I love character creation; it is one of my favourite things about DnD and TTRPGs, but I am getting quite frustrated because I never seem able to make a character that lasts over a few months. Some only last a few weeks, which means I am always making characters but never have one that I can settle into and get to know by inhibiting them for the long term.
It also gets frustrating for the people I play with when I have to introduce new characters all the time.
How can I make a character that lasts an entire campaign, barring in-world accidents, of course?
Any advice you can give me to help me make a lo-term character will be appreciated.
Thanks
Forge
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A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
When you say a character "only last[s] a few weeks", can you provide a bit more clarification on that? I presume that means you are "finishing" the character's story and do not feel there is anything else to explore with that character. However, there could be other reasons you do not feel attached to your characters long-term, and it would be helpful to know a bit more about the circumstances to help better target feedback and advice.
I seem to remember the OP writing a post a while ago about how they struggled to get attached to their characters. I might be thinking of the wrong person, but I think it's them, so I suspect that their characters aren't holding their attention for long enough.
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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 seem to remember the OP writing a post a while ago about how they struggled to get attached to their characters. I might be thinking of the wrong person, but I think it's them, so I suspect that their characters aren't holding their attention for long enough.
I guess we’ll find out sooner or later whenever they respond, won’t we?
I love character creation; it is one of my favourite things about DnD and TTRPGs, but I am getting quite frustrated because I never seem able to make a character that lasts over a few months. Some only last a few weeks, which means I am always making characters but never have one that I can settle into and get to know by inhibiting them for the long term.
It also gets frustrating for the people I play with when I have to introduce new characters all the time.
How can I make a character that lasts an entire campaign, barring in-world accidents, of course?
Any advice you can give me to help me make a lo-term character will be appreciated.
Thanks
Forge
I think you just need to accept this. From what I've gathered from your posts over the years is that you are a storyteller. You love dreaming up new characters and complicated, dramatic backgrounds for them. I don't think there's a simple trick you can do here to diminish that drive. It's just who you are.
The closest thing I can think of to a solution is for you to be a DM, where you can be many characters, rotate new ones in all the time, and more easily advance their stories in the ways - and at the pace - that you want.
Or just be upfront with your group that this is how you enjoy the game and ask them to deal with it. As long as the transitions are realistic and flow with the story, I don't see why this would need to be an issue with anyone. Past characters can be fun NPCs to interact with, or even villains down the road.
Well, here's my perspective. I grow attached to my character not just because I want to tell a story that has interesting elements to it, but also because I want to see that story through to its natural conclusion, whatever that may be.
If that's not something you can reconcile, well, I don't know what else to tell you. Dangling and unresolved story arcs just irk me.
Make sure some of your goals are "big picture" things they can't easily resolve
Think about internal conflict as well as external conflict
Don't come up with all the answers upfront - leave room for you to add to the character during play
Use the backstory you do create to help open up those opportunities; the people your character might know or care about are great for this
Similarly, don't design the character mechanically too far ahead - give the narrative a chance to influence what choices you make as you level up
Work with fellow players to make sure your characters have reasons to support each other, and also to help you get invested in the other characters as well as your own, so that if the spotlight is off your PC for a while, you and your character are still engaged
I never write an elaborate backstory, I specifically leave holes in my PC’s backstories for the DM to fill in. That gives me things to discover about my character as the game progresses, it keeps things interesting.
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 migh 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.
+1 for minimal backstories and leaving the majority of your characters development to occur in the future. My first character had no backstory (pregen character for a new players thing, my first dnd experience) and was great, his story was written during the game as relevant parts came up. I have since made characters with loads of backstory, and they inevitable transcend to NPCs because I consider them too interesting already to really add much to them by playing. Here are some examples:
Thoruk, my namesake and first character, was a half orc barbarian. that was his backstory. Then, as the game progressed, I added a preoccupation with the dangers of ducks, and elaborated this to the point where Thoruk lost his parents to a duck attack when he was young (someone shouted "duck!" just before they were carried away by something which was almost certainly not a duck), and he has since sworn vengeance on these foul shapechanging monsters. He is great to play in drop-in games and I suspect he will reappear all the time.
