Skills - maybe this game isn't what I'm looking for

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by RedMattis

This is just me personally, but I wouldn't permit a player to sit at my table for anything but the most mindless of dungeon delving

He did say he's aiming for adventures where the focus is on the adventure and not the characters. I understand where he's coming from. Your starting character comes out of obscurity and performs heroic deeds to become renowned. You don't need to invent details that don't affect the adventure. If I want to say I have Herpetophobia [-10] because of a childhood incident where accidentally I fell into the snake exhibit at the zoo, that's the sort of minimal background adaman14 is talking about. It's assumed that your background is completely mundane otherwise, and it's up to the player to bring the character out of obscurity through adventure.

unless they can come up with at least a basic backstory that sounds slightly interesting. I have no interest in being the GM for Adventurer McDude who just materialized in an adventuring party one day to kick goblins and solve death-trap puzzles.

But he doesn't want Adventurer McDude to come in and kick goblins and solve death-trap puzzles. He wants Joe Swordsman to come in and find a way to defeat or avoid the goblins and to solve or maybe get killed by death-trap puzzles. The interest is in the goblins and the death-traps, not in showing off how awesome Joe is at dealing with them.

I wouldn't go so far as to say which style "most players" prefer, but neither would I try to convince someone which one was better based just on what I preferred.

[ericthered]

There are some games and groups where its nice to be able to swap characters in and out seamlessly without changing the story. Sometimes players aren't the most reliable, but they're still good friends and good players when they can make it, and you really don't want to stop playing because the guy this session's side quest is built around had something come up ... three times in a row.


Its not my cup of tea: I play to tell stories and I want my characters to be deeply connected to the world, but I absolutely understand why a group would play with a collection of interchangeable mercenaries.

[RedMattis]

Well, that would fall under the wargaming-style playing, or "mindless dungeon delving" as I quite unfairly called it. Unless the campaign is very narrative heavy I tend to be fine with characters walking off at strange time because their player was missing. Or if not I'll just NPC the character and try to have them not die in the player's absence.

I'm not expect (or really even want) players to write 5 page essays about their characters. I don't even need a single page. I just want something that explains who the character is and how they got here.

'Kat is a rather overconfident and highly thrill-seeking thief who grew up on the street. Opportunistic more than kleptomaniac. Not so much loyal as wanting to avoid enraging people she might travel with or meet again. Kat became an adventurer mostly for the thrill and her not-so secret dreams of great riches.'

- would be fine as a one paragraph backstory.

Frankly it is also easier to feedback on and make requests for changes to get the party to fit together better than the player who writes a long epic about their warrior queen mother, and their older sister who was a paladin and got eaten by a dragon, and the younger brother who was a bard and married the dragon, etc. etc.

Those long stories also have the unfortunate tendency to not really go into much about the characters actual personality, although if well written they can be a great source for plot-hooks.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by RedMattis

'Kat is a rather overconfident and highly thrill-seeking thief who grew up on the street. Opportunistic more than kleptomaniac. Not so much loyal as wanting to avoid enraging people she might travel with or meet again. Kat became an adventurer mostly for the thrill and her not-so secret dreams of great riches.'

- would be fine as a one paragraph backstory.

But that doesn't really tell you much, does it? "Overconfident" will appear as Overconfidence on the character sheet. "Thrill-seeking," "opportunistic," "avoid enraging people," and "dreams of great riches" are completely generic descriptors of nearly every player character in this sort of game. The ONLY bit of actual backstory that's relevant here is "thief who grew up on the street," and I daresay that's the sort of minimal backstory that adaman14 already accepts.

So I don't really think adaman14 is talking about anything particularly different from what you do.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by RedMattis

You make it sound like there has been some strange cultural swing towards players not caring about backstories. I have no idea where you are getting this from.

Computer games.

How many people really bother with a backstory for their, say, Diablo 3 character? Now ask how popular such computer games are, and how many people they bring to tabletop gaming; the answers are "very" and "lots." And whether or not we on the tabletop side like it (I don't, especially, so be very aware that I'm not taking sides, just reporting facts), these games are called "computer roleplaying games" . . . the little person running around killing monsters is the role in its entirety.

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

The interest is in the goblins and the death-traps, not in showing off how awesome Joe is at dealing with them.

This is hugely important. Setting computer gamers aside completely, there is a not-so-small school of gamers who believe "my character is defined by what's going on now and what happens from this point on, not by whatever happened before we started this game." That is, the character comes into being when the campaign does, and the past is irrelevant; the PC is the sum of what the player does in actual play, nothing more but also nothing less.

Originally Posted by ericthered

There are some games and groups where its nice to be able to swap characters in and out seamlessly without changing the story. Sometimes players aren't the most reliable, but they're still good friends and good players when they can make it, and you really don't want to stop playing because the guy this session's side quest is built around had something come up ... three times in a row.

