Ok waiting on Pay to get books, and though I'll be the first one to start a game I expect an other game to pop up, so how in-depth do character backgrounds get?

I've got two concepts both for Storm Wardens, the middle part of the story is the same though.

the first is a young gardsman (16) from Achreage is part of a unit serving in the Margin Crusade that is all but wiped out and has their survival disavowed by IG command, a Storm Warden witnesses their last stand and takes the now "Dead" survivors home, some of the younger boys (like my prospective character) where able to join the chapter. I'm thinking Tactical Marine with an Exotic Weapon talent (Marine scaled, Mono Edged Lightning Chain).

the 2nd, a young Gunmetal Gunfighter sentenced to a Penal deplored to the Margin Crusade, his platoon was to serve as bait for a Xenos attack, intended to die either at the claws of the Xenos or from "Friendly" Fire when the Stormtroopers sprung the trap, when the plan went sideways and the Xenos counter-ambushed the Gunfighter abandoned his Las-gun and started rocking the non-regulation two-gun action shooting his way clear, when the Commissar who was running the show went to execute him for abandoning his issue, the use of non-regulation weapons and failure to be killed when ordered to do so, a passing Marine saw him in action and dueled the commissar for his life, he returned to Sacris and was trained to be a Marine, today he is a Assualt Marine who's rocking the two guns.

what I want to know is there a "Backgrounds" system to work, or is it just going to be fluff and points dropped on elite advances?

Just fluff and (ideally) a background justification for the character's skillset development - especially where ... umm, "non-standard" builds are concerned. But there is no fixed approach and everyone does it a little differently, or not at all. From the bare-bones two-sentence character bios whose players will improvise on the fly, all the way to entire short novels spanning multiple pages, everything is possible

Depending on how your group handles this, you'll also want to run this past the GM and see if he or she is okay with it, or even hands out extra XP for a particularly well-written biography.

Either way, an extensive background lets you discover your own character as you write, potentially coming up with some cool ideas or establishing a personality that serves as a mental compass when confronted with all manner of social interactions and experiences during play, as well as "historical plot hooks" for your GM to serve as possible future tie-ins as your campaign develops.

Apart from that, of course it can also just be plain fun to get creative!

Depending on how close your GM wants to hew to the fluff, neither of those may be acceptable. Some Chapters ONLY recruit from populations on their home world for cultural reasons and to ensure a degree of genetic purity (Storm Wardens are one of them) and 16 is late to start the whole process of implantation. If your GM wants to run it close to the fluff on the Wardens, s/he's entitled to say "no that deviates too much from how this Chapter recruits, sorry, I suggest picking another Chapter."

Like the Black Templars or Carcharodons, for example.

But on the greater level, I think backstory is "whatever is reasonable." Some people go through the aspirant trials, some focus only on the deeds the SM performed that led to his seconding in the Deathwatch. I think one should be mindful to not go overboard with the deeds a Rank 1 Marine who probably spent a lot of time in a Reserve Company might have accomplished (i.e. you probably did not survive a duel with Abaddon) but even then there's a lot of things he could have done, and a lot of military actions to draw from. I had an Ultramarine Tacmarine who was involved in the Damocles Gulf Crusade, was recalled to Macragge to fight the Hive Fleet and was part of one of the "mop up companies" that returned to Macragge after the battle in the void.

and 16 is late to start the whole process of implantation

Right, I almost forgot - I think the age range provided in the Index Astartes was 10-14 years? Though that's probably a detail known to (relatively) few people, and I have no idea if this isn't contradicted by some novel.

But hey, even 14 years is an acceptable age for a rookie in the Imperial Guard. This is 40k, after all, and if the real world had soldiers fighting wars at this age ( or younger !), then certainly the Imperium of M41 can have, too.

