Backstory 201: 7 Tips & 1 Alternative for Great Backstories - Playing RPGs
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- Опубликовано: 13 июл 2024
- Here's 7 tips on making great Character Backstories that both you and your Game Master can get the most out of, as well as an additional option I prefer that can be incorporated alongside or instead of writing a backstory out.
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Guest starring Mike and Todd.
00:00 Intro
01:02 1 Provide Names
01:50 2 Make It Easy to Reference
05:05 3 The GM Has Final Approval
06:18 4 NPCs From the Past Aren't Static
07:53 5 The PC Should Continue Evolving
09:35 6 Tropes Aren't Bad
12:25 7 Link the Characters' Backstories
13:38 Buddies & Rivals
14:47 Ask a Survey of Questions
21:35 Closing 
Игры
Agreed. What the Omicrons did is unforgivable!
Omnicrons. You can't trust them. 😠
I hear that even emperor Palpatine dislike the Omicros after what they did!
The Omicrons did nothing wrong!
They're the real victims!
@@douglasmartin7042 Damned Omicron apologists are everywhere these days.
Omnicrons are seth's natural enemies, just like omnicrons and nigel, just like omnicrons and jack, just like omnicrons and other omnicrons. Damned Omnicrons they ruined Omnicronia!
This is something that can really make your campaign flow into something good or far more memorable. My son started his rogue swashbuckler smuggler as a man who wanted to just earn money until his grandparents who raised him were sitting in comfort. Then he would retire, grow old, and have like a hobbit hole type home. Over the course of the campaign his parents emerged and his grandparents were safe and very well taken care of, but he didn't retire. Instead he did a scene where he was about to leave then stopped himself choosing to come back for the group and for the greater things that were to be done. It was genius and beautiful to watch as a father and DM.
One of our most memorable Pathfinder groups started when I made a Street-fighter(monk) halfling named Alfon Sheananagan who was fighting to make money to put his brother through Alchemist school. One of the other players laughed and changed the last name of his Halfling Alchemist to match and was now the brother I had put through school. By the time the dice hit the table all 5 players were Halflings brothers and cousins from the Sheananagan clan. The clan motto became "Not just any Halflings" after multiple sessions of NPCs questioning our ability to complete quests. "Really they sent a group of Halflings?" "We're not just any Halflings!! We're Sheananagans."
that sounds awesome. i've always wanted to play in a themed party. the sheananagans sound like a lot of fun
@@j.i.weyllandin7439 It was a great time. Combat dragging was the only issue since in Pathfinder 1e the size of the weapon adjusted it's damage. So all the weapon damage dice in the party stepped down by 1 (d6 became d4, d8 was d6, etc.). It also gave lots of RP opportunities as we had to convince the local armor and weapon shops to bring in small sized equipment for us.
We had a good campaign once where the party started off as a family, really short-cutted the whole " Why are we sticking together?"
Song of Ice and Fire?
One tip I would recommend for the long backstories is something some authors do in the front pages of their books.
It is called a dramatis personae (Latin: "the masks of the drama"), the main characters in a dramatic work written in a list.
All of the characters in your backstory presented in a listing, grouped by either faction, location, or "side" (friends, enemies, neutrals).
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If you present this to your GM in double space, they can make notes of their own on that sheet. Or present it electronically, if your GM prefers.
One way to minimize the need for GM vetoing of backstory is to make sure the PCs have access to some basic description and parameters of the intended setting. Some GMs can provide copious notes describing their world but another way to do it is to have a few chats about what will or will not fit.
Seems like the same synopsis and bullet points format could be used to introduce players to the setting and has a chance to create some reciprocity with character backstories for the DM.
@@johnrechtoris9796 Yep, that's a very good idea. However, some players seem to totally misunderstand even that. Hence my Renaissance and later setting based on the Holy Roman Empire's battles with the Ottoman Empire ended up with a gladiator....
You mean like... a SESSION ZERO?!
@@crimfan maybe some eccentric petty noble, obsessed with history, arranges his own mock gladiatorial games, and characters come away from that claiming to be gladiators...
@@originaluddite Yep, that's how I altered his background.
Tip 7 might be simultaneously the most under-used and most effective of the lot. Tying your PC to someone else's backstory is great for roleplaying potential, but so many people are shy about doing it.
There are two widespread ways of creating characters, (That most are unaware of! - They just do as they have always done...)
Individual character creation, where the players create their characters without any knowledge of what characters the other players create.
Collective character creation, where the players create their characters in parallel and thus can adjust their characters according to what characters the others are making.
Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. (And I am of course most aware of the cases where people use the wrong... Doh...)
Individual character creation lacks the ability to make direct backstory connections.
Here it is more up to the GM to make background elements the characters can latch on to, and then during play discover that those elements connect their character to some of the other characters.
@@larsdahl5528 We live in an era of instantaneous communication. The only reason to make a character in isolation these days is by choice - and I'd contend it's generally a bad choice to do so. Even if you want to run someone who has a mysterious past and secrets to hide, participating in collective character creation gives you the opportunity to present the rest of the group with whatever false front your PC is using, while arranging privately with the GM that they know what you're hiding behind that mask.
Notable exception would be cases where your PC wouldn't have had any interaction with the other PCs before meeting them in play, for ex when you're dropping into an established campaign or replacing your previous PC with a stranger. Even then you often get a tie from the circumstances - "guy we rescued from the goblin meat-cages" is a perfectly reasonable starting point for why you keep hanging around with the group.
I did this once with a friend who was new to writing backstory. I shared a backstory with him to help relieve some of the stress and allow him to focus on motivations rather than details. It was my second character and his first, and I think it went pretty well. I’ve always intended to do it again, but never have. Maybe I aught to try it in the next campaign I play in.
Honestly, I might be a minority here but I don't like trying my PC to someone else's backstory.
The major reason is that it feels contrived and unrealistic to have everyone just happen to know each other. It also limits what kind of characters I can play since they all have to know about each other as well as takes away from the experience of roleplaying the budding relationships these characters from strangers who are together for survival to a family. Probably also because I usually play outsiders or characters from far away lands who don't have any connections to the current setting at all.
I can see where it can work like if they are all from the same organization or village or are famous/infamous. But I prefer making it part of my background why I'm willing to team up with the party.
