Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Eagle Prince 06-26-03, 04:11 AM	Growing up (about 8-18) my friends and I always played LARP. Grade School - Middle School, it was more of an obsession... we'd play everyday after school until dark, and in the summer and on weekends, we would stay at each other's houses to play from daylight till dark. That's obviously a serious amount of roleplay--long campaigns, short campaigns, tons of campaigns. When we would start a new campaign, whoever was DMing would spend awhile thinking of a new world and then develop it as we went along. After he took awhile thinking up the basics, we'd "make" our characters--usual race choices were human, dwarf, titankin, and mutant (think Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but you can choose which animal). Occassionally there were others--rock gnomes, ogres, trolls (think orcs), elves, faeries--but after so long we had certain standards, just like d&d. Now someone might have something specific in mind, like a wizard's apprentice or noble, but usually after everyone decided on their basics, the DM would make up a background for them, often generic enough you could invent your own details. I'm guessing we started doing backgrounds that way simply because it was easier than a player thinking up something for a new world he knows nothing about. Just for an example, lets say someone wanted to play a human barbarian. The DM might say his background story is he is turning of age and has to go out on an adventure to prove his manhood. Then someone else might want to play a nobleman fighter, so the DM tells him he is traveling to a neighboring lord to discuss a land dispute that's been between the two families for generations. Someone else wants to play a Titankin, so his people have sent him to scout a nearby hillside because of rumors of a troll army uprising. Then all three meet in the hills and the adventure begins. In memory of the good-old days, I was thinking of making a list of random, generic-style backgrounds that work for about any d&d game. So what are your opinions on random backgrounds, are they cool for the majority or minority of games?
lancer626 06-30-03, 07:35 PM	I think backgrounds are better if the players choose them. That way, you have a direction in which to go, or a past that the DM can use in the adventure. I've plaed with people who don't really have backgrounds, and it makes for relatively hack and slash type of games. Even a background which is left open, where you don't have any memory of their past can be used. The personalized flavor that the player can give it brings the richness of role playing out. That's just me though. Some people just want to gain experience and cooler weapons and items and don't care about the story.
Airsucker 06-30-03, 10:58 PM	I generally prefer to do my own BG as part of the character concept. However, a random BG can ba a challenge to a good roleplayer. Once I did play a character that was made by the GM. It was the first and only male character I've ever played.
Eagle Prince 07-01-03, 04:16 AM	I've used the Hero's Builder Guide alot. Everyone else I've ever mentioned it to says it sucks, but I've really liked it. It has some random background stuff in it, but only sort of random ideas. For example, rolling up childhood events you might get "survived childhood danger" or "went on a journey", it leaves it pretty open on what exactly that means. For me, I'll have one or two things in mind I want for sure. Sometimes I might have an idea that is very specific, but more often then not I don't and random stuff seems a little more fun. I've played with a few serious roleplayers who always let the dice choose anything you couldn't choose for yourself in real life... you can choose what you'll do (class), but you can't choose your family or race, gender, etc. I always see people on the boards looking for random high/weight/age charts for races... I'm kind of surprised not as many people are interested in random backgrounds.
crucible 07-01-03, 05:21 PM	As a Gamemaster I tend to let the players create their own background for the characters, but I present a theme for the campaign that I advise the players to consider. For instance in the current campaign that I am running I told the players they would start play in an underground "city" of mutants and outcasts in the old subway system of a futuristic metropolis. They would have little money and would be misfits of some sort. They came up with some interesting charcters; a superstrong ex-cop framed for the accidental killing of another cop, a woodland spirit who lost her home and is trying to develop a connection to the spirits of the city, a vampire hunter who has recently been turned into a vampire himself (killing his family when the blood hunger took over), an amnesiatic timejumper who has no idea of his past, and a brain in a bottle with amazing psionic abilities. I wouldn't mind seeing random "Game Themes" for a Gamemasters to set their campaign around. This would be a nice complement for random character backgrounds. I don't know how useful this would be since most Gamemasters probably like to come up with their own themes but it would be a nice little reference piece to spark ideas. Just a thought. Daryl B
Edymnion 07-02-03, 02:55 AM	Random background is better than no background I suppose. But like was already mentioned, you might want to look into the Hero Builder's Guidebook for random background stuff, or into AEG's Toolbox book, which all DMs should have because this thing is literally nearly 200 pages of random tables, for everything from random encounters to backgrounds to what the corpses look like and what spell components they might have on them.
Fox Lee 07-03-03, 09:38 AM	Good as a source of inspiration, or for a lite-and-easy type game; bad when they are forced upon players who want to make their own backgrounds, and can't relate to the random background they are given. I've experienced both good any bad there - there are times when a random background idea has grown into something really special and cool, and the character just wouldn't have been the same without it. However, I've also been in games which were completely ruined by random generation, because everybody felt so detached from their characters that they simply didn't care enough to play them properly. So, the answer is yes. They should be used wisely, and when everybody agrees to them, but never forced upon a group.