"GM: Your (single paragraph) backstory is not mandatory reading."

Wait, what? The GM is dismissing brief backstory? Is that what's happening?

I would have expected players to ignore all the notes the GM prepared, not the other way around.

I read everything my players give me, even when I know that they wouldn't bother to read anything I give them (which is why I don't bother).

People have history, but I don't think anyone is interested in hearing how I woke up, took a shit, washed my hands, ate a bagel, and drove 10 minutes to pick up some bananas from the supermarket before I walked in on a mugging and kicked a dude so hard in the dick that I tore a ligament in my foot.

You should only mention the bits that are relevant to the story, anything else should be thrown into a bin and filed away as "assumed" until such a time when they become relevant.

>Player writes 4-page backstory
>It runs contrary to just about everything the group agreed to when setting up the game

I mean, I did my best but I still had to make him cut out large chunks of it.

I hate people who do this, If I ever have an item because backstory I run it by my GM first.

Yeah? I don't think anyone in this thread disagrees with that statement. It sounds to me like you're just trying to start shit.

I'm just stating an opinion chief. If people get butthurt over then that's their problem, not mine.

all I see is masturbatory gms
if they did it for the wrong reasons, it's even sweeter to have their past haunt them

If I get a backstory from a player, especially a good one (fitting for the world, interesting hooks, that sort of thing), that player gets preferential screen time.

Hell I usually coerce players into giving me a backstory by handing out "free knowledge skills" in exchange for a sentence or two of justification for each. 95% of the time these free skills are legitimately covered in their entirety by common knowledge (which by raw requires enough of a back story to be able to imply what you should know).
See like this guy?
He auto fails common knowledge and doesn't get an arc unless he really works for it.

You want an item to be from a backstory you buy it out of your starting funds like everyone else or wait until I actually run a game with that heirloom item rule I saw this one time in a companion I think.

Yup. Definitely autistic

>mundane day-to-day nothings
>important people in your past that are likely to still be relevant

That is, quite possibly, the single most egregious false equivalence I've ever seen, and I've been on Veeky Forums for the better part of a decade.

>If you don't design my narrative for me, you don't get to do anything in muh campaign
>Oh, and you autofail common knowledge rolls just because.
I gotta say man, your shitty system is how you get Old Men Henderson at your table.

You're stating an opinion that was never contested and that everyone with common sense agrees with. I don't see what the point was at all, it's just fanning the flames.

Why does it matter who my character's parents are? Unless we're playing in my character's hometown, or are planning on going there at some point, there's really no reason to mention them?
It's also assumed that someone taught my character the things that they know but unless we actually meet them, how are they relevant to the campaign? Lastly, it's assumed that my character got their gear from somewhere as well but unless we go back there (assuming it isn't a mart or something) how is that relevant to the campaign?

If they become relevant, they'll be mentioned during the campaign, but until then I'd rather focus on something else.

...

So you're saying there are absolutely no people in your character's past that are likely to still be relevant?

>He has a different opinion than me
>Must have autism.

>If you don't design my narrative for me, you don't get to do anything in muh campaign
If you give me hooks I will include your narrative. If other people don't then I have nothing to add in, as a result you get more screen time.
>Oh, and you autofail common knowledge rolls just because.
By raw you don't make the checks. Any knowledge related to the skills you've included on your sheet is handled by rolling those skills as knowledge assuming you want to know something esoteric under their purview. You've given 0 information to base what "common" means to you ergo it doesn't mean a thing.

Old man henderson doesn't work in practice, and if anything can be more easily produced when your backstory is a blank slate that you make up on the spot. If you want to bring a character specifically meant to disrupt the game I will ask you why you've not given expressed your issues with my game to me like an adult before asking you to leave.

How is anything I wrote a strawman when it's shit that you wrote in your own post? Do you even know what a strawman is?

I'm saying that if they were relevant to the current situation, they'd be brought up naturally as a result of the situation.

I'm not going to talk about how my dad was a great fishermen while we're struggling to survive in an undead catacomb but if we're on an island and I catch us some fish, I'll bring it up since now, it's actually relevant to the situation.

Yes, I know what a strawman is.

Let's compare his post to yours.
What he said:
>A good backstory equals more screentime
What you claimed he said:
>No backstory equals no screentime

That's pretty much the definition of a straw man.

