I've got one player who always likes to try out weird homebrew stuff he's found, and I usually greenlight it because he's really good about not taking advantage. So one day he comes to me and says "I found this awakened skeleton" race I want to try, and he'll be this several hundred year old warlock. I said "how are you going to justify him being a several hundred year old warlock that's only level 2?" (I always start at level 2.) His response was "He used to be human, but someone locked him in a coffin for a century and his power wasted away with his body." He then proceeded to play a delightfully out of touch skeleton who kept trying to use his AWESOME WARLOCK POWER and then failing miserably. It was glorious.
Well done! This is exactly what I want to see from the character with the "amazing backstory." "Yeah, I'm all that and...fail..wait, wtf? The LAST time I turned someone into a newt...?"
Play a rogue or bard. Make sure you can Bluff. Dont Give them your actual name you put on the sheet, Give them a fake Have an ever changing Backstory that you reference all the time. Make sure it contradicts every so often. See how long it takes them to figure out they know nothing concrete about you.
@@ShiningDarknes Oh, I though you were being checky and trying to spoil the OPs fun. Lack of entonation in the net and all. Maybe youtube should have emotes. Sorry for being mister obvious.
This is true. A level one PC may have never slain a dragon, but he has experienced tyranny that has driven him to want to topple the despot that has held his family under his thumb for years. Cue inciting incident, cue adventure, cue character growth.
Yes! And writing your characters traits THEN creating their backstory is something I find useful too. Because then you can step back and think “Okay, now why are they like that?” This tends to lead to you explaining your character’s actions better.
Some events can work really well and tie well into the GMs story. As long as you have loose ends it’s okay. I like to play people who are a blank canvas and a new chapter in their life has begun. My fighter? He was just expelled from the fighter’s academy. My Aarakocra is trying to learn more of his people. The worst thing you can do is be on an epic adventure in a strange unfamiliar land and be like “been there done that.”
"I killed a dragon by firing an arrow right into its eye while I was on my roof... by accident. Now people think I'm some great marksman and hero, but I'm actually a bit clumsy and only even attempted to hit it with the arrow because I was cornered and had nowhere to run. I'm actually much better at _talking_ my way out of bad situations." There's a little backstory I find interesting without making the character an actual badass, but an accidental one. The GM's story is where my character can become a _legit_ badass after some good leveling.
I have an OC in my back pocket whose last name makes him sound like he's trying to puff himself up as some sort of badass... but it's his real family name, bestowed upon his grandfather by a grateful but very whimsical king. He refuses to disrespect the king's memory by not using the name, and therefore has to deal with a steady stream of cocky young punks and upperclass twits who think he needs to be put in his place.
Actual player-background interview. ME: So then, you want to play a Paladin, Who were your parents? PLAYER: I'm an orphan ME: OK, I think I can work with that, When did your parents die? P: When I was a baby. ME: OK, how did your parents die? P: My character doesn't remember, they were a baby. ME: Who were you raised by? P: By the temple. ME: Do you have any brothers or sisters? P: No. I was an only child. ME: Right then. Moving on, What do you do for a hobby? P: I smite evil. ME: That's your job, what do you do in your down time? P: sleep. ME: Do you have any connection to your sword? P: No. It was just a sword from the temple. It went on for a little longer, but this is pretty much all the info I ever got from that player.
Okay so he is an army grunt, with little to no past. Maybe not the best working material if you wanted to put his background into play, but it's only really bad if that is all the players and if they don't integrate into the world as you play. Sometimes it's good to go in blank slate and build on experience rather then past.
me: *reads over backstory* "And then you defeated a god?" player: "Yup." *nods* me: "Uh huh. You do realize you're level 1, right?" player: "Well, uh... when I defeated one god, the others deemed me a threat and took away all my powers. Now I'm questing to regain my old glory." me: "You know what? I'm going to allow this backstory, and give you 500xp for clever thinking." player: "Sweet!" me: *also gives the wannabe special snowflake a cadre of gods watching to make sure he doesn't become too powerful again*
Tbh, having a backstory where every god has it out for you personally sounds really interesting and something that the dm could really lean into during the campaign
@@TheGrungy1 Ha! That would be awesome: you had to leave your hometown...why? Because you trained up to level 4 as a mage, pissed off one of your household lares or penates, had to kill it, and then one of the higher gods, pissed, jerked your magic away (Greco-Roman gods and goddesses being, well, pissy and spiteful) and so you flipped them the bird, went to a land of foreign gods, became a warlock and now your _personal_ quest is to come back and murder Hestia. I bet even she had enemies in the Pantheon, Goddess of the Hearth though she was...
I had a character whose backstory was that he was a god. He was one of a pair of twin gods of the moon, and as his sister's power waned, his waxed (i.e. he levelled up). When he hit level cap, he was intended to ascend, and his sister would wake up as a near-mortal in the same ancient temple he did, although the campaign only lasted like, 3 sessions, so proto-god didn't even hit level 2.
@@LordLucless That could definitely be very interesting to see play out. I'm have real fun running something like that. It doesn't hurt that there was a clear and concrete end-goal/end-game laid out from the outset. It sounds like it could be fun. (My problem was never so much the idea of players with divine backstories, but with players giving them to themselves without reference to the campaign, DM, or other players. Cooperation between all players, including the DM, and not trying to hog the spotlight, are vital to creating a good character and having a fun game.)
In real life, it's pretty much a practical impossibility to slay a brown bear without at least modern rifle technology, so that doesnt even sound so farfetched. lol In the old days, managing to kill a bear was considered a genuinely legendary feat. It's heroic enough simply to survive being mauled by one.
I once played a human druid like this, she started learning druid magic because (in setting) her children grew up and left to either join fhe army or adventure themselves, and she saw the local druid coven like we would a knitting circle Safe to say I was the official group mum for that arc
If you really want an epic backstory, give it to an ancestor. I have found through experience that dm's can work with that. For instance, instead of your level 1 character defeating a demon lord, have it be your great great grandfather. Then you work in some kind of cult that is attempting to resurrect this demon lord, and they need to kill your level 1 character to do it. Either out of revenge or because only someone of your bloodline can stop the demons resurrection. Maybe this cult burned down your family home and drove you into hiding. You've taken on a new name, and a new identity as an adventurer so you can gain the power and experience to defend yourself and perhaps eventually stop this cult. Like i said, the dm can work with that. he can sprinkle in attacks from cultists and assassins every now and then and actually make a side quest out of it, or he can ignore it completely. Simply saying, that you have succeeded in fooling this cult into thinking you are dead and given them the slip.
Thanks. i have used that as both a player and a dm and i think it presents a very cool opportunity for adventure and it lets people basically make as epic a backstory as they want as long as they give it the ancestor and then find a way to link it to their current character. it's also proof that you don't need to write a novel to have a cool backstory. In that example up there i said who the character is, where he comes from, why he's adventuring, and what his ultimate goal is. i could have used more detail but that brief example is enough to call a backstory.
Or even your dad was a great adventurer who saved the city but now he is too old for all that hero stuff and now you must live up to your father's legacy.
Another way this can work is if you failed to beat a specific enemy before, and they used a spell that wiped your skills, and muscle memory back to level one. Then you have a powerful character who has to reclaim their power. I had a powerful rouge who used to be a guild leader. Was wiped to level one. So I’d add to the rp by having him try to use magic and skills he doesn’t have access to anymore. Usually with hilarious effect.
“My father was killed and I want revenge.” “My family was murdered by Fey.” “My village was burned down by a dragon and it haunts me.” “I am a priest.” After receiving these backgrounds we did a whole session of working things out.
"...and on your next roll, can barely hit a door." i see your character has 'went to the Vox Machina School for Adventuring' as part of their backstory.
Reminds me of the story where a party of barbarians, fighters, etc. tried to get out of a room and whiffed all their rolls on the simple wooden door, the dwarf hurting himself trying to kick it open.
Most hated problem: A GM who doesn't even USE the backstory. OMG talk about rage! It's why I don't even bother. I want to have fun messing with the story and the DM messing with me and the other players. Don't ask me to give you a history and then don't use it.
I've planted plot hooks in my backstory and the gm hasnt even used them. I don't need to have a section of the campaign set for me, I just want my character to be part of the world
I use my backstory as a driving force for my character. If I'm just a boy trying to provide for his family then I'll take the time to send funds back home. That way I can still incorporate my own back story. Problems only come up when I have the GM who says no because he didn't write it.
Uck! that's the worst. Especially when it gets combined with DM favoritism. I once played a librarian who took up adventuring in order to gather information on an ancient prophecy he found in an a forgotten tome; something about the return of a great dragon. After the first adventure it was never mentioned again. Meanwhile the dwarven fighter's background was so epic that cults to him would spontaneously spring up wherever he went until he had enough followers that he literally achieved godhood at 2nd level and became the central focus for the next three years of the campaign.
Im in one pathfinder game, and that GM is amazing at using plothooks, he even thinks of small story arcs for each player character, a pretty amazing gm in my eyes. Got invited to another game, so i ask that GM whats the minimum amount of plot hooks/daggers(as my other gm calls it) wants, and the reply is 'what is a plot hook' I kinda noped out of there, im sure he has good story telling, but i want my character to feel like he belongs in the world, that things can happen to him, not that he is just some static character who doesnt evolve.
Buntamara5 count me as jealous. i use my back story to help me play better / different than before but having a dm use it as part of the adventure would be fantastic.
I have made a character who starts the campaign as a ~70 years old Half-Elf who has spent his entire life travelling across the world and collecting stories about adventures, be it his own or others (he is a lore bard). However in one of his adventures before the start of the campaign he got a pretty bad hit on the head. Because of this he suffers of partly amnesia and is generally unsure about if what he is telling the others actually happened to him or somebody else. Being a guy who kind of likes to brag he (if in doubt) always claims that he himself did this heroic deeds but it's quite clear (if somebody's good enough at reading people) that he is just kind of bullshitting his way through this.
I play a rogue who's general answer when party members ask about his story is: "I used to be a candle maker." It's a lot more complicated than that, but he's not the sharing type. He does still know how to make candles though- pretty decent ones too.
