestions and talked about how you yourselves get into character and have enjoyed playing long term characters, I will respond you you.
please bare with me, but I will post today.
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A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
So .. you grow bored with your characters, is that it?
If so, why?
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
the problem with over-long backstories, that they can't easily be made a part of the main story
The length of a backstory has absolutely no bearing on how easy or difficult it is to work into a campaign
It does have bearing. Not directly, but there is a correlation. Overdeveloped backstories are hard to incorporate because a lot of their hooks are already fulfilled. Another problem is having too many hooks - it's a lot harder to identify what would be an interesting development for the player.
Long backstories are a lot more likely to be overdeveloped, and even if they aren't, they can become so intricate that it constrains the DM or at least makes it easy to trip them up. So while the length of a backstory doesn't necessarily make it harder to integrate...they are definitely more likely to be hard to integrate, both by giving space for problems to arise and by inherently increasing complexity.
If I had players that I thought were likely to write a long one, I'd be upfront and tell them that they're welcome to, but as DM I have a lot of plates to spin, so I'm likely to only take one or two things and then ignore the rest. The rest will mostly be for their own reference and/or enjoyment and, depending on the nature of it, may get contradicted in the game. I'll try not to...but spinning plates. If they can introduce the ideas in roleplay, so we're learning as we go along, then they're more likely to get more of their backstory into party canon. For example, if they're arachnophobic, i might choose to ignore it...but if they come across spiders and introduce it then, then that will likely be incorporated into future sessions. Not because of anyone being funny - but it's easier to form a mental image of the character that way, rather than infodump backstories.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Vagueness is way more effective in a backstory than precision. Consider:
"When I was 3 years old, my parents were killed by the leader of the axe-gang in the town of Sivelbarn for acting as a conduit for scrying magic being used by the Silver Templars, an organisation of exclusively dwarves in heavy armour and with flaming swords, dedicated to hunting vampires, who were doing so because the leader of the gang was a vampire, and when he killed them he took the mother to be one of his undying brides, and the silver templars then tried to kill her so as a 4-year-old I challenged their leader to single combat and that was when my wild-magic emerged and I managed to kill him and now the silver templars have sworn an oath to slay me so I am running from them and my mother is trying to contact me but I can't hear her because I have an amulet which protects me from scrying, so now I'm on the run"
versus:
"When I was young my parents tried to help the Silver Templars to infiltrate a vampire lair, and were killed. I have since sworn an oath against vampires."
The first one has loads of information, and is a cool story, but it also restricts the DM. The Silver Templars might not fit into their world as flaming-sword-wielding dwarves. The Mother's story should be unknown to the PC so the DM can fit it in as they see fit, if at all, as a dramatic plot twist rather than something the player is waiting for. The presence of a town with this name might not fit. The Axe Gang might not fit. Being chased by the Silver Templars might not fit, especially if the game involves vampires (and likely their hunters). The amulet that protects from scrying is a cool plot point, but a powerful magic item not suitable for a level 1 character.
The second story allows the first to happen, but it also leaves it to the DM to reveal the story that your character doesn't know to you over time - keeping you engaged with your character.
OP, could this be an issue, perhaps? I will admit that your posts of backstories have generally had me say "I'll read that later when I have time", then forgetting, but do you try to weave in a lot of stuff which you are then waiting to turn up in the game, only to be disappointed when the DM doesn't use it, so you make a new one?
the problem with over-long backstories, that they can't easily be made a part of the main story
The length of a backstory has absolutely no bearing on how easy or difficult it is to work into a campaign
It does have bearing. Not directly, but there is a correlation. Overdeveloped backstories are hard to incorporate because a lot of their hooks are already fulfilled. Another problem is having too many hooks - it's a lot harder to identify what would be an interesting development for the player.
Long backstories are a lot more likely to be overdeveloped, and even if they aren't, they can become so intricate that it constrains the DM or at least makes it easy to trip them up. So while the length of a backstory doesn't necessarily make it harder to integrate...they are definitely more likely to be hard to integrate, both by giving space for problems to arise and by inherently increasing complexity.
