Backgrounds!

Reyl

So! I get the feeling there is at least one other person out there who's saddened by how underutilised they are? Personally it occurred to me that they'd be a really useful tool in terms of facilitating 'character-driven' (rather than org-driven) RP - especially in that they allow one to quickly 'catch up' on who someone else's character is. For one, that's a real issue for new/returning players (such as myself!), but I also feel it'd help create cross-org RP that goes beyond "rah begone tainted scum" vs "I am really frightening!".*

I was going to wait until I'd finished writing mine before making a post, but while I'm still mulling things over (and checking with old family!) I'd love to read others'. Who has one?

* I have to thank someone (I forget exactly who and feel awful! Was it Tetra?) who Reyl had an interesting philosophical discussion re: the Light in the course of an esteem transaction - Loved it! I need more! Reyl isn't leaving Mag but I feel like conflict/contrast with other viewpoints is the best way to evolve her character beyond "not mentioning RL stuff or using excessively contemporary language, remembering to capitalise the Divine, invoking lore in passing, etc", which so far has been the limits of my RP experience :P

Tacita

I would absolutely use mine - if they could ever be edited.

This is not because I frequently decide on a whim to change my character's background; more that if I ever needed to or wished to for some reason (and I have in the past reworked major things in Taci's backstory to make the game more enjoyable/other reasons) then I would not be able to.

So since they can't, I'm never going to. Ditto history

Xenthos

Yep.  That's my biggest hangup on the whole thing.  I am not sure why they absolutely have to be locked in stone.

I'm not sure I'd write one even so, of course, but just knowing that if I have a typo or something in it and it will be there forever makes me not even want to bother.  No matter how much proofreading occurs (as evidenced by various published works that make it through with errors here and there), something can be missed... and it would just grate on me forever if it did.

Reyl

Hmm, I see what you mean. I figure if you kept it sparse enough it wouldn't matter, since there are some constants about Reyl that are never going to change (She was born in Magnagora, she had a noble-in-name-middle-class-by-nature upbringing, and other things I'm not vain enough to continue listing) but I can see why a flash of inspiration might lead to wanting to improvise something later... Bah. Idea: Make them changeable, but only under review or something? (which would understandably probably take a really long time but at least the option is there?)

EDIT: Maybe we should all just post them here on the forums? Perfectly editable here, as I'm currently illustrating :P If anyone would like to post theirs I'd love to read it, I'll put mine up when I've spoken to Revan and finished it hehe

Xenthos

Fair warning: you need a certain number of forum points in order to edit after the first hour.

Marcella

I don't believe that writing backgrounds in roleplay games that are available to the public is a good thing, because I don't like the idea of someone looking at you and knowing your history at a drop of a hat - HONOURS is good enough for me, honestly. If people want to know about me they can ask me IC.

Lerad

I personally don't see anything wrong with them, nor do I see any need to use them myself. I have had many characters across IRE games where I've used backgrounds, and I have just as many where I have not. It all boils down to my mood, and whether or not I feel like taking the time to write a novella about my character: because that's what I use it for. As far as I am concerned, it's not for anyone else to read but myself. Every time I write a background, it's for me to sound off my character's concepts, ideals, and possible points of interest I would like to develop in the future, etc. I certainly don't bother with other people's backgrounds. The real-time interaction is where this game is exciting for me. If I wanted to read, I'll grab a book off my shelves. I have no interest in other characters' backgrounds unless I'm talking to them and asking them about it.

Elanorwen

I personally always considered backgrounds to be OOC. On that note, I have no interest in ever using one. If you want to learn about any of my characters' past, you'll need to chat with them yourself.

Reyl

I guess that's the thing... they're OOC, but they give you some clues so you can then probe IC to generate some meaningful RP... That takes a certain degree of IC/OOC separation though and I can see how people might get it totally wrong and be all munchkiny knowing all your character's secrets. 