Level 1? > Where are you from, geographically? > Why did you leave? > What are your religious/political/ethical views (including, but not limited by, alignment)? > Where/Why/How did you receive your training and education (nobody just "wakes up" as a level 1 wizard)? > What did you do *before* becoming and adventurer (profession, craft, perform, knowledge, lore, etc)? > Any significant NPCs (family, enemies, etc)? > What is something that happened to you, which changed who you are as a person or how you see the world? > What is a short-term goal, which can be realistically accomplished before Level 4, that you have? That's really all you need for a "good" backstory. Bonus points if you, purposely, leave parts of your backstory vague for the DM to fill in; your Warlocks patron, or the shifty Guild Master whose faction the Rogue works for, why the former-BBEG from hundreds of years ago was resurrected and by which deity, etc. This lets the DM work your character into the world, naturally. I followed these steps, with my last game and the DM managed to use every detail to some degree, to get me committed to the story.
realistically level 3-4 but could do Lv 1 with some backstory abridging 1. the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus (exact family origins unknown) 2. i was labeled an object that allowed chaos into the land and my destruction deemed necessary 3. unaffiliated/cannibal/good incarnate (it makes sense in the full read, i swear) 4. trained under ashahaldron a dragon that tried to destroy the well of souls (and by extension all life) and instead only managed to get himself trapped instead for the purpose of rescuing my father that raised me and saved my life on multiple occasions and left himself in a near hopeless scenario before we parted ways. 5. used as bait and for distractions in the enforcement of fey bargains. 6. my father, Kolyarut unit#372569007 considered elite among his model. many potential enemies as a result of participating in the enforcement of fey bargains (few specified as i usually wait for the campaign info first). 7. DnD 3.5 has an odd way of categorizing alignment as the effects of actions preformed (evil effects, no matter how well intentioned effect an evil alignment and vice versa), but it also has alignment shifting as part of its strongly aligned planes regardless of your action. these two strange mechanics have been combined into my backstory as the aligning effects of the CNoM to give my character a very logic mindset and approach to the duties and purpose as a good incarnate. its basically an answer to "what if a sociopath thought that committing good was the best most logical approach to solving all problems" this is the foundation of her methodology, brought upon her by the loss of her father. 8. she is floundering, accomplishing none of her goals, merely surviving (not thriving). her defense heavy skill set allowing enemy after enemy to run away. she finally decides that joining a group of skilled individuals would allow her to get solid successes against evil (really any evil) and in doing so prove her logic to be sound. i like occasionally mocking up backstories, sometimes just for fun and wanted to see how one of the more out there ones stacked up against a common sense list for an adventuring group. its a much better read than this list as it is told mostly from the perspective of the father. good list btw, though i thought it was odd not to include any long term goals for your backstory (do you think they are unnecessary?)
+Miles Matheson - Those are good directions to take a player building a character but too many of your questions can be deflected or answered in the most vague terms. Phrasing questions in a way that provokes response will give players more to chew on: -What's unique about the place you're from that you miss or that seems incredible the more you travel. -What doesn't your character need to accomplish before they can go home again? -What does your character believe that you don't? -Who taught you the most valuable lesson your character has learned and what was that lesson? -If this life of adventure doesn't work out, what's your plan B? -Who is the most important person in your character's life? -Why are you risking your life on adventures rather than leading a safe comfortable life, and what set you on this path? -What ambition does your character have in the coming week? Also, virtually no game system requires training for level one. for most games level one is reading all of the instructions in Penn & Teller's magicians kit or picking up a sword and saying "Y'know.. I'm kind of strong, I bet I could give this a go.."
I like Michael Wolf's -Who taught you the most valuable lesson your character has learned and what was that lesson? better than how did you receive your training/education. I've known a lot of players that would play sorcerers or warlocks or barbarians for that very reason..... "I didn't, these are my innate powers" or would just rip the book answer out for any class without putting in anything more, but then again I've played with a lot of minimum effort players.
I remember my first D&D character. I rolled the dice for his personality traits, his flaw, and his bond… …and the results added up to what could only be the edgiest backstory I've ever written for a character.
my most loved and hated thing is my groups tendancy to have their familly mysteriously murdered to the point where at some point I think I might just have the campaign be about an orphanage filled with all the children whose parents were mysteriously murdered by a mysterious villian.
Xrystiana: FF8 actually has a reason for that built into the lore of the world, though it's subtle enough that a lot of people miss it. That world is incredibly war oriented. The most prestigious schools train children, including the orphans you mention, to be elite mercenaries. The largest power still active in world affairs is a military dictatorship. There's lots of allusions to a massive war between them and the only comparably large nation (Esthar, who, after some internal power redistribution, decided the most logical solution to their foreign affairs problem was to devise a means of covering their entire country in an illusion of an enormous salt lake, populating it with monsters that kill anyone attempting to explore said lake, and never contacting anyone in the outside world again.) There are LOTS of war orphans in a world that's that militarized.
*Hey, Guy and UA-cam Audience: Tangent Question Here:* What if you play someone who's a liar and a braggart? Couldn't you create this epic backstory of the character as a dragonslayer and conqueror? It wouldn't be his real backstory, but the one he tells everyone to make himself feel important. Of course, you'd need to create a real backstory as well, and probably one that explains (at least to the DM) why he feels the need to lie about who he is. Any thoughts?
That sounds pretty fun. I'd definitely make sure my fellow players understood from the get-go that the character was lying, though. Might actually develop this if a suitable opportunity crops up.
Maybe, but it might be better to have their characters (and the players by extension) figure it out from context clues, like, why the alleged dragon slayer doesn't know the first thing about dragons. Regardless how you approach this, the DM should be clued in from the start.
I would advice to not write it. That way you will be less consistent in your bragging, mixing the names and the details, making them change as you tell your story more and more. It makes it easier for other players to get that it is a lie, and imho funnier as you can improvise juicier and juicier details as you "improve" your backstory.
I have recently had an offer to join a D&D game for the first time. I have been watching several of your videos over the last few days in prep, but some how.. I feel THIS video was meant for me!
Enjoy yourself, my friend. I've got all of 2 sessions under my belt now and it's way more fun than it has any right to be. If you're the only newcomer in the group, you might want to consider the role of party tank. Don't limit yourself too much - you certainly don't have to go for the classic half-orc barbarian, but it's worth noting that some of the more strategically inclined classes are hard to use if you're still getting used to the regular ebb and flow of combat. (Sorcerers and their sorcerer points are bloody amazing, but using them effectively is a challenge.) Also, don't be surprised if the experience is far more or less technical than you're expecting, especially if you've gotten used to a specific DM from streamed series. All DMs have their own style, you'll adapt to that style in time (or decide that style is unappealing and find another group, because sometimes that happens too).
My favorite backstory was for a lizardfolk cleric named Jabor Fingermuncher. He was born on the only town on the island where the campaign was, it was Tomb of Annihilation, as the runt of the clutch. Because he was too small and bony for his parents to eat, and had a long snout deformity, he was left to die in the wilderness. Eventually, he learned how to hunt, living like a humanoid crocodile in the wild, and he developed the skill to dislocate and relocate his jaw to swallow large prey. Years later, he was found by a priest who brought him back to his church and tried to teach him to speak, and help others with healing magic. He was doing alright, but he was very simple, always using slighty disjointed speech, referring to himself in the third person, and didn't understand anything that wasn't literal. One day, however, he swalloed one of the priests in his sleep, and was forced to leave the monastery. Back in the wild, he learned to use weapons and craft simple ones, even crafting some plate armor from bone and decaying carcass. A few months later, he began to follow a trail of humanoid creatures, feasting on the corpses and following it. One day, he accidentally went past the trail, and the next morning, he decided to retrace his steps, but instead wandered into a party fighting with a group of enemies. Simple as he was, he figured out that they were the ones leaving the trail of corpses, and decided to assist them with his healing magic as a way to obtain food. After helping them, they accepted him into the party, and Jabor became a cleric who crafted weapons from his decaying enemies in exchange for his party members to cut off fingers and toes of the corpses and bring then to him for more crafting and snacks.
I once played a male Tiefling warlock. He was a charismatic (but frightening) guy (you might compare him to Kratos). Thing was, he wasn't that epic at all. He looked terrifing for sure, he was eloquent, intelligent but all he did was bluffing everyone. My DM hated me so much, cause i figured out how to manipulate the major guilts of the starting town. Somewhat like Lord Vetinari. All this before I reached Lvl 5. Everytime someone asked him about his past, he started to make up a new version of his past life. Tragicly he did that so many times, that he himself didn't know what to beliefe.
Christian Schmid tbh, I'm kinda partial to the 'pathological lies as backstory' type. It can be fun to spin an embellished, dramatic, situationally convenient tale and convince people it's legit with a good roll or few
An example of an excellent backstory. Much better than my friend's warlock who became a warlock because "demon power". Ironically, that goofball had a DM who trolled the stuffing out of him and his character developed by force... into an integral plotpoint that screwed the party over. Good times.
A character that is totally buff and looks dangerous but is actualy a giant with a heart of gold? And the party pressures him to keep intimidating NPCs? Sounds like an interesting character. You know why the Hulk doesn't rage out when you poke him? _He is always angry!_
11:03 Though it makes for a really terrible back story, it would also come off like your a pathological liar which would make for a _really_ interesting character flaw. As an adventurer _some_ of your stories would be 100% true with no alteration yet others bits completely fabricated without any discernible way of telling one from the other, as truth can often sound more far fetched than fiction.
How would you play a character like that though? No other party member would trust them, and isn't trust between the PCs one of the most important things?
I have a friend that once DMed a campaign where a character would throw in more and more details of their back story (which they, conveniently, never had written down) that were progressively more outragious. I believe around the 5th week, The Dungeon Master had an NPC tell that player that "They were the most interesting compulsive liar he has ever met." The player actually picked it up and ran with it And it ended up being a really cool character trait.
The best advice for character backgrounds I ever got was to write "just enough to get Frodo out of the Shire, not enough that he's already sailing to the West". The idea being to give your character a reason to have left home, but to remember that the rest of the story is what the game is aiming to build.
There is nothing wrong with a forty page backstory. As long as you don't expect everyone else to read it all. Personally, I like to have two bits to it, the quick and dirty hand out. Has all the pertinent info on in a paragraph or less. And the extended backstory, which is mostly for my benefit, and usually focusing on a handful of events be they mundane or "extrodinary." Generally as a means of fleshing out thier personality.
@@bastiaanmoes3344 Fahrenheit, fortunately. Although if it were 95 degrees Celsius outside, I wouldn't have to heat water to make a cup of tea, so there'd be some advantages to it...
@@One.Zero.One101 pretty sure his name was Rasha or something. Oolong maybe have other meanings/associations, but i know it best as a kind of tea (the kind that's fun to say ;)
I know some players like that. Once I was larping and there was a guy who, in his story, had slayed a god. My character was a mercenary and blacksmith who wanted to collect the knowledge and materials to produce a magical item that would protect his family against many kinds of dangers, fighting wasn't even my main skill. I defeated the other guy in less than a minute.
Ah, the problems when OC skill doesn't match hype... There's a reason why my larp characters are always casters; I suck at fighting and have health issues that make playing a character with heavy armour... inadvisable.
I rather do like the backgrounds. They go well with the topics. And I'd ask how people felt about a character having a crippling background to tackle the experience at level 1 issue. You can be an all powerful wizard, but you were admitted to an asylum for years where you couldn't practice spells. Or maybe an imprisoned fighter who's body grew frail from the prison sentence. The tragic event here that turns you to adventuring is the even that knocked your level 10 character down to level 1 skills.