Gizmo, is a gnome artificer who worked for an evil company who was weaponising magic and selling it to the highest bidder, and when he became disillusioned with the whole thing and tried to leave, they imprisoned him and he released an Iron Golem to escape, and then he set up a shop where he buys magic items and attempts to store any curses into gems. He also adventures to find new items. That was his backstory, and he quickly evolved into an NPC, with his own magical shop and quests to give out - because I felt like I was not really building on his character when I was adventuring because so much of his story had already happened, and his level 5 character wasn't holding up to his golem-building gem-binding eccentric-contraption-creating backstory.
Consider this: Do you lose interest because you wrote a character who could do so much, and then played them as a character who could do, comparatively, so little? Did you write a god and then have to play them as a mortal?
Yeah, if I’m creating a character for a campaign that’s starting between 1st and 4th levels, I write a backstory with an absolute maximum of 15 sentences. That’s 1-3 paragraphs each 3-5 sentences long, that’s my guideline. Anything more than that would be a background for a character of a higher level. If the character is starting between 5th and 10th levels it’s a maximum of 20 sentences, 2-4 paragraphs each 3-5 sentences. And I intentionally leave some stuff unexplained in that backstory for the DM to do whatever they want with it. That way I can enjoy the surprises.
That would be massive for me. I just gave a few details. Perhaps a plot hook or two if the DM wants it or not, but normally just enough to explain the stats and why they want to be in the party. If my backstory is more than a three or four sentences, then it's to explain a detail rather than to add to their story.
Oneshots don't even have a back story.
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Oh, I’m a hugebig fan of the three sentence backstory, I said 15 sentences was my max, not my target, and that includes anything I write to explain a detail too. Plus I like to write so I can get a little verbose, sometimes I just need 6-10 sentences or so. As long as my backstory contains three things I’m good:
Any one fact about the character’s home life.
Any one significant event from their past.
How and why they became an adventurer.
That’s usually about 3-6 sentences for me for a quicky, 6-10 if I’m feeling verbose (which I usually am), and a hard limit of 15 to remind myself to shut the eff up and not write a novella. 😂
Yeah I definitely agree with the responses so far.
Consider it a challenge. Create a character with a simple backstory and a broad motivation for adventuring, and try to connect with them through in-the-moment roleplaying personality decisions, and experiences you have during the campaign with the character.
I find that I connect more and get bored less with a character the more open their concept is. My current character in one of my games is just: a horizon walker ranger who wants to save the world from invaders, and a simic hybrid who loves gross food. And German (he's basically Nightcrawler). But like, that's basically it. And I've had a great time with him and he's done a lot in the world, and when I think about the fun I've had with the character, I think about when the party was at a Cafe and he ordered hot pickle juice instead of coffee for the first time and everyone was grossed out, I think of rescuing our party member from an Orzhov prison, I remember teaching the rogue how to shoot a longbow. That kind of stuff.
The more specific you make your character, the more you give them a beginning, middle, and clear specific end condition, the more you put an expiration date on your character. TTRPG characters aren't movie heroes who wrap up their journeys in 2 hours, they're pulp heroes who half the time are doing stuff just because "hey that's weird let's go investigate!"
Challenge yourself to go against your natural inclination to make a complex character with a defined narrative, and try and play a character that can discover what their narrative is at play goes on.
Might be useful to anyone with a perchant for creating lots of characters as it gives you the basic info and as its randomised it might give you some combo's you;ve not thought of before, some of the names might need a little tweaking, although the name of the tabaxi it just generated called Timber Snoring Moutain has me chuckling for some reason.
Edit: if you use that generatoir there is an option at the bottom called character type, if you select teh adventurer option it'll give you a reason you becomane the type of class it generated
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”. As I already said, as as you already agreed with, different systems work for different people and groups—the important thing is OP finding what works for them.
But, I will respond specifically to your points—not because I want to convince you of anything, but to make sure OP isn’t being dissuaded from any point of view by someone who thinks their opinions are truths.
For starters, no, a long backstory does not preclude a competent DM from using it - it gives them more plot hooks they can work with. As with any backstory, they do not have to use all the elements—giving them more options means they can cherrypick the ones more easily slotted into the campaign and the plot, which can make it less likely they have to shoehorn in something from a scant backstory just to check the backstory box.
As for your second point, just like actual acting, where some folks need to live in the character and some folks can just turn it on and off, different people approach getting into their D&D character differently. Telling someone their method of developing their alter ego is wrong borders on rude.
