It’s time for another Rules Ramble with Jonathan! Each week, I’ll introduce a topic in the DR rulebook in a deep dive that focuses on explaining it in more detail than the book alone can provide. Today’s blog post will touch on how to write a better BACKGROUND STORY for your characters in the world of Dystopia Rising. This is a useful trait to consider for new players and veterans alike, and the advice here can be useful for better Personal Plot Requests and Action Requests as well!
Tickets for our next event, COLLECTION DAY, are live now but registration ends at midnight on Friday! Don’t miss out on your chance to have your sheet printed in advance and ready to save you time in line. You can still buy tickets at the door, but buying your ticket in advance helps our STs plan out NPC shifts, know who is going to be present for Personal Plots, and just generally have a better idea of who to expect at game!
Why is a Background important?
Everyone knows the origins of super heroes or other characters in fiction, movies, and comic books. You know that Peter Parker suffered a loss of a family member that made him realize with great power comes great responsibility. Captain Kirk cheated at the Kobayashi Maru scenario and nearly got thrown out of Star Fleet. Luke Skywalker followed a droid in the desert and met a strange old hermit. Gideon Nav has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit. (Wait, you haven’t read Gideon the Ninth? Go ahead, go read it and come back to this…)
So, if you are about to spend 36 hours or so playing your character, it’s worth considering where they came from, and what happened to them BEFORE the game starts. Backgrounds are an often overlooked part of character creation, and that can really help provide direction, motivation, and make them feel alive.
Maybe you are brand new to the game and you want to flesh out your character, or a veteran that has decided to finally fill out your background to prevent your character from feeling stale. Any player can benefit from adding a background to their character, so let’s talk a bit about the rules in the book (this is a Rules Ramble after all!)
What do the Rules say?
You can find the rules for Character Backgrounds on pg. 25-26 in the DR Corebook. I’ll summarize some of the key points here, but this is a really good starting point to consider, especially if you haven’t done this kind of thing before. One of the most important rules on p.25 is very relevant to our discussion today:
Check with your local branch’s content page and restrictions to make sure your character fits the existing requirements and guidelines for your branch.
Each game is only allowed to approve backgrounds that exist within their play area. In DR:TX, we can approve backgrounds in the San Saba Territories and the Greater Lone Star, but we cannot approve a background from Old York, the Sequoia Wastes, or Hell Dorado, as those are reserved for those branches.
You can find our DR:TX restrictions here:
The book also provides a few basic questions to consider, and these questions are excellent things to consider for any character, and really thinking about these can give you a first step into building a baseline for the story you want to tell.
Where was your character born and raised? (Try to keep the location local!)
How did you survive in the wastelands? How did you acquire food, water, rest, safety, medical supplies, or mental health help?
How does your character fit into the Dystopia Rising mythology and genre?
What motivates and drives your character to keep going forward?
Do they have short term goals, philosophical beliefs, or a spiritual faith in a higher power?
Remember to make sure to leave space for your story to move, grow, and adapt.
We will get into some best practices for how you answer some of these questions in a moment, but let’s go over the specifics of how you submit a background first.
how to submit a background
You can submit new or updated Character Backgrounds via our website.
Our website covers the basics of the character background, but past the obvious traits like Name and Strain, we look for a few basic things about your character:
Background
Background Ties
Important NPCs
Important Locations
We have a few basic reminders and restrictions for background submissions:
Please be brief. We receive a lot of backgrounds, and those longer than two pages will have to be condensed.
Submit in bullet points or key notation format. The longer and more flowery your document, the less likely that Staff will be able to use your content for reference and story.
Stay local. Keeping your character background in the Lone Star gives us more options in what we can run for your character.
Please keep any NPC Groups in your background as small as possible.
Double check your submission, be patient, be willing to answer questions or adjust your background as needed. Be open to suggestions to change locations, names, and events to have more relevant links to our story.
Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s talk about some BEST PRACTICES for submitting a more successful background story.
The trope of a tragic backstory
So we’ve all heard the story: You are a bitter veteran, a badass lone wolf chasing away the memories of your sordid past with a hooch or three at the Swaying Anker. Your parents are dead, your siblings are dead, your dog is dead, your friends are dead, your coworkers are dead, etc. It’s a sad tale, and the San Saba seems to have more orphans than an orphanage. You are destined to be alone, sulking in the corner over your sorrow, misery, and angst.