"Do any of you know each other" is a standard session 0 question in my groups. Usually a couple people will decide to be recent/casual friends or maybe coworkers currently travelling together, and the rest are strangers. Nobody is ever siblings, or reads each other's backstories to go "can this guy be me instead?". I may try to make it happen next campaign.
Loving what you have to say about this.
One player had a police detective investigator in my 1920s Call of Cthulhu game. His backstory included his wife disappearing in their house and the scandle meant he lost his job, his house, and ended up on the streets. He joined the others when I ran "The Madman" and when he was killed in that first scenario, he said "I call out my wife's name as I die." "Okay," I said. "What do you say." He thought on it and then role played "My wife!" He had never named her.
I always have my players write their backstories from their character's pov. There have been many cases of the character thinking one thing, but it ending up being something completely different. One ranger was sure another ranger he worked with was guilty of something, but the other ranger was sure HE had done it as well. It took them finally meeting up and a trial before the truth came out: it was a third party entirely.
LOL. Love the Omicron bit.
I like to give 3 npcs in my backstories so the DM can choose whichever one might fit best in the story, or whichever one they feel the most comfortable playing as. It also means I still get a bit of a surprise with whoever ends up showing up because I won't necessarily know ahead of time.
As long as the GM does not take PC-NPCs as hostages, (Sadly a quite common GM failure) it should be fine.
One of the reasons for the far too common "orphan amnesia" background is that the player has been the victim of a background abuser GM.
It is the background that contains no NPCs for the GM to abuse.
@@larsdahl5528 Except the GM does have license to use, or even kill, the NPCs provided. I don't see why you think this is "abusive". Most players are delighted that a GM can weave their elements into a game story. And if they don't like it, they can always "reset" them next time.
@@larsdahl5528 If that's an issue or concern, just make sure they're not family or super close. A military supervisor, or a rival, or a pirate leader that got away that you've been hunting for, for example. These are all people that could've been impactful in a backstory that aren't going to be a big bother if the DM abuses them.
@@obsidianjane4413 The GM technically has license to do anything, but nobody says players want to put up with anything. If you don't want everyone your PC holds dear to die a horrible death, it's on the GM to not make that happen.
So yeah, I think just using NPCs introduced by players as plot devices, knowing very well that you can always have them endangered or tortured to get your PCs motivated, is pretty abusive.
I didn't add characters to my PC background story so the GM can just use them as plot devices. I added them so they could be used as *characters*.
@@kasane1337 NPCs ARE plot devices. That is their whole purpose.
Otherwise the players are just the plot devices of the NPC's (GM's) adventure.
Considering all the ways that a GM can screw up a game, this is a very minor one.
DMs should provide an example backstory so players can see what format is desired. If a DM gives me 20 pages and says "this is what I am looking for," then I am probably looking for a new DM. Regarding tropes: Players should collaborate on backstories, either to avoid all picking the same trope, or perhaps to use that commonality to strengthen their bonds and explain why they are adventuring together. In my game, two players gave me the "my parents were killed, I have to find the killer, avenge their deaths, and claim my inheritance" trope. I made it the same killer and made that killer a central villain in the campaign. There was a big reveal moment when both character's got a glimpse of face that they both remembered from their seemingly disparate pasts. If only I could inject that kind of drama into every session.
But honestly, your example is only made better by both players not knowing that they share the same backstory trope ;D
@@kasane1337 Yeah, sometime over-sharing on backgrounds is a bad thing because it gets in the way of that kind of surprise. The PCs usually ought to have a secret or two the rest of party (but not the GM) doesn't know about at first, with revelations coming naturally during play - if at all.
About tropes, writing has existed for thousands of years. People have telling stories for as long as we've been talking.
You'll never totally avoid tropes, and if you did somehow come up with something 100% original, it's probably not that people haven't thought of it, just that it's not very good.
That isn't to say you shouldn't make your backstory unique, but you shouldn't worry about tropes.
I see tropes as literary short hand. Nice building blocks, like the bones of a skeleton, but you need flesh on those bones.
Yeah. People like when the hero gets the girl, people like when enemies become friends and friends become enemies, they like for good to beat evil.
Tropes are totally fine, but it's important not to go too far down Stereotype Lane with them.
@@crimfan Sure but there are people that will strike everything down as a "trope", as if tropes themselves are the problem rather than a lack of originality.
The first Dragonlance novel Dragons of Autumn Twilight is really great when it comes to linking backstories. The group of friends split up 5 years ago and they agreed to meet again at the inn in Solace. Many things happened in the meantime and one of them is even mysteriously missing (hint, big bad connection for later) AND they are conveniently at a place where the campaign starts.
I have lots of issues with Dragonlance but the first book does set up and backstory exceptionally well.
There's a lot to be said with starting a campaign with a reunion of some kind, yeah.
That method is also great for campaigns that don't start at level one!
I will have to keep it in mind when I start a group at level 2 or 3.
Agreed, very well done.
One of the best things I've seen is the 'retroactive backstory' by a blog called tenfootpolemic. Basically, characters don't have anything more than an ultra-minimal backstory and as they level up their backstory is slowly uncovered.
I've kind of preferred that method (more or less) for more than a decade... MAYBE a page of hastily scrawled notes "roughing it in" as I originally "see" the Character Concept coming together. It should (in my opinion) give a reasonable explanation for how s/he is a Rogue/Ranger/etc... and probably what led to certain spells or abilities being early in focus... BUT other than maybe some "Placeholders" for vague reference later, I'll rather feel out where and how relevant information is later...
Funny "side note"... I got into a Campaign over a long (holiday) weekend once, and about half the Table (me included) was drunk before dice were rolled... SO I used a few opportunities to explain some dubious wit or forethought with "My Daddy always told me..." having COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN that I'd specified that my PC lost his father very young... as in lucky to even be born at all kind of young...
Mental Gymnastics and accusing my Daddy of the greatest and most pertinent wit ever became cornerstones of that Character's personality... which consistently generated a case of giggling in the GM... we finally worked out a scene when one of the other PC's finally cornered me about the matter, and I could admit that I never really knew my father, so it was just a ghost/amalgam of what I'd always kind of hoped he'd be like... Caught everyone off guard, because I'm USUALLY the type who sets some big expectation for a background personality and then smashes it horrifically or comically... like building "My Daddy" to seem like the greatest superhuman father of all time only to admit he was in prison for fraud and sexual indiscretions... or something... BUT no... admitting I was just trapped in that kind of "wishful thinking" about something I'd never really get or know almost broke everyone for a few minutes...
