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Bringing in the Backstory |  |
It should come as no surprise to people who regularly read this blog that I am a fan of the d20 System. I’ve got a number of d20 products on my shelf, and I mostly play d20 (or d20 derivations, like Mutants and Masterminds). That said, one thing that’s always bugged me a little about d20 is the fact that it doesn’t focus much on character backstory. I mean, yes, it gives some general advice about making sure your character has a backstory, and playing that character as a 3-dimensional person. But, in a game where virtually everything is codified and turned into a rule of some sort, why are there no mechanics for creating a compelling backstory? With that in mind, I present you with a system for Backgrounds and Attachments in d20 games.
Background
Your character came from somewhere, right? He didn’t just spring, full-formed, out of his father’s head; various events shaped him, made him who he is. That’s what your background represents. Your background is made up of background elements—up to five of them—that represent significant moments in your character’s past, things that really meant something. Here’s how it works.
First, come up with a few things that happened to your character sometime in the past. These should be important, personality-shaping things, like being trapped in a well for a few days, or killing the wolf that was preying on your parents’ sheep when you were a kid. They can be from the recent past, or they can be from your distant childhood, in any combination. You should probably come up with three to five of these elements, though this isn’t strictly necessary. You could, for example, come up with one truly defining element, or even come up with six or seven of lesser importance.
Once you’ve come up with your character’s background elements, you get 8 ranks to assign to these elements. You’ve got to put at least 1 rank in each element, though you can put more than 1 in a single element.
What does this mean, though? Any time you’re able to justify to the GM that an element of your past could benefit you in a situation, you get to add that element’s ranks as a bonus. If the GM decides (or you do) that some part of your background could be a liability, then those ranks act as a penalty. Pretty simple, huh? Here’s an example.
You’ve got to come up with a background for our man, Japhed. Now, while you were thinking about what kind of character you wanted to play, you decided you wanted to be a sneaky, smooth-talking kind of guy, but not a cold-hearted criminal. A mercenary of sorts, to be sure, but one with a conscience. So, how does that translate into a background? I’ll show you.
First, you decide that Japhed grew up in a big city, and lost his parents when he was pretty young. He lived on the streets for a while, and fell in with a gang of thieves where he learned his craft. One day, he saw some of his buddies beating up on an old man for some valuable trinkets he had, and it turned his stomach. He fought his former friends in order to defend the old man, and was kicked out of the gang because of it. That’s four elements right there. Now, we assign the ranks.
The first element is that Japhed lost his parents young. That’s important, but it happened a long time ago, so you only assign 1 rank. Next, he fell in with those thieves, which helped shape his world view for a while. 2 ranks. When he saw his friends beating up on a helpless old-timer, it really affected him deeply, so you decide that that element gets 3 ranks. Finally, he got kicked out of the gang for fighting his friends; that gets the last 2 ranks.
Later, during play, these background elements will rear their heads from time to time. If something comes up that requires Japhed to be tough and independent, he might get a +1 bonus for having grown up without parents. If he has to jump in to defend an innocent, he’d probably get a +3 bonus for reacting so strongly to an innocent getting pummeled.
Attachments
Attachments are the relationships you build, either with people, places, objects, organizations, or even ideals. You have 20 ranks that you can spend on attachments, but you don’t get to spend them all now. No, you only get to spend 8 ranks while you’re creating your character; other attachments will be formed during play. Attachments, like your background, can go either way. If, say, you have a strong positive attachment to a particular person, defending that person would turn the ranks for that attachment a bonus. If you have to oppose that person for some reason, they might be a penalty, instead. And that brings up another point: you should specify whether the attachment is a negative or a positive, whether you like or dislike the person, place, or whatever. Note that you can’t have more than 5 ranks in a particular attachment.
Another thing about attachments is that you can rearrange the ranks that you assign while you’re actually playing. If, during character creation, you gave someone 3 ranks, and your relationship suffers, you can take a rank away and give it to a different attachment, or even leave that rank unassigned. Attachments are a lot more fluid and dynamic than your background is. You should still consult your GM when you do something like this, but it’s generally permissible to do it whenever you want to.
The easiest way to come up with attachments is to ask yourself the question: what’s important to my character? His family? His religion? The house he was born in? His very own ship? You should also ask what your character hates, if anything; these are attachments to. Once more, an example.
You’ve just come up with Japhed’s background, and now you just have to come up with attachments. You decide that, even though his parents died a long time ago, Japhed’s still got an attachment to their memory; you assign 2 ranks to that. You also figure that he must have kept at least one friend from his days in the gang. You decide that his old mentor, Heartless Burgen, is still a good friend of his, so you give him 2 ranks, too. Now, Japhed’s been living in the city of Talltowers his whole life, and he knows the back alleys like the back of his hand; you give Talltowers 1 rank. But what about that pivotal fight, way back when? What came out of that? Well, it stands to reason that those thieves bear Japhed a fair amount of ill will, and the feeling’s probably mutual. You decide that Corben, the meanest of them, is still a vocal enemy of Japhed’s, and you give him 2 ranks. Finally, that old man was grateful to Japhed for saving him, and Japhed still looks in on him from time to time; Old Henry gets 1 rank, too.
Now, if Japhed were to have to defend Old Henry again, he’d get a +1 bonus. He also gets a +2 bonus in his various dealings with Heartless Burgen, because of their close relationship. Now, if someone were to insult the memory of Japhed’s parents, it could go either way, either a -2 penalty or a +2 bonus. It would depend on the situation.
I should mention at this point that the above draws heavily from what I’ve already planned for Gamecraft 2.0, with the notable exception that Gamecraft 2.0 is not d20, and this stuff is. I just thought I’d mention it, since this is the kind of stuff you can expect from my system.
