I've been running games for a while now and I still haven't got used to the abundance awful backstories submitted by...

>what you've handed me is garbage. This makes it harder for you to make more garbage
I'd love to. Really, that would just be swell. But the vibe I get from their pages upon pages of loving detailed descriptions and longwinded maximalist prose is that they're super attached to these creations. Some of the worst ones read like wish fulfilment, actually.

I got one that, in Microsoft Word, ran about 19 pages. I politely suggested that he could probably streamline a lot of it and he responded that this WAS the shortened version.

Oh, Jesus. If anyone needs to be told his writing is crap, it's that little asshole. I don't know anything else about him and already I kinda hate him.

It'll do him good in the long term, really. Especially if he actually wants to be a writer, you're not doing him any favors by coddling him.

I know it's not easy to be the bad guy, but you must. Embrace the darkness.

>Oh, Jesus. If anyone needs to be told his writing is crap, it's that little asshole. I don't know anything else about him and already I kinda hate him.
It was a terrible backstory, to boot. Not even considering the sheer gallish length of it, just the concept was weak and generic. I don't remember the details but it was something along the lines of his parents were killed by bandits when he was a baby so he was raised by his older brother who was a master swordsman and taught him everything he knew. But then he killed too, of course, by some necromancer who animated him as his right hand man and this guy then swore revenge on the necromancer and it was such horseshit.

And those were just the basic tragedies. I didn't even go into the alcoholism or the angst he carried any time he failed to protect someone. Or his fucking girlfriend who was murdered.

Sure enough he was a cunt-awful roleplayer too. In the ad I put out I specifically said this was going to be pretty roleplay intensive and people who didn't do that sort of thing best look elsewhere. He was the only one who didn't get the memo. He would brood and sulk and not say much of anything.

During one pivotal plot moment me and ALL the other players tried desperately to draw him out. But since the plot point didn't pertain to his backstory in particular he just mumbled some cliche lone-wolf shit about ambivalence. Immediately called a time out to take him aside.

I asked him, fairly straight up, "Why is Soandso travelling with this group?" The silence as this guy struggled to conjure a reason for it was agonising. But he didn't get the hint. He kept playing it like that. When his character got into a moral conflict with another character this guy got genuinely offended when no one took his side.

Everyone tried telling him that, no shit, our characters don't even know your character. He's just some grumpy bastard who hangs around with them. Pissed him off enough that he wound up quitting, thank god

Oh, merciful Minerva. That's worse than my GaiaOnline days.

The people who refuse to meet the two-paragraph rule are usually the ones you can afford to boot anyway.

It's not as though we didn't try to accommodate him. I get it. People are new and have been exposed to too much anime.

But holy moley. We gave him hints. Then we straight up told him he should improve. Then we told him HOW he should improve. Then we begged him to improve. It's his own stupid fault that no one liked playing with him at a certain point.

>The people who refuse to meet the two-paragraph rule are usually the ones you can afford to boot anyway.
That's super easy to say on Veeky Forums but I always wind up uncomfortable with disappointing people. I don't like confrontation and I always delude myself with the idea that they COULD improve.

The edgelord demon vampire has over 145 pages into her story.

I am not fucking joking, the only reason why I do not post the actually link is because I know the group will know exactly who shared it and no offense but I don't trust anyone here not to leave a comment on it.

However, I will give you an excerpt:

>Pain.

The first sensation I remember. Babies usually smile, they laugh, wrap their needy little fingers around smiling parent’s hands. I laugh. It’s cute, really, to think about. Truthfully though, as I lay here counting the patterns in the cement cracks, I’d have no idea what affection, love, or even a smile would look like. Not one that wasn’t tainted with blood, malice, or wicked enjoyment.

My father’s favorite past time -ah dear Lord Fassain Dumort- was showing me images of my childhood. Ones I don’t remember, ones I do, ones that I mistakenly admitted were fuzzy. Vampires, great lords like Father Dumort, love to play mind games. Many have often misconstrued my father for a psionic. He can’t hurt anyone, I’ve never seen him peel anyone’s skin off with his mind, but Lord Fassain does not need to physically hurt someone to leave them helpless. Sometimes a person’s memories, their fears, are the worst holes in armor. And, Great Lord Fassain makes sure none of his servants ever forget."

What the fuck!?

I thought I had problems but I have clearly been blessed. What is this shit!?

