This is an article in two parts – the first dealing with character backstories during character generation, and the second dealing with them during play.

It is also the second of five articles scheduled to be part of the November 2016 Blog Carnival, which Campaign Mastery is hosting. The carnival subject is “ordinary life” – in this case, the ordinary life of a PC who is about to join the campaign, i,e, his backstory, and – in the second part of the article (to be published next week) how to create plots and subplots using the resulting profile as a foundation.

I should add that while it is intended for fantasy games such as Pathfinder and D&D, it can be used with any genre.

A starting point

Before you can use a character’s backstory to help bring the campaign world to life for them and give them a personal stake in the adventures and mayhem that they experience (more on that in part 2), they need to have that backstory. And if the player generating the character knew as much about the campaign world as you do, that wouldn’t be a problem, assuming the player has half-decent writing skills and imagination.

That is, however, an ‘if’ the size of Mount Everest. First, the assumption might be invalid. Second, it’s completely impossible for the player to know the campaign world as well as the GM who created and interprets it does. Third, even skilled writing and a capable imagination properly harnessed might not create the plot opportunities and connections that the GM wants/needs. Fourth, turning the whole thing over to the player neglects an opportunity to expand the campaign world to encompass what both the player and GM want; and Fifth, a character backstory is also an opportunity to bring part of the Campaign Background to life for the player, obviating some of the GM’s need for long-winded narrative.

Image Credit freeimages.com / Loretta Humble

Nor can the GM do the job alone. First, he’s already got his hands full getting the campaign ready to play. Second, he might be no better at writing than the player (hopefully he is at least as imaginative, though). Third, even if the GM is an excellent writer with a gift for expressing his imagination through prose, the backstory that he creates – assuming (falsely) that he has the time – is certain to be different to the one that the player wants to run.

By far a better solution is for the player and GM to collaborate on crafting a backstory that ticks everyone’s boxes, taking advantage of the potential synergies between the two to produce something better than either could do on their own, with the GM providing expertise and leadership while the player does most of the actual crafting of the character.

I’ve seen a number of articles in the past that show how to develop a backstory. Most of them are inadequate. The remaining few are generally so detailed that they leave no room for growth, and can produce characters so detailed that they become stifling. Neither outcome is satisfactory. What’s more, most of them are terribly uneven; depending on the player, some will be extensive and others minimalist providing disproportionate access to the game world’s opportunities.

What’s more, there’s a limit to how much a player can hold in his head before the details start to merge and run together.

No, what’s needed is a system for development of character backgrounds that puts all the PCs on an equal footing, with equal opportunities, that integrates the characters with the campaign world and makes the campaign background relevant to the player and provides an opportunity for the player to tell the GM where he wants the character to go, and that provides the GM with the raw materials that he needs to craft plots that both he and the player are interested in exploring.

And that’s not an easy prescription to fill.

Step 1: Character Axioms: Player

There are ten categories of what I call Character Axioms – these are the foundation memories and events that have formed the personality of the character, the events that have taught him how to behave – or how not to behave. The player has 20 ‘axiom incidents’ to distribute amongst these 10 categories; no category can have more than 4 incidents assigned to it. The categories are:

