Cut character backstories

[snailomi]

Backstories are fun ways for players to characterize their spacemen. They can give explanations to the ways some characters act or react to given situations, and it is neat to see it in action when used properly. I have seen many backstories, and many of which I love- but, as someone who likes to create a backstory for each character I create, there are many that get left behind or don't get to be seen, either because I never make a character out of the backstory I had come up with, or I replace them with another character (this has happened too many times for me to count, but scrubby can count for me. Around 330 times, it has happened to me.). So, I would like to hear from you all! What are some backstories you may have come up with for a character, that for one reason or another, hasn't been shown to /tg/station? Maybe it is one you have in another server and had not adapted to fit here. Maybe you tried it, but abandoned it in favor of something else? Maybe you just don't like it! Whichever reason it is, share it!

[Constellado]

I wonder how many LRP players have a backstory.

I would say look at my lore thread, however most of it is not my characters deep backstory and more what he has been doing between rounds.

The hyper scrunched up version:

Volkan Magna exploited bluespace tech, bluespace punishes him by teleporting him to NT without any of his stuff. He gets stuck in a forever NT contract and bluespace still bullies him to this day.

There is obviously a lot more to it but I would rather have people figure it out on their own.

[Higgin]

When I brought Hali Psy over, I had to retcon a small bit of his backstory to where being as much of a nutty fruitcake as he is was something NT cared less about than that he was a cat.

otherwise, I don't think there are any I've lost even in part to tg. It's a pretty ecumenical setting beyond the speciesism. You can be like "yeah I work for the Syndicate and my dad is from the Wizard Federation, I cast spells at home but have to take Normal Pills to come here to keep it a secret" and I can be like

"damn bro that's crazy you said your girlfriend goes to a school in Canada?"

you really can do a lot if you don't care about getting proven a little wrong by the mechanics and probably come up with some explanation that'll go as far as the people around you are willing to "yes, and" it, which can be a long ways if you're otherwise being a good sport and within the rules

god help you if you are a moth named Soup though

[snailomi]

god help you if you are a moth named Soup though

What if my character's backstory is that they are a bowl of sauce that was polymorphed by a wizard into a moth? Then, can i name my moth Hollandaise?

[Higgin]

god help you if you are a moth named Soup though

What if my character's backstory is that they are a bowl of sauce that was polymorphed by a wizard into a moth? Then, can i name my moth Hollandaise?

who named them that, was it the wizard or self-chosen or what

[EmpressMaia]

Maia roentgen started out as a self insert then became a character through ingame rp and making things up about her. Like how she was a narsian cultist in college

I tried to make a story for a character named shinrartra. They are a Tgmc veteran who saw their wife killed infrojt of them by a ravager, so they are pretty mean and drink alot

[Donglesplonge]

i had an entire planned backstory for my two characters because i like lorewriting for the characters i make in anything thats open form like that but as it got into the pages of writing i realized that having the backstory planned doesn't work well except for characters who're setting up for something later so i just stuck with a very basic write-in for both after that n just spit taked everything else

i still make up random planets and scenarios while trying to IC'ly explain things my characters have knowledge of because of their many years of travelling

also had a lore thread for those questions it was fun shoutouts to the real ones mooney and shane yall were the goats of Q&As there were probably more people who were good at it but i don't remember that stuff too well

[DrAmazing343]

For me, backstory is almost always something that exists in a quantum-suspended state, only read when necessary, only written upon round end.

Because I play my characters only barely consistently in the same way, but all falling within archetypes, I think the easiest way to put it is that all my blorbos are on Manuel TV Show, and each episode is a different bit of flanderization that will result in more or less of the backstory being brought to gameplay.

Due to this, perhaps I've lost out, or retconned a fair bit of lore, but honestly? I tend to keep my roster small, so most of the character backstory is never truly cut, just reworked. If a round demands the backstory, it will have it! Mostly, it'll affect my quirks and my first impression. From then onwards is what's the most fun or interesting to me.

Fun fact: My main static, Jane Sierpenski, began life as a MAN named JIM CARPENTER, who's still visible on my scrubby. When I got comfortable in Sybil, I got tired of playing a man all the time, so Jane was born! I chose the last name Sierpenski due to the wonderful game Signalis, and my homoerotic tendencies. I love women... in any case, Jim Carpenter became Jim Sierpenski, and when pondering what role he should take, I dropped all of his prior interactions with literally everyone on Sybil he'd ever spoken to and made him anew as a grizzled, yet somewhat doddering old dad of Jane. Makes for fun roleplay with people that know Jane, but not Jim. The rest of the lore sprang up around 'em, but funnily enough, it's all still so MALLEABLE!

