Help with Character Backgrounds

[Kronok]

We are about to start a new campaign. The players are going to create new characters and I would like to build very detailed backgrounds using a series of questions.

I thought I remembered a questionnaire someone posted? Any help?

I was hoping to find a Trek-specific one, but any will do.

Thanks in advance.

[USS Kochanski]

http://www.burningvoid.com/users/hea...questions.html

http://www.kindred.net/rs/Questions.htm

http://www.ifvchicago.com/process/wr...uestions.shtml

try these, or a conglomeration of t hem.

[Kronok]

Thank you so much!!!

Anyone else???

[Owen E Oulton]

Let's see... Trek-specific, eh?

Personal...
Name
Species
Ethnic Group (if applicable)
Birthplace
Marital Status/Spouse(s)/Child(ren)
Parents/Siblings/Extended Family/Clan
Friends/Contacts/Patrons/Proteges/et cetera

Physical...
Height
Weight
Skin Colour/Complexion
Hair Colour/Style
Eye Colour
Distinguishing Marks (Visible scars/Tattoos/Pigmentation pattern/et cetera)

Medical...
Birthdate
Age Physical/Apparent
Handedness
Blood Type
Medical Problems (Allergies/Chronic Diseases/et cetera)
Physical Advantages

Favourite...
Food/Drink
Music/Composer/Performer
Book/Author/Genre
Holonovel

Recreational...
Workout/Sports
Holodeck Session
Routine Social Gatherings
Hobbies/Interests

Professional...
Areas of Expertise
Efficiency Rating
Areas of Improvement/Study

Psycholocical...
Demeanour/Attitude
Favoured Species/Ethnic Group
Reasons
Least Favoured Species/Ethnic Group
Reasons
Phobias/Psychological Limitations/et cetera


I normally don't try to figure out all this before beginning play - I like to take a few sessions to get into the skin of a character. Likewise, as a GM I like to have some flex to introduce elements from a character's background which may not be established. Different strokes for different folks.

[Kronok]

Originally posted by Owen E Oulton
I normally don't try to figure out all this before beginning play - I like to take a few sessions to get into the skin of a character. Likewise, as a GM I like to have some flex to introduce elements from a character's background which may not be established. Different strokes for different folks.

Normally, I’d agree with you Owen. However, it is the difference between bringing a character, rather than a character sheet, to the gaming table. I attribute this to gaming with or without True Roleplayers.

If the game consists of fresh out of the Academy cadets? Sure, no background could work, but the characters seem so mono-dimensional.

At least with ICON, the characters’ tours have titles: Frontier, Intelligence, Command training…. You knew a little about a character’s past due to the title of the tours and training.

We have 3 to four players. One of them makes great characters with very vivid and well-rounded backgrounds. Adventures with some form of personal meaning to that character are easy to design.

The other players….? Well, the adventure is their roll play. It’s usually pretty fun, but could be so much more IF the GM has a background to build upon and work with.

I am hoping this questionnaire will help.

Thank you so much for creating what you have. It is great. I will be building a big list that should work well for our group.

[Owen E Oulton]

"Normally, I’d agree with you Owen. However, it is the difference between bringing a character, rather than a character sheet, to the gaming table. I attribute this to gaming with or without True Roleplayers."

No matter how much detail you've worked out in advance, it's still just a character sheet until you've played it.

I'm not saying I come to the table with no concept in mind - the very nature of character creation requires one to have some details worked out. For example, I choose Advantages and Disadvantages for their role-play value rather than their Min/Max value, so the choices I make then paint the figure in broad strokes right from the start.

What I'm saying is that I much prefer a more improvisational development process which allows the character to evolve and find its own voice over the course of the first few sessions. If anything, I find that working out too much of the minutae ahead of time results in a more sterile experience, where you're acting out a set of inflexible pre-programmed traits, rather than feeling one's way into the character's psyche as it develops during interactive role-play. As with real life, the character is shaped and moulded by the world it inhabits.

It's a process I've arrived at slowly over 23 years of gaming. Sure, sometimes there are characters where the concepts just flow like a stream and I do develop a lot of history - I found this happening with a Dark Conspiracy character I created. The character was an author, an ex-special forces/ex-cop/ex-mercenary who had written his autobiography and a series of best-selling adventure novels. He was in his mid-forties, and I envisioned him attracting women who were drawn to the air of danger around him - elegant upper-society women in their thrities and forties. He had a classic Hertz GT350H Shelby Mustang. I actually wrote 3 chapters of his autobiography, dealing with the three phases of his earlier career. Then, during the first adventure, the entire character concept was raped by the GM - the women became teenie-bopper groopies and he systematically destroyed the car the character treasured. Bah!

On the other tentacle, one of my longest-playing characters started out as a very simple concept - Take Hannibal Smith and Howlin' Mad Murdoch from The A-Team and cross 'em with Han Solo. Hannibal Murdoch quickly evolved during play into one of the most richly textured and deeply satisfying characters I've ever played. As an example, I knew all along that he smoked cigars, but it wasn't until a fair ways into play that it turned out that his favourites were El-Ropo Super-Basso-Profundo factory seconds which challenged the life support systems of the ship to a dangerous degree.

It's like art - I prefer the looseness of Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec to the ordered pointilism of Seurat. Tastes vary.