Cool.
Except, there’s nothing in this story to consider as an ST. This is a closed story. Everything is finished, and there’s no connections to the world or the people around you. It’s boring. A story like this is guaranteed to be ignored by the Storyteller staff when they are looking for inspiration for the next game.
If there are no open-ended questions in your story, we can’t provide the answers.
I can’t write a story about your family being captured if they are all dead. I can’t bring in your lost sister with her favorite teddy bear as a Face NPC to cause emotional damage. I can’t bring up your connection as a former employee of Felicity Redfield and try to get you to leverage the secrets you learned. I can’t send out a telegram about your hometown being under attack by Raiders, or your father fighting off an advancing army that is aiming radioactive artillery at your ancestral home.
Help us help you by leaving some options open.
If we can’t look at your background and see a springboard for new story ideas, it’ll likely be skipped over. The STs are talented folks, but it still needs to spark a bit of their creativity before you can really get a background submission involved in the game. If they aren’t inspired, it’ll be a challenge to write a mod or story for you.
tips for writing better BACKGROUNDS
I’m going to cover some of my own tips for writing better backgrounds. I’ve sourced a lot of these ideas from some articles and videos that I’ve linked at the bottom of the article, but as always I’ll try to include my own interpretation and even a few of my own. It’s important to consider leaving a few things that make an engaging backstory that will make Personal Plot Requests more emotional and interesting, and those random encounters with NPCs more meaningful.
Keep it Simple
The first way to write a better background story is to keep it simple and keep it brief. Use a simple bulleted list of key points about your character instead of a long, multi-page narrative story. If it’s easy to access and read, it’ll be easier for our STs to include into their mods and planning. We’ve put this on our Background submission page for a reason!
Keep it relevant
Make sure your backstory details are relevant, and stick to the life changing moments that mattered most to your characters. We don’t need to know your shoe size, or what you like for breakfast. Focus on backstory that directly informs potential stories, and save the story of your camping trip with your parents or that poignant vignette about your best friend for a hype post instead. Relevant details help deepen the emotional stakes, as we can use them to create a connection to the story. If it doesn’t deal with your present emotional reality, it’s often not as useful for the ST team.
leave some unanswered questions
Don’t tie up every bit of conflict in your past with a neat bow. If there are no open-ended questions in your backgrounds, I don’t really have a way to provide you an answer. Instead of that family member being dead and gone, what if they were missing or kidnapped? Instead of having slain your rival in a duel over a gaping chasm, what if they escaped and you are worried they’ll find you again some day? What if someone else knows about the secret you stole from Tabitha’s office while Eyeless Jack wasn’t looking and you are just waiting for the blackmail letter to show up?
ground your character in the setting
Where are you from? Sure, you can come up with your own tiny town, but what if you included something we already wrote about or included in our online season? You are much more likely to have relevant plot if you are based locally and use a place we’ve already detailed. Essex has a lot of information we’ve released, but any of the San Saba Locations could be great starting points for a background. We also put a LOT of information on our website about Factions, history, traditions, and more that you could use in your backstory.
Build a timeline of your character’s life events
Where where they before they came to Bravado? What happened on your way into town? What did they do before? Plotting out the key events in your character’s past can help you better understand your character’s personality and point of view. Continue plotting out the major events that led you to our sleepy town of Bravado, and it will help you better understand your personality, quirks, and character’s thoughts. If you focus on those major stops in the formative events of your life, it can really give you a direction to follow in game.
keep connections in mind
Who does your character know? Maybe everyone in your past shouldn’t be dead. It’s great to include local groups, Factions, and crews you are affiliated with, or NPCs or characters that you have in-character ties with. Are there other Leading Characters that you know in town? Did you use to work in Essex with Governor Amberdraught? Did you serve time at Killhouse Prison? Did you join up with the Junkerpunks in the Clutch? What did you do during the Hiway War? These kind of specific details gives us a list of people to involve in the story, and often makes it MORE likely your story gets picked up as we often have to weight the desire to tell a story with how many players we can entertain with the same mod. Private, intense roleplaying scenes can still happen, but if we can find ways to include other players, it’ll be even better!