I completely fucked that up...let me reformat:

>"Pain. The first sensation I remember. Babies usually smile, they laugh, wrap their needy little fingers around smiling parent’s hands. I laugh. It’s cute, really, to think about. Truthfully though, as I lay here counting the patterns in the cement cracks, I’d have no idea what affection, love, or even a smile would look like. Not one that wasn’t tainted with blood, malice, or wicked enjoyment. My father’s favorite past time -ah dear Lord Fassain Dumort- was showing me images of my childhood. Ones I don’t remember, ones I do, ones that I mistakenly admitted were fuzzy. Vampires, great lords like Father Dumort, love to play mind games. Many have often misconstrued my father for a psionic. He can’t hurt anyone, I’ve never seen him peel anyone’s skin off with his mind, but Lord Fassain does not need to physically hurt someone to leave them helpless. Sometimes a person’s memories, their fears, are the worst holes in armor. And, Great Lord Fassain makes sure none of his servants ever forget."

I personally try to avoid edginess as much as I can. Nearly everything I've written is, at most, two to three paragraphs long. Even the ones where the character is an established figure in the setting, like NPCs for when I GM. Everything in it is either a justification for adventuring or being with the party, or there to provide plot hooks for the GM.

I've had two long-term players, though, and they both have definite edge streaks in them, but for different reasons, and took it in different directions:

One plays it for laughs, tries to be as edgy and creepy as possible, because he finds it funny. He finds playing devil's advocate for morally untenable points of view is funny as well, but knows to cut the crap if people get mad. But. It's mixed in with generally fairly normal characters. One was just a pirate. The edgiest thing about him was the fact that he'd pounded a noble's face into mulch with a fancy paperweight for murdering his mom. Well, and being generally disliked by the crew he worked for for having the power of genre savvy.

The other legitimately thinks it's good storytelling. He once handed me a backstory where his character had gone home for her birthday only to find her family strung up by their entrails and the cult that did it waiting in the shadows. They raped her, "for what felt like days," then nearly gutted her and left her for dead. She then, being a paladin, fell and became a dark knight of the god that the cult that had attacked her served.

They won't improve if they don't want to improve. If they utterly refuse to trim their backstory (if you wanna compromise, go one page, college ruled, single-side, double-spaced) then the thousand-to-one odds are that they're just gonna stink up your game.

I can empathize. But remember, you're not shutting them out into the cold to freeze or starve to death. You're informing them they won't be able to play your game unless they come back with a better attitude. They'll live.

I wish I could keep talking, but it is way past my bedtime. I'll implore you once more to be candid. It's a difficult threshold to cross, but it will save you a lot of pain in the long term.

I can try. That's all I can say. I can try. I can't resolve to commit to that right now. Because I know me and the second I go up against one of these things I'm going to be right back where I started. But I can try to be more candid.

Thank you for your help. I appreciate it more than you know.

I understand, user. Baby steps.

Oh, it can't possibly be that bad-
>He can’t hurt anyone, I’ve never seen him peel anyone’s skin off with his mind, but Lord Fassain does not need to physically hurt someone to leave them helpless.
...Carthago delenda est.

>One plays it for laughs, tries to be as edgy and creepy as possible, because he finds it funny.
That doesn't sound better. It just sounds like a different kind of bad. Acknowledging your cliches is not the same as fixing them. That's the solution for sitcom writers but I hold the average D&D player to a higher standard than that.

>The other legitimately thinks it's good storytelling. He once handed me a backstory where his character had gone home for her birthday only to find her family strung up by their entrails and the cult that did it waiting in the shadows. They raped her, "for what felt like days," then nearly gutted her and left her for dead. She then, being a paladin, fell and became a dark knight of the god that the cult that had attacked her served.
If the reason she had gone home was something other than a birthday this would just be a generic edgelord backstory. But that it's a birthday makes this weirdly comical.

You could almost say it was a surprise birthday?

>Surprise, we got you a traumatizing backstory!
>Aw, thanks, dying parents. You guys are the best.

I just picture her entering the house, this scene of carnage and death all over the place. Blood and entrails smeared across the walls. But in the centre of the kitchen is this tidy, undisturbed table with a coconut cake and a card that has something innocuous written in it.

The card reads "Happy birthday, sweetie! Remember! You're not a year older, you're just a year closer to death. Hahaha! ;) xoxoxox"

>That doesn't sound better.
What I mean is that he's almost a satire of himself. His current character is a, "shapeshifter," in that she's the locus of what is basically a more hostile version of Minecraft's Nether and can manipulate what her physical manifestation looks like.

In trying to pay back her current boss(small-scale hydrokinetic who can hear everything around him for about a mile through ambient water vapor) she figured out how to make him soundproofed insulation pads for inside his walls. She explained exactly what they were made of("a type of organic material not that dissimilar to the corpus spongiosum inside a guy's dick," and then segued into talk about what she liked and disliked about dicks) through a second mouth on the side of her neck, while vomiting it up in rolls through her normal mouth.

The worst part about that is that the actual quality of writing is good, if only the subject matter wasn't pure edge.