1. Past Successes – occasions when the character succeeded in something that was quite difficult for him or her at the time or that was otherwise memorable.
2. Past Failures – occasions when the character failed. This might have been because the task was difficult, under the circumstances, or it might have been something that the character was expected to succeed in. Each should be accompanied by a note on the seriousness of the repercussions – use the terms mild, serious, grave, devastating.
3. Past Mistakes – a mistake is not the same thing as a failure. These are occasions when the character misjudged someone or something or made a fool of themselves.
4. Past Life Lessons – These can be positive (the character witnesses someone solve a difficult life problem) or negative (the character witnesses someone fail to solve a difficult life problem), it’s the player’s choice which.
5. Past Moments Of Danger – These are moments when the character (rightly or wrongly) felt in danger.
6. Past Travels – These are times when the character went somewhere interesting or memorable. Depending on the player and the basic profile of the character, this could be to somewhere quite close or somewhere quite exotic. It might be anything from weekly trips to Temple, or a trip to attend the funeral of rich aunt Mavis, or a Holiday to the elven kingdom, or the first time the character rode a horse. The player should give some indication of the type of trip, at the very least, but should not specify beyond the sort of brief phrases used as examples.
7. Family Incidents – These are times when something drastic happened to the family. Father was accused of a crime, (may have been guilty or innocent), or there was a family argument, or brother went missing, or grandmother disowned the family (or came around after such disowning to spend time with the grandkids). Again, the player should give a general indication of the sort of incident they have in mind but not a resolution or any specifics.
8. Past Ambitions – When I was a kid, I wanted to be a scientist. next, I thought seriously about being a journalist or a comic-book artist. Then I wanted to design computer systems and software. Each of these was shaped by an aptitude, and each shaped my (self-) educational path at the time. What did the character want to do when he was younger?
9. Fascinations – This is something that fascinates the character, and has done so for a while. It could be a practical skill, or a piece of history, or a person, or a knowledge subject, or a sporting contest. The player should specify what the subject of the fascination is, and whether it is past or current, or even something that he wants the character to become fascinated by in the course of play.
10. Proximity to key events – The number of times a character was on hand to witness some important event or decision and that made a lasting impression on him or her. Obviously, the player at this point has no idea of what those events might have been. The character may or may not have been directly involved, but the player can’t decide that until he knows what the events were. In effect, then, these are blank spaces for the GM to fill in for the character.

Step 2: Character Evolution: Player

There are six other key pieces of information that the player should provide as they will form the context which will shape decisions as to the specifics of the axioms.

11. Background Context – The player chooses some suitably evocative single term to sum up the character’s life prior to entering play. This might be “struggle” or “bucolic” or “urban grind” or “privileged” or “street urchin” or “ambition vessel” or anything else the player thinks appropriate.
12. Core Concept – The player gives a one-sentence summary of the character’s personality as it will be at the start of play.
13. Supplementary Words – For every game mechanics “label” that can be applied to the character – race, class, past profession (if any), and an adjective frequently applied to characters who are strong in the character’s highest stat – the player should provide a brief note on what makes this character different from all the other examples. A quick example:
    • Fighter – dislikes thinking with his fists.
    • Dwarf – mildly claustrophobic.
    • Blacksmith – especially skilled at floral etching & filigree.
    • Resolute (CON) – very sickly as a child or, perhaps, paranoid about getting sick.
14. Axiom Sequence – With a basic concept for the character, the player should next number the axioms he has chosen in the chronological sequence he thinks is appropriate to produce the personality. This is to serve as a guideline to the GM in steps 3 and four.
15. Character Direction – “All life is a journey from what we are to what we will be”. This is a brief summary of the direction in which the player wants the character to evolve in the course of play. Valid choices include “redemption”, “slay personal demons”, “struggle with temptation”, “discover a love for his people”, “saviour/hero to his people”, “find somewhere he’s happy to call home”, or “extract the maximum fun out of life before it’s too late”. This tells the GM what sort of subplots (and to some extent, main plots) the player wants to experience with this character, what sort of opportunities he wants, etc.
16. Character Destination – How does the character want the character’s story to end? If different, how does the player want the character’s story to end? “Happy ever after”, “Guardian over the things he cares about”, “heroic sacrifice”, “blaze of glory”, “patriarch/matriarch of a large family”, “filthy rich”, “well-connected”, “politically powerful” or something else? There’s no certainty that it will work out that way, or that the character/player won’t change their minds later, but, once again, it tells the GM what sort of opportunities to put in front of the character.

Once the player has completed this step, he hands the character development notes over to the GM for steps 3 and 4.

Step 3: Character Axioms: GM

The GM’s first thought is probably to spread the axiom events fairly evenly over the character’s life. That’s predictable, boring, and unrealistic; life isn’t like that. Instead, there are usually long periods of status quo punctuated by a cluster of events.

The place to start is always the home environment of the character and the critical events that have unfolded there during the character’s lifetime. Next, the GM should try to match these up with, first, Axiom 10 entries, and then with any others that seem to fit. It may or may not have been noticed but there are a lot of relative terms used in the axiom descriptions – a “key event” may mean one thing on a border town and something quite different on an isolated country farm. The emphasis is always on first, what parts of the campaign background could or will affect the character, and second, on events that seem to play into the character evolution chosen by the player, especially items 11, 12, and 13. It may be necessary to alter the preferred sequence to get them to fit such a timeline without too big a “nothing happening” period. Similarly, “Moments Of Danger” could be a hunting incident, or a freak weather condition, or an invading army, or any number of other incidents.

