First question you should ask yourself when writing a backstory:
>how does this make my character interesting?
Does this backstory fact give your character a goal, an interesting trait, a way to connect to another character? Does this trait make people love or hate(in a good way) your character? Does this fact from character life give him an unexpected character trait, or makes them more endearing, relatable, funny, sad?
Because ultimately, the main thing that matters in the campaign is how character is played. And backstory is a great set of guidelines for that.
Christian King
I usually go with a vague backstory and develop it once I get to grips with the story, feel, and the fictional universe. If the GM explicitly says that he wants to use backstories as plot points at some point, I'll put more detail in so he can work with it.
It also depends on how lethal the campaign is. If it's highly lethal, then I'm not going to invest time in making a detailed backstory to someone who's probably going to die like a bitch.
Liam Bennett
if they can't star in their own novel, the character isn't worth playing. just because you might never use elements of their backstory, its better to have them and understand where they're coming from rather than just be a murder-hobo.
Aaron Barnes
Enough to get the general jist of the character
Cooper Turner
You are exactly what i like to see at my table. Hit the highlights, and give me stuff to work with.
I once GMd a superhero game and got the entire range between nothing (My character is named Lawman . He's immortal) to 30 page Mary Sue bullshit.
When I begged the two players that have me nothing to give me SOMETHING, they both turned on their own 30 page manifestos detailing the many exploits of these (or what was supposed to be) average level heroes.
Now I just give my players a worksheet with 6 open- ended questions. They answer these questions, and can use the front page for writing, and the back page for any drawings they want to include. If they can't adequately summarize their character in one page, they have to scrap it. Also, it has to be legible (and I secretly grade their spelling and grammar. )
Owen Lopez
Does it make a particular difference to anyone when you have an established fantasy/futuristic setting to work within? I'm thinking ones that are a bit more alien than "modern values but with swords and more horses."
Easton Johnson
Three paragraph hard limit, ideally only one. Nobody wante to read your novel's prologue, and if you can't fit what needs to be said in three paragraphs you've made something far too elaborate in the first place
Nathan Brown
Why would that change your backstory length?
Lincoln Bennett
I imagine that if you place a story in a well-established setting, you can cut corners by just namedropping things.
>and then my character went to tatooine for 5 years
Instead of >and then my character went to a shitty desert planet on the edge of the known universe to live off selling junk and scrap
Luis Ross
To help emphasize the different lens through which the character views and thus interacts with the world.
I also tend to be overwhelmingly talkative and wordy, in case it wasn't obvious, which is probably a result of my reasoning.