>In trying to pay back her current boss(small-scale hydrokinetic who can hear everything around him for about a mile through ambient water vapor) she figured out how to make him soundproofed insulation pads for inside his walls.
>She explained exactly what they were made of("a type of organic material not that dissimilar to the corpus spongiosum inside a guy's dick," and then segued into talk about what she liked and disliked about dicks) through a second mouth on the side of her neck, while vomiting it up in rolls through her normal mouth.
I just remembered I need to go iron my cat. Have a nice thread.

>the actual quality of writing is good
It's really not, though.

It's decent by the piss-poor standards of D&D character backstories, sure. I'll give you that.

To be honest, I am tempted to just save the story and post a copy of it when it isn't my bed time, or does google notify you when someone downloads something?

OP help I'm bleeding from the edge.

Since you're a Veeky Forumsfag give us a breakdown, otherwise you're just rattling your tits.

You got me. Can I just concede the point? Don't wanna open up a tangent or nothing.

also OP you can make a throwaway gmail account and paste their story on google docs then link the docs.

No. I don't have that shit anymore.

You're not missing much.

I suppose, either way thanks for sharing the cringe.

By the way is having a warpriest that's a recovering drug addict too edgy? I mean there's no huge reason why they're a drug addict, they just fell in with the wrong crowd, or would it be better to make them start out as a rogue or something then become a warpriest when they've overcome the addiction?

I think that's fine on it's own. A good story needs conflict. Just don't overdo it. Don't try to romanticise it. Make sure it comes up in the right context.

I think you're in fairly safe territories if you can play it well.

True enough, thanks for the insight.

Have a good night friend.

I wrote a backstory for a character: I don't think it's too edgy, but can you give it a once-over?

Imrathon was the secondborn of two elves living in the north-east of the High Forest: his older sister Verya, already a young adult, was an accomplished tracker herself on the way to becoming a ranger just like her father Suiadan. Beriadanwen, their mother, took very good care of them and taught many important things to the young bronze-skinned elf: kindness should be it's own reward, that being charitable toward others and treating them like he would like to be treated is just natural. Imrathon took all these lessons to heart and had many friends whom he shared his young life with.

The gods smiled upon the family and blessed Beriadanwen with another son: the little Morcion was born. He and Imrathon were inseparable and they shared a bond only equalled by a pair of twins, fast friends of the two: they grew up in the village built atop ancient trees, reaching for the sky. Hale and hardy, they played and toiled away in life: Imrathon was on his way to become a ranger like his older sister and father, while Morcion took an interest in all things spiritual, stepping into the path of his grandfather who at that point was the archdruid of the local circle. And everything looked up for them.

However, this all changed when the undead rose from below and attacked: the brothers were out on a task to cull some wildlife, trying to put down a tiger who was threatening the wildlife recently when they were ambushed by ghouls and skeletons. They managed to climb to a tree and tried to swing to another one, to safety, with a couple of vines: Morcion in his rush took a brittle vine and fell with a cry of fear that still echoes in the nightmares of Imrathon.

The latter couldn't do anything but watch in frozen shock, as his brother was hacked, stabbed and impaled by the rust-covered swords and spears of the skeletons beneath: he was about to leap off the tree, when his sister swung behind him and took him to safety with another fast swing on the vine.

Thick, black smoke billowed from the village as the combined forces of the two Liches of Wulgreth made a push for the Hellgate Keep, exterminating the druid protectors that were in the village, along all the other elves that couldn't save themselves fast enough. Verya put him under the command of the village militia officer, who was coordinating a counterattack to save as many villagers as they could... Imrathon fought alongside the others, felling a few skeletons before he was by a crossbow bolt in the back. As he looked back, he saw another skeleton aiming at him with a bow and knew that his final moment had come: but it was not to be, as his father interposed with the projectile. He was already covered in wounds and the arrow was enough to send him to the great beyond.

As he slumped down, Imrathon barely managed to catch him, to hear his final words "Take care of your sister..." and his yelling, nothing helped keeping the spirit of his father in his body, as he went limp in his son's arms. His mind overcome with Grief, the elf rushed as fast as his stumbling steps would take him to his home, where he found Beriadanwen dead in a puddle of blood, with a skeleton right beside her and a spear protruding from her back. A loud explosion shook the village and he ran as fast as he could to the source: there he came only in time to see his sister and the archdruid, as well as the strongest of the circle confronting an undead clad in robes, unholy energy spilling from every inch of it's corpse.

Brevity, wit, imagination etc. - you know the drill.

He wanted to run again, but his legs only took him one step before he smashed into the ground, exhausted: his eyelids were getting heavier and heavier and the only thing he heard before the black void of unconsciousness took him, was Verya's scream of rage as she attacked the Lich.

