How detailed should a Level 1 character's backstory be?
I'm not the "backstory is what happens between levels 1 and 3" autist that keeps popping up in these threads, but I'm interested to hear what people think regarding experience translated into levels and setting up starting points for the characters.
Depends on the campaign and GM, mostly. Backstories provide two main things: Cues on how to roleplay a character, and hooks for the GM to use in adventures. If it's going to be a roleplay-heavy game, having a more well-established history and personality is very useful for informing your actions. If your GM is a fan of tossing out hooks that relate to individual PC backstories (IE passing through your hometown, your loved-ones being involved, having to fight your mentor, etc.) then clearly a more detailed backstory will afford the GM more of these opportunities. On the flipside, if you're doing the equivalent of a dungeon-crawl, where you're spending several sessions at a time wading through caves and crypts to kill everything that moves, your backstory is less likely to be relevant and you may be frustrated if you spent a lot of time on a detailed backstory that never comes up.
If we're talking about D&D 5e, a character's backstory should consist of their background and little else. If you're a soldier, for example, maybe you were in a mercenary band and were betrayed by one of your comrades, and struck out adventuring after having nothing left in the company.
the only backstory you'll ever need
>Circumstances of their childhood
>How they were trained to be the class they are (or gained what ever skills they have if the system somehow has levels and not classes)
>A defining moment of their young life that sent them down the path of an adventurer (this is campaign specific)
Basically at level 1, if you're a wizard, the emphasis should be on how they became a wizard. What college they attended and where they learned the basics of magecraft and the like. Why they decided to leave the academy rather than pursue a career of pure academia, and how they ended up at the college in the first place (did their parents pay for them? how did they get in? etc.).
...
Depends on the GM. If it's in one of my campaigns I'd say anywhere from a paragraph to a couple pages, but none of the other GMs I've played with would even bother reading a backstory, much less working it into the campaign.
I personally think character traits are more important, and the relevant bits of backstory should exist to reinforce who that person is. A strong memory and maybe a reason that person adventures instead of being a regular citizen are all you really need. The real story is in the game.
Backstory should be short and fairly mundane at level 1. Even at higher levels, I think going forward should be far more interesting and important than what came before.
Backstory is what happens between levels 1 and 12 before you finally get to the good part of the campaign.
A few paragraphs at most, you can always extrapolate on your own time if you want to have some more reference material for yourself, but your backstory should be readable to the DM in under a minute.
To take a level one warlock as an example:
>He was a simple man, a farmer who grew old watching the fields. He never married, never had children but he cared for the people of his village deeply. When a band of raving orcs descended from the hills to murder and pillage, he took up his trusty scythe and tried to protect the people and the land he had worked all his life. He fell quickly to an orcish brute, but heard the whispers of some strange distant god that had taken an interest in him. Infused with a new power, he routed the orcs and saved what remained of his village. Now he travels onwards at the bidding of the voice in his head, seeking to repay the debt he now owes.
I won't profess to being any great writer, but it's mostly succint, details his motivation, where he came from and how he started his adventuring career.
Whatever lead them to being a lvl 1 character in their class and what lead them out of a typical life. Remembering that it shouldn't be overly super cool, because thats what level 5-20 should be.
imo 1-4 is the meat grind/survival, not super epic, but neccesary, it ould be epic, but its prolly gonna be barely surviving a number of encounters with goblins etc
It honestly depends on the game and the tone of the campaign.
Personally I think backstories are less about explaining someones capabilities, although that can be part of it, and more about linking a character in to the world. As a GM, the more connected a character is to the setting, the more I have to make use of.
For low level characters, those connections might be simple, but even then they can blossom into more. A childhood friend who is now a member of a royal guard, a mentor or teacher who has some greater significant, or being a junior member of one or other organisations. There's a lot you can do to sew seeds the GM can help grow and then reap for plot hooks when the time is right.
Honestly, if I'm running dnd starting level is 3. And we're playing e6.
Or this one.
Depends on the game and the edition.
Just look at what your character is capable of, then make a judgement regarding what kind of experiences could have brought him to where he is.
No one should have a concrete backstory starting out no matter what level you are. Just have some vague, mostly formless ideas that you can add to within reason and let it evolve naturally.
You know what, to demonstrate, have two of my most recent characters:
>4th Ed D&D Fighter
You start off as a warrior of overall not bad skill in 4e, especially if you know your way around the system. As such, I played a disgraced prince who preferred fencing and wining to diplomatic classes and languages, and killed the son of one of the kingdom's most prominent landowners in a drunken duel. This wouldn't normally result in banishment, except he vainly insisted that he'd been challenged and done no wrong, so now he's on the road. As someone who is young and inexperienced, but has had rigorous martial training for much of their lives, this background suits a 4th Ed D&D character.
>5th Ed D&D Paladin
In 5th Ed, you start with less options and skills, and really don't 'become' your full class until around level 3. So for this paladin I went for the classic story: a peasant boy from a war-torn region who, while in the field, felt the touch of the gods upon his brow and heard them speaking to him. They directed him to dig up the remains of a fallen warrior in the forest outside of town, take his battered armour and sword, and set out to find his purpose. This humble beginning fits the low-ability start to most 5th Ed classes, while the background of peasant worker goes some way to explain his exceptional STR score, if not his high CHA.
>I'm not the "backstory is what happens between levels 1 and 3" autist that keeps popping up in these threads, but I'm interested to hear what people think regarding experience translated into levels and setting up starting points for the characters.
That doesn't really have much to do with how DETAILED the backstory is, though. It's a question of "He grew up with mom and pop in a small village in northern Kalistan" vs. "He grew up in the village of Thornfield 40 miles from the the capital, here's a copy of his family tree."
>Born strange, this druid journeys to save her spirit friend.
This is fun!
>what you did before becoming an adventurer
>why you became an adventurer
>what you'd like the world to be like (if that's your kinda thing)
>why you're traveling with the party
Ex: I once lost a close friend to a curable disease. The illness required a surgery I could not afford. Feeling deeply remorseful about his inability to save my friend, as the illness was entirely curable but required a surgery I could not afford, I aspire to become a doctor so that I can work even without compensation to bring medical treatment to people in poverty. I work with my party to achieve the material wealth needed to become a doctor.
A good backstory for me is your place of birth, where you lived during your life so I know where you come from, can give you more info depending on your culture and can give you more to work with when you're in the region)
Your familiy, friends, and potential ennemies (so I can add NPCs that you care about)
How you were raised, how was your childhood (so I know from were your character come from, and usually players who write it roleplay their character better)
Some defining moments of your life that make you what you are and that define your goals at the moment (so I can actually plan something for your character in the campaign)
Even if it's 10 pages long, I'll read it. It shows that you are invested in the game and your character. If you have trouble writing one, then I'll talk about your character with you and write notes.
I usually give more of the spotlight to character with a detailed backstory simply because I have more to work with.
Not everything in a characters past should be detailed, either on paper or in your head, because letting that grow naturally as you play is the best course.
However, I think you should have an inciting incident and a reason for going out, something like a "My brother burned down my village and I wanna kill him". The rest can come later
Vague history, vague details why they're here, vague details how they got their start as an adventurer, vague personality you can RP
Hash out details as you play, that's how I've always done it, works out fine