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Backstories for PCs provide an opportunity to define the character through their past. What events earlier in the hero's life have moulded them into the person that they are today?
One method of coming up with a backstory is to create the character first, with a list of skills and advantages and flaws and personality quirks as per the game rules, and then imagine what events could have conspired to produce such a mixture in a single person. If the newly fledged PC is afraid of snakes, you can come up with a story about how they once fell into a box of snakes in a circus train car during some youthful misadventure. (Just for example.)
Another method is to think about a character from the beginning and how their life went, and then use that story to guide the process of character creation using the game mechanics.
The third method is to totally steal pay homage to bits and pieces from someone else's backstory - a character from fiction, or even another roleplaying character that someone you know has made.
Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)
Heh, nicely done diverting attention from the imposter traitor interrogation, Annie. Now just conveniently avoid bringing the conversation back to that inconsistency, and you'll be set until Hux's goon squad shows up and inquires about what happened as well. That's assuming of course that BB-8 and Rey aren't on a wanted list of some kind and are recognized by someone on the squad. That'll probably cause more excitement than this outpost has seen in ages!
And we've got another hint to Corey's campaign! Unfortunately, the only movie setting I can think of that has a destroyed planet is the one we've currently read through here, and we already know the movie itself doesn't exist. Even if it's just back story that never gets shown, I'm still coming up blank on possibilities. The Matrix movies came up as a contender for the setting, but there aren't any exploding planets in the movies from what I remember, let alone space travel of some kind. Even considering the possibility that Corey pulled from a video game instead of a movie leaves me with nothing to go off of.
That's pretty good juxposition of Annie's comment and what's happened so far in the campaign world. And Finn's face is an almost perfect expression of "did you really use my characters' actions as a complete backstory?". But I could totally see myself taking inspiration for a character in a similar way. Maybe not as blatant a reference to another person's character as this looks, but the character themes would end up very similar in the end.
Commentary by Keybounce (who has not seen the movie)
A princess whose planet got destroyed.
That could be Star Wars: Episode IV (Alderaan). It could be this very campaign based on all of that (Naboo got destroyed remember), and I'm sure there's any number of Hollywood science fiction stories where some chosen person on Earth has to avenge an entire destroyed remote foreign planet for no good reason.
Yep, that's a totally original story idea. Never been done before in Hollywood. Never been done before in books, or movies.
#include <std/sarcasm.h>
Transcript
Rey: When have I ever disrespected you?
BB-8: In my campaign. You insisted on that ridiculous backstory.
Rey: I wanted to play someone whose unique history moulded their personality. Like a true roleplayer.
BB-8: You just wanted extreme sympathy and nonsensical political power for someone so young.
Finn: What was the story?
Rey: It was great! Something totally original!
Kylo Ren: Pete played a princess, whose entire planet got destroyed.
Finn: Hmm. To be fair, that is pretty far-fetched.