I generally write extensive (some would say obsessive) backgrounds for my characters. I wonder if anyone else does this? I find it helps me make decisions quickly without trying to figure out what my character would do in certain unusual situations, and my DM likes them because she can round out and expand the world she's creating if she wants to use elements or NPCs from my background. None of the other players do it, they prefer building their characters as they go or don't really care about that aspect of roleplaying and just want to combat.
I guess I'm sort of checking to see if I'm alone in this or if anyone else finds it helps them.
You're definitely not alone! I tend to create detailed backgrounds for my characters, as it helps me determine how their past has shaped them, and in some cases, what drives them through their adventure, giving me even a small sense of how to play the character. In terms of helping a DM world build - absolutely. My DM has told me that extensive backstories helps expand the world and in one case, even gave us a full story arc out of. And having been a DM myself, it allowed me to discover what kind of world I was creating, and allowed me to create some pretty memorable NPCs and encounters for my players. While combats can be epic and entertaining, I've had the best experiences RPing deep story stuff with other players.
What about sharing them with the other players? Mostly the people I play with prefer to be surprised by background as it occurs in-game and don't want to know it. I keep player and character separate (e.g. I may know what a monster is and what its weaknesses are, but my low-level character probably doesn't so (s)he might make amateurish mistakes during combat instead of having the right spell off the bat) so I like reading the backgrounds or learning more about the world-building. Do you share your backgrounds or are they just for you and your DM?
What about sharing them with the other players? Mostly the people I play with prefer to be surprised by background as it occurs in-game and don't want to know it. I keep player and character separate (e.g. I may know what a monster is and what its weaknesses are, but my low-level character probably doesn't so (s)he might make amateurish mistakes during combat instead of having the right spell off the bat) so I like reading the backgrounds or learning more about the world-building. Do you share your backgrounds or are they just for you and your DM?
As a DM, long back stories are excellent, they really do help me plot out adventures (particularly homebrew), and the world itself. But if you close off options for the DM to play with your character, it's less fun.
That being said, I did have someone hand me a 16 page backstory, and he ended up not even playing the character ._. That was.... Annoying. Don't be that guy.
Different people develop their characters in different ways. I prefer writing a vague, open ended backstory first and then figuring their voice out as I go along. There's nothing wrong with these different methods. But DMs typically prefer to know their characters first.
Different people also have different preferences in how the game is played. Some prefer combat, some prefer RP. I prefer Roleplay myself, but it's nice to get balance. Perhaps you would benefit from finding a group that leans towards Roleplay?
As for sharing the backstory, it's fun to find out in game. Just the DM should know, in my opinion.
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If you love a character, you give them pain, ruin their lives, make them suffer. Maybe even throw in a heroic death.
Recently I had a PC send me his character backstory, it was a first person styled journal over 14 pages long! So much thought and love put into it, extensive backstories are awesome and really help build a reality for the character
I generally write a timeline of events for my characters' history, with a few small pieces for individual events. A small list of important NPCs.
Enough to give the character a solid motive and foundation, but with space enough for early tweaks and breathing space. I find a little flexibility, especially at the beginning, can better help you find a niche in the group among other things.
Whilst I love stories, diaries and details, there is a lot to be said for bullet points.
Even if you write out something in-depth and fantastic, perhaps consider giving your DM a shorter form of it in bullet points, with the most important events highlighted, all for quick reference. I find it helps.
A quick glance at those bullet points might be what sways the DM from a relatively generic encounter to something that will really trigger a reaction from your character.
Whilst I love stories, diaries and details, there is a lot to be said for bullet points.
That's an awesome suggestion. I try to keep my background easy to parse, and do a quick dramatis personae in case my DM wants to utilise a character from my backstory, that's a great idea though.
All my players are incentivized to give me backstories for their characters. I usually offer a tangible benefit to drive that behavior. Most often it's XP. 100XP for a backstory that tells me what the character is like (not just class, race, etc. that I can get from their sheet). 50XP for additional short stories that include other characters as cameos.
It means most of my players try to establish a party beforehand, with stories about things they've done and how they know each other in interesting ways with real narratives. Not just "we used to be bounty hunters together" but a story about them hunting someone a few years ago, how they met, how it turned out.
I end up with a couple of players with 1st level... one or two that go all out to include everyone and add good backstory to the whole game that might start at 2.
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I don't usually write large extensive backgrounds, sometimes I'll create a few stories of things that happened in their past, sort of how in real life you have a handful of stories you tell to people. What I almost always do, however, is take a list of questions and scenarios, and try to think about how my character would react to said question, or said scenario. I find that it confers the same quick decision making you bring up, while still allowing a great deal of freedom if I decided I'd like to change things about my character later.