I guess it's mainly selfishly motivated - I see Reyl as being a bit of a slacker/drifter type, but I worry that trying to convey that just comes off as not bothering to RP at all, or just being OOC rude or w/e... Like, for example I want people to know that if they ask Reyl to do something and she's like "Maybe" that's intended as a hook for them to push back and put her in her place a bit, rather than taking it as "actually I was about to log off and play something else" or thinking "meh this is a player who clearly isn't interested in org-level activities and just wants to hang around in OOC clans" or whatever... whereas a quick scan of a (brief!) background would reveal that she's a bit of a spoilt rich girl who's got a rebellion complex from growing up petty nobility etc etc. Maybe I'm overthinking!

Daraius

Marcella said:

I don't believe that writing backgrounds in roleplay games that are available to the public is a good thing, because I don't like the idea of someone looking at you and knowing your history at a drop of a hat - HONOURS is good enough for me, honestly. If people want to know about me they can ask me IC.

That's generally how I feel about it, but as @Lendren noted a while ago, there are some options to determine who gets to see your background. Namely:

SET HISTORY PUBLIC/ALLIES/PRIVATE

So you could conceivably have your background written for only your benefit, locking in the central concepts, values, or events that define your character. 

But now that I think about it, declaring someone an ally has mechanical implications that are completely unrelated to whether or not they should have access to certain parts of your character's story. I would suggest a sort of perms system for character background access, but the feature seems so underutilized that any coding effort to address it would be better directed at other projects.

Lendren

You can use a background to tell the whole story of who you are, but that's not the only way to use it. You can also just use it to set the tone and whet the appetite for your IC interactions. It's not the dish, it's just the text on the menu that makes you hungry for the dish.

That's why Lendren's is more the posing of questions than the offering of answers. And Tsianina's is more about setting tone than actually telling you about her (though it does say the couple of things I wanted it to say about her, too).

Lavinya

One thing it does is it forces you to actually get into the roleplay mindset. This is a GOOD thing. You have to think about where your character has come from, about its experiences and think how they would have shaped and developed. It takes the character away from simply being 'me as a fantasy race in a fantasy world where I have cool powers' to being an at least minimally thought about stand alone character, with feelings, opinions, and more importantly, flaws. A noble heritage may lead to arrogance or being a spoiled brat, paupers may be humble or fiercely determined to be rich and powerful, ruthlessly so. Maybe hurtful relationships have made them wary and distant of others, maybe it inspired an unwavering romance, to find the one perfect soul mate. It gives the framework to how your character thinks and lives - the why to them constantly making the same bad decision, (falling for the wrong kind of mate?), why they even vote the way they do in elections (Nobility don't deserve half of what they have, I'm going to vote for the unknown peasant with fire in his belly! As opposed to So and so is my ooc friend, voting for them.)

The sheer uncommonness of roleplay (I know it's out there, I've seen the logs) that is beyond like what Reyl said "not mentioning RL stuff or using excessively contemporary language, remembering to capitalise the Divine, invoking lore in passing, etc" has always been a peeve of mine, because the whole reason I got into this mud was the roleplay, this amazing world with the best lore and history I have found to date, where we get to interweave our own stories. I don't think some of us realise just how lucky we are to have the tools (and lore) we have.

I'm on the fence about using the mechanical histories as they are - they should at the least be editable - but I urge and encourage everyone to at least think about one, even if you don't take the time to write it. Make your character unique, it makes them richer, deeper, and all around more interesting. I even like the idea of deliberately lying in your history (I've done it on another game) where only the whole truth is revealed with actual interactions with the character. And that brings out the whole why would they lie? What are they hiding? See where I'm going with this?

Anyway, novella over. I'd like to see a change to the mechanics to make these more palatable to everyone, editable, at the least, perhaps also with permissions for viewing, etc.

Reyl

Agree agree agree! So well put.

Shaddus

I'm open to this, but I would rarely use it. The only time I've ever bothered to think up history in Lusternia, it was for my latest bard when he got adopted.