If I had players that I thought were likely to write a long one, I'd be upfront and tell them that they're welcome to, but as DM I have a lot of plates to spin, so I'm likely to only take one or two things and then ignore the rest. The rest will mostly be for their own reference and/or enjoyment and, depending on the nature of it, may get contradicted in the game. I'll try not to...but spinning plates. If they can introduce the ideas in roleplay, so we're learning as we go along, then they're more likely to get more of their backstory into party canon. For example, if they're arachnophobic, i might choose to ignore it...but if they come across spiders and introduce it then, then that will likely be incorporated into future sessions. Not because of anyone being funny - but it's easier to form a mental image of the character that way, rather than infodump backstories.
Nah
A backstory is either in sync with the DMs plans, or it isn't. I could write multiple pages for a backstory, but if I was familiar with the world's lore and worked with (or at least checked in with) the DM on the details, it would be seamless with the campaign
Conversely, I could write three sentences, and if I did it blind two of them could be contradicted or rendered moot in the first session
Length isn't the issue. Coordination with the DM is
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Right, if it's multiple pages long, you have to spend a significant amount of time coordinating with the DM (and the DM with you) to ensure it actually fits. Even then, only if everyone is really paying attention will you be sure that it's going to work - when reading lengthy prose, it's very easy for things to slip by unnoticed. If it's a three sentence one, it takes 30 seconds and you can be pretty sure it's fine. You're also much more likely to have nothing in there that clashes, because there are fewer things to clash.
That's...pretty much how I'd define "harder to integrate". You have to spend more time and effort to make it work.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Right, if it's multiple pages long, you have to spend a significant amount of time coordinating with the DM (and the DM with you) to ensure it actually fits. Even then, only if everyone is really paying attention will you be sure that it's going to work - when reading lengthy prose, it's very easy for things to slip by unnoticed. If it's a three sentence one, it takes 30 seconds and you can be pretty sure it's fine. You're also much more likely to have nothing in there that clashes, because there are fewer things to clash.
That's...pretty much how I'd define "harder to integrate". You have to spend more time and effort to make it work.
I am effectively a forever DM—I’ve had a few forays into being a player character, but, more often than not, I’ll end up DMing because no one else steps up to the plate (or the people that do are not good at putting parties together so the game never comes to fruition).
I have received both long backstories and short… and it just doesn’t make a difference. The amount of effort to “make it work” is pretty much the same - it just shifts where the effort is. Longer backstories require some up front adjustments of the world and backstory; shorter backstories require course corrections throughout the entire campaign as the DM has to make up details whenever they want a backstory tie in moment.
It all comes out to a wash in the end - it just comes down to what works best for the player for getting into character and the DM for building their world. And, with it being such an individualised decision between DM and player, trying to pass one way off as objectively better than the other is decidedly unhelpful.
Now, could it be the case that OP’s pertinence for longer backstories is a problem for them? Absolutely - but that will be an individualised problem requiring suggestions tailored to the individual, not a problem with length generally.
Vagueness is way more effective in a backstory than precision. Consider:
"When I was 3 years old, my parents were killed by the leader of the axe-gang in the town of Sivelbarn for acting as a conduit for scrying magic being used by the Silver Templars, an organisation of exclusively dwarves in heavy armour and with flaming swords, dedicated to hunting vampires, who were doing so because the leader of the gang was a vampire, and when he killed them he took the mother to be one of his undying brides, and the silver templars then tried to kill her so as a 4-year-old I challenged their leader to single combat and that was when my wild-magic emerged and I managed to kill him and now the silver templars have sworn an oath to slay me so I am running from them and my mother is trying to contact me but I can't hear her because I have an amulet which protects me from scrying, so now I'm on the run"
versus:
"When I was young my parents tried to help the Silver Templars to infiltrate a vampire lair, and were killed. I have since sworn an oath against vampires."
