MU Peeves Thread

[ten]

if your character has to come with a disclaimer –

[Warma Sheen]

@Pavel said in MU Peeves Thread:

My problem with backgrounds is that I constantly do the thing where I put all the interesting bits of a character’s life in the background, and leave very little room for interesting stuff to happen on the game.

I don’t think that’s only your problem. Its a problem built into the system that you have to self correct for. You’re told to make a background and usually told that you have to justify your stats. So you come up with whatever ridiculousness you need to to justify the stats, then after approval, you’re not actually allowed to do half the interesting stuff that was approved in your background for various reasons, many of which are completely valid. So you end up in this weird twilight zone of having this very cool character who will not likely accomplish anything near as interesting as what you had in your head. As a result there’s more than a few people who have made characters they really liked, but then have done little to nothing with them before fading out completely.

[MisterBoring]

@Warma-Sheen said in MU Peeves Thread:

So you end up in this weird twilight zone of having this very cool character who will not likely accomplish anything near as interesting as what you had in your head. As a result there’s more than a few people who have made characters they really liked, but then have done little to nothing with them before fading out completely.

This is why I try to write characters who are boring as fuck in their backgrounds. I thoroughly enjoy “random nobody gets drug into a world of whatever and has to adapt” stories.

[Hobbie]

The great thing about broad strokes backgrounds (aka Schrodinger’s BG) is that you can fill things in retroactively as they arise in story. It also makes it much easier to write in the moment.

So go as vague as you like, justify the skills loosely, and fill in gaps before approval if staff asks for them.

[STD]

@MisterBoring said in MU Peeves Thread:

This is why I try to write characters who are boring as fuck in their backgrounds. I thoroughly enjoy “random nobody gets drug into a world of whatever and has to adapt” stories.

This was why I liked playing bog standard humans in WoD MU*s. Just someone completely absent from the machinations of mages, the centuries old plots of vampires, the chicaneries of changelings, the violence of werewolves, the… bandages?.. of mummies, etc.

It was really neat to toss them into the world with these kind of characters and see what happened to them. Interestingly enough, most of the time these standard human characters ended up being quite popular with the supernatural crowd. It amused me to think that there was only, like, ten normal humans in the entirety of the WoD and I was playing one which all the other supernatural entities were trying to court.

@Hobbie said in MU Peeves Thread:

The great thing about broad strokes backgrounds (aka Schrodinger’s BG) is that you can fill things in retroactively as they arise in story. It also makes it much easier to write in the moment.

Or go the Old Man Henderson route and just make an insane background that has everything and the kitchen sink to justify any possible weirdness.