Character Backgrounds

I belted out a concept for an Ars Magica companion I will run probably next year. I had a fairly defined list of circumstances in the concept that was to have/will happen to them. The story guide made a good point in that it will make the character more interesting to play the events in the background out in game as the campaign progresses. What a simple and excellent idea.

I have seen backgrounds for other peoples characters and alot of the time all the cool stuff has happened to the character already. There are quite a few arguments I can see for playing out these events in game.

• All the cool stuff has already happened to the character


• This makes it difficult for the GM to "live up" to the cool stuff that has happened in the background


• often the background has no indication as to where the player wants the back story to develop next


• Its more fun to play out those events


• It gives you time to react to the events differently as you are continually developing the character further during the game

I think when developing characters the players should submit to the GM a plan of where they want the character to end up as play progresses as opposed to submitting a detailed and rich back story where basically as the game begins the character has already lived a full and enriched life.