If engaged well, almost any technique CAN be remarkably powerful as a tool for RP... Backstory CAN be great "as is" just letting Players write their "novels" as it were. Some are really gifted for it... AND some need a few prompts to get "the creative juices going"... I seem to work best after "trying on the PC for size and fit a while" first, and then improv' and "for f*ck's own sakes TAKE NOTES"... haha... ;o)
Elaborate backstory? With my brother as DM, there is only a 50% my character will make it out of 1st level. I shouldn't have tormented him when we were children, his desire for revenge is strong.
You know the cure for that, right?
Take up the GM position yourself!
Should be easy to do it better than your brother.
(Who... Anyone with just a minor amount of self-esteem... Would use such a derogatory term as "DM" about themselves???)
Torment him some more.
My first DM seamed to think it was his job to kill the PC's as sadistically as possible.
Played wonderful charters like :
The Mage with no magic
The fighter with one hit point! No that's not a joke! At lv 2 He got 2 Hp and took his first hit and was killed 4 XP short of lv 3
A druid with allergies.
The thief afraid of highs!
XD
@@paintedblue1791 You should really just be playing Paranoia at that point. At least that way the players can get in on the fun of murdering each other.
I love the idea of adding questions for players to answer during character creation.
Yes, some RPG systems have such build-in.
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I do go for the simple 3 question starter:
Name? Personality? Profession?
Examples: (From a one-shot I was GM for)
Heino, grumpy archeologist.
Jacque, rich nobleman.
Omar, curious grocer.
I like the simple (yet powerful) base for the characters it produces.
---
For the background struggled players, I go for the passport application form.
Here they have to fill in the basic information needed for a passport, height, weight, hair color, eye color, etc.
Again something simple to get the players started.
I ported over the Teens in Space crew questions for my OSE game. And I gave each pc a random item from Chris Tamm’s d300 Useless Magic Loot (Knock! #1). In 30-45 minutes we took a bunch of generic D&D characters and transformed them into a party that felt like we had known for years.
shadowrun had an excellent list of questions in the the 3rd edition shadowrun companion Called Twenty Questions the first question seems like seth paraphrased it for this video :D "Where is your character from? This question serves to give you an instant background for your character. It also sets up a framework by which many other questions can be answered. Be Specific. Don't just give a city or country. Give an exact location. For instance two characters growing up in Seattle could easily be from completely different areas. One may from the hard-boiled Barrens, and the other from the pleasant corporate structure of the Renraku Arcology (before the bad times...)"
I took the liberty to type the questions in here
●What motivates your character?why?
●What trait describes you?
●What is your appereance?
●What is your darkest secret?
●What is your biggest fear?
●What is your greatest tragedy?
●Where did you grow up?
●Who are your siblings?
●Who are your enemies /Rivals? Why do you dislike them?
●Who do you hate?
●Who is your best friend
●Who is your hero and why?
●Have you ever hurt anyone?
●What is your proudest accomplishment?
●What is your biggest goal?
●Do you live with someone else?
●What are you most passionate about?
●What do you do with your spare time?
●How do you feel about most people?
●What is your biggest flaw?
●What is yout most cherished possesion and why?
●What is your most cherished place and why?
●How did you meet the other characters?
Thank you so much for not being in the "Tropes = Bad" camp. Every time I bring up tropes to my writing group, I get a wave of eye-rolling that I can tangibly feel. It's not a pleasant sensation, as one might expect.
Tropes can be used pretty well by a good author
People have a knee-jerk reaction to reject all tropes when they learn about them, without fully understanding what a trope is. Having a protagonist and an antagonist is a trope. It would be easier to write a story without nouns than to write one without tropes.
What's really sad is that the "anti-tropers" have, in fact, become a bad trope themselves. They so desperately want to be edgy and cool that they have become a caricature of the snotty critic.
You may want to consider why they roll their eyes. It's for a good reason.
@@SymmetricalDocking What reason might that be?
Most of my character's backstory was made up after I'd already been playing him for a while. At the start he was just an antisocial ranger who preferred hunting in the forest alone to talking to other people but now he has a whole family who he had run away from and then reconciled with and a former human lover who got old while he stayed young which is why he's reluctant to commit himself to his new Tiefling romantic interest. He's a fully fleshed out character who started off as a generic loner because I was nervous about doing roleplay so I created someone who wouldn't talk much.
I have seen quite some examples where some play has to be done before it is possible to make a consistent backstory.
It is a classic problem: What came first? The hen or the egg? ... Erhm... I mean ... The world or the character?
I have a tendency to prefer having a world to fit my character into.
If I do not have that, then I need to have played for a little while, to learn to know the world, then I can fit my character into the world.
My favorite method of getting the group together is from Spirit of the Century. When making their background each charecter comes up with a short synopsis of an adventure they had in their youth. Then the players mix up the backgrounds anfd hand them out to a different player. That player then writes a few sentences about how they ran into the main player during their adventure and helped them out.
Are they handed around once or as many times as are needed for all characters to be linked in backstory?
I think a better way to this is to have each player pass to the right or left. Then you make sure no one gets their own back and every character is connected to another by varying degrees of separation.
@@joncarroll2040 IIRC you're supposed to swap with someone if you get your own slip back at random. Hard to "pass right" if you're not actually sitting at a table anyway - lot of online RP going on these days.
@@richmcgee434 For online, you can "pass down the alphabet" so Betty passes to Charlie who passes to Diego, etc.
I like the circular one-way method (left or down-the-alpahbet or whatever). In a party larger than three it means each character has two personal connections, but must still get to know one or more other characters, which can drive conversation in such a partially integrated group.
The other thing I like is making sure those connections are distinct. Two characters might be cousins, two share a mentor, two are exes, etc. :)
"and one day I'm gonna get 'em"
"Well, you see I had a very troubled childhood." -Dr Evil.
Watching this an idea for a character popped up: A tax collector going after the bad guy to collect taxes that the bad guy hasn't payed for years.