>If you give me hooks I will include your narrative.
What if I'd rather participate in your narrative?
>By raw you don't make the checks.
In what game?
>Any knowledge related to the skills you've included on your sheet is handled by rolling those skills as knowledge assuming you want to know something esoteric under their purview.
So wouldn't that mean that I'm making the checks?
>You've given 0 information to base what "common" means to you ergo it doesn't mean a thing.
What kinda logic is this? If I invested a bunch of points into lockpicking, shouldn't I inherently know how to unlock a shitty padlock?
>Old man henderson doesn't work in practice, and if anything can be more easily produced when your backstory is a blank slate that you make up on the spot.
OMH only worked because the player dedicated enough time to write out over 100 pages of info for his character though.

>OMH only worked because the player dedicated enough time to write out over 100 pages of info for his character though.
OMH only worked because the fictional GM was a spineless faggot.

Ahem
>He auto fails common knowledge and doesn't get an arc unless he really works for it.
But, y'know, I'm obviously just strawmanning here.

What he said:
>A person who makes himself no backstory at all doesn't get an arc unless he works for it
What you claim he said:
>A person who doesn't design narrative for me doesn't get to ever do anything in my campaign

You are strawmanning. Stop it.

Tell me chief, if he's focusing all his attention on the snowflakes and makes me auto fail common knowledge shit, how the fuck am I supposed to do anything within the campaign?

He might as well be saying "a person who doesn't design narrative for me doesn't get to ever do anything in my campaign" because that's essentially what's going to fucking happen.

>if he's focusing all his attention on the snowflakes
Because there's absolutely no middle ground between writing a novel's worth of a backstory to your special snowflake, and not writing even a line of what he's all about. The problem arisen was the latter: no one ever advocated for going to the former extreme instead.

You are still strawmanning.

Are you so upset by being asked to write a backstory that you've actively avoided leaning what one actually is? You write out a few lines that say who your character is, why they're here, and maybe some stuff you'd like included in the game.

"His name is Jeffery Smith, he grew up in a small fishing town off the coast, and joined the war out of a sense of patriotic duty." That's a backstory, and it covers everything I've mentioned up until this point. Bonus points if you include some more like maybe an old friend and school mate was an immigrant from the nation that you're fighting against. That would be great, gives me a fuck ton to work with.

>What if I'd rather participate in your narrative?
Then do? Why would you think including other people's contributions to the game would be mutually exclusive to the...well the game itself?
So wouldn't that mean that I'm making the checks?
You'd be making completely different checks.
>What kinda logic is this? If I invested a bunch of points into lockpicking, shouldn't I inherently know how to unlock a shitty padlock?
Did you already forget the past line that explains exactly that? If you want to know some esoteric lockpicking knowledge, roll lockpicking. If you want to know your shitty as ever example you don't make a roll because any system worth its salt has a clause about not having to roll for something you have no chance at failing at.

>OMH only worked because the player dedicated enough time to write out over 100 pages of info for his character though.
No he worked because the gm not only accepted that book, but allowed the player to walk all over them treating that document as the gospel truth. Keep in mind that oldman henderson was used against a gm the player explicitly thought was shitty to begin with. The idea that they'd allow this sort of player behavior assuming the story is even true, proves that.

We're not talking about bringing up 1 page of backstory in the middle of a game but writing it on character sheets. Nigga

If I can get a free knowledge skill for every sentence or two that I write that justifies it, why the fuck wouldn't I write a novel and justify every single thing my character knows?

He's encouraging players to write a bit of backstory and get more invested in the game by giving them a mechanical benefit for it. You turn it around into powergaming. He will probably stop doing this because of you, and everyone will be a little more sad as a result.

You are why we can't have nice things.

Who said you get an unlimited amount of these things which I already stated were a trick and mechanically identical to common knowledge?
You get one above average (technically usually better than common knowledge), 2 at human standard (which is usually identical to common knowledge), and below average (which is there for the illusion).

Gets me a nice little story and players to think about who their character is.

Nah I'd treat him like I said I'd treat henderson. I don't abide people who don't actually want to play a game together at my table.