Yeah, in a campaign I am currently playing in my PC is a Fighter/Rogue who is a 40 year veteran of his home countries wars (think of this country as even more evil ancient rome). However, at the start of our story him and the other PCs were killed. So in my head canon the reason why he is level 1 instead of being level 14 is because when he was brought back it wasn't done properly, causing him to lose the power he had earned in his tenure. After killing an vampire necromancer, two dragons, a corrupted angel, and a shadow demon did he get back to where he was when the campaign started. It's been a rough year fo the man.
it would only explain the lack of stats like strength, constitution and dexterity. But knowledge, skills, wisdom and experience sticks, no matter how long you haven't used them.
i did something similar to my 5 level divination wizard in HoftheDQ. she arrived at the group with only five years of memories, a cult symbol tattooed into her neck and she was indebted to the group because they redemed my evil character after her death. She's seen as strange because she gets flashes of her past self and is often says strange things that catch people off guard. her back story was that she and four other friends were grand wizards in the dragon cult. They originally joined to become dragons but their dream was twisted while they were under the cult. One day she started seeing glimsps of the future that awaited them and she had a fall out with her friends and was force to kill them. She had tried to live a quiet life in her studies but not only was she hounded by the cult she lived with the guilt of killing her friends. She then planned a radical idea to start over. She created a clone and then killed her self but she screwed up the spell. She woke younger without any memories and 50 years had past, making her 120 despite looking 13. She then met my character who later died years later and was force to relearn all her spells again. (its just too bad my gm will not use any of this since i play in a game store.)
I often have my characters, when they experience high stress situations in their backstories, either freezing up, being too weak to have an impact on the outcome or having to run off. In some cases, I let them be tools to be manipulated by others, so the thinking and processing of actions aren't based off their own skill level. This allows for the presence of 'exciting' things to be within your backstory without surpassing the logical skill level you need for a level 1 character.
I'm working on one of those "middle-aged" backstories now. Midalla was an elven scout/forester as a young woman, tasked with patrolling trade routes. In that capacity, she met and fell in love with a human merchant. Eventually, the couple had enough money to start their own businesses, and she retired from the adventuring/soldiering life and became a craftswoman, while her husband opened a trading house. They have two children, one of whom became an adventurer, the other apprenticed in the trading house, eventually taking it over when Midalla's husband retired. As such things go, he grew old and died while she as an elf was still in the prime of her life. Her children are grown and living their own lives (now well into middle age themselves), her husband dead and buried, and she feels the call of the road again so she sells off her business and takes up her bow once again. Well, not her original bow. That enchanted weapon was gifted to a niece years ago when Midalla realized she hadn't strung it in half a decade. But a bow. She quickly realizes that 70 years of not practicing her skills has left her just a little bit rusty (back at low level).
Feel free to critique, am curious Level 1 Tiefling Cleric: Clara grew up in a strangely loving home until the age of 8, while out to gather kindling and berries for her mother she heard angry shouts of men and women. when Clara returned home it was up in flames, and silent apart from the crackling, a priest stood watch but turned as Clara entered the clearing. he smiled almost kindly and then the visage of and old, greying clergyman turned into a Fiendish creature. the guise of a priest once again returned but Clara ran far from him before he could speak to her. the angry shouts drew near as Clara ran so she tore of her shirt unfurling large bat-like wings, flying as fast and far as she could. Eventually exhaustion took poor Clara and she glided down onto the dirty streets of a strange distant city. when Clara awoke she was still in the street, cold, alone and scared however the people here didn't seem to want to kill her on sight, just swear and spit at her. after 6 months on the streets Clara met a kind young girl called Aerien, they become pretty close over 2 months until Aerien seemed to disappear. 6 months of loneliness later and Aerien returned as a journeyman cleric, offering safety, kindness and a home to Clara, who had almost lost hope in human decency. Clara spent many years training alongside Aerien in the Temple of Bast as a war cleric, sworn to avenge the death of her family and became sworn enemy of the denizens of hell
Yeah this is cool, it also gives the DM the possible opportunity to have monsters rise from the flaming pits of Hell to try to kick your ass which is just metal as fuck
When you were talking about an older character who is still level 1 it reminded me of the tale of Don Quixote. Don Quixote had a fairly boring life most of his life and only read books and imagined what it was like to be a knight. He had no experience adventuring until he was in his old age, during which he embarked on his famous journey riding around on a horse tilting at windmills. His partner, Sancho Panza, was younger than he was, but old enough to have a lot of children (I think something like 9+). Sancho had a similarly boring life he was trying to escape. As for the skills, what you find pretty quickly is that doing something for a long time doesn't necessarily mean you become better. People don't always learn from their experience and they often learn the wrong way to do things, doing that thing poorly for 20 years. Meanwhile people with talent and the right training can perform better. In the case of warriors or knights, people may not be trained at all in that craft, so a 16-20 year old could easily outperform a 40 year old person. Your example of driving is a good one here, because a young race car driver is much more skilled at driving than someone who barely learned to muddle along and spends their time causing problems for everyone else while they are driving. A 40 year old person who has a midlife crisis and decides they will start racing (maybe not professionally) might go take formal classes and spend some time training in the art of extreme driving, etc. Those are just a few examples I can think of off the top of my head.
My favorite backstory was inspired by Game of Thrones (or more specifically, A Song of Ice and Fire which is the book series the show is based on). In A Feast for Crows the characters meet Septon Meribald, a traveling priest. Eventually it comes out that Meribald grew up as a peasant and was conscripted into a levy army during the War of the Ninepenny Kings. After watching his friends die he deserted, became a septon, and traveled the kingdom helping people. A friend of mine used that same outline for one of their characters, they grew up a peasant until they were forced to join the army. They knew vaguely how to use a polearm but but nothing fancy, and after a disastrous defeat they learned that they had been pronounced KIA. So rather than go back to either the army or their village (since they'd just be sent back again) they wandered the countryside doing odd jobs until they fell in with a group of adventurers. It was such a simple backstory but it created so many wonderful role playing opportunities that I wish I could reuse it.
Grim Knight um, yes and no. First, the High Sparrow is not the character I was talking about above. I was talking about Septon Meribald, the wandering septon who guides Brienne and Pod to the Quiet Isle. But back to your question. On the one hand the High Sparrow does genuinely seem to care for the poor and wants the rich to be held accountable for their crimes and for the suffering they cause. On the other, he ordered the torture of the Blue Bard and later Ser Osney. He also wants to completely destroy the existing social order and impose what would effectively be a communist state led by the Pope, which is just a recipe for disaster. I wouldn't call him a _bad_ person per se because he has good intentions, but he is definitely a fanatic willing to go to extreme lengths to get what he wants.
Uh so more misguided than the complete arsehole he's portrayed as in the TV show? I heard that in the books Stannis never kills his daughter or does any half the horrible things he does in the books. As for state led by the Pope the Catholic Church did lead Europe relatively competently for hundreds of years (and during an unstable period with constant invasions from the Middle-East, Africa and Asia) which is more than be said for any other government and this is coming from someone who thinks Catholicism is ridiculous.
Wow, I did recently created a backstory based on the same idea, except mine was inspired by the character in the "broken man" speech rather than Meribald himself.
My issue with edgy badass characters is that when the dice isn’t in your corner you can’t really play it off in any way and it just makes you look a bit plebby and full of nonsense. Mr Edgescourge the killer, impaler of demons, eater of shadows for breakfast, saviour of 9 kingdoms and the most skilled combatant in the world fails his easy dex check to hop a ditch and sprains his ankle. He then proceeds to miss a goblin with his cursed demon blade and in turn took full damage from the goblins poker in its counter attack. When that happens to a player that has made a silly character like that they just sit there frozen with embarrassment and I’m like, “well yeah we were told we were starting at level 2...”
Pretty late to the party but very competent people can die in very embarrassing ways in real life as well. Like slipping in the bathtub or shower. That is to say, you might be a "Killer of Gods" but who ever said you're immune to poison?
Easy way to fix that intro backstory: When they went back in time they entered their younger body and forgot all future events. They sometimes remember them in dreams, so the character has been having dreams of being an epic hero since they were 8. At the age of 16 they joined an order of paladins and at 18 set off to fulfill their dreams.
A good twist on the crazy epic elaborate backstory: it's what your character has been spreading about themself, none of it is true though. Now their arc is learning how to be a real hero/ having to put their money where their mouth is.
One character I've had fun developing is a Tiefling Bard named Hope. She grew up in a little Tiefling hamlet in a rather poor household, when one day a wandering human bard decided to stay in their area. His performance inspired her, and while she innocently sang along with his violin, he took notice of her. He decided to teach her a bit of playing the violin and gave her her first instrument, an old violin that he wasn't using any more. Using that violin, she discovered that her music could be used to uplift and inspire people, especially to those treated as badly as tieflings tend to be. So as a teenager she left home and took on the name Hope, because that was what she aspired to bring people.
I did a "middle-aged+" backstory I played a dwarven cleric who had a backstory that probably made him around level 8 or so. Since then, he had retired, left his homeland, sold all his adventuring loot to start a business, and started a large family. At the start of the campaign (L1) I described him as "The oldest dwarf you've ever seen." He was post-stroke and suffering from the beginnings of dementia, and as such was reduced in ability. He refused to use his family business and assets for his own gear, using instead his old axe and chain mail he had kept as a keepsake. It was vintage- but normal- starting gear. Character was well liked by the group and the backstory never gave an advantage or made anyone wonder why he was starting out at L1 power level. The stroke and dementia also explained his lower stats (Dex and Int). He simple wasn't as agile and while a smart fellow, had trouble recalling facts and assessing situations through logic sometimes.
Planning for my first DnD game. Time to see how many mistakes I made Edit: Apparently I'm on the right track, because 90% of my PC backstory was their relationship to family and hometown. I was aiming to create pressure points for the DM to use on my PC and everything else was justifying personality traits.
My brother recently had to retire his character via death by 1000 goblins, and we're only level 2. In his backstory he was this great, legendary goliath fighter who was favored by a god of war, but then proceeded to get knocked unconscious in every single encounter from levels 1-2 thus far into the campaign. We even had some downtime in which he wanted to participate in some local back-ally bare knuckle boxing tournament, and he lost both fights there too. He felt really discouraged that his great warrior character couldn't even fight a few rats without getting his ass whooped lol. I even felt bad for him too lol. He re-rolled a cleric with a more believable level 2 backstory, and has been really enjoying it.
I've been graced with players who both care about their backstories and allow them to make sense at the same time, even so far as to incorporate mechanics that come from their past. My party's sorcerer is a pyromaniac because his inherent fire magic abilities are the only thing that stopped the pirates that owned him from throwing him off the ship, and I couldn't be happier.
Without knowing it my wife wrote the perfect backstory. That allowed me as a GM to work out a entire arc based around saving her family and kingdom that her “older brother” was the lord of. It was truly amazing and to see her and the other players so emotionally invested in saving these people gives me chills every time I think of it.
I typically keep my characters’ backstories simple and vague enough to let me and the DM both fill in the holes later, but there is one character of mine that does have a pretty big and expansive backstory: one that far exceeds his level. The way I got around the level problem was through the character’s age. The character is in his 80s. He used to be a great hero that fought in wars and saved the world on multiple occasions, but he hasn’t gone adventuring in decades and he’s really let himself go. So, he does feel as if he is starting over from scratch, even though he’s already accomplished so much. He’s just really dedicated to getting in one last hoo-raw before he kicks the bucket and to proving that he’s still got it.