This is why the Joker doesn't fuck with the IRS
King Galifar had a difficult decision before him: ban wizardry outright, or somehow incorporate them into the kingdom and ensure his own power. Aha! Wizards would only be permitted if they also served the kingdom as tax collectors.
@@macoppy6571 tax collectors, exempt from taxes (not including magic item GST), now half the country hates them AND have forgotten about the King's... past errors.
Added bonus points for playing the PC like the lead character in Pineapple Express
@@darksteelhero1 Liquidator Brunt
I really like that Seth has his own opinions, because to many just adopt the opinion of an online personality. 👏
Seth has some really awesome content.
That's why I just adopt the opinion of Seth
Most of the people who make this kind of content are folks whose real talent is in video editing. Nice videos, but often terrible advice for running/playing ttrpgs.
if a player tells me that they want answers too, I take it (& tell them I'm doing it) as a carte-blanche to do whatever I want with that part of their backstory.
We always wrote a backstory as part of character creation. One player, in all innocence, began to use this as an opportunity to gift herself with attributes or items that were so powerful as to be game-changing in nature. "Upon my Graduation, my mentor, the Arch Master Thief of the entire Realm, gifted me with a brace of +10 daggers." This became a running joke, and every PC began to toss in one fantastic claim that he or she knew the DM was going to overrule. But rather than just nix the claim immediately, the DM would just nod, and then ad-lib their own addendum on the spot of how that item or power was subsequently lost or stolen almost immediately. "As word spread that a raw cutpurse was the bearer of such a fantastic treasure, gangs of evil looking, hard bitten adventurers began appearing in your home town with alarming frequency..."
3rdE system, I wrote my starting character as aristocrat/ wizard and my father is town mayor at aristocrat3rd/wizard3rd and folded create wonderous item feat and Leadership to over lap at 6th level. And he doesn't has a higher level cause all the xp he gains from duck hunting is folded into making lesser magic items.
Long time player at the shop, " Cool, we now have a mentor and quest giver to provide aid."
Shop owner's wife, " I'm Kris in game sister, I'm a werewolf wizard just like mother is. "
DM, " Rewrite your starting skill points as a werewolf Kris."
@@krispalermo8133 Lol! Yes, this same player once cast herself as an Elven Princess, but didn't want to spend points on a high charisma. So she just wrote her bio to make herself charming and attractive. The DM informed her that while she thought she was lovely, her father the King was ashamed of her and locked her in a tower out of sight for most of her childhood. She managed to escape however, was now on the run from her father's retainers, and so could not call on him for any special assistance. Meanwhile her stubborn attempts to charm, and repeated fails, added many humorous moments to the campaign.
I just want to point out how much I love your gamified stock photos. The old black and white photos with an expertly photoshopped GM screen or somesuch just really make me happy.
I'm very glad I'm not the only one who loves those!
There are two questions that I always ask about a PC that generally tells me everything I need to know about them for my games. They're are a variant of your questions but framed differently "What's making your character risk their life every day and what needs to be true for them to justify murder?". Then, as a bonus to know "who" their characters are I ask "What do they do when they're bored?". With those three I can immediately start the game, kickstart the drama and have players be thoughtful about their character's action in the world... and you can extrapolate from there as necessary, since the rest writes itself.
I like that you are stressing that making the background as a group thing, not just the player, but all the players and the GM as well. This way you get them all involved in who they will be playing and making a story that might have them all interacting though past parts of lives. This tends to help keep the "lone wolf killer" types down a bit, unless they can do them where they have relevance to the rest of the party.
Seth, THANK YOU for the idea of the questionnaire for my players! I had all my players answer your questionnaire, and it has given me multiple ideas on how to better personalize the game for each character. I cannot recommend this enough!
Happy to hear that it worked for you.
As a player I love to write elaborate backstories just for the fun of it. I remember one time I even wrote a short story with my character's mother as the protagonist.
Personally I think writing backstories is a powerful tool to get you in the mood of a character, yet you should never insist that anything you've written becomes actual lore of the game you play. Instead I look at it as an alternative universe thing, same personality different circumstances.
What category are we in here?
(1) Those who create the character and background, independent of the world
(2) Those who build the character and background, as a result of the world.
I consider (1) as a bit of a dead-end, as it can easily end up with a character not fitting into the world. And can be problematic during play, due to being untrained in reacting to what others (PCs as well as GM) does of creations & actions.
@@larsdahl5528 Nothing wrong in a dead-end I think. RPGs are for fun and recreation, so is writing an elaborate backstory. I have to be productive at work, not in my hobbies.
Or you know, as is it is with people, they might insist that it really did happen this way, but as people's memories are faulty, who's to say that it did. ;)
Because of this video, I had to learn the difference between a 101 and a 201 activity. Thanks Seth!
Isn't that what happens when you gain enough XP?
U got schooled 😉
@@markj3169 Quite literally. 😛
Love the reminder about non-static npc acquaintances. They're not just a phone-a-friend waiting on standby.
My mother is brand new to RPGs, and didn't have a clue how to create a character. But she was reading a series of novels she absolutely ADORES, and can tell you ALL ABOUT Mrs. Polifax, adorable old-lady spy.
So, now she plays Emily Polifax, Way of the Shadows Monk, who, after her children were grown and her husband died, decided to follow her long-put-aside dream of becoming an adventurer! And she's good at it, too!
She even has the silly hat with feathers and a stuffed bird on it.
Also, to help her visualize her character, we commissioned an artist to draw the character for her, coloring-book style, so she can color it, herself. She wound up giving it to me to color, because she "can't stay within the lines" (Like that really matters?!) and isn't confident in her coloring abilities. But she conferred with me about the colors, so yeah. She has a picture, now.
So, if they can't think of something NEW, let them play a character they KNOW from their favorite media. As long as your group is not tired of that character (maybe it's obscure, or maybe the group are all big fans), and allow the "trope" character, then go for it!
After all, everyone has to start somewhere. The important thing is to get out there and play!
This is goddarn wholesome.
Thank you for the point about tropes. The amount of eyerolling I see online toward people who want to play a human Mandalorian in a Star Wars game, for example, makes me sad. Let people play out their fantasies. That's what roleplaying is about.
Love the Omicron skit. Ironically the lack of answers about the Omicrons does actually give the GM a lot, if in an abstract way. The GM could put potential confrontations between that player and NPC's who have links to the Omicrons that could pull answers from that player.
