Chicago by Night ~ View topic - Character Backgrounds, A player's perspective

Joined: 22 May 2010 Posts: 8

First, I'd like to say that I am NOT an ST, and that this is NOT an official thread endorsed by an ST. This advice is directed towards newer players from the perspective of a player who has played several roleplaying games in multiple genres over several years.

Ok, tip #1 on creating a character background: Start from the beginning.

Pretty much all of my character backgrounds start like this: Person X was born in location Y, on Date Z, to parent X and parent Y. Short synopsis of what character X's parents did, followed by an explanation of what kind of child they were like, and how they grew up.

This gives an indication as to WHY she ended up being a prostitute in chicago. You know, outline how your character got there.Your background shouldn't consist of only the "vampire", "Mage", or "Garou" portion of her life.

The whole idea of the background is to explain WHO the character is, and why. That's it. That's your entire goal. After reading your background, the staff should have a clear, concise mental picture of your character's personality and motivations. Bear that in mind when writing your background, and you should be ok.

Now, as per staff rules on backgrounds, this is not the ONLY way to make and propose a background. However, without extensive experience in conveying ideas through words, it is by far the easiest to do, in this writer's opinion.

Last, but not least, if you're having trouble, don't hesitate to ask for help from a friend. I've personally assisted several people in streamlining their backgrounds, and I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who wouldn't mind giving you a hand. Good luck!

~KaneShade

Joined: 07 Jun 2010 Posts: 19 Location: Columbus, OH

To add to this, I'd like to offer a list of tips to NOT do. Even though I am no where near as old as Kane is (:)), I've still learned a bit about writing good backgrounds:

1)While it can be useful, the point of a background is NOT to write a character history. That is to say, if your PC was born in city X, moved to city Y, and lived there for 8 years, before moving back to city X, but that has NO significant impact on your character, and the arch they are filling, leave it out. My best background have been primarily focused on one night, with maybe a paragraph or two dedicated to what this person has done in their life.

2)Do NOT use over flowery words. One of the sentences in a background story I wrote for an old MUD I used to play was 92 words long, and had more adjectives than I had dollars in my bank account at that time. Description is good, but over description is bad.

3) Do NOT write a long back story. Honestly, I've found 1-2 pages is certainly sufficient to give people a good idea of who your character was and is. While it's a very awesome thing to have a very fleshed out idea of who your PC is, the back story should be used to convey important, life shaping information, not info about their 7th grade crush and how losing them destroyed their confidence as a teen.

Again, proper disclaimer, I, much like Kane, am not an ST. These are just opinions. :D

Joined: 18 Dec 2009 Posts: 996

To be honest I've got to say I disagree with almost everything biggyph said.

I definitely agree that over-description is horrid, but everything else is sort of far from how we see things as staff. Length isn't everything - quality is far more important. But a quality, super long background? We're totally cool with it, support and encourage it, even. It shows the player was truly inspired, and that's always nice to see.

The point of a background actually is (usually) to write a character history, though we accept all kinds of formats. You never know when the 7th grade crush who destroyed your confidence might show up as a vampire rival. The more quality detail the better. Random detail you don't ever want to be relevant has no purpose, but little tidbits can make for interesting, unexpected plothooks.

Everything KaneShade said is right on to our view of backgrounds. Going to sticky this thread to keep it noticeable, I think.