Backstories for your character in a tabletop RPG are there to serve a purpose.

For you, the player, it helps inform how you roleplay your character. For example, if your character’s entire family was slaughtered by Orcs, you going to have either 1) a great fear of orcs , 2) a great hatred for orcs, or 3) both.

For other players, it helps them understand decisions your character makes. An example of this is if this same character of yours comes across the remains of an ambush in the forest and the only living things is a wounded, half-dead orc. If your character pulls out his sword and chops the orc’s head off, the other players, knowing your backstory, will understand why your character acted in that manner. Sure, you probably just ruined a plothook the GM was trying to put in front of you, but with your character’s backstory, can anyone really be surprised that’s how you reacted?

Now, some players HATE giving backstory details or they pull the ol’ “I have no family, they were killed when I was a baby” line. While there are a variety of reasons they do this, I’m going to narrow it down to the three I’ve seen most:

First reason: They don’t want the GM to sift through their backstory and find something to “use against them.”

Personally I don’t buy that argument. Not all players are scared of the spotlight being on them, in fact, in my experience most seem to enjoy the spotlight, but when it comes to backstory spotlight they try to dance away from it like a vampire avoiding sunlight. I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me, I don’t mind giving a backstory if asked, but I prefer to leave the past in the past. I don’t need members of my family getting kidnapped to force character development on me. I can handle that just fine in my own.

Second Reason: They feel as if the backstory can be used as a cheap GM trick to railroad their character. Let’s say the Thief character has a wife and kids back home. A cheap GM trick is to throw the wife and kids into danger with a fear of imminent death and then let the Thief know about it. What’s the Thief going to do? If that person is truly playing their character, they are going to to go try to rescue them. And since they GM just sprung this on him, knowing how the Thief would react, that there really isn’t a choice here. This will cause some players to start complaining about the railroad tracks in front of them.

Third reason: Some players do not want to ever be in the “family in danger” situation. Ever. They came to here to play a game, do a dungeoncrawl, find some loot, and maybe bang a serving wench when they get back to town. But now instead of choosing which of the bar maids looks the most flexible, they are stuck outside of town, in character, trying to decide the best plan of attack to make sure none of their family dies. That’s just not fun for some people.

To sum up, I do like backstories, as far as it relates to informing the character I’m playing as he or she is today, not 20 years ago. But not for character growth. For that I prefer to leave the past in the past and look towards the future.