The other day on twitter there was a discussion on how much background info a DM needs from his characters to start a campaign with. There were some DM’s who seem to enjoy a lot of background stuff, while others were more than happy with a few lines. Me? I don’t need a lot.
Just like in world-building, I believe in starting out at the micro level, then expanding as you go along. In every DM’s advice column or book I’ve read, the word-building advice is to start small… detail the village where the PC’s live, and the cave where the kobolds are. As the game moves on, you can expand from there. I think that’s good advice, but it can also apply to the PC’s background as well.
I wrote the three questions I need to get the PC’s going:
- Who are you?
- What’s your goal in life?
- What past event pains you the most?
I think this pretty much covers my needs in setting up the PC’s for the rest of their careers. Let’s look at each question.
“Who are you?” Well, that’s a simple one. The PC should be able to give you enough material here to get a good idea of, well, who he is.
“I am Barundar Drunkbeard, from a citadel in the Erberek Mountains. I come from a small clan of dwarfs, miners mostly, who both mine and guard their territory from fierce orc invaders looking to pillage and take our prized gems.”
Well now, that’s a nice piece of background in a few short sentences. We know he mines, we know he must have plenty of knowledge about gems, and we know he must have a huge dislike for orcs. He must have a soft spot for miners and the mining lifestyle, so you’d be wise in pulling his heartstrings with adventures dealing with this stuff.
Second question is “What’s your goal in life”. This is fairly simple to answer, and can put you as a DM on the path to building up this hero’s journey. “My goal is to one day settle in unclaimed lands, recruit miners, hit a huge mineral vein, and become rich.” Pretty greedy, but fun for a miner I guess. Keep that one in your back pocket. Money and riches are always a great way to encourage an adventurer to go out and do his thing, plus you can build towards a PC’s ultimate destiny knowing where he’d like to go. Make it happen for him! Use that goal as a carrot on string to keep him going, and reward him in the end.
The third question, and a very important one is “What past event pains you the most?”, and you can use this to create adventures that create an emotional reaction from the PC (or at least should with good role players). Lets say his most painful moment in life came when he lost his father due to a betrayal by as rival dwarven clan, and it was set up to look like a mining accident. He was forced to grow up without a father, and with hatred for this rival clan, but he’d never act on his impulses due to a strong religious upbringing.
There are tons of potential character hooks there. You can introduce the rival clan, you can introduce situations that deal with fathers and sons, death, rescues, all these things that theoretically should appeal to a PC that experienced what young Barundar experienced.
With these three questions, I as a Dm should learn enough from a PC to be able to generate sufficient hooks and situations for him without necessarily needing a novel’s worth of writing about him. Sometimes less is more, and I can build as I go.
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notintheface
April 25, 2010
I believe it was a Dungeoncraft article on the wizards website that suggested writing out a series of character hooks on cards and letting the players choose one that appealed to them. I liked that because it encourages them to expand upon it throughout the campaign while giving them something interesting to seize upon that they have some element of control over.
newbiedm
April 25, 2010
@notintheface: that’s actually a very neat idea, you could also turn that into random character hooks “pick a card, any card…”
Geek Ken
April 25, 2010
Nice list of questions, especially the last one. It is so important to at least get a bio sketch from your players the first couple of sessions. It really helps get some ideas together and help draw the characters into a story that they have a central role in.
morrisonmp
April 25, 2010
So, this is my current topic as well, though I’ve written about it in a different light. I, for one, would say I definitely fall on the more-is-better side. The best campaigns I’ve run/played in, have been those where the PCs were well fleshed out from the beginning, and the I/my GM built the game around character backgrounds and goals.
I’ve never been a fan of the “Character Quiz” style of background, though, with the rarity that players actually bother having any background at all, I certainly wouldn’t turn my nose up at any work by a player.
For the player who is just not ready to commit to a full background write-up, I like the idea of letting them pick from numerous hooks. What it lacks in depth and personalization, it makes up for in encouraging thought and giving a player something to hang their hat on… so to speak.
Charisma
April 26, 2010
I love asking the question, “What is in your closet, you know, the closet with three padlocks?”
Tim Jensen
April 26, 2010
I would add one or two) more:
Pick another player character. How does your guy and his know each other?
Pick a different player character. Same question.
Tourq
April 26, 2010
I heard once: Player A explains how player B knows player C. Then player B explains how player C knows player D, and so on…
-Tourq
by_the_sword
April 29, 2010
I prefer to give a minimum of background for my own characters. It usually takes me about six to eight sessions before i know who my character really is. They tend to take on a life of their own.
Erebus
April 30, 2010
Yeah i agree with by the sword, my characters evolve over time as the story changes, adaptation is the hardest thing to cultivate in games.
Tale
May 1, 2010
A recent campaign I started up involved sitting down with the players and just talking over how their character looked, where they came from, what was important to them, driving motivations and such.
Then I ran a short session (railroaded) in which I put the character in which he could believably be, introduce a story element they’ll have to face later on in which their character was faced with something they wanted to act against but where powerless to do so.
The freedom loving pirate captain was present at a slave auction, he didn’t have enough money to most of them. The renegade general was forced to watch how a civilian uprising was quelled bloody, etc.
Gave them something to look forward to, and now they’re all ready to hate a few specific NPC’s.