>>97895354

Unwritten, emerging through actual gaming ones.

That being said, if for whatever reasons you feel the need for them: adventures for the character in the past are not really necessary. Give us some personality, links to other (N)PCs that are actually useful for the adventure, and probably a problem or two the character need to resolve.

>>97895354
I self-plagiarize, recycling backstories (and builds) of my older characters.

>>97895354
>DMs, what kind of backstories do you like? Was there any that you really enjoyed? Any type of backstories you hate?
The kind that's 3 sentences or fewer. Don't tell my about your character; play them. I will not incorporate anything regarding your "backstory" into the game. If you want it to be relevant? Play the character. Make it relevant.

>>97895354
i copy the backstories of pre-existing characters and tweak things a bit.

>>97895452
my character is wanted for a mile-long list of crimes in most countries and has a bounty on his head worth a small fortune, is that all forgotten as soon as the game starts?
stop trying to LARP as a grog, underageb&

>>97895354
Take some aspects of some other characters from media and make a corn beef Hash out of it. Works somewhat well especially when I do a interconnected thing be it with previous characters I've played or into the world the DM makes.

Had a character who was a Cultist for the Demon Lords, he ended up dying so he was replaced with a disciple of his who would continue the work of his master. That being to keep deceiving the rest of the party to get to the end goal. Once he died I rolled up the daughter of the first dude, her goal was to destroy the macguffin and drag her father home unaware of how evil and very dead he was.

>>97895384
>Unwritten, emerging through actual gaming ones.
Word, I fucking hate backstories.

>>97895452
This doesn't work when character backstory is an integral part of chargen, like in cyberpunk 2020

>>97895701

I'll add that I don't think it's a BAD idea to have in mind some prior adventuring or something close to it (I dunno, you COC priest encountering some bizzarre shit in his time innamountains with hillbillies), generally speaking, if the game is not a one shot at least. But
1) It's just some prologue to the real meat of the story, the one you will play out. Keep it short and not "high level". 99.999999999% of RPGs are about starting out, not a coda about the hero's life.
2) Make your PC talk about it in game, if possible, and be open to interact about it with the other PCs. "This terrible weather reminds me about that one time at the Mountains of Whatever. Good times, right, druid?"

>>97895384
>Unwritten, emerging through actual gaming ones.

FPBP.

in the early 5E days when they semi baked 'personality traits' into the rules, i told my players that, if they wanted to, they could give me a backstory. i did specify one side of A4 maximum (big mistake) but i would read and implement it all.

i admire their creativity but NOTHING i did was ever 'correct'.
>'you receive a letter from your wife, she says...'
>'but my wife died.'
>'oh, well, you didn't write that in the page you gave me.'
>'yeah, i changed my mind, i just didn't have space.'
>'okay then, ignore that.'
>'why aren't i getting letters from my clan-brothers?'
>'well, let's just move on and i'll have a think.'

at first my players were super impressed i actually cared about their characters. now i'm full-in on the OSR shit. give me one or two sentences like, 'an apprentice cleric of Harvestus with a scruffy beard. formerly a turnip farmer.'

your character might die, and i'm not 'keeping' them alive if a pit trap does them in.

>>97895707
Too bad that chargen is boring. Who the fuck cares about siblings?
(can be done, surprsingly enough Sword World's optional one is interesting)

>>97895664
I started doing that and I am happy with the result.

>>97895728
Honestly sounds like a player problem. Usually when I submit a backstory, I treat it as sacred.

>>97895354
Short and funny and silly. I have never given a shit about people's long tedious backstories.

>>97895354
There's the other side of the equation - when a character has loved ones or next of kin back home oftentimes GM will kill them for cheap revenge plot hook...
Best give yourself enstranged wife or cruel step-mother, so when any misfortune striker her you can just shrug it off because the bitch deserved it..

>>97895802

Yeah, it's kinda bullshit, especially because the PC often didn't interact with them during the game.
I would at least suggest to give hints before the deed, to make the PCs do something.

>>97895354
>DMs, what kind of backstories do you like?
Ones that have answers to these:
1. What made your character an adventurer/mercenary/edgerunner/investigator.
2. What's your character's immediate and long-term goals.
3. What are the connections of your PC to the world (locations/NPCs) and other PCs.
4. If your character is a grumbling loner, what makes them stick around.
The last one isn't obligatory, if a player wants to retire a PC, the excuse of the grumbling loner going their own way like they always did is handy.

