Player Characters: Emerging Complexity is A-OK
As a GM, I used to struggle with player backgrounds and PC complexity. I thought that every PC needed to be extensively plotted out down to the tiniest detail, and ignored the fact that many players don’t enjoy doing this.
Once I took off my blinders and looked at things from a different perspective — and once I’d seen for myself how enjoyable PCs who start off simple could be — this hangup fell by the wayside.
Because just as pressuring your players to write lengthy backstories doesn’t tend to end well, forcing them to start a campaign with a complex character isn’t the right approach either.
Sometimes, the most enjoyable player characters are those who start out as light sketches — little more than a handful of ideas and a dash of personality that someone thought would be fun to explore during play — and then become more and more complex and nuanced as the game progresses.
In other words: When it comes to player characters, emerging complexity is a fine approach.
The next time one of your players shows up for the first session of a new campaign with a simple PC concept and little to no backstory, make sure that they did so by choice (and not out of frustration, or because of writer’s block), and then just roll with it.
If there are specific things you need to know, ask for them (just don’t ask for too much at this stage) — but apart from that, let sketched-out characters like this evolve during play. Offering to help your players hone their PCs before the game is always a good idea; just don’t be offended if they don’t need help.
You’ll find that quite often these characters end up being more interesting — and even more complex — than those who started off fully developed, complete with massive backstories. It’s easy to paint yourself into a corner with an over-developed starting PC; one of the nice things about starting with less is that it leaves lots of room for more.
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13 Comments, Comment or Ping
JohnnFour
Great advice, Martin. In many games my players have successfully fleshed out their characters due to events that happen in-game or good roleplaying. A GM can stop and ask a player why his PC made this deciision or that choice, and it sometimes scopes out to include great character backstory and complexity.
Feb 28th, 2009 - Link
Alnakar
That’s some excellent advice, I must say. I’ve definitely noticed that neither extreme is particularly positive, though.
While I’ve definitely noticed that trying to get players to nail down exactly who their character is, where they’ve come from, and what their belief sysem is in great detail at level 1 can be extremely stifling for players, letting them (or encouraging them) to put off solidifying those details in their character for too long can have some unpleasant consequences as well. Bear in mind as I say this, the group that I run a game for tends to be pretty light on the role-play side of things to begin with, so this may not apply to most gaming groups. I’ve found that if I take too long getting around to pinning somebody down on who their character is, they may never actually figure it out for themselves, and will just continually go back and forth on their character concept. If somebody does manage to figure out who their character is from first level, however, it gives them a platform to role-play from, and most importantly it gives them a starting point from which to allow their character to evolve.
I guess it boils down to what kind of player it is, because I know some of the people around my gaming table can’t help but have some concept of who their character is after a few sessions of gaming, even if they haven’t taken the time to consciously figure it out. Other players, however, will be lost if they’re not pressured (ideally in a somewhat subtle way) to come up with a concept.
I do wonder about people’s opinions about helping players to come up with concepts for their characters, though. I’ve never been quite sure what the best way of handling the situation is. I’m always concerned that if I give a player too much input on who their character could (or should, if I don’t catch myself before I make that mistake) be, then I run the risk of having that player lose the feeling of the character really “belonging” to them. On the other hand, some people have more difficulty coming up with ideas for characters than others, and just expecting everybody to be able to come up with character concepts on their own is obviously not going to work very well either (see rant in previous paragraph).
Any suggestions?
Feb 28th, 2009 - Link
greywulf
Absolutely. I’m also a fan of the Flashback approach from 3:16 where the players can “remember” a scene from the past that helps them in their current situation. This adds depth to the character in-game and drives the action forward at the same time. I’ve encouraged that in my Mutants & Masterminds campaign (rewarding them with a Hero Point, which they can immediately spend) to good effect.
Feb 28th, 2009 - Link
Troy E. Taylor
A great deal of GMs do is reactive. Players do X, GM scrambles to find Y.
One of the reasons you see GMs push for backgrounds and character development before a game begins is to at least be a little bit (and I how do I hate this word, but here it goes …) pro-active. That is, stop a problem before it gets started. Or at least identify those things that potentially derail a game …
But so much of enjoying being in a roleplaying game is the spontaneity, especially from the players themselves.
In my experience from convention play, nothing spurs spontaneity more than dropping four nameless characters in front of a dungeon entrance and see what develops, see how the adventure plays out, and see the interaction between the players themselves.
No backgrounds, no pre-conceived notions. Just a fighter, a wizard, a thief and a cleric and a tomb of horrors to face down. And that’s exactly THE PLACE where character development really begins.
I don’t know if “emerging complexity” is the best term for this. But, boy do I appreciate when players find the voice of their character during play and develop it further.
Feb 28th, 2009 - Link
Dove
It’s better than a-ok; it’s natural and ideal.
People have a bandwidth limit when it comes to ideas. I can only come up with a really cool idea once or twice per night. I can only fill in a handful of details at a time, and most of them will be lame and simplistic at first. So if I only spend one evening working on something–a character, an encounter, an NPC, a culture, whatever . . . it might be cool, but it’s only going to be cool in one way, and it’s going to otherwise be pretty sketchy and one-dimensional. It just won’t have that many interesting and counterintuitive bits because I don’t have the bandwidth to write them!
The magic happens in the rewriting, in taking time to chew on it and interact with it and cross-pollinate it with other ideas and think about the consequences and figure out what philosophical point my subconscious is trying to make. Basically, roleplaying. The natural character dev cycle is write, roleplay, repeat. Don’t be afraid to repeat. And don’t try too hard to write more than you have the inspiration to support. I mean, you don’t want lame stuff ending up in the canon . . .