keep npc groups and plot impact small
Try to avoid casting or creating brand new elements of NPC groups, as they likely will never enter game. It can be tempting to make your character the “chosen one”, or to plot out an insidious plot about a new supervillain controlling the San Saba that only you can stop. However, we already have a panoply of casted characters, factions, and NPCs in our setting. Unless it’s a minor part, we are unlikely to use your Background character as our story arc in game. These are stories we’d rather tell on a larger scale, and stories we want to tell in game, not in a backstory that only a few people read. Give us the inspirations, but let us set the stage!
imbue the character with intense desire
What motivates your character to keep going? The wastelands are a cruel and harsh place to live, and you need a reason not to just curl up and let the zed eat you. Why do you wake up each day? What do you hope to accomplish? Do you have a long-term goal you want to see happen in game? It can be as easy as “I want to establish a new bar in town” or a harder challenge like “I want to collect every Blueprint that exists”. When you have these kinds of motivations, it makes finding story connections for plot requests MUCH easier. Pick a goal you can complete in game, and it’ll provide direction for those slow moments when the NPCs and zombies are elsewhere.
dig deep into the source of their strengths
What is unique about your character? What are they good at? It’s okay to be the hero of your story, so let us know what you want to be known for. Find the formative — what past events in life shaped their outlook, persona, goals, fears, and desires. Reveal the key drives that drive your character emotionally and psychologically. Are they best researcher in Waking on blood-borne disease in the San Saba? Are they the fastest driver in the Dune Sea, completing the Essex Classic in 12 parsecs… I mean, hours? Let us know what stories you want to see, and the ways you want to excel!
bedevil your character with conflict
Conflict makes for drama, and drama makes for a good story. Sure, you can live an idyllic life before coming to Bravado, but how can we push your buttons? What element of the past is unresolved? Do you have an old flame that you left long ago and you regret not telling them about you feelings before you left? Have you compromised yourself by signing a contract with a powerful villain? Give us some plot hooks we can use to create drama, and it’ll make the story that much better.
a character can be a joke, but a joke is never a character
This is based on some advice from Sam Mars, but it still rings true today. It can be tempting to make a funny character. Humor can be a great element of a story, and we have some really funny people that play our game. “Wouldn’t it be funny if?” is a common phrase we hear about new character concepts. However, while a character can be the laughing stock of the town, it can’t be the ONLY THING you know about them. If they only exist for a joke, it’s not a character — it’s an NPC. You can plan to be funny, and still include a realistic background for your character. You might be the sleazy Vegasian everyone loves to hate, but you still need motivations, hopes, and dreams. The more interesting and multi-dimensional your character is, the better the humor will be, I promise. A character needs to be more than a joke.
Draw inspiration from real life
Writing a believable character backstory can be difficult. That’s why it’s helpful to draw inspiration from real life. Think about the way you recount formative events in your own life. Pay attention to the way your friends and loved ones tell stories. Read biographies of celebrities, politicians, or historical figures to understand the important episodes that shaped their lives. Using details like this can make your character’s backstory seem all the more authentic and genuine.
Keep in mind Genre
While you can always take inspiration from your favorite movie or book, it’s important not to just make a carbon copy with your story. The HERO’S JOURNEY is iconic for a reason, but you don’t have to copy beat for beat the story of Luke Skywalker as a Telling Visionary, using a ‘psionic sword’ to defeat his foes. That Mad Max copy may be a neat inspiration for a place to start for a DJ, but maybe you can decide on a better name than “Immortan Joe”. That favorite D&D character, or Sci-Fi trooper doesn’t fit into our setting. If your concept doesn’t really work in the world of Dystopia Rising. we will work with you to change and mold your story into something more appropriate.
Be flexible
We get a LOT of background submissions and plot requests each game. Be patient, and we will strive to let our ST team know about your story request. However, if a part of your background story doesn’t work within our setting, we will reach out to you to workshop some changes to the story. If it’s been a few months since your Plot Request was submitted and you haven’t heard anything yet, feel free to submit it again or ask for help in making it better!