In addition to the points Kshatryia raises, it's debatable how much of his 'previous life' a Space Marine remembers after going through full hypno-indoctrination. If you want to make up a colorful background for your character, Drop Bear , I would recommend focusing on his career as a Space Marine prior to recruitment by the Deathwatch. DW characters are assumed to be veterans with years or decades of previous experience; filling in that gap would probably be a better way to go that coming up with an elaborate pre-SM backstory.

I'm pretty sure it's only the Grey Knights who get their memories/personalities completely wiped during recruitment, at least officially, and even then they get extremely hazy memories of their prior lives (see The Emperor's Gift). Certainly there's some memory and/or emotional connection to your former life. After all, the Deathwing formed by returning to their recruitment planet and finding it overrun by Genestealer Cults.

I think what Adeptus-B meant was not memories being wiped, but rather being "pushed in the back" by the amount of more current data that is being pushed into a Marine's brain over the decades or even centuries of service. Said hypno-indoctrination alone is probably pretty intense, and after having served with the Chapter for a hundred years (with what I'm sure will include a lot of memorable experiences) .. what's ten years of childhood in comparison to that ?

Certainly the Space Marines keep some memory of their early lives - if it were otherwise, local native traditions would not find their way into Chapter culture, twisting it over many generations of Astartes - but I wouldn't be surprised if "hazy memories" was all that's left for most.

Cool just wanted to know, playing DH (as GM and Player) I've gotten used working the angles with home worlds, backgrounds, alternative paths and such to build interesting and capable characters (without delving in to the dark arts of MiniMaxing too far) and build up adventure & campaign hooks.

You can certainly build up hooks, it's just a little...different? Most of the hooks you plant in your backstory should probably come after implantation, when the character is a scout or full Marine, since most of the hooks will involve other Imperial organizations and they will only really have exposure to them after that time.

Exactly. It's important to remember that you aren't a run-of-the-mill rookie Marine fresh from the scout company- unless you are and that's part of your story. In any case, something about you got you nominated by your superiors for the Deathwatch- what was it? Maybe you captained a Rapid Strike Vessel and proved your ability to take initiative and act independently. Maybe you were a Dark Angel who kicked the crap out of a Space Wolf in one of their ritual combats, but you're more unruly than your company captain would prefer- or maybe the Inner Circle (whether you know it as that or not) had you inducted into the Deathwatch to serve as their eyes and ears. Maybe your Storm Warden was in the neighborhood of a Feast of Blades, where the various Dornian chapters kick the crap out of each other for honour, and you were able to attend- and that exposure to other chapters has given you a flexibility of thought that most Storm Wardens lack.

Maybe you were involved in a boarding action against a cruiser of the World Eaters, and you fought your way to the bridge to plant charges in the engineering bay, crippling their plasma drive before they could ram your strike cruiser or an allied Ecclesiarchal pilgrimage vessel.

Maybe you were involved in a boarding action against a cruiser of the World Eaters and you fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Blood Angels.

Maybe you were involved in a boarding action against a cruiser of the World Eaters and you were nearly overwhelmed- until a vessel bearing Alpha Legion heraldry came out of nowhere and crippled both their ship and yours, causing your battle-brothers and the Inquisition to all sit up and say "Wait, what?"

Maybe you were involved in a boarding action against a cruiser of the World Eaters and you were nearly overwhelmed- until a Strike Cruiser bearing Dark Angels heraldry came out of nowhere and crippled both their ship and yours, then boarded the World Eaters vessel, causing your battle-brothers and to sit up and say "Hey, you killstealers, stop that!" Maybe you've had a mad-on for the Dark Angels ever since.

Maybe you fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Ciaphas Cain, Hero of the Imperium, and you have nothing but respect for that righteous individual. Maybe you have nothing but contempt for the coward. Either way, that might colour your perception of the Imperial Guard.

