Building Character - Autonomy And Backstory

Building Character - Autonomy and Backstory

By far the worst thing that a character can do in a story, is nothing.

Whether they are kind or merciless,  devout or heretical, loyal or aloof, to act is to be. If a character faces great adversity, they cannot expect to do nothing, be polite, and never face consequences, yet for them to remain important. Masterminds act. Villains act. Even cowards act. Devices, however, obey despite everything. A character is born when they make a choice that changes their life, forever.

A harsh lesson I learned rather recently was one of structure. It, for me, defined the concept of character and their story in everything.

A character is born when it first appears, and dies once its story ends.

Now, they may still be alive, and they often are, but their character ceases to be when they no longer need to do anything, and so, the character dies and leaves the name behind. Once the villain is defeated, the world saved, and normality is reestablished, then the story ends, and with it, the character. They become the world they fought so hard to save and fade into obscurity.

Essentially, the lesson serves to reign in writers who rely on the merits of a backstory. Your character may have once saved his family’s life, or won this grand tournament, or proven herself, time and time again. But, if none of this is in the story, then it doesn’t mean anything.

You are telling the story to us, correct? So, why should we care about something that didn’t happen within it? Why aren’t you telling us that story? Why is this one more important?

You could bring any character you want and drop them onto us and talk about their powers and strengths and intelligences, but you will always fail to impress because it wouldn’t be a story.

For example, say that you inform me that your character can lift a fully-grown cow above their head. It may seem impressive, but, when compared to any superhero setting, it pales in comparison to what they can achieve. There is no challenge or tension in a backstory, and if you make a character and expect their past, witnessed endeavours to garner any compassion from your audience, then you may as well have presented them some furniture with the same name.

If you want your character to belong in the story, to be challenged and experience struggle and suffering that will change them and make them choose, all you have to do is be prepared to have them act. The moment they stand against adversity and do something about it, brave or not, is when they first begin to exist. When they choose to follow an order; choose to defy the law; choose to protect the innocent; choose to accept the bribe; choose to change something and fight for that future.

If you write a backstory, then have it so that it influences the choices to come rather than act as a ‘get out of jail free’ card to somehow justify indecision and apathy. Craft and design the events that came before so that they do not overshadow the events to come, but serve to magnify their impact. Play with broad, heavy concepts like family, nationality, prejudice, loss, wealth, guilt. Allow these things to shape and direct the character rather than conclude them and shut the book on their tale because it is easier upon the ego if everything went exactly as planned.

Let things go wrong for your character. Allow them to fail, and learn, and suffer, and grow, and choose how they do so.

But if you are happy with your character being some nameless, hopeless, and unambitious nothing, then finish their story before it happens and watch them become just another colourful piece of scenery.

*Big ol’ eBook Update Below*

On Friday the 15th of December, this year, I will be releasing a single chapter eBook of a long-term project I have been working on for a while now on ISSUU.com for free. It is an ahistorical, fantasy novel called ‘Crow Eater’ set in an alternative history colonial America, 200 years after Christopher Columbus had failed his voyage across the Atlantic. The story focuses upon individuals fighting for their lives against the wilderness, and the weird world within.

     “Not much is sacred anymore, this far from home on our oversea land of opportunity. Lisbon wails for us, mourning our departure, but I assure you, my homeland kin, that this is the greatest discovery of the millennia. The mere sighting of this continent was as if the skin of the world had been broken open, exposing fresh, red meat to all us vermin breeding on the outside. The race for the richest portions of this banquet pulled all of mankind out and over the seas. Turkey, France. Britain, my dearest Portugal; often a stream was all that separated one colonist’s territory from another, a simple step between a thousand different people and their thousand years of differences.”

                                                                                   ...   and so the story begins.

Enjoy

Pixie x

I love to make my villains people.

The moment when players realise that they have come into conflict with a character going along their own story path to restore their normalcy is bittersweet. 

For a brief, beautiful moment, all of their desperation and depravity melts away, and the players see the shadow of a lost, broken person, too far gone to turn back now.

The realisation that, sometimes, a villain is just one man resisting a world that you happen to be a part of, and that you are not the hero just for fighting him back.

They would like me to DM for them.

So my colleagues learned that I play D&D

Good shout out. For what Dungeon World lacks in crunchy gameplay, it more than makes up for with a complex understanding of player psychology and human mechanics. 

Worth reading up on if you want to learn some ways to improve, and adapt for, your tabletop game. The system is very rules-lite and supremely comprehensible as it focuses on the people playing rather than the game as a concept.

Monday Night Dungeon Mastering - The Surrender Fallacy

Writers can find themselves itching with an idea. This singular concept of story and narrative sits sluggishly on their minds and teases them with a feather between the shoulder blades. The writer sees their idea as a defining moment of ultimate action that must be realised to be itched. It is where the story comes to climax and the reader is struck in their seat with the awe of it. It is so pure and divinely emotional that it rattles the nerves to even contemplate it, but, if only the writer could wrangle their story into getting there.

