Background

Problem Characters

If you looked over my players tips, you'll see much the same thing there as here (albeit from the opposite perspective). Basically, you need to be able to interject enough of your own material into the character's background that that character is a part of your campaign (and remember that this is your first, and, in many ways, best, chance to get plot hooks into the character), but that character should be a product of his player, not your own twisted imagination. Let's look at a few ways of doing that.

The way I generally work on a background is by first having all the players give me very rough sketches of what they want their backgrounds to be like, completely without details. For example,

"Fred grew up in the Golden Circle, thinking he was the child of a local noble. Eventually, he walked the Pattern, and spent about ten years subjective wandering through Shadow, doing mostly sailing related stuff."

That's really all the detail you want at this stage. With that in mind, I will usually send the player a list of facts I want worked into his background. To continue the previous example, I send the player back,

"Okay, get all of this into your background. Your presumed father, the Count of D'Arvend, a Golden Circle noble, was always distant around you, and you couldn't help but notice that you bore little resemblence to your siblings. When you were 19, completely unexpectedly, the Ambassador from Chaos to Amber made an unannounced visit to your 'father's' residence. She stated that she required your company, and your father just mumbled an agreement. The Ambassador took you to Amber with her, ignoring all your questions, and, when you were at the base of Kolvir, wove some kind of spell around the both of you. She then took you into the Castle, and into the Basement. For some reason, the guards didn't seem to notice either of you as she took you into the Pattern Room. When she got you there, she told you, fiercely, 'Put your foot upon this, and walk the lines to the center. If you live, you live free.' As soon as you started upon the Pattern, she left the room. Apparantly, she shortly thereafter returned to Chaos, you later learned. When you were out in Shadow, you often had a sensation of being watched, and your boats had a horrible string of bad luck, what might seem almost like sabotauge, given the number of sinkings and crashes. About a year ago, a short redhead named Fiona knocked on your door and announced that she was your aunt, and presented you to the Court. But no one will tell you who your real parents might be."

Whew. Long example. But that's the sort of thing. At that point, if the player is okay with those "facts," then he writes me a much more cohesive, exact description of his life, probably to the tune of two or three typewritten pages. I encourage players not to write really long backgrounds, both because I don't necessarily want to slog through 50 pages of their prose, and because I want them to leave their characters room to grow. On the other hand, sometimes a player will write me back with, "No, Fred would never just go along with the Chaosite like that, he'd try to escape!" in which case we talk it over a little bit and figure out what the end result of Fred's encounter with the Ambassador actually is.

I like this method because it gives the players a lot of control, while still letting me insert the elements I need into their background. And, of course, the player does most of the work. On the other hand, some GM's want more input into the background process than that. So, if you're willing to put the time in, there's another good way to do it.

Essentially, if you've got the time and inclination, roleplaying the character's background is a great way to go. Here, the idea is to sit down with the player and construct, interactively, the whole of the character's life, from birth onwards. Expect a lot of negotiation and conversation, and not a little outright sitting down and roleplaying certain crucial scenes in the game.

If you take this approach, do be careful not to consider it exactly like a normal game session. The player should have much more authorial control of the background than he will in the game proper. It is, after all, his character, and in most games, he would have almost complete control over his backgrounds.

Of course, these approaches may be combined, with a basically player driven background punctuated by roleplaying of particularly important scenes, or whatever. Whichever route you choose, always keep in mind the twin goals of having a character that fits well into your plans for the game, and one that the player owns, that the player can understand and take pride in, and that the player can eventually roleplay well. Be wary of forcing your ideas of what's "cool" or whatever on a character if the player doesn't seem to share your notions. Of course, on the other hand, some characters are just unacceptable, which brings us to...

Problem Characters

While you don't want to dictate the background of a character to a player over that player's wishes, neither should you allow yourself to be bulldozed into accepting a character who'll ruin your games. If you look to the menu bar to your left, you'll see the Problem Characters link, which goes to a page of some example stats which I consider symptomatic of a problem character.

