CC Background

Figure out your life's story
This is the essence of the character and the basis for all the numbers that will eventually follow. The Referee is the overall narrator of the game, but the players are contributing storytellers and it all starts with the characters they build.

Characters are not created in a vacuum. Even if it's appropriate for a player to create a young, otherwise inexperienced character, they'll still have a history. For the player, it all starts here: why is your character in this adventure? This is where you devise the history of this persona, from the very beginning, up to the point that the game starts. You want the ultimate roleplay challenge? The character shouldn't even be here. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong person.

The most important thing to think about is why?After that, what did the character do in life, and what did life do back to them, to make this all fall into place? Other questions that are central to character development include:

How old are you?
The older your character is, the more experience he will have. The fuller and richer you can play. On the other hand, the older you are, the more time takes its toll. You won't be quite as fast. What better suits your potential play style?

Where were you born?
Geography is life. The birthplace and origin of a character will have a profound influence on what opportunities await and what threats lay in wait. Do they need to defend the homeland from the heathens or did they already emigrate, voting with their feet?

Specific questions: Where were you raised? Big city? Uptown or downtown? The cosmopolitan areas or the docks? Coastal city, flatlands, mountainous region, or something really exotic? Maybe the wilderness? What kind of a lifestyle did this setting spark?

What is (or was) your family like?
Nurturing and supportive? Indifferent or average? Abusive? Were you an orphan? Batman could've been a pirate from Penzance...

Was your family in the military or otherwise moved around a lot? That could result in a lot of worldly travel at young age, be it from parents that had 6-month corporate assignments, a mom that was a fortune teller in the circus or a dad who was a migrant farm worker.

Where have you been and what have you done?
Do you have a military history? It's a way to get better active-type skills, but often skimps on the artistic skills and the personal cash. Criminal or espionage history? It makes life interesting. Were you a garbage man that witnessed a murder and had to start running for your life? What jobs have you had? Promotions? Children Love interests? Sponsors?

You've been living in a dangerous world, and you're still alive, but by how much? If you've had the adventure lifestyle for a while, what have you encountered so far that may have had a powerful effect:  Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and some ugly physical scarring. Perhaps you were captured and subject to torture and interrogation. Maybe your one great mistake cost your friends their lives (and maybe a dishonorable discharge as well after military incarceration). Were you a hero instead, decorated and rewarded? Were you both?

Who are your friends... and enemies?
A long list of friends means you've done things in life good enough to earn the appreciation of the people around you. A long list of enemies means you've stepped on a lot of toes, which can say both wonderful and awful things.

What worldly possessions have you accumulated?
Skip the mundane and list net worth in the form of any investments, property, vessels or resources you might otherwise fall back on during a game. Note that the higher your operational skills, likely the lower net worth you've accumulated. Great managerial skills, on the other hand, usually translate into the bucks. What was the most unreal part of Batman? The car? No. The utility belt? No. The rich industrialist that could kick ass in a dark alley? Yes. Yes. Yes.

Whatever influence or power your character may have earned, you cannot change history. However, if you so choose, you may be a part of history. Note that the grander the character becomes, the less freedom a player has on participating in other campaigns (because their history is different from yours).

Genre twist: Are you really you?
It's possible, depending on the campaign, that you may get speculative with near-future scientific options. Right now, it may be science fiction – but in 10 years, who knows?

Some fans of the more hard-core Science Fiction elements may want to try an alternative life style, such as:  Are you a clone or a recreant? Are you going to make life really difficult and be a non-human? A robot of some sort?

The same goes for fantasy... though for the love of all that's holy, be wary of the Self-Exiled King Hiding Under a Secret Identity trope. Or at the very least, make sure you work with the Ref on this one so you both know what kingdom that it (because it will definitely have an impact on the campaign).

Conditionals
The whole point of creating the background of this adventuring person is to create a narrative that gives the character motivational momentum going into the campaign. This is where a player determines the character's current socioeconomic status and the forces that have shaped them into who and what they are.

There may be special or exceptional circumstances beyond the normal limits of a character background. The conditionals will affect character capacity and will have a more profound effect on the character as played in the game.

A player seeking to apply conditionals to their character should ask the Ref for guidance if such conditionals are right for the campaign, and if so, to what degree. Due to the nature of conditionals, most would be applied in genre campaigns.
 * Special Ability (magic): spontaneous spellcasting "ability" usually results in the quick and gruesome death of that person. Whether "natural" or by exposure to some hazard, a player can work with a Ref to implement how that would look for a given character. This is more apt to be found in Fantasy or Alt-Fantasy campaigns. For D&D players, this would cover the equivalent of "Sorcerer" class.
 * Special Ability (cybernetic): possible in Modern (speculative fiction) or Science Fiction campaigns, this would indicate a person who has some element of their physiology replaced or enhanced by whatever technology is appropriate to the campaign. This would include the contemporary/near-future likes of the Six Million Dollar Man, or the implants, jacks and so forth in Science Fiction/cyberpunk genre campaigns.
 * Special Ability (peculiar): specific and exceptional abilities that would rate a character as a "superhero." This is an extremely wide range from "supersoldiers" (hello, Steve Rogers) to super[wo]men (hello, Kara Danvers).

Ready to Take the Next Step?
Now that you've got an idea of how the character's life has played out so far, it's time to flesh out the idea. Check out the character attributes page.