Well i should be going to bed, but i need to know more about character backgrounds right now
“The reason that clichés become clichés is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication.” ― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
One of my characters in an upcoming game is an assassin droid that suffered a malfunction and therefore isn’t aware that it’s an assassin droid. Basically droid amnesia. I’m giving my GM free reign to decide who my previous employer/owner was, and who my target/s were. The assassin programming could start to resurface at any moment, and I’m excited to see what my GM comes up with.
I couldn’t stop laughing at Larry Trotter, Boy Wizard.
Yeah when I started playing d&d I was excited to play the tropes about all of it the tavern the orcs angry barbarians but if the DM didn't like that it's like "Ummm we are new the tropes are what got us interested in d&d" long story short I'm a DM now.
My current character is a human EK who has an alhoon as a "patron". I subconsciously made Arthas from Warcraft. I laughed a bit and moved on.
These videos are your best work and should be mandatory watching for all role-players.
I agree with the first part, but I have a severe problem with the word "mandatory" these days.
I don't know about the first half either - his books are pretty damn good too, and that "Origin of the Beholder" vid probably won him a free pass to whatever afterlife he prefers. :)
That last bit about wanting answers hit me right in the funny bone. I love the little comedy bits, but for some reason that exchange hit me harder than usual and just had me bursting out laughing.
Love it, especially the idea that elaborate backstory novels are fascinating... but consider how to present that story in a way that helps the game
On tropes, Terrible Writing Advice had a one-off episode that talked about using cliches more effectively. The idea postulated is that a cliche/trope conveys more information in the vein of "show don't tell," while using the character interplay to flavor it.
Nearly 40 years ago I kicked off a Call of Cthulhu campaign with "you're all on a bus". Approximately this:
You nearly got stuck overnight in a small town because the bus broke down and they could only find a working one hours later. You drank some coffee, had some food, chatted with the diner lady and some locals, saw some kids playing baseball, a band was practicing in front of town hall. Now you're finally on your way, and it's almost dark. But wait -- as the bus slows to enter the highway a little over half a mile from town, it's beginning to get light again. As the bus turns you can see that small dots of strong light are descending over the town, like luminescent snow. The bus engine coughs a couple of times and stops, and all of you look at what's happening. In the strong light, you see people milling about as the ground in the town turns into pure light. Some of them are running into the fields as if they were fleeing. They hold their hands to their heads, though you can't see if they cover their eyes or ears. The cone of light spreads, and you realise that it will reach you. Facing this unknown horror, hands shaking and tears running, you all feel an irresistible urge to connect to each other, to tell each other
* Who are you, and what is your origin?
* If you had a chance to fight something like this, what could you contribute? (Skills, equipment, etc)
* What heart-string does this event touch, fight, flight, or fascination? (We had a sort of classification, never really used.)
After you have done this, and before the light reaches you, you realise that the bus is moving again. The light over the town is receding, and the only people you see are now lying still. You sit in silence, touching each other. It takes quite some time before you notice that the bus engine isn't running, and the headlights are off. When you are almost in the next town, the bus slows to a stop. The driver is dead. His hands have almost fused with the steering wheel, and his right foot to the accelerator, and the leg has withered as if burned.
At character creation for an "apocalypse world" game, I answered all the questions in the "proust questionnaire " that I saw in a magazine at the dentist. I had answers for all kinds of things that I wouldn't have thought of. It was pretty fun to pull them out when characters were trying to find out my secrets. Inter character conflict became more fun and I even enjoyed it when I was losing those conflicts
Yeah, i do 10 questions instead of a backstory, all on that list but tailored to the game in question (which is often a custom game based on a modified Cyberpunk 2020 ruleset with magic and spaceships being optional addons depending on the setting)
Biggest trope of all: the PC that doesn't follow a trope.
I think you'll find it's actually "Edgelord"
Personally, I just stopped thinking about tropes. Maybe my cynical, old occultist is a trope. Maybe my clumsy, piteous police officer was. Maybe my strong and stubborn opera singer as well. Or my fearful, supportive outback explorer. Maybe it was the careful, orderly, young female soldier. Or my proud, wannabe-perfect half-orc nobleman?
Or perhaps it was my relaxed, child-friendly wrestling champion. I don't know. But the thing is: I just don't care. I somehow completely avoided ever thinking about applying tropes or not using tropes: I just come up with a short idea (three words maybe) and then expand upon that.
@@michaelcottle6270 IKR? Gotta love it when someone with tats and dyed hair who refers to themselves as "woke" tells you how different they are from everyone else 🙄
"I'm not like other PCs..."
A lot of the suggestions about who your friend is and enemies are, naming them and so forth, also your motivations and declaring when it changes are all done as part of the system in Mutant Year Zero(A game my best friend introduced me to) and it makes players feel their development! Which you can miss when not recording/tracking these things. This is a great video Seth and great suggestions for adding most of these ideas to games that may not have them built in.
I've watched and rewatched your videos. Thank you for making so much good and entertaining content. Also thanks of the Edge of the Empire call out (it's one of my favorite games and I don't hear about it often anymore).
I have players in a game that I am running that gave me pages of backstory and character ideas and others who wanted a one sentence backstory. I have started assigning an "around the campfire" topic a few days before the next session to allow the players to give a little more depth to their characters. It's been pretty great, but I'm lucky enough to have a great game group.
A lot of great questions for players to answer!
Focusing on functional - ever try creating NPC flashcards for your GM? I keep it simple: Name, picture, a few words describing personality, and 3 sentences for backstory/connection.
A trick I have lifted from Traveler is if a player doesn't name an NPC I have them declare what that NPC is to the PC. I try to limit this to a contact, ally, or antagonist.
The reason for this is that if the player wants to call on someone who will be helpful they can do a "I know someone" if the NPC is a contact. If they are an ally they can ask for help. If they are an antagonist the GM can make so they are a villain or somehow involved in the story to create a more personal drama.
The main reason why I make a contact different from an ally is the nature of the person they are talking to. A contact is likely to ask for something in return while an ally will require the player character stays true to what made that ally like the character in the past.
I have just used the survey question to build a new character for a Coriolis campaign and it felt really good. Thank you for posting it!
Glad it helped. Good luck with the campaign.
