Core Memories Instead of BG?

peasoupling

@Seraphim73 said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

@Arkandel said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

I agree. One of the mistakes people make is generate characters who've already done all the cool things in their lives before they ever step foot on the grid

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. If I see another BG filled to the brim with awesome events of awesomeness that the player just wants to brag about... I'm going to scream (I'm going to be screaming a lot). Get your accomplishments ON SCREEN, so that others know about them, you get to actually experience them, and others are involved in them, so -they- have reasons to bring them up.

If someone wants to play the farm boy that becomes the hero, that's fine! And the rate of XP growth in many games supports this, as in one year your character has had all these adventures and also learned five languages and three styles of martial arts.

But a person with a past can be a fun character type. You might not want to play the 18 year old hero's journey, you might want to play the grizzled veteran hero in retirement who gets involved to help the kids, or the lunch lady who used to be a princess of an unnamed generic Eastern European principality.

This could be my experience in games that use 1-to-1 time, or close. If time is handled differently, that would be more reasonable but, as is, if you want to play a character with an eventful past of a certain type, you pretty much have to start them out that way.

Thenomain

Another thought:

If you don't have all your Defining Moments set, don't give full chargen points. As you define those moments, allow chargen points to be spent concerning that defining moment.

Incidentally, @Taika, have you ever read the Fate Core rules? This is its basis of character generation. I'm presenting their answer for creating character Aspects on the fly.

ixokai

@Taika said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

So, I'm rewatching Inside Out, and I had an idea.

I know that nWoD2.0 has Aspirations, and Conditions, and Breaking Points.

But what if, instead of a bg, or just Breaking Points, there was a little section for 'Core Memories'? Little snippets of events that helped shape who that character is?

For example: Sally was bullied a lot, and one of her most remarkable memories, small as it is, was when Johnny stood up for her and saved the day, giving her a much needed break from the bullying but also a self-esteem and self-worth boost that helped her get through the bullying.

I would find this interesting, provided two things: 1) You didn't ask for very many. Expect me to be able to come up with more then 2, max 3, and you're making me pre-plan my character more then I like to do, and 2) Let me add to them after the fact.

As others have said, I might lay out some basic facts about a character in a background, and I might mention one, maybe two, pivotal things, but generally, its a very thin skeleton of a life. I don't really figure my characters out until I play them, hear their voice, and develop not only the depth of what makes them a more real character, but lots of facts that happened.

I used to write up backgrounds in a hugely detailed way, back in the old days, and I'd find once I got into play, I was drained. Tired. Instead, now, I create a rough image of a character in my mind and a certain idea where I'd like it to go-- then I write the absolutely most minimal acceptable background possible to get people to let me get to know that character in IC play and figure out who he (sometimes she) is.

ixokai

@Thenomain said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

Another thought:

If you don't have all your Defining Moments set, don't give full chargen points. As you define those moments, allow chargen points to be spent concerning that defining moment.

I think this is a brilliant idea.

Seraphim73

@peasoupling said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

But a person with a past can be a fun character type. You might not want to play the 18 year old hero's journey, you might want to play the grizzled veteran hero in retirement who gets involved to help the kids, or the lunch lady who used to be a princess of an unnamed generic Eastern European principality.

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I -love- characters with a past. I love to play 30-something mercenaries who roll their eyes at all the young pups wandering around like they own the place because someone gave them a +1 longsword.

But even when I play these grizzled veterans, the meat of their story has to be ahead of them, in my opinion. They shouldn't have single-handedly defeated a platoon of enemy soldiers, married a princess, become king, given up the crown, and created their own form of kung-fu. But having played minor parts in two or three dozen battles/skirmishes? Sure! Great! Just means you have something to compare your on-grid accomplishments to. But I think that on-grid accomplishments should always be the highlight of your character... or else why are you playing them now? Shouldn't you be playing them back when they were awesome?

WTFE

@Arkandel said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

But backgrounds? I write them because they won't let me out of CGen if I don't.

+1.

I usually have a general idea of a character's background as part and parcel of figuring out its personality, but the level of detail many games ask for is not something I will ever have without actually playing the character for a few scenes.

Taika

@Thenomain - I've played Fate. When it was brought up how some people (Myself included) can have a hard time filling in those details, that's why I thought more about a bullet point journal to compliment the Aspiration and Breaking Points already built into nWoD2.0.

