99 Problems But A Backstory Ain’t One

There are two complaints I hear often in my GMing circles:

“My players refuse to send me any backstory, how do I get them to be more invested?!”

vs.

“Gods, my player wrote me 32 pages of backstory, what is the point of that, the story hasn’t even happened yet, I’m not reading that!! They’re level 1!!“

Okay, so, I have a lot to say on both of these comments, and as usual, this is probably just nonsense rambling, but I loathe people who say both of these sentences. You’re looking for a unicorn-specific level of investment from players and that’s ridiculous.

First of all, let me say up-front that I am excluding talking about people who suffer from extreme protagonist syndrome and make the game un-fun for other people at the table. Those people are a problem no matter how long of a backstory they write, and they aren’t who I’m talking about today. I’m talking about at least half-decent players and the differences in their level of investment and creative freedoms.

So, let’s talk about the first sentence because it’s pretty straightforward – the problem of players not being invested enough to give the GM any sort of information on who their character is. On the one hand, some people like to get a feel for their characters in play before they start really thinking about them. I get that – Tolfos, my first PC I ran with for over three years, didn’t have any backstory until about a year in. Mostly, I wasn’t sure what I was doing or that I even needed it. But in that case, I still wrote a backstory – it just came later! While I’m personally not a fan of players who do that method, I think it’s perfectly valid. There are also some games (especially stuff like MÖRK BORG) by their very nature don’t really need backstories (because your characters will probably die 30 times a session, and there’s hardly any time or reason to write more than a sentence.). So we have some pretty valid reasons why it’s okay to not write a backstory immediately. That does leave the problem of players who never write any backstory though – the ones who just don’t care to write one.

As bankuei writes on trying to make people do things: “‘How do I make them want what I want? How do I change who they are?’ There’s no answer to that. It’s an unsolvable problem”. If someone doesn’t want to write a backstory it’s because they don’t want to write one. If you want to play with people who write backstories, then you have to find people who like writing backstories. The kinds of stories I want to explore require players who want to write backstories, and I won’t play with people who don’t, but I still won’t chastise anyone for not being interested in writing one. Put the backstory requirement up-front in your game ad and communicate your needs.

So, you’ve found people who want to write backstories, at the minimum length required for your games to run. But, oh no, some of these people are too invested in their backstories! It’s time for the complaints against 32-page writers (I admittedly fall into this category):

First, there’s the matter of strain on the GM. On the one hand, it’s true that as a GM you don’t necessarily have a lot of time, and you already put in a disproportionate amount of work. I can understand not wanting to read [insert however many pages is too long for you] of backstory that your players have written. However, I don’t think this is a good excuse to complain about people who write these lengthy backstories. I think if you don’t have time to read backstories, that is where you tell your players up-front that you just don’t have time to read more than [x] pages and set limits for your table on how much material they can provide you. Set expectations and boundaries – if you let it be a free-for-all and then complain that someone sent you a novel I feel like that isn’t the fault of the person who wrote the novel, it’s another fault in communication.

Alternatively, one could take that disproportionate amount of work you put into the campaign as a GM and realise that for the players who want to put in extra work, or just as much, the only real space they have to exercise that passion is in their character’s backstory. These players care enough about their characters that they have fun putting extra work in. I see that as a very good sign. They’re appreciating your work, aren’t they? Appreciate their work back!

One of the other biggest complaints I see is “this character is only level one – he shouldn’t have any backstory!”. My opinion on that is if you’re a dedicated roleplayer, and your character is an adult, he’s lived a long life already, even if he’s only level one! I just turned 29 on the launch of this blog, and looking back at my life now, well, while I haven’t slain any dragons, I do have a wealth of life experiences I pull from that have shaped who I am today. Those experiences are important in shaping a person. No one exists in a vacuum. I wrote pages upon pages of backstory for a character once (though I didn’t send it all to my GM, it was just for me) and it was all just exploring relationships with others and figuring out his personal values and bonds. On that note, however, there is the problem of people including things like dragon slaying and superheroic feats: there’s a bit of a valid complaint in “he can’t have fought off a dragon! That makes no sense at level one!”. While it’s true that there is a bit of tonal dissonance there and a lack of realism… I think that just comes down to not everyone being particularly good at writing a backstory. But, as that can be fixed with gentle constructive criticism, I don’t think that matters too much either:

I am an artist – all of the art you see here on my blog posts was done by me (a lot of that is so I don’t have to worry about crediting anyone) and I frequent a lot of art and writing and creative communities. And you know what, some of the people I hang out with are, objectively, not ‘professional’ artists. They’re not very professional writers. But you know why they aren’t? Because they’re new, because they haven’t practised for years, or because they’re like thirteen years old (which is usually inclusive of both the previous two categories)! Do I run around in my online communities and tell these artists that their art is terrible? No, of course not – I fucking look at their art and give them a genuine compliment for the good bits I see and encourage them to keep going, because I love seeing people create stuff and put effort into things and I don’t want to discourage that flame of creativity. They will get better in time. I am a fan of their work.

In that same vein, I am also a fan of my players. I want to be a fan of their characters, too. Writing a good backstory is an art – both in terms of the quality of the writing and the efficiency of it. Honestly? I’d much rather support my players’ excitement in whatever way I can – even if that means reading their terrible unpublished Mary Sue novel.