I have been guilty of making a backstory several pages long. I kept it simple and described her connections as she grew up as a noble with no chance to inherit anything due to many siblings. She never got to adventuring in any of those pages and became a short chapter, pretty much like the beginning of a book. It was appreciated by the GM and he incorporated one of the siblings into the story itself. Since then, I have kept my backstories to a maximum of 2 pages, usually describing the major events of their lives in colourful detail. I get many compliments on my story writing. I like your video background.
My half-elf bard's background > be my dad, a human bard in an adventure party > be my mum, elvish warlock in the same party > sexytimes.jpg > be me, half-elf > wants to not be a disappointment > learns how to entertain > turns out im a bit of a natural at barding > i should be an adventurer like dad
What I love to tinker most with creating a backstory is how my character's worst stats gets explained. There's just something more interesting about building a character out of their flaws rather than their glory.
Yes but they are not backstories. Thats a different thing. If you by backgrounds meant he backgrounds you can chose when creating the character. They might help you create a backstory. A wizard with the entertainer background. then you have a good setup for a backstory. but the background is not the backstory so to say :)
This is great advice, but I'm kind of a dingus, so I always try intentionally finding a reasonable workaround for any of these "never do ____" recommendations. For example: I created a character whose backstory is that he was a Protector Aasimar Paladin sworn to service of the crown, who was serving as a mid-rank officer with the royal army. Through dutifully following orders, he blithely committed war crimes while ignoring the protests of his Angelic Guide (aasimar are weird). Eventually, he did something so terrible that his Guide abandoned him, causing him to become a Fallen Aasimar...but he still retained his Paladin powers, because he was following orders. This caused him to realize that his Oath was flawed, and he resigned. This broke his Oath, and he lost his Paladin powers as well. At the start of the campaign, he's a level 1 fighter, struggling to re-learn how to fight without any magic propping him up (eventually becoming a Battlemaster). His goal is to become a good enough man that his Guide will return, though he suspects that's impossible. Unfortunately, the campaign that I built the character for wound up falling apart before it ever started :/
I've got a few examples of 'experienced characters who have been demoted to lvl1' that I've either seen or done myself. In one campaign two of our players had magic using elves. The particular subrace of elves was basically demon worshipping high-elves who were the creators of necromancy in the setting. One made a necromancer who's power was tied to his ancestral spirits, so in his farm he was a powerful necromancer, but as soon as he left it and went adventuring he basically had no way of showing what he was truly capable so currently he was trying to strengthen his ability without the support of his family spirits. The second character (mine) had been the court bard/courtesan for the evil elves' magical elite leadership, keeping herself where she was through staying on the good side of the members, the demons she'd made deals with and having a good understanding of how the intrigue was going. Due to a lot of events that would take too long to explain fully (we'd made the setting through Dawn of Worlds and I'd written my characters backstory to intertwine with some of the events that had happened in the original game), she had been a part of a failed attempt to use the previous ruler's magic to turn the entire ruling class into liches but it had actually resurrected said previous ruler, killing all of the participants but my character (she was spared because they were sisters), but the event nearly completely destroyed my character's ability to cast any magic. The campaign was set a few decades after this, my character had taken to travelling the world and the demons she'd originally made a deal with was only now just starting to be able exert an influence on her again (thus starting as a lvl 1 bard and then continuing as a warlock from then on), though she hadn't yet realised she was able to cast spells again, instead all her magic was happening at an instinctual level without her even thinking. (Really sad that campaign fell through before we got to explore either of them more). I also, as I was typing this, remembered another player in a different campaign that made a old wizard who had once been a powerful mage, but he had for the last few decades held a position as a research professor at a magical university teaching the kind of subject that nobody cared about as dementia was slowly starting to set in, so adventuring ended up being a way to help reinvigorate his mind somewhat as he tried to remember how to cast combat spells again. Finding workarounds to have badass backstories that can justify a lvl 1 start can be really fun.
@@tomhazell983 I created a level 1 205 year-old Elven Fighter who had roamed the continent for over 100 years as a musician, not doing anything courageous or heroic, he would just play his lute and sing, in a band with his half-elven daughter and his half-elven lover. Then one day the village they were performing for was attacked and burned to the ground, killing his daughter, his lover anddisfuguring him for life. In this way, he is technically experienced, but not in adventuring.
@@tafua_a I assume he then had "Knowledge [thing]" points in spades. Also... Was his HE lover the mother of his HE daughter? Wouldn't that make the daughter quarter elf?
that's one reason i don't start pcs at 1st level. i usually start them at 3rd, and offer another 3000xp (basically 4th level) if they complete an approved backstory
Level 3 generally gives more options for character customization anyway, as that's when you get into the specialization, so the players can be more creative. Whenever we played (except for the first 2-3 times ever), we always started at level 3.
Starting at 3rd level usually avoids early game balance/stupidity induced deaths and helps the slower start characters feel like they have something to contribute. Also the characters look more satisfying on paper for the players.
wow a little bit bitter? I think ? not sure why though , people should have a right to play what their Dm allows just like you have a right to be bitter ... but I also have a right too call you on it .... IT IS JUST A GAME .... it is about having fun not how its always been done
As a general rule, when starting at "Level 1" or whatever the equivalent, I try to keep characters limited to one major exciting event event they took part in, though a string of smaller exciting events can also work if they're part of something like fighting in a long war. They character took command of a squad during a battle, or they won a big race, or were part of the hunt for an infamous criminal. These are all things that most reasonable people would see as impressive, but they're not anything that strains credulity for someone with Level 1 capabilities. Everything else is as you suggested, emotional and personal connections, family, friends, enemies, where they're from, because all that stuff? On top of making your character seem more real those are called "Plot hooks" DMs LOVE plot hooks and including a solid handful in your background is a path to brownie points.
I have a couple of rules on backstories. First, you should be able to sum up your backstory in a sentence or two. Anything more and you won’t have a well developed concept nor will anyone at the table remember it. Second, your character should be active and not passive in his or her backstory. Relating a bunch of things that happened to your character tells you nothing about who that character is.
I might suggest that a summary of just a sentence or two, might be a bit short or shallow... But certainly a goal of between two and six sentences (basic, non-compound, correct form, sentences btw) would be a valid quantifier for about how complicated a backstory needs get... Simply put, if it takes you more than six sentences to "broad-strokes" summarize your character, you're probably getting way too detailed or epic. In the same note, if it takes less than two sentences to summarize how he grew up and why he became an adventurer, it's probably a bit "light"... not to say "impossible", just... less than optimal. ;o)
I think too many get bogged down in the actual writing of it. Just give yourself a few bullet points and roll with it. In all honesty nobody cares about your level one's backstory. A simple where they are from and just wanting to get out and see the world is all you really need. Personally I build my character's story as I go only noting their goals and where they are from. Their goals naturally lend answers to the question of "why adventure" and unless I want my family to be a plot point I mostly leave them in vagaries. Probably comes from playing chaotic characters but that I just like my characters to develop naturally. I am experienced enough of a player that I don't NEED a backstory dictating how my character should play. Sure this won't work for everyone but IMO a lighter backstory with some goals is far better than a bogged down one. It helps that I don't play magic characters and stick to monk, fighter, and rogue mostly. Down-to-earth classes are far easier to organically write than casters who had to have learned their craft SOMEWHERE or from SOMEONE. Though I do enjoy writing warlock backstories in 5e as to how they came about making a pact with such a powerful entity.
Another possibility I like to use sometimes is that maybe your character DID have some amount of experience (just don't go overboard, say, level three or so), but it's atrophied due to time and/or injury. A knight who saw a half-dozen campaigns in the war ten years ago and has barely trained since is certainly not operating on the same level he was back then! Provides good "trying to get back into the groove" roleplaying fodder for the first couple of sessions.
A good example of an older character starting out (40+ years old or more) is the iconic wizard from Pathfinder. He started off boring, raised in a rich family with money to blow until one day they lost it all (if I remember correctly). He decided to become a wizard after that.
For my older character, I decided to make his current adventure a return for him. He settled down for some time, married and had children, but his children all branched out on their own and his wife had passed away during the winter. So rather than stay in an empty home, he decided to return to go out and see the world again after a couple of decades of peace.
My crazy old level one wizard was given (A.K.A. sold) to his elven master when he was a kid. Unfortunately she was a shotacon and he was adorable. She never let him learn any truly dangerous magic because she neither trusted his ability nor wanted him to grow strong enough to leave. As he grew older he still retained his youthful face and excellent good looks. Unfortunately as he got old he became increasingly irritating and increasingly unattractive. Eventually after one of their all-to-common arguments about his desires to become an adventurer, rather than convince him to stay like she had always done, she told him to leave. Now he's a partly senile old man with limited practical magical skill but a wealth of knowledge from studying books. (variant human=skilled feat and sage background) And that's how I made my 75 year old level one wizard.
The iconic Pathfinder's wizard (his name is Eren, right?) I remember to be the only one with an actual cool backstory that I liked. He started as a normal human and then became an adventurer because some reasons, he feels way more like a person than the rest of the entire cast.
My 56 year old Wizard is a scholar, until now he has never really been out adventuring, at least not in any areas that have been a danger to him or given him any experience as to what that life is like. Most of his time has been spent on research, learning the intricacies of magic so he can craft his own masterworks and also in his later years searching for a way to become a youthful immortal as he wants to be able to continue his research and gain knowledge indefinitely. I have been thinking of trying something fun and saying he had discovered parts of a recipe for immortality but some of the ingredients are quite rare and have lead him to adventure ("Ashes of an immortal creature" Curse of Strahd is the campaign he will be played in) however he has procured and experimented with some ingredients and now everytime he uses his magic his body returns to a much younger age of 23.
I stole a few minor details for my backstory from a book. Since I was pretty sure that none of my other party members have read that book, I was okay with that. But I soon realized that my character turned into a carbon copy of this book character. I scrapped everything and started over. I kept most of my backstory but my character arrived at a very different conclusion and worldview. It was the spice I needed to make my character truly my own and now I love her :) Don't be afraid to take inspiration from somewhere but be careful not to copy a character that you already like.
Hrunthnir the half-orc barbarian was about to be arrested by the town watch, but he became a folk hero by rolling double natural 20's at disadvantage on an Animal Handling check and riding a terribly destructive beast out of the town. After recovering from his drunkeness, he returns to lavishings of praise he's not sure he deserves, because he was far too inebriated off of his dorsum from skull-crushingly strong ale to remember exactly what he did. Level one or level two, and why do you think so?
I recently penned a 20 page backstory for how my character obtained her sword. Just a sword. A normal, mundane sword that a level 1 character would have. I was VERY mindful of what a level 1 Hexblade Warlock would be capable of. She tracks a target, but it is very easy because her quarry left an extremely obvious trail. She fails a stealth check and gives away her position to two goblins which turns into a challenging fight. That kind of thing. She doesn’t use any spells more powerful than cantrips. It is mostly the story of how she became friends with a dwarven blacksmith. There’s a lot of characterization for this blacksmith as he is one of 4 NPCs I’ve introduced to the game world for my DM to make use of. Writing it was actually quite rewarding creatively for me. I found that adhering to the D&D 5e rules and what a level 1 can do helped me to craft a believable narrative. It also helps that my DM loves it when the players assist with worldbuilding in this fashion.
