I will not let my legacy die with me....(background check)

[Warren Castille]

Backstory is unimportant for roleplay, but is important for characters (mostly).

 

Random people you meet in walk-up roleplay won't care about your carefully-laid tracks of childhood experiences and meaningful non-events that only happened off-camera and away from the current moment. Does anyone often find themselves rehashing about their history with people in real life? You're not roleplaying your history, you're roleplaying their current existence.

 

Conversely, having an idea of what your character has gone through helps keep them consistent, which is incredibly important in portraying a "living" character. Me personally, I tend to give myself a rough guideline and nothing beyond that: It doesn't matter to me what my character's parents' names were, or what he did during his teenage years. If I need to explain something, I can revisit the framework and come up with a reasonable conclusion that fits the narrative.

 

Note that this is not me saying that I just throw things into my backstory kits as the need arises. That's just metagaming in an unfair or attention-hogging way. More, I think that "My character grew up as the son of a carpenter" is perfectly suitable to begin roleplaying. If you suddenly find yourself needing more depth, you can provide it: "One time I helped my dad put together a house, so I'm familiar with how foundations and the like work."

 

Personally, I've been playing Warren for years and years and his backstory is probably five lines to summarize. It's not necessary for anything but my own framework, and if I play my character correctly I won't ever need to explain why he knows or does what he knows or does.

[Aya]

I am going to be blunt and just say I am fully in disagreement with you that a back story means nothing. Think of it like a tree trunk. The backstory grows and branches out to help discover if your character will have strengths and weaknesses, fears, past trauma, and more. You can always just mess around in a character creator and find something you like and build from there but then you will wonder the personality and how they got to be like that.

 

Everyone is free to of course RP what they want but please don't say a back story has no real importance. I mean,if you are constantly changing the background of your own character to fit the theme of this months fashion then yeah,a back story will probably just be a hassle. If not? Thinking on one can really help but a character.it doesn't even need to be elaborate and can always be branched out as time goes on ideas come. You can even trim old ideas for new ones.

First of all, disagreeing with "back story means nothing" does not only not put you at "full disagreement" with me, it does not put you at any sort of disagreement with me at all!  I completely agree with you. [The negation in here is really confusing... I'm agreeing that back story is meaningful, fun, and useful in its own way, I have never, ever, stated otherwise - and given the time and effort I have gone into to write stories about my character's lives, it would be a very silly thing for me to say ]

 

As you describe, it can lend very fruitful depth to a character.  I would also not advise revision of backstory, especially not frequently.  This is very different from refinement over time.

 

Lets just take the current suggested case: the character in question could begin being roleplayed as an Au Ra Princess of an Eastern Kingdom recently arrived in Eorzea and looking to start a new life.  This is sufficient for role-playing purposes, and additional depth and detail (while not harmful) are unlikely to actually create more immediate role-playing opportunities.

 

If next week she then becomes an Au Ra raised in the Shroud on Conjurer's Stories and the Good Intentions of a wizened Miqo'te, but is otherwise the same character, we're really not doing anyone any good at all.

 

But if she, instead, adds definition to the kingdom that she is from, or her family, or her retainers who have traveled with her and so on, this is refinement that does not detract from the original telling.

 

All I am saying is that if you're looking to roleplay then a basic background is sufficient enough.  Just get in there and RP for a while, and you'll get to know your own character a little better as you do, and you can continue to refine the story as you go. 

 

Spending more and more time on the story, trying to make it more complex and detailed, may be pleasant enough in itself, but it is not going to contribute to those initial forays into RP, and may in fact detract from it if it becomes over-thought.

[Aoi Fukiku]

I am going to be blunt and just say I am fully in disagreement with you that a back story means nothing. Think of it like a tree trunk. The backstory grows and branches out to help discover if your character will have strengths and weaknesses, fears, past trauma, and more. You can always just mess around in a character creator and find something you like and build from there but then you will wonder the personality and how they got to be like that.

 

Everyone is free to of course RP what they want but please don't say a back story has no real importance. I mean,if you are constantly changing the background of your own character to fit the theme of this months fashion then yeah,a back story will probably just be a hassle. If not? Thinking on one can really help but a character.it doesn't even need to be elaborate and can always be branched out as time goes on ideas come. You can even trim old ideas for new ones.

First of all, disagreeing with "back story means nothing" does not only not put you at "full disagreement" with me, it does not put you at any sort of disagreement with me at all!  I completely agree with you. [The negation in here is really confusing... I'm agreeing that back story is meaningful, fun, and useful in its own way, I have never, ever, stated otherwise - and given the time and effort I have gone into to write stories about my character's lives, it would be a very silly thing for me to say ]

 

As you describe, it can lend very fruitful depth to a character.  I would also not advise revision of backstory, especially not frequently.  This is very different from refinement over time.