>He's encouraging players to write a bit of backstory and get more invested in the game by giving them a mechanical benefit for it.
He's encouraging people to only focus on backstory when it's mechanically viable for them to do so. You shouldn't NEED to be encouraged to come up with a backstory for your character, you should do it because you feel invested in the goddamn game.

If you need to dangle some meat on a hook to get people to play your games, chances are they weren't all that interested in the first place.
Who is to say that a long-lived race can't know more than four things though? Human beings aren't fucking pokemon.

Because you're not interacting with an automatic program (knowledge = f(Backstory)), but with a human being able to judge what make sense and what is excessive.

>I'm saying that if they were relevant to the current situation, they'd be brought up naturally as a result of the situation

"What's that, we need to sneak into the castle of Baron Suspiciatory? Thankfully my uncle is the captain of the guard there!"
"Yeah, I know the last five strongholds have been staffed/commanded/built by a different relative of my PC; what can I say, he's got a big family."

While the above is an exaggeration, "only 'bringing up'/making up backstory when it's relevant to the current situation" is rife for exploitation via "useful coincidences." Even if your trust your group to not exploit this, on-the-fly background creation/revelation limits the ability of the GM to plan ahead and create interesting narrative arcs for the players. Telling your GM you're hunting your old master who betrayed the cause at the outset of the game lets them work it in to the story in a much better way than dropping it only them randomly later on.

It's entirely possible some of them were only in it for the mechanical aspect at first, but it's a good way to get them to realize it has its own benefits and to come up with some better backstories even without the mechanical stuff the next time.

You need to start easy.

That still doesn't explain why I shouldn't write a novel to get the most out of my knowledge skills though. I mean, you ask old man for their life story and they'll probably be able to tell you of dozens of shit that they picked up over the years.

Feel free. You waste your time with that and I'll boot your dumb ass from the game for trying to turn a small incentive for RPing into another source of muchkinry, because as said, I'm not a machine beholden to my programming and have the ability to deem someone a fuckhead and have them removed from the table.

What does it necessarily matter if the PC in question has an uncle who is the captain of the guard though?

If he does, it was brought up in his backstory and the DM had the extra warning to prepare for it and turn it into a possible option in the infiltration.

>Who is to say that a long-lived race can't know more than four things though? Human beings aren't fucking pokemon.

Then give me a backstory that covers that? The free knowledge skill explanations aren't a backstory. They're justification for those specific things, in order to get people like you present something at all. Actually I take that back. People with don't generally like backstories aren't always obstinate cunts.

Also I generally don't include long lived races purely because of the mechanical disconnect between Joe elvenston the 1000 year old elf being mechanically balanced with Joe everyman the 18 year old human. Or rather I generally request said creature be young or be given a really believable reason why they've accomplished practically nothing by their age. When it comes down to it though people generally don't play ancient characters like they're actually ancient, so the whole play a young elf if you want to play an elf thing is generally accepted without batting an eye.

Fun fact though, if you want to play someone who is elderly there is a disadvantage for that which includes free knowledge skills to compensate for your age catching up to you. So jokes on you if you want to play an old man you effectively have to do what you dread most and actually tell me about yourself. AHAHAHAHA

It really isn't. The type of people who only do shit if there's a mechanical benefit to their overall effectiveness are the type who will gladly show up to next game with nothing but a name with some stats the moment there's no longer a carrot on the stick.

You can't think of a way to spin "I have a relative/relation in a position of power at [location]" into a way to help you get in to [location]? Just no link between the two whatsoever?

Oh I gotcha, so you reward backstories but only when it helps you fill in your skeleton of a plot. Oh, and if someone points out how stupid your houserule is, out the door they go.

I gotchu senpai.

I've seen it work as often, or more so, as I've seen it not work. It's worth a shot.

Even if his uncle is the captain of the guard, it doesn't actually change anything about infiltration mission as a whole. You're also assuming that the uncle in question is obligated to help the PC just because they're family, even at the risk of his job (and possibly his life).

>Hurr why are you only rewarding people who cooperate with you in a cooperative hobby? I should get all the benefits of being a fuckhead and no one can get mad at me because I'm momma's special baby boy.

On-the-fly background bits can be fun though, but I suppose the last word should be to the GM.

