Role-playing and backstory- Tips, advice, and other ideas.

[xelphyn]

I feel that a thread such as this could not only help people with relatively limited role-playing experience (such as myself) develop a solid foundation for the basics, but also give some of you veterans a few new perspectives in background creation and character development.

I'll start this off with my current quandary: Elves and their ridiculous lifespans, specifically this issue:

Human Level 1 Fighter: "Let me get this straight. You're a hundred and twenty."
Elf Level 1 Fighter: "Right."
Human Level 1 Fighter: "And I'm sixteen."
Elf Level 1 Fighter: "Right?"
Human Level 1 Fighter: "And we're equally skilled even though you've been at this a hundred years longer than me."
Elf Level 1 Fighter: "What's your point?"
Human Level 1 Fighter: "Are you an idiot?"


A few other things I tend to have troubles with when it comes to backstory creation:

Why is the character adventuring?
It may seem easy to just copy and paste some life altering event, but that leaves much to be desired. Meanwhile, the concept of 'one thing led to another' needs to be fleshed out at least somewhat, but to what extent? Too little and you may as well literally write "[insert character's name here] had a basic childhood, but one thing led to another and he became an adventurer." (Be careful guys, it's a slippery slope.). On the other hand, too much fleshing out, and you may end up with a character background that's an entire story of its own.

The risk/ reward ratio...
At what point does common sense kick in? When does greed or pride (or whatever the core theme of the character's motivation is) cease to function as a supplement for courage?
Sure certain classes have their resolve built in, such as the cleric, who is on a mission in service to his god, or the paladin's 'RIGHTEOUS VINDICATION!' to purge the world of all evil, but that still leads back to the prime dilemma: "WHY?"
Then we come back to these other chumps, who don't have such black and white views of the world.
The bard? Sure he's a glory hog, lookin' to make his name big, but bards tend to be fickle as hell. "Is that a demon? Hey look at the time, I have to go do.. somthing. But don't worry paladin, I'll be sure to write songs of your valor."
Rogues? sure they tend to be greedy, and adventuring can often be quite lucrative, but every scoundrel knows when to cut his losses."Treasure you say? And lot's of it too? In a dragon's cave? And this dragon... It's gone now right? No? See, now that's why the treasure's sill there. I'll pass."
What is it that brings these less noble folks to throw themselves in perilous situations on a regular basis? (There's some sort of underlying psychological thing going on there, I think it's called masochism.)

Character development
No man is a statue. (Well maybe the one's who had an unfortunate encounter with Medusa or something, but other than that...) Even the most stubborn of individuals learn and grow.
How can you determine an appropriate rate for your character to develop?
How do you justify the character's ability to change while keeping the what drives them to go on these adventures? Do you replace that drive? How do you manage a gradual, seamless transition of your character's mentality?

[xelphyn]

I was going to add more, but I accidently clicked on submit instead of preview, I'd edit the rest into it, but i noticed it started to devolve into a rant, so I'll leave it as is.

[TristenC]

To your first question, they're still considered children and adolescents until about 110 yrs or so, and their society guides their education. They grow slowly (about 4' by age 75 when puberty hits), so size is an issue too. They focus on their sense if self (which provides their 90% resistance to sleep and charm), and they learn very basics of swordplay and archery (hence the automatic proficiency and +1 to hit with long and short bows and swords).

A great resource is the Book of Elves on the purple worm site. Read the sections on physical attributes, stages of life and elven society

An excerpt from the Book of Elves:
[A being who has more than 100 years to practice a skill will certainly be one of the better practitioners of that skill to be found anywhere.

However, it's unlikely that elves would spend their youth practicing weapon skills exclusively. Parents would rather these young elves learned more of life's many facets before devoting time to a single pursuit, including weaponry. More likely than not, a young elf's life is dominated by music, dancing, and learning craftsmanship. Few elf parents would ever want their child to grow up to be an adventurer; while they value free will, they would definitely discourage their child from such a path. They would want their child to experiment with all options available in life, and most would prefer that the child concentrate on the gentle, lovely side of existence.

For this reason, elves shouldn't be allowed extra adventuring proficiencies such as blind-fighting or endurance. Only those applicable to an elf's young life should be considered. Even the more rugged proficiencies, such as survival and fire-building, are questionable choices for an elf's early years.