On this note of levels, it's good to note that even level 1 characters are a cut above the average person (especially when rolling), for certain classes, this can allow for some intense back stories that focus on the little details. For fighters, being in war is an obvious one, but one they can take both an active and passive role in: "yeah, I dealt the finishing blow to the enemy's ogre, but then holy hells did I run for cover when their wizard came out. I was on the edge of their fireball but managed with just some singer on my armor." My current guy's back story was a soldier in a war, but a wizard started fighting an enemy druid (explanation: as an adventurer, he didn't like our side bringing siege weapons and armies through the countryside so abusively), the druid then called forth a giant swamp creature (the battlefield bordered the swamp off a mountain pass) and I ended up getting swallowed whole. I managed to survive by forcing it to puke me up since it didn't manage to bite into me. Doing stuff like that where you encounter stronger creatures only to outsmart or cleverly get away could be what gave the character their first level, so that way actually killing even low CR monsters is them getting better at leaving things dead faster.
I once wrote a multi-page backstory of how my halfling grew up on a farm. It included all the family details (three brothers, one sister, both parents. etc.), anecdotes, side stories, hypotheses and opinions. All that because my character was a blabbermouth that couldn't keep his lips shut for more than two minutes; and every time he would start running his mouth, I would glance into the backstory for inspiration, e.g., for how my big sister's husband has always been a know-it all and this one time he visited our farm, they...
Honestly I have a running gag in my group where I make my characters backstory so needlessly tragic it was almost self aware which we all got a laugh out of.
As a general rule of thumb when I create characters I tie in experiences that draw my character into the class I chose for it. Like going into the military for a fighter, or joining a thieves guild for a rouge.
I haven't really tried playing yet. I'm mostly just constantly looking at starting. That said, the character ideas I have tend to have somewhat simple backstories that more explain why they behave the way they do rather than anything else. For example, I had an idea for a Cleric of Kelemvor that essentially holds a day job as a grave digger, caretaker for a graveyard, and often make-shift undertaker. The last duty also has him comforting people about the nature of death and how it's not necessarily a bad thing in hopes of helping the grieving of the living. Another character is a human stealthy character (possible rogue?) that is, oddly enough, quite lawful. He was actually a night watchman of his village and therefore learned to move around quietly to avoid being spotted when he was in quiet pursuit of a criminal. His weapon, however, is a pole arm as, well, most medieval night watchmen carried pole arms. With this he also carries a lantern/torch. He's essentially a stealth investigator but both, as explained, are otherwise fairly normal people, if not nearly commoners in their own right.
Best advice I have heard regarding backstories is that the most interesting things to happen to your characters should not happen before the game starts. I do not worry so much about what the equivalent level you should be to accomplish something, that seems really hard to judge
I love the character creator in Xanathar's Guide for this reason. It brings the 5e much closer to Traveller - my favourite character creation system. Some people don't like it and I can see why. However, so far I have created 3 characters with the system in Xanathar and the variation is incredible. There is even a Life Events table and character gets more rolls the older they are. The events are usually not that remarkable, but they help with the background creation. Characters might even end up with some extra gold, treasure map, potions or a powerful ally. Even if players don't want to just randomly create a backstory, I suggest they roll at least for the Life Events.
I recently had the occasion to play a character without knowing their backstory, because of torture-induced amnesia. Discovering the backstory through the GM has been an absolute treat, and although I would be cautious to recommend it, it has been my favourite character building experience so far, because it is highly co-operative, and leaves ample space to build the character I'm playing into the story of the campaign. If there is anything I would add to your points, Guys, it is to leave the story ambiguous in key parts. "I was a princess" may be very interesting, if there is enough wiggle room for the GM to actually riff off of that backstory. "I was the princess of this and that, and we were unseated by this and that character, because of this and that reason, leading me to do this and that, resulting in this and that" is not so great, because there is seldom enough room in a campaign to explore such specifics. If the story is fortuitously vague, the GM may just fortuitously bring in a personal connection to you, which makes the role playing experience that much more intense and immersive. TL;DR: leave space for a story that you have not yet told to be explored together with your GM and your fellow players, and the actual sessions of play will be richer for it.
with my first character, i specifically tried to not make him too fantastical. con man from underdark pissed off the wrong nobility and had to flee and leave his pregnant wife behind with most of his fortune. the dude died during the campaign. RIP Tebryn Vandree.
One of my characters had the backstory that they were found unconscious on a battlefield with no memory of their past and I worked with our dm that we would gradually find out about their past as we worked our way through the campaign.
I usually write a backstory where there was one event of badassery that elevated them from normal to level one adventurer. Maybe they killed the dragon by dumb luck or managed to save their hometown from a small goblin raid. As long as it’s a believable event that they could pull through without necessarily being a god of battle then I believe it’s a safe backstory.
One of my first characters was this ragged drunk man, who did have a pretty wild backstory, but he'd regressed from basically Level 7 back to 1 because drowning his depression and lounging around for years had caused him to lose a step. It's not necessarily a matter of bowing to your limits, it's a matter of being creative within them, if you ask me. Focusing on relationships more than events is just another way of doing that.
I personally always write too much for my backgrounds. I tend to get an idea for a character, and before I know it I've already written four pages on early childhood alone. I try to avoid writing backgrounds that would give my character any numerical advantages. My most recent written background is for a character in Pathfinder, and I often feel a lot of regret for writing it the way I did. Essentially, she used to be a evil God (though she doesn't know it), and for punishment for her Hubris to challenge a more powerful God (Sarenrae), she was cast down to the Material Plane, and given a weak body, her memories stripped away. She later showed minor divine power, and some Clerics assumed she had natural talent for being a cleric, and took her to a monastary, where she became (ironically) a priestess of Sarenrae. I regret writing it the way I did because it feels like it supercedes the GM's story in some ways, and I made my character too much of an spotlight magnet. I often wish I could just hit the undo button, but it's too late for it, and the GM has sort of molded the story around my character.
This is why I usually hide my backstory for a few levels, it gives the character an air of mysterious and makes the full backstory sound better when you tell it at level 8
Exception to your problem. You could have done many heroic things but been cursed into another body or been cursed into losing almost all of your "strength" or "power" and you have to make the grind to once again achieve power.
In systems with a class concept (i.e D&D) there is also the angle to take of 'how you acquired the skills and proficiencies to become XYZ class". Even something as simple as a D&D fighter starts the game with rafts of proficiencies in a huge range of weapons and armour types; probably more so then even a professional soldier would have had in many periods of history. Going from a "level 1 peasent" to a "level 1 fighter" is something that can give even newbie characters a bit of crunch to their backstory without "over-levelling".
I think the joke about the long winded over bloated backstory was more tedious and long than most backstories I've encountered. But regarding the backgrounds provided in the PHB, I think a lot of them are solid and inspiring on their own. They don't cover every avenue, but then, you're perfectly able to make your own- the book has no problem with this as long as your DM is fine with it, it's all very basic. I pretty much always get a lot out of my character creation backstory wise just from Race, Background, and Class. For example I've got a half elf oath of the ancients paladin artisan who guards merchant caravans between elven and human lands, selling their own wares. They're very into their elven heritage and do their best with the whole ancient oath happiness and light thing. Makes toys for children and such, feels a kinship with those displaced from their home or what have you all half elf style.
One rule I have for making backstories is, "Why does this character have the motivations that he or she has? What caused them?" That generally leads to explaining what the person has lived through, rather than necessarily did.
I think my second favorite character backstory I ever ran was the son of one of the leaders of a pirate town that was protected by a strait whose currents seems to shift and change on the devil’s whim, so that only those that lived in the area for some time could navigate it. He had gotten into various bits of trouble in various towns in the realm and often changed his name and look as a result. At one point he acted as a scout in a royals navy, where he became friends with one of the other characters in the game, and they both eventually decided to make a name for themselves. That story is nice, not too extreme, but also gives flavor to both the world and the character.
My favorite character backstory I created was because, while it does have action, it's left vague. But as you hear it, you come to believe this archer had a pretty successful life, both on the front lines and with his wife. He had just built his own home, and he had just had his first child when everything was ripped away from him. An orc horde ripped through his village, and, despite a last stand from the the archery unit and local militia, it was in vain. The whole village was burnt to the ground and, as far as he knew, all slaughtered as he believed he was the only one to escape. For years after, in his depressed and hopeless state, he wandered from pub to bar doing menial tasks to earn money until he finally saved up enough to buy a new bow. No longer could he drink in dishonor. He knew he had to use what he still remembered of his military training to do some good in the world, it was the last thing he had.
I'm DMing for the first time with a group of friends on Pathfinder, level 1, and a homebrew setting. Two of them were new but on the opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to their backstories. Unfortunately, I'm actually having a lot of trouble with one of them. The first one was a really vague human paladin. All I got was a guy who was really self deprecating but became a paladin through "hard work". I had nothing to work with and worried that his experience would suffer. Fortunately, I got him to rewrite it and collaborated with him to expand on it further, and it really showed during our sessions. The second one was a very detailed backstory of a female Ifrit sorcerer, but it basically boiled down to "a very talented pyromaniac who got in a lot of trouble as a kid but then went to a magic school, skipped grades, and became nobility because she was so talented". I took issue with the guy's emphasis on her pyromania, unrealistic "talent", and lack of motivation or redeemable traits. Much to my regret, I ended up rewriting it and asking for his approval instead of having him do it. He accepted it, but from how he's played, he doesn't seem to remember any of it and falls back to his original draft. He thus tends to play the character in a very aggressive manner and flaunts her "noble" status even though we never discussed it. While I absolutely despised the character, I tried to let it go since it wasn't impeding the gameplay much and the guy has several issues that I didn't want to drag in by antagonizing him. It was only when he started bugging me endlessly about hypothetical situations and arguing my rulings that I actually got mad. I'm now running a second campaign without him in the group; we're still planning on continuing the first since the second one is supposed to be an off shoot, but I feel a bit guilty saying that I enjoy running the second one more.
You never need to feel guilty about finding an obnoxious player annoying. if a player is openly disrespectful (and ignoring your concerns, arguing with your rulings etc. is disrespectful), the ditching them is not in the least unreasonable, especially if you've already tried to deal with it like an adult.
Before the new bloodlines came out for Pathfinder (long ago and far away), I wanted to create a darker sorcerer than what was available. I worked with my DM to create, what is now, the Abyssal bloodline. Give or take. The backstory: A noble girl betrothed to a man she doesn’t love. Her young lover well below her station. Dark woods haunted by a demon. And a pact with said demon to set her beloved and her free to be together. The result: The first of the “gypsy” lineage. A distant descendant who was supposed to be the gateway for the demon to enter this plane away from his prison in the woods. A sorcerer with a demon bloodline, nightmarish dreams of being possessed by a demon committing horrible acts with his body and dissociative amnesia now on his own in a strange city. And a GM with lots of possible hooks and a richer world to work with throughout this many campaigns. (Above is the cliff notes version. It was all written out on few pages in story format). All this with a backstory that fits the stats on the paper.