So for example:
> "What's that, we need to sneak into the castle of Baron Suspiciatory? Considering my noble origin, shouldn't I know something about him and is family?"
> "You left young, would your character have paid attention to politic at the time?"
> "Well he was already very curious about military matters at least, and my teacher was strict... so maybe."
> "Ok here is what you know/knowledge roll."
But the GM can also simply say the Baron is a very seclude man, or the PC family live in another region and would only know the baron by name so the PC get nothing specific. Or maybe the GM want the PC to have a personal link with the baron and that became a plot point.
Of course, on-the-fly background is not opposed to starting backstory, all the contrary they should benefit each other.

For a good number of newbies, it's less "I don't want to roleplay; gimmie my numbers" and more "I don't know how to/don't feel comfortable roleplaying; I probably won't try it unless I'm incentivized." Yes, grognards that hate RP will forever only be in it for the mechanical benefits, but for others, it can be a helpful push that has them make that first important step.

I could spin it as
>I spent a season staying with him a few years ago. I know the castle. Kind of.
And then ask the DM about how much I actually know/think I know.

...

It's a potential avenue that didn't exist beforehand and at the very least is better than making a cold call to an unknown captain. Also, we only stopped at "the uncle is there"; theoretically, we could push it further, characterizing the uncle as a strong family man that always puts family first, or maybe make him a lout easily plied by drink or coin, or whatever.

True. Most things are okay as long as you keep GM veto in mind.

Spoken like a lazy asshole who can't make a character to save his life.

>I'll boot your dumb ass from the game for trying to turn a small incentive for RPing into another source of muchkinry
You know, I'm with you for the most part, but if you are going to do this sort of thing, it's important that you as a GM make sure the shit you hand out isn't wildly unbalanced.

>Everyone should love and respect my opinions, otherwise they get the boot.

>my character is a self-taught alchemist
>stumbled across an abandoned alchemy laboratory in the sewers when he was a street urchin
>previous (now dead) alchemist was mad and his scribblings on the walls and in his books display this quite obviously
>my character absorbed his alchemy skills as well as intense paranoia from this
>said paranoia is about the world being ruled by a secret high-tech goblin conspiracy
First mission
>GM has us stumble across some "you no take candle" tier gobbos in the forest, we kill them, my character sprouts the usual paranoia about the situation
>one of them has some weird watch-like pendant trinket, we test it for magic and whatever, turns up no results, whatever, loot and scoot
>a few hours later get circled by a small goblin army operating mini-mecha like the Shredders from WoW
>turns out the trinket was literally a GPS beacon and they're here for revenge
>get killed in the second session by an unstoppable onslaught of robo-goblins

If you're reading this, fuck you Cody.

I still don't see what the problem is. Castles are fucking huge and you might not recall every sinle nook and cranny from a few years ago, nor would you be aware of any changes that were made in the interim.
And then when you meet him for real, you find out that he's become jaded and hateful after being betrayed by another family member and focused all his attention on his work or he values the coin of his employer more than the coin that the party could possibly give him.

Of course, you'd be discussing this shit between sessions, or at least, you should be.

>most players don't give a backstory, let it develop through the sessions (preferred)
>some players give me an excessively long backstory
>always skim through it halfheartedly, pick out a sentence or two and add references to it in the game
>"Wow, you actually read my character's backstory. Thanks man."
>mfw

Works every time.

>I'm entitled to play in someone else's game.

Brevity is wit.

>I'm entitled to be wrong and loved at the same time.

Silence is golden.

Yeah, basically

So I should keep my backstory as brief as possible and only play in text only games?

>Everyone who disagrees with me is autistic
>Me though? I'm the only normal person in the room.

Right? My backstory is today I had a bagel for breakfast. That shit is totally a normal thing people do and this guy is mad for legit reasons ok

>I'm entitled to force My Way down other people's throats
You are taking things to extreme in order to show absurd the extreme is, but everyone already knows that.
Also, giving your backstory over to the DM while throwing out assumptions at every turn doesn't seem smart. It's just crying "I don't care about your setting, senpai! Also, please screw me over!"

I've literally never met a GM that asked for an extensive backstory before session 0 who didn't turn out to be a shit GM who loses steam 3-5 sessions in.