Cyberpunk's background creation system is the 1st time I realized how helpful a detailed background was to roll playing
The back ground to Kevin would be awesome
"Like smoooooth Colt 6:45."
Well timed, sir. Well timed.
You remain the best of Grognards, and I love your content. Keep it up!
17:20 Where in New York you grew up also makes the difference whether or not you have heard of steamed hams before.
Once again you bring old topics into new light. Thanks Seth, I need to share this with my DM and other players!
I dont mind tropes. In fact, I kind of like them! Playing for so long, that an interesting character story and progression beats whatever math build. My last couple characters I took the most cliche of all and had loads of fun.
There is a person in the corner, a hood pulled down low, hiding their eyes. "I am Korindor, bringer of pain and vengeance," as does service work on a crossbow.
I introed and opened just revelling in the cliche. Until we reached people needing help, classic lvl 1 campaign. Well then, I threw back my cloak revealing silver embroidered clerical vestments, a bright and shining elf with delicately trimmed beard.
I took the most mocked of trope/cliches. The dark and brooding seeker of vengeance, and made that into a lively and fun personality. A cleric of (pathfinder's) Calistria. Live in the moment, help people get closure and move on. Love life. The cloak and such to keep the weather off treasured vestments and maintain trimmed and proper appearance.
Yes, backstory was the "seeker of vengeance cause family murdered" but that lead to Calistria which in turn meant my character didnt dwell on past. Vengeance is closure. Do what you feel need to do, and move on.
I love when players have solid backstories and use them to guide their actions. I love it more when their characters evolve and change due to the events of the story and show growth. The current story should be also be a great backstory if told from a future perspective if that makes sense.
Good juicy advice here. Also, thanks for the annotations which are really helpful.
As someone new to rpg’s I truly appreciate your videos. They have been so helpful.
Not always a fan of Star Wars comparisons but your Lando/Han discussion at 6.34 is a really accessible way of thinking about this aspect of character journeys, thanks!
Complaining about Omicron reads very differently in Dec 2021 than it did in Oct 2021... Great video Seth, I'm slowly working through all your vids!
Tropes are the things that make up a story. Trying to write a story without tropes is like trying to bake a cake without ingredients. Literally all aspects of a story are tropes. And there are lots and lots of ways to play with a trope.
Excellent suggestions.
Probably the best PC backstory I encountered was in a CoC game. My character was an over-the-top ether-huffing scientist from Silesia. He was fun, but not the character I'm speaking about. My friend Doug (a very tall and beared fellow) played a little old lady who always referred to her deceased husband. She was often the voice of reason. She eschewed violence. His little old lady voice was excellent. She disliked alcohol. She thought my character was a drugged deviant, and would express her views with sharp "Harrumphs!" and oblique commentary. What we never knew, though, was that her often-referred-to but deceased husband had been murdered and buried in her basement. By her. Evidently, she snapped after suffering for years under his drunken reign. We never knew this, and Doug only revealed this a few years later when we were talking about the game. This added a new dimension to her actions and behaviors.
I suppose the take-away is that a character's entire backstory doesn't always need to be revealed to other players, but that even then it can add a spine to the PC's narrative arc.
Great video, Seth! I like this for when I am the DM, I like evolving NPCs also, such as shopkeepers, Guild Masters, Caravan Masters, ship Captains, etc. which the party interacts with multiple times.
Great Ideas! Thank you for another awesome video^^
I like PCs to share NPCs, and to create NPCs that either feel like the PC woes them something, or the PC feels like they owe them something (love, money, respect, etc.). Just defining a couple relationships this way really starts to tell you a lot about the personality of the character - and that's gold!
A lot of good stuff here.
In regard to tropes/clichés, I think either are _okay_ as long as you make them your own. As you say, don't just clone a popular character because chances are it's going to wind up being boring and will very likely irritate others at the table. Some exceptions may exist -- I did a purposefully silly one-shot where I ported Mario into D&D... with a little bit of a dark twist such as Bowser being a Demon escaped from the Abyss and "toads" being myconids that were being murdered by the Demon Bowser invading one of their subterranean homes for his own ends. And then I made up a whole bunch of pre-gen characters (Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, and so on) using the base 5E rules and doing very light "homebrew" so that my players had a good selection to choose from. It wound up being a great time. But it's because we all bought into that. If just one person decided they wanted to wholesale copy an existing character while everyone else was mostly doing original ones in an original setting (or D&D module) that would likely clash pretty hard.
As for more general tropes and such, I'm of the mindset that you should probably try them at least once. I started out trying to be super original, and to some extent maybe I was, but eventually I found myself really craving playing just a buy-the-numbers rogue or monk or what have you because I wanted the experience of the "vanilla" character. And I think that it's worthwhile, at least once, to fully embrace the well-trod path.
I use a modified version of the Cyberpunk background generator.
What is your most valued item?
What is your most valued ideal?
Who are you enemies?
Who are you allies?
How do you view people?
Have you ever been in love? If so, what happened to them?
What is your parent’s background?
Good list. Cyberpunk's background generator is great. Back in college we never fully utilized that part of the game. We filled it in. We rarely, if ever, thought to name siblings or enemies. We mostly just wanted to do crimes and shoot stuff. Zero character depth. We had a blast. Tons of great memories. We also had regular trouble with, "Why would my character do this job if I'm not getting paid?" or other issues where characters had no real personality or no consistency of personality. A couple years later, after we'd figured out the value of incorporating backstories, and we returned to Cyberpunk, we realized what a goldmine the backstory section was because right there was all the character motivations and story hooks we could ever need, and we'd totally ignored it.
The question thing is imo one of the most useful tools for gm and player alike.
I usualy craft a background with detailed parts and a more general overview and i like this part as much as playing. Even after discussing my charakters story with the gm i find answering a few questions extremly helpful. Sometimes even more for myself, as there might be something i overlooked before or i change my mind about an aspect of the chars past, when seeing the answers next to eachother and some just dont fit with the rest and/or the vision.
I highly recommend this, and people usualy love this kind of quiz/interview.
Also, link some characters when you are comfortable with another player/the group. This can really raise the roleplaying a lot. Especially if someone chooses to be the follower/servant/vallet/thug of another character.it lends weight to the patron as he is not just the topdog on paper, but actually has one or more character working for him. And it lends purpose to the followers motivation and demanor as they know, that the leader has their backs and they work together towards a goal.
