Actually, coming to the table, rolling dice, and only afterwards trying to guess who the f*** is this character that you're going to play with, seems like a healthier approach to me. And it is indeed what the OSR usually "prescribes".
Yet, there are times when you want something more than a name and a few scores and a backpack with torches, rope and weapons. We already discussed the option of using Traits, in this previous post of mine: https://daimon-games.blogspot.com/2018/12/traits-for-characters.html
While Traits usually focus on how to role-play your character from the start, Backstories introduce something about what happened to the character before this moment, before the adventure began. A backstory might contain the reason for the character to be out on adventures, to have left their homeland, to be on the run, to be seeking treasure, or it might be a sad story, a terrible story, a funny story. Regardless, it says something about the past.
One should be careful when planning to use Backstories. Some are easy to adapt to every character (like almost every Trait). Others have heavier implications towards the character's background or have strong connections to the setting, and so on.
Also, I strongly advice against using backstories longer than two, three lines. Backstories should be easy to play with as Traits are.
They might have a little more potential, though, in the hands of an inventive GM, because they can serve as a focus for bringing important NPCs into the game and making the campaign feel more "personal" for the characters. But again: do not invest too much, even as the GM, on a backstory. Every character in the OSR may die before they get a chance to get their revenge against their arch-enemy.
And it goes without saying: Backstories should be about level 0 (zero) characters.
If we were discussing Careers (and we will...) instead of Backstories, we would be discussing about "Failed Careers" rather than of successful enterprises. Why would someone successful (with a few exceptions) want to go risk their lives in a dungeon?
The first page we bring you is a huge d500 table. It contains several examples, and can serve very well as an inspiration to build your own table. Note that Skerples suggests to roll multiple times (maybe twice) for each character. In its introduction, this post mentions rolling also on Bastionland, the Into The Odd website, which provides a list of failed Careers. We will discuss this in a post about Careers, which is definitely a related (overlapping) topic.
by Skerples
This post brought to you by a whiskey so cheap it doesn't even have a website, and root beer.
Normally, you might start a D&D group in a tavern or a prison or a convent. You might connect characters by a lifepath system or a few shared events. Instead, consider rolling on the table below several times for each character before race, class, stats, etc. are determined. The results are life events, things that just happened, or reasons to go adventuring. The effect on your players will probably be a dismayed "WAT", but so it goes.
Side Note: Consider rolling once or twice on this table, then on Bastionland's Failed Careers table.
[...]
1d500 Backstories and Events Stolen from The Toast
1d500 Backstory Inflicted
1 You spy on people through keyholes and get exactly what you deserve.
2 You have been rejected on your wedding night.
3 You get made fun of sometimes. It’s hurtful, and you’d do almost anything to teach your tormentors a lesson. Almost.
4 You have committed several murders, yet somehow you are also the sanest and most sympathetic person you know.
5 You have earned the personal ire of a Witch-king. This ends poorly for you, and everyone in your country.
6 Your love has been soiled, and the object symbolizing it tainted, quite tainted! [...]
https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2017/11/1d500-backstories-to-inflict-on-your.html
Sometimes, you want something which might go a little over the edge. This is a good d100 table with some "mildly plausible background stories" (to quote the author), and others definitely less plausible.
The link below is if you want to see the table right away online. Afterwards, you'll find the link to the PDF that can be downloaded for free on RpgNow.
D100 Mildly Plausible Background Stories For Characters
Special thanks to 3 Toadstools Publishing – 3toadstools.blogspot.ca
1 Mentor was killed in an explosion
2 Father was beheaded
3 Sister kidnapped by Demon
4 Home town destroyed [...]
16 False prophet [...]
19 Teleported from a different world/time [...]
32 Remembers all past lives [...]
93 Deposed king [...]
https://simplednd.wordpress.com/2016/07/28/d100-mildly-plausible-background-stories-for-characters/
Free PDF on RpgNow:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/187805/D100-mildly-plausible-background-stories-for-Old-School-Characters
Another approach to backstories, is to roll nothing at the start, but add something as you level-up.
The next article by has an example in this sense. James Young presents a system where every time you level-up you roll for a story and decide how the story ended, giving you a bonus or boon related to how the story ended... Note that instead of a static entry you get a choice, and the choice has a mechanical bonus attached.