When he came to, he was in a small, rickety house with one novice druid tending to his wounds: from him, he learned that his sister had been slain by the Lich, before the latter was defeated and routed by the combined might of the ex-archdruid and his apprentices. His grandfather too, had died of heart failure after the battle... this was, Imrathon realized, the worst day of his life. The loss was overwhelming and he grieved for fourteen days after his family was burnt on the pyre with the rest of the casualties. This event deeply scarred the mind of the young elf, whose steadily-growing thought was vengeance: he renounced the way of the ranger and took on the garb of the druid in his brother's memory, becoming the apprentice of a satyr druid, who had experienced similar loss. The name of his teacher was Qylös.

The next month, the circle of druids split into two factions: those who were for the complete destruction of all the undead in the High Forest, and those who were against moving to fight the scourge of these unholy beings.
Imrathon, Qylös and another dozen druids separated from the circle and went their own ways, seeking out any remnants of the attack to wipe out: during that time the ways of these fellows grew twisted and, while they swore an oath to never kill each other and to always pursue the death of the two liches, a lot of friction between some individuals grew and there were times in which their oaths were almost broken. Almost.

Imrathon was still unexperienced and, during some of these quarrels, he usually drew the short stick, suffering the consequences of the fallout between the members even at the hands of his teacher. However, he never stopped learning, disciplined as he always was in his pursuit of revenge.

After a few months of abuse and battles against the unliving, the elf learned of his weakness and decided to split from the group and pursue his own growth, just as a few other members had done before. This is how he sought out other people that he could call companions, finding an adventerous group: a half-orc berserker, a dwarf cleric of Tempus and a peppy wizard halfling: he spent a few months with them, on an adventure to find buried riches in an ancient tomb, said to contain risen dead.

He does not remember much of that time, as he spent a few weeks trying to forget the three companions after their disappearance: as they were going into the tomb, they were sprayed with rusty arrows, darts and doused with flames. That wasn't nearly enough to kill them, of course: the only thing that Imrathon remembers, with dread, is when they reached the accursed door and the stupid half-orc smashed it to enter. They entered the room and, optimistic, went on to loot the treasures of the buried noble: in doing so, they awakened the undead from their graves. Mummies clambered out of their sarcophagi and blocked the exit, shambling toward the group. They were overrun and everything else is a blur: the next memory was him holding the corpse of the halfling woman in his arms. Then the elf put as much loot as he could lift without breaking it in his backpack, took the halfling in his arms and made his way to the exit.

He wandered back to Waterdeep, the closest city, to bring the Halfling to the church of Lathander and resurrect her: he found it and instructed the clerics to return her to life, giving them all the loot that he had brought with him: it was just enough. As they worked the miracle, he stood back, turned into a seagull and waited for the halfling to come back to life: when she was back, he took off to the north.

In Neverwinter, he bleached his mind with ale and spirits until those memories were only a blur: however he realized that he had experienced this grief in the past... determined to never feel this way again, he made himself a solemn promise: to keep his companions alive no matter what happened and to never let anyone he knows suffer the scourge of the undead again. His resolve bolstered, he took a year to the wilderness of the Neverwinter forest, to meditate and grow in power, feeling inadequate in protecting anyone, at the stage he was back then.

>TL; DR: Wild Elf from an elf village in a forest tries to defend it against undead, his whole family dies and he can only watch. He becomes a Druid and starts adventuring to gain power and destroy undead better. He is a borderline sociopath and incredibly protective of any group of people he will adventure with.

I would be glad for the feedback you guys can give me on what you would improve: please tell me what you think!

Working on it. Bear with me.

That...sounds insufferable. I wouldn't just ask him to leave. I'd probably start hitting him until he was made to leave. Not just brawling him to a pulp but like with a TV tray or something, something that would be as uncomfortable as this tryhard is trying to make people feel.

It has a lot of the usual edge tropes, but honestly I'd allow this simply because of the protectiveness of the party. Half of what makes edgelords suck so hard is that they either stand in a corner brooding and not doing much or they actively hinder the party by demanding to take valuable shit/attacking party members for edge factor/etc. giving your character a reason to protect people and be genuine and kind in doing so means that he's more than just a tragic backstory and a walking mass of angst.

I give it a passing grade.

Why didn't you post just the TL;DR instead of exposing us to your shitty prose? Newsflash: no-one wants to read a novel when asked for a back story, they want the cliff's notes version of it. Who gives a fuck what you write about your character on your free time, it has no relevance to the game.

Okay. Prognosis? Not good. This is pretty bad. I'm going to try and tell you in as polite a way as possible. It's worth noting, though, that a lot of my complaints just come down to my own personal preference. I'm sure there's a GM out there who would like some of these decisions. If you submitted this to me, however, I wouldn't really know what to tell you.

First of all, it's too long. Watch this:

"Imrathon was the secondborn of two elves. He lived with his mother, father, sister and younger sister in a treetop village to the North. In these formative years Imrathon studied to become a ranger, out of admiration for his father.

