The most traumatizing backstory ever

[QuirkyAngel]

LOL .. @QuirkyAngel was that important character his dog?
I hate to admit it, but I am as guilty as many of this. Here is a character I made once for a Walking Dead RP. Yes, I was aiming for someone who life had been a series of events where she had to start over. Oddly, she was loosely based on a real friend of my mother.


Heather Anne Thomas Age 36 5’4” Dirty blonde wavy hair, blue eyes, about 30 pounds overweight. Walks with a bit of a limp. If she ever lost the weight and took better care of herself she would actually be rather attractive.


- She worked at the Waffle House across the street. Heather has not had an easy life. After High School she tried college going into Nursing on a 2 year program. But she couldn’t keep up while covering her tuition. And she complicated matters by getting pregnant and dropping out. Her boyfriend at the time took off and left her. A mother and single at age 20 she tried to find a husband. What she found was one loser after another. Realizing she needed to step up her game if she was ever going to find a decent father for her kid, she became more cautious. Unfortunately that didn’t go so well either. When she was 25 and her child 5 years old, her newest boyfriend – a rather decent young man working on a real future – was driving them all home after a baseball game. A drunk driver ran a light killing the boyfriend and her kid. Sue all she wanted, she never could get back even a fraction of what she lost. She lost her job and house in the end. At 28 she tried to start over. At 32 the apartment she was living in burned to the ground while she was working nights at a diner.


For the past six years she has been trying to rebuild her life. Things were finally starting to look up. Then the dead started walking.

Nope, just his teacher and the only person he ever cared for =P


Wow, talk about a series of unfortunate events *cough*. I feel so bad for Heather, but gotta give her points for tenacity. I don't usually give my characters so much background because the more complex the background, the more complex the character turns out to be and the more difficult he or she is to rp(at least for me). Edwin's probably one of my more complex characters and he doesn't really have any traumatic events at all.


I believe that it's not the quantity of traumatic events, but the quality that actually matters in terms of depth of a character. That's why I don't usually need more than three traumatic events--because each one of these events affects my character's personality in some significant way.

 

[Mitheral]

LOL .. just wait until Matthew gets done with him .....

 

[Zidlijan]

My my have I seen this... I'm a drama writer mostly, but I prefer to dwell on ironies


and pitch black humor (I'm a weird guy), I prefer serious topics and I try to explore


all possible outcomes and all that jazz, but something that I used to always thrive in


is the fact that I try to balance out the lives of my characters, I mean if it's nothing


but dramatic horror there's going to be an empty character with a very serious and


sensitive mind, in fact so much, that it requires a very careful writer to handle them.


Real life gives up examples of people's horrible pasts. The child traded for a bottle of


tequila (this is not a tale, this happened for real), the 5 year old raped, made pregnant


and BLAMED publicly. I don't know what became of her, the media exploded back to


the day then (México, weird place.).


However even then, you're going to notice a very specific thing about human history


and human psychology and the way it works: It's not 100% miserable and dark and


hurtful and so deeply destructive, sure, it happens, but there's always that one time that


the person had a good day, a laugh, a bad day, rages, interesting findings and happenings


they learn, they evolve they adapt. And such is the same for characters, even in books


and roleplay.


As an example I may dare say that many of the things that happened to my main oc


(look at my avatar) is his own fault, he most literally asked for some of the stuff that


happened to him. Involved in a car crash? How about you listen to your guardian and


not drink yourself into almost fainting and THEN try driving a car thinking it's "easy"?


Drama is not always the answer, yes, it's interesting, personally I like drama and sad


back stories, but if it's all sad and horrible and has nothing in it but horror, then it does


become boring and repetitive, one has to have balance, I mean, it's interesting, but it


turns tiring after a lil' bit.


Thi is nothing but a personal opinion though, no need to read my rant haha.


TLR: I think while drama is interesting, you need to look at real life as a reference


and balance everything as elements of one thing as a whole that is character, a person


you are creating and moderating, be it in book/comic/or Roleplay.

 

[Woofers296]

How about being Kidnapped by Gannondorf, because he's a "Hero For Justice" In the Legend of Zelda world- and tortured by Ganondorf to near madness, before being sent back at the people who where actualy nice to him.

Adding on to that, the people that he loved who loved him should hate him for "allying" with gannondorf.

 

[Barbas]

How about every time he dies he gets resurrected by a necromancer, causing him to die over and over and over again.

 

[Woofers296]

How about every time he dies he gets resurrected by a necromancer, causing him to die over and over and over again.

That can be why he never dies. His dead sibling was practicing necromancy and his/her soul follows Ryan around.

 

[Barbas]

That can be why he never dies. His dead sibling was practicing necromancy and his/her soul follows Ryan around.

I can make it even worst, every time he gets resurrected, a baby panda gets punched in the face.

 

[Woofers296]

I can make it even worse, every time he gets resurrected, a baby panda gets punched in the face.

Plus, he respawns with a broken limb and temporary blindness + deafness that lasts for a day.

 

[SkyPiratesAssemble]

The laziest way to give a character motivation is through a generic revenge quest via a tragic backstory. The big bad is some crime boss? Have your PC be orphaned directly or indirectly by him. Want the villain a reason to be evil? Make him loose something dear to him and he becomes bitter and jaded. A tragic past isn't always bad, so long as it's played right. Using it only to send him on a revenge quest is bad writing. Having the trauma give him neurosis and other character flaws he has to overcome to take down the big bad is better writing.

 

[simj26]

He finds out his mom, dad, brother, sister, and pet hamster haveStage 3 cancer.


And then he gets it because it's genetic.

 

[dendrite blues]

I don't usually go for the outrageously tragic backstory, but I did have one that I got a lot of mileage out of.