As a player I include all of that, but also write way more than needed. :-P

>>97895767
>Usually when I submit a backstory, I treat it as sacred.
what do you mean, anon?

i started hedging it with shit like
>i might not interpret what you write the same way you do. so if you say your character's brother was killed by an evil warlord, i might portray him differently to how you imagined. paint in broad strokes, just go along with it, we're all here to have fun.

these were face-to-face games and yeah, about half the players i played with were cool with it. i 'wove their backstories into the game' as nuD&D players say.

but the problem players were the other half, which is why i had to give a whole 'inb4...' spiel. i don't even mean some 'i am the Dungeon Master, my word is law!' nonsense. people get really weird. they'll write 'Dwarfbeard is believed to be the last survivor of the Meatbread Clan' and if you DARE suggest rumours of another Meatbread dwarf, they'll screech at you.

if all your players are on-board and love when you do this type of thing, that's honestly lovely. but i got tired of even trying. something i love about OSR and the maxim of 'don't write backstories, play to find out what happens' is that i can just say shit like:
>Dwarfbeard, you remember the brewing halls back home, you notice the next room has a faint odour almost like yeast. [oh no, mushroom monsters]
>Pardieu, as a travelling holy-man, you know all the holy symbols of men and elves. But the sigil on the altar is not one you recognise. [it's that false god they heard about!]

no 'skill system' bullshit to get in the way.

>>97895354
Backstories are generally going to be the building blocks of a somewhat dysfunctional person, as most people do not go on adventures. Risking life and limb to get paid is a dangerous thing, even if you are competent at extracting yourself from dangerous situations. If I want someone mostly sane, I go with 'inciting incident, related motivation to adventure, reason to be at starting line'. On the other end, if I want someone who's more directly adventurous 'bizarre motivation, realization I need allies/associates to do this, reason to be at starting line'.

As far as what I like, I mostly want a backstory to answer questions about a character, rather than some crafted narrative. Like, people your character knows, attitudes on life, opinions on various groups in-setting, ethical beliefs, and motivations. The point of a backstory from a GM perspective is primarily to derive reason for the PCs to do things, to poke and prod the character and further refine their personality and beliefs. It can be useful to grab characters from, but this has always been the exception over the rule in the games I've been in.

>>97895354
The backstories of my characters are pieced together through character options, and anything irrelevant to actually playing the game is either glossed over or ignored.
When I sit down to play a game, I'm not there to write a book.

>>97895354
Everyone can appreciate an origin story.

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>>97895354
I usually just come up with a one or two sentence backstory to explain why my character is on the adventure.
>He got caught stealing a magical artifact and now has to work off his debt to society
>He is a noble running away from an arranged marriage. Made a pact with an eldritch being and now is trying to find a way out of it.
>He was a criminal turned cleric and now feels he has a duty to redeem other sinners.
>He is a Mage-Knight in service to the kingdom trying to gain accolades to his name in order to approach his love's father for her hand in marriage.
And then I just fill out details while playing. It does land me in some trouble with my GM since I tend to make stuff up on the fly and so sometimes my story doesn't match with what I said previously because I need to work on my note taking but it's gotten me through enough games.

>>97895802
>Does your character have any family?
>Yes a mother whom he loves very much.
>Okay she is now imperilled by the wandering momsnatcher
>HOW DARE YOU THREATEN MY CHARACTER'S MOM? IF I HAD KNOWN SHE'D BE USED AS A CHEAP PLOT DEVICE I WOULDN'T HAVE HAD ONE!
Help me understand this mindset. What is the purpose of the family members if not to be used as cheap plot devices and character motivation? Do you want to roleplay interactions with your fictional mom, do you want mom to become a recurring NPC? What's the deal? I will populate my character with any amount of relatives and important people and defend them to the death, because I think that's a good way to create some narrative stakes. When I run I appreciate that, so why do people revolt against it?

>>97895354
Try playing games for once.

>>97896332
It gets boring to have every single family member used as bait or killed off for cheap shock value. The more you do it, the more that players learn to give zero shits about family and stop including them if they just end up as gristle for the mill anyways.

Though personally, I use family members as another form of cheap adventure hooks in the form of rumors and inherited treasure maps anyways.

>>97898579
I'm with you on that, but my character's mom isn't real and any affection I have for her is entirely faked. Whether she lives a full life or is flattened by a piano is entirely irrelevant to me, because she aint real and odds are not relevant to my character outside of the familial bond. Odds are mom only specifically came up because she is being imperilled, and otherwise was a vague distant maternal figure that might dispense rumours or healing items. So I suppose my confusion lays in why people balk at fridging her inherently.