My thoughts about your video, as a first-time viewers are as follows: 1. The background images are fine. I see them in your glasses, but that is a non-issue 2. Your voice is amazing. You should read audio books professionally. 3. OP backstories are lame. I have a character with a lot of experience, but most of it is in studying the gods-not in fighting or casting spells. Characters can have dimension and depth without being experts in adventuring. 4. I was drunk and couldn't pay attention to all of it, but the parts of this video I caught were A+. Just keep saying words with that beautiful voice.
level one characters wierd me out if you play a long lived race like elves or dwarfs - this 100 year old elf has just grown up and is level one? And that half-orc fighter over there is a grown-up at 16 years that is now level one as well? what the hell did the elf do for 84 years not acquiring any skills whatsoever? Learning to speak, walk, and generally growing up surely can take longer for the long lived races, but honestly it doesn't make any sense to me at al. Even if that elf did nothing of value at all during that time, like farming or living a cushy lifestyle as Guy described here, there is just stuff you pick up during everyday life for a hundred years, be it due to hobbies or just general interest. Some skills and knowledge should have been gathered over that time. I guess there really isn't a way around that problem, I mean you can't just forbid players to choose long-lived races for level one characters, that'd be too invasive in my opinion. If a player wants to play an elvish sorceress at level one she should be able to play that character - still, I find it hard to suspend my disbelief there. In general I think having races that need 110 years to even be a functioning adult is kinda sketchy in the first place, even in a fantastical setting that is really, really strange. I mean how long is an elven woman pregnant then, 4-5 years? I get that it's fantasy and that there are areas where thinking too hard about it isn't worth the hassle, but when you want to create a believable story stuff like this is a challenge, at least for me.
A K A book could.be written about: - What they don't tell you about the" longlived races" 1) extremely Immature, it takes around 100 years for them to create any kind of sense. 2) learning difficulties, if not with a band of foreigners they improve themselves very little. 3) prudes. If they bred more they would rule the world.
Yah, typically long lived races wont be taken seriously by there piers till they are much older then if it had been someone with closer to our own lifespan. Maybe not so much learning difficulties, well depending on the setting and the race in question, but why ever accept good enough when you have the time to practice perfection.
I would take it not as them not having skills, but rather, not having any relevant skills. Sure they may be experts in their day to day tasks, but they probably don't start weapons training/magic training until fairly late in their development, making their acquisition of character levels functionally the same. I would also assume that they might not reach the physical maturity to be adventurers until that point. Maybe they know a lot about magic or weapon handling, but their bodies and minds can't handle the strain of battle and constant spell casting.
In the case of elves, in most settings they think fundamentally differently to humans. That 1st level Elven Wizard *has* in fact been hitting the books for 100+ years, but they can only cast first level spells because they don't care about the outward manifestation of magic (spells), they care about deep understanding of magic. Similarly an elven swordsman is the guy being talked about in the quote "I don't fear a man who's practiced five thousand kicks, I fear the man who's practiced one kick five thousand times" or however it goes. For dwarves it's easy to imagine there's a very strict means of education and training. They learn by rote, after all the older generations did think up every answer to every problem you'll ever encounter, you just have to learn them all and how to do them. Another way to look at it is the elf or the dwarf are in fact fully adjusted members of their own society, perhaps a baker or smith, but they have zero experience adventuring. In some settings there's a fairly well documented phenomena where elves get a bit bored and go on an adventure just because it's something new to do, then after the first quest get bored of *that* and decide to stick with the home life. Same deal with dwarves.
Well, often we attribute it to a certain cultural lack of haste, particularly when it comes to elves. I mean, when every member of your species lives for seven centuries, you're not going to be in such a rush to learn how to do everything as someone who's likely to clock out not long after 60. But if we look at it more closely we realise that they *do* have things that they've learnt. Let's compare the wood elf to the lightfoot halfling; the halfling has a few traits, they're lucky, they're brave, and they're nimble, and as a lightfoot they're also stealthy - the first three are inherent, the luck is esoteric, the bravery cultural, and the nimbleness a natural result of their small size and mechanical +2 to dex, Naturally Stealthy is a learned improvement of a natural consequence of their small size and is practically cultural to boot (which is why none of the other small races get it). The elf on the other hand, has naturally good senses (dark vision and perception proficiency), and being of fey origin, is naturally resistant to some magical effects and doesn't sleep like other beings. And then we hit the big ones. Mask of the Wild is learned over decades. Elves are not naturally small like the halfling, they're actually about the same size as humans, so whilst they do have that same mechanical +2 to dex, they have the same amount of body to hide as we do (the reason for it not being stealth proficiency is because they're not good at hiding in general, just good at hiding in natural environments, because hunting is their cultural priority). And then they have their weapon proficiencies. Only elves and dwarves get racial weapon proficiencies, and it's not because they're particularly martial races (well, dwarves might be a bit, but compared to orcs and half orcs?), but rather because they have all that time. Gnomes don't make no snense.
My most recent character creation had a bit of a unique dilemma. I was to join a group of level 11 characters as a level 11 myself (I had previously been part of the session, but real life stuff had kept me away for a while. My prior character was dead after I handed him over to the DM as an NPC and even so he asked me before putting it in a scenario where he was likely to die, which he did). In many ways that left me alot of wiggle room for a backstory, but also questions like "What kind of reputation, if any does my character have? And if not, why are they not well known?" Ultimately I went with a Female Elf Horizon Walker Ranger of some 200+ years of age and I decided to basically split my backstory in 2. The stuff I would have used had this character been level 3 (our standard starting point) and the stuff that led up to level 11. The basic stuff involved my character beeing scout and one of the protectors of a elf hamlet. It was relatively peaceful, my character had a husband and son, all that good stuff. She was also a devoted faithful of Corellon. Of course, not much of a call to adventure if everything is peaceful, so her family ended up dead due to an outside attack while she was of scouting a different potential threat. Heartbroken and shaken in her belief she decided to take a pilgrimage to gather her thoughts, figure out what to and and reaffirm her faith. This is where she would have encountered the party had we been going with level 3 characters. But, that was not where things were gonna go, so I continued from there. In broad terms her pilgrimage had pretty much the opposite effect in regards to her faith, seeing people in dire need cry out to the gods for help and finding no answer ultimately broke her own faith (note she still believes the gods exist, she just thinks they are pricks) and she returned home only long enough to leave her talisman with Corellon's symbol at the local temple and then set of for parts unknown. This is where the Horizon Walker part of her class heavily comes into play, because lacking a goal and still shaken from her experiences she decided to just go where her feet took her, eventually beeing drawn to a portal to a realm beyond the material plane and the otherworldly wonders she saw momentarily distracted her from her sorrow and pain. From there she chased that experience, traveling between planes. Sometimes she would spend significant time in one location that caught her interest (or for other reasons, I got a few pages of basic short stories I can bring up if asked about her adventures) and eventually spent a very, very long time away from the material plane. The dangers and rigors of her travels hardened her as she became ever more in tune with the otherworldly landscapes she traveled through, before eventually returning to the material plane. And that is the gist of it. She joined up with the party only a few months after returning to the material plane, meaning she hardly had time to really learn what had happened in her absence or establish her own reputation. The long time spent traveling also meant many of the skills she had developed while settled down with a family had not been maintained. The way she joined up tied into her own chase of experiences, where she met a toymaker who makes magical toys, beeing interested in the toymakers work and then encountering the party when the toymaker is kidnapped as said toymaker was a NPC significant to the rest of the party as well. The fact that my character knew next to nothing of the rest of the party's adventures meant that there was plenty of moments where I (In character) could go "What?" while my own character experience with the planes is something the rest of the party had not done much of (at that point). In the end the party ended up with a elf of significant skill and experience, always ready for a new experience or place to go, but also weighed upon by her past and deeply snarky whenever the talk falls upon the gods.
in one of my backstorys i have created an entire planet (sci fi setting) for my charackter, but the chrackter herself only was a tourguide for tourrist.
I had a character who had this very robust backstory who traveled the world with a group of heros and saved the world from a powerful demon lord and he started at level one... but, this character was actually the squire of the actual hero. I wrote it like this grand quest backstory and ended it with, "But this is not my story. This is the story of the knight I served... as his squire." I had expertise in things like cook's tools etc. thanks to my kind DM who made me very good squire duties, basically I did all the minor work like polishing equipment etc. you know squire stuff... anyway, I never went into combat with my knight in my backstory until I took up a sword and decided to leave and prove that I to could be like him.
See I'm trying to get closer to that initial guy. I always am just like, my hometown had really restrictive laws so I grabbed a guitar, a map, and some lunch then became a bard.
Why change? Your backstory's just fine! I like "rags to riches" adventurers, so my adventurers always have backstories more along the lines of "I was born to a family of barley farmers, but after seeing how the priesthood of Chauntea blessed our farming community and worked with us to ensure more bountiful harvests, I chose to leave my family for the cloister and become an acolyte of Chauntea, Goddess of the Harvest. Soon after reaching Age 15, I became a deacon of the faith, and soonafter, a priest, walking the farmlands and blessing the good earth as I beheld the priests before me doing in my youth." And however my Cleric of Chauntea gets tangled up in adventuring from there is largely up to the DM. :-)
Honestly, if I got into DnD I'd be a bit interested in RPing as a refugee. You'd have a character with a potentially rich backstory that might feed off some of a particularly ambitious DM's ideas, who may have had it all, lost it and is working to earn it back, and who may have some interesting insight and tidbits to pass on as the players go out and about.
Call me crazy, but I tend to do it backwards. I fill out the character sheet first, decide what I want this character to be capable of (mechanically), then write a backstory to tie it all together. Funnily enough, those backstories tend to be rather short, especially for first level characters. I actually like the "background"-feature of D&D 5e, it makes it easier to answer the question "what was the character doing, before the start of his adventuring life?" D&D specific, I'd say that if your background doesn't explain how you aquired the skills that define your class this is a separate thing one should write into the backstory as well.
How is doing the background AFTER filling out the first sheet with stats considered backwards? The backstory boxes from the DnD sheet is LITERALLY on the back of the first page.
Great Video, made me rethink things in Background Stories. Your Background in your videos is fine, they don't detract at all from your Videos - in fact - I didn't even think about it, or the Lighting, until you bought it up - I was focused on listening to your tips and such. Keep up the good work!
11:35 Guy I don't mind the background. I don't focus my attention on that. I focus my attention on you. Unless you have an outrageous dragon battle behind you. I'm focus on what you're saying .