The Most important rule
The last piece of advice on a better backstory is probably the most important. The first step of getting a character background included in game is writing a backstory submission, sure. But the most important part is to make sure that YOU bring it up in game.
In writing, “show, don’t tell” is a writing technique in which a character’s personal history is revealed through actions, sensory details, or emotions. In other words, the author attempts to “show you” what happened rather than simply telling you what happened. In a live action roleplaying game, you are the single person with the most influence on SHOWING what your backstory is like through your actions. And you do that by talking about it.
TALK ABOUT YOUR BACK STORY IN GAME!
Tell stories about yourself in character.
Answer questions from other characters or NPCs about your past.
Talk to other characters about THEIR backstories.
Mention in a conversation that this weekend’s events remind you of that time back home. Ask a friend about their family. Ask the name of that new NPC that looks vaguely familiar. Write a letter to your long lost love and send it through the Post Office. But most importantly, BRING IT UP!
The way your story becomes real is through actions in game. If you never talk about your history, you might as well not have even bothered with writing down the details. Revealing your main character’s past life through tangible details and scenes in game can help other players gain insight into your character’s background without relying on the STs or a Plot Request.
And even if you don’t have the CAPs to submit a Personal Plot Request yet, you still have the power to make your story become a part of our setting by your in-game actions.
an example Backstory
Let’s look at an example of a better background submission, using my former character from 2.0 Doc Tolin Creed as an example. Doc Creed was one of the “Brave 21” that stayed behind to stop the stampede during the Hiway War, and was killed in the nuclear blast that stopped Hiway Robb.
A portrait I commissioned of this character from Anastasia Mars, that was featured in the DR sourcebook Embers of the Irradiated West.
Character is named Doc Creed, and he is an Accensorite.
Creed worked as doctor in small town in the San Saba called the Three Rivers, on the outskirts of Widow’s Peak where he once lived with his wife Rebecca and his daughter Hope. He is a master of the medical arts, and skilled at saving lives.
A zombie horde overran their town, and he was separated from his wife and daughter. He’s traveling to Essex to find out if any survivors made it there. He doesn’t know if they made it out alive, but he is quickly losing hope and fears the worst.
He blames a Red Star cell for what happened to his town, as a group traveled through shortly before the zombie horde arrived. He finds it challenging to trust any Red Star, even if they are unconnected with this tragedy. He always suspects a conspiracy of their involvement.
The true agent that caused the zombie horde was an insane psion that was being tracked by a foul undead menace. Doc Creed unwittingly provided a place to stay over night before the attack for the psion and doesn’t realize that this villain was responsible.
He made friends with a group of Texicans called the McBrides on the way to Essex, and helped save their leader, Stacey McBride. He agreed to help their group as a doctor as they made their way to the town of Bravado.
He is a devout member of the Nuclear Family faith, and is a little overzealous at times — even inventing stories or adapting historical events about his time in the wastes to create convenient faith lessons. He fills the role of a Coach, and thinks of himself as a “Father” for his friends, and his town.
He is now a contracted member of Patchwork Incorporated, and is looking to establish a new medical clinic in town using their resources.
He believes strongly in the mantra of “do work, get paid”, and wants to help encourage people to compensate their medical professionals.
This is a pretty basic example, but even in this brief one-page summary I’ve answered a few questions about the character, while leaving many options still wide open. This is a simple, quick background that still gives a lot of story options for our STs.
For instance, we have a few dangling plot threads in what really happened to his family, a possible antagonist in a crazy psion that attracted the horde, and even some conflict with a Red Star cell that could create some intense roleplay opportunities. We know that he has joined a group of players, and has an in-game tie with Stacey McBride, and that he’s joined a medical society membership. We know he’s a doctor, a member of the Nuclear Family faith, and he’s working to establish a medical clinic. Each of these connections gives us a good place to start a story, or to create ways to submit a Personal Plot Request for this character.
So, try to apply the best practices I’ve mentioned above, and I’m eager to see what backstories you submit!
wrap up
That’s it for this week Vados! Remember, ticket sales end Friday at midnight so don’t miss out! Next time, we will discuss some specific rules that you might need to know before you start your COLLECTION DAY!
Here are a few of the links I reference during this article: