When making a new character, the third step, after coming up with a concept and rolling/choosing your attributes, is choosing a background for your character. Players need to know where their characters come from as this decision shapes many details both story-wise as well as mechanically.
My first order of business in planning my Tower of Druaga game using the AGE System was to define the character backgrounds. Since I am not really setting out to create a full-fledged sourcebook, my initial though was to simply reskin as many of the backgrounds in the Dragon Age Player’s Guide to suit my purpose; based on whatever my players wanted to play, then I would create anything new as needed.
At least that was the plan.
The basic backgrounds included in Dragon Age Set 1 are wonderfully versatile and provide a great template from which to go. I started my job with the basic human adventurer, which I would base off the Ferelden Freeman background. I left it practically as-is, altering only a couple of Focus options on the random benefit table to reflect more the world of Tower of Druaga. I then renamed it Meskian Burgher, your typical citizen of Meskia, the city inside the Tower. I figured, yep, that was easy.
The problem came when I moved to the second background I had in mind. There are two noble characters in the series, and though they have different backstories, the one thing they have in common is that both are outcasts from their families, whether by choice or not. So right there I saw another character background option. I looked over the basic backgrounds in the book, and used a good part of the Circle Mage background as my source, adding things to round it out as a more artistocratic background rather than academical/magical.
There was a nagging thought in the back of my head, though, but I couldn’t put my finger on it so I ignored it and moved on. Meanwhile, my friend JJ, who has signed up to play in my Tower of Druaga game, made suggestions for possible backgrounds. He also noted that going off the sample backgrounds in the book, which use a race and/or culture as their template, would be fairly hard since a character’s point of origin isn’t such a huge deal in the anime. Yes, some characters tell you where they come from a few times, and the fact that there are two former nations (and thus, factions) does come into play during the story, but it just wasn’t central to the character essence. JJ was absolutely right, and that made me think before writting any more backgrounds for my game.
The essential question is this: what do Backgrounds do in the game? In looking at Dragon Age, the answer would seem to be: they dictate the character’s race and cultural origin, perhaps even their social one as well. Circle Mage, Apostate, Surface Dwarf, Avvarian Hillsman – these backgrounds all fit that description and fulfill that role. But in my Tower of Druaga game this definition just doesn’t hold much power because the source material simply isn’t concerned with those details. Or more accurately, not with all of those details. What the background of the characters in the anime really tells you as a viewer is, what kind of person is this that they would brave this monster-infested Tower? Right there I had my answer.
Backgrounds in Tower of Druaga dictate the character’s core reason for climbing the Tower. I will also use Goals to flesh out why specifically the characters are climbing the Tower, but the background tells you what kind of person they are that they would even consider risking their lives like this in the first place. After thinking about the main characters of the anime for a bit, I realized that this was indeed the way to go and I set out to map the backgrounds that would cover the basic motivations seen on the show.
If you are setting out the adapt the Dragon Age rules for your own homebrewed setting, or using them to craft your conversion of a favorite show or movie, it is a good idea to take a moment to think about what backgrounds truly represent in your game. It may be that the race/culture/occupation combination is the way to go; indeed, I can think that in most fantasy games set in a specific world, this would be the ideal as it helps flesh out the setting one little bit a time. But it need not be. Perhaps in your game backgrounds represent strictly one of those elements, perhaps it specifies social class or academic achievement or affiliation (a Harry Potter-based game set in Hogwarts would use the Houses as backgrounds, for example). Or maybe it is something more abstract, as with my own example for the Tower of Druaga game.
Think about the background of your backgrounds and you will see how, once you arrive at what this mechanic represents in your game, it will make the resulting characters so much more tied to the themes you want to explore during play.
JesterOC
Feb 07, 2011 @ 11:10:37
Dragon age backgrounds are different from any other system I have played. Most game systems backgrounds either are pure fluff or are an excuse to allow one form of expertise that would be expected from a person with the prior experience described. Often times the character is very different from his background which usually is because they had a life changing event in the past which pushed them to be exceptional.
Dragon age’s system has backgrounds that more tightly control what you can choose from in a starting character, This makes the characters tightly bound to their backgrounds. Rather than having an event in the past that changes them from the norm, they start out in the norm and change as the characters plays them.
This mechanism coupled with random attributes can make for interesting characters to develop in play.
Daniel M. Perez
Feb 07, 2011 @ 12:58:34
One of the things I’m diggin about AGE Backgrounds the more I work with them is that they truly can represent an actual character background. One of the ones I created for my game is Veteran. A character choosing that background still starts at Level 1, but the background can and does reflect the fact they have had experience already. The complement to that is that Dragon Age characters at Level 1 are pretty effin tough! So even a 1st-level character CAN be a veteran in comparison to the rank-and-file.
Chris
Feb 07, 2011 @ 15:37:08
Very good point. I have been tossing a Planescape conversion around in my head for the past week and had already decided that I would break open the standard Dragon Age backgrounds so that races would give the attribute bonus and other racial abilities and the backgrounds would cover the different factions and provide focuses and talents.
Cheers!
CG
Daniel M. Perez
Feb 07, 2011 @ 15:52:58
Let me mess your mind up a bit kore then:
In D&D Planescape, you had a race because that’s what part if making s character in D&D entails, but truth be told, the setting of Planescape cared little, if at all, what your race was. It’s all about the factions, the allegiances, the subterfuge. Wanna zoom in on that aspect for your AGE conversion? Backgrounds then all address the factions, with race being a cosmetic matter (maybe at most an issue of one or two focuses, or only relevant if there’s a faction of only X race). How does that sound?
JesterOC
Feb 07, 2011 @ 16:16:36
That reminds me of the Circle Mage in Dragon Age. Racial characteristics had a secondary impact on the background choice but it was nearly insignificant. The PC’s racial characteristics were only expressed via the 2 dice rolls on the additional benefits table.
Perhaps instead of having a table with a column for every available race, you could have a column for groups of races. Or perhaps if one particular race dominates a faction you can have that race broken off into its own column.
Daniel M. Perez
Feb 08, 2011 @ 09:50:14
Over at the Midgard forums this is something we are discussing as well. My post could not have been better timed.
Chris
Feb 08, 2011 @ 10:33:20
JesterOC, that is pretty much what I am planning.
Similar to Wolfgang’s Corsair:
Except there would be a separate choice for races – each of which would offer a racial modifier or special ability. I have also always wanted to run a “big guns” Planescape game, with the PCs being able to play some of the more bizarre denizens of the Planes. Any thoughts on that?
“A balor, a medusa and an deva walk into a bar…”
Daniel M. Perez
Feb 08, 2011 @ 22:45:21
In a game like what you describe there, then backgrounds would be all about the race alone so that you could truly focus on that and decide, what about being one of these “big gun” races is so important that I would center my whole game around it?
wrathofzombie
Feb 10, 2011 @ 09:53:56
I think backgrounds are an amazing mechanic that allow players to have a guideline as to what made their characters and where they are going.
Many players have a “loose” idea of a background that never comes to fruition and it just collects dust.. I’ve also seen characters create WAY too detailed of backgrounds that also just sit around and collect dust.
Backgrounds offer a simple form of guidance that also fits in some mechanical bonuses that help you formulate your story.