That's not even how the saying goes, much less what it means.

your parents are now evi cultists, and they along with their family, including you, are now wanted by the church to be executed.
your teacher tried to assassinate the lord of wherever and his pupils are being hunted as sleeper agents.
and the guy you bought your gear from, turns out he was a fence for a powerful thieves guild, all members and associates of which are considered to be the bane of the kingdom.

oh, but you were playing a "hero", well the entire populace is after you for various reasons.

session one you get captured/killed/etc. now make a new character.

well how did you know that your dad was great fisherman struggling... if you didn't have it in your backstory. did you just make that up now? that is not how backstories work.

At this point I'd just pack up and leave and suggest to others that they do the same.

>Write decently extensive backstory
>Use literally none of it
>Forced to rewrite character's entire personality, because otherwise it'd make no fucking sense without having to go into anime-tier monologues about their past/present/future
Fuck you, you're getting four sentences or less from now on.

>well how did you know that your dad was great fisherman struggling
If your reading comprehension is so shit that you can completely misunderstand a post that's less than 100 words long, you really don't deserve a more detailed backstory.
Please reread: >I'm not going to talk about how my dad was a great fishermen while we're struggling to survive in an undead catacomb but if we're on an island and I catch us some fish, I'll bring it up since now, it's actually relevant to the situation.

>extensive
Who the fuck said about background needing to be extensive? The arguement was "There should be no background at all, else you've no plot!"
Have you met a GM that made an extensive backstory for PCs before session 0 who was a great GM with enough steam for a year-long campaign?

>I've pulled something out of my ass, got caught, so my answer is "You're dumb! Here, look how I pull things out of my ass!"

It's not mandatory, but if he doesn't read it, he's a shit GM.

Not just because he's not catering/pandering to you as the player, no. If he doesn't understand your character's history and motivations, he has no predictive capability with regards to your actions.

A GM who doesn't have any clue what his players are gonna do next is a GM working on his back foot.

well your example seems to indicate an existing backstory of being a noble.

on-the-fly background would just now be calling in as a noble, and the gm should say "since when?, you don't know anything about baron suspiciatory."

No, the best GM's that I know focused all their attention on developing a detailed setting that we could use to fill in the blanks as we progressed though the campaign. No need to develop more than a few sentences of backstory when we know that the line is open whenever we need to talk to the GM about whether or not our character knows something specific that could relate to their backstory.

...

Nope. Also autistic. We're on Veeky Forums. Of course we're autistic.

>Implying circumstances of your ass pull matter
And then, when GM vetoes your bullshit, you throw a tantrum and leave the game.

I'm just saying man, I sent you a link to the post your replied to and even quoted the parts that you misread, but let me be a little more specific since it's obvious that your reading comprehension is shittier than I thought.
>I'm not going to talk about how my dad was a great fishermen while we're struggling to survive in an undead catacomb but if we're on an island and I catch us some fish, I'll bring it up since now, it's actually relevant to the situation.
>I'm not going to talk about how my dad was a great fishermen while we're struggling to survive in an undead catacomb
>I'm not going to talk about how my dad was a great fishermen while we're struggling
>how my dad was a great fishermen while we're struggling
>dad was a great fishermen WHILE we're struggling
I never said anything about having a struggling father or anything, you just jumped the gun and are now trying to project your problems onto me as if it's somehow my fault.

how hard is it to show up to a game with "son of a fisherman" written down on a hanky or some shit?

I hate Old Man Henderson for the amount of shit players I've gotten over the years who think they're clever and apparently the only person in a big city with an internet connection, and just show up with a big fucking novel for a backstory and get pissed when I don't buy into the "epik memes xD."

I think all but one of those ended up in the trash, and the only one that didn't I just told that I'm not reading that shit and to boil it down to a paragraph. And then ended up in the trash because they didn't want to.

Anyone have that M&M greentext where the GM didn't bother reading the guys sheet and backstory and assumed every instance of him shooting someone with his stun weapon was straight up murder?
Seems relevant to the post and might be a good break from the tardfight upthread.

About as hard as it must be for you to admit that you fucked up your reading comprehension three times in a row.

Literally no one has argued for an extensive backstory. They're talking about a few sentences, a paragraph at most. Are you so incapable that you can't even write 4 short sentences for your character?