Post/Author/DateTime	Post
MergedLoki 03-30-08, 01:08 AM	Hey everyone, I KNOW Ive seen threads here that have those lists of questions you can fill out for character background ideas/help fleshing out your background, and I wanna get some for my group (my players are notorious for having NO background beyond the 'i'm level one and i wanna start adventuring' and i've tried telling em I could make adventures based around their characters past but to no avail. Anyways I did a search but when i searched 'character backgrounds' etc. I got waaaay too many posts to go through so i'm wondering if anyone has a link or 2 directly to something useful? thanks.
Terjon of the Blue Rose 03-30-08, 07:11 AM	I never really got around to polishing this off but you could give my thread (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=988476) a try. There are also links to a few very good threads in the stickied FAQ. Should be at the very top of the forum.
elliott20 03-31-08, 10:46 AM	Terjon, that's an awesome document and very useful for deep character development. but I think that's going to be too much for his players. he said his players usually are very minimalist about this. I can't imagine throwing them into the deep end being a good solution to this. In my thread about using beliefs and instincts as game mechanics, I tried to codify mechanical rules for rewarding roleplaying. You don't have to use those rules if you don't want but I find writing these things down to be very helpful in fleshing out your character's outlook and spur ideas for background. Here's how I do it. Tell your players to name 3 beliefs each for their character. Follow the format "I believe in <A> therefore I will do <B>". Make sure that these beliefs will give them reason to take action of some sort. These are your quest hook ideas. So the more story concepts in there, the better. They will help you write your story, and they can help them give their character reason to do things. Then make them write down 3 instinctual reactions to certain situations. This helps them come up with a more gutteral feel to their character and can also help establish some habits that might be unique to themselves. i.e. "always scan someone's alignment" or "always be armed", or "when in doubt, run", or "I never take a shot unless I'm sure I won't miss" are examples of this.
MergedLoki 04-01-08, 12:23 AM	Well I've got PHBII and that fleshes out character concepts a bit more with the personality types like 'drifter, noble' etc. so that helps. we now have a halfing rogue (on his way to becoming a whisperknife) that is a wandering nomad, his older brother is a whisperknife but has been missing for some time, so he's determined to track him down and figure out what happened. It's not much im aware but it's WORLDS better than what I normally get to work with. once they get some levels up I can easily work an adventure around figuring out what happened w/the older sibling. thanks for all the posts btw guys.
Terjon of the Blue Rose 04-03-08, 02:03 AM	Terjon, that's an awesome document and very useful for deep character development. but I think that's going to be too much for his players. he said his players usually are very minimalist about this. I can't imagine throwing them into the deep end being a good solution to this. In my thread about using beliefs and instincts as game mechanics, I tried to codify mechanical rules for rewarding roleplaying. You don't have to use those rules if you don't want but I find writing these things down to be very helpful in fleshing out your character's outlook and spur ideas for background. Here's how I do it. Tell your players to name 3 beliefs each for their character. Follow the format "I believe in <A> therefore I will do <B>". Make sure that these beliefs will give them reason to take action of some sort. These are your quest hook ideas. So the more story concepts in there, the better. They will help you write your story, and they can help them give their character reason to do things. Then make them write down 3 instinctual reactions to certain situations. This helps them come up with a more gutteral feel to their character and can also help establish some habits that might be unique to themselves. i.e. "always scan someone's alignment" or "always be armed", or "when in doubt, run", or "I never take a shot unless I'm sure I won't miss" are examples of this. Well my thread was meant to provide an inspiration as well as to develope structure. You're probably right that it would be too much for his players but they might well be able to use elements from it to help them with ideas. In particular the samples section, I thought, might be helpful. Especially if his players resist in part because they don't know where to start.
elliott20 04-03-08, 10:13 AM	Terjon, that is definitely true. and I do think your document does a very good job at seeding concepts and ideas. I guess to me, one of the things I'm always guilty of is I overwhelm the players with prep work when a lot of players simply just want to roll out a character and get cracking. So I suppose that's why I'm always trying to be sensitive to these things at character gen. I think for people who want to spend the extra time thinking about their character (which, depending upon how the OPs players are, could be), your document serves as a fantastic method of really digging deep into the character. For me though? that document would end up consuming me way more. Personally, I like to use a more guided approach. Most of these methods I take from other gaming systems.
elliott20 04-03-08, 10:18 AM	I was going to post my steps, but my internet is kinda wonky right now. Will post later.