His idyllic life was cut short, however, and he was forced to grow up early. As Imrathon and his brother were away a group of undead stormed the village. Though he tried to return in time to assist he found he had been too late and his family, his village and his life were destroyed before his very eyes.

The remaining elves splintered into different factions and Imrathon, tired of the squabbles and still carrying lingering trauma of the incident, decided to forge his own path. His grief overwhelmed him and he resolved to never allow such a lapse in his armour ever again."

A lot of these details are totally unnecessary. Something like "Beriadanwen, their mother, took very good care of them and taught many important things to the young bronze-skinned elf: kindness should be it's own reward, that being charitable toward others and treating them like he would like to be treated is just natural" is an okay detail to keep in your back pocket for a character moment. But it's not really important enough to go into a submission.

Stuff like this, though "They managed to climb to a tree and tried to swing to another one, to safety, with a couple of vines: Morcion in his rush took a brittle vine and fell with a cry of fear that still echoes in the nightmares of Imrathon." is useless. It's never going going to be brought up. Delete it.

The worst is stuff like this "this was, Imrathon realized, the worst day of his life" which really should speak for itself. It's just not good writing in any sense. Just tell us what happened and let us make these decisions.

Remember these character submissions are like resumes. Just keep it to "who, what, when, where and why". Anything else is probably good to cut.

The stuff with the adventuring party and the tomb, and this is where my attempt to be polite starts to fail me, get rid of it. I don't understand the point of it. You're only on episode two and you're already rehashing the same plot? What does this inform us about Imrathon? The whole point of his character and his motivations were established with the village.

Words words words words
too
many
fucking
WORDS

That TL; DR:? That's all you need to fucking say. He's an elf with a grudge against undead, who became a Druid to better destroy undead. He's also a clingy weirdo who's deathly afraid of seeing his companions get hurt. That's perfect. Everything else could be reduced to a bullet-point list of drama hooks, and you'd have a rock solid character.

Listen: the big, broad strokes are far more important in creating interesting characters than the quibbling details. I don't need to know how his previous party were all eaten by mummies - all I need to know is that he's lost people in the past, he hates himself for not being strong enough to save them, and is terrified that his own weakness might cause such losses again.

But just putting aside the long windedness and the redundancy of it all, let's just focus on the content. It's not my bag. It's workable, sure, but it's just a bit over the top for my liking. That's definitely my preference, for sure, but there is one major red flag I cannot chalk up to "personal taste" and that's actually in your tl;dr

>He is a borderline sociopath
Stop. Nope. Don't. Not even once. Unless you're an insanely good roleplayer (like Daniel Dey Lewis levels) no good can come of this. One of two things is going to happen.

You either play a sociopath poorly which is awkward and gross and uncomfortable. Or you play him well and he's just shithouse to interact and roleplay with.

Plus it's a little incongruous to say "He's a sociopath" and have the schtick of your character be "He cares too much". And when I say "a little incongruous" I mean "entirely incongruous"

I would seriously consider dropping that angle. It's not going to work. I promise you.

Yup. I wanted to make a character that I usually don't play, with an angsty background but still enough personality to be a deep and valuable piece in the story.

The druid would be nice and charitable towards others, as well as thoughtful and meticulous in what he does. But he would be ruthless and unforgiving if someone threatened or hurt his 'new family' (the party) which would probably lead to him making a few enemies along the way, probably.

You're right: would it help if I took the most important bits of the story and made a less longer version at the start and put the rest of the story, the small, relevant things that affected his character in the long run in the longer story?

>I don't understand the point of it.
I think it's an important part in the development of Imrathon's character. He realizes that he needs to become even stronger and seeing his 'family' die a second time is enough to push him over the edge and make him lose any feeling of regret or guilt he would have when someone tried hurting his most cherished friends. That he needs to do Everything in his power to protect them, no matter what the cost.

It's all part of the downward spiral that he goes through before he eventually meets the party and goes on adventure with them.

Well, I will put the summary at the top the next time, while keeping all the relevant information about how he developed and why under all of that.

At least they're bothering to write backstories and not paranoid that you'll use any possible indications as to their past to destroy them and everything they love for cheap forced drama.

>Plus it's a little incongruous to say "He's a sociopath" and have the schtick of your character be "He cares too much". And when I say "a little incongruous" I mean "entirely incongruous"

I understand that you could think that, but studies have shown that sociopaths are actually very likely to bond with other people and get attached.

But yeah, don't want to be too harsh. You are seeking improvement and constructive criticism which immediately makes you better than a lot of folks I've tried to GM.

>I think it's an important part in the development of Imrathon's character. He realizes that he needs to become even stronger and seeing his 'family' die a second time is enough to push him over the edge and make him lose any feeling of regret or guilt he would have when someone tried hurting his most cherished friends. That he needs to do Everything in his power to protect them, no matter what the cost.
Yeah, sorry, it's just kinda useless. One life shattering trauma should be enough to establish that. His family died in front of him, that's kind of it. Batman doesn't become Batman after seeing his godfather stabbed by a mental patient. No, it's right after his parents get shot. Anything else comes off as redundant at best and a little disrespectful to the original trauma at worst.

