Character Backgrounds

Ah, character backgrounds. Some people love them, some hate them. Some players write a detailed background; others may give you a brief paragraph and only after you threaten dire harm to the character. A detailed background often implies a range of experience that a starting character should not have. It can often pin down facts about the character that cannot be changed. On the other hand, a sparse background often fails to tie the PC to the campaign world. It does not let you know why they are adventuring or what they hope to accomplish.

 

I am a fan of character backgrounds because I use them to help flesh out the campaign world. The players get a chance to contribute elements to the campaign that they would find interesting. 

 

In asking players for character backgrounds, I have tried to strike a middle ground. Players only need to give me a small amount of information, but they must answer particular questions. The answers provide details about the campaign world and the PCs place within it. Most importantly, the answers provide hooks for adventures.

 

For the last several campaigns I have used a standard format to gather background info on the characters. Here is what I gave to the players for Hell on Earth: Reloaded: The Worms' Turn:

 

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As always, you need a written character background with the following elements:

• Why you ended up in the refugee camp outside of Junkyard and why you've decided to undertake a dangerous mission.
• A brief description of your character concept
• One Friend
• One Foe
• One Location
• Your worst nightmare
• Three Character Goals or Motivations. Traditionally, these would be short, medium, and long-term goals; but any three goals or motivations will do.

Friends and Foes are usually people (normal, mutant, or Harrowed), but it could also be an organization, a dragon or other monster, or a supernatural entity.

 

A Location could be a place you know well or a place you want to visit before you die a horrible screaming death. The place could be real or legendary.

 

Your worst nightmare is a Deadlands thing and is important for Harrowed characters.

 

To remember the world before the bombs, your hero is probably 23 years old or older.

If you don’t provide the GM with a written character background, then you receive 0 XP every session.

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Players can give me a standard essay with paragraphs that more or less tells a story about their character. Players can also just fill out the answers right on the sheet and give it back to me.

 

Once I receive a character background, I enter the information into my OneNote notebook under a section called “PC Background”. During session prep, I will review all of the plot hooks that the players have given me to see if they can be used. The key to the character back stories is finding a way to insert all of this information into the campaign world.

 

I will often try to foreshadow plot hooks. For example, in our recent Totems of the Dead campaign, a character had a background in which a friend had supposedly died. The player indicated that the friend was still alive, but their PC was under the assumption that their friend was dead. During an adventure against a necromancer, an NPC revealed that the friend had recently visited the necromancer and had inquired about the PCs long lost mother, also presumed dead. (Yeah, most players write tragic back stories for their characters.) Further investigation revealed that the friend was last seen heading southeast, which was the general direction of the PCs home village.

 

Another character had a background that listed a shaman as a friend and a sacred mountain as a location. Over a couple of sessions, I told the player that his character was having unsettling dreams about war and fire and bloodshed on the mountain. I placed the sacred mountain near the first PCs home village.

 

The party opted to head southeast to find out what was going on with both of these plot hooks. This led to several sessions of as the PCs resolved these situations.

 

Other times, I just drop a hook on the player’s head. One player had an Atlantean slaver with a horseless war wagon powered by some infernal device as a foe. The slaver had driven his wagon into the character’s village, and killed or enslaved the PCs tribe. (Yeah, most players write tragic back stories for their characters.) At some point during the campaign, I just announced that the slaver and his war wagon were in the immediate vicinity, collecting more slaves. Naturally, the party girded for war and went to extract revenge.

 

In any case, character backgrounds make my role as a GM easier. Backgrounds give me readymade hooks and plots. I just need to be sure to weave them into the campaign, so that the NPCs and locations provided to me are just other things that the PCs encounter as they wander, sack, pillage, loot, and cause general mayhem in the campaign world.