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Character Histories

I read some views lately on character histories and thought it would be good to toss my own two cents out there.

Character histories are a contract between the GM and the player.  A character history gives a player upfront to say this is what my character is like, this is the world around him, and these are the characters in that world.  It defines a line between the immutable truth to the player and the world that the GM controls.

As a contract, it can be negotiated.  A character history isn't really done until the player and the GM both agree to it.  From a GM perspective, this is a huge opportunity to fill in the world's backstory and give the players options for where they might be from and world-linking details that fill in the gaps in their creation, tying their character to the world.

As a creation linked to the character, it should be written from the perspective of the character.  The player doesn't ever get the luxury of an omniscient view, and this is especially true in the character history / background.  The character only knows what he/she knows and that should be true for the player as well.  After all, the GM controls everything the player/character don't know.  I find that what the player doesn't know is often more important than what the character does know.

Here's an example:  In one of my current games, one of the characters has an aunt who has recently gone mad, a mother that works in a candle shop, and a father and sister that work together, but she isn't sure what they do.  This is pure gold for the GM.  Suddenly there is a great conspiracy with her father and sister working to sell artifacts illegally recovered from the ruins in the town where she lives to evil red wizards.  When her aunt discovered this, she was attacked and cursed.  And the character knows nothing of this... yet.

The character history tells you what the player wants.  A character history and what the player wants go hand in hand.  If they give you a lengthy backstory, that tells you they want that to tie into what happens.  If they give you a couple of names and a place, that tells you they want to write the story ahead.  Some players like level one to be the middle of the story; some players like it to be the beginning.

Think about a couple of scifi favorites:  Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  The Buffy story starts at the beginning when a teenage girl cheerleader finds out she is the chosen one.  Year after year, season after season, the story builds from the beginning to, well, I guess it hasn't stopped yet if you follow the comic books.  Firefly, on the other hand, starts in the middle of the story.  Half of the fun is finding out what happened before (Have you read "The Sheperd's Tale" comic?) and how that influenced the things that are happening now.  Serenity, the motion picture, was in fact centered around discovery of events that happened many, many years earlier.

Like any contract, there may need to be updates.  Just like your will needs updated when you have children, the character background needs to be renegotiated as the story moves on.  Oops -- the city where you grew up has been destroyed by an ogre invasion.  Did your childhood friend make it out alive?  Ok, we've arrived in Innsbruck -- which part of town did you live in?  Similarly, the desires of the players will change.  I have one player that wanted to be a druid and now flounders a bit on the choice.  At first he wanted dragon armor for his animal companion and now he has his eyes set on a Cloak of the Bat.  All of these play into the character history, the character story going forward, and the rewards and trials that are thrown at the characters.

Don't forget to keep the characters satisfied with small near-term and big long-term rewards.  The character history is only a piece of the puzzle that keep players happy.  Sure, someday the cleric wants to ascend to godhood to take vengeance on the god that destroyed his homeland, but maybe this week he only really needs to find a rod of resurrection to keep him happy.  The game world should operate on multiple time scales and should always give near- and long-term rewards.  And you have to leave breadcrumbs for the long-term stuff to keep everyone interested.  Characters from the past are a great way to do this.  Spirits from a dead friend work equally as well, if not better.  Throw in that creepy fortune teller and foreshadow what is to come.

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