I generally tell my players that I will reward some modest xp or perhaps a bonus proficiency (I run a 2nd Ed AD&D campaign) for a worthy backstory. I've found while many players will have a few notions about their PCs history, backstories in general are difficult for them. the "20 questions to ask your character" test is a great answer to this...as is concocting a teacher/mentor/trainer/rolemodel they can have a long running relationship with...(however, if you're following the Mono-myth model...at some point, the mentor must die, be incapacitated, or otherwise neutralized, so the PC can "step up" into their proper role....) When I was storyteller for a long running LARP, i told the players that a well written backstory could be worth as much as 3 xp, if it 1) was decently done, 2) had internal consistency and didn't overreach, and 3) was entertaining to read (thus lending to good narrative material for both players and myself as ST...) Some players have a real knack for coming up with interesting and colorful backstories ,full of opportunity for the DM to latch onto and make the story very "real" for the player.... but they tend to be the exception..
Ah yes. The ever delightful Gary/Mary Stu/Sue. "So you've defeated an evil demi-god, and thwarted the machinations of an evil cult that followed him? And you're 18 years old and level 1? Uh-huh. Sure bud. How about you rewrite that for me?"
@Clocktopus From Wikipedia: "A Mary Sue is an idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character... *They can usually perform better at tasks than should be possible given the amount of training or experience.* "
Okay, Guy, I will clarify something you said... "A 40 year old has been driving a car for 20 years and should be a better driver than a 20 year old." The key word is SHOULD. However, I've found that SHOULD and IS are two different things. While it is very rare to find a 20 year old who drives with the safety and confidence of a 40 year old, IT IS FAR MORE COMMON TO FIND 40 YO'S WHO DRIVE LIKE THEY'RE 20! Okay, Rant mode is now off. You may proceed.
Jack Linde I get what he's trying to say with the comparison, but I do feel like adventurers should be set apart from the common citizen of the world. Else it would be kinda lame. You are gaining experience by fighting evil and traveling through forests. Not bailing hay, or butchering pigs. Player characters and significant NPCs are going to be head and shoulders above the rest. I consider most citizens level 1, unless they are trained soldiers, fighters, or mages.
Okay, you kind of missed the joke: (I was taking a jab at bad drivers.) And, I think you missed the point of Guy's video as well. Sure, there has to be something that sets your character apart from the common chatel he or she is from. But, that quality isn't going to be the character's history. Heck, you can play a character who's beginnings are nothing more than being one more useless get from a large family of mud farmers, and he or she simply decided one day that walking the adventurer's path was more interesting than wallowing through a muddy field for the rest of their life. No, that quality that's going to set your characters apart from everyone else is found within them.It's what they do on the adventures they go on, not what's listed in the backstory. It's like writing up Hercules as a level one character, except that you've included his whole epic story as the backstory. You're not trying to roleplay Hercules after he's come back from the adventure. You want to play him as he sets out for the first time, before he became a hero. You're looking to explore the journey that turned him into a figure of lore and myth.
Jack Linde no I did get your joke! I wasn't trying to disagree with you, I was actually agreeing! I just mean that his comment about his qualms with the DM guide, the reason he made the driving reference, is that older people in the world should be higher level, and that's what I disagree with. Mundane tasks like driving or cooking, or farming don't level someone up. I would say significant battle and combat experience level someone up. That's all I was trying to say. Driving was a bad analogy :) we're on the same team here! Lol
Jack Linde for instance, a farmer who harvests grain for 30 years would remain level 1, because there is no Farming character class, but a farmhand that was responsible for keeping wild beasts away from the horses and sheep could be leveling because he is using combat skills that make sense to level in the system. I'd say even then he wouldn't level past the CR of the types of creatures he's fending off.
Probably because they've either been driving recklessly since age 20 or they had a midlife crisis and started driving like they were 20 again--in red sportscars, with younger partners-out of nostalgia.
I entered into a campaign after the other players were already a few levels in. I was a Warforged Artificer. Having little to no creative ability when it comes to backstories, names, interpersonal relationships, etc, I simply found it easiest that the party found the Warforged inert in the dungeon they were exploring at the time. He has amnesia - no idea how he got there, where he came from, or why he was made. Correspondingly, he has very little in the way of personality except for a cold, robotic, socially-stunted pragmatism. Thus absolving me indefinitely of ever actually having to come up with any sort of origin or backstory for him. . . I felt pretty clever, although frankly it's just laziness and lack of inspiration. But it does leave the door wide open to weave him into the world in all sorts of interesting ways in the future, since Warforged are entirely non-existent in the current era/setting.
I've got one player who always likes to try out weird homebrew stuff he's found, and I usually greenlight it because he's really good about not taking advantage. So one day he comes to me and says "I found this awakened skeleton" race I want to try, and he'll be this several hundred year old warlock. I said "how are you going to justify him being a several hundred year old warlock that's only level 2?" (I always start at level 2.) His response was "He used to be human, but someone locked him in a coffin for a century and his power wasted away with his body." He then proceeded to play a delightfully out of touch skeleton who kept trying to use his AWESOME WARLOCK POWER and then failing miserably. It was glorious.
That is a very short, yet amazing backstory...
Thats an good backstory
Also props on you for being a good DM
LITERALLY SKELETOR! XD
Well done! This is exactly what I want to see from the character with the "amazing backstory." "Yeah, I'm all that and...fail..wait, wtf? The LAST time I turned someone into a newt...?"
This reminds me of that skeleton musician from one piece 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Play a rogue or bard.
Make sure you can Bluff.
Dont Give them your actual name you put on the sheet, Give them a fake
Have an ever changing Backstory that you reference all the time. Make sure it contradicts every so often.
See how long it takes them to figure out they know nothing concrete about you.
See how long it takes you to forget what your ACTUAL background was and why they are such a habitual liar.
Bonus points if you play as a bear
@@ShiningDarknes Thats the point. You lie so much it becomes the truth
@@Oznerock ...yes, that is what my comment was saying.
@@ShiningDarknes Oh, I though you were being checky and trying to spoil the OPs fun. Lack of entonation in the net and all. Maybe youtube should have emotes.
Sorry for being mister obvious.
How to avoid dumb BGs?
Simple.
Focus less on events and more on personality, character and relationships.
No
This is true. A level one PC may have never slain a dragon, but he has experienced tyranny that has driven him to want to topple the despot that has held his family under his thumb for years. Cue inciting incident, cue adventure, cue character growth.
I managed to put both story and the character personality in a pseudo-summery with the longest one being maybe less than 1/3 of a page.
Yes! And writing your characters traits THEN creating their backstory is something I find useful too. Because then you can step back and think “Okay, now why are they like that?” This tends to lead to you explaining your character’s actions better.
Some events can work really well and tie well into the GMs story. As long as you have loose ends it’s okay. I like to play people who are a blank canvas and a new chapter in their life has begun.
My fighter? He was just expelled from the fighter’s academy. My Aarakocra is trying to learn more of his people. The worst thing you can do is be on an epic adventure in a strange unfamiliar land and be like “been there done that.”
"I killed a dragon by firing an arrow right into its eye while I was on my roof... by accident. Now people think I'm some great marksman and hero, but I'm actually a bit clumsy and only even attempted to hit it with the arrow because I was cornered and had nowhere to run. I'm actually much better at _talking_ my way out of bad situations."
There's a little backstory I find interesting without making the character an actual badass, but an accidental one. The GM's story is where my character can become a _legit_ badass after some good leveling.
Like the Micky Mouse in the Giant Slayer. "I killed 7 in one blow" (swatted flies with his towel)
I have an OC in my back pocket whose last name makes him sound like he's trying to puff himself up as some sort of badass... but it's his real family name, bestowed upon his grandfather by a grateful but very whimsical king. He refuses to disrespect the king's memory by not using the name, and therefore has to deal with a steady stream of cocky young punks and upperclass twits who think he needs to be put in his place.
@@Vinemaple that’s cool, what’s the name?
Actual player-background interview.
ME: So then, you want to play a Paladin, Who were your parents?
PLAYER: I'm an orphan
ME: OK, I think I can work with that, When did your parents die?
P: When I was a baby.
ME: OK, how did your parents die?
P: My character doesn't remember, they were a baby.
ME: Who were you raised by?
P: By the temple.
ME: Do you have any brothers or sisters?
P: No. I was an only child.
ME: Right then. Moving on, What do you do for a hobby?
P: I smite evil.
ME: That's your job, what do you do in your down time?
P: sleep.
ME: Do you have any connection to your sword?
P: No. It was just a sword from the temple.
It went on for a little longer, but this is pretty much all the info I ever got from that player.
Grayald if you like murderhobo paladins, then unironically it could be. Of course, the chances of that happening...
"what do you do in your down time?"
"sleep"
Okay so he is an army grunt, with little to no past. Maybe not the best working material if you wanted to put his background into play, but it's only really bad if that is all the players and if they don't integrate into the world as you play.
Sometimes it's good to go in blank slate and build on experience rather then past.
Bonus points if he is an optimizer and multiclasses into a sorcerer.
No, even better, Warlock.
me: *reads over backstory* "And then you defeated a god?"
player: "Yup." *nods*
me: "Uh huh. You do realize you're level 1, right?"
player: "Well, uh... when I defeated one god, the others deemed me a threat and took away all my powers. Now I'm questing to regain my old glory."
me: "You know what? I'm going to allow this backstory, and give you 500xp for clever thinking."
player: "Sweet!"
me: *also gives the wannabe special snowflake a cadre of gods watching to make sure he doesn't become too powerful again*
Tbh, having a backstory where every god has it out for you personally sounds really interesting and something that the dm could really lean into during the campaign
This could happen in my iron age setting. Theres beings know as house gods that provides protection to certain places. Most are about 5th level
@@TheGrungy1 Ha! That would be awesome: you had to leave your hometown...why? Because you trained up to level 4 as a mage, pissed off one of your household lares or penates, had to kill it, and then one of the higher gods, pissed, jerked your magic away (Greco-Roman gods and goddesses being, well, pissy and spiteful) and so you flipped them the bird, went to a land of foreign gods, became a warlock and now your _personal_ quest is to come back and murder Hestia.
I bet even she had enemies in the Pantheon, Goddess of the Hearth though she was...
I had a character whose backstory was that he was a god. He was one of a pair of twin gods of the moon, and as his sister's power waned, his waxed (i.e. he levelled up). When he hit level cap, he was intended to ascend, and his sister would wake up as a near-mortal in the same ancient temple he did, although the campaign only lasted like, 3 sessions, so proto-god didn't even hit level 2.
@@LordLucless That could definitely be very interesting to see play out. I'm have real fun running something like that. It doesn't hurt that there was a clear and concrete end-goal/end-game laid out from the outset. It sounds like it could be fun.
(My problem was never so much the idea of players with divine backstories, but with players giving them to themselves without reference to the campaign, DM, or other players. Cooperation between all players, including the DM, and not trying to hog the spotlight, are vital to creating a good character and having a fun game.)
Fighter: "I single handedly killed a god in battle"
Also fighter in game: * struggles to kill a single brown bear *
Artemis before the fight: "See that fighter over there? Go get him Rex!"
To be fair, a bear has a stat block.
The god was pretending for a bit of fun.
In real life, it's pretty much a practical impossibility to slay a brown bear without at least modern rifle technology, so that doesnt even sound so farfetched. lol
In the old days, managing to kill a bear was considered a genuinely legendary feat. It's heroic enough simply to survive being mauled by one.