The first one has loads of information, and is a cool story, but it also restricts the DM. The Silver Templars might not fit into their world as flaming-sword-wielding dwarves. The Mother's story should be unknown to the PC so the DM can fit it in as they see fit, if at all, as a dramatic plot twist rather than something the player is waiting for. The presence of a town with this name might not fit. The Axe Gang might not fit. Being chased by the Silver Templars might not fit, especially if the game involves vampires (and likely their hunters). The amulet that protects from scrying is a cool plot point, but a powerful magic item not suitable for a level 1 character.
The second story allows the first to happen, but it also leaves it to the DM to reveal the story that your character doesn't know to you over time - keeping you engaged with your character.
OP, could this be an issue, perhaps? I will admit that your posts of backstories have generally had me say "I'll read that later when I have time", then forgetting, but do you try to weave in a lot of stuff which you are then waiting to turn up in the game, only to be disappointed when the DM doesn't use it, so you make a new one?
I think the real problem with the first backstory is that it's so cut and dry that it encourages one of two outcomes:
1. The Silver Templars catch up to you in-game, and with the party's help you defeat them. Your reason for adventuring is resolved, you can go home now.
2. The DM, knowing that resolving your backstory would effectively end your character, delays that confrontation. Eventually the character thinks, "why am I out here with this unrelated party doing this unrelated quest? My mission is to defeat the Silver Templars, why am I not doing that??" The character has no motivation to continue and the player loses interest in the character.
That's the real danger with too much specificity in your background. If your backstory doesn't include a reason/enthusiasm/desire for questing about and searching the land for treasure, glory, etc, then you're going to have problems justifying why your character is doing just that with a party of strangers for most of the game, and the character falls apart.
Right, if it's multiple pages long, you have to spend a significant amount of time coordinating with the DM (and the DM with you) to ensure it actually fits. Even then, only if everyone is really paying attention will you be sure that it's going to work - when reading lengthy prose, it's very easy for things to slip by unnoticed. If it's a three sentence one, it takes 30 seconds and you can be pretty sure it's fine. You're also much more likely to have nothing in there that clashes, because there are fewer things to clash.
That's...pretty much how I'd define "harder to integrate". You have to spend more time and effort to make it work.
I am effectively a forever DM—I’ve had a few forays into being a player character, but, more often than not, I’ll end up DMing because no one else steps up to the plate (or the people that do are not good at putting parties together so the game never comes to fruition).
I have received both long backstories and short… and it just doesn’t make a difference.
It doesn't make a difference to your style...because you go out of your way to make short ones more difficult (not specifically, but that's in effect what you're doing) than they need to be. What you're looking for is hooks, and a paragraph is ample space to provide multiple hooks that a DM can use, more than they will. Get into reams of material? Sure, there are more hooks, but also more things that you have to square with events, and many of those hooks are not going to be used anyway. You may feel the need to invent hooks for them, and thereby create work for yourself, but that's you making life harder for yourself. More power to you for doing the work the player didn't, but a player can easily fit the worthwhile goodies into a short background which also tells you more about what's meaningful to them - which doesn't necessarily correlate to any quality or quantity of the when it's long.
Take TDS' example. The same story, but the shorter one is much easier to incorporate into my campaign, has much fewer snags, and gives me a lot of room for inspiration and creativity. I don't have to sift through it to find what I think will be interesting, and what TDS considers actually important jumps out - he didn't consider flaming swords important enough for me to follow up on, because they weren't mentioned. The full version does worse on all counts, and only really gives me a name of a vampire faction that wants to kill him at the end of it all.
One of my current characters is an exiled ruler who is on a quest to prove that the prejudices against him are misplaced so he can win his people back. I could go into detail, name names of those who deposed him, mention specific details of the plot that overthrew him, I could speak about dates, and times, the various factions involved. I could go on and on about the various fights he had, the various allies who tried to aid him, and their fates. I could talk about the various adventures he went on prior to meeting the party. But that all constrains the DM. If the DM decides his kingdom tries to reach out to him, that has to be done by certain people now, using appropriate methods Do they use magic, and could they send it magically? Gotta sift through that 3 page background to remember. Or would they be sending the captain of the guard? Well, he probably played a part in the plot, so what was his name again? Did he side with the character? As contrasted with the short brief summary, where the DM can just make it up and make an appropriate encounter. His name is Robert, he's pissed at the character and spoiling for a fight. Done, no need to spend ages making sure everything squares up with someone's story...and doesn't contradict someone else's either. Or maybe the DM wants to just get the message there and done, so a message is sent magically. No lore beyond the DM's world to contradict, so he's free to use what he wants.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I think the real problem with the first backstory is that it's so cut and dry that it encourages one of two outcomes:
1. The Silver Templars catch up to you in-game, and with the party's help you defeat them. Your reason for adventuring is resolved, you can go home now.