Once that is done, it’s time to list specifics in each item. These should be given as events with no indication of how the character was involved or how he/she was affected by the events. If nothing “earth-shaking” or socially/politically significant was taking place at the time, the GM should create a suitably localized event that highlights some aspect of the culture that he has created – this will be a lot easier if he has created that culture using the Distilled Cultural Essence process that I described in four parts back in 2009.

The goal is to marry key incidents from the character’s life with key or illustrative events from the campaign background and game culture to make them directly relevant to the character (and hence, to the player).

At the start of each item, the GM should either put a bullet (·) or a dash (-). The bullet means that the event is happening at or near that point in the local history experienced by the character, and if it doesn’t tie in with the chosen Axiom, it will have to tie in with another one; the dash means that it’s a suggestion that can be changed in step 5.

Step 4: Character Evolution: GM

Next, the GM should rough out some quick plans for how the character’s current personality (as summarized), future evolution, and ultimate end, will fit into his campaign design. Both campaign and character should be considered fairly fixed at this point, but some thought needs to be given to how the character will fit into the campaign plan, how he will react to the planned events, and how the campaign plan will fit into the desired character evolution. It might be that none of what the GM has planned will be suitable for permitting growth in the desired direction, in which case he will need to add a subplot to achieve that goal.

The results should be a paragraph studded with glittering generalities and vague intentions; don’t spoil any surprises, don’t reveal any plot twists, but give some indication of the general trend of things. “The character will encounter undead fairly early in the campaign and there will be a lot of social upheaval as a result. Parts of the campaign world will come under threat from something that will force them onto a war footing, and eventually the PCs will go behind enemy lines to discover the cause of the threat and stop it. The overall tone will be of civilization coming under threat and having to choose between their ideals and their survival.” Or, perhaps, “The PCs will be trying to make a life for themselves in an environment rife with hidden enemies and political forces beyond their control”. Or, to use the central concept of my Seeds Of Empire campaign, “The Kingdom has outgrown its political structure; it is now encountering the problems of an Empire, finding its ad-hoc solutions inadequate, and will need to evolve socially and politically to deal with those problems while avoiding or addressing the mistakes of the past.” This brief summary should be followed by an indication of how these events/themes will fit into the planned character evolution.

Once the GM has made his notes, he returns character development to the player and schedules a meeting to go through them. Actually, the process is pretty quick, so it might be just a matter of each waiting until the other has done his thing.

If the player gives the GM an indication of race and class, the GM can be preparing his events list for use in step 3 while the player is doing steps 1 and 2; the player can then do his game-mechanics character creation while the GM is doing steps 3 and 4. The process to this point should have taken 30 minutes absolute maximum – if it’s taken longer than that, someone is over-thinking things or getting too specific. 10-15 minutes is probably a more realistic number.

Step 5: Draft Background Negotiation

At that meeting, the player ticks off any items he likes/agrees with, and discusses with the GM alternatives to any that don’t seem to fit what he has in mind, and discusses his thoughts on how the character would react to each of the axiom events, while the GM offers possible consequences of those reactions. Between the two of them, it shouldn’t take long for the player to get a sense of the campaign world and its recent history as it would affect his character. The order of the axiom events, or even their nature, can get revised at this point. The player should take notes of the discussion. Once he’s ready, he can start making more substantial draft notes while the GM moves on to working with another player on his character.

Step 6: Player Draft Background

The player then writes the character’s backstory in note form based on the axiom events – what happened, how the character reacted, and what happened as a result, and – at the end – how this unique personal history created the character he is today, and a more substantial outline of what that personality is.

Step 7: Negotiate revisions if necessary

When the player is finished, he gives the notes to the GM to read through. The GM should make any additional notes or clarifications and discuss anything that has been misunderstood, supplying additional details of the campaign world and the PC’s society and culture as necessary. Again, the player should make notes, and may even copy some of the GM’s notes on the campaign world – descriptions of relevant key locations, NPC personalities, and so on. If the GM needs to, he should use the quick-NPC creation methods provided by Campaign Mastery in past articles – I listed them in section 4.2 of my previous entry in this month’s blog carnival, “The Everyday Life of a GM”, but I’ll repeat them for your convenience:

• Look beyond the box: a looser concept for NPCs,
• Creating Partial NPCs To Speed Game Prep,
• The Flunkie Equation – quick and easy Hors d’Combat, and
• The Ubercharacter Wimp: Plotting within your PCs limitations.