I love those tough moral and ethical choices, and challenging pcs in that way, because it's often a more difficult one.

I started with Shadowrun 3rd edition, you could come out of cgen with a bio-adept and break Trolls with your bare hands, so I had to learn how to keep even hard runs from being cakewalks, and I did it by not challenging dice pools.

I like the notion of the journal also, because if you play rough with yours ocs, like I do, it might help keep the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How straight, too, instead blending into a story and pieces being forgotten.

Coin

This is what I do, mentally, as it is.

My Bump in the Night character, for example, has a few defining moments:

He divorced his wife (amicably) when she realized she was gay.
It led him to leaving town--and his daughter--which he's remorseful of, for her early years of life.
His entire posse died recently and he alone survived (hel-lo, survivor's guilt).

And then I started playing him, and...

His dad and grandfather were brewers, that's why he brews his own beer at his pub!
His dad cheated on his mom with another woman--that's where he got his little sister, whom he adores! And why loyalty is important to him, but conflicting--after all, disloyalty got him one of his favorite people.
One of the people who died was his best friend, and his sister's ex, which involves her and makes her invested in the whole vengeance angle--they have a common drive: revenge.

So at least half of his defining traits came post-CG, and they built organically and aggressively.

Of course, BITN doesn't even require a background, so I could do this easily.

On The Reach I pretty notoriously had the shortest backgrounds. Like, a paragraph. Like I literally tended to write more about my character's past in a single set pose reminiscing some shit from his childhood to justify why he was at some playground at three am getting high than his entire background.

You know. Shit like that. This is a good idea, especially if you allow additions later on.

Taika

@coin - That's a great example of the sort of things that would go into it!

I've added it to the To-Do list. Thanks for the feedback everyone.

SkinnyThicket

This thread is great. I love the idea of vignettes as character background, and it's exactly how I've seen my favorite GMs encourage character generation at the table. To codify it, put it in a system and use it to encourage MU* players to get involved in their own story? It's great.

@Thenomain said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

Another thought:

If you don't have all your Defining Moments set, don't give full chargen points. As you define those moments, allow chargen points to be spent concerning that defining moment.
[...]

And this. 100%. I think the tragedy is, this might not be enough freedom. It's possible players will salivate and crave those chargen points to the point of making poor decisions and rushing their 'Defining Moments'. So if I had to refine it, if that did prove to be the case, I'd only reward Defining Moments with chargen points after certain chunks of time.

So player A who knows their character intimately writes all their DMs, then receives chargen points periodically. But player B who didn't write any is notified periodically that they can receive chargen points by writing a DM.

Warma Sheen

@Seraphim73 said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

But even when I play these grizzled veterans, the meat of their story has to be ahead of them, in my opinion. They shouldn't have single-handedly defeated a platoon of enemy soldiers, married a princess, become king, given up the crown, and created their own form of kung-fu. But having played minor parts in two or three dozen battles/skirmishes? Sure! Great! Just means you have something to compare your on-grid accomplishments to. But I think that on-grid accomplishments should always be the highlight of your character... or else why are you playing them now? Shouldn't you be playing them back when they were awesome?

Here you have the classic catch-22 wherein you're allowed to take a certain set of stats for a particular type of character - then the staff tells you that your BG doesn't justify those high stats - then the player goes back and justifies those high stats with having single-handedly defeated a platoon of enemy soldiers, married a princess, become king, given up the crown, and created their own form of kung-fu - at which point the staffer shakes their head at the player for a background they shouldn't have.

If you don't want players to have done all that, don't require all that as justification of stats that you allow. And it isn't the player's fault if you push them to justify those and then they get in your game and they can't do anything as exciting as what you've pushed them to put into their background just to get approved to play the character concept they have already been encouraged to play in your game.

If your game allows people to start their characters with 70 to 80 percent of any person's absolute maximum potential, then you need to allow for whatever else comes down the line with that decision. If you really want people to have their most exciting moments on screen, there are much better ways to do that than to tell people to write less interesting backgrounds, like limiting how great people can be to start.

This is yet another reason BGs have devolved into little more than whip cracking and hoop jumping - on some games.