2. The DM, knowing that resolving your backstory would effectively end your character, delays that confrontation. Eventually the character thinks, "why am I out here with this unrelated party doing this unrelated quest? My mission is to defeat the Silver Templars, why am I not doing that??" The character has no motivation to continue and the player loses interest in the character.
That's the real danger with too much specificity in your background. If your backstory doesn't include a reason/enthusiasm/desire for questing about and searching the land for treasure, glory, etc, then you're going to have problems justifying why your character is doing just that with a party of strangers for most of the game, and the character falls apart.
I see this argument a lot, and to me, it just seems like lazy DMing
There are all kinds of ways to extend that story for the length of the campaign, even beyond tying the Silver Templars directly to the eventual BBEG. They're an organization, for pity's sake -- there's always another wave of them to send, another layer of the onion you can unpeel
Who were your parents being told to scried on? Who ordered the Templars to scry on them? What's happened to the Templars' power structure in the years since that incident? Are they really after you because you killed some lowly company captain where you were a kid, or do they have other reasons for wanting to capture you? What about those vampires? Did your mother escape them, or is she now leading them? Etc etc etc etc etc
Your player's backstory is a road map, or maybe just a set of clues, for the story they want to tell/experience. You should be working with them to tell it
As for the whole "you need an open-ended, unresolvable reason for questing" argument, it's ultimately on the player, but characters can evolve. The motivation a character had for going out into the world adventuring at level 1 doesn't have to stay exactly the same for their entire adventuring career. Maybe they discover while trying to deal with the Silver Templars that what they really wanted wasn't vengeance, but a family, and they have that now with their adventuring party. Maybe "dealing with the Templars" evolves into "exploring the mystery of their sorcerer powers", something they can only do by testing those powers as they grow and emerge under stress
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Right, if it's multiple pages long, you have to spend a significant amount of time coordinating with the DM (and the DM with you) to ensure it actually fits. Even then, only if everyone is really paying attention will you be sure that it's going to work - when reading lengthy prose, it's very easy for things to slip by unnoticed. If it's a three sentence one, it takes 30 seconds and you can be pretty sure it's fine. You're also much more likely to have nothing in there that clashes, because there are fewer things to clash.
That's...pretty much how I'd define "harder to integrate". You have to spend more time and effort to make it work.
I am effectively a forever DM—I’ve had a few forays into being a player character, but, more often than not, I’ll end up DMing because no one else steps up to the plate (or the people that do are not good at putting parties together so the game never comes to fruition).
I have received both long backstories and short… and it just doesn’t make a difference.
It doesn't make a difference to your style...because you go out of your way to make short ones more difficult (not specifically, but that's in effect what you're doing) than they need to be. What you're looking for is hooks, and a paragraph is ample space to provide multiple hooks that a DM can use, more than they will. Get into reams of material? Sure, there are more hooks, but also more things that you have to square with events, and many of those hooks are not going to be used anyway. You may feel the need to invent hooks for them, and thereby create work for yourself, but that's you making life harder for yourself. More power to you for doing the work the player didn't, but a player can easily fit the worthwhile goodies into a short background which also tells you more about what's meaningful to them - which doesn't necessarily correlate to any quality or quantity of the when it's long.
Take TDS' example. The same story, but the shorter one is much easier to incorporate into my campaign, has much fewer snags, and gives me a lot of room for inspiration and creativity. I don't have to sift through it to find what I think will be interesting, and what TDS considers actually important jumps out - he didn't consider flaming swords important enough for me to follow up on, because they weren't mentioned. The full version does worse on all counts, and only really gives me a name of a vampire faction that wants to kill him at the end of it all.