Note that the last one requires the game-mechanics character sheets of the PCs!

Step 8: Final background

With the final wrinkles ironed out, and additional material provided as necessary, the player can then write up the character’s history in prose, either from a first person perspective (“I was born….”) or third person perspective (“[Name] was born….”) as he prefers. Obviously, he will want to retain this for himself, but the GM should be given a copy for his reference during encounter, adventure, and campaign planning. He should also get a copy of the character sheet for the same purpose. In the next part of the article, I’ll show readers how to make use of it “in play”.

Why this process works

Everything about this process is geared at filling the character’s backstory with the critical steps that resulted in the personality that the player wants to operate in play. Most other systems that I’ve seen are questionnaires or list generators that produce a lot of detail, (“who is your best friend?”) but not a lot of context. This, on the other hand, tells you nothing that isn’t directly relevant – leaving a lot of areas empty for in-play exploration.

You may be tempted to haul out one of those other profile generators to fill in those blanks. While that can be useful, it can also hamstring the GM in his efforts to produce the campaign that the player wants. For example, let’s say that the player creates, using one of these questionnaires, a childhood rival – one who has had no formative impact on the PC.

Why do I say “no formative impact?” Because the axioms list the formative impacts on the PC, and the rival wasn’t one of them. Right away, this undermines his credibility as a rival, and of the character as a whole; it makes no sense. That isn’t to say that the character didn’t have rivals from time to time, just that none of them was significant enough to have the relationship description capitalized. It’s the difference between a rival and a Rival.

But, setting aside the inconsistency that results, if at some point the GM needs a hook to get the character interested in a plotline, and no rival has been specified, he could create one to order. If one has already been specified by the player, the GM has to integrate it into his plot or find some other mechanism to achieve the goal if the rival that the player has created doesn’t fit.

The Media Lesson

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a character bible from a TV show. Often considered part of a larger document, the “show bible” or “writer’s guide”, this succinctly spells out what has been established about the character in the course of production, ensuring consistency. See this Wikipedia entry.

The first one that I saw was (partially) reproduced in The Making Of Star Trek by Stephen E. Whitfield (aka Stephen E. Poe) ($21 used, from Amazon, ridiculous prices new).

Until something made it into the bible, it wasn’t canon. If it wasn’t in the bible that Spock was an only child, any writer that came along could create a brother for Spock if that suited the story he was pitching. Once it was stated firmly that he was an only child, any choice to the contrary had to come as a Revelation to all concerned, a secret that the character was previously unaware of (which is one of my many beefs with “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier”).

The absence of something creates freedom and opportunity, provided that it isn’t necessary to explain what has already been established.

It follows that at the start of a TV series, only the bare essentials are known about a character, and documented in their Bible. As production proceeds, more details get added as they are established. Almost every show either uses one or uses production members as “Walking Bibles” – which can pose a problem when crew members leave or get promoted, or simply suffer a failure of memory.

This concept has obvious utility within the television industry. Comics companies have something similar for keeping their characters straight. I am quite certain that big movie series would generally have a similar plotting tool, especially something like the Marvel Movie Universe.

RPGs can take a lesson from this concept, adapting it to our semi-unique purposes – semi-unique because it’s not too different to an actor/producer using the Show Bible to tell them how a character behaves (same as a player would) while scriptwriters (read: the GM) use it to develop plotlines that involve the character and his backstory.

The Screenwriting Bible was central to the concept elucidated by this article. “Only what’s necessary and what’s been established in-game” should be the mantra.

An acceptable compromise

On the other hand, additional details can serve as a springboard for inspiration. So there is a compromise that is possible: nothing not in the “Bible” is canon, but anything else the player chooses to produce can be considered an unofficial suggestion to the GM, a tool for them to use or ignore or even contradict – whatever is necessary to make the integration between character and game batter.

But that is a subject for part two of this article!