Build Better Backstories, Part 2

Last week, we talked about backstories. Be sure to read that post before this one, if you haven't already. It might even be worth it to reread it. Today, we're going to focus on tools and resources that can be helpful in generating backstories. This is a little more GM-focused than last week, as these are tools that should be given out to a whole table, not something done individually. Like last week, this is pretty much a pure RPG post, not a history post, so if you're only here for the history content, this is your warning. History posts should be returning next week.

Important caveat: Neither of these are things that I've yet tried out in my games. These are just musings that I've had while running my current game, focusing on how I could provide more structure to my players to ensure that they have good backstories for next time. My current campaign has been going for a while now--2 years?--so there hasn't been an opportunity for me to experiment with these yet.

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The Questionnaire, from Dread

Dread is a best-selling horror RPG from The Impossible Dream that uses a Jenga tower as its core action resolution mechanic as a way to build tension. You can buy it on DriveThruRPG. While I have not yet run a game of Dread--my group is online, so getting us all together for a system that centrally relies on an in-person mechanic is difficult to arrange–I have run a card-based hack of it that was... ok. It wasn't great, but it worked for the purposes of "something Dread-related that can be played over Zoom." Hopefully, my group will all be in person sometime soon and we can test out real Dread.

While Dread is mechanically pretty light, with no stats or anything like that to be determined, it does have a well-defined character-building procedure based on narrative. Because Dread is largely balanced for one-shots, not long campaigns (it's a horror game based around slowly dying and being picked off, essentially, so that's not a great genre for something that will last a dozen sessions), it also tries to address one of the goals that I raised with backstories last week: it's meant to help you clarify your character, so that you have a strong personality in session 1, rather than needing to play for a few sessions to get your feet under you with the character.

The creation method in Dread involves the GM putting together a questionnaire that players will answer as part of their character-building. The GM creates this beforehand, "in order to tailor the characters to the story they have planned. Each character should have a unique questionnaire."

While I think in a normal RPG, every character having a unique questionnaire might be tricky--particularly as a first step for backstory--I think the basic concept of a questionnaire would be very useful. It is a chance to state plainly the thematic conflict of your world/campaign, which we discussed last week; for example, in a campaign where killing and murder should be taken very seriously (not your typical hack-and-slash D&D game), a question might be "have you ever killed before?"

Also a key part of the questionnaire is that the players should be instructed to never answer yes or no, even if that's all the question asks. Each answer should, in some way, tell a story. For example, answering "have you ever killed before," should not be met with just a "yes"--it should come with the story of that first kill. An answer of "no" might be met with a time that the character came close but could not bring themself to do it. The point here is to show scenes that reveal morality, thought-process, and emotional state, all of which make playing the character easier.

By having the GM purposefully design the questionnaire, you elevate this method over a system that is more generic (I'll talk about one option like that later in this post), so that the players engage with your world while writing their backstories. For example, "where are you from?" is a generic question, but if your campaign is going to take place exclusively in one city, a better question might be "were you raised in town? If not, why did you come here? If yes, what was your favorite childhood haunt to visit?"

Dread also encourages the GM to include at least one intrusive question. This creates a reality for the character and asks them something to get at the core of their morals. For example: "Why are you married if you aren’t in love?" This creates a situation where the character is both married and not in love. Particularly in today's general TTRPG atmosphere that emphasizes player choice, this might feel weird to us as GMs: what if that intrusive question does not align with the character being imagined? However, I think the value of the intrusive question is significant. In a more open, campaign-oriented RPG than Dread, where you want more creativity rather than a staged situation like in a one-shot, I'd offer a choice of intrusive questions. If being married is not in the character vision, you can ask "Why do you feel responsible for the loss of a loved one?" and let the player choose which one of these questions they'd rather answer. It still is somewhat of an imposition on their character creation process, but restriction breeds creativity, and you can use these questions as important fodder for moments in the campaign.

Another option for intrusive questions is to have them be part of a questionnaire sequence, rather than a single one. There might be a preliminary questionnaire that is identical for everyone, meant to establish some basic relationships between the characters and the world. Then, based on those responses, the GM poses an additional slate of questions that might pry a little deeper and be more intrusive, but are based on the answers from the basic questions. This might still lead to some contradictions between a player's original character vision as they answer part 1 and what they might need to reimagine in order to answer part 2, but I think a well-designed questionnaire series would allow for a framework that still allows for some basic character vision choices in part 1 (not forcing everyone into an archetype or assigning archetypes), and then following it up with a better and more tailored questionnaire in part 2.