Including when Snailomi created a sister for Jane, and EVERYTHING got pushed a few inches this way or that to accommodate. The lore goes hard, though.

[snailomi]

snip

snip snip

who named them that, was it the wizard or self-chosen or what

The wizard did it and then just kind of fucked off so it just called itself the sauce it used to be. Who doesn't want to he named after fucking egg yolks and butter, though?

[Higgin]

snip

snip snip

who named them that, was it the wizard or self-chosen or what

The wizard did it and then just kind of fucked off so it just called itself the sauce it used to be. Who doesn't want to he named after fucking egg yolks and butter, though?

not this moth, i'll tell you what

[snailomi]

snip

snip snip

snip snip snip

i'm running out of snips

not this moth, i'll tell you what

I will play a moth named hollandaise and either prove a point or be bwoinked for the cause (maybe) (please check back in to see if this is a joke or not) (I will ahelp to ask probably)

[winterseasalt]

For me, backstory is almost always something that exists in a quantum-suspended state, only read when necessary, only written upon round end.

Because I play my characters only barely consistently in the same way, but all falling within archetypes, I think the easiest way to put it is that all my blorbos are on Manuel TV Show, and each episode is a different bit of flanderization that will result in more or less of the backstory being brought to gameplay.

Due to this, perhaps I've lost out, or retconned a fair bit of lore, but honestly? I tend to keep my roster small, so most of the character backstory is never truly cut, just reworked. If a round demands the backstory, it will have it! Mostly, it'll affect my quirks and my first impression. From then onwards is what's the most fun or interesting to me.

Fun fact: My main static, Jane Sierpenski, began life as a MAN named JIM CARPENTER, who's still visible on my scrubby. When I got comfortable in Sybil, I got tired of playing a man all the time, so Jane was born! I chose the last name Sierpenski due to the wonderful game Signalis, and my homoerotic tendencies. I love women... in any case, Jim Carpenter became Jim Sierpenski, and when pondering what role he should take, I dropped all of his prior interactions with literally everyone on Sybil he'd ever spoken to and made him anew as a grizzled, yet somewhat doddering old dad of Jane. Makes for fun roleplay with people that know Jane, but not Jim. The rest of the lore sprang up around 'em, but funnily enough, it's all still so MALLEABLE!

Including when Snailomi created a sister for Jane, and EVERYTHING got pushed a few inches this way or that to accommodate. The lore goes hard, though.

jane sierpenski

[DrAmazing343]

So true??

[Higgin]

snip

snip snip

snip snip snip

i'm running out of snips

not this moth, i'll tell you what

I will play a moth named hollandaise and either prove a point or be bwoinked for the cause (maybe) (please check back in to see if this is a joke or not) (I will ahelp to ask probably)

Admin-PM from Higgin: nice

[Jonathan Gupta]

gupta started as a self insert but he became too insane to be me at all.

[Dalmationer]

it's never come up in a round, really, but my character Mariette Gloom's great-great grandfather, Doctor Gloom, was killed by bananaman.

I used to play penelope dreadful much meaner, but i ended up playing her nicer because i learned that if you do it right, you can get people to agree to pretty much anything you tell them to do.

[Sightld2]

Hesperid.PNG (9.56 KiB) Viewed 674 times

This silly moth here sold it's pronouns and capacity for violence(pacifism quirk) to Archfey in exchange for immortality (Coming back from the dead between shifts)

Named after Hesperids which are a kind of Nymph in greek mythology. Where a Dryad is connected to a Tree, and a Naiad is a River, a Hesperid is connected to the sunset. (Or as I understand it at least, a very nice place to view a sunset.) To reflect this in the space age, I take Tagger and Posterboy and just make a lil spot to boost people's mood near starlight at some window or another.

EDIT: I did not read where you said cut, oops.

[Longestarmlonglaw]

I wonder how many LRP players have a backstory.

I would say look at my lore thread, however most of it is not my characters deep backstory and more what he has been doing between rounds.

The hyper scrunched up version:

Volkan Magna exploited bluespace tech, bluespace punishes him by teleporting him to NT without any of his stuff. He gets stuck in a forever NT contract and bluespace still bullies him to this day.

There is obviously a lot more to it but I would rather have people figure it out on their own.

Where the fuck is your lore thread then? send it

[DrAmazing343]

-pinkslipsnip-

This is still badass backstory. I think this can be a multipurpose thread considering how hard I loredumped anyhow

[Constellado]

I wonder how many LRP players have a backstory.

