Background
From Tazlure Gaming System Wiki
See Also Creating Memorable Characters
Introduction
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Skills | |
The background is up to the player. However there are some standard things to remind them off, as well as some things to avoid. A good background provides plothooks for further stories, puts the players right in the middle of where the action is and keeps them interested in their own character for a very long time.
It is recommended to have at least three or four paragraphs of background. A background should explain where a character comes from, what has made him into the person he is right now, including how he picked up skills.
You can be anything and go anywhere within the limits of what is already defined about the setting. You can change the setting from within, but you cannot create new material for the setting from the start. This also includes anime references, spoofs on books and movies etc. etc.
In Tazlure characters were always required to be at least 16 and of modest background. Depending on your setting you might want to apply different rules.
Family
Questions to ask your self:
- Who are your parents and siblings? What is their background? How did that influence your character?
- Is there any family feud?
- Does your family have a certain position?
- Are your parents, siblings or other family members still alive?
- Are there any major NPC's among your family?
Links to existing stories
There are a couple of ways of making sure that your character is jumping into the middle of the action, provided you work with a moderator to set this up.
- Your character is part of the establishment already with an established position or career.
Your character has a job, or a rank, and as such he has goals, a pre history in the setting and is automatically part of existing storylines. He doesn't have to begin from scratch.
- Your character is the sibling, family member of friend of an existing character or NPC
Your character is new to the area but can be introduced to all the movers and shakers by this better situated PC/NPC.
- Your character brings something new to an existing story and there for is in demand
This can be anything and requires some reading up, but that will pay itself back as you will be able to more easily fit in the game.
Goals
See Also Goal Oriented Playing
What does your character want to accomplish? The more specific you can be, the better because this will lead to a more involved storyline for you and the characters around you. If you have particular ideas for plotlines be pro-active and contact your moderator beforehand to hash out the details!
Background Cliches: What are they?
There are some ideas for character backgrounds that have been done to death. These are the dreaded "background clichés". Every second new roleplayers (and some old hands as well) create a character with one of these backgrounds, and they are a sure-fire way to have your application rejected until you come up with something a little more original.
Why are they a problem?
On a personal level, they make your character seem dull and uninteresting, and all too familiar to the moderator reviewing your application. It also makes you as a player look as though you haven’t put a great deal of thought into things. This may or may not be the case, but first impressions count for a lot and in an online roleplaying forum this means the writing of your character application.
On a game-wide level, they detract from the originality of each individual character and can have profound repercussions on the stability of the world. If every 'orphaned child who witnessed the massacre of their village and swore revenge' was accepted, the world would be a truly frightening place to live. For that matter, there would also be very few villages left standing.
For moderators, they have to review a huge number of applications. After a while, it becomes incredibly boring to continually see the same story being written again and again. This game is a place for moderators to enjoy as much as players, and if they’re bored then they won’t want to do their jobs. And then where will we all be?
Tome of the Trite
Otherwise known as the list of clichés and reasons why. This Tome was written for Tazlure and references their setting but can be equally applied to other settings.
"I had an incredible bad childhood and that is why my PC is dark and mysterious"
The Renegade. This fantasy type, which borrows heavily from anime and hollywood movies, is done to death in most fantasy games. It is usually combined with one or two physical deformities, and one or two other cliches from the list below. It is frowned upon because this dark personality gives you an excuse to let your PC misbehave at times, as well as avoiding normal relationships and normal social behaviour.
"My family/village was destroyed by monsters/orcs/bandits and I was the only survivor. I have sworn not to rest until I revenge myself on the killers!"
Aside from the fact that this idea has been done over and over again, this is also a no-no from the point of view of control over the world. You are not allowed to create or destroy locations as you wish (although saying that you come from a small village near x city is acceptable as long as you don’t make up any firmer details without moderator approval). This is a task resolved solely for moderators. If you want to destroy a village, show good roleplaying skills and apply for a moderator position. Maybe then they’ll let you.
"I was abused by my parents/guardians and eventually killed them in anger/self-defence."
Not only is this a very trite story, but it’s rarely done well. For a start, how many abused youths are going to be able to commit a murder (or two) so efficiently and effectively that there is not a scrap of suspicion on them? A character who has murder in their past is most likely to be on the run from the authorities if they have stuck around the same area, and getting around this by starting on the other side of the world and saying you managed to get away is immediately cutting out any of the interesting roleplaying opportunities that this background might have offered. Of course, if you want to set your character up as someone wanted for murder and are willing to play it out properly, then you may have some small chance of it being allowed provided that your background story suggests to the moderators that you understand what is involved and are willing to go with it.
