Character Backgrounds

[Niccodaemus]

I tend to go a bit overboard when tying player character concepts into my world. Here are two of my blog posts on character backgrounds.
One is a selection of possible backgrounds for clerics, to give the player a sense of how rare they are in the game world, and how they might expect to be treated. The other is a specific background for a player's ranger character.

http://shatterworldbts.blogspot.com/2012/01/character-backgrounds-for-clerics-in.html

http://shatterworldbts.blogspot.com/2012/01/character-background-ranger.html

Creating character background is part of my world building exercise, as it forces me to develop the area in which the character was raised.

[hydrogyrum]

Do you have the player flesh out a PC background before play begins, or do you wait a few adventures to let the player figure out who he/she is?

I'm asking because I started my 10- and 11-year old nephews out with pre-generated PCs, and then by perhaps the 3rd adventure they started to wonder where their PCs were from. Then we dug out the Greyhawk information (the world we're using), and we could then place their nationalities, etc.

Since then, they've rolled up a few PCs themselves, but they have become attached to the PCs I rolled up for them way back when. I even found out that, before he falls asleep, my youngest nephew thinks about his PCs, their goals, personalities, etc.

I love the artwork on your page, BTW. It looks like you've taken a lot of time and care to create an ambience for your world. Is this a page you share with your players?

hydro

[Niccodaemus]

Do you have the player flesh out a PC background before play begins, or do you wait a few adventures to let the player figure out who he/she is?

I ask the players to give me info on their character, not only class, but whether the character is from a wealthy background, poor, large town, small hamlet, or one of the savage-noble clans.

I know the general area I want the characters to start, so I looked at the map to see where it would fit in. He picked middle class from a small hamlet.
Here's the map:



I chose the area where the Red River and Greenrush merge, just north of the Greenrush and east of the Red River. It is smaller than the Village of Harrow, but large enough to have an economy. The smaller areas, with only three or four dots (each dot represents roughly 50 people) are generally poor. I already knew I wanted a big part of the local economy to be timber from the Greenwood. I decided that the character's family owned the lumber mill. My idea for the timber float came from watching "Sometimes a Great Notion". I found a piece of artwork that fit. All my artwork is from the early 1920's or earlier. (check out copyright law and public domain).

I had to figure out how a guy who is raised in a middle class family in a hamlet gets to be a monster killer. I didn't want to have his village "attacked by orcs", as that almost never happens in my campaign world. I was inspired by the TV show Grimm, and came up with the uncle character and his vardo of death dealing.

I didn't want to have an organized "ranger school" in the woods, but wanted to give the character a place to call home. So I had the uncle retire with his family, and give the character the sigil ring. The ring is a concept I carried over from my old campaign. The rangers are sort of a secret knighthood which has lasted many generations.

I'm asking because I started my 10- and 11-year old nephews out with pre-generated PCs, and then by perhaps the 3rd adventure they started to wonder where their PCs were from. Then we dug out the Greyhawk information (the world we're using), and we could then place their nationalities, etc.

Since then, they've rolled up a few PCs themselves, but they have become attached to the PCs I rolled up for them way back when. I even found out that, before he falls asleep, my youngest nephew thinks about his PCs, their goals, personalities, etc.

Very cool!

I love the artwork on your page, BTW. It looks like you've taken a lot of time and care to create an ambience for your world. Is this a page you share with your players?

hydro

I spend more time looking for appropriate art than I do writing! I share both of my blogs with my players.

Shatterworld http://shatterworldrpg.blogspot.com/ is written with an "in-game" voice, as if someone from the game world wrote it.

Shatterworld: Behind the Scenes http://shatterworldbts.blogspot.com/ discusses gaming philosophy, rules, and has stories that evoke the setting.

[hydrogyrum]

Due to time constraints, I haven't had the chance to flesh out hometown information for the PCs; also, the old Greyhawk boxed set doesn't go into much elaboration. So, I've allowed my players to imagine stuff for themselves (players aged 10 and 11 do very well in this area). I say "allowed" because they do all the thinking whether I ask them to do so or not! Stuff like, "My PC has a friend minotaur who's a lumberjack and lives outside the town"; this friendly minotaur somehow followed the party to Saltmarsh and now has taken up residence in the caves beneath the alchemist's house (UK1: The Secret of Saltmarsh), which the PCs happily bought and fixed up. I just roll with it; it's in their imaginations regardless of my opinion of the matter.

Coming up with character backgrounds through collaboration is part of the fun. As the DM, I provide some of the world and logistical information; the players then bring it to life, and I work from that.

I used to DM (AD&D, a mishmash of 1e and 2e) for adult players using Columbia Games' Harnworld setting, which was a blast. It is an extremely detailed setting, which makes character backgrounding very creative. I like working within constraints, which I find feeds my imagination. One player had a knight who found his father's signet ring, shield, armor, etc. in an old chest, and thus began his adventuring career.

In the current campaign, one player has a "generic" fighter who is played in a very honor-bound way by my 10-year-old nephew (his favorite PC/alter-ego is a wizard). I'm thinking that it's time to make that PC a knight. Whenever I do something nice like that for a PC of one of the players, I have to balance it with equal nicety for the other player--they're brothers at a highly-competitive age. The other brother's favorite PC/alter-ego is a thief, and he also runs 2 dwarves and an elf. Maybe I'll come up with something good for the elf character, who seems to be that player's 2nd-favorite PC.