I experience a profound disconnect when I hear "war stories" or read blogs about others' campaigns, and they're on about how it's crucial to resolve each session in full and get all the PCs back to their home base or other "safe space" by the end just in case not all the players can show up next time. In 42 years of gaming, it has always been the case – with no exceptions – that scenes, acts, adventures, and arcs could span multiple game sessions, and that even long combats could pause in bullet time between sessions. And if a player who was involved last time can't show up this time, their PC just goes on autopilot, controlled by player vote.

When that happens, it's never, ever the case that the players say, "Well, let's look at their backstory and see what they would do." It's without exception the case that they say, "Well, let's look at how so-and-so has been playing them lately and continue down that path." It's about ensuring that the PC continues the same path toward some targeted future, not about ensuring that the PC follows some trajectory established prior to the start of the campaign.

Originally Posted by RedMattis

Well, that would fall under the wargaming-style playing, or "mindless dungeon delving" as I quite unfairly called it.

I think the issue I have is that "I have tons of plans in the present, and serious goals for my PC's future" isn't perforce mindless merely because those plans and goals don't stem from some point in time prior to the campaign start. My experience is that most players develop those plans and goals in play, as they see what the other players are doing, what the GM is throwing in the group's path, and even as they watch movies and read comics exterior to the campaign and decide, "Huh, cool . . . I'm going to try that!" Such gaming can be extremely cerebral and well-planned; it just establishes a different starting point for the "interesting" part of the characters' arcs. The players are mindful of what's going on and doing a lot of very thoughtful analysis about where that's leading.

[Edges]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I experience a profound disconnect when I hear "war stories" or read blogs about others' campaigns, and they're on about how it's crucial to resolve each session in full and get all the PCs back to their home base or other "safe space" by the end just in case not all the players can show up next time. In 42 years of gaming, it has always been the case – with no exceptions – that scenes, acts, adventures, and arcs could span multiple game sessions, and that even long combats could pause in bullet time between sessions. And if a player who was involved last time can't show up this time, their PC just goes on autopilot, controlled by player vote.

When that happens, it's never, ever the case that the players say, "Well, let's look at their backstory and see what they would do." It's without exception the case that they say, "Well, let's look at how so-and-so has been playing them lately and continue down that path." It's about ensuring that the PC continues the same path toward some targeted future, not about ensuring that the PC follows some trajectory established prior to the start of the campaign.

This is generally my experience as well (though over only 37 years).

I will add that for certain rare, pivotal PC choices, players might take a step back to recall their backstory. And if the player is absent, their fellow players might do the same.

[RedMattis]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

But that doesn't really tell you much, does it? "Overconfident" will appear as Overconfidence on the character sheet. "Thrill-seeking," "opportunistic," "avoid enraging people," and "dreams of great riches" are completely generic descriptors of nearly every player character in this sort of game. The ONLY bit of actual backstory that's relevant here is "thief who grew up on the street," and I daresay that's the sort of minimal backstory that adaman14 already accepts.

So I don't really think adaman14 is talking about anything particularly different from what you do.

For starters, it does imply stuff about their backstory.

Not every character is a thrill-seeker, it is a trope, in your party it you might find your Warrior or Paladin is in it for justice, the cleric for faith, the barbarian is out to prove something, etc.

Lots of characters are hot-headed and don't mind stepping on toes. Most characters don't have gold as their ultimate objective. If anything I'd argue many PCs are very unconcerned about angering NPCs or even other PCs.

Overconfident is far from universal either, lots of players are overly cautious if anything, and overconfident dungeon delvers or whatever tend to be fairly short-lived.

Whatever your opinion on the short snipped I spent 5 minutes writing, it is a heck lot more than "I'm a rogue, I do rogue stuff". Not every character needs to be breaking sterotypes, but they need to have a clear personality and identity. What I wrote was a fairly typical version of a rogue, but far from the only.

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But hey, to make my point, here are a few more.

'Luke is a cutthroat-seeming thief from the pirate-infested docks district. He cold and calculating, ruthless and murderously sadistic, but ultimately he steals and kills with the ultimate goal of getting rid of the kinds of "rotten" people that made his own life so miserable.'

'Kim is a thief who forced to leave the thief's guild of her hometown. She is fiercely loyal to those she considers her "clan", but dismissive and unemphatic of those outside of it. She will jump at any chance to make elaborate heist plans. Eager and excitable she often seeks to prove her skills in any situation she feels capable.'

'Anastasia is an elegantly-dressed thief and scam-artist who used to be seen nicking valuables from right under the nose of the upper class. Dashing and charismatic her victims rarely realize they were robbed, and even when found out she is skilled at making an escape using rapier wit and rapier blade or any kind of distraction. While she keeps most of the wealth to herself she likes throwing some valuables to the children or any handsome rugged man who strikes her fancy.'