"I was abused by my parents/guardians and have turned to a life of crime."
Why? This version of the trite abusive background story rarely makes logical sense. If you are beaten on a regular basis, why does that automatically lead to you becoming a pickpocket? And if you are doing it just "because", then it’s likely that you haven’t taken it seriously enough not to get caught by now.
"My parents were murdered by dark adhiel, leaving me a poor orphan."
The orphan thing is boring anyway – almost have to wonder if there’s any of the older generation left sometimes, if so many people are orphans – but this one is even worse for being so incredibly unlikely. Dark Adhiel generally keep to themselves in their underground city. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll even meet one without travelling there, although that is a sure-fire (and only likely) way to get killed by one. And if that’s the case, then those parents of yours got what they deserved.
"I have amnesia and can’t remember anything about my life up to this point."
While not completely proscribed, this idea will not be accepted like this. Sure, your PC may not be able to remember any of their life. This does not, however, stop you from knowing what has happened to them previously. You are still expected to come up with a well-thought-out history when you submit your character, even if they don’t know any of it anymore. This can lead to some interesting roleplay as well, since you can then have them have the occasional fragment of memory surface as a result of similar circumstances.
"I am a Dark Adhiel assassin."
If every Dark Adhiel were truly an assassin, then the entire city would soon fall apart. If you want to play a Dark Adhiel, come up with another profession for them to provide a bit of variety. Maybe the overseer for a large work-gang of slaves, or an aspiring priestess. There is just as much potential for different jobs amongst the Dark Adhiel as there is amongst the other races, and the moderators would certainly appreciate more people taking advantage of that.
"My father was a demon and I have a third eye in my forehead and four arms."
You may not create your own race by making one of your parents a race that is not playable or reserved, nor may you create one by using birth defects. Your character MUST fall into one of the race categories listed as playable for starting characters in Tazlure and should for the most part be genetically stable and normal. There are plenty more interesting ways to differentiate your character and make them stand out than to give them some freakish physical mutation (particularly one that isn’t terribly likely in any event).
"I travel with my pet cooshee and rode my Pegasus as a child."
You may not use animals from other games or gaming systems, nor may you presume to have had magical or special animals as a child or in the present.
"I am a Dark Elf and my foster parents are High Elfs/Humans etc. Therefore I'm on the surface."
In the Tazlure setting Dark Adhiel, even babies, are usually killed on sight on the surface. All dark adhiel and dark achadhiel start in Gulanadur. They are restricted to certain gods.
Outside the Tazlure setting it is always a good idea to check if you are not stretching an ethnicity/culture just to be exotic.
"I am a Ninja with a katana sword"
This depends on the setting of course, however in general it is advised not to come up with anime or kung fu characters, no mindless killers either. Even Eastern warriors can be original.
"I am an incredibly hot babe, cup D, who longs for a lesbian relationship"
Most mature PBP's allow Erotica but not as the single focus of a character. Besides this frequently submitted profile always gives us the idea it is submitted by a very immature young male, instead of an honest attempt to explore a specific version of Sexuality. Honestly, no woman would mention her cup size as part of her description.
But I really, REALLY want to run with my cliched idea!
As you may have noticed above, many of these ideas are possible to work into your character and still create someone who will be interesting to play and interesting for other people to read about. There are two main tricks to doing this, for those times when you are so keen to run a character with a particular trait or history that you can't even consider making it too different.
The first trick is to give it a tweak and breath some fresh life into it. Desperate to play that orphan with amnesia? Fine. But put some more thought into it. Besides coming up with a full history so that you and your moderator both know where you are coming from, think about the circumstances that led to the orphaning and the memory-loss. Maybe your parents didn't die, but simply... disappeared. And maybe this is the one thing that your character remembers from their former life. They don't know how, or why, or even what it really means, but they know that somewhere out there they may still have parents and they want to find them. Of course, they don't remember where they lived, or who their friends were, or who their parents' friends were, so it might be a little more difficult to get started, but that's half the fun.
The second trick is to take a character who seems fairly cliched, and give them a quirk of some kind that simply doesn't seem to fit. Like a big hulking fighter from your standard adventure fantasy who carries a big sword and likes to hit things and isn't all that great at the mental dexterity. Oh, and incidentally he likes to arrange flowers into artful decorations in his spare time (I've seen this done before and, bizarre as it was, it worked and was a riot to read). Things like this can make even the tritest of characters seem fresh and new.