To me as a DM the backstories are vital. They are what allow me to tie the character into the world. It find it makes the players a little more invested into their characters. They can range from a brief outline with key events, to a player that handed me pages of written work that has the characters life from birth, with a page that had his family tree.
I actually like working with my players to form a past for their characters. I do this as a session or emails between us with each player so that we both have input. As a DM it allows me to aide them if they don't feel comfortable creating this, or to help those that create it get exited by what they express and how it fits into the world. (I typically run home brew campaigns in a home brew world)
i allow all my players to have access to each others character sheets due to having a digital copy. Thus all details can be shared amongst all my players, including back stories. Some will look others don't. It depends what they are looking for in the sessions. I as DM, I make sure that they keep player and character knowledge separate.
Backstories and history of the character are important - I always recommend to send them to the DM and then even weak as needed (perhaps the DM wants to bring in your backstory as part of the plot, but needs stuff changed to make it mesh).
I like backgrounds! But I would like to highlight another way of making backgrounds that can create equally compelling characters.
The method is to start playing with some idea of your character but very little specifics and then develop your background as you play. The trick is to mould your background around the story as it is happening. For example, you arrive in a city; your character says they spent time there as a child visiting my uncle. Then perhaps the DM can have one of the NPCs become the character's uncle.
This is just as good a way of getting characters entwined in the events of a story, but 'reversed'. So instead of the DM looking at everyone's backgrounds and using bits in the story, the players create there backgrounds on the fly in relation to what is happening. I would reccommend everyone trying it out at least once as it can be very fun, although make sure the DM and other players are on board. I would also look-up the "rules of improv" because there is alot of crossover between D&D and improvisational acting. The first rule inparticular, "Don't deny; always say yes."
Backgrounds are fun! I don't mean to be against sharing, but it can be fun to slowly learn about other people's backgrounds too over the course of the campaign naturally, as people travelling together wouldn't know everything about each other from the beginning.
Backstories are my favorite part of playing D&D. I like the ability to create different people with intertwining lives and the connections and things they've created. But when taking to other players in a campaign we like to do a brief overview of characters without revealing any hooks or secrets about them, i.e. My character is a paladin of this god with these principles and he's in a strange land where his god is foreign and disliked. It allows people to actually know what your character is without having to explain basics to everyone in an awkward forced conversation early in a campaign. Then things like plot hooks, secrets, fears, and other fun things to come up with will come out naturally and thats what people really want to keep to themselves. One thing I always make sure to do is leave lots of things open ended based on my character leaving for an adventure so the DM can then mess around with things in my backstory during the campaign giving the best of what I create and what my DM can create.
I generally write extensive (some would say obsessive) backgrounds for my characters. I wonder if anyone else does this? I find it helps me make decisions quickly without trying to figure out what my character would do in certain unusual situations, and my DM likes them because she can round out and expand the world she's creating if she wants to use elements or NPCs from my background. None of the other players do it, they prefer building their characters as they go or don't really care about that aspect of roleplaying and just want to combat.
I guess I'm sort of checking to see if I'm alone in this or if anyone else finds it helps them.
You're definitely not alone! I tend to create detailed backgrounds for my characters, as it helps me determine how their past has shaped them, and in some cases, what drives them through their adventure, giving me even a small sense of how to play the character. In terms of helping a DM world build - absolutely. My DM has told me that extensive backstories helps expand the world and in one case, even gave us a full story arc out of. And having been a DM myself, it allowed me to discover what kind of world I was creating, and allowed me to create some pretty memorable NPCs and encounters for my players. While combats can be epic and entertaining, I've had the best experiences RPing deep story stuff with other players.
So nope, definitely not alone :D
Background and adventure hook are the corner stones of the campaign.
What about sharing them with the other players? Mostly the people I play with prefer to be surprised by background as it occurs in-game and don't want to know it. I keep player and character separate (e.g. I may know what a monster is and what its weaknesses are, but my low-level character probably doesn't so (s)he might make amateurish mistakes during combat instead of having the right spell off the bat) so I like reading the backgrounds or learning more about the world-building. Do you share your backgrounds or are they just for you and your DM?
As a DM, long back stories are excellent, they really do help me plot out adventures (particularly homebrew), and the world itself. But if you close off options for the DM to play with your character, it's less fun.
That being said, I did have someone hand me a 16 page backstory, and he ended up not even playing the character ._. That was.... Annoying. Don't be that guy.
Different people develop their characters in different ways. I prefer writing a vague, open ended backstory first and then figuring their voice out as I go along. There's nothing wrong with these different methods. But DMs typically prefer to know their characters first.
Different people also have different preferences in how the game is played. Some prefer combat, some prefer RP. I prefer Roleplay myself, but it's nice to get balance. Perhaps you would benefit from finding a group that leans towards Roleplay?
As for sharing the backstory, it's fun to find out in game. Just the DM should know, in my opinion.