This two-step questionnaire is what I'm planning to do for my next campaign/one shot, once my current game ends (probably within the next few months, if my pacing estimates are right... though I can't be sure, this campaign has already run longer than it was initially planned).

I'm not going to share all the advice in creating a questionnaire from the Dread rulebook for plagiarism reasons, so if this system of a questionnaire appeals to you, definitely check it out on DriveThruRPG. The book offers advice to GMs on writing a questionnaire as well as guidance to players on how to answer a questionnaire to get maximum benefit from it.

Backstory Cards

I haven't tried these out for myself, but Galileo Games has produced a very popular line of backstory cards. You can buy them on DriveThruRPG as well.

Backstory cards have a similar premise to the questionnaire from Dread but with a few differences. You're still being given prompts that are meant to spur your character creation in more interesting directions. You're still being asked "intrusive" questions, though these are a bit more open-ended.

Backstory cards shine in comparison to Dread's questionnaire in two ways. First, they are easier for the GM to prep. You don't need to come up with unique questions or spend a bunch of time tailoring for each character. This comes at the cost of being more general, but it is certainly a faster and easier thing for the GM. Second, they are more collaborative in their focus. Most of the questions connect your character to another character. There are symbols on each card that references another character, so you're essentially getting a randomized prompt. If you're struggling to generate campaigns that have a reason for your party working together--the trope of "you all meet in a tavern" is common for a reason--then backstory cards are going to help a lot in creating those interpersonal character bonds.

However, each of these benefits comes with a dark side. The ease of prep means that one of the questionnaire's main benefits--the ability to connect players to the world--is lost. This isn't a problem for GMs who like their worldbuilding to be a wholly collaborative thing, but for me--and likely for many of you, if you're reading this blog--I prefer to have a little more GM-control over worldbuilding to try to keep the historical realism that's a focus of this blog. The ease of prep also makes it feel to me like you're losing some of the character specificity that you'd have from the questionnaire. You cannot tailor a random card draw, so you might get a card that entirely doesn't fit with a character concept. The same problem exists in the questionnaire, but then there's GM discretion to customize the questionnaire in a particular way without it feeling as much like a fiat as ruling out a card.

The collaborative focus also has dark sides. I always try to build a reason that the party has formed in my basic campaign pitch, so I do not need them all to have backstory connections with one another. (This is more a non-issue than a real downside for me). But I also think heavy backstory connections can actually be detrimental. If player A and player B have shared backstory elements, but A ends up playing the character with a different personality than B was imagining, it can disrupt B's sense of their own character. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, but I don't think all your characters knowing each other from their backstories is necessarily a good thing--particularly when you're able to give a reason for the party's existence by virtue of the campaign premise. As an example, I could have the party all be called together to form an elite military fighting force; I could put in the questionnaire "why were you commissioned to join this special forces unit?" as a way to make sure that they have a reason to be there, but I don't need to do that just through interpersonal connection.

Additionally, I like secrets! I know that this is not seen as a positive in many RPG circles, but I think it is fun when a character has secrets that the others can discover during play. Those secrets need to be carefully developed, as secrets can be alienating for other players, and they need to be things that the player & GM are going to try to make sure come out to the table during the campaign, but I think those moments of piecing together someone's backstory are really fun, if that story is something you figure out rather than being just a lore dump by a player reading their backstory. Think about narrative RPG video games, like Baldur's Gate 3: you learn more about your companions through play, and it is way more interesting than if you just knew all their lore going in. Completely collaborative backstory generation, like with backstory cards, makes secrets pretty much impossible. There can still be in-character secrets, but that loses some of the power of a good, well-timed reveal.

In short, backstory cards have good things and bad things, especially when compared to something more tailored like the questionnaire from Dread. I'm certainly not going to say not to buy it, and I think Galileo Games makes some of the best versions of these backstory cards that I've seen. I probably personally will not use them in my games, but if you're looking for something that is more collaborative and relationship-between-characters focused, I think it's a product worth picking up. Again, they are also available on DriveThruRPG.

Conclusion

I think either of these products would be a beneficial tool for building better backstories, in partnership with the more "system-neutral" advice that I talked about last week. I'm going to be trying out a Dread-style questionnaire in my next campaign/one-shot; we'll see how that works out, but I'm optimistic based on my experience with Dread!

Let me know in the comments or by email if you have other products or resources that you use to build strong backstories that link your characters into the world effectively!

Next week, we'll return to focusing on history and myths, kicking off a new series about the mythology of goblins. Be sure to subscribe to the blog to have it delivered to your inbox so that you can be sure that you do not miss that next week! Thank you for reading!