I would say look at my lore thread, however most of it is not my characters deep backstory and more what he has been doing between rounds.

The hyper scrunched up version:

Volkan Magna exploited bluespace tech, bluespace punishes him by teleporting him to NT without any of his stuff. He gets stuck in a forever NT contract and bluespace still bullies him to this day.

There is obviously a lot more to it but I would rather have people figure it out on their own.

Where the fuck is your lore thread then? send it

[REDACTED]
Nevermind I edited out the link because I'd rather you find it in the manuel discord yourself. Just look at the list of threads in the manuel discord in the lore channel. It should be there

[Donglesplonge]

since this is now the general lore thread (i don't make the rules the big guy at the door with the bowler and the giant black leather overcoat told me so)


what is the tolerance levels of whimsy you apply to your characters? do you believe in rigidity with how they act? or do you keep them open for anything? did you plan for their backstory or lore write-ins to be any particular part of either side? if so have you accomplished what you set out for so far?


spoiler'd because its a semi-longpost because breaking up single sentences with indents fills me with joy and i love yapping you can't take this away from me WOKESTATION!!!!!

► Show Spoiler

for me i always like my characters to at least be semi-unserious, its why my main character ozzy dresses the way he does in game, its absurd and comical, (plus i've been using the jabroni outfit ever since literally the beginning of my time playing space station 13 all the way back to my first hours on fulp and the outfits evolved ever since then). i like having serious talks in game sometimes but i don't think the station needs any max paynes y'feel me? on the flip-side i feel like characters that are always wacky all the time just don't last, maybe its because i haven't seen any particularly all the time wacky characters (will nodders probably the exception to the rule but i'll get on that in a minute), but keeping a perpetually wacky character perpetually wacky while also keeping it fresh just seems like a really fucking huge task to me.

as i mentioned about a sentence ago i can't count will nodder, its hard for me to personally say will is a wacky character through and through

does he get up to antics literally every fucking round somehow? fuck yeah he does

does he do dumb shit on a whim and seemingly for no reason at all? yes

do i think he's a full on wacky character? no not really,

i think he's a good example of it personally, wills not a wacky character, he's a space station character, he genuinely reminds me of someone i'd see in like a 7 year old black pants legion video, he's what i think is the modern embodiment of "space station soul" as stupid as that sounds, if i had to point to any particular player who's currently active and say "this is what space station is about" it would probably be him.


also shoutouts to dalm because penelope is an enigma, i don't know how but saying dear in literally every other sentence somehow gives off an air of both seriousness and zaniness that extends the effect of her conversational skills to great proportions, very simple character quirk that does incredible work at being both memorable and funny.

much in the same way as i view how dalm does with penelope, i like to believe that xemo is also a pretty well oiled character, i haven't seen any seriousness from xemo as a character due to my reclusive habits in game but every time i see xemo it reminds me of like, you know how when a cats managed to wedge itself into a cardboard box and its struggling to get out because its like foot is caught on something? thats what i imagine. from the way he talks like he's in third person to the general concept of "xemo" being what amounts to (i mean this in a nice way) a single celled organism with no thoughts and an infinite capacity to duplicate himself that exists to crawl out from under shit and talk to you like pennywise does to georgie, i think that xemo is, if not anything else, a well practiced and good character.

regardless of how you perceive yourself, your characters, or others, i think we can all appreciate the vast depths of our fellow players and respect the message

you're all wonderful people keep up the good work

[Longestarmlonglaw]

I wonder how many LRP players have a backstory.

I would say look at my lore thread, however most of it is not my characters deep backstory and more what he has been doing between rounds.

The hyper scrunched up version:

Volkan Magna exploited bluespace tech, bluespace punishes him by teleporting him to NT without any of his stuff. He gets stuck in a forever NT contract and bluespace still bullies him to this day.

There is obviously a lot more to it but I would rather have people figure it out on their own.

Where the fuck is your lore thread then? send it

[REDACTED]
Nevermind I edited out the link because I'd rather you find it in the manuel discord yourself. Just look at the list of threads in the manuel discord in the lore channel. It should be there

Im not in the manuel discord, im banned from it

[DrAmazing343]

-beautiful wondrous sovlful snip-

I always love to recognize the will and whimsy of our fellows. As I said before, I try to keep character archetypes, but within those archetypes, I get whimsical as FUCK in differing ways.