I got no problem with veto, changing my role playing or backstory if it's gonna make the play more fun for everyone but it's just me :) a fun video
Extremely cool video! Seth gets the players to add depth to their characters and to the game-
Great suggestions! I have had my players fill out surveys like this for all of my games, and it really helps them get into their characters' mindset. Furthermore, it also really helps me be a better Game Master because I now have their collective creative power to create NPC's, plot hooks, plot twists, etc. Sadly, the players who give the least effort see the least payoff, so if you follow this, make sure they do their character homework!
love the backstory survey questions. i will be typing up a similar list as part of player handouts. thanks for the idea.
One thing I love in Vampire:the Masquerade v5 is the system of touchstones; important NPCs from a vampire's mortal life, tied to the vampire's humanity score, and often subject to the vampiric instincts of fascination and posessive protection. I have stolen this mechanic and inserted it into every single other system I GM, often running little prologues before the first session where I spend time one-on-one with each player roleplaying a scene from their PCs past, including these key NPCs. Ever since I started doing that, the rate of players engagement with their own and each other backstories went through the roof. Highly recommend for narrative/RP focused games
I completely agree with your comments about tropes and cliches. The thing about tropes is that they are a reflection of deep patterns in our culture or even universals about the human mind; stories that work so well that they keep recurring in culture. I have even deliberately sought out those "never use these ten tropes/cliches" articles for inspiration. I take the raw structure of the tropes they describe (e.g. orphan whose background holds a secret, anonymous drifter who is heir to some great inheritance, rogue sorcerer/scientist who meddled with forces best left alone etc), build some unique flavour and detail, and think about how they could interact with each other and with the existing situation. This always results in a better outcome for an RPG setting than anything the anti-trope crowd offers. After all, the structure of the backstories for Luke Skywalker and Harry Potter are identical, but they are each distinctive, unique characters and indeed two of the most iconic characters in popular culture over the past century.
Alright, now I am expecting someday a review of the core rulebook of Cyberpunk Red after those sketches :D
Great stuff, as usual. I always prefer it when my players have a backstory they care about, it lends credibility to the game world.
Great job as always! I could not agree more with letting the GM help you with your story and change things he deems necessary, i always talk with my players in private about their backstory and most of the time i make suggestions and adjustments because i know it will feet better in the game and so far they seem to love it.
Hey, Seth! Would love to have your advice (maybe in the next video) on how detailed a preparation for a game by the GM should be.
I already GM-ed a couple of games, but it was extremely awkward and the players derailed me really bad. We still had fun and managed to achieve *some* ending but I had such grandioso plans for all those other endings that *didn't* happen.
As a newbie GM, I really feel like I'm missing the point of how much exactly I should prepare for a game to not to overdo it
P.s: you videos helped me a TON in the preparation for games, so thank you so much for all you've done
One of the hardest lessons to embrace is to prepare what you can in advance, but once the game starts just letting it ride. I think every GM imagines some cool scene or ending for the game. But don't try to force it that direction. Most of the time the players will do something you never imagined or fail to do the thing you were looking forward to them doing. So just roll with it and enjoy the ride.
Also, no matter how much you prepare in advance, once the game begins you'll be improvising the hell out of it. What level you need to prepare depends a lot on your group and what all types of adventures you're doing. Doing a murder investigation requires a different type of preparation than a cave of goblins. So for Mysteries and Heists, I've done dedicated videos for those and what all you should prepare. You might also want to look at some pre-written scenarios just to get a feel for what level of preparation is appropriate for that type of adventure.
Once the adventure is done, you can share what all you hoped might happen or what obstacles or Easter eggs they missed or bypassed. My group enjoys the post-adventure breakdown of what could have happened. Some of those unused ideas you might not want to share because you might be able to use those again in a future session.
It’s kinda a different style of GMing but I like how Hank at Runehammer suggests organizing your session prep to fit on a 2-page spread of your notebook. That way there is no page flipping and you are not beholden to whatever doesn’t fit in that spread. I think Chris McDowell of Into the Odd does something similar.
There are three approaches to game mastering:
Railroading, where the DM determines the plot and outcome ahead of time.
Collaborative, where the DM and players agree on the plot and discover the outcome together.
And lastly Sandbox, where the DM creates the world and the players explore it, having adventures along the way.
Since you said that you wanted a collaborative story, but ended up with more of a sandbox game, here is what you do:
Communicate with your players ahead of time on what the game is going to be about. Tell them about how evil your big bad evil guy really is, and that they all want to stop him and his nefarious plans. Then either ask them how they would try to stop him, or give them different leads for how to do so.
When I decided to run Curse of Strahd for my players, I told them that they can only get out of Barovia if Strahd is dead.
I don’t know how your gamers derailed your story but you may want to consider my suggestions about it.
- make your players have a clear objective of the current session. Giving them a sandbox world will make them go all over.
- If your players are getting away of the desired path let them but get them back in your way with a trick. Like letting them hear a useful rumor that will give them some clue. Or move your planed events at their current place. What you were planning to happen in the woods of Somewhereville can easily happen at the woods of Nextville for example.
Unless your players are consciously trying to derail your games meaning you need to find other players.
@@cameronframent8976 that's an awesome advice! I'll check it out, thanks
I'll just say what I've said many times: this channel is one of the most underrated channels on RUclips.
First time I saw questions was in the old RPG Amber. They listed about 20. I always like "where does your character get the laundry done." Made the player think about the nuts and bolts of the character's life.
Excellent video as always Seth! Plan on running CoC for the first time soon. First time ever GM'ing actually. Your videos have been incredibly helpful for a long time now. Keep doing what your doing!
Good luck with your game.
