ShadowRun 5E ... 2050

[Miss Demeanor]

Bahahahahahaha! 2-3 paragraphs? Man, people are lucky if they get me to fill out a bg in complete sentences these days! I answer the questions and that's that. I still don't get why half the questions asked about mortals in a bg are in there. Is it REALLY relevant to the game if my character was a precocious child that couldn't sit still and enjoyed wearing rainboots with blue tutus? Does it matter whether they got through school by studying and doing extra credit or because they're naturally gifted? No, not really. So long as what the character does and how they act fits the stats they have, it doesn't really matter HOW they got there.

Bonus silly points for those questions being asked of Vampires or Changelings. Characters that have potentially lived long/been through enough for that childhood to be completely irrelevant to anything.

[TNP]

@Autumn said:

I think there's probably also a substantial number of people in the hobby who just like to write backgrounds. The joke used to be that all mudders are frustrated writers, and while that's not entirely fair there's an element of truth to it.

I love writing vampire backgrounds. I don't care about the writing, it's the research. I love picking out an interesting time period, researching it and some interesting event that happened during it and getting into the head of a person who lived through it. His mortal history is what makes the character tick and shapes his entire existence.

Unfortunately, it seems that I hate playing vampires since I've never successfully managed to do so for any length of time.

[Arkandel]

I think there are at least two factors at play here.

1. We all get different things out of the same mechanisms but when some folks staff they expect everyone to do things the same way they are. So for example some players (myself included) can get insights about a character from justifying XP expenditures, since one can use the opportunity to think just what "Animal Handling 2" means instead of it being just a dot on a sheet. It's when the practice is institutionalized that it becomes a problem ("*everyone has to justify all the things! it's for your own good!") as if it's unthinkable leaving it voluntary could serve the former without burdening everyone.

2. As I said, habit. A new MU* runner has seen BGs be used in the last 3 games they played so they honor the tradition.

The same principle applies to all sorts of hoop-jumping, inflicting a practice on everyone because it's served some.

[ThatGuyThere]

I am one of those with no problem writing backgrounds i think giving the character a cohesive backstory helps me get into character for the first couple of scenes.
I know on places where I am not required to have a bg that anything not on a sheet is pretty fluid for the first month or so which can lead to issues. That game I applied do had the options of questions or a story I did both.
But then again I have always seen the backgrounds as a tool for me rather then for staff since i expect they are at best scanned by them.

[Arkandel]

@ThatGuyThere said:

I am one of those with no problem writing backgrounds i think giving the character a cohesive backstory helps me get into character for the first couple of scenes.

Sure, that's fine. The difference is between these two states:

1. Detailed backgrounds are not necessary. People like you can write one for their own use and others like @Misadventure can grunt their way out of it.

2. Detailed backgrounds are necessary. People like you can still write one for their own use and others like @Misadventure have to fake it, or just walk away.

You may notice (2) doesn't really convey any significant advantages. Just because someone is forced to write about their childhood favorite pet turtle, unless they are actually feeling it, it won't add anything to their character than a kbyte or so of useless text on the application. As the same time nothing is taken away from someone who actually feels like writing more in either case.

The same principle can be applied for the justification of just about anything anyone ever used on a MU*.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Arkandel
I can defiantly see not wanting to do a bg but to me it is an important part of the character as the numbers.
But then I am also that odd GM who requires a background for table top as well., not always written out but always fairly in depth.
And yes i have lost a player or two because of that in the past.

[Groth]

@ThatGuyThere said:

@Arkandel
I can defiantly see not wanting to do a bg but to me it is an important part of the character as the numbers.
But then I am also that odd GM who requires a background for table top as well., not always written out but always fairly in depth.
And yes i have lost a player or two because of that in the past.

I don't mind answering questions, especially relevant questions that explain the characters strengths and weaknesses. I really detest being asked to weave all those answers into a narrative. I also don't like determining everything about my characters before I start play, I really enjoy inventing new details in their backstory as I go along and get more comfortable with the character.

[ThatGuyThere]

I make stuff up with my backstory all the time. Hell I never know what type of music a character likes for example until asked IC and sometimes the character's answer distresses the player.
Maybe we are talking about different things but to be a background doesn't go often into a lot of detail just the broad strokes, born this time in x place. A rough description of family life even if just the sentence basically normal. And basic activities since adulthood. To be if you can do that then you really don't have a character just a collection of numbers.

[Arkandel]

@ThatGuyThere said:

@Arkandel
I can defiantly see not wanting to do a bg but to me it is an important part of the character as the numbers.

You are possibly either misunderstanding or using a strawman argument there. No one at all suggested to not have a background. Obviously you need one (as stated earlier in the thread) for sanity checks and so staff have some idea of what you're aiming to play. Just because it's not two pages long it doesn't mean it doesn't go over the basics and explain where the character is coming from.

I say this while routinely writing 2+ page backgrounds for each of my characters. Just because something is worth it to me doesn't make it a universal value which ought to be enforced.

[Groth]

@ThatGuyThere said:

Maybe we are talking about different things but to be a background doesn't go often into a lot of detail just the broad strokes, born this time in x place. A rough description of family life even if just the sentence basically normal. And basic activities since adulthood. To be if you can do that then you really don't have a character just a collection of numbers.

I consider those parts the shittiest things possible to include in the backstory, when I processed characters as staff I usually just skipped over those sections entirely because they tell you nothing.

The interesting parts tend to be.
"Does your character have enemies, who and why?"
"What's the worst things your character has done, does your character regret them, why, why not?
"What's the worst things that has happened to your character?"
"If you have special skills, how did you come to acquire them and how did they change your life?"
"What does your character do for business, what does it do for pleasure?"