This obsession over one moment trivialises the story as it ducks and weaves through itself. The world and characters begin bending and straining to the point of collapse to somehow allow this one moment to take centre stage. It’s the ego talking. We believe our own hype, and consequences be damned. Resultantly, the narrative suffers to propagate this flawed ideal.

This issue is prevalent enough within an environment where the writer controls all input. In a novel or script the writer has sole authority over characters and their agency. The world buckles and bends to their command and reshapes as they see fit. Now, imagine a narrative setting where you,as the writer, don’t control the characters …

… not even close.

Spoilers: you don’t have to. The answer is being a Dungeon Master. Big surprise.

As a Dungeon Master (and trust me, I sympathise) you will have these grandiose concepts for story and player character narrative. You want the game to be exciting. You want your players to have fun. But … 

but.

You kinda, maybe, also might want to show off a little. Just once or twice. Y'know, put your best foot forward and give yourself something to be proud of once the session ends. You can’t let them have all the fun. Maybe its your world, or an NPC or villain you are particularly proud of. So you write that in, and you build the scene in your head. You will beautifully narrate the importance of the heroes’ quest, terrify them with the danger of your irredeemable - yet morally complex - villain, and show the best of the world you have poured countless hours over in your study. You have perfected every encounter, named every tavern and drink, statted every character down to the skill points and pettiest of equipment, and you are ready to blow your player’s minds.

BUT THEY WON’T

SIT

STILL.

The illusionist rogue kicks away from his seat and hurries to harass your chieftain-warlord of grotesque, inhuman rage. The barbarian flips her table and rushes your undercover, double-agent assassin with a maul without an inkling of provocation. The wizard casts a counter-spell on your sorcerer as he tries to dramatically teleport away, leaving him stuck in a sad, little cloud of expended, magical smog. The bard just WON’T STOP SEDUCING THINGS. 

So you snap.

You take your player characters, sit them down, tie them up, and force them to listen. For once. You become one of those nightmarish preschool teacher who duct tapes his students to their chairs.

You set your players up for defeat, stacking the odds against them to such an insane degree that they simply have no other choice but to surrender, or maybe you don’t even give them the chance to surrender and kidnap them as they sleep. Every action is batted down, every interruption silenced. You take a breath, and begin to tell your story in peace to your captives.

Do not do this. Please. It is unhealthy and can damage trust.

If you want a passive and silent audience, write a book. This just has the players feeling as if the DM has reached across the table and stolen their character sheet so she can play by themselves.

It manifests in many ways. Overbearing cut-scenes, NPC plot-armour, save-or-die mechanics, vetoed player actions, forced mulligans or redo’s. (Note how these are different from narrative or gameplay effects, like simply being taken prisoner, or getting knocked unconscious / paralysed in combat . The Surrender Fallacy is when the DM refuses player agency and does what he wants without allowing their input)

These are your players - your friends: people who have put aside their time and work to come to your game to play and have fun, not sit by and watch.

For one, they will hate it. They may behave like they accept it at the time, but their resentment will be immediate and sorely bitter. This is not a dynamic you want between your players and your game. If they have no control over their characters or their actions, then they will stop playing and do something else: play with their phones, talk about other things aside from the game. They will not be enjoying their time, no matter how happy you are, and eventually may just choose to not turn up.

To avoid this deathly circumstance you must do one, painful thing: you have to let go of your pride.

Your story will not be perfect - especially with players at the helm of it; it will be disastrous, chaotic, and downright sinister or even unheroic at times. But it will be their story. They will be in control of themselves. They will be acting. they will be playing, and they will be having fun in your world.

Learn to react to their shenanigans rather than demand something of them. Be happy with taking it slow, and do not get antsy when they are not chasing the plot about at breakneck pace. Don’t abandon narrative altogether; continue to keep things tense and the consequences real, but understand that a memorable story is always based off of character choice, rather than having none -  understanding that taking one road of a branching path makes their character unique with the knowledge that noone else would have done that same thing.

Respect your players and their agency, and they shall respect you, and your game.

And, most importantly,

Enjoy

Pixie x

Also ...

eBook will be released later today on ISSUU.com

Do you like fantasy, and big, magical birds? Then it might just interest you enough to check out my eBook; Crow Eater.

For the evening crowd (UK edition)

My eBook - Crow Eater - Chapter One: Little Lynchpin - is available for download on ISSUU.com now!

Its here, its free, and its rather damn, sexy if i’m being honest. 

It feels so fulfilling to finally have this see the light of day after all of these hours of pampering and stressing over details. All feedback and comments are welcome, as  I want this project to be a success, and for my readers to receive my best work. 

So, if you like reading fantasy, or about strange worlds of malice and wilderness or merely just like my writing and want to see more of it, then please do check out the eBook here. It is free, it will always be free, and it is available for download on ISSUU.com.

And most importantly, enjoy

Pixie x