I am writing a last-minute player advice post, one last signpost on the road to player greatness. You want to be a great player? You should write a 30-page backstory.
I hear your eye roll from over here, you think I am joking. No, I am dead serious (and thank you again Dante, for the inspiration and encouragement to write this one). Let me explain.
There are many ways to be a good player, most of them overlap with being a good friend, passing kindergarten, or just learning how to play the game well.
But a great player? One who calls forth the best from their table, who makes memories so golden we tell tales of their deeds for years to come?
If you want to be a great player, write a 30 page backstory. Or 2, 10, what have you--a LONG backstory, at the start.
Next, talk to the GM. Ask questions about the game world before even the first session, be excited to play. Learn what in your backstory doesn't fit the tone, before anyone has seen it yet. Learn what you can and can't have as a player starting out: you likely aren't rich, or famous, or sporting any magic items.
Finally, edit the backstory down.
To two to three sentences.
What do you do with the rest of the backstory? Anything that is consistent with those two to three sentences stays as your past--you can share it anytime the table asks. Space out those infodumps, they are for the slow moments at table.
Anything that isn't connected to those 2-3 sentences? It hasn't happened yet. That's your future dreams, right there.
You have now created a character with a rich past, who has wants and goals and plans. And they might die to a goblin arrow in the next session, or live to a ripe old age, covered in glory. Play to find out what happens; your heart will be in your throat.
Do this, and it will be your best role-play. You already brought excitement to the GM and arrived with a clear vision of a character to play, with plenty of ideas of who and what you care about going forward. You will PLAY.
It will be your best role-play. If a player doesn't know what their character wants in the world, it is hard to grab on to the world and make it REAL. You have that, right there, in your not-backstory.
Don't believe me? Let me tell you the story of Martini. G____ was a first time D&D player. He wrote up a long backstory for Martini before we started playing, then asked me (the GM) if certain elements were acceptable. Could Martini be rich? Well yes, if his current wealth was inacessible and he was poor to start. Could he have a gun? Artificer, sure. Could he have kids?
Oh...fuck yeah. When a player asks to have an in-world family, that is like handing the GM a lifeline to pull that character into the Game. I don't mean I planned to gratuitously attack his family for some cheap side-plot; I wanted his family to show up regularly to pull him into shenanigans.
I asked G____ to edit the backstory down to a few pages, and to only share a few sentences to start the session, so everyone could have a turn to share.
Session 1, the players are on a wagon to Brandonsford, and it's time to introduce themselves. G___ introduces his gnome artificer, Martini, a washed-up cranky old inventor who has seen it all, who left his successful business because of a broken heart (his wife cheated on him), and now is adventuring to regain his lost wealth and send money to his kids. Then we go around the table.
Someone follows up with G___, asks him about his wife and kids. Then, the floodgates open and the heavens sing. For G___, in his enthusiasm, regales a set of nearly complete strangers with a three-page long story of woe. Martini had indeed seen it all, lost and gained several fortunes, won his true love, and was rich and successful (near the gnome equivalent of 45) when he discovered that his young daughter was not his own. She would not stop growing, being not half-human, half-gnome, but rather half-human, half-goliath. He hit the bottle, he hit hard drugs, addiction, living in the street, selling his body for cash, and then, inspired by his seven-foot red-headed daughter, who had sought him out in the mud, he decided to turn his life around, pay off his many debts, and become an adventurer to find riches and self-respect.
For ten spell-bound minutes, we all listened and laughed and even cried we were laughing so hard. The ice was so thoroughly broken we forgot there was ice. That backstory was a gift.
Martini was Danny DeVito as a gnome, and he was funny as hell and opinionated and mature from the get go. His daughter came into our game as a player a year later, a barbarian with a Pink Pony Club, searching for her missing father, who had disappeared into a magical contract sent by a bounty hunter.
What happened next I can't tell you, G____ had some IRL events and could not balance playing and parenting anymore, so he stepped away. He is still everyone's friend, happily. And our table still talks about Martini--damn he was fun.
Two minutes to go before the advice blogwagon is over at midnight. You? Go get started on that backstory, I want 10 pages on my desk by morning.
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