A colony of cannibals bred children for the express purpose of eating them. The character and his entire family lived in prison-like conditions while they were killed and eaten one by one until the character's sister seduced the guard to help him escape. Fraternal guilt, warped world view, dysfunctional understanding of sex, and life-long physical deformities from inhumane living conditions, all in a two sentence backstory.


I know it's inappropriate, but I can't help but be a little proud of that one.

 

[SephirothSage]

..I.. you....


You win good sir.


A winner is you.

 

[dendrite blues]

*Bows* Thank you, thank you. haha

 

[AlexSilverX]

A quick listing of ideas;


1. Being told by a loved one - bonus points if only loved one they have - that they are worthless. Bonus points if this is learned the hard way, like being sold into slavery for a klondike bar.


2. Torture that leaves actual permanent marks. Scars is a plus, but for bonus points; rip off a limb, an eye, or something equally useful. Handicap them through brutalization both physical and mental.


3. Dead relative is good, but it could also be a motivator for revenge. You want your character broken - from what I understand - not driven. Solution? The death was an accident and it was their fault.


4. Disease is good. Incurable is better. Lethal, incurable disease like AIDS - particularly because that one is sexually transmitted (possibly rape?) - is great.


5. Character was born disadvantaged to begin with. It can be something minor like myopia or a bit more alcohol like fetal alcohol syndrome. Be creative. This leads the character to believe naturally that the world conspires against it.


6. Born with an unusual trait? Sure, that's a mary sue thing... unless the unusual trait is ugly! How about olive hair and permanently bloodshot eyes? Overly wide pupils that cause people to believe the character is constantly tripping balls and - thus - never believe him? Possible.


7. Break the woobie hard. Have them make a difficult - very difficult - decision, and have it turn out for the worst regardless. Whatever choice they made thinking it was the right one ended up blowing up in their face. Bonus points if anyone who reads the back-story saw it coming.


8. Okay, we already covered the disease. But what about making it an embarrassing one? Impotence, for example, is pretty confidence-shattering. Rectal cancer comes to mind on the darker side of things...


9. Attempted suicide is always a good one. "I'm such a failure I can't even kill myself properly." Now that's a real tear jerker. Bonus points if there was no way to mess up and he miraculously did so anyway (like trying to blow his brains out with a shotgun).


10. Three words: Back-story. Villain. Victory. Your rapist is now president of the US with the highest voting in his favor since Lincoln. Your schoolyard bully? You're the janitor at his company. Your abusive girlfriend? She married that rich frat guy who left you tied up naked to a tree to be used as a pinata by homeless people back in your sophomore year. They're millionaires now. The psychopath who chopped off your fingers? Acquitted on grounds of insanity. He is an anger management therapist now and makes a killing because stars like Charlie Sheen are among his clients and friends. That song that played on the radio the first time you were a victim of rape 11 years ago? Its still at the top of the charts. You can't turn on the radio without suffering from PTSD-induced catatonia within the next 20 minutes. Worst part? The artist is dead so you can't even go take revenge. That blackmail tape of you drunkenly having sex with that 16 year old girl that swore she was 21? It's in the highest rated videos on every porn site you visit. The entire comment section is about your sexual inadequacy and how "the poor girl deserved a better first time than this loser". The police officer that gave you a ticket for no other reason than meeting his quota at the end of the month? He just made detective. The guy who rear-ended you on that same day? His insurance covered it. Yours didn't.


11. Arson, Murder and Jaywalking. Only the fools fear great failure. It is the small loses that - gradually - break a man down. A perfect example is that unwarranted ticket and getting rear-ended from above. Small stuff in large quantities hurts. The worst part? People don't feel bad for you because of it. "You should be use to this kind of stuff by now" is usually what they'll say when prompted, and there's so much of it that even a therapist will call you whiny if they have to sit through it all. "I stubbed my toe 529 times... this year... I used to have nice toes... used to."

 

[SephirothSage]

You monster.

 

[AlexSilverX]

You monster.

Thank you.


 

LOL .. @QuirkyAngel was that important character his dog?
I hate to admit it, but I am as guilty as many of this. Here is a character I made once for a Walking Dead RP. Yes, I was aiming for someone who life had been a series of events where she had to start over. Oddly, she was loosely based on a real friend of my mother.


Heather Anne Thomas Age 36 5’4” Dirty blonde wavy hair, blue eyes, about 30 pounds overweight. Walks with a bit of a limp. If she ever lost the weight and took better care of herself she would actually be rather attractive.


- She worked at the Waffle House across the street. Heather has not had an easy life. After High School she tried college going into Nursing on a 2 year program. But she couldn’t keep up while covering her tuition. And she complicated matters by getting pregnant and dropping out. Her boyfriend at the time took off and left her. A mother and single at age 20 she tried to find a husband. What she found was one loser after another. Realizing she needed to step up her game if she was ever going to find a decent father for her kid, she became more cautious. Unfortunately that didn’t go so well either. When she was 25 and her child 5 years old, her newest boyfriend – a rather decent young man working on a real future – was driving them all home after a baseball game. A drunk driver ran a light killing the boyfriend and her kid. Sue all she wanted, she never could get back even a fraction of what she lost. She lost her job and house in the end. At 28 she tried to start over. At 32 the apartment she was living in burned to the ground while she was working nights at a diner.


For the past six years she has been trying to rebuild her life. Things were finally starting to look up. Then the dead started walking.

The thing is, for dystopian stories like a zombie apocalypse, tragic background works and is the norm. In those contexts, it works. Silverspoon McEveryoneLovesMe who hasn't had a nasty thing happen to him since childhood won't last long in "Mommy ate daddy because brains" land.