Thenomain

@SkinnyThicket said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

So if I had to refine it, if that did prove to be the case, I'd only reward Defining Moments with chargen points after certain chunks of time.
So player A who knows their character intimately writes all their DMs, then receives chargen points periodically. But player B who didn't write any is notified periodically that they can receive chargen points by writing a DM.

So some kind of point-tally system based on the character's experiences.

I nominate the name of this kind of tally system "Experience Points".

Perhaps you could give some of these "Experience Points" if they act in accordance to their Defining Moments.

And now, the sly eyeshift.

>.>

<.<

(All in good fun.)

Coin

Just as a point of fact:

This "Core Memory" and "Defining Moment" concept is, actually, pretty much what the CofD chargen asks of you when you're building your character's Breaking Points (Chronicles of Darkness p. 30). It's just that the questions for Breaking Point design are more specific and not as freeform, which makes the vast majority of MUers twitch like epileptic ferrets. But look at these questions:

What is the worst thing your character has ever done? There is perhaps nothing more core memory than this, in a Chronicles of Darkness game. What's the worst thing your character has ever done? For my character above, it's probably "ditching his daughter to go monster hunting". So abandonment, abandoning someone, could probably be a Breaking Point.
What is the worst thing your character can imagine himself doing? Hurting his daughter--and all children are probably a logical extension of that. It's not that he would ever do it on purpose--but he has nightmares about it. Just because you can imagine yourself doing it desn't mean it has to be on purpose. So hurting children or even just putting them in danger can be a Breaking Point; -2 if it's his own daughter.
What is the worst thing your character can imagine someone else doing? This one is pretty standard. In fact, this one and the previous one are so repetitive, really, that I have to wonder what the fuck the developers were on. The first three questions are very similar, even if you can make distinctions, it's not a good design. The concept we're talking about in this thread is better suited.
What has your character forgotten? Another perfect catalyst question for a core memory--except this is the opposite. What your character has forgotten is probably almost as important as what he remembers. Why? Because it can both represent something so traumatic that they blocked it out--but also what your character feels is insignificant. Tony Stark can't remember half (or even 90%) of the women he's bedded in Iron Man (the first movie). Why? Because they aren't important to him. It defines him as a character at that stage in his life. If we apply that to Breaking Points: being confronted emotionally with his disregard for women as people, being forced to face is own womanizing and misogyny, being shown the consequences of his ways (as he is, particularly in Iron Man 3, in the case of his womanizing) should be Breaking Points for Tony Stark. (This is a horrible example, by the way, not because it doesn't work mechanically, but because it makes Tony's womanizing and misogyny into a vehicle for his own character development, which... ugh... but I digress..!)
What is the most traumatic thing that has ever happened to your character? The epitomy of the "core memory" concept. What has happened to your character that traumatized them the most? In my character example, his entire posse was murdered in front of him by a monster and he alone survived--he's traumatized by that, wracked by Survivor's Guilt.

So really, this entire concept is already part of the CofD chargen process. It's just that what we're looking at is a way of expanding what the "questions" are to fit the more freeform mold of MUing (and perhaps less focuzsed on "horrible, no good, very bad things, which is maybe better for us, but less in-theme with what the CofD is all about), and also merging it with the (unnecessary in tabletop) "requirement" of a background in most MUs. We're also looking to apply it to more than just Mortals, which is a good thing, I'd wager, especially since the Supernatural splats also suggest adding some customized Breaking Points to the lists already in place.

<rant>
As an aside, I am repeatedly baffled at how difficult it is to get people to understand how to build Breaking Points. Running Eldritch--especially app approval--was a challenging experience mostly because I just found myself not even being able to even with some people's inability to comprehend this. And I know it makes me a bit of a dick--some people just have trouble with this sort of concept and it's not, you know, their fault. But the twentieth time someone presents a Breaking Point as, "one time my character shot a person and left them to die" as a Breaking Point, I twitch. It's not that hard to rephrase that as an actual Breaking Point, man. "Abandoning someone who may potentially die". Come on, man.

