He has more than a paragraph of backstory for his character

>He has more than a paragraph of backstory for his character

When did you realize that long or complex backstories hamper roleplaying more than enhance it?

>Extremely famous characters with backstories that can be summed up in one or two sentences: the whole of the fellowship of the ring (except perhaps gandalf), Drizzt, Raistlin (and basically the whole company of the lance), Geralt of Rivia, Conan the barbarian

Yeah we all agree too much exposition is bad. People do it out of insecurity around whether they'll be able to play the components of their character that they're most excited about.

If I'm being honest, this isn't an interesting thread

I write down my character's backstory largely as a way to remind me how to roleplay them.

Right now I am playing a just-before-WW1 officer cadet, in Ravenloft (Curse of Strahd).

She spent some time wishing she knew enough about field guns to build one with medieval tech, realized quickly that she can't, and is very grateful to her military academy for teaching her fencing.

She's also finding that unlike what she was taught, the common man HAS changed in the last 400 years.

Ultimately your backstory should be something amusing to read for your GM, a summary of roleplaying hints for yourself so that you can be consistent, and maybe provide a plot hook or two (in her case, Strahd has offered to basically freeze her for a few centuries so that she has, at least in theory, a chance to go back home, to which she basically said "Balls").

>he has a backstory
>not playing one of the sample, pre-built characters in the book

wow look at this tryhard am I right

I agree, it leaves more room for your character to grow. The only time I can see having an in-depth backstory working is if it was the same as in Cowboy Bebop, which is essentially the epilogue in the character's life where you learn more about each character's past as the series progresses.

Also no one else actually cares but the PC who wrote it.

As GM, all i ask is 1 page. It can be double spaced. Hell, give me a paragraph, so long as it tells me:

>who are you?
>what do you look like?
>where you from?
>where did you learn to do _____? From who?
>if higher level, list a singular important accomplishment
>what is your characters goal?

Thats it. 5 lines, even less if you are succinct.

I will add my party regularly fails even this.

>they are all nobodies who decide to work together in a kingdom where they are famous for vague past deeds, yet have no home or family because they wont even make up a village name

Ive never killed their families so idk whats up other than sloth

I write multiple pages of backstory and hand my GM a simple summary unless he asks for more and there's not a god damn thing you can do to stop me.

I would kill for this desu. Im seriously thinking of printing a simple "fill in the blank" short answer sheet and having them fill it out during character creation.

Length and complexity aren't the problem, it's a matter of good execution.

I've written characters with minimal backstories, and I've written characters with detailed ones. What matters, in the context of an RPG, is leaving grey area for the GM to work with and for you to grow into the character. A structure that the GM can help fit into their world, a few established connections with groups or NPC's that can assist in giving you personal connections to the setting to hook your character into the game, and so on. No backstory at all is bad, but so is an extremely inflexible backstory with no room for the GM to work, regardless of how short it is. You're seeing the tendency but missing the aspect that actually matters, IMO.

take pride in your creativity user. Its a good exercise.

i have an entire DM notebook of pointless plot and backstory that will never see the light of day

Just a thought, but I started tying home-brewed bonuses to backstories to get players more interested. I.E. the RAGEr gets to make an attack once per day when they fall below zero as an immediate action, or the ranger-assassin type gets a sneak attack die, that sort of thing. It's certainly helped me.

I was already an adult when I started getting into RPG so I never needed to make this realization.

>not having a small paragraph with the 'plot' of your character's history followed by a paragraph explaining your character's personality, motivations and favorite food

>can be summed up in one or two sentences
Being able to do sum it up in a single sentence does not mean there need only be a single sentence.
Once again, OP throws this bait out.
Both call it. The purpose of a written backstory is to give information to the GM and open up plothooks.

>The purpose of a written backstory is to give information to the GM and open up plothooks.
That's half of it. It also really helps to cement the kind of character you want to be so you can talk to the other players and mesh better.

>Not having your entire back story explained in a single Haiku

Your backstory is shit
Go write a novel if you want
Get on my level fag

yeah, screw them Mary-Sues

Your haiku is shit
It does not mention seasons
It has a bad rhythm

whilst i hardly thing that a paragraph can sometimes be enough to summarize a character, my limit is usually a three-four paragraph page. I'm not about to indulge in someone's terrible fucking writing just to find out how they got that extra edgy scar.

I figured that out by accident early on. I was told to make up a character without warning and found it was a lot 3asoer yo role play without the baggage of a lot of backstory, letting details and personality evolve in the game.

> Want to write a character backstory for a new campaign.
> "But I can't without knowing the setting!" I foolishly think.
> Meanwhile the GM is waiting for our backstories to adapt his setting.

Neither of these are haikus

That's just a matter of good communication within the group. As a GM, I tend to lay out my basic premise for the setting in terms of tone, theme and aesthetic, and then use player backstories to flesh it out, but I always make sure to give players enough to build their backstory upon in the first place.

nobody's killed my character's family either, but that doesn't mean the DM isn't gonna try it THIS time.

>Extremely famous characters with backstories that can be summed up in one or two sentences:
They really can't unless you ignore large aspects of their history and character.

Wrong. The whole process is supposed to be about creativity, you can't just arbitrarily limit people to one paragraph

This guy gets it The summary should be a paragraph. That one paragraph should tell everyone else playing everything they need to know about your character to play the game. HOWEVER, the player should then be allowed - if he wants it - a couple of pages of more detailed backstory that he can dip into whenever he needs to add some depth to his character.