Tip for those who want to write a concise backstory: Write your novel. Then condense the childhood/family, personality/temperament, prior career/interests/adventures(if starting at higher levels), and call to adventure into three paragraphs each. Then condense those three paragraphs into one each. Lastly condense each paragraph into a sentence. Keep all of these, because you now have your character's introduction to the other players, the DM's outline of your character, your reference material to get into character, and an outlet for your wishes to write a lot about your character, in reverse order.
Others have mentioned this, but the AI fell to the classic problem of "adventurer of renown"... at Level 1. My DM has been giving questions for the character lately (such as their thoughts about/relations to certain entities within the world's lore) and I think I like that more than "write a backstory!"
It’s a classic nub blunder and the AI is, for all intents and purposes, a nub! I like asking questions for someone’s character! I’ve found it usually provides better, more unique responses than “write a backstory”
Just like any AI goes “shit in, shit out”. If you are a 1 level adventurer, then say it in the promt. I think that a lot of people keep ignoring this tool just based on bad inputs (that has nothing to do with AI). So yes, honing your skills in AI outputs may create some amazing characters and stories.
This backstory is written as if they were a hero of old and this is like a play that’s being reenacted. I sometimes do this to think on what kind of development/story arc I have in mind for my characters, but it can write you into a dead-end so easily.
It really can. I made the mistake of allowing a player to essentially pre-write their character arc and anytime the campaign deviated from that they got upset😂
I think the AI backstory is something I would send back and say "rewrite it" as I have a few big issues with it 1) Bro you are level 1, you are not known far and wide. 2) It just says that you can do ranger stuff over and over again in different fonts without any substance 3) Make sure it actually includes your reason for being an adventurer! So yea! Yours despite being like 1/3rd the length meets all my requirements when I GM!
I love when you add the things like "COMMUNICATION". That always make me smile. That was not a horrible back story for an AI. As a long time DM I can 100% that the longer the back story the less likely I am to read it. Give me some bullet points and then lets work on it as the story moves on. Thanks for doing the thing and being you.
Bullet points are the way to go fo sho. At least for sharing. Maybe someday I’ll throw that in a t-shirt and send it to ya! Thanks for commenting on the thing and being you
@@tabletopbro another trick that I thought of is I tell my players "Only write about stuff you want me to tell a story about." So your character may be married but if you just want that for RP and not for me to tell stories about it then I don't need it in the bullet points.
Tha AI backstory was surprisingly competent and not entirely generic sounding, and therefore disturbing lol. Also, the AI seemed to have hit a wall as to what the Crown of the Kobold King is about. (It's also not in the Hold of Belzen.) I also think it's cringe that backstories usually talk about being bad-ass and having big reputations... at Level 1 lol. In PF2 that doesn't make sense; in 5e even less so. Your backstory is duly noted! As you can tell I'm not into huuuge backstories either. I still need to get back to you guys about some info on the town of Falcon's Hollow, plus we need to figure out what brings this motley crew together!
Any piece of media telling you how cool and badass someone or something is, is cringe. That’s definitely a trait that needs to be shown so the audience can decide for themselves!
Due to playing a lot of incomplete campaigns in the past (mainly due to time limitations since my old group only played at lunch hour), I haven't been one to develop a really rich backstory for my characters. Especially in low-level play, death is also a possibility that makes writing a detailed backstory risky. Instead I do a similar thing as you, where I have a general idea of the main concept of the character and slowly make up details as I go. My current character is a half-orc named Ulzog the Impaler, who was a gladiator at the d&d equivalent of Vegas. As we've played, I've found myself understanding his temperament and why he may act certain ways. By doing a history check on a tanarukk we fought, the DM added a layer about a story told by my orc father about those creatures when I was young. Over time I've added more point-form details, but there's still plenty of room to add more depth without needing to write a novella
@@tabletopbro I definitely find it more rewarding, since I uncover new dimensions of the character that I didn't realize were there until it plays into the story
@@Sirdeathvids To your point of uncovering new dimensions, I switched because I found I would player my characters way different from the prewritten backstory and such I would give them. Having bullet points of a rough concept makes for fewer disconnects like that. In my experience at least!
Hey man, just stumbled upon your channel and loving it so far! You got yourself a new sub. I was wondering, what made parts of this AI-generated backstory "cringe" to you?
Thanks I try! I think the main offense is that it kept talking about how cool and badass Grondak is. Ignoring the fact that this is a level one character who theoretically hasn't accomplished much, I find anything that TELLS you how cool and badass a character is, is cringe. The audience should come to that conclusion on their own based on the author SHOWING us them being a cool badass. Does that make sense?
1:48 YOOO IT'S ME I HIT HARD FOR MY 14 SUBS LETS GOOOOOOO!!!! Edit: Also I tend to not read more than two pages, just skim the rest lol. At least I have bothered my players enough to give me paragraphs! EDIT: 15 POG PREPARE TO BE DISAPOINTED!
My favorite character backstory I've had thus far was... nothing. He was a drow warlock with an unknown age and background, except that he is kleptomanic for the color violet. I asked my DM to specifically include that he lost someone named Violet in Crow's story, but that Crow had lost all of his memories and so the rest of the backstory was to be come up with by the DM so even I wouldn't know Crow's story!
Dude that is awesome and incredibly creative! Leaving blanks to be filled out later (I feel) always leads to far more fun than writing a bunch of things out.
I have taken to writing backstories that are 300 characters or less. GMs still don’t bother to read them. So now I show up with zero backstory and it hasn’t made a single bit of difference in any game Ive played in the past two years. 😂
I find that backstories are more for the players more than anything. I do my best as a DM to integrate things from my players backstories as best I can, but sometimes the shit they write just doesn't fit.
