Spawned by a game in backstory mode…
Should a PC/PC backstory be public? The players involved plus the GM? Private, with a log posted for all to see later? Private, with a log sent to the GM later?
Personally, I’m inclined to the last one. I’m not entirely fond of public backstories in general; most of the folks I play with, it’s not a big deal, but I have run into a few that will use OOC knowledge in character, and I don’t care to wave that red flag in front of that bull, y’know? The exception that doesn’t bother me that much is something like what I observed in Time Under Chaos as a lurker: backstories published for all to read when the pertinent details are all already public.
I’m ok with backstories involving the GM, but at the same time – if I don’t have to, I won’t generally copy the GM.
I guess I like to think we’re all adult enough to go (for example), “This is Benedict giving a refresher lesson to a little sister who is not a combat powerhouse. She is not stupid enough to really try to take him on, and he will politely hand her her ass if she gets too far out of line anyway.” Or in the case of original PCs, “Both of our characters are aimed at combat, but we haven’t done the auction/officially spent points yet, so let’s avoid them fighting each other. If they need to bond over battle, we can throw some Shadow-people at them.”
And, too, it bugs me to not turn in a “finished product,” if you will: a log that has been checked for spelling, tense changes, accidentally referring to a character as another character played by the same person, and general grammatical oddities. (And in at least one case, sentences fixed – there are only so many things you can string together with a comma, folks, no matter how well you write otherwise. And I will fix it; it drives me nuts.)
On the flip side… I see why, as a GM, you’d want to know what’s going on in backstory as it happens. It’s entirely probable that in any given group of players, someone is going to get frisky and take liberties with what can and cannot be done. (This leads into another point of discusssion for later: knowing the rules of Amber.) And you want to nip that sort of thing in the bud before it becomes a problem in play.
But at the same time, do I want to read all those backstories one post at a time?
I think for me, as a GM, I’d probably operate something like this: initial posts copy me. If I am comfortable with the players knowing the rules of Amber as set forth in the books, then I will probably just drop an OOC line to the effect of, “You guys are fine; please continue without me and send a log when you’re done. Let me know if you need anything between now and then.” On the other hand, if even one of the people involved is someone I’m not entirely sure of yet, I’ll just stay CC’d until the backstory completed, in case I need to step in and say, “Amber doesn’t work that way.”