On Character Backstories

So, this is an eighth grader's first character ever, first time considering a role-playing game.  The character is a human wizard, and she chose a criminal background.

Katrina Heather was born to Jane and Joke Ho, professional assassins.  When she turned 8 she started to be hired for her family's profession.  She thrived and was wealthy.  At age 13, she took a job from an evil wizard.  His wife was murdered by her parents.  He offered wizard training in return for her parents' lives.  So she took the job.  Ever since she has been training and killing.

It's not the best backstory ever, no... but I was impressed because it was her first backstory; usually a beginning player is struggling to cope with "I'm a wizard" and "what do 'race' and 'class' mean" and so on.

Here's what I like about the concept:
  • She's blurring lines; she's an assassin by trade, but a wizard by class.
  • Damn, girl killed her parents to get a wizard's apprenticeship.  That's cold.  It's also a helluva character-in-one-vignette story.  (Yeah, she took an "evil" alignment, duh.  That often doesn't play so well in my experience, but that's a different issue.)
  • As DM, I can play off the punchline of her storyline in a bunch of different ways: the law might be after her, or might come after her later.  So might her parents' associates.  Her betrayed parents might haunt her, either psychologically or literally.  Her wizard mentor might be getting cold feet about the wisdom of harboring a patricidal apprentice.
  • Even ignoring the parricide punchline, her family's other past jobs could also come into the story... maybe she knows certain places or people tangentially because of some old job.  Or maybe those certain people know her because of them, in some way.
  • Apparently she's still a working assassin---for the wizard or freelance or for some other organization I don't know, but she's been "training and killing ever since," so she may have loose ends from recent as well as older jobs, and may get contract offers now.
Whichever way all of that goes, I've got a character with an interesting life story, and in many of the variations there's even Allies or Foes built in to that story.  And I've got a player who cared about that backstory, even before her first game!

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