tabletopgaming.co.uk 91Others take a more collaborative approach
to the process, where everybody decides their
history as a group. Kids on Bikes, a game about
plucky teens facing weird mysteries and mortal
danger, dedicates most of the rst session to a
long roundtable where the players decide on
what their small town looks like, how the party
all know each other and how their relationships
stand when the action kicks o .
Even when the game or GM doesn’t
particularly call for something deep and fully
eshed-out, there are always players that seem
to revel in building the foundations of their
character’s personality. ey’re the ones who
will turn up to the rst session with a binder of
past acquaintances and family ties, as well as
tales of their apprenticeship and the inevitable
tragedy that sent them into a life on the road.
ese players are a gold mine – provided you
have time to actually read the chunky tomes they
present – but that doesn’t mean that the rest of
the party needs to be left in the shade of their
well-mapped achievements. Not everybody
wants to write up a long, detailed backstory and
that’s ne. Sometimes, you can make a little bit
of history do a lot of work.
THE THREE COMPONENTS
When I run a game that calls for some kind of
backstory, I generally ask the players to make
sure that their backstory has three things – the
same three things I found in Morris’ miniature
write-up.
Firstly, they need to have a reason for
adventuring (or investigating, exploring or
whatever else the main theme of the game
is). Even a fantasy world of dragons and
elves has innumerable cobblers, farmers and
merchants, so why has their character taken
on a life of danger and discomfort?
Second, there should be some link between
their past and their current motivations.
Sure, the bounty hunter wants to get rich, but
was that because she grew up on the streets
and saw the horrors of poverty? Is it because
they had a chance meeting with a corporate
executive and wants their luxurious lifestyle?
Finally, they need a rough end-goal or
aspiration – something they’re working towards.
Maybe they want to slay the dread necromancer
that ravaged their kingdom, maybe they just
want to be impossibly famous. ere just needs
to be some target or ideal they’re striving for –
or why are they doing this in the rst place?
So long as these are in place, you have a
pretty solid backstory to work with. ere are
plenty of details missing – names, places, dates
and the like – but all that can be lled in later.
It’s worth noting, however, that a backstory
isn’t really meant to be a complete tale all by
itself. It’s meant to be a foundation – a solid
base that the GM and players can then build
on together.LAYING STORY STONES
One of the greatest pleasures that comes from
GMing comes when you neatly tie a player’s
backstory into the current threads of the story.
ere’s nothing sweeter than having the party
seek out a criminal contact to smooth out their
nefarious plans, only for them to nd that the
guy they meet is the same ma oso their thief
ripped o for the shiny dagger they brought to
the rst session.
It instantly reminds the players that there’s
a world beyond what their characters see, andthat everything is living and breathing around
them. On top of this, it does an incredible
job of bringing a certain character into the
spotlight for a session or two, especially when
the ma oso demands a personal favour as
compensation for past “complications”.
As a rule, I try not to make the fallout from
backstory notes be explicitly negative, as that just
feels as though the players are being punished
for their creativity. Sure, things may start o
rough between the wise guy and the thief, but
at least they now know how their contact works
and whether he can be relied upon – something
they wouldn’t have with a neutral stranger. At
the same time, the player usually gets full veto
powers over elements being added or polished
up by the GM, as nobody likes having their
history changed against their will.
Every now and then, however, the backstory
threads don’t just fold into the existing story, but
rather inspire their own series of adventures.
Family obligations can come back and hit a
character out of the blue, or perhaps the chance
to achieve that rough goal appears unexpectedly.
ese are great fun and a wonderful way
to get players invested into the story you’re
weaving – though one thing I have learned over
the years is that not all players are particularly
comfortable with being thrust into a position of
attention with little to no warning.
Ultimately, a backstory should be used
as fuel for a campaign’s story, and players
should be encouraged to bring in elements of
it whenever they can. eir lives started long
before they started adventuring, after all, and
that shouldn’t be erased the moment they
strap on their armour and head o to battle
the local monsters.Kids on Bikes dedicates much
of its first session to fleshing
out players’ characters and
the world they live in