Instead, think about a human child's life. Human children are taught singing, musical instruments, or art. Few of them learn the intricacies of gaming or forgery. Only the most exceptional of children would be allowed proficiencies such as these.

The same is true for elf children. Those whose destinies are in a certain craft (such as blacksmithing, hunting, or study) will learn the skills applicable to their craft as well as those necessary to become a well-rounded elf. If they want to develop other skills (such as those they might need for an adventuring life), they will have to develop them in the future as would anyone else.]

[TristenC]

Character Development:
I'll address this one next. I think of it the way an author might approach the development of a character in a story (which, basically, you are): The character needs some significant stimuli to change. It need not be tragic or profound (though it certainly could be), but something they would take to heart. A close friend has an epiphany of their own and has a long talk with the character, a serious injury/close encounter with probable death causes them to be more cautious, something that they might find repulsive turns out to be not so horrible forcing them to reconsider their beliefs about it and other things, etc.

The player can also think 'I want my char to start this way and end up this different way', then consider what might encourage those changes and simply have the character take those lessons to heart in lieu of others.

Characters development may be easier than you think, just have them draw from their own in-game experiences. I've dm'd for plenty a brazen warrior who quickly learned to be much more tactical and cautious after that first brush with near-death. It's up to the player whether they continue to be cautious or temporarily revert every time they think they have the best odds...

Risk/reward
It kicks in whenever the player says it does. The main factor is what the character thinks his chances of survival/success are. Players and characters should be selective about their adventures. Those who are not kind of deserve the horrible gore-splattered deaths their characters receive... Prudent characters may also seek to 'stack the deck' by hiring help, acquiring useful items, info-gathering, etc; rather than just haring off towards adventure at the first whisper of whatever motivates them.

I've seen plenty of rogues 'disappear' in the heat of battle, only to emerge when the party is victorious and claim 'I was trying to sneak up to backstab him'. Bards may jump in the fray or stand back and support at will. A terrified character might well break and run for their life, but they might also realize their chances fir survival are far better if they are not alone! [Don't split the party!]


Why Adventuring:
It doesn't have to be some life altering backstory. It could be as simple as 'beats working the trades', or 'better rewards/early retirement'. Other options could include wanderlust, family/societal tradition of being soldiers/mercenaries/adventurers.

As for the background becoming an entire story of it's own, I don't see the problem

[JadedDM]

Yeah, basically elves fart around so much that it takes them way longer to learn a skill than humans. After all, if you knew you had hundreds of years to live, how much of a hurry would you be in? I'm reminded of a quote from Star Trek Insurrection:

Picard: There's one thing I don't understand. In 300 years, you never learned to swim?
Anij: Ha ha ha! I just haven't got around to it yet.

Of course, this fails to explain why dwarves and gnomes also live very long lifespans but still take considerably longer to reach level 1 than humans do...

I think Dragon Age had the right idea, in making all of the races age the same rate. I might do that in my next game on my world. The only reason elves and dwarves live so long is a throwback to Tolkien, anyway. It's not necessary really, and most players don't really roleplay the weirdness of being a race that has such a long lifespan.

A motive for adventuring is important and I'm often left aghast at how many players neglect to give one. I disagree with Tristen that it's a simple matter of better rewards, because it ignores the fact that adventuring is incredibly dangerous. Most adventurers die young. I think it takes a special passion or ambition to gamble with your own life like that. Most people just take simple jobs for their whole lives. If adventuring was really so great, then everyone would do it.

Another thing players often neglect to think about is the aftermath of completing their goal. If the reason you are adventuring is because you are looking for the six-fingered man who killed your father...then what happens when you find him and kill him? If your goal is to become super rich, what happens when you do? Do you just retire? Roll up a new character?

So often I have players who run characters who have never had a reason to adventure or had one but it no longer applies, but they continue to tag along with the party for no discernible reason. It's even stranger when it's clear the PC doesn't even like the other party members or doesn't agree with what they are doing.

Don't even get me started on character development. I used to rant about that for days on end. In a way, it's worse in my games nowadays, because they are play-by-post. Nobody remembers what happened a day ago, because yesterday was three months ago in real time.

I think the best way to develop a character is to keep notes. I do this for every PC I have. I keep a log or summary of what has happened, a list of people I've met and what I think about them, a list of goals I want to accomplish (short term and long term), and so on. And every now and again, I pull it out and read it over and consider where my character is going and why.

