Cool Backstory Syndrome

[darksaba]

Now I've been thinking a lot about various settings and systems and I've noticed that a lot of them have a "Cool backstory" attached to them that will never be seen by anyone except the GM. Deadlands is particularly bad at this with its epic backstory of evil gods awakening and ancient pacts between indians and eternal spirits. But in game only three beings in the world have any idea whats going on and anyone who gets close to the truth will get their asses handed to them quicker than you can say "death wish". It can be even worse in published adventures - you can get page after page of information detailing the relationships between people and groups whose only job is to die at the hands of the PC's thirty seconds in. Transhuman space's Orbital Decay is guilty of this one: Providing detailed backstory and full stats for the co-piolts who both die five minutes into game off camera. All that extra detail is just wasted.

Does anyone ever find this stuff usefull in their games?

Oh and theres is a second type of Cool Backstory Syndrome (CBS[ii]). The one that is know to the players but requires them to read an entire telephone book of information to be able to understand what their charcaters should be doing.