One of my current characters is an exiled ruler who is on a quest to prove that the prejudices against him are misplaced so he can win his people back. I could go into detail, name names of those who deposed him, mention specific details of the plot that overthrew him, I could speak about dates, and times, the various factions involved. I could go on and on about the various fights he had, the various allies who tried to aid him, and their fates. I could talk about the various adventures he went on prior to meeting the party. But that all constrains the DM. If the DM decides his kingdom tries to reach out to him, that has to be done by certain people now, using appropriate methods Do they use magic, and could they send it magically? Gotta sift through that 3 page background to remember. Or would they be sending the captain of the guard? Well, he probably played a part in the plot, so what was his name again? Did he side with the character? As contrasted with the short brief summary, where the DM can just make it up and make an appropriate encounter. His name is Robert, he's pissed at the character and spoiling for a fight. Done, no need to spend ages making sure everything squares up with someone's story...and doesn't contradict someone else's either. Or maybe the DM wants to just get the message there and done, so a message is sent magically. No lore beyond the DM's world to contradict, so he's free to use what he wants.
As I said in the very post you are responding to, passing off your personal preference as an objective truth is unhelpful--which, yet again, you have decided to do. Adding in a healthy dose of apologism for bad DMing does not make your argument any more objectively true--it just shows that you are unwilling to consider that other players, other DMs, and other groups have different preferences and styles. It is a constant problem on the Beyond forums--folks who pass off their opinion as reality, and think it is more important to proselytize about why they have the One True Way to play the game, rather than help others.
Right now, the reality is we do not know what OP's problem is. It very well could be them being boxed in by their backstory. In which case, the problem is not necessarily the length, but the way they write it and how it boxes them it. It also could be the case that they are incapable of writing a backstory that is both long and does not constrain them (in which case the solution to the specific problem would be OP writing shorter backstories) or it could be the case that they just need to learn how to write a long backstory that is also not constraining (which is a very real possibility I have seen done many times).
So, rather than defend your own views as if they are true--and thus possibly turn off OP to considering other solutions because they might mistake your reality for theirs--perhaps stop aggressively defending your own personal preference as if you think OP must adopt your opinion as their own?
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While this is reasonable and would solve the problem, I think in this case it also boils down to "just cut out your favorite part of the game." While trying different playstyles and approaches is a great thing, ultimately the best D&D is the one that lets you enjoy the parts of it you love the most.
I think its a far lesser sacrifice for the other players to just deal with OP's revolving door of characters than it is for OP to abstain from their favorite part of the game.
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(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
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Good thing I did nothing of the sort then. Have a nice day!
Well, it seems that OP wanted help on how to stop the revolving door issue. Sure, if the other players don't mind that then OP can just keep it up. But since OP feels like the revolving door is a problem for them then, the crux is how to help them resolve that problem.
Oh my god. THANK YOU. I am so tired of PC concepts that rely on overwrought, tragic backgrounds. Starting out as a relatively "ordinary person" can and does work. Maybe not in every setting, mind you, but it can certainly be an option.
As an example, my current PC exists in the Dungeons of Drakkenheim world, which is by far one of the most grimdark settings out there. Yet she herself grew up in a stable country, in a quiet town, and she had a fairly regular childhood. No gods involved. No divine interventions. No grand prophecies. She was just a regular person who decided to try and become something more.
In short, my concept was simply this: if there were to be any tragic or mighty events in her background, such events were before her, not behind.
And oh boy. It just feels so much more natural to let that story unfold on its own.
To be honest, I think the OP needs to engage with us and with the problem more. I mean, this isn't the first thread they've started about the problem, so evidently we haven't been able to resolve the issue in the past. The problem this thread is having is that the OP has said, effectively, "I abandon my characters too often, how do I not do that?", but all that is telling us is the behaviour. If s/he wanted a solution simply to the behaviour, the answer is astoundingly simple - don't. But I think we all recognise that it's more a question about their motivations and changing ideas that are driving the behaviours.