I tip my hat to you Sir. Spot on advice about tropes
Re: avoiding cloning and putting your own stamp on a PC, the 13th Age game gives each PC an OUT (One Unique Thing), basically some utterly singular trait the character shares with no one else in the world. They need to be somewhat sensible (no "I'm the only wizard, period") and aren't supposed to grant enormous, reliable mechanical benefits or drawbacks but the GM can allow or veto anything. They might change over time, but you'll always be unique - and the party's OUTs help define the campaign setting. If you're THE one Dwarf who can hear gold coins speaking to him, no other Dwarf can do that - which might just mean you've got a unique mental health issue (or at least people think you're delusional) but if the GM likes the idea it might also mean that there are other Dwarves who can hear gems, or silver coins, or iron ore. Situational bennies or drawbacks are fine too - we had one guy who'd been blessed/cursed so that he only bled wine, which was good for keeping fleas and leeches and similar vermin off him but gave some funny ideas to the local tavern owner, attracted attention from various nosy spellcasters, and had him briefly hunted by a formerly-alcoholic vampire who was hoping he could tap him to get off the wagon again. Less gonzo things like "I am a the second son of Sir Castwrack of Farshore" are fine for folks who want something less peculiar, but your OUT should always reflect some aspect of your backstory.
The whole concept is easily ported to other games, since it only has whatever mechanical effects the GM wants it to.
Always a good day when Seth uploads a new video
The questions you brought help get the gears turning to develop a sound backstory. I usually try to lay out information using the Parsing or Outline method for easy reference. Best part is keeping it a "living document," updating it as the party adventures.
Example Outline:
Notable People
1. Person 1's name - how they know the PC in one sentence or phrase
Notable characteristics of Person 1 / description
Other things to note about Person 1 (reference Place Hometown)
2. Person 2's name - how they know the PC in one sentence or phrase
(reference Place Visited #1)
3. Etc.
Notable Places
Hometown
Landmarks / Quirks
People usually found here
Person 1 (reference People 1.)
Visited Places
#1 Place Name
Summary of what happened there
Person 2 initially met here (reference People 2.)
#2 Place Name
Character's Motivations
Reason why PC joined the party
Great video, love it.
I am surprised a number of these were actually things I haven't thought about at all, and I've been playing for about a decade.
Great advice. Both my friend who DMs DnD and I (for CoC) are both going to start campaigns soon. This video will help.
This is excellent advice. I do my best to instil this attitude into my players and it works best with experienced players. Newbies might need help crafting a backstory.
For my group we created a character questionaire. It makes them describe their characters, their backstory, their relationships, and views/values/morals, likes/dislikes etc. It really helps me develop a game really focused on their characters and helps me tailor a game that challenges those morals etc and has lead to some amazing and satisfying character developments and rp.
It really helps in World of Darkness games where imagery can be very important. Such as when they travel the astral, or the oneiros, or when I want to create a spirit that feeds on a particular essence the pc produces. It also helps to tailor things to really being out character emotions, like horror or disgust, as it's tailored more to what they told me frightens/disgusts them etc.
An extra point I'd like to add is to try and be aware of the type of game you're going to be playing in. Often times if you're playing a pre-written adventure for D&D 5e for example, you don't need a single word of backstory and nothing would change. If you're playing in a game where the party are just adventuring for adventure's sake, you probably don't need much of a backstory at all, except maybe to define how you act. But if you are playing in a world/player plot driven game, having a backstory is a huge plus to have.
A story to go alongside this advice is that I'm currently running such a game where I want the players to be the driving force of the game, but they want me to be the full time quest giver. One player gave me a backstory with quite literally 35 named NPCs with corresponding art and a synopsis of them (at least as groups), and there are times where they reference one of these dozens of NPCs and I am left floundering trying to remember and write out anything for some of these.
A different player who was just recently joining me gave me just a folk tale that their character believed in. Literally nothing else. No connections, no history, no motives, no goals, nothing. When I tried to get them to flesh it out, the player says how the character wants to collect rumors. But no reason given for that either. Just collect rumors for rumor collecting sake.
If the players are too diverse in the way they make their characters, then I suggest "prelude".
Where prelude is a GM-assisted character creation process, between "Session Zero" and "Session One", where the GM does play a session with each player, building the character and background together.
Yes, it is a lot of work for the GM upfront, but in the long run, it saves a lot of work!
Every time I try and write a simple backstory, I end up having to go into heaps more detail, just for my own satisfaction as to why my character does what they do.
and as a bonus, it will help you roleplay your character better
I think having a list of questions is a really strong idea. I would go a bit further and say that coming up with a specific list of questions is a great way of communicating to your players what the campaign what concepts and themes the campaign will focus on. Also to how they feel about the big events in the campaign backstory eg. If your campaign is set on the brink of a civil war ask your players how their character feels about the war and both the sides.
Damn you dirty Omicrons!!!
Great stuff as always! Personally I've always been a fan of PCs having a rich backstory. Not everyone gets into that so I don't force it but with a bit of coaxing and encouragement most players will realize they have some specific ideas about their character beyond just mechanics. Some people, especially younger players in OSR games, believe that backstory isn't necessary if you start at Level One but I disagree! Everyone is shaped by formative experiences in their youth. True, a 1st level fighter isn't likely to be a war hero with a dozen campaigns under her belt but there's got to be a reason she set out to be a warrior in the first place.
You know what?
Imagine making a +2 A4 detailed backstory for your CoC character that dies horribly in the first session.....😧😩
Maybe a sentence or few words to take inspiration from, but otherwise I don’t like strong backstories. They draw players into channels before the game even begins and limit directions a game can take. I prefer to start with a pretty fresh and clean slate and see where the game takes everyone, with interesting twists and turns that nobody expected, that don’t get predetermined by players forcing the action based on a backstory. YMMV 👍
I just got a great tip, thanks!
I gave my GM a backstory for a game, something I don't normally do. Generally speaking I tend to focus on the adventures rather than having stuff from characters pasts railroading the game or make the adventure about my character. Just my preference, your mileage may vary. But the GM has run games for us before and he puts a lot of effort in and the character had a negative trait during creation of a "Nemesis". So rather than define the Nemesis, I wrote a backstory, just a few paragraphs, maybe half a page that provides the option for the GM to design the Nemesis based on a few characters from my past who would have a grudge against my character (basically a couple of family members and a priest) based on things my character did. But I didn't actually give any of those people names. I wanted the Nemesis to be a surprise, a sudden realisation that maybe my character didn't get away with it after all. But without names, when they are announced in the game, their names would be totally meaningless. Or worse, the GM would put me on the spot and say something like "at the bar, scanning the room and flanked on either side by guards in all too familiar livery, you see someone you never expected to see again, your brother, whose name is..." and then just look at me expectantly. Because he's like that. So I guess I need to go add a couple of details rather than leave it to chance.