Stacking a bunch of traumas on top of each other is pretty silly. There comes a point where it just seems like tragedy for its own sake. You know?

Besides, he's about to go on his "adventures with a colourful cast of characters". Don't take away the spontaneity of that. This extension at the end there, aside from just jutting out like a sore thumb, really just does nothing but take away from the character. I'm sorry. It doesn't work.

If your major character point hinges on semantics and if it can't hold up outside of a "studies have shown" it's not very good. I got confused, it's likely other people will too. Are you going to attach these studies to your character bio?

>If your major character point hinges on semantics and if it can't hold up outside of a "studies have shown" it's not very good. I got confused, it's likely other people will too. Are you going to attach these studies to your character bio?
No, you're right. I guess there's still the issue about communicating without misunderstanding each other and if I'm lucky, the group that I will be playing with will understand what I'm saying. Whereas if I'm unlucky, they won't.

To a certain extent, luck is a part of communication.

I do have to think about the second part, with the first adventuring group in the background now: thanks for your insight man!

This. When I GM I don't want to read a novel, I want to know where the character came from and what he wants. That takes three sentences, max, and that's all I'm willing to or even want to read about the character. The odds are that you ain't gonna be a professional writer with a professional editor, and I'm sure as hell not going to sift through mounds of shit to get the nuggets I need.

>thanks for your insight man!
Not a problem. You seem kind of attached to this guy so I respect that changing him is hard but you're handling it like a pro. I've had too many horror stories. Thanks for not being, "that guy"

I would GM you after this display.

I understand your point of view and I support it: I will keep the relevant points handy to give to the GMs instead of a more verbose story, at first.

With this sort of background, I want to give the reader a good understanding of why and how my character ended up being who he is and the reasons that he does what he does in a format that is a bit more entertaining than a grocery-like list of events.

It's an experiment, to see that if I give more details, more personality and history to the character I will get more invested in the story and make more meaningful interactions with other characters and the world of the GM.

Keep on doing what you do man!

Out of curiosity, do you DMs prefer mostly comedic backstories to edgy ones?
>alchemist with a screw loose
>left at the doorstep of his orphanage, had an entirely uninteresting childhood up until he was kicked out for burning down part of the building
>taken in by an older alchemist after causing structural damage to a bridge by accident when trying to cook for himself
>only ever learned to blow things up

What's his motivation?

Seriously. Fuck everything else, what are his goals and motives? Why is he adventuring with the party? What does he want out of it?

I can forgive even the most absurd backstories, so long as the character has something to do IN THE PRESENT.

I am glad that you gave me a chance man.

Thanks for the upbeat attitude and rock on!

>Out of curiosity, do you DMs prefer mostly comedic backstories to edgy ones?
OP, here. I do if only for the rarity of them.

But, honestly, I go for the threadbare sort more than anything. The best characters I ever ran had backstories like that. There was a rogue who became a cat burglar for the fun and adventure of it. Then there was a ranger who wanted to prove she was the greatest archer alive.

Those characters were three dimensional, fully fleshed out and thrilling to roleplay with because they were neatly defined, likeable, flawed in tolerable doses and all their major character establishing moments and details occurred within the context of the game.

As for your character, well, you kind of failed to answer the one question any GM is going to ask. "What does this have to do with me?" Your character's gotta have a reason to party, otherwise it's just a collection of details orbiting nothing.

Might make for a fun NPC but as a PC? I don't know. Why's he travelling in an adventuring party? What's he hoping to get out of it? It doesn't have to be elaborate. He could just be looking for an outlet to explode things through. That's decent.

It's groovy, partner. Hope to see you on the flip. Think about what I said, now.

But if the backstory never affects the game does it even exist in the first place? The other players didn't witness these events, so they have no bearing to the game world's reality.

Huh, I never thought about the motivation for adventure. Thanks for the advice, guys.
I'm not sure I want to make something as simple as 'I want to blow things up even better' so maybe something like 'I need to raise money to pay for damages I've caused to the city'

>With this sort of background, I want to give the reader a good understanding of why and how my character ended up being who he is and the reasons that he does what he does in a format that is a bit more entertaining than a grocery-like list of events.
>It's an experiment, to see that if I give more details, more personality and history to the character I will get more invested in the story and make more meaningful interactions with other characters and the world of the GM.
That's nice and all, but a GM's only going to want a "grocery like list of events". That's all that pertains to him and the other players. The rest is just self indulgence.

Another problem is that if you overelaborate on a character's backstory and personality you might find, later down the line, that you prefer playing him a certain other way. Nobody truly knows how their character is going to feel until after a few sessions. Keeping it to the basics lets you be more flexible.

