PC "Back story", why is that a thing?

[2D8HP]

The first PbP I was lucky enough to play was
this one.

I tried to do some "real" role-playing instead of just 'monster stompin', but I'm not sure I succeeded, and the game didn't last long anywhere.

At the Post your crazy RPG theories thread, Since writing rants and diatribes come easy for me, I decided to do it in character.

My theories aren't crazy at all!
Just because those blind fools at the Mages Guild roll their eyes, and won't admit the truth!
I'll show them! All show them all!

First, the half-elves, and half-orcs among us show that elves, humans, and orcs are in fact the same species!
Humans are actually descendents of long ago Elves and Orcs.
Don't walk away! In your hart you know it's true!

Also the reason Elves have low light vision like Dwarves and Gnomes, is because they too originally lived underground. Clearly these rumors of "Dark Elves", sometimes called "Drow", point towards the inescapable conclusion that "surface" Elves are in fact descended from Elves who were exiled from the Underdark because they were insufficiently badass! And in fact the day star bleached them! That is why Wood Elves who lived under the shade of their forest homes are darker hued. Either that or the reliance on magic among the so called "high elves", makes them both lazy and pasty!

In fact this overuse of Magic by some may doom us all!
The ruins of the Ancients all around, in the wastelands and underground shows the truth!
Long ago the Elves
used up all the magic causing the fall of their civilization!

Overuse of Magic in one place leeches the Mana from the Earh, leaving desolate wastelands in it's absence!
The ancestors of the Elves having squandered all the magic fled underground, with a few remnants learning to survive in a world without magic. Yes humans and orcs! The Orcs who infest the ruins are the savage descendents of the Elves too stupid to leave. We humans are the descendents of those who didn't hide underground, or stupidly stay amongst the ruins, but instead pioneered new lands and made new tools.
Why else would it be humans who invented the crossbow, the plow, sailing ships, and windmills? Only in times without Magic would anyone bother to build such things! That's why so many of us still toil on the land and in our smithies, instead of just learning Wizardry, were not too stupid to learn Spellcraft! Nay, deep in our souls we feel the warning that it can't last!

That is why these tomb robbing Adventurer's have lately been finding magic items littering the ruins. For centuries there was insufficient environmental Mana for those items to be worth picking up!
That is why there are Sorcerers now born among us when previous generations had none!
The return of Magic to the wastelands is why suddenly all these magicsl monsters now infect our lands! Do you think our ancestors could have survived long if they'd always existed?

We have forgotten and grown soft!
We must conserve what Magic is left and learn from the Gnomes ways to make wonders without the Arcane arts. Too much reliance on and use of Wizardry will doom us!

We must learn to grow our on food and distill water, without relying on Create Food and Water Spells, and if these Magic-User's continue to waste the Magic away in trivial goals, we must learn to fight off without spells, the bears, wolves and other beasts that threaten us, else we fall to claws and fangs!

Take these pamphlets and spread the word before it's too late!

The truth is out there.
Heed the warnings!

If I still DM'd I can imagine making a crazed NPC or doing some Worldbuilding with something like that, but for making an acceptable PC backstory? I'm at a loss.
Making up villains and scenarios as a DM is something I learned to do decades ago, but my PC's were 3d6 in order, and really didn't become "characters" until they survived a bit (and the majority of our PC's never lived past First level).
So I welcome any extra pointers, in getting into a PC (not NPC) back story writing mindset.
Thanks

[Honest Tiefling]

My approach is simple, but a bit backwards for some people. What does the crunch and party lead to? How will the character interact with the party and the story?

For instance, let's use 3.5 DnD, because that's close enough for this excerise to 2e (which I just plain don't know). let's say we have made ourselves a nice druid with Greenbound summoning (that's a feat that allows you to make your summons into plant monsters). Let's assume a rather standardish DnD setting here, but oh no, the rest of the party are all civilized types! The DM has proposed a campaign centered not on dungeons, but on defending people from orcs!

So we make the character into a farming druid, and select some sort of harvest god to worship. Even if the rest of the party doesn't follow that god, it does tie them into civilized types better. Also explains the whole summoning plant monsters thing, don't eff with the harvest, or the harvest will eff you up. These orcs might have killed or set fire to many farms, which may have included several of the druids allies or family members, so they aren't going to be picky about new allies.

Now, make a simple backstory event to explain a very basic aspect of the personality or reactions. If there's a face in the group, play up the whole strong and silent angle and let the face do their magic. Maybe they are very used to a more charismatic druid doing the talking for them. If the group has a paladin, put in that the druid's circle was aided by members of the paladin's faith or the two are somehow allied. This gives the druid a strong respect for the faith of the paladin. If there's a wizard, perhaps the character is wary of arcane magic, but quickly learns to trust this particular wizard.

Ask your DM if you can add to the backstory as you go along. Many don't really care, but it's always good to ask.

The TL;DR verison is make a very simple concept like 'farming druid who respects other good aligned faiths' and work out a few events or details to support this. Leave the rest vague and make it up as you go along.

[goto124]

Speaking of which, I want a pigeon druid.

Or a Dire Seagull Druid.

[Amphetryon]

Speaking of which, I want a pigeon druid.

Or a Dire Seagull Druid.

I made something like that, a while back. It'd not the best thing ever, I'll admit.

[Âmesang]

What about a seagull hivemind with bard spellcasting instead of sorcerer?

[Cluedrew]

Thinking back to my free-form days I remembered something. We would have a slot on the character sheet called "Personality". We would fill this in with things like there general temperament, notable exceptions there of and sometimes would go onto likes and dislikes.

You can actually do a lot with slots on a character sheet. I played one game where the character sheet had a slot called Previous Injuries/Medical Conditions: (still not sure why it was there). But we had a couple people who were coming off of something at the time. Because of this my character had cracked his skull at some unspecified point in the past and had metal in his head to fix it. It didn't come up in play, game didn't last long enough, but it was something extra that I never would have considered without it.

Joe Bob of Happy Valley

That is way more interesting then... nothing at all. Also creepy.

[2D8HP]

Joe Bob of Happy Valley

That is way more interesting then... nothing at all. Also creepy.

I'm guessing that it was inspired by:

http://www.montypython.net/scripts/fairytale.php

[5a Violista]

I played one game where the character sheet had a slot called Previous Injuries/Medical Conditions: (still not sure why it was there).

It was probably there so when your characters bought Adventurer's Insurance the insurance company would know which injuries they had to pay for and which ones they didn't.

[Mr Blobby]

Which is exactly why I put such things into their Blue Book to fill in at some point. Even if they simply put in 'None' or 'N/A' in that category, it means they have thought about said question for at least 3 seconds - which they may have not done before...

[RazorChain]

I'm guessing that it was inspired by:

http://www.montypython.net/scripts/fairytale.php

Yep, it also showcases how uninspired players can steal ideas for backgrounds.