Anyway.
</rant>

I think the best thing you could do is have a list of 10-15 questions that could help someone come up with good Core Memories. Don't make it a requirement to use any of them. Just have them as an aid that people can use to generate 5-ish defining moments (at chargen, or over the course of play). Reward it somehow. Help characters make those defining moments into Breaking Points (if the moment fits--most do, if you know what you're doing). Remember that there is no limit to how many Breaking Points a person can have, so as long as you have 5-ish basic ones that everyone falls under, you can let people add as many as they want, and they can be very narrow ("hurt my mom with a skillet") or broad ("seeing a man talk nasty to a woman"). At that point, the player is deciding how often their character's Integrity will be challenged. Some people may want to roll all the time and some may not. Some will try to exploit it (e.g. the "seeing a man talk nasty to a woman" person is going to roll a lot, probably, and if they have high Resolve+Composure, they might succeed a lot and still get Beats for it--give them a penalty every subsequent time after X times. Or decree that if you succeed at something like this more than X times in a month, it no longer counts, if Beat farming in this way is something you want to avoid).

Arkandel

@Coin said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

<rant>
As an aside, I am repeatedly baffled at how difficult it is to get people to understand how to build Breaking Points. Running Eldritch--especially app approval--was a challenging experience mostly because I just found myself not even being able to even with some people's inability to comprehend this. And I know it makes me a bit of a dick--some people just have trouble with this sort of concept and it's not, you know, their fault. But the twentieth time someone presents a Breaking Point as, "one time my character shot a person and left them to die" as a Breaking Point, I twitch. It's not that hard to rephrase that as an actual Breaking Point, man. "Abandoning someone who may potentially die". Come on, man.

Anyway.
</rant>

I suspect you'll disagree here but there comes a point once enough players don't understand a mechanic or system enough times that it might be that mechanic or system's fault as well.

As you know I'm not big on rules myself even though I go over the theme parts of splat books very carefully but still skim over the dice parts; even so I'd say I'm better than most people care to learn and had to help folks in my plots with both very basic and more advanced things. So sure, we can blame reading comprehension and it's warranted to a degree but if the issue is recurring and wide-spread there ought to be a time when we say - okay, this thing is either not very intuitive, or we need to provide more help and examples, or ... well, rant about it on MSB which is acceptable as well.

Coin

@Arkandel said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

@Coin said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

<rant>
As an aside, I am repeatedly baffled at how difficult it is to get people to understand how to build Breaking Points. Running Eldritch--especially app approval--was a challenging experience mostly because I just found myself not even being able to even with some people's inability to comprehend this. And I know it makes me a bit of a dick--some people just have trouble with this sort of concept and it's not, you know, their fault. But the twentieth time someone presents a Breaking Point as, "one time my character shot a person and left them to die" as a Breaking Point, I twitch. It's not that hard to rephrase that as an actual Breaking Point, man. "Abandoning someone who may potentially die". Come on, man.

Anyway.
</rant>

I suspect you'll disagree here but there comes a point once enough players don't understand a mechanic or system enough times that it might be that mechanic or system's fault as well.

As you know I'm not big on rules myself even though I go over the theme parts of splat books very carefully but still skim over the dice parts; even so I'd say I'm better than most people care to learn and had to help folks in my plots with both very basic and more advanced things. So sure, we can blame reading comprehension and it's warranted to a degree but if the issue is recurring and wide-spread there ought to be a time when we say - okay, this thing is either not very intuitive, or we need to provide more help and examples, or ... well, rant about it on MSB which is acceptable as well.

Or maybe a system isn't geared towards people who aren't willing to sit down and read it for comprehension. The fact of the matter is that MUing is fucking filled with people who will play a game just to play what they want to without actually giving a shit about its theme or its system or its rules.

"I just want to RP, the system isn't important to me". Then find or make a place that caters to that attitude. If you play at a place that uses Chronicles of Darkness, don't be surprised when people expect you to have sat down and read the god damned book for comprehension. If you feel that requirement is too much--then maybe (re: probably) the system isn't for you.

I'd never expect someone who doesn't like crunchy mechanics-heavy systems to enjoy Exalted. But I would absolutely call them a fucking dumbass for trying Exalted and then complaining it's crunchy, while still insisting on playing it as if it wasn't.

Arkandel

@Coin For starters I agree with you; yes, it makes little sense to go play on a game whose core you're not ready to embrace. Be it a horror game you intend to treat as a sex MU* or what you mention, it's a bad idea all around. And I've had to help people out in my scenes with some pretty basic things although I knew for a fact they had been playing nWoD MU* for years at that point, and you'd think they'd know how to throw a punch. They don't.