If you want to write a short story about your character more power to you. Just don't use it as your submission. It's aggravating. It's not "an experiment", either. Bad RPers have done this since it was a concept. We're decades into this being a proven bad idea.

>I'm not sure I want to make something as simple as 'I want to blow things up even better' so maybe something like 'I need to raise money to pay for damages I've caused to the city'
Do NOT underestimate a simple motivation. It's a surprisingly short sighted move. I actually kind of like your other idea, too, but I'm talking theoretically, here. Now you've got this whole bugaboo about money on your character's back. Might not be able to buy the loot that you want to without contradicting his backstory. But with the simpler motivation of the two your character could just want to explode things for a righteous cause. That's open-ended and flexible and fun. You are here to have fun, after all.

I see your point: the backstory of the character might not affect the game at all. However, please consider that the story of the game is dictated by the GM, so if he wants to encompass things from the backstory of the characters, he might do so with relative ease.

There's another point: I've read so many times about
>"But that's what my character would do"
things and up to a certain point, there is validity in what That guy says. Usually That Guy takes it way too far though.

I've heard that if you build a believable character, with a rich personality and a solid background, the interactions he will have with other characters will improve and be that much more believable and interesting to play out so I want to try it out. By fleshing out the details of his psyche and his personality I want to verify if this is correct.

>That's nice and all, but a GM's only going to want a "grocery like list of events"
I used to believe that too, then I spoke to a GM who disagreed with me and spurred me to hash out the details of the character more and make his personality more diverse.

>Nobody truly knows how their character is going to feel until after a few sessions.
I found that if you go down into the details of a character's backstory, you can very well know how a character would feel about a certain event, based on their past experiences and about what they percieve as good and bad.

>If you want to write a short story about your character more power to you. Just don't use it as your submission.
I will keep it in mind and, when applying to any other group -if I ever will again, of course- I won't bog them down with a long backstory like I wrote now, but rather a few paragraphs detailing the skeleton, the most important bits of the character concept.

Have you ever had someone who played a brooding maladjusted misanthrope who uses their profession to acquire wealth and take out their frustrations on people and property who played such a jackass character fraught and was honestly enjoyable instead of being terrible or "so bad it's good"?

>flawed in tolerable doses

This one is hard. Two of the players in my rogue trader games keep going though characters because they end up accidently making characters that are close to breaking apart or sliding into heresy or loosing their minds right out of the box.

>I used to believe that too, then I spoke to a GM who disagreed with me and spurred me to hash out the details of the character more and make his personality more diverse.
Okay. Submit the short story to that guy but he's definitely in the minority.

>Have you ever had someone who played a brooding maladjusted misanthrope who uses their profession to acquire wealth and take out their frustrations on people and property who played such a jackass character fraught and was honestly enjoyable instead of being terrible or "so bad it's good"?
No

I barely understood any of the words you just said, all I caught was "Some of my players keep fucking up because they give their characters too many flaws"

Is that right?

I would use "emotionally stunned" instead of "sociopath". Way less baggage of meaning, and more actually accurate.

It seems to me the party wipe by mummies is suppose to create a "Kill my family once; shame on you. Kill my family twice; shame on me" sorta feeling.

>It seems to me the party wipe by mummies is suppose to create a "Kill my family once; shame on you. Kill my family twice; shame on me" sorta feeling.
That was what I was trying to convey with my character exiling himself to the Neverwinter Woods after a brief period of drunkenness spanning a few days.
"Fuck, I'm so weak! I need to get stronger so I can protect my family better..."

>I would use "emotionally stunned" instead of "sociopath"
Noted and corrected: you're right. I should write it that way instead.

Screencap it lad

What I like to do is take one aspect of my personality (particularly a negative aspect; it doesn't need to be a big part of me, just some scrap somewhere in my brain) and exaggerate it to the point where it dominates the character, then fill in the rest around that.

If you're asking me to screencap all 146+ pages, you're crazy.

I'm still considering the copy version of it, maybe even change the names around for lolz. But I need to think on it when I'm not running on literally no sleep.

Alternatively, I can share all the fucking awful experiences and lols I had in spectating this character.

GriffithvsGuts.jpg

Find better players.

Since it appears that we're critiquing character backstories, could I get some feedback on this one I've been working on.

>The nomadic Orc clan of the Highlands consider births that occur when certain constellations are in the sky of special importance. To commemorate these births, clan shamans attempt to divine the futures of the newborns from the stars and use these predictions as the basis for their namesakes. Bairsnagga's brothers were given names which foretold great legacies: names translating to things like "Slaughters One Hundred Dwarves" and "Eats The Flesh Of A Great Chimera" in the Orcish tongue. His own namesake, which translates to "Killed By A Bear," foretold an inglorious fate that made him a black sheep among his siblings.