And, in this context, ignores that the post discusses present tense challenges and flaws to be overcome—things that are present during the beginning of the campaign and will change overtime. It is quite clear these are not “backstory only” traits—but traits informed by the backstory and changing over the course of the campaign.
As for your final point about fixating on the backstory to the detriment of the main game—that ignores again the “fair point” about backstories not being an impediment to the future. Ignoring the portion of the post that says “you can do this as long as you do not do so at the expense of the future” so you can claim “doing this is at the expense of the future” seems rather disingenuous, does it not?
Hi,
I love character creation; it is one of my favourite things about DnD and TTRPGs, but I am getting quite frustrated because I never seem able to make a character that lasts over a few months. Some only last a few weeks, which means I am always making characters but never have one that I can settle into and get to know by inhibiting them for the long term.
It also gets frustrating for the people I play with when I have to introduce new characters all the time.
How can I make a character that lasts an entire campaign, barring in-world accidents, of course?
Any advice you can give me to help me make a lo-term character will be appreciated.
Thanks
Forge
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
When you say a character "only last[s] a few weeks", can you provide a bit more clarification on that? I presume that means you are "finishing" the character's story and do not feel there is anything else to explore with that character. However, there could be other reasons you do not feel attached to your characters long-term, and it would be helpful to know a bit more about the circumstances to help better target feedback and advice.
When you write that they “don’t last,” what do you mean? Are they dying? Are you getting bored with them? What?
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I seem to remember the OP writing a post a while ago about how they struggled to get attached to their characters. I might be thinking of the wrong person, but I think it's them, so I suspect that their characters aren't holding their attention for long enough.
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 guess we’ll find out sooner or later whenever they respond, won’t we?
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I think you just need to accept this. From what I've gathered from your posts over the years is that you are a storyteller. You love dreaming up new characters and complicated, dramatic backgrounds for them. I don't think there's a simple trick you can do here to diminish that drive. It's just who you are.
The closest thing I can think of to a solution is for you to be a DM, where you can be many characters, rotate new ones in all the time, and more easily advance their stories in the ways - and at the pace - that you want.
Or just be upfront with your group that this is how you enjoy the game and ask them to deal with it. As long as the transitions are realistic and flow with the story, I don't see why this would need to be an issue with anyone. Past characters can be fun NPCs to interact with, or even villains down the road.
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In my experience, this problem gets solved when you start DM'ing and start pouring your creativity into NPC's, quests, and locations.
Well, here's my perspective. I grow attached to my character not just because I want to tell a story that has interesting elements to it, but also because I want to see that story through to its natural conclusion, whatever that may be.
If that's not something you can reconcile, well, I don't know what else to tell you. Dangling and unresolved story arcs just irk me.
Some things that might help:
I never write an elaborate backstory, I specifically leave holes in my PC’s backstories for the DM to fill in. That gives me things to discover about my character as the game progresses, it keeps things interesting.
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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 migh 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.
+1 for minimal backstories and leaving the majority of your characters development to occur in the future. My first character had no backstory (pregen character for a new players thing, my first dnd experience) and was great, his story was written during the game as relevant parts came up. I have since made characters with loads of backstory, and they inevitable transcend to NPCs because I consider them too interesting already to really add much to them by playing. Here are some examples:
Thoruk, my namesake and first character, was a half orc barbarian. that was his backstory. Then, as the game progressed, I added a preoccupation with the dangers of ducks, and elaborated this to the point where Thoruk lost his parents to a duck attack when he was young (someone shouted "duck!" just before they were carried away by something which was almost certainly not a duck), and he has since sworn vengeance on these foul shapechanging monsters. He is great to play in drop-in games and I suspect he will reappear all the time.
Gizmo, is a gnome artificer who worked for an evil company who was weaponising magic and selling it to the highest bidder, and when he became disillusioned with the whole thing and tried to leave, they imprisoned him and he released an Iron Golem to escape, and then he set up a shop where he buys magic items and attempts to store any curses into gems. He also adventures to find new items. That was his backstory, and he quickly evolved into an NPC, with his own magical shop and quests to give out - because I felt like I was not really building on his character when I was adventuring because so much of his story had already happened, and his level 5 character wasn't holding up to his golem-building gem-binding eccentric-contraption-creating backstory.
Consider this: Do you lose interest because you wrote a character who could do so much, and then played them as a character who could do, comparatively, so little? Did you write a god and then have to play them as a mortal?