It's a little more complex that a simple backstory which serves as a background, but since it is a process done at level-up, at least it's done on characters who already have at least achieved level 2 and it preserves a fast character generation process for level 1 characters.
1d100 Retroactive Backstory
by James Young
I've been working on this off and on for the past couple of months.
The basic idea is that every time you level up, you roll 1d100 on the Backstory table.
Each has a hopefully-inspirational fragment of backstory and two potential outcomes.
So if you roll a 1, the DM tells you "You got into a confrontation with a bully who was way tougher than you. Did you fight or flee?"
Now the trick here is that the other players at the table decide what your character must have done, based on how your character's been acting in the game thus far. Debate is allowed and encouraged, as is swapping examples of supporting evidence, in this case probably times you stood and fought versus times you turned and ran.
The others come to an agreement or vote or whatever, then you make up a story of what actually happened. Who was the bully? Why did you do what you did?
The story can be as detailed or as sparse as you want, no pressure. Most of my players tied it into their failed career in some way.
Finally you get told what your new ability is! Each outcome of each backstory has its own associated power. In this example, "fight" nets you a +1 to hit vs enemies who have more HD than you, and "flee" grants you a +1 to fleeing rolls.
Score! Now your character is hopefully encouraged to live up to their new backstory. [...]
A different way to deal with backstories, is to select backstories by topic. You may have a huge table mixing different backstories, or in this approach you could build different tables and let the players decide on which table to roll. The event(s) of the various backstories would still be random, but it would allow the players to decide which type of story they'd like in the past of their character.
For example, you could build lists with
- Birthrights
- Conflicts
- Criminal events
- Adventures
- Weird or other events
- Horror events
- Romance events
The above list is built by combining topics of the next two linked posts, by Canecorpus. Use the lists to inspire you for your own tables.
by Canecorpus
[...] BIRTHRIGHT d10
1 – Slave/Exile
2 - Serf
3 – Lowborn Commoner
[...]
CRIMINAL EVENT d20
1 – The PC is accosted for brigandage. The PC is forced to wear iron boots for 1d4 years.
2 – The PC is accosted for begging in the presence of a noble. The PC is forced to wear a halter for 1d10 days and walk through the streets of his homeland.
3 – PC is accosted for piracy and transfer of illicit slaves. The PC is racked for 7 days and nights. The PC is 1 inch taller.
[...]
WEIRD/OTHER EVENT d20
1 – Perfectly normal childhood. The PCs peers mock the child for his normalcy.
2 – Every morning the PC wakes up and finds a silver piece under their head, as well as a splitting headache.
3 – PC is ruthlessly hunted by Dwarven slave-traders for an unknown reason. The Dwarves have a very annoying war cry they scream when ever they see the PC, 'Vbblalalalbalalalalbala!' [...]
You spy your long time love laying eggs in the wilderness one evening
by Canecorpus
[...] HORROR EVENT d20
1 – Head stuck in a hole in ground for 1d8 days. Something licks your legs periodically during your entrapment.
2 – Deranged hermit pulling a cart with unidentified meat follows you around at night for 1d4 years
3 – Walking barnacles abscond 1d4 members of your family and are never seen again
[...]
ROMANCE EVENT d20
1 – You have absolutely no romance in your adolescence and are mocked ceaselessly by your peers
2 – Desert raiders abscond you into slavery, forcing you act as a pleasure slave in the profane Ziggurats of the Man-Bull. You are released 1d4 years later. Gain a trade skill.
3 – The sexually frustrated Elf maids from the Village of Two Stars kidnap and fight with one another over mating rituals for 1d4 years. Still unresolved, you eventually escape. [...]
Design notes:
- Backstories at char-gen, perhaps tied to traits and/or careers
- Backstories with choices or different ending (chosen by the player? by other players?)
- Backstories at level-up, adding complexity and depth (also, in accord to what we've seen so far of the character), keeping char-gen as fast as possible
- Backstories with mechanical consequences (good, or bad ones!)
- Backstories divided by topics, giving players some choice before their random roll(s)
Thanks for the shout out! Great post.
ReplyDeleteThanks Shane! I hope to have more article of yours to link in the next posts!
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