 

Lets just take the current suggested case: the character in question could begin being roleplayed as an Au Ra Princess of an Eastern Kingdom recently arrived in Eorzea and looking to start a new life.  This is sufficient for role-playing purposes, and additional depth and detail (while not harmful) are unlikely to actually create more immediate role-playing opportunities.

 

If next week she then becomes an Au Ra raised in the Shroud on Conjurer's Stories and the Good Intentions of a wizened Miqo'te, but is otherwise the same character, we're really not doing anyone any good at all.

 

But if she, instead, adds definition to the kingdom that she is from, or her family, or her retainers who have traveled with her and so on, this is refinement that does not detract from the original telling.

 

All I am saying is that if you're looking to roleplay then a basic background is sufficient enough.  Just get in there and RP for a while, and you'll get to know your own character a little better as you do, and you can continue to refine the story as you go. 

 

Spending more and more time on the story, trying to make it more complex and detailed, may be pleasant enough in itself, but it is not going to contribute to those initial forays into RP, and may in fact detract from it if it becomes over-thought.

 

The way you worded it

character backstory is one of the least important aspects of roleplaying.

 

Aspect of Roleplaying. This means that it is part of the overall sense of Roleplay. Not just your interaction with other characters but the time and practice used to create a character you want to Roleplay with. Just be careful with the terms you use. They can be confusing to people who are trying to follow along with the thread.

 

And Revisions happen quite often. RP partners disappear without a word, lore confirms something unknown which breaks a story, etc (Hai Dragoon :3 ) So it isn't something that can be avoided and is at full digression of the player.

[ArmachiA]

Okay OP. I'm going to try to help you out. Hopefully you'll read this because it's going to be long.

 

I call this essay: Why You Don't Want to Be George Lucas.

 

BUT FIRST, Let's talk about Yuna.

 

Getting inspiration from a different character is actually a great idea! In fact, I understand your love for Yuna because I myself designed Armi after her when I first started MMO-RPing. I made a lot of mistakes with her too, mostly that I was trying to copy her 1:1 in a universe where she didn't fit. It made my character completely unrelatable (remember that word, it'll come up later) and she wasn't really a person, she was just a copy of someone I wanted her to be.

 

What do you like about Yuna? We may like different things about her, but for me if was her quiet strength. How she understood her role and chose to accept it, even to the point of never telling her friends how scared she was. She was brave, but she was vulnerable. I also liked the fact she was a Priestess and a Summoner. Summoner and Red Mage are too of my favorite jobs in the franchise so I was obviously drawn to that.

 

Here's what we know about Yuna.

• A martyr who wants to do the right thing for the world, even if it means killing herself in the process.
  
• Quiet and reversed but also open to people she's very close to.
  
• A Talented Summoner trying to get all the Summons in order to get rid of Sin (At least for a time)
  
• Somewhat Naive. She constantly believes in finding the best in people even when she really shouldn't.
  
• Devout as all hell. Girl is a Yevon priestess through and through. At least at the beginning
  

 

One of the things you can see here is I didn't list her appearance. Her appearance DOESN'T MATTER. To be Yuna-like you DON'T have to make her look exactly like Yuna. For me, I tend to keep her somewhat friendly appearance in Armi, but I don't make Armi look exactly like Yuna. You don't have to, that "Yuna Aura" will come across if you do it right.

 

Now for the rest. There's obviously parts of that you should be going "Well, that won't work." There's no Yevon. There's no Sin. There's no world that need saving by one person (Well... Our Hero Mary Sue of Light I suppose...), there's no Summons in the way FFX has them. The rest are just personality traits, so those are easy enough.. but the others? You need to decide how important those are to you. If they are important, you need to be able to retrofit them into this world.

 

Which leads us to: Keeping a character grounded. How not to be like George Lucas #1

 

The problem a lot of people are having is your character is... alienating. Unrelatable. There's no real way to relate to a Queen/Summoner/Race Changing Hyur-Au Ra. In Fiction, it's really important to make sure your characters are relatable. You probably found Yuna VERY relatable which is why you want a character like her right? But you're stripping the parts out of Yuna that make her relatable (Her weakness and her vulnerabilities) and stuffing things in that make her less so (Being a Princess who became that way because of dancing, race changes for no reason).

