I’ve become increasingly convinced that people don’t want to play low level characters. Level 1 characters are neophyte adventurers. Their backstory shouldn’t include significant a mounts of adventure, combat, or heroics, because it introduces a significant amount of ludo-narrative dissonance into the campaign.
Yes. That’s one reason that the Fate system basically disallows characters ever being low level. Low level starts aren’t actually particularly fun, and they can prevent characters from having diverse epic shared backstory.
ensignwashout@startrek.website
I don’t know, zero-to-hero is one of the best story tropes out there. Totally nullifying it seems kind of wild to me. But you have to know who you’re playing, and if you’re playing a highly skilled veteran with a rich history of great deeds, you need to understand that that is not a Level 1 character.
The only time I ever loved an OP backstory for a lv1 was a friend who was a great mage of death and destruction who destroyed anything deemed beautiful out of hatred.
A witch turned him into a diamond, and his necromancy (somehow) allowed him to possess whomever held the diamond.
He was a goblin for 3 levels and then a wolf ate him and the diamond so we had a pet dog for awhile basically.
empathicvagrant@lemmy.world Backstory is probably the wrong concept for a low-level character. They, instead, have a background. Backstories are prequel fodder, while backgrounds are used to figure out character motivation, and how a character reacts to future events.
Generally speaking, you don’t want to fill in blanks you don’t need filled i, because it’s creatively limiting your future self. If the events that got you to Session 1 are too interesting, you’ve probably written too much.
I’ve become increasingly convinced that people don’t want to play low level characters. Level 1 characters are neophyte adventurers. Their backstory shouldn’t include significant a mounts of adventure, combat, or heroics, because it introduces a significant amount of ludo-narrative dissonance into the campaign.
Unless there’s a reason they’ve been de-leveled.
Yes. That’s one reason that the Fate system basically disallows characters ever being low level. Low level starts aren’t actually particularly fun, and they can prevent characters from having diverse epic shared backstory.
ensignwashout@startrek.website I don’t know, zero-to-hero is one of the best story tropes out there. Totally nullifying it seems kind of wild to me. But you have to know who you’re playing, and if you’re playing a highly skilled veteran with a rich history of great deeds, you need to understand that that is not a Level 1 character.
The only time I ever loved an OP backstory for a lv1 was a friend who was a great mage of death and destruction who destroyed anything deemed beautiful out of hatred.
A witch turned him into a diamond, and his necromancy (somehow) allowed him to possess whomever held the diamond.
He was a goblin for 3 levels and then a wolf ate him and the diamond so we had a pet dog for awhile basically.
Possession is a Ghost (the specific monster) ability that works on contact, pretty standard Necromancy shenanigans to imitate undead abilities.
empathicvagrant@lemmy.world Backstory is probably the wrong concept for a low-level character. They, instead, have a background. Backstories are prequel fodder, while backgrounds are used to figure out character motivation, and how a character reacts to future events.
Generally speaking, you don’t want to fill in blanks you don’t need filled i, because it’s creatively limiting your future self. If the events that got you to Session 1 are too interesting, you’ve probably written too much.