Episode 31 - I Know a Guy

Last time we wrapped up the combat arc and today we're shifting gears and heading back to character creation because I want to talk about something I think gets undersold in a lot of mage games.

Backgrounds.

Backgrounds don't get the same attention as spheres, attributes, or even merits and flaws.

And I get it.

They're not flashy.

Nobody's swooning over their dot in contacts the way they are over Forces 3.

But backgrounds are quietly doing a lot of heavy lifting in terms of who your character actually is and what they're capable of beyond their magic.

They represent what your mage has, their connections, their resources, their spiritual ties, everything on their sheet that other people could take away, and they generate story in ways that raw stats simply don't.

During character creation, you receive a pool of seven background dots to spend however you like.

You can concentrate them in only a couple of backgrounds for a deep investment, a powerful mentor, or a well-resourced sanctum, or spread them around.

Unlike some other traits, backgrounds can also be earned through play as the Chronicle develops, which means they can reflect what your character builds over time rather than just what they started with.

They can go the other way too.

Lose an ally, burn a mentor, and the dots go with them.

Whether your storyteller will also allow purchasing backgrounds with XP is a table call.

If they do, there's a base cost in the experience section.

Generally, it's three times the current rating, but your storyteller may decide only some backgrounds can be bought, or that you can combine roleplaying time in-game and XP to gain backgrounds for a lesser XP cost, or simply that you can only earn backgrounds through game actions.

Along with the seven points you get at character creation, you can use freebie points to build up your backgrounds.

There's also an optional rule from previous editions that I'll explain later that could grant you more background points if your ST allows it.