Comments on: Time Enough for Genesis?

By: d21 Gaming » dCharacter/dt

d21 Gaming » dCharacter/dt — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:22:27 +0000

[...] I’m still on my character creation kick, carrying on from last week’s post. Seems only natural, as we’re inching up to the starting line for a 4E campaign over [...]

By: Tommi

Tommi — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 07:11:57 +0000

If I bother with character history, it should be the thing driving the game. Otherwise I’d rather improvise it in play so that it actually fits with the game and adds to it.

By: The Emperor

The Emperor — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:17:21 +0000

Here’s a suggestion. My character was in a Tavern, and your character was in a tavern, and we were mostly drunk, and this mysterious stranger offered us a bag of gold to do whatever. The End.

By: KarasDjun

KarasDjun — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:10:04 +0000

Backstory is fine, but extensive historical documentation of what a character did from cradle to dungeon is overkill and stifles the creativity of the DM. If you need that much background for a character, then you’ve already started the novel and should just finish it outside of the game. There are random things called dice that influence the game and prevent ANYONE from predicting exactly what will occur in the future. Your character might think he’s heading for that lord title and knightly prestige at court, but the DM might have you in the wilderness and deep in forgotten temples or caves for most of your career. Also, characters with vastly different origin stories are harder to integrate into a cohesive party. We tried the organic party generation method once - where all the characters have ties to at least one other character and usually more than one. It turned out well, but there will always be that one person in the group who wants to be the loner, the outcast, or the troublemaker. Such a player almost always makes a character counter to the alignments or backgrounds of the party as a whole - the necromancer in the LG party of clerics and paladins, the barbarian in an otherwise civilized party, the pacifist in a party of slayers, etc. Too often, characters are made without input from the other players. You should sit your players down for a couple of character sessions before the game starts. Explain to them that they have to weave the threads of their stories together themselves and then build on that. Role-playing is not necessary for such a session, but they should be aware that they are trying to make a cohesive group, not a bunch of loners thrown together by chance. Of course, a group of loners COULD be their angle.

By: Indiana Joe

Indiana Joe — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:34:02 +0000

I’ve always thought that the purpose of a backstory is both to give the DM a way to hook the character into the campaign, and to give an idea of where the character is going.

By: Random

Random — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:03:28 +0000

One reason I like to do a backstory is that it gives the DM stuff to work with. Every character that I can introduce as a potential NPC in my backstory is someone the DM can use as a plot hook. Someone to kidnap,kill, need a favor, or even who can help out if the players need a hand. The trick is to not make them powerful, unless they are an enemy, or to make them more interesting than the PCs.

Back stories have to be tailored to the character in that if you are running a 12 year old thief you don't have that much to work with. A 400 year old elf on the other hand, well sometimes it is more of a struggle to explain why they are still first level.

The setting can also make it easier to churn out some backstory. In a huge setting like the Forgotten Realms there is so much to work with you can write a ton of stuff into your backstory. You could create a petty noble and fill your backstory with your years of parting in Waterdeep before becoming an adventurer.

I think that using the first ten levels as an origin story is a really good way to look at it. Pre 4th edition I always thought that the first 5 levels were the origin. Maybe this matches up with the new system having more levels.

By: The Emperor

The Emperor — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:39:33 +0000

Is that Bruce Willis? How interesting…