Which we don't really know much about. The thread has seemed to have settled on it being that they're writing backstories that are too long and overdevelop the character, leaving the adventure to be unfulfilling. Is it that? We don't know. The OP hasn't really spoken this time about it. What's even driving the abandonment? It could be they're getting bored because their characters have all finished their arc before the game even starts. Or it could be that they're resenting their characters. It could be that they've not found a character they're comfortable with. Maybe it's a simple problem of the OP just really enjoys character creation to the point it eclipses the game itself for them. Maybe it's something else.
However, if the OP wants us to actually be of some help, they'll have to do some soul searching, and find out what it is that's pushing them into not sticking with characters. Once we know that, we can start offering solutions that might help them stick it out with characters for a longer time. Until then though, we're just shooting in the dark and projecting ourselves on to the OP.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Well said. I think we're all kind of theorizing here since the OP hasn't engaged any of this feedback yet. But you're right, of course. Based on the OP's brief original statement, we don't have any real insight as to why these characters are being abandoned.
The solution may not be anywhere in the character creation process, but in a process of changing themselves as a player/person. Maybe there are attachment issues, or ADD issues, or some other issue that has not been dealt with yet outside of the game and the repeated character creation cycle is just a way to ignore the fundamental issue while getting a constant trickle of dopamine highs centered around a new shiny thing.
The length of a backstory has absolutely no bearing on how easy or difficult it is to work into a campaign
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Yeah, it's OP's tendency to write backstories that are more fitting for a 15th level character than a 1st level character that would be the real issue when it comes to fitting into a campaign.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Thanks for all your comments everyone. I wasn’t ignoring you, I promise and I will go through the thread and respond to all your questions and points today.
I had not intended to leave you hanging, I was simply giving you all time to reply.
now that lots of you have giving suggestions and talked about how you yourselves get into character and have enjoyed playing long term characters, I will respond you you.
please bare with me, but I will post today.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
So .. you grow bored with your characters, is that it?
If so, why?
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
It does have bearing. Not directly, but there is a correlation. Overdeveloped backstories are hard to incorporate because a lot of their hooks are already fulfilled. Another problem is having too many hooks - it's a lot harder to identify what would be an interesting development for the player.
Long backstories are a lot more likely to be overdeveloped, and even if they aren't, they can become so intricate that it constrains the DM or at least makes it easy to trip them up. So while the length of a backstory doesn't necessarily make it harder to integrate...they are definitely more likely to be hard to integrate, both by giving space for problems to arise and by inherently increasing complexity.
If I had players that I thought were likely to write a long one, I'd be upfront and tell them that they're welcome to, but as DM I have a lot of plates to spin, so I'm likely to only take one or two things and then ignore the rest. The rest will mostly be for their own reference and/or enjoyment and, depending on the nature of it, may get contradicted in the game. I'll try not to...but spinning plates. If they can introduce the ideas in roleplay, so we're learning as we go along, then they're more likely to get more of their backstory into party canon. For example, if they're arachnophobic, i might choose to ignore it...but if they come across spiders and introduce it then, then that will likely be incorporated into future sessions. Not because of anyone being funny - but it's easier to form a mental image of the character that way, rather than infodump backstories.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Vagueness is way more effective in a backstory than precision. Consider:
"When I was 3 years old, my parents were killed by the leader of the axe-gang in the town of Sivelbarn for acting as a conduit for scrying magic being used by the Silver Templars, an organisation of exclusively dwarves in heavy armour and with flaming swords, dedicated to hunting vampires, who were doing so because the leader of the gang was a vampire, and when he killed them he took the mother to be one of his undying brides, and the silver templars then tried to kill her so as a 4-year-old I challenged their leader to single combat and that was when my wild-magic emerged and I managed to kill him and now the silver templars have sworn an oath to slay me so I am running from them and my mother is trying to contact me but I can't hear her because I have an amulet which protects me from scrying, so now I'm on the run"
versus:
"When I was young my parents tried to help the Silver Templars to infiltrate a vampire lair, and were killed. I have since sworn an oath against vampires."