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Are those three generic as well? I'm pretty sure they are all walking thief tropes. I'm also pretty sure you wouldn't play any of them particularly alike. There is nothing wrong with stereotypes, but if you're playing a stereotype with a stereotype backstory, well, you need to know which one of the stereotypes you're going for.

I'm not expecting anyone to write some masterpiece, I just want to know what type of character you are playing, because a list of advantages, disadvantages, and skills is not a character, that's just a character sheet. Besides, in my experience the player who didn't sum up their character's traits as even short backstory won't even remember that they picked "Bad Temper" + "Selfish" + "Loner" and should probably react when some NPC gets all up in their space and compare them to a sewer rat.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Kromm

When that happens, it's never, ever the case that the players say, "Well, let's look at their backstory and see what they would do." It's without exception the case that they say, "Well, let's look at how so-and-so has been playing them lately and continue down that path." It's about ensuring that the PC continues the same path toward some targeted future, not about ensuring that the PC follows some trajectory established prior to the start of the campaign.

On one hand, yes. And you might recall from the dim past that during the playtest of 4/e, I was one of those who objected to a character creation sequence that involved working out a backstory (or a Traveller-like character biography) as an essential process for creating a character. I wanted to create the character as they were when the camera first tracked them across the scene.

But on the other hand, creating backstory can be a tool for figuring out who the character is now. Indeed, I'd say that it's often useful for doing so, that indeed that's its primary function, and perhaps even that any backstory that doesn't do this may not be worth spending time on, beyond perhaps the barest minimum. To put it in GURPS terms, it's a set of zero point features, like the wealth and Status and Enemies of a portal fantasy character before they stumbled through the portal. But if backstory does affect the character's present motives and capabilities, it's not a mere feature.

[AlexanderHowl]

I tend to mine character backgrounds for adventure hooks, NPCs, etc. For example, a younger sibling showing up is a greater way of integrating backgrounds to campaigns.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by RedMattis

'Luke is a cutthroat-seeming thief from the pirate-infested docks district. He cold and calculating, ruthless and murderously sadistic, but ultimately he steals and kills with the ultimate goal of getting rid of the kinds of "rotten" people that made his own life so miserable.'

'Kim is a thief who forced to leave the thief's guild of her hometown. She is fiercely loyal to those she considers her "clan", but dismissive and unemphatic of those outside of it. She will jump at any chance to make elaborate heist plans. Eager and excitable she often seeks to prove her skills in any situation she feels capable.'

'Anastasia is an elegantly-dressed thief and scam-artist who used to be seen nicking valuables from right under the nose of the upper class. Dashing and charismatic her victims rarely realize they were robbed, and even when found out she is skilled at making an escape using rapier wit and rapier blade or any kind of distraction. While she keeps most of the wealth to herself she likes throwing some valuables to the children or any handsome rugged man who strikes her fancy.'

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Are those three generic as well? I'm pretty sure they are all walking thief tropes.

All right, let's separate backstory from personality, appearance, and goals. Because we're talking about backstory here. Let's also extract anything costing character points, my guesses based on how strong the trait seems to be described.

PERSONALITY
Luke: cold, calculating, ruthless, cutthroat-seeming.
Kim: Doesn't care about people outside her "clan," eager, excitable.
Anastasia: Dashing, charismatic, rapier wit.

APPEARANCE
Luke: ?
Kim: ?
Anastasia: Elegantly-dressed.

GOAL
Luke: Steal and kill to get rid of "rotten" people.
Kim: Make elaborate heist plans, prove her skills.
Anastasia: Keep wealth, but give some to children or handsome men.

CHARACTER POINTS
Luke: Sadism.
Kim: Sense of Duty (her "clan").
Anastasia: Rapier skill.

BACKSTORY
Luke: thief from pirate-infested docks district, life has been miserable.
Kim: thief forced to leave the thief's guild of her hometown.
Anastasia: thief and scam-artist, used to steal from the upper class.

Are these interesting characters? Sure. Are their backgrounds unique? "Miserable thief from the docks," "thief forced from guild," "thief and scam-artist of the upper class." They're not very different. Mostly, the difference is their Social Class.

I'm not expecting anyone to write some masterpiece, I just want to know what type of character you are playing, because a list of advantages, disadvantages, and skills is not a character, that's just a character sheet.

But no one is suggesting that. We're talking about backstories, not keeping personality out of characters. And even then, we're not talking about having no backstory information at all, just not producing any more of it than would usefully inform the adventuring choices of the character, because the stated point of the hypothetical game in question is to focus attention on the adventure itself, not the past lives of the characters.

I think you're taking this far beyond adaman14's intention.