Back Story (Should it be a mechanic?)

There's a lot of discussion about whether or not back story is something that should be mandated by the game, or something that's left to the whimsy of the players, hell, some people even suggest that back story isn't that important.  

Personally, I'm on the fence about it.  

On the one hand, as a DM, I love a player whose character has a carefully crafted back story, with plenty of hooks to sink my story telling teeth into.  On the other hand, there are some people that have enough trouble coming up with what class they want to play, let alone create a character whose back story revolves around it and makes sense.

And then of course you have the people who think their back stories are amazing, when, frankly, they aren't.

Or the people that write their back story as they go along.

But personally, I like having a back story, I like having a couple paragraphs that I can look at and read and think to myself, "Yeah, that's my character.  That's who I am right now."  It helps me shape who I am and what my character would do, it is something concrete that anchors me and keeps me focused on what my character would do, not what I would do, because if I'm just playing myself, am I really roleplaying at all?

So, do we include a back story section in the book?  Or do we just leave that to the players?  If we take a look at standard D&D, they didn't really cover it at all in 3.5, well at least not until the Player's Handbook 2 (which was released extremely late in the game's life).  4th edition I don't believe it's there hardly at all, same with Pathfinder.  However, 2nd edition had a couple pages about it, but that was back in the 80s, when roleplaying was a different beast altogether.

D&D isn't the be all and end all of RPGs though, and some games really do force the back story creation.  For the World of Darkness games, it's essential, particularly in Changeling: The Lost.  Fiasco (the game I hold up as the model for where RPGs should be headed) forces you to make one to a certain degree because without it, the game would be unplayable.  Burning Wheel games also require it, making it as important as choosing a class.

Cyberpunk 2020 had an entire chapter dedicated to it, in fact, you rolled your back story, and took the results.  An interesting concept but somewhat limiting as there are only so many potential outputs and time consuming (you basically took a half hour writing up your back story and rolling it, something not conducive to the type of game we are trying to make).

Anyway, here's my suggestion, and what I've been doing for years to make my back story.  It takes about 10-15 minutes, which kind of follows along with the central ideas we are trying to push through.

Step 1:  List 5 background/concept elements that you think are important in order to understand your character.  They can include an overview of the character, important events in their life, description of physical attributes, personality profile, whatever really.  As long as after reading them you can get a decent mental image for the character, that's all that matters.  5 is a minimum, you can always have more.

Step 2: List at least two goals for the character.  One should be character based, meaning that it's your character that wants it, and one should be player based, meaning your character doesn't necessarily want it, but you, as a player, do want to see it developed.

Step 3: List at least 2 secrets about your character.  One is a secret that he already knows.  The other involves him but he doesn't know, yet.  Keep these secrets from the other players at the beginning, you can reveal them in due time.

Step 4: Have the DM (or in our case, the other players) come up with a third secret that the player does not know but involves the character.  This adds the element of surprise and will help encourage roleplaying.

Step 5: List and describe 3 people who are tied to the character.  2 of them are friendly to the character, 1 is hostile.  If you like, you can always create more than the 3 characters that he knows.

Step 6: List 3 memories, mannerisms, quirks, fears, etc., that the character has.  These don't need to be elaborate or even that original but they should provide some added flavor to the character, making them less stereotypical and more original.

And that's it, Matt's Patented 6 Step Plan to a Better Character Back Story. (And it takes about 10-15 minutes)

What do you think?  Should we include it, or not?