But consider this. The group you are referring to here:

MUing is fucking filled with people who will play a game just to play what they want to

... is not that large. It's in fact tiny. Yes, not all games need to be huge but we're well past that point by now; we're no longer really discussing if games will have hundreds of unique concurrent connections, these days 40-50 is pretty damn good (and barring alts there are very few MU* that pull it off).

So yes, it is annoying if players aren't willing to find a compromise between what they really want and what's actually on offer, but on the other hand if those same annoying people weren't there to begin with to fill screens with their poses sans dice rolls and their questions about what to roll to pick a lock then the remaining folks might not have a blast either having only a handful of others to engage and renew their roleplaying threads.

Ganymede

@Coin said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

So really, this entire concept is already part of the CofD chargen process.

Not exactly. The Chronicles of Darkness asks players to describe the traumatic things in their life, which can lead to the loss of sanity (Integrity). What is suggested here is the listing of "Defining Moments," which need not be traumatic. A person's successes can be just as important as their failures, just as sadness can be a part of happiness -- which is the driving point with Inside Out.

Defeating Ganon and winning Zelda is probably one of Link's defining moments, but I don't really think it describes a Breaking Point.

Coin

@Ganymede said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

@Coin said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

So really, this entire concept is already part of the CofD chargen process.

Not exactly. The Chronicles of Darkness asks players to describe the traumatic things in their life, which can lead to the loss of sanity (Integrity). What is suggested here is the listing of "Defining Moments," which need not be traumatic. A person's successes can be just as important as their failures, just as sadness can be a part of happiness -- which is the driving point with Inside Out.

Defeating Ganon and winning Zelda is probably one of Link's defining moments, but I don't really think it describes a Breaking Point.

Thus why I said "what we're talking about here is broader and better suited to what we do". Did you miss that bit, later on? It comes right after the sentence you quoted: "It's just that what we're looking at is a way of expanding what the "questions" are to fit the more freeform mold of MUing (and perhaps less focused on "horrible, no good, very bad things", which is maybe better for us, but less in-theme with what the CofD is all about), and also merging it with the (unnecessary in tabletop) "requirement" of a background in most MUs."

I mean, I clarified. Not sure why you felt you needed to correct it when it... was clarified right after.

... is not that large. It's in fact tiny. Yes, not all games need to be huge but we're well past that point by now; we're no longer really discussing if games will have hundreds of unique concurrent connections, these days 40-50 is pretty damn good (and barring alts there are very few MU* that pull it off).

So yes, it is annoying if players aren't willing to find a compromise between what they really want and what's actually on offer, but on the other hand if those same annoying people weren't there to begin with to fill screens with their poses sans dice rolls and their questions about what to roll to pick a lock then the remaining folks might not have a blast either having only a handful of others to engage and renew their roleplaying threads.

I'm okay with smaller games. Just saying.

Ganymede

@Coin said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

Did you miss that bit, later on?

No. I read what you wrote after, and it does not match with what I'm trying to convey.

You stated that the concept of "Defining Moments" is integrated Chronicles of Darkness character generation, and it isn't. While some "Breaking Points" may be deemed "Defining Moments," the purpose of "Breaking Points" is separate and distinct from what is being discussed as "Defining Moments."

I took a very specific snippet for a specific reason. Again, describing "Defining Moments" is not the same as describing "Breaking Points," and any analogy is fallacious.

Coin

@Ganymede said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

@Coin said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

Did you miss that bit, later on?

No. I read what you wrote after, and it does not match with what I'm trying to convey.

You stated that the concept of "Defining Moments" is integrated Chronicles of Darkness character generation, and it isn't. While some "Breaking Points" may be deemed "Defining Moments," the purpose of "Breaking Points" is separate and distinct from what is being discussed as "Defining Moments."

I took a very specific snippet for a specific reason. Again, describing "Defining Moments" is not the same as describing "Breaking Points," and any analogy is fallacious.

Jesus fucking Christ. Yes, okay-- your incredibly nitpicky reading of my one sentence (while ignoring the rest of the post) is correct. Congratulations. Jeez, Gany. Really.

And no, it's not fallacious. "Defining Moments" can encompass "Breaking Points". So it's not fallacious; it is, at worst, generalizing.