[xelphyn]

Both of you are very helpful. Is there anything else worth discussing here?

[temnix]

I say, it all depends on the world. Some motives aren't viable in some worlds but might be in others. For example, if a country is being ravaged by an army of orcs, then revenge or patriotism is likely to be an important motive for a lot of people, and many might even be entitled to a Racial enemy perk. On the other hand, a sleepy country, quite content... where would adventures come from here? Why would anyone bother? But then again, there is no such thing as a completely content country or city, not for long. In-between periods of strong rule in our world, when people fall in a kind of slumber, there are much longer periods of strife, contest, expansion, contraction. And then riches or knowledge hidden in the ground might suddenly become an important and, well, game-changing article.

A few possibilities:

1. The local kings have depreciated currency by constantly adding copper to silver pieces. Now nobody wants to trade in these crappy coins, but there is a rumor of a silver or even gold mine abandoned by dwarves. Various powers might be interested, including the king himself, to improve coinage and prevent revolt. A smart character can go far, even ascend to the throne, by playing resource cards like that. The same goes for an exposed border, a river delta where a new city is begging to be built - but it would take striking a deal with the merfolk - or a precious library of magical tomes. There is actually a lesser Conan story that revolves arounds would-be sorcerers' struggle over who gets it. So you see, any kind of resource or danger is an incentive to some, a threat to others, both have to act.

2. New inventions give access to resources formerly out of reach. Cannons have been invented and perfected by one country, and others don't have them. Or: dwarven engineers have invented huge power shovels that can now dig down to the current emperor's ancestor's tomb and the ruler's lineage can be confirmed or disproved. Or: a tribe of nomads wanders in, and they have a tradition of training deep divers, so now suddenly beautiful pearls enter the markets. Or: the elves have shared with humans the secret of quickly growing tall trees, so now the Eastern Plain might be converted to a forest by the Lumberjacks and Foresters Guild, but farmers aren't happy. And so on.

3. Personal ambitions. Above are a few general situations that can require adventurers' help, but really, most adventurers probably are unusually driven people - though it may not be THAT unusual. Sure, there's danger in exploring, but so what? Soldiering is dangerous, caring for the sick is dangerous, a sailor's life is dangerous too. Doing nothing, sitting on your ass still exposes you to plague, kidney stones, an unhappy wife who hires a thug to murder you and so on. In any society other than the overfed and idle 21st century West there was a quick turnaround of lives. People haven't valued their lives so very highly until very recently. You had a few decades before some kind of disease or famine carried you off. So it's not at all unrealistic to imagine more enterprising types picking up some weapons and going off to loot and pillage, knowing they might end up dead. But this sort of thing has to be made to work in the game world's culture. Why private entrepreneurs rather than commandos, what are the religious prohibitions/commandments, how does magic fit into it and so on.

Wizards are the hardest to invent motives for. If it's power a wizard is after, well, it's presumably a power to be used OUTSIDE the dungeon - just like money, for advantage, to make an impression, for love, to serve a cause etc. Instead the wizard keeps delving into these mazes, more and more dangerous, for power that is less and less useful. Doesn't make much sense to me. I'm not convinced crawling through dank dark holes is the best source of magical knowledge either, not on a regular basis it's not. And all that accumulated knowledge will fizzle if someone smashes your head. And certainly a wizard would have a more strategic approach to dungeons - create minions and send them in, manipulate others to get what he needs there and so on. An NPC wizard who hires adventurers out in his tower makes sense to me, a PC wizard - not so much. But you can create a world where the typical D&D motivations make sense, it would just have to be rather different from our world, OR you can adjust those motivations as above. If the mountain won't come to Mahomet...

But that's for the Dungeon Master to worry about. The best way to create a character for a player is just to come up with some personality or physical description: short, fat, sexually attracted to the ranger in the group. Or: always been poor and sick of it. There. Motivation ready. The rest will round itself out. And... remember that you can't really act out a character when all there is to do is to kill monsters and find magic goodies. People are not just their actions but also their thoughts, dreams, fears, memories... Most of this will never be apparent to others no matter what you do, except art. And expecting profound role-playing, chances to act from the heart in an action game like D&D is like expecting character drama from Mario.