>His constant attempts to one-up his beloved brothers and earn the respect of his clan instead grew to earn their ire, until one day his eldest brother tossed him down a gorge and left him for dead as recompense for the troubles he had brought to the family.

>Though bloodied and left for dead, Bairsnagga survived the attack. It was in this moment that he realized the blessing of his cursed title that his family had overlooked in their shame - clearly, in being foretold to die by the claws and teeth of a bear, Bairsnagga had been rendered invulnerable to all other things by fortune! Content in the knowledge that nothing but a bear is capable of striking him down, Bairsnagga set off to hunt great man and beast alike for coin and glory.

I usually require 3 paragraphs each, summarizing the following:
>Stuff that happened during their formative years to help define long-term goals and philosophy
>Stuff that's happened to them in more recent times that help define mid-term/short-term goals and current mentality.
>General disposition, random things they like and dislike, and actual personality traits, so that the character doesn't come off as one-note and at least pretends to have depth.

The paragraphs can be any length the player's willing to write up. After this, I read it over and if it's not something that I'd expect out of a 4th grader, then they usually get approved. Even the edgy ones.

I don't care if you want to play an edgy fuck at my table, but you're going to play an edgy fuck the ENTIRE time, and deal with any consequences that has. You play the character you said you were going to play at the beginning, or you're going to have the guts to admit that you don't like it and ask me to change your character.

I like the backstory that you wrote, but it doesn't tell me a whole lot other than that your character has a delusion of quasi-immortality and a fixation of proving all his orcish family and friends wrong about his name.

For example: how does he react to strangers? Is he hot-headed or does he have a good degree of self-control? How does he feel about killing enemies? What is his stance on elf slaves? Is he a big guy?

If you can give me some more details on his personality and how he would interact with other people, I'd say that you're good to go.

Oh shiz I forgot it was 146 pages. Spectating storytime might be funny. Get some rest soon m8!

Rate my drow monk backstory

>Grew up in a religious "We aren't like those drow, we are good drow" family above ground, basically told to be ashamed of who he is.
>got in with the wrong crowd, a gang of drow criminals, ends up not really liking it, abused by other gangmembers
>A stranger offers him a way out, he ends up in a monastery where he is taught the philosophy and techniques of an order of Shadow monks.
>Left them (along with many other monks) when internal politics got in the way of actual study. Now is on a spiritual journey or some shit.

Doesn't really seem like it needs to be a drow, and the story semi contrived in order to justify it being one. From a complete outsider's perspective, it seems you either chose a race for stat reasons and had to justify it, or thought that a unique race made your character more interesting

Thats probably a good point, I was originally considering that the order of monks were mostly drow.

A character starts or edgy as hell but over the course of the campaign learns to chill the fuck out.
Have you ever seen it happen, Veeky Forums?

I did something sorta like that. My character was never SUPER edgy--it was a demon involuntarily bound to the body of a 13-year-old girl, mostly played for laughs--but as the game went on she started softening around the edges.

If so, that would make sense, but maybe I would have it be in the underdark under the noses of other drow? I would question exactly how many good drow there are, and especially question how many good drow are on the surface, especially if there are enough localized to one area to have an entire order of monks.

docs.google.com/document/d/1TGqNOvvc5Xi4XFdkEA9kn0D4oXEf-JYWTNXBS6qovm0/edit?usp=sharing

I did it. See for yourselves.

I just hope I don't somehow land myself in shit for this, though I might just be paranoid.

>no way this dude got sent 150 pages
>hah it's only 40!
>rest loads in
what the fuck, i skimmed it, this is a fucking novella

>okay think about it, there's no way someone could write like this for that fucking long
>what's the last bit
The sun of this world was setting, and the sky turned from blue to a fiery orange. I stood there until the sun vanished, turning the sky black. Disgusted, I turned up to it, only to find tiny lights dotting the black. Funny, this world. Even at night, there was still lights.

And though there were no more clouds above us, two raindrops fell on Peony’s grave before I chose a direction and walked away.

I feel so sorry for you dude

Oh God. This is enough backstory for ten shitty characters.

This isn't a backstory. This is a fucking light novel. Hell, actual novels have been shorter.

Also this is edgy as fuck. Every single line oozes edge. Not even the silly kind of middle-school "edgy", but the pretentious as hell edge belonging to 30-somethings playing Vampire the Masquerade in a LARP.

Pretty much the whole thing could be summed up by the first word.

>Pain.

Okay, I've got it. I understand everything about you and your character.

It's not even close to done yet, and it's going to involve the other party members in the next part.

This doesn't even include what actually happened in the game. The DM is such an enabler as well as several other players. If this topic is still up later, perhaps tomorrow, I'll post some things that happened. Right now I'm busy with helping some new players with character creation.