The two processes bring different things to the story. The creative writing side comes up with cool ideas in total freedom–perhaps you decide the character is a dishonored ninja seeking revenge for his dead wife. The roleplaying side adds information, explores consequences, sifts out the ideas that are cool from those that are not — you see how he pursues revenge, you visit his homeland, you meet the man who stole his honor, you develop an accent and a code of dress and an NPC friend. And then you return to the creative writing, and take the themes of honor and vengeance you’ve wound up playing and put them back into the backstory, and weave them back over the quest you’re on.
You need both. You need creative inspiration, and you need roleplaying reflection. Write little, but write often. The best stories are the ones that go through the most dev cycles. The player writes it; I rewrite it; the player changes some things and rewrites it; I write some related worldgen; we have a quest related to it, the player makes some big decisions and reveals some things, etc.
The story becomes seamless that way. And awesome.
Feb 28th, 2009 - Link
deadlytoque
Yeah, this is a great approach. I like it when I get emails from players after two sessions saying “I think I did X last night because my character had Y experience in his past…”
It can cause a little bit of strangeness. I played a character in D&D once who (it eventually emerged) thought of all sentient races as people (including goblins and kobolds) and refused to fight or kill them without necessity, and tried to stop the other PCs from being excessively violent towards them… of course, in the first session, he participated in a goblin beat-down wherein we pulled some “firm interrogation techniques” on one of the survivors for torture…
The best way to deal with little continuity errors like these, though, is just to ignore them. They happen in TV shows _all_ the time, and we just deal, because the other way lies madness.
Mar 2nd, 2009 - Link
Scott Martin
This is one of my favorite ways to develop a character. I’ve often created a character whose story looked good on paper, but fell apart as soon as the adventure started. [Often by writing the PC as competent then having the dice betray him right away...]
I like the method, but agree with Alnakar that if you don’t go back and think about expanding the character, you’ll often end up with a character that’s good for events but doesn’t develop much depth. A little prompting from the GM [like a two or three character quiz every few sessions] might be the prompt that keeps the player looking into the character’s depths– not just new powers.
Mar 2nd, 2009 - Link
csb
Do you have any advice for encouraging this development to emerge?
Mar 2nd, 2009 - Link
graylion
I am running a 4th Edition D&D game and our charcaters are now 8th level. Each has a basic concept of their character but not much complexity.
2 weeks ago I handed out a one page Character Description Contest Sheet. I listed the date all characters are due. Must include a pic, can be freehand, google image, comic book, cutout etc. The rest is a visual character description. Then we will do a round table vote. Last week I only had one turned in, so I brought in the prices to urge them on.
1st Place
2nd Place
Choice of 1 of 3 items:
01. Deck of Magic the Gather – Grixis
02. CrossGen – Scion Issues 1-5
03. A PC Gaming USB Z-Pad
All very low value but desired items. There was a flurry of responses with only a few descriptions to go.
We vote on Tuesday.
Next contest will be on background, family/siblings, enemies, etc.
Yes loot and treasure work!
Mar 5th, 2009 - Link
Martin Ralya
@Alnakar – I’m a strong proponent of helping players come of up with — and flesh out — character concepts. I also like getting that help from my GM when I’m a player.
@csb – Good question! And sure thing:
1. Sow some seeds when you create the character, even if you don’t sow very many.
2. When sowing those seeds, listen to your gut. We played a one-off of Keep on the Shadowfell when 4e came out, and my hastily-noted catchphrase — “Taste my hammer!” — grew into a basic idea of what my dwarven fighter was like.
3. Watch for opportunities for organic growth. Sometimes they’ll take place without any help from you, but it definitely works better if you recognize them when they crop up — that little nudge helps.
4. Listen to everyone else at the table, especially as they react in character to your character (or when they talk about your character OOC). You’ll learn things about your PC you didn’t even know.
Mar 7th, 2009 - Link
Lord Inar
I also am all for a “Tabula Rasa” approach. If the characters aren’t completely finished, start the game anyway. If they have points left and want to use a certain skill or feat, let them add it right then and there. You can even let them swap out things they have already taken. The only caveat is that you can’t remove something (skill, edge, feat, whatever) if you’ve ever used it in the game. Most people won’t do this, as they start out “weaker” than others, but there should be no reason not to encourage such behavior if a player is undecided at the beginning.
The backstory can then be added to piecemeal as new features are added.
May 28th, 2009 - Link
Burn_Boy
This has happened to me as a GM and as a player. My experiences as a GM haven’t always been positive. We had this one guy who had the standard fighter, always good in a group, and he had a very detailed history. he was enslaved by Orcs as a child and, as a result will hack away, without question, at Orcs, goblins and any other goblinoid creatures and can only JUST manage seeing a Half-Orc. While I liked the fact that he had a good background, it kind of ruined the story in that, the main enemies were Orcs and he’d just rush headlong into it, ruining any plans the other player’s had. Easy enough problem to fix but not without removing the Orcs from my story and thus changing my entire campaign.
As a player I had a sorcerer who had a penchant for fire spells. He was first met by the PCs after he set off a keg of gunpowder and was covered in soot and burns, earning him the nickname “Burn Boy” and with him always being called that I started always choosing flame or fire spells for my character. This helped the GM make more challenging adventures by giving us adventures with fire immune creatures and even, in the end, had a dragon who we were supposed to kill be an ancestor of mine.
Since then, I’ve always kept my backstory to a minimum and then fleshed it out in game. Makes for a much more personal game and can give the GM material to work with if something in his game gets a bit stale.
Dec 17th, 2009 - Link
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