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Yeah, if I’m creating a character for a campaign that’s starting between 1st and 4th levels, I write a backstory with an absolute maximum of 15 sentences. That’s 1-3 paragraphs each 3-5 sentences long, that’s my guideline. Anything more than that would be a background for a character of a higher level. If the character is starting between 5th and 10th levels it’s a maximum of 20 sentences, 2-4 paragraphs each 3-5 sentences. And I intentionally leave some stuff unexplained in that backstory for the DM to do whatever they want with it. That way I can enjoy the surprises.
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That would be massive for me. I just gave a few details. Perhaps a plot hook or two if the DM wants it or not, but normally just enough to explain the stats and why they want to be in the party. If my backstory is more than a three or four sentences, then it's to explain a detail rather than to add to their story.
Oneshots don't even have a back story.
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.
Oh, I’m a hugebig fan of the three sentence backstory, I said 15 sentences was my max, not my target, and that includes anything I write to explain a detail too. Plus I like to write so I can get a little verbose, sometimes I just need 6-10 sentences or so. As long as my backstory contains three things I’m good:
That’s usually about 3-6 sentences for me for a quicky, 6-10 if I’m feeling verbose (which I usually am), and a hard limit of 15 to remind myself to shut the eff up and not write a novella. 😂
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Yeah I definitely agree with the responses so far.
Consider it a challenge. Create a character with a simple backstory and a broad motivation for adventuring, and try to connect with them through in-the-moment roleplaying personality decisions, and experiences you have during the campaign with the character.
I find that I connect more and get bored less with a character the more open their concept is. My current character in one of my games is just: a horizon walker ranger who wants to save the world from invaders, and a simic hybrid who loves gross food. And German (he's basically Nightcrawler). But like, that's basically it. And I've had a great time with him and he's done a lot in the world, and when I think about the fun I've had with the character, I think about when the party was at a Cafe and he ordered hot pickle juice instead of coffee for the first time and everyone was grossed out, I think of rescuing our party member from an Orzhov prison, I remember teaching the rogue how to shoot a longbow. That kind of stuff.
The more specific you make your character, the more you give them a beginning, middle, and clear specific end condition, the more you put an expiration date on your character. TTRPG characters aren't movie heroes who wrap up their journeys in 2 hours, they're pulp heroes who half the time are doing stuff just because "hey that's weird let's go investigate!"
Challenge yourself to go against your natural inclination to make a complex character with a defined narrative, and try and play a character that can discover what their narrative is at play goes on.
I found this random character generator online: https://tetra-cube.com/dnd/dnd-char-gen.html
Might be useful to anyone with a perchant for creating lots of characters as it gives you the basic info and as its randomised it might give you some combo's you;ve not thought of before, some of the names might need a little tweaking, although the name of the tabaxi it just generated called Timber Snoring Moutain has me chuckling for some reason.
Edit: if you use that generatoir there is an option at the bottom called character type, if you select teh adventurer option it'll give you a reason you becomane the type of class it generated
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is a fair point. You have to work with your GM and fellow players.
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”. As I already said, as as you already agreed with, different systems work for different people and groups—the important thing is OP finding what works for them.
But, I will respond specifically to your points—not because I want to convince you of anything, but to make sure OP isn’t being dissuaded from any point of view by someone who thinks their opinions are truths.
For starters, no, a long backstory does not preclude a competent DM from using it - it gives them more plot hooks they can work with. As with any backstory, they do not have to use all the elements—giving them more options means they can cherrypick the ones more easily slotted into the campaign and the plot, which can make it less likely they have to shoehorn in something from a scant backstory just to check the backstory box.
As for your second point, just like actual acting, where some folks need to live in the character and some folks can just turn it on and off, different people approach getting into their D&D character differently. Telling someone their method of developing their alter ego is wrong borders on rude.
And, in this context, ignores that the post discusses present tense challenges and flaws to be overcome—things that are present during the beginning of the campaign and will change overtime. It is quite clear these are not “backstory only” traits—but traits informed by the backstory and changing over the course of the campaign.
As for your final point about fixating on the backstory to the detriment of the main game—that ignores again the “fair point” about backstories not being an impediment to the future. Ignoring the portion of the post that says “you can do this as long as you do not do so at the expense of the future” so you can claim “doing this is at the expense of the future” seems rather disingenuous, does it not?