On the opposite end, I do love our serious sammies who you can depend on to buckle the fuck down and get things done. Elysius Uruma's a very competent player that gets goofy every now and then, but by and large is more or less prepared for any situation that comes his way, and he's quite dependable like that. So, too, is Volkan Magna (see: this thread) who has an incredible amount of knowledge within their field.

Speaking of incredible amounts of knowledge, +1 again to Dalm for being one of the most robust people I know who wears the anime training weights 24/7. Very few people know she could rock their shit without paraplegia and like, fifteen minutes of prep time.

Maintsfly is a good example of seriousness and goofy on par with Dalm's, but sort-of on the opposite end; they play a straight-man (nonbinary) foil to everyone else in Medbay, taking meticulous care to categorize and file away their corpses as coroner, yet still finding time to talk on the radio and say shit like "Maintsfly notes inconsistency in subject's speech. Diagnosis: Brain damage" and it makes me crack the fuck up without fail. Love it.

Honorable mention to Toma Prescot, who I miss dearly (Adipem come back to spessmens it's been like a week and a half ;w;) who plays the most laid-back perma prisoner you've ever seen, offering witty commentary and snide remarks over the radio without ever being really rude (unless they deserve it) and being preciously rare perma company for whenever my dumbass gets GBJ'd.

I could go on all night, and essaypost longer than Dongle (thanks again for writing that masterpiece :3) but honestly I think people are gonna lynch me if I do that, so I'll cut it short here.

I have a lot of love for each and every person who plays this game, and there's a reason I've not felt burnout like I would with damn near any other game by this point.

[DrAmazing343]

-consnipllado-

Im not in the manuel discord, im banned from it

LMFAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[warbluke]

I originally came up with current static Richard Hastings as a way to get away from tiding and have some chill sec and robo gameplay. I gave him that name because it sounded medieval and I wanted to give him a kind of knightly aspect, which is why whenever I get borged I immediately go full medieval in mannerism. Unfortunately that sec playthrough lasted for a couple of months before I slipped back into tide for a few years. He stopped being much of a character for a while as I was trying to see how fast I could get all the good gear every round and later how fast I could reach final objective when progtot was first added. During that time though my own incompetence and stubbornness seeped in, making a character who can't fight to save his life but who also won't ever give up until fully gibbed. Whenever I wasn't surfing the tide I'd banter with various people or do weird projects, so the character shifted a little more into someone who likes talking about pointless nonsense and making stupid contraptions. Then about a year ago I slipped back into sec again and I've been there since. Hastings is pretty separate from his original form at this point, I generally play him as an out of his depth mall cop when bantering over comms. He still messes with weird contraptions like bola cannons or an auto-wanted-announcer I've been tinkering with for a while, he still banters about why lavaland entities aren't magical, and he'll still never give up trying to bring justice to the halls of Bagil.
I would also like to take a moment to say that while I've never played on Manuel I am fairly certain that Bagil has both more and better RP, even if the fourth wall is nonexistent every other round.

[CMDR_Gungnir]

My "main" static started off on a Downstream designed to be played solely as Security and Blueshield. She was a blank slate, not in the sense that I didn't put anything into her, but that it was just how she was. She didn't consider herself to be a person at all, she considered herself solely as a weapon, and was arguably more robotic than even the Synths and IPCs that were on station. She was raised to be a member of the Spider Clan pretty much from birth, and had immediately deserted as soon as she did her first job, because even if she was "designed" to be a weapon, she didn't like hurting innocent people.

Over the course of an entire year of playing HOURS every day, she slowly developed a personality. Those small 'sparks' of humanity that were buried deep but couldn't be entirely snuffed out, were slowly and carefully tended to. She made friends because she saw good people she wanted to protect, and those people constantly treating her like People was what allowed them to slowly grow, for her personality to form, for her to see herself as a person, deserving of kindness and care, whose wants and needs mattered.

It's been about...a year and a half since I brought her to TG, which was around the time that the previous paragraph ended, and she's developed into a fully-fledged person and character of her own. She still has this cold-ish, overly-formal exterior, but people who actually get to know her get to see the kind and caring, with a bit of a silly streak, person hidden beneath.

Edit:

This might have become a general Lore/Backstory thread but it STARTED as a Cut Backstories thread, so I'll give you one of those, too:

My other main static these days is a Roboticist named Morgan Iskandi, who was the childhood best friend of my first (now retired) static. Originally, her backstory was that she was captured (believed dead) by the Syndicate and was rescued by the static you just got three paragraphs about, but I decided to scrap that because I decided that Morgan deserved to be happy and I didn't have the heart to give her a sad or scary backstory.