What you need to bring a character to life isn't their history, it's their mindset. It's their philosophy, their justifications, their interests and relations.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Arkandel
Yeah to be a background is a page at most. Two pages would be excessive.
@Groth
History is what creates a characters mindset and philosophy. Any character or person for that matter is essentially the sum of their past experiences and genetics. And sense fictional characters hove no genetics all they have is the experiences.

[Groth]

@ThatGuyThere said:

@Groth
History is what creates a characters mindset and philosophy. Any character or person for that matter is essentially the sum of their past experiences and genetics. And sense fictional characters hove no genetics all they have is the experiences.

As someone that's read a lot of character backstories, I will tell you with great confidence that if someone took 10 random backstories written by players and swapped out all the biographical details like where they were born, when they were born and basic activities and completely replaced them with something else. In 9/10 cases you wouldn't notice the difference because those details did in fact not in any way influence the resulting character, because the character was actually designed in the other order with the mindset being designed first and then some random background fluff is thrown into the CG to make Staff accept it.

Fictional characters do not actually experience their lives in chronological order.

[Arkandel]

@Groth Yeah, I agree. What's even more so, it's not intentional. When I first make a PC I don't have a good handle on him - and making the background fuller can be a burden as much as an aide in figuring him out.

Most of the stuff I don't roleplay about on the grid tend to be made up after I have a grip on them. For instance after watching Whiplash it occurred to me it'd be awesome if my wolf had someone like that pushing him endlessly past the point of sanity, and he already had a Mentor stat'ed on his sheet, so I checked with staff and changed that relationship. That simple change has given me a great deal of leeway in adding depth to the character, but there's no real way I could have made the adjustment in the original background since I didn't know yet what made him tick enough to allow for such nuances.

In other words what I'm arguing is that overall games should be flexible after CGen not demanding during it. Just make sure people aren't playing something too weird for them and trust players to do what works for them.

[ThatGuyThere]

If your point is most backgrounds are bland and poorly written I will agree.
And how fiction characters experience their lives vary greatly with the medium we experience them in.
It comes down to personal taste, you might be fine with a bunch of folks making things up from their past as they go along. I am too if they keep a consistent narrative, but i have lost count of the times that I have rped with people had gotten two contradictory versions of the past of the same character and when I ask oocly Hey is your char fibbing or did the backstory just change, the answer has never been that the person was ICly trying to deceive.
this usually results for anything but trivial changes in my starting to diminish the amount i rp with this person.

[mietze]

I liked the potential hybrid approach at RfK, where one had the option of entering more historical/philosophical information at any point in their play (either pre-grid or post-approval or any combination thereof). Because this was sent to staff, it was in theory documented. But for those who like to settle in or fill in details as they meet people/establish ties/get into character (like myself) there's not a rush or pressure to have all of it figured out pre-approval. For those who cannot get into a character without a huge amount of pre-approval documented depth, then that's available to them and they even get an XP boost up front in doing so. (And those who fill it out along the way get their boosts along the way).

I don't think it necessarily must be tied to XP, but I thought that was a really interesting way of doing things, and it felt pretty good, at least to me. My PC there ended up being a lot richer with a lot more defined and /staff known/ backstory than any others, even in my old days of MUSHing where it seemed most of the time you had to write huge detailed epic bgs!

But like Akandel and others have said, I think this is very much a personal preference thing, I think both paths to detail are valid, and i like it when there are options to get there!

[Groth]

@ThatGuyThere said:

And how fiction characters experience their lives vary greatly with the medium we experience them in.

My point is that characters are made, not born. They generally speaking start as a concept and are fleshed out from there. Very few people make a character by going 'My character was born in a small fishing village in the outskirts of the empire, their father was lost at sea so my character had to learn how to fish so their family could get fed etc etc.' rather they usually go 'I want to play Mage Batman' and go from there.

[ThatGuyThere]

We look at it from different perspective then. I mainly come up with ohh this is a char I want to play. Usually it is a personality and a history. Then I think ok how can I work things into something game useful.
At least that is my process for a MUSH.
For table top I think ok what does the party need, alright how can I put a few twists on that to make it fun.

[Misadventure]

I like BGs. I like having events to point to about why they act as they do, and so on, as illustrated above by many examples.

I do not like staff asking for anything in a BG that they won't use. You need my Sire's name so you can announce me or let people research me, great. Wanna know what my greatest atrocity is to gauge where I the player may draw OOC lines, as well was where the PC draws theirs? Good idea.

If you aren't going to use it, not much point to require it. Plenty of folks will lay out all sorts of stuff, but it will be to suit their needs in regards to setting the character in their own mind.

[Groth]

@Misadventure said:

I do not like staff asking for anything in a BG that they won't use.

Usually in a MU*, there's very few BG's that ever see use by Staff, not because Staff don't want to create more personalized stories but simply because the Staff to Player ratio is often 10:1 or higher and it's infeasible for Staff to pay that much attention to individual characters. Even so it's often worthwhile to ask players to answer questions of that nature since they create deeper more nuanced characters. The best method I've seen so far is to make the questions optional with xp rewards for answers.

Also I'm sorry for derailing this topic so much.

[Misadventure]

Again, if it's not going to be used, it is serving no purpose save a barrier to play. If the player will get use out of it, or if other players will get use out of it via IC investigation or Player as StoryTeller, great. Otherwise I see no point to it.

No need to convince me about lack of STs etc, I am aware. I am focused on functionality.