Backstories

It’s normally around this stage of the character creation process (you have your concept! Your character sheet is imminent!) that you start thinking about your character’s backstory.

For Dark Metropolis, we would like you to take the word ‘Backstory’, put it in a small box, and store that box safely away in a shadowed, forgotten corner, because we don’t want your character’s ‘Backstory’, at least, not as it is conventionally understood. We’re doing things a little differently!

Why are we making this change?

Backstories can be fun, exciting and interesting things that give the STs further insight into a character and their motivations.

But:

What do they actually add to the game?

Many times we have seen absolutely fascinating backstories never, ever come into play in the course of a game. We have seen bids for plot hooks in the form of mysteries within backstory that don’t inform us, the STs, of what the player wants, so we focus on other stories we know how to tell. We have seen hugely complex arcs completed within backstory: emotional journeys, betrayals, character growth and development that is only on paper and never ‘on-screen’. We’ve seen great seeds for plots that do develop in game, but are so personal to the character that it becomes a show for one, the character either only pursuing it in downtime, or by themselves during games.

In all of these cases, we see interesting stories that, because of the way they are presented, never get told. And we want Dark Metropolis to be all about working together to tell these stories.

The traditional Backstory tends to focus on:

-What has happened to the character in the past
-Relationships or people no longer relevant to the character
-Events that could have been interesting to explore in play
-Lots of detail on things that do not inform or add to present play
-Creating lots of specifics that may preclude being flexible with the character to involve others
-Mysteries that involve it being a mystery to the player as well, leaving the STs with nowhere to start seeding plot
-Mysteries with a very short-term or narrow arc
-Mysteries with a single access point for play that do may not fit to the game the STs want to run

So how are we changing things for Dark Metropolis?

So what we want from you is a little different. We want to focus on:

-Current relationships with PCs and NPCs
-How your character lives and survives
-How their past informs their present in a very concrete way, and how that impacts their choices and priorities
-What is happening to them now
-What journeys they are taking, and how you can see them developing in the future.
-Leaving openings and flexibility to be collaborative with others, especially newer characters
It’s also important noting that in Dark Metropolis, all of the characters are a lot younger. There’s not as much history to each character as there can be in another game, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing at all!

And of course, past events hugely inform present circumstances and motivations, so we’re not going to be avoiding talking about your character’s history. Far from it! But as you’ll see, we’re going to be relating past experiences much more closely to the game, and the stories of others.

How are we going to do this?

At the 2nd development session we will have a pro forma we would like you to fill out about your character, which will include feeding habits, where they live, and what sort of things they do with their nights. In addition to this, all players will answer some questions about their character’s past!
We’ve broadly categorized different points of a character’s past life into the following stages:

-Human life
-The Embrace
-Recent Unlife

For each of these stages we have a number of different leading questions that we hope will inspire you to develop various aspects of your character, in a way that also creates links with other characters. Fans of the Apocalypse engine game Monsterhearts may recognise this approach!

We would like you to pick 2 questions from each category and start thinking about answers to them. You don’t have to pick them out now; you can decide on Satuday. We would recommend leaving definite answers until the character development session on Saturday 29th November: as you will see, answering most questions will end up involving you in other characters’ lives!

Human Life
How did another PC save your life when you were mortal?
What happened when another PC fed from you when you were human?
How does another PC remind you of someone from your mortal life?
What connection does another PC have with one of your Touchstones?
What action do you still feel guilty about committing as a mortal?
What terrible thing happened the last time you saw your mortal family?
How did another PC try to ruin your mortal life while you were still alive?
How did a relative of yours find out that you are a vampire, and what did you do?
What PC is jealous of (or helped you attain) your greatest mortal achievement?
Which PC do you need to keep your mortal family away from, and why?

The Embrace
How did another PC interfere with your Embrace?
Who witnessed your Embrace without you or your sire’s knowledge?
What secret is your sire keeping from you?
What are you keeping secret about the circumstances of your Embrace?
Why didn’t your sire embrace their first choice of childe?
Why is the identity of your sire a secret?
What went wrong during your Embrace?
Why did you almost refuse to be Embraced, and why were you ultimately Embraced?
How did you convince your sire to Embrace you despite their misgivings?
Why are you embarrassed about the circumstances of your Embrace?

Recent Unlife
How did the person who recruited you into your Covenant convince you to join?
Why is another PC your rival?
Why is another PC your closest ally?
Which Clanmate, PC or NPC, do you look up to as a perfect example of the Clan and why?
To what depths have you sunk to keep your Kindred and mortal life separate?
What shames you about how you feed?
Who stole territory from you?
Which PC knows about the thing or person you value most?
Who did you kill when feeding?
What enemy did you make when claiming territory for yourself?

A final note:
If you’ve already started making a traditional backstory, think about the following questions:
-If it’s in your character’s backstory, can it be in their present story instead?
-If you’re making up characters (especially Kindred characters), how can they link to the wider setting and to other people’s stories? Would it be more interesting to talk to the STs and incorporate NPCs as a core part of the setting?
-Do you need to pin down every detail of their life right now, especially their mortal life?
-Have you remembered to think about the realities of their present? Things like:
                -Who do you know?
                -What are you doing?
                -Why are you doing it?
                -How do you feed?
                -Where do you live?