I have been thinking about this for a while and I just can't come up with a good enough answer so, I thought I would ask the rest of you!

My character still does not remember his life before exiting the Portal so I'm finding it damn hard to come up with a reasonable background to work from that doesn't get in the way of his lack of memory.

Any idea? I've had a few but none seem good enough yet.

Take a look at mine in my signature.

Edit: Link doesn't seem to work for me, you can see it at Lusternia.com though. What I did was make my background start in the portal of fate, an interesting twist, I thought.

Even if I do remember my history, I like to wait. When I came to IRE years ago, I didn't write my mortal's background for a year so that I could make the background a prequel for what ended up happening during that time.

Or, you could do something with just a basic framework, like I did, with some foreshadowing, or something... Maybe something that leads into what you're going to be doing. Roark's idea is good as well, just personally, I wanted something down that would shape my character's current RP. I have a feeling that if I hadn't created that, I'd have been without any kind of RP direction until I made it.

See I like the idea of waiting and then writing the background to suit the history, but I have a tendency to be too fluid and that transfers to my character too. I think If I get something down it might help me to stick a little better to what I want Laneth to be.

I know what he is and such I am just still trying to think of a way to write it down that won't seem tacky or compromise his amnesia-thingo.

Oh and I will check out Richter's background when I can, the site is blocked here at work.

I'm more with Roark, personally, unless you already know the game initimately and you're just creating a new character.

If you've role-played much before, you probably have a pretty good idea of the general archetypes that attract you (e.g.: no matter how hard I try to break the mold, I always find myself gravitating back to playing the flamboyant ladies' man on MUDs). Just select one of those to give yourself some sense of direction, start playing, and see where the game leads you.

If you've not role-played much before, you'll likely be surprised at what traits you do and don't like to RP, and you'll have no idea what translates well from stories in other mediums to stories in the MUDing medium.

Go with the flow, enjoy the freedom amnesia brings, watch for little elements from the world that speak to you personally, and slowly weave them together into a background that suits both you and the game around you.