Is a GM requiring players to write a background for their character a legitimate thing to do?

Is a GM requiring players to write a background for their character a legitimate thing to do?

Yea of course. I'd supervise the players though or make a Session 0 to solidify the characters

Why wouldn't it be legitimate?

When GMs require an extensive written character history and then kills them during the first session.

I know theres a story here

>Why wouldn't it be legitimate?
When a GM asks you to write an extensive backstory, and is then surprised when you mention things from it, as if he didn't even read it. And then it turns out, he actually didn't read it.

Yes, it happened to me.

Well thats fucking bullshit

What i do is i ask my players to make like 3 lines of backstory and then when the story requires it i ask them how they know X character and how they got into the situation in which the quest takes place

Depends.

If you're planning on running a game where the characters are in danger to die from the RNG in session 1, then you should rethink of it. Or reduce the necessary info to three paragraphs.
If not, ask them to write a page or less. Unless you want to sit down and read about a character's trips to the toilet and/or how many people the have killed and/or fucked.

90% of the effort is on the GM. It's not unreasonable for a GM to test how keen their players are before preparing a campaign.

If they're not even prepared to write a short bio or give their character some thought then they'll probably not bother remembering what happened in previous sessions or sticking at it at all.

Nothing of this ever happens if you give your GM a boner.

Joke's on the magical realmer in my group she's female, I'm nigh asexual.

Besides, the thing to do is keep them alive (more or less), but have consequences happen to things they value around them.

There is but it’s a boring one.

Gimme

Joined an online game that was advertised as being incredibly role play focused, instead of combat oriented. The DM required a three page minimum character history, and even specified the font, size, and margins to write it all up in. So I did and he frequently rejected my history (and everybody else’s) for things that he felt were not compatible with the world he made. So it took two re-writes until he accepted my character bio.

So first session we were off to a great start, as the session started at some fancy noble’s ball event. Much role play was had with hints at political intrigue.

Then when the ball was over, the party left and was promptly mugged by bandits. My character, being oriented towards social stuff, was ill suited for combat at this point so I decided to have her try to run away. She got shot by an arrow and died, due to being a level 1 character and an incredibly good damage roll on the bandit’s part, then flunking all my death save rolls. Then she was stripped completely naked as they looted the corpse for all valuables and her body was defiled as some kind of warning. The rest of the party was taken hostage, and the session ended at that point.

The next session was pretty much just torture porn against the party, as they could only role play as doing whatever they could to convince their captors to let them go. I showed up and asked if I’d somehow get my character back and the DM assured me she was gone for good due to the damage to her corpse - and to start writing up a new character, three page history and all. I did in fact start to do that as the session continued, but after seeing how things were going, I stopped writing right around the time the only other female member of the party was getting raped, and I opted not to play in this game anymore.

>. The DM required a three page minimum character history, and even specified the font, size, and margins to write it all up in.
What the actual fuck thats insane!

>So first session we were off to a great start, as the session started at some fancy noble’s ball event. Much role play was had with hints at political intrigue.
That sounds pretty great

>
Then when the ball was over, the party left and was promptly mugged by bandits. My character, being oriented towards social stuff, was ill suited for combat at this point so I decided to have her try to run away. She got shot by an arrow and died, due to being a level 1 character and an incredibly good damage roll on the bandit’s part, then flunking all my death save rolls. Then she was stripped completely naked as they looted the corpse for all valuables and her body was defiled as some kind of warning. The rest of the party was taken hostage, and the session ended at that point.

Alright thats just a fucking dick move. On the other hand, why did you guys start combat instead of trying to fool the bandits? If i GMd that that shoulda been allowed

>The next session was pretty much just torture porn against the party, as they could only role play as doing whatever they could to convince their captors to let them go.

Alright thats a good decision. Case of a bad GM. If he wants to feel you all miserable he's succeeded. If the entirety of the second session was your characters getting tortured and raped he had that shit planned which means he was ok with you wasting your time writing those backstories and not having the opportunity to do anything to change what happens to yoru character

Only if the GM's plans heavily involve the characters' backstories. You can still have a good game with characters who were literally born yesterday. It can be nearly soul-crushing when your backstory is ignored or corrupted by the GM.

For most games, you really only need to an outline of who the character is, what he looks like, and why he's participating in the events of the campaign. You don't need a whole life story for that; a few paragraphs will do nicely.

At least give me two paragraphs. 200 words isnt an English term paper

>license info (ie., name, description, race)
>where they come from
>what they did before this
>family? Goals?
>any sentimental gear? Their grandpas bow? Their uncles holy symbol? Grandmas cloak?

Thats all i ask, minimum. Literally can be done in less than 6 sentences.

If I'm running OSR, it's completely optional. Hell, anything beyond a name and class might be a waste of time. The bastard might not make it 10 feet into his first dungeon anyway; with some of my nastier B/X dungeons half of the party wiping in the first hour was normal. (which is what my players wanted before any turbo autists complain)

In non-OSR D&D, I would want at least a paragraph giving a description and at least one short term plus one long term character goals.

And for non-OSR non-D&D it depends. For my sci-fi campaigns I encouraged writing a lot of background. For the horror games, it didn't really matter other than knowing some of the character's fears and trauma.

This is a hobby, not the legal system. Gm's can create as many arbitrary and stupid hoops to jump through as they please. Rpgs is not a vital necessity.

Gm's will is always legitimate. Noe, og you'd asked if it's reasonable...aah, that' s another stquestion

Online games. Not even once.

It depends user, if it's a pen and paper Diablo (and there's nothing wrong with that), you don't need no backstory beyond "my guy's a trained fighter looking for work".

If it's a regular game, throw down a few sentences, and if it's story-intensive, do the wfrp 2ed character backstory questions and so on.

Most GMs will not suffer a whole page of backstory though, be clear and concise, and for fucks sake brevity is worth its weight in gold here.

most every background i read are complete shite. i ask them to make one but it is always the same. i once had some fucktard write two lines: I grew up in the mountains fighting orcs. i have a dead sister and want to kill orcs.

But if that happens you can just keep the story you've written and reuse it for a character in another game?
Even if it's settled specific, it's really easy to refluff.