Character Backgrounds

[Hyper-Man]

I suck at writing character backgrounds. I usually have an idea of one when I make characters but I'm terrible at fleshing them out to the same standard that I try to maintain when designing all the "crunchy" bits of a character.

 

I would welcome any and all background input on the characters I've linked to the HTML thread in my sig. (Either here or on that thread. It makes no difference to me.)

 

HM

[OddHat]

Re: Character Backgrounds

 

I'd rather not give feedback on specific backgrounds, but the background is my favorite part of writing a character, and I'd share a few ideas on it.

 

The backgrounds I write that turn out best often start out before the mechanics of the character are done. The two feed off of one-another, as I adjust the mechanics to reflect the back story or the story to reflect a choice in the mechanics. Usually I'll try to stick to a single emotional tone in a background, treating it like a short short story. For inspiration, I go to the sources that inspired the characters in the first place, then re-imagine their back stories through the lens of the world the game takes place in and changes in personality from the original. I'll usually mix in themes from other characters and stories that I think would work well with a given character. I try to make sure that any important hunteds psych limits play some role in the background. When it works, it works well.

 

There are advantages and disadvantages to that approach. On the plus side, my backgrounds help give me a very solid handle on the character's personality and motivations, much more so than a few lines in the personality box. The most obvious down side is that my back stories are often too long. For convention games in particular, I've been setting myself a word limit, as no player or GM wants to spend ten minutes or more just reading a back story in a four hour game.

 

On the flip side, if your character is a more direct tribute or a classic archetype, you can often get away with a very short, simple back story. That has the advantage of making things very simple for the GM, and usually takes up much less of your time. Some characters with short and simple back stories can grow into campaign favorites.

 

Some of my favorite back stories were posted in the threads for the Five and the Defilers. They're long, but they're what I like to use for longer running characters. For a convention game or a throw away game, these days I like back stories on the lines of Cow Be Tse or Tank Smashing Dude. Short, not complicated, and easy for a novice player to get his head around.

[Kevin Schultz]

Re: Character Backgrounds

 

I think I may approach character background from a different way. Usually there's something I want to be able to do in-game, and thus I design a character around that ability; at that point, I end up looking at the character and say to myself, "would this be interesting to play or tell a story about? If so, what would that story be?" And then I start writing from there.

 

But I do agree that for me, the two feed off each other.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Character Backgrounds

 

I think I may approach character background from a different way. Usually there's something I want to be able to do in-game, and thus I design a character around that ability; at that point, I end up looking at the character and say to myself, "would this be interesting to play or tell a story about? If so, what would that story be?" And then I start writing from there.

 

But I do agree that for me, the two feed off each other.

 

I strive to do this as well. I just think I lack the proper storyteller vocabulary to be as articulate in documenting the background in written form equal to the same standard I try for on the HERO mechanics side.

[OddHat]

Re: Character Backgrounds

 

I strive to do this as well. I just think I lack the proper storyteller vocabulary to be as articulate in documenting the background in written form equal to the same standard I try for on the HERO mechanics side.

 

On the flip side, sometimes a back story works best when it's short and simple. I'm looking now at the characters I'll be handing out at GenCon, and I'm worried that the back stories are just too long to hold the players interest. I may be be cutting them a lot to try to fix that.

[joshua_lnk]

Re: Character Backgrounds

 

well as for myself I have always enjoyed wrighting short stories and I genrely make a charter with all skills, poewre and disadvantages and then tell of how they came to be and some motivation for them to be a (hero/villan) I require all my players to have SOME sort of background and It they are unable to wright on I have found that most gamers can atleast tell a good storie. so I get out teh tape recorder and have them tell me about there charter. once that is done it is a symple matter to just type it up...ofcourse in my case it is vital to have a spell check:P

when I sit down to wright a storie I get the genral gist from the charter sheet and then just rest my fingers on the keyboard and allow the storie to be told. it's almost like the charter tells me the storie and I mearly allow my fingers to move while I read what they have to say.

hope some of thea helped

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Character Backgrounds

 

It varies for me. Most of the time they're pretty brief.

 

For me background serves two purposes.

 

1) To explain why the character is the way they are. Why do they have 30pts in sciences? Why do they have bulletproof skin? Why do they hate mobsters?

 

2) To provide extra story hooks. If I don't think that the campaign is likely to use them, I'm much more likely to just go with pretty basic backgrounds.

 

Especially for NPCs and villains, I only go into enough to explain why they're where they are interacting with the PCs and why they act the way they do. If I'm not going to do a story involving how Supervillain X's dog died when he was 9 it's probably a detail I can do without.

 

Once characters are in the game, if a particular bit becomes more relevant, can flesh it out as needed. "OK guys we're going back in time soon. Let me know by next week what your character remembers about your grandparents." "What kind of college experience did Dr. Wondrous have?" etc.

[Comic]

Re: Character Backgrounds

 

It appears at the moment my method of writing backgrounds is to take a character and build a twisted backwards tribute that makes vices of the original's virtues and surrounds them cynically with an ulterior and less admirable cast of of supporting NPCS.

 

Can't say I'd recommend it universally, but it does seem to work for me for now.

 

Find what works. Let it work for you.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Character Backgrounds

 

Explain Characters personality, skills, and powers background.

 

 

Cheers

 

 

QM

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Character Backgrounds

 

I never used to write up character backgrounds; just envisioned the rough details in my mind and wrote up the character itself (characteristics, skills, powers, etc.). But a few years back I found that writing up a background can really make a character come alive. And like Oddhat, I often modify the character write-up to fit something I decided to put into the background.

 

That said, I think shorter is generally better where backgrounds are concerned (but not *too* short). This is especially true for something like a character for somebody else to run (like at GenCon or other conventions).

 

As to the actual writing of a background, I often have trouble getting started. When I get stuck, I'll look at somebody else's background writeup for inspiration. For example, I really liked how Hermit focused on a number of different points in time when he wrote up Stalker's background in Digital Hero #13, and I've used that same format on several characters. Some characters lend themselves well to a "first person narrative" style of background, like Bulldozer in CKC.

 

Once I figure out the *how* of writing the background, most of it flows pretty well for me, since I already had a (very) general idea in my head when I started the character write-up. It mostly becomes a question of fleshing it out. Not a lot of help, I know, but that's how it works for me.