Tips for writing a background

[Vintervalpen]

It's me again, and I'm back to offer some advice and tips for writing a character background.

 

In Forsaken Lands, a character starts out with four defining features at character creation: race, alignment, ethos, and religion. A background should serve to weave these individual elements together into a cohesive and captivating whole, as well as provide a starting point for your character's ambitions, dreams, and hopes. Having a fully fleshed out background is by no means necessary, but it can be immensely helpful when trying to portray your character -- in particular, quest race/class applicants benefit from having put some thought into their past before submitting their applications.

 

1. Start by considering your role in Forsaken Lands. I am not talking about your class - which is a mechanical thing - but rather your role in the story. Are you going to be a villain? A vigilante? A vixen? A vagrant? What sort of impact would you like to have made on people after they met you? You want to be starting from this point and working backwards; by knowing what you are now, you will have an easier time coming up with what you were then. Essentially, your background should give a plausible explanation as to why you are doing whatever you might be doing.

 

Tip: Leave some room for interpretation in your character's role. If people feel like there are more layers to your character than what meets the eye, they will be wanting to roleplay with you again, and again, and again. Imagine a character obsessed with personal wealth and status, to the point of joining the Syndicate to literally become an assassin-for-hire. Despite her cutthroat agenda, she occasionally speaks of her dream of being able to fund a hospice for sick children. Suddenly, there is a completely different aspect to the character. It is obviously not philanthropy - she is an evil necromancer, after all - so why? Did she personally suffer due to shortage of proper medicine and care in her own childhood? Did she have a child of her own that was infected with the plague? Or is it just a ruse, some sort of cover for even more sinister and nefarious plans? Heck, now I want to know.

 

 

2. Put your character's background on the map. It does not need to have taken place in one of the villages or cities accessible in game, but you should still know roughly where it took place. 'Where are you from?' is one of the most commonly asked questions when meeting new people, and you should be able to answer that question. Once you know the physical location, narrow it down further. Were you raised in a hovel or a castle? How did the where shape your character into the who? Good backgrounds are not about having the most spectacular or most exceptional upbringing, but about providing realistic motives for your character's current aspirations.

 

Allow me to provide an example: Perhaps there was a bad year when you grew up, causing your family's crops to wither and die in the fields. Perhaps the local nobility was levying additional taxes to pay for the training and equipment of new columns of crusaders, putting additional strain on an already bad situation? Perhaps your character's elder brother took to poaching to provide for the family and got caught, having his hand chopped off as punishment? And perhaps that is why there is a seething, barely controlled anger beneath your dark-knight's polished surface -- there are vast and terrible injustices in the world, and only the strong are able to fend for themselves.

 

Tip: By incorporating real parts of the game into your character's history, you will create an even more compelling background. What if your character owns one of the multi-coloured cloaks of shifting hues that used to belong to the wardens of S'handor before the fortress was destroyed? Is it a family heirloom? How does the character feel about that particular part of his heritage? How does the character's parents feel about it? Or what if your character is a former prisoner of the Isle of Exile? What caused her to end up there? Was it political maneouvering that got her exiled, other aristocrats scheming to have her sent away, or was she found guilty of some crime? Corruption? Treason? Arson? And what possessed her to commit that crime in the first place?

 

 

3. Write down one or a few specific incidents that shaped your character into the person they are today. You want the causality to be abundantly clear here; there is nothing worse than telling people about what you felt was an important part of your character's background, only to be told they do not understand why. Perhaps your character was the sole survivor of a shipwreck. A normal, not-terribly-important fellow that turned to murder and cannibalism just for his basic survival. And perhaps he developed a taste for it. Not for the flesh itself, but for the act, for the power it implies; devouring someone else's very essence is the ultimate form of domination, and he will never, ever, never stop. And this is why he is going to send an application to immortal once he reaches guild rank thirty.

 

Tip: I sometimes write down a timeline for my characters (not only in FL, but in other games and even tabletop roleplaying), marking important dates and events solely for my own use. It tends to offer some more perspective on my history, and I find the overview to be quite helpful for setting the right mood or ambience when I start interacting with people.

 

 

4. By this point, you know your character's role and purpose, you know where they are from, and you have written down one or a few events that shaped them into the person they are. Now, you only need to fill in the gaps. Remember, you don't have to know the details of every day, month, or year of your character's upbringing, but you should know what brought them where they are. Perhaps they spent a summer in Marak, enjoying the culture and cuisine of the ogre city state. Did the character get into trouble somehow? Or did they leave with a newfound sense of respect and admiration for what most consider a race of dimwits? While these parts of your background do not provide much in terms of personal goals or direction for your character, it gives them identity, it makes them seem real. It makes them seem like a person you could relate to, a person you could befriend, or perhaps someone to despise.

 

Tip: Be somewhat moderate with your character's background. If you try to put too many events in it, too many or opinions, or triumphs, or defeats, it will just come across as cluttered when you regale your fellow mudders with it. Remember, the main story is meant to take place after character creation.

 

 

That's all I had to share for now. I might have missed something important, so feel free to add your own points and tips to the thread if you feel like it.

[f0xx]

The best essay I've read on RP so far.

[Imoutgoodbye]

That is certainly one way to do it and well written with multiple examples.  This article is especially important because it conforms to and uses a mentality common in FL:  Where do you want to go?  Most people roll a character with mechanics in mind:  Reaching 50 and getting into a cabal, so they already have an idea of who/what they want to be or at least what they think their final goal will be.  Working backwards from this will work well for almost every player here.

 

Well done, Vinter, well done.

 

To recap a few points Vinter has already made:

 

1.  Basic Conflict - A good story is driven by conflict.  Most conflict will come from the main story (the game) as Vinter says.  What drives your character into the main story is the basic conflict which Vinter gives examples for.  No one needs too much because more conflict will always arrive.

 

2.  FL Historical Context - For the more lore based player.  This goes well into character history and will net you some good RP points when you edit your history.  Use the basic conflict and the historical contexts to assist in forming the character personality, goals, and history editing in game.  Easy RP points and even more when well done, which Vinter has graciously outlined.  Also, as Vinter mentions, grounding it with a physical location allows expansion with current events.

 

3.  My suggestion:  Basic does not mean simple.  "Baby Shoes for sale, never worn."  Six words. Simple at first glance, but it is what you make of it.  Introduce another person to the text and it can become something more from a new perspective.  It's partially the ambiguity and it's partly the complexity of the mind.  Taking something that appears simple can expand.  It is also about how much you want to share in game with the other mortals.  Not giving enough can lead to confusion.  "...shoes for sale, never worn" doesn't have the same impact and won't net you the same results.  Thankfully, Hemingway was probably too drunk to remember.

 

I <3 Vinter!

 

EDIT:  If someone can pitch in with their experiences with the Journal, it would be most appreciated for this thread.