Please note that these are symptoms, not the problem itself. I'm sure that there have been characters created with those exact stats who have been completely reasonable within their respective campaigns, and there have certainly been a lot of problem characters who didn't fit those profiles.

What I'm going to talk about in this section is backgrounds which you might want to look on with a wary eye. Specifically, you need to deal with backgrounds which are either counter-genre or overly simple.

Counter-genre backgrounds vary, of course, with each game, but things I'd look out for include:

Cartoon Worlds: Yes, Shadow is infinite, but Amber isn't a comedy game. This is possibly the most tenuous background I can think of. I find it hard to imagine a rich and detailed character who comes from a world which imitates any of the american cartoon traditions. If this background comes up with your players, I'd suggest sitting down with the player in question and asking him or her why he or she wants this character, what growth will come out of it. It may well be that the player is either stuck for ideas or just not willing to play the Amber genre. If it's the latter, better you find out now than halfway through the game.
Anime Worlds: No, they aren't the same. Anime (Japanese Animation) covers a broader and generally somewhat more complex storytelling tradition than do American cartoons. However, there remain a bunch of fairly silly cliches. If you get an anime background, it's probably best to encourage the player to drop the label "anime" and instead work some of the factors from anime which the player wants into an original world, which is less likely to degenerate into sillyness. If the player seems to be wedded to the sillyness, on the other hand, the objections are the same as to the american cartoon tradition.
Other RPG Worlds: Want a background which has been done too much? Look at Dragonlance, Greyhawk, or the Forgotten Realms. If the player thinks this is new and fresh, well, he or she's wrong. I've seen this done in Amber games, White Wolf games, etc., etc. Frankly, I'd much rather see a character from a generic but original fantasy world than a TSR (or any other game company) one. An original fantasy or sci-fi world should allow the players to explore the same themes, but won't encourage them to fall into the stereotypes encouraged by the world's "native" game. If the player is wedded to a pre-existing world, at the very least you should make it known to the player that now that that world is a portion of your universe, you reserve the right to make what changes to it as are necessary to make it fit into your game. (This will be damn useful when the player wants to make use of some obscure aspect of the original world's canon to wreck your nice plots).
Angst: No, not angst world, just angst. Sometimes, people get a little too caught up in just how incredibly dysfunctional the Family really is. Hey, let's face it, none of the Elders sound like they'd be exactly ideal parents, and god knows that their childhoods weren't precisely normal. Combine that with all the possible nastyness out there in Shadow, and you've got the potential for a truly wretched life. Problem is, Amber's not a game about demi-gods getting psychoanalyzed. Corwin, Merlin, and most everyone else, while acknowledging that they could have had a more loving and supporting family life, seem to be fairly willing to look on the bright side and realize that they did get godlike powers out of the whole affair and consider it an okay trade off. This isn't to say that everybody should be happy and bouncy all the time, but, if you're going for a game which is fairly like either of the two Chronicles in tone, a White Wolf "Oh, how tragic is my life"-fest probably isn't what you're looking for. Amberites seem to be pretty good at burying their feelings and going on, or, at the very worst they (like Dalt or Corwin) get obsessed with doing something. What they don't do is huddle in a dark room and become neurotically incapable of getting anything done, and your players should probably be steered away from that sort of thing as well.
Terra-centric: People tend to forget that Earth is only a silly Shadow where Corwin happened to get dumped for a few hundred years. While we're all guilty of this to some degree (and a bit of Earth-centrism is probably a good thing), if it's overdone, a character can feel subtly "off." Where this personally gets me is when somebody spends a lot of time making their character fit some magical or cultural role from Earth. I find it bothers me if they see the whole game through the eyes of an Earthling. Note that I'm speaking here of the player, not the character. Obviously, if the person in question is playing a character from Earth, the character's provencialism is to be expected. A more subtle complaint that those previous, this probably boils itself down to: if you think that a character may not quite fit into the game, think it over, find out why, and talk to the player about it. It may well be that nobody changes anything, but if both you and the player are aware of the potential problem, you'll be more equipped to deal with it if it does arrise.

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