The first one has loads of information, and is a cool story, but it also restricts the DM. The Silver Templars might not fit into their world as flaming-sword-wielding dwarves. The Mother's story should be unknown to the PC so the DM can fit it in as they see fit, if at all, as a dramatic plot twist rather than something the player is waiting for. The presence of a town with this name might not fit. The Axe Gang might not fit. Being chased by the Silver Templars might not fit, especially if the game involves vampires (and likely their hunters). The amulet that protects from scrying is a cool plot point, but a powerful magic item not suitable for a level 1 character.
The second story allows the first to happen, but it also leaves it to the DM to reveal the story that your character doesn't know to you over time - keeping you engaged with your character.
OP, could this be an issue, perhaps? I will admit that your posts of backstories have generally had me say "I'll read that later when I have time", then forgetting, but do you try to weave in a lot of stuff which you are then waiting to turn up in the game, only to be disappointed when the DM doesn't use it, so you make a new one?
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Nah
A backstory is either in sync with the DMs plans, or it isn't. I could write multiple pages for a backstory, but if I was familiar with the world's lore and worked with (or at least checked in with) the DM on the details, it would be seamless with the campaign
Conversely, I could write three sentences, and if I did it blind two of them could be contradicted or rendered moot in the first session
Length isn't the issue. Coordination with the DM is
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Right, if it's multiple pages long, you have to spend a significant amount of time coordinating with the DM (and the DM with you) to ensure it actually fits. Even then, only if everyone is really paying attention will you be sure that it's going to work - when reading lengthy prose, it's very easy for things to slip by unnoticed. If it's a three sentence one, it takes 30 seconds and you can be pretty sure it's fine. You're also much more likely to have nothing in there that clashes, because there are fewer things to clash.
That's...pretty much how I'd define "harder to integrate". You have to spend more time and effort to make it work.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I am effectively a forever DM—I’ve had a few forays into being a player character, but, more often than not, I’ll end up DMing because no one else steps up to the plate (or the people that do are not good at putting parties together so the game never comes to fruition).
I have received both long backstories and short… and it just doesn’t make a difference. The amount of effort to “make it work” is pretty much the same - it just shifts where the effort is. Longer backstories require some up front adjustments of the world and backstory; shorter backstories require course corrections throughout the entire campaign as the DM has to make up details whenever they want a backstory tie in moment.
It all comes out to a wash in the end - it just comes down to what works best for the player for getting into character and the DM for building their world. And, with it being such an individualised decision between DM and player, trying to pass one way off as objectively better than the other is decidedly unhelpful.
Now, could it be the case that OP’s pertinence for longer backstories is a problem for them? Absolutely - but that will be an individualised problem requiring suggestions tailored to the individual, not a problem with length generally.
I think the real problem with the first backstory is that it's so cut and dry that it encourages one of two outcomes:
1. The Silver Templars catch up to you in-game, and with the party's help you defeat them. Your reason for adventuring is resolved, you can go home now.
2. The DM, knowing that resolving your backstory would effectively end your character, delays that confrontation. Eventually the character thinks, "why am I out here with this unrelated party doing this unrelated quest? My mission is to defeat the Silver Templars, why am I not doing that??" The character has no motivation to continue and the player loses interest in the character.
That's the real danger with too much specificity in your background. If your backstory doesn't include a reason/enthusiasm/desire for questing about and searching the land for treasure, glory, etc, then you're going to have problems justifying why your character is doing just that with a party of strangers for most of the game, and the character falls apart.
It doesn't make a difference to your style...because you go out of your way to make short ones more difficult (not specifically, but that's in effect what you're doing) than they need to be. What you're looking for is hooks, and a paragraph is ample space to provide multiple hooks that a DM can use, more than they will. Get into reams of material? Sure, there are more hooks, but also more things that you have to square with events, and many of those hooks are not going to be used anyway. You may feel the need to invent hooks for them, and thereby create work for yourself, but that's you making life harder for yourself. More power to you for doing the work the player didn't, but a player can easily fit the worthwhile goodies into a short background which also tells you more about what's meaningful to them - which doesn't necessarily correlate to any quality or quantity of the when it's long.
