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stories
Many a group like the added character depth and direction that backstories can give. However, writing such a backstory isn't everyone's cup of tea. Players writing their own backstory face the possibility of being hemmed in by the limits of an existing world, or trying to write within those confines without really knowing what those confines are. Players might start to wonder at this point how much research they're meant to do, and we haven't even started the game.
The plethora of terrible TSR-based crappy fantasy novels are a testament to how difficult it is to write compelling stories within the constraints of an existing RPG world. The fact that so many novels fail to clearly follow the rules of the game further emphasise how impossible good writing in this area is, even with a salary. Expecting players to complete this task well is madness.
Once the game has started, we then get players' botched attempts at this impossible task. This isn't meant to disparage players' writing - the problem lies in the task, not the players - but the results still bore everyone at the table.
Behind the GM's board, the challenges are far worse. This poor soul has to listen to all these stories and amalgamate them into the current campaign, giving life to NPCs the players dreamed up. Pressing these stories into the narrative can threaten the overall campaign, and the result is inevitably that the stronger backstory writers of the group get the campaign's spotlight, while the other players wander about someone else's history wondering who all these people are.
Finally, when death comes knocking as one party member jumps into the wrong magical portal, the massive efforts of the backstory die quietly and pointlessly, and the process begins again. However, this time a player is requested to do the accounting work of making a new character while creating backstory prose and trying not to get distracted by the still-active game.
Each player has the option to start the game with a tabula rasa character, no better than the common murder hobo. Each one has 5 Story Points to spend.
Story Points allow players in a troubling situation to say 'something from my past comes along to provide help'. It might be that they know a language that the enemy is speaking, or that an old friend has come to join the battle. They might be in need of shelter, or information. Nearly anything goes, so long as the GM doesn't think it interferes with the current story.
Once the player's asked for help, they need to justify the aid with a story on how it all happened. That blacksmith, willing to sell cheap weapons in a village, met the character somewhere. There must be some reason the fighter knows Elvish. Answering these questions naturally creates some backstory. It doesn't have to be a riveting story - anything will suffice.
Players no longer need to write a backstory to have a backstory - the stories are coming, like it or not. And once they do come, everyone in the group has a much better chance of taking some interest in another's story, for two reasons. The first is that the story of fighting on the high seas is relevant to their current situation of being stranded on an island, and asking a nearby fisherman for help. The second is that these stories can come along one piece at a time; with a note on learning dwarvish, then fighting with a dwarvish companion, and finally meeting another dwarvish blacksmith in some random village.
Unlucky players who find their characters dead in session 2 will have lost nothing in terms of effort, because nobody really knew them, and nothing had to be written.
Meanwhile, those who really want to write a backstory can slot those stories into the current campaign as they see fit - the GM doesn't have a jot more work to do.
As the stories are told in real time, each will make sense within the current campaign. Players won't write 3 pages about why they hate the undead, just to find the campaign doesn't care about the undead.
The GM also loses worries about one character's backstory gaining the spotlight all the time. Everyone has 5 Story Points, so anyone can spend them as they please. And if one player decides to drop the lot on gaining military aid and a language in session 1, while others slowly add their backstory, one point at a time, over the next five sessions, then both are legitimate choices.
Story Points have also ended up as a limited store of Deus Ex Machinas. When the group finds itself in a troubling spot in the campaign, they can gain rest and aid from old friends, but have a limited stock of help.
Finally, Story Points provide legitimacy to the old trope of the loner characters so many players like to play. The stoic loner isn't failing to engage in the campaign, but simply 'saving' Story Points. The rest of the group may have spent all their Story Points in the first three sessions in order to gain various benefits, while another has saved theirs for a special occasion, perhaps waiting for a dramatic time to dump every piece of backstory in a single grand opening.