If my mother, my father, my sister, my brother, and my dog are all tortured to death a week apart by 5 different antagonists then sure I'd have an issue with it; from the perspective of 'this is getting predictable'. But it seems the animosity towards this trope is total, that it is cliche, undesirable, or even outright antagonistic to target family members at all.

Currently in my game, which is crime focused, the most imminent antagonist does have a family and protecting their identity to avoid reprisals from the PCs is a part of that conflict. This seems like a reasonable thing to me, and that NPC would strike first if he thought they were in danger.

>>97898672
The coin in my character's pocket isn't real either, yet I don't like the idea of having it stolen.
I guess it's about sense of progression, gaining something motivates, losing what your already had gets people upset.

>>97898739
I suppose that makes sense. I don't feel that way but I can remember that I used to back in my 20s, so I suspect maybe I've just gotten old.

>>97898672
Generally, it is the repetitiveness that made people so negative, but also because more often than not these scenarios occur in a way that prevent the players from intervening and thus not only robbing the player off a personal connection or resource but also their agency. There’s a marked difference in getting a ransom letter for your dog from a villain and sallying forth to save them versus finding out someone killed your dog with you unable to do a thing about it.

>>97898916
Would you say it's a lack of agency in capacity for intervention?
>I have kidnapped your prize poodle and am keeping it in my Koopa fortress, I dare you to rescue her if you can
vs
>I have kidnapped your prize poodle and dissolved it in my Koopa acid, I dare you to get revenge if you can

>>97898941
If I’m interpreting your words right, generally speaking yes. Having the latter happen once can be a good motivator in the sense that the player character is driven to ensure nothing else of theirs is threatened in the future like that. It repeatedly just sets up the expectation that the player character and ultimately the player cannot protect their loved ones if they keep being kidnapped and killed without any way to stop it. Imagine how silly the John Wick movies might become if every new movie started with his dog being murdered as his motivator for revenge.

>>97895738
Backstories are boring.
But here we are.

>>97895738
siblings? you mean my backup PCs?

>>97896207
I like origin stories when I'm not playing games.
When I'm playing games, I like to play the game, not just to say I'm playing games.

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I regularly write 15+ page backstories for my characters. I do this mostly for myself as a creative writing exercise and a way to deeply flesh out the personality of the character, but also to give my GM some ideas for twists and side quests. If he asks me to summarize it, I do so in a few bullet points; if he disregards it entirely, I don't mind. It's for my own enjoyment. I like the consistency brought by knowing exactly where my character came from, why he acts the way he does, and what could provoke him to change. I like knowing this from session 1 so that it can keep paying off through session 100. I respect the choice to develop character through gameplay, but I don't quite understand it. For the first dozen (or much more) sessions every instance I've seen has just been a shapeless, ever-shifting blob rather than a genuine character. Difficult to play off of a person who's flip-flopping between different wants and desires, actions and reactions session to session. Sometimes conversation to conversation too. That being said, there is fun to be had playing alongside spontaneously created characters once the player starts getting consistent.

>>97899183

Hrm. Not necessarily. I just don't think they're particulary necessary, but with some guidelines they can work.

What it generally doesn't go well is saying "Player A, write me a 5 page story for your character".

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>>97895354
It's been a long time since I played, but back when I did it was a mix between occasionally writing something fleshed out or going with something more like >>97895384 where I'm just "along for the ride" after being a farmer/merchant/glovemaker/whatever. I like both and think both are fine, and I'm currently running a game with players who have a mix of the styles. I usually call them "Lucifer Morningstar" or "John Q. Adventurer" backstories. The former are much more cinematic and usually made by players who are heavily invested in the setting, roleplay, and so on. The latter are usually made by people who mostly wanna sit around the table and crack goblin skulls, but will participate in the story as it comes.

>DMs, what kind of backstories do you like?
I haven't noticed anything I particularly strongly "like" as a backstory element yet. As long as it's coherent enough (whether it's short or long) for Me to work with, I'll usually be happy.

>Was there any that you really enjoyed?
Nothing I can think of specifically, but I am excited for the direction I have planned for one of the PCs in my current group.

>Any type of backstories you hate?
Anything where the PC plays vastly differently to the character that was written. If you write a hyper-competent mafia boss and then let yourself be caught shooting 7 civilians in the face right in front of a convenience store's security camera, just fuck off from My table. If you write a valiant and righteous knight who would sooner die than forsake chivalry, then come to the table and tell Me you want to break into the brothel and rape the whores, I will find a big black man named Tyrone whom I will pay to come and personally rape you in front of everyone during the next session.