Take TDS' example. The same story, but the shorter one is much easier to incorporate into my campaign, has much fewer snags, and gives me a lot of room for inspiration and creativity. I don't have to sift through it to find what I think will be interesting, and what TDS considers actually important jumps out - he didn't consider flaming swords important enough for me to follow up on, because they weren't mentioned. The full version does worse on all counts, and only really gives me a name of a vampire faction that wants to kill him at the end of it all.
One of my current characters is an exiled ruler who is on a quest to prove that the prejudices against him are misplaced so he can win his people back. I could go into detail, name names of those who deposed him, mention specific details of the plot that overthrew him, I could speak about dates, and times, the various factions involved. I could go on and on about the various fights he had, the various allies who tried to aid him, and their fates. I could talk about the various adventures he went on prior to meeting the party. But that all constrains the DM. If the DM decides his kingdom tries to reach out to him, that has to be done by certain people now, using appropriate methods Do they use magic, and could they send it magically? Gotta sift through that 3 page background to remember. Or would they be sending the captain of the guard? Well, he probably played a part in the plot, so what was his name again? Did he side with the character? As contrasted with the short brief summary, where the DM can just make it up and make an appropriate encounter. His name is Robert, he's pissed at the character and spoiling for a fight. Done, no need to spend ages making sure everything squares up with someone's story...and doesn't contradict someone else's either. Or maybe the DM wants to just get the message there and done, so a message is sent magically. No lore beyond the DM's world to contradict, so he's free to use what he wants.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I see this argument a lot, and to me, it just seems like lazy DMing
There are all kinds of ways to extend that story for the length of the campaign, even beyond tying the Silver Templars directly to the eventual BBEG. They're an organization, for pity's sake -- there's always another wave of them to send, another layer of the onion you can unpeel
Who were your parents being told to scried on? Who ordered the Templars to scry on them? What's happened to the Templars' power structure in the years since that incident? Are they really after you because you killed some lowly company captain where you were a kid, or do they have other reasons for wanting to capture you? What about those vampires? Did your mother escape them, or is she now leading them? Etc etc etc etc etc
Your player's backstory is a road map, or maybe just a set of clues, for the story they want to tell/experience. You should be working with them to tell it
As for the whole "you need an open-ended, unresolvable reason for questing" argument, it's ultimately on the player, but characters can evolve. The motivation a character had for going out into the world adventuring at level 1 doesn't have to stay exactly the same for their entire adventuring career. Maybe they discover while trying to deal with the Silver Templars that what they really wanted wasn't vengeance, but a family, and they have that now with their adventuring party. Maybe "dealing with the Templars" evolves into "exploring the mystery of their sorcerer powers", something they can only do by testing those powers as they grow and emerge under stress
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
As I said in the very post you are responding to, passing off your personal preference as an objective truth is unhelpful--which, yet again, you have decided to do. Adding in a healthy dose of apologism for bad DMing does not make your argument any more objectively true--it just shows that you are unwilling to consider that other players, other DMs, and other groups have different preferences and styles. It is a constant problem on the Beyond forums--folks who pass off their opinion as reality, and think it is more important to proselytize about why they have the One True Way to play the game, rather than help others.
Right now, the reality is we do not know what OP's problem is. It very well could be them being boxed in by their backstory. In which case, the problem is not necessarily the length, but the way they write it and how it boxes them it. It also could be the case that they are incapable of writing a backstory that is both long and does not constrain them (in which case the solution to the specific problem would be OP writing shorter backstories) or it could be the case that they just need to learn how to write a long backstory that is also not constraining (which is a very real possibility I have seen done many times).
So, rather than defend your own views as if they are true--and thus possibly turn off OP to considering other solutions because they might mistake your reality for theirs--perhaps stop aggressively defending your own personal preference as if you think OP must adopt your opinion as their own?