Maybe it's some combination of the above. The point is that these aren't just hooks for the GM to use, but also roleplaying and character building hooks. If you've spent a lot of time on a Rapid Strike Vessel, then you'll be more familiar with void-warfare than most of your fellows. If the Dark Angels crippled your ship before taking your kill, you might be a little pissy when you see a Dark Angel in the Deathwatch Monastery. If you fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the Blood Angels you might have an unusual sense of camaraderie with the vampires. If you hung out at the Feast of Blades and watched the show while you were still a scout, you might have an unseemly case of Dorn/Imperial Fist/Black Templar/Etc. fanboyism, and the Black Templar in your kill team might tolerate you much as one might tolerate an eager puppy.

Human history is largely irrelevant. Get larger than life- that's where the hooks are in Deathwatch.

for the Lightning Chain guy (the one I'm leaning more to), he fought well enough with Autogun & lightningchain to impress a Marine as a IG child solider, he went on to survive a murderess Scout tour and has since survived a few years of some of the most dangerous missions that have popped up closer to home. the Kid is a Survivor and has Skills (mabe not Mad Skills, but skills all the same), the chapter has sent him back to the war-zone that smelted the Ore that they have forged in to a weapon he is to prove his metal, him and his new chain that is three meters long, weighs twelve kilos is festooned with mono edged spines and electrocutes it's targets. it is hoped the Deathwatch will tell them if they have a Marine or a Hero in their brotherhood.

Alright, that sounds like a start. I read that and I think "them's the basics right there." So... what missions did you run? What xenos did you fight? What sort of death worlds did you visit and survive- jungle, arctic, desert? Did you visit Dune just to make a sandworm your *****? Were you a team player or a maverick?

These are the details which offer hooks. Right now all you've got is a "rookie with potential"/"diamond in the rough" story with a fancy weapon. That's- like I said- a start, but DW is about you being the weapon, not a fancy shock chain.

What about your off-time? Are you particularly faithful, spending time in the chapel? Do you read in the library, drink with the chapter serfs? Do you start fights, recite the litany of beatdowns, or play chess? Are you particularly meticulous in the care of your wargear?

Where did you get the chain? Why did the chapter let you keep it after becoming an initiate? What does it mean to you, and why didn't you trade it in for a chainsword or a power axe? Does it mean more to you than the sacris claymore, the chapter weapon borne by all Storm Wardens? Why?

These are the questions I would ask if I were your GM. Which I'm not, so use them or ignore them as you will.

I still think you should ask your GM how comfortable they are with your character not being the native of a recruitment planet, but coming from that chapter. It would be something truly unusual. Some chapters that that VERY seriously (Blood Angels ONLY recruit from Baal, except after their civil war for a while; Ultramarines from Ultramar; Space Wolves from Fenris; Salamanders from Nocturne; White Scars from Chogoris, etc.). Some don't, especially Crusading Chapters - Black Templars and Carcharodons cull initiates from planets they conquer or garrison.

Also, not gonna touch that custom weapon on a scout , it just seems suuuuuuper snowflake.

_{I love the idea of a Space Marine's background. First, it can give you a definite cornerstone to work with roleplaying-wise, and second, if your GM cares about this sort of thing, it can provide excellent hooks for later games. The Astartes are unique in this respect because their former lives aren't supposed to mean anything, really. Though, can you imagine being a three hundred year old warrior who returns to the planet of his birth and sees how everything has changed? What would that do to him psychologically? Would it be, "Oh, well i've seen a thousand worlds, so whatever", or would it be closer to, "Everyone I knew, everyone who would have remembered who I was has been dead for two hundred years or more...mother, father, my brothers and sisters, my only ties are to my battle brothers, but they, like myself, are no longer men. What are we really fighting for? What is there to return to for all of this sacrifice?"}

_{or worse, you come back after only sixty years and see all your old friends as elderly, with grandchildren, having lived a full life, while all you've ever known is war and death, and all you will know for the rest of your existence (which could be centuries) is more of the same, over and over again.}

_{It's enough to have your chapter master throw you back into the hypno-chair for round two.}

ATM I'm GM'ing, but I want a character ready to roll if the opportunity dose come up, still playing with the points balance though and polishing my back story moving forward to start of play.

