Hi, beyonders, 

I have an idea for a 60-year-old Goliath wizard called, "Ivan The Boneless".  He is an enormous man, with vast amounts of strength; truly a giant in all but name, at least compared to the people of the town where he was born and lived.  He made use of his strength and size by working on the docks as a young man, loading and unloading ships cargo; he would do this menial work to support himself and to fund his arcane studies. 

Eventually, he married and had a daughter, Tove; but that did not stop him from studying the arcane.  No!  He worked all the harder at his job on the docks, and would even take other jobs wherever he could.  So during the day, he would work to support himself and his family and to make sure that his child went to school and got a proper education, and at hight, when his family was sleeping, he would study his books.  He did not intend to become a wizard, he only sought after knowledge for knowledge's sake, but over the years, as he considered those arcane texts, he slowly transformed into one.

Now at 60, his wife has passed away, and his daughter has a life of her own.  Tove did indeed get a good education and despite her size (being only half Goliath, she is a lot smaller than her father, but still quite large), became a school teacher and then had a child of her own who she called. Leif. Leif is the first one of Ivans bloodline to be more human-sized, being the son of a human and a half-human, he is tall and well built, but still in the upper range of a human.

Ivan is now retired from his job at the docks and has found his world to be smaller and quieter than he hoped, he is bored and wastes his days down at the local tavern drowning his troubles in too much ale. It is there that he overhears some adventures talking about needing a wizard amongst their number, and being bored of his hum-drum life, and knowing something of the arcane arts, decides to offer his services. 

I will have to write this up better, to read more like a proper backstory, but the question is, is this enough backstory for a 60-year-old character?

Thanks

Foxes

I like it but as a DM, I would probably ask you some questions.

1. It seems like he is the only Goliath in a town full of humans. Why did he come to live among humans? Did his parents live in the town for some reason (and if so, what reason)? Or did he wander into the human town looking for work? If so, why couldn't he find work among the Goliaths? Etc.
2. You sort of backed into the fact that Ivan married a human woman. How did that happen? Why did he marry a human instead of a Goliath? None in town? No desire to leave town? Finds humans "hotter" than Goliaths ("smaller is sexier")?
3. His love of knowledge is not explained. Why is he so interested in lore, stories, etc., that he is constantly reading and studying even when he is tired from all the hard manual labor? Is he hoping that one day he can do a less back-breaking job, but it just takes so long to self-teach that he's retired by the time that happens? Did his parents read to him as a child and he developed a love of books? Etc.
4. I'd be careful with "I'm old and bored" as a motivation for adventuring, depending on the level of RP you expect from your table. If it's low (hack/slash dungeoneering) this would be fine. If the RP level is high, though, it may not be a sufficient motivation to realistically (i.e., believably) sustain your character through the hard times that often come with adventuring. For example, would someone risk his life to save a fair maiden from a dragon just cuz he's bored? Consider other motives that might be stronger... too old/sore to do manual labor but wants to earn money for Lief now, for instance. Etc.

Being bored might be why a character starts to adventure, but what keeps them there? Is it the excitement and adrenaline? Is it the job satisfaction, the camaraderie, the money? Happy, well adjusted people don’t typically risk their lives without a reason.

Like Bio Wizard, there are things that I would want to know.  My answer to your overarching question is, Yes, I would expect more backstory for a 60 YO character.

Where was he born?  Who are (were) his parents?  Their races, occupations, everything relevant.  Does he have siblings?  Who and where are they now?  Are they married? with children?

Why did he come to live here?  Why did he stay?  Why did he choose his profession and not change it?

What sort of home does he live in?  How did he acquire it?  What did he do before acquiring it?  What sort of life did he lead before becoming an adult?  Who were his childhood friends and where are they now.

Who are his friends now?  Why are they his friends?  Are they married? with children?  Other ties to the community or positions?  Did any of them come from far away or have they grown up here?

Who are the leaders in the town?  Who are his employers?  Who are the important merchants, clerics, guards, … in his life?

What special material possessions has he accumulated?  Why and how did he acquire these things?  Gifts?  Purchased to realize a dream?  Stolen and hidden to avoid discovery?  How much wealth has he accumulated?

At sixty, you could fill an entire book with a back story.  I'm not expecting a 300 page biography, but an adventurer starting at sixty would have an enormous backstory.  Also, drinking heavily takes its toll on you.  It probably takes its toll on older folk much more quickly.

I typically write my characters as young adults.  They have parents, brothers and sisters, a favorite activity, a trade they practiced to help support the family, and an explanation for how they came to choose the adventuring profession they practice, which usually includes them attending some year-long training from a master/mentor.  They have one or two friends they grew up with and at least one friend they met in training.  They have a town where they were born, a town they grew up in and a town where they learned their trade.  These can be the same, but they are usually listed.   … and yes, my DM says my backstories are long.  But I derive much inspiration for RP from my backstory.

I don't think that the age (60) is particularly an issue. After all, an elf in theory could be hundreds of years old before starting to adventure. I wouldn't expect the player of a 200 year old elf to necessarily write a longer backstory than the player of a 19 year old human.

Instead, I think there are some gaps in this backstory that would need to be filled in regardless of age. For example, his love of learning and willingness to read even when tired after working overtime, needs explanation. People don't just "love learning" in the abstract -- usually there is some reason for it. If we look at Hermione Granger for instance, yes, she "just loves reading," but she also didn't decide with that love of learning and books, to become a dock-worker. She went to a wizarding school and got into the lore end of wizarding like "Arithmancy" and "Runes" -- i.e, reading and mathy ends of Wizardry. So she chose to "major" in the thing she loved. Meanwhile, our OP Goliath has the same love of books as Hermione but instead of doing something with that, decided to go work with Hagrid mucking out griffon stalls. Again, this needs explanation. Hermione might have had to do that if she, say, got caught using magic out of school and was expelled (like Hagrid was). But there is nothing like this in the OP backstory.

Similarly, there is no explanation of why this Goliath married a human. This would need explanation if he was 19 years old and just got married, or now that he is a 60 year old widower. Again age is not the issue here.

The issue is that the character is doing some things that would not be, for lack of a better term, the "default" behavior, i.e., behavior that one would normally expect. Lover of books who does manual labor -- why? Goliath who marries out of his own species -- why? Goliath who lives among a different species - why? These things need explaining not because they went on for a long time (age) but because they happened at all, because they are not expected. And they would need just as much explaining if the character was a teenager.

I am playing an 88-year old Dwarven cleric. I wrote up a little bit about his beginnings - lived on an island, about his parents and siblings (all miraculously alive!) and how he spent his time in the temples the Viking travelers built to honor their gods. He loved hearing the stories they told if great adventures, and decided that he wanted to do that. And tell stories of the great Thor.

Also, he heard of a lost relic, allegedly carried by Thor himself, and wants to return it to his island home.

I made up a little bit about his ex-lover, a half elf sorcerer. He cheated on her, and in her wrath, she turned part of his hair and beard purple. So, he has a hard time trusting sorcerers. And elves. Especially female elven magic users. I'm sure my DM will use that to his advantage.

I think the story is fine. It doesn't matter who his parents are or why he's living in the city. It doesn't matter why he married a human if the woman is already dead. People are people, they will fall in love with whoever their heart calls them to. The character has been living in the same city doing the same job for decades. In that time, racial differences would be a wash, he's a known figure in the community - like the cashier you always see at the market or the customer that always comes into your shop on Tuesdays.

If your spouse is gone and your children have left the nest, there is a reason to do something different - to pursue a new interest or reignite an old hobby. Why do you think there are so many old folks traveling all over the world?