If you love a character, you give them pain, ruin their lives, make them suffer. Maybe even throw in a heroic death.
Recently I had a PC send me his character backstory, it was a first person styled journal over 14 pages long! So much thought and love put into it, extensive backstories are awesome and really help build a reality for the character
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I generally write a timeline of events for my characters' history, with a few small pieces for individual events. A small list of important NPCs.
Enough to give the character a solid motive and foundation, but with space enough for early tweaks and breathing space. I find a little flexibility, especially at the beginning, can better help you find a niche in the group among other things.
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@VillianTheory those are my favourite backstories to recieve. Blessings of Tempus upon you.
Bullet points my friends!
If you love a character, you give them pain, ruin their lives, make them suffer. Maybe even throw in a heroic death.
Whilst I love stories, diaries and details, there is a lot to be said for bullet points.
Even if you write out something in-depth and fantastic, perhaps consider giving your DM a shorter form of it in bullet points, with the most important events highlighted, all for quick reference. I find it helps.
A quick glance at those bullet points might be what sways the DM from a relatively generic encounter to something that will really trigger a reaction from your character.
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I enjoy writing out my charcters background helps me rp ,my characters
All my players are incentivized to give me backstories for their characters. I usually offer a tangible benefit to drive that behavior. Most often it's XP. 100XP for a backstory that tells me what the character is like (not just class, race, etc. that I can get from their sheet). 50XP for additional short stories that include other characters as cameos.
It means most of my players try to establish a party beforehand, with stories about things they've done and how they know each other in interesting ways with real narratives. Not just "we used to be bounty hunters together" but a story about them hunting someone a few years ago, how they met, how it turned out.
I end up with a couple of players with 1st level... one or two that go all out to include everyone and add good backstory to the whole game that might start at 2.
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I don't usually write large extensive backgrounds, sometimes I'll create a few stories of things that happened in their past, sort of how in real life you have a handful of stories you tell to people. What I almost always do, however, is take a list of questions and scenarios, and try to think about how my character would react to said question, or said scenario. I find that it confers the same quick decision making you bring up, while still allowing a great deal of freedom if I decided I'd like to change things about my character later.
To me as a DM the backstories are vital. They are what allow me to tie the character into the world. It find it makes the players a little more invested into their characters. They can range from a brief outline with key events, to a player that handed me pages of written work that has the characters life from birth, with a page that had his family tree.
I actually like working with my players to form a past for their characters. I do this as a session or emails between us with each player so that we both have input. As a DM it allows me to aide them if they don't feel comfortable creating this, or to help those that create it get exited by what they express and how it fits into the world. (I typically run home brew campaigns in a home brew world)
i allow all my players to have access to each others character sheets due to having a digital copy. Thus all details can be shared amongst all my players, including back stories. Some will look others don't. It depends what they are looking for in the sessions. I as DM, I make sure that they keep player and character knowledge separate.
Backstories and history of the character are important - I always recommend to send them to the DM and then even weak as needed (perhaps the DM wants to bring in your backstory as part of the plot, but needs stuff changed to make it mesh).
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I like backgrounds! But I would like to highlight another way of making backgrounds that can create equally compelling characters.
The method is to start playing with some idea of your character but very little specifics and then develop your background as you play. The trick is to mould your background around the story as it is happening. For example, you arrive in a city; your character says they spent time there as a child visiting my uncle. Then perhaps the DM can have one of the NPCs become the character's uncle.
This is just as good a way of getting characters entwined in the events of a story, but 'reversed'. So instead of the DM looking at everyone's backgrounds and using bits in the story, the players create there backgrounds on the fly in relation to what is happening. I would reccommend everyone trying it out at least once as it can be very fun, although make sure the DM and other players are on board. I would also look-up the "rules of improv" because there is alot of crossover between D&D and improvisational acting. The first rule inparticular, "Don't deny; always say yes."
Backgrounds are fun! I don't mean to be against sharing, but it can be fun to slowly learn about other people's backgrounds too over the course of the campaign naturally, as people travelling together wouldn't know everything about each other from the beginning.
Backstories are my favorite part of playing D&D. I like the ability to create different people with intertwining lives and the connections and things they've created. But when taking to other players in a campaign we like to do a brief overview of characters without revealing any hooks or secrets about them, i.e. My character is a paladin of this god with these principles and he's in a strange land where his god is foreign and disliked. It allows people to actually know what your character is without having to explain basics to everyone in an awkward forced conversation early in a campaign. Then things like plot hooks, secrets, fears, and other fun things to come up with will come out naturally and thats what people really want to keep to themselves. One thing I always make sure to do is leave lots of things open ended based on my character leaving for an adventure so the DM can then mess around with things in my backstory during the campaign giving the best of what I create and what my DM can create.
It is quite common for my background stories to be 1000+ words.