Edit: he's going to be a "War Child", his friends & family went to war with the Conscripts, when the kids where old enough they got fed in to the grinder too, almost are all dead, the closest thing he has to family left is his Uncle and Guard DI who forged his new chain when he made Marine and said "Lad Time and War have caught up with me, I've not long left, In the Emperors name a beg you lay waist to the enemies of Man." the old guys still holding on but the "Kid" knows the last time he saw him could very well have bean his last.

Drawing up "your" character while GMing leads to GMPCs. I advise spending your spare time drawing up NPCs and fleshing out the next mission.

Drawing up "your" character while GMing leads to GMPCs. I advise spending your spare time drawing up interesting NPCs without turning them into special snowflakes or Dei Ex Machina who overshadow the PCs and fleshing out the next mission.

Fixed that for you

Heh.

Drawing up "your" character while GMing leads to GMPCs. I advise spending your spare time drawing up NPCs and fleshing out the next mission.

Eh, there's nothing inherently wrong with GMPCs. The last game I ran, I had an NPC Dark Angel apothecary since the group lacked healing. When someone new wanted to play an apoth, and we were switching to round-robin GMing, I built a straightforward super-hgih-Fel Ultramarine tacmarine: great team-leader when I was a player, and could throw down suppressive fire as an NPC as needed.

But, like, both could easily exist in the background if I was GMing, and neither was using any kind of home-brewed "cooler than thou" weapon.

For an interesting discussion of GMPCs vs NPCs in Rogue Trader, see this thread- the guy running an RT game wanted to know what the "best" archetype or career would be for a DMPC. I used some examples of party-allied npcs who seemed wholly appropriate to me without being GMPCs. Many similar examples could be used in Deathwatch. A common trope in the fiction is an Inquisitor along for the ride who is both arrogant and often less useful in a fight- this strikes me as a potentially good GMPC, because of his largely antagonistic nature and utility to the group. I would be disinclined to use him, however, based on my interpretation (in spite of FFG fluff) that the Deathwatch is a subordinate organization to the Inquisition, not a more-or-less equal partner.

I despise GMPC-as-party-leader. It too frequently ends in boredom, frustration and tears, in my experience.

GMPC as support character, however, can work- so the apothecary idea works adequately, or even a "Devastator Marine" who functions more like a scout-sniper, providing cover fire for the kill-team as it infiltrates. I still prefer to relegate these to the NPC role, which is mostly a matter of attitude and transience.

In other words, A) he's no't your character, he's a character and B) he's only around for the time being, he may be reassigned. He may return. Whatever.

Actually I'm working on this character as a side project for an anticipated Alt game to prevent me making NPC's and GMPC's that overshadow the PC's in the game I'm running.

Hm. I'm confused now.

As a practicing GM you should already have an idea of how backgrounds work in DW. The sorts of backgrounds that give you hooks to use with your players are the sorts of backgrounds that will give another GM hooks to use with you- and possibly other players as well.

I'm an experienced 40K player and DH player & GM, but am a FNG DW GM (one and a half secession down), having owned the Core Book for less than a week, I'd say I'm as green as lime Bug Juice.

Fair enough- the perspective shift from DH to DW can be... jarring to say the least, since there is such a shift in focus from what happened before becoming a marine. Every marine was a mighty, cunning, tenacious, adjective-soupy warrior/ganger/violence-laden noun before becoming a marine, so what happens during your time with the Scouts/Bloodclaws or what-have-you colours things more. Also bearing in mind that all of these characters are experienced marines who have already done something since becoming a marine, even if it was just honour-guard duty visiting the Feast of Blades, and you can build hooks involving other chapters. By and large the gang/tribe/dinosaur that killed/ate your gang/tribe/family is irrelevant- leaving the past behind is an important part of becoming Astartes.