Background Story

[Yarulion]

LOL poll results are now coming in at +/- 3.125%

Good job, Syzerian      

[Xordan]

Very important. I base everything action I make around my history.

[Xandria]

Very Important

PlaneShift strives to be a true RPG, and you can\'t effectively roleplay if you have no background.  I imagine it would be similarly difficult if you were acting in a movie/play as one of the characters, but were only told what to say and you have no backstory.  How could you put any feeling into it?  Any emotion?

I remember from my human relations class in college, one of the first things we were taught was that \"we are a product of our experiences\" and that \"our experiences affect the way we view the world around us.\"  If you had no past, how would you know how to act, think, or say?

Now all I need to do is stop being a hypocrite and go write my backstory...

[DepthBlade]

You need a backround story, or history in things..unless you decide to start out as a child? Your history is your life, downfall...or...fame? Having that backround story helps intensify your future situations and self expressions in perhaps things you have encountered before. Basicly all in all it helps your Character Role-Play, without it your nothing.

One exception...Say your history is something you can\'t remeber because you had Amnesia or something..thats a backround history all in its own.

[FlippySeal]

One of the first rules of war: Know thine enemy.

I shall indeed know mine, by researching them at the local library! :]

[acraig]

I guess the follow up question is who will stay true to their background story if it negatively affects their game. ( ie they cannot hold steel weapons for some story reason and a new steel weapon comes out ).  Will people stay true to their story or try to wiggle out of it?

[FlippySeal]

I *sometimes* trust in the roleplaying ability of the players.

I think that MB was actually good for the game, because there is not much to do but roleplay. And it has people getting involved in the community coz there\'s not much to do yet.

So I think a lot of people will stay true to the background.

But what is inevitable, is people who won\'t, people who don\'t give a rat\'s ass about roleplaying.

*sigh* It is an inevitability.

[Yarulion]

Probably not, but hopefully they\'ll at least try to RP-fashion some cool gloves or steel repellent or something.

Didn\'t that always suck when you were the cleric in the back of the D&D group with the morning star and everyone found sword after sword after sword after sword of +1 or higher? Ahhh.... memories.......

[Zeraph]

Well I vote is very important but not mandatory?
I do this because I would really like the chance to change & be part of the history of Yliakum & write books to put in the library etc?

But I do not believe it should be mandatory @ all, for the reason of players that have just found the game & decided to test it out, they usually do not know a thing about the actual world without experiencing it so how can they possibly create a background story for there Char? Maybe they can get some idea from the site, (which most people play the game first before reading everything on the site?) The setting is a long section I would be surprised if even ? of the people who play Planeshift actually read the Players guide before installing the game & checking it out? You should have a option box saying:

Background Story:

• ?My Character has stumbled upon the world of Yliakum not knowing anything??
[_] Make up your own Character Background:


& Always have the option to fill this in & edit later? also the journal idea a little bit back was good, you can right in a journal that tells the adventures of your Char, so this could be part of this? also, I think it would be good to make up a background story on your char after checking out what jobs you like because maybe someone made a background story that now he/she has to contradict because there are no dragons or whatever? new people should get to know the world before making a background for there char?
(Imo it will just make rp more consistent...)

[Karyuu]

Originally posted by acraig
I guess the follow up question is who will stay true to their background story if it negatively affects their game. ( ie they cannot hold steel weapons for some story reason and a new steel weapon comes out ).  Will people stay true to their story or try to wiggle out of it?

Of course it would be respectable to stick to the story that have decided upon. Minor alterations could always be made, but to completely turn something around would be... inconsistent, thus again throwing away all the \'focus\' your character had. I know I sure as heck won\'t try to wiggle out of the handicaps I\'ve put on my character. Karyuu, for example, refuses to use and fears all magic, thus no matter what new and appealing (to the player behind her) spell comes up, Kary won\'t throw out her entire background and weild some sorcery.

Honestly, I have no idea whatsoever how this will affect my character in CB, but I\'m going to stick with it and find out ;)

[Waylander]

Well you could add to the start and end of your backstory

Armeen is a good lad

becomes

The evil and ruthless killer Armeen deceived everybody so that when people talked about him they would say \"Armeen is a good lad\" while in reality he was secretly plotting their demise.

hehe....Armeen is having fun..

enough with 3rd person now

(my backstory is slightly longer then this )

Also you could have spaces in your story

He was then never seen for three days.  Curiously in those three days everybody who said that Armeen is a good lad died.

So I guess what I am trying to say is: Don\'t call me a good lad

[Yarulion]

You could always do what I\'m doing and completely rewrite your backstory, hoping no one notices before the next release. But you have to go away or be really, really quiet for most of a year and then when you come back and CB still hasn\'t come out get a bunch of new friends, change your guild, and start recruiting a whole bunch of people.

And you have to blab all your plans on the forum....

I\'m just gonna stop talking now.

[Watcher]

God is everyone blabing there plans on the forums, there is alot in my plans that I didnt mention like slaying anyone who even trys to jump of the top of the tower in the main city to commit suicide... oh dam I just typed out loud didnt I oh dam.

[Kiva]

Important -- PS is an online game, and will never be exactly like a tabletop RPG. We all need to face that there is no GM for every 4 or 5 people playing, always there to guide the players on and have them experience new and exciting adventures. It\'s simply impossible to do, so it wont be done. Besides, if someone wishes to know what you did in your childhood, and you were just living on your parents\' farm, that story most likely wont be on the local library. It will have to be told person-to-person.

Having a library full of well-written stories is nice, but unless these stories hide secrets, or help hiding secrets by being written so they definitely contain secrets, just not the ones you need, then the stories really are of no use to anyone. Maybe the setting is medieval and a lot of us want to roleplay, but face it, reading fictional stories just for the sake of it is something we have real life libraries for. But okay, if you want to write stories for some purpose that I really can\'t see, then by all means feel free to do so. Just don\'t expect me to contribute.

[Adeli]

I think it is important, background stories are hard to stick by in games though, for example if you are hunting a nemesis (like me) it would be hard to implement that into the game, I will stick by it as much as possible, I intend to have little or no magic, as my character is afraid of it... I\'m thinking none, but he might want to dabble to overcome his fear somewhat...