 

Go watch Star Wars: A New Hope sometime. Then go watch The Phantom Menace. The first thing you're going to notice is how hard the latter lays it on us that Anakin is the super duper special. From the get go, we aren't really relating to Anakin as a character because he's only there to be "special". He can build robots, can race pod-racers, has all dem midichlorians, and may be the prophesied one! He just kinda goes with the flow too, he doesn't have much of a personality. His personality is "He's special" and that's what you're doing with your character.

In A New Hope - Luke isn't some chosen one, he's reckless and has a temper and he makes rash as hell decisions. We don't really know much about his traits - we don't know if he's an awesome Jedi because it doesn't really matter.

 

You always want to make sure your character is relatable. It's really important or you'll find yourself getting frustrated no one wants to interact with her. No one wants to interact with perfect. No one wants to interact with someone who is just "special"

 

So we get the the harder parts - what can you cut out to make her less special and what do you absolutely want to keep in?

 

It's cool so imma do it, How not to be George Lucas #2.

 

In the Prequels, it just kind seems like whatever George Lucas thought was neat, he was going to put in - whether it fit or not. It made the trilogy feel like "Wow look at backdrop I thought of, neat huh?". He thought Jar Jar Binks would work, not even caring about the tone of his movie. He probably wrote the most forced romance in the history of media. Anakin was barely a character, and his direction on how Hayden Christensen should play him pretty much killed that kids career. Hell, he told everyone to have that sort of wooden robotic acting because he said so, and the only person who made it unscathed was, arguably, Ewan Mcgregor.

 

You need to have consistency with your character. Don't throw in a bunch of stuff just because you think it's cool. Do you want to have a character based on a Queen or on Yuna? You can't really have both. Find the tone you're going for.

 

Also for the love of god, please come up with a different way she became a Princess. Make her capable! Don't make it because she looked pretty dancing. You're killing me here.

 

Listen to criticism, How not to be like George Lucas #3

 

The prequels were legit awful because George Lucas refused to listen to anyone when it came to his vision. He wrote the script for part one DAYS before it was to go into filming and he never let anyone look over it! WHY.

 

You need to be able to listen to what people thinks and find a happy medium.

 

Which brings me to - My idea for your character!

 

Just stay with me here.

• She just just be an Au Ra. Straight up. She's from Othard, there's nothing wrong with her being an Au Ra. Just keep it. There's no reason to overly complicate that.
  
• Instead of a Princess, have you ever just considered her being a spiritual leader for her Tribe? This ties into Yuna being a devout follower of Yevon. You can come up with all kinds of lore for this tribe. Maybe only women of faith can lead it and she was chosen for next in line. She's a protector and a guide, and is willing to sacrifice anything for her people.
  
• Instead of... dancing... she became the next chosen because she somehow stared down the face of Ifrit and came out of that alive and... with an egi! So she's a summoner. You'd have to work out the details with people who know more lore about where she would have had to go to find Ifrit, but she could have went on a spiritual journey and came back with an Egi. This gives her agency and strength. Makes her capable beyond... looking pretty and dancing.
  

 

None of this takes away anything you want to do, it just makes her more grounded in the lore of FFXIV. She's still like Yuna, she still a leader of her people.

 

Really think on how to make things work. For the love of God, don't be George Lucas.

[Ellmida]

I see a lot of time being spent on a back story and discussion of it that would probably be more productively put toward simple RP.

 

 

I agree in at this point it is overthinking it and to get a better idea for your character it might be good to just jump in and get a feel for your character and other player characters before you really solidify your backstory. That way you can have a better understanding of what people mean rather than hearing opinions on if things will or won't work.

[Parth Makeo]

I'm probably going to repeat what has been said but you shouldn't give up simply because we all hate it. If I can be blunt: the moment I saw the name Yuuna and you were wearing the Yuna clothes, I already didn't feel like reading your backstory.

 

I read it regardless but the others dissected and commented on it to death. As ArmachiA said, you can still have your Yuna if you take her traits, not her character. 

Like for me, I took traits of other characters to make Alyx Quintessence but I only added her history as more people got involved and even added to it.

 

There are many RPers not using the forums and that is ok. Just that if you want your character to stand out or be epic...

You need to EARN it. Not simply because you came up with the idea first. Time and dedication of RPing wins out over fabrications of how awesome your character is or how special they are.

But I'm being a hypocrite right? We're all special snowflakes

 

But seriously. focus on the Present and not the past. Easier to have a simplified backstory that you can expand and expose as time goes on rather than slam the book down from the start.

 

P.S: just make her an Au Ra or Hyur (since both are from othard). There is literally no ducking reason to have her race change in background just because you want a Hyur. Just remove that bit all together and save the headaches. 

 

Pardon if I am critical. Rants of a writer since 2007