Like in skyrim.
Midlife crisis adventuring seems like a fun idea.
very fun 250year old dwarf mine had an epiphany sold of his part of the mine and now clerics for kord
I once played a human druid like this, she started learning druid magic because (in setting) her children grew up and left to either join fhe army or adventure themselves, and she saw the local druid coven like we would a knitting circle
Safe to say I was the official group mum for that arc
Oh man, RPing a wizard with a bad back, & dependance on health potions would be *amazing.*
If you really want an epic backstory, give it to an ancestor. I have found through experience that dm's can work with that. For instance, instead of your level 1 character defeating a demon lord, have it be your great great grandfather. Then you work in some kind of cult that is attempting to resurrect this demon lord, and they need to kill your level 1 character to do it. Either out of revenge or because only someone of your bloodline can stop the demons resurrection. Maybe this cult burned down your family home and drove you into hiding. You've taken on a new name, and a new identity as an adventurer so you can gain the power and experience to defend yourself and perhaps eventually stop this cult. Like i said, the dm can work with that. he can sprinkle in attacks from cultists and assassins every now and then and actually make a side quest out of it, or he can ignore it completely. Simply saying, that you have succeeded in fooling this cult into thinking you are dead and given them the slip.
That is an awesome tip!
Not only for Players but also for GMs, which can use this to not crush the enthusiasm of (unexperianced) players
Thanks. i have used that as both a player and a dm and i think it presents a very cool opportunity for adventure and it lets people basically make as epic a backstory as they want as long as they give it the ancestor and then find a way to link it to their current character. it's also proof that you don't need to write a novel to have a cool backstory. In that example up there i said who the character is, where he comes from, why he's adventuring, and what his ultimate goal is. i could have used more detail but that brief example is enough to call a backstory.
Love the idea!
Or even your dad was a great adventurer who saved the city but now he is too old for all that hero stuff and now you must live up to your father's legacy.
Another way this can work is if you failed to beat a specific enemy before, and they used a spell that wiped your skills, and muscle memory back to level one. Then you have a powerful character who has to reclaim their power. I had a powerful rouge who used to be a guild leader. Was wiped to level one. So I’d add to the rp by having him try to use magic and skills he doesn’t have access to anymore. Usually with hilarious effect.
“My father was killed and I want revenge.”
“My family was murdered by Fey.”
“My village was burned down by a dragon and it haunts me.”
“I am a priest.”
After receiving these backgrounds we did a whole session of working things out.
"...and on your next roll, can barely hit a door."
i see your character has 'went to the Vox Machina School for Adventuring' as part of their backstory.
Doors don't have shoulders to hit, man. They're invincible.
Horses are pretty bad too. They're Doors 2.0
G Jeffries except when you have harpies at your disposal.
Reminds me of the story where a party of barbarians, fighters, etc. tried to get out of a room and whiffed all their rolls on the simple wooden door, the dwarf hurting himself trying to kick it open.
Then they failed to defeat a chair, so had to transfer to The Mighty Nein Academy
Most hated problem: A GM who doesn't even USE the backstory. OMG talk about rage! It's why I don't even bother. I want to have fun messing with the story and the DM messing with me and the other players. Don't ask me to give you a history and then don't use it.
I've planted plot hooks in my backstory and the gm hasnt even used them. I don't need to have a section of the campaign set for me, I just want my character to be part of the world
I use my backstory as a driving force for my character. If I'm just a boy trying to provide for his family then I'll take the time to send funds back home. That way I can still incorporate my own back story. Problems only come up when I have the GM who says no because he didn't write it.
Uck! that's the worst. Especially when it gets combined with DM favoritism.
I once played a librarian who took up adventuring in order to gather information on an ancient prophecy he found in an a forgotten tome; something about the return of a great dragon. After the first adventure it was never mentioned again. Meanwhile the dwarven fighter's background was so epic that cults to him would spontaneously spring up wherever he went until he had enough followers that he literally achieved godhood at 2nd level and became the central focus for the next three years of the campaign.
Im in one pathfinder game, and that GM is amazing at using plothooks, he even thinks of small story arcs for each player character, a pretty amazing gm in my eyes. Got invited to another game, so i ask that GM whats the minimum amount of plot hooks/daggers(as my other gm calls it) wants, and the reply is 'what is a plot hook' I kinda noped out of there, im sure he has good story telling, but i want my character to feel like he belongs in the world, that things can happen to him, not that he is just some static character who doesnt evolve.
Buntamara5 count me as jealous. i use my back story to help me play better / different than before but having a dm use it as part of the adventure would be fantastic.
I have made a character who starts the campaign as a ~70 years old Half-Elf who has spent his entire life travelling across the world and collecting stories about adventures, be it his own or others (he is a lore bard). However in one of his adventures before the start of the campaign he got a pretty bad hit on the head. Because of this he suffers of partly amnesia and is generally unsure about if what he is telling the others actually happened to him or somebody else. Being a guy who kind of likes to brag he (if in doubt) always claims that he himself did this heroic deeds but it's quite clear (if somebody's good enough at reading people) that he is just kind of bullshitting his way through this.
I play a rogue who's general answer when party members ask about his story is: "I used to be a candle maker."
It's a lot more complicated than that, but he's not the sharing type. He does still know how to make candles though- pretty decent ones too.
That sounds like a great character actually.
I honestly love that so much, I want a candle!
Garak is just a tailor.
Ones with arsenic?
That's actually fascinating and cool. Especially if you have other stuff that can on occasion slip out...
Level 1?
> Where are you from, geographically?
> Why did you leave?
> What are your religious/political/ethical views (including, but not limited by, alignment)?
> Where/Why/How did you receive your training and education (nobody just "wakes up" as a level 1 wizard)?
> What did you do *before* becoming and adventurer (profession, craft, perform, knowledge, lore, etc)?
> Any significant NPCs (family, enemies, etc)?
> What is something that happened to you, which changed who you are as a person or how you see the world?
> What is a short-term goal, which can be realistically accomplished before Level 4, that you have?
That's really all you need for a "good" backstory. Bonus points if you, purposely, leave parts of your backstory vague for the DM to fill in; your Warlocks patron, or the shifty Guild Master whose faction the Rogue works for, why the former-BBEG from hundreds of years ago was resurrected and by which deity, etc. This lets the DM work your character into the world, naturally. I followed these steps, with my last game and the DM managed to use every detail to some degree, to get me committed to the story.
realistically level 3-4 but could do Lv 1 with some backstory abridging
1. the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus (exact family origins unknown)
2. i was labeled an object that allowed chaos into the land and my destruction deemed necessary
3. unaffiliated/cannibal/good incarnate (it makes sense in the full read, i swear)
4. trained under ashahaldron a dragon that tried to destroy the well of souls (and by extension all life) and instead only managed to get himself trapped instead for the purpose of rescuing my father that raised me and saved my life on multiple occasions and left himself in a near hopeless scenario before we parted ways.
5. used as bait and for distractions in the enforcement of fey bargains.
6. my father, Kolyarut unit#372569007 considered elite among his model. many potential enemies as a result of participating in the enforcement of fey bargains (few specified as i usually wait for the campaign info first).
7. DnD 3.5 has an odd way of categorizing alignment as the effects of actions preformed (evil effects, no matter how well intentioned effect an evil alignment and vice versa), but it also has alignment shifting as part of its strongly aligned planes regardless of your action. these two strange mechanics have been combined into my backstory as the aligning effects of the CNoM to give my character a very logic mindset and approach to the duties and purpose as a good incarnate. its basically an answer to "what if a sociopath thought that committing good was the best most logical approach to solving all problems" this is the foundation of her methodology, brought upon her by the loss of her father.
8. she is floundering, accomplishing none of her goals, merely surviving (not thriving). her defense heavy skill set allowing enemy after enemy to run away. she finally decides that joining a group of skilled individuals would allow her to get solid successes against evil (really any evil) and in doing so prove her logic to be sound.
i like occasionally mocking up backstories, sometimes just for fun and wanted to see how one of the more out there ones stacked up against a common sense list for an adventuring group. its a much better read than this list as it is told mostly from the perspective of the father.
good list btw, though i thought it was odd not to include any long term goals for your backstory (do you think they are unnecessary?)
+Miles Matheson - Those are good directions to take a player building a character but too many of your questions can be deflected or answered in the most vague terms. Phrasing questions in a way that provokes response will give players more to chew on:
-What's unique about the place you're from that you miss or that seems incredible the more you travel.
-What doesn't your character need to accomplish before they can go home again?
-What does your character believe that you don't?
-Who taught you the most valuable lesson your character has learned and what was that lesson?
-If this life of adventure doesn't work out, what's your plan B?
-Who is the most important person in your character's life?
-Why are you risking your life on adventures rather than leading a safe comfortable life, and what set you on this path?
-What ambition does your character have in the coming week?
Also, virtually no game system requires training for level one. for most games level one is reading all of the instructions in Penn & Teller's magicians kit or picking up a sword and saying "Y'know.. I'm kind of strong, I bet I could give this a go.."
I like Michael Wolf's -Who taught you the most valuable lesson your character has learned and what was that lesson? better than how did you receive your training/education. I've known a lot of players that would play sorcerers or warlocks or barbarians for that very reason..... "I didn't, these are my innate powers" or would just rip the book answer out for any class without putting in anything more, but then again I've played with a lot of minimum effort players.
"nobody just "wakes up" as a level 1 wizard"
Now I really want to make a character with sudden savant syndrome who literally did just that.
I remember my first D&D character. I rolled the dice for his personality traits, his flaw, and his bond…
…and the results added up to what could only be the edgiest backstory I've ever written for a character.
I tried making a character based on random rolls once. It was a disaster, I hated the character and scrapped them early on in the build process.
my most loved and hated thing is my groups tendancy to have their familly mysteriously murdered to the point where at some point I think I might just have the campaign be about an orphanage filled with all the children whose parents were mysteriously murdered by a mysterious villian.
So basically Final Fantasy VIII
Or, perhaps, the world of Harry Potter? The First Voldemort War must have left an unusually high number of orphans or otherwise traumatised children.
Too many comic books. I always have my family alive, well, and boring; living in some far off town.
Xrystiana: FF8 actually has a reason for that built into the lore of the world, though it's subtle enough that a lot of people miss it. That world is incredibly war oriented. The most prestigious schools train children, including the orphans you mention, to be elite mercenaries. The largest power still active in world affairs is a military dictatorship. There's lots of allusions to a massive war between them and the only comparably large nation (Esthar, who, after some internal power redistribution, decided the most logical solution to their foreign affairs problem was to devise a means of covering their entire country in an illusion of an enormous salt lake, populating it with monsters that kill anyone attempting to explore said lake, and never contacting anyone in the outside world again.)
There are LOTS of war orphans in a world that's that militarized.
Mysteriously mysterious
*Hey, Guy and UA-cam Audience: Tangent Question Here:* What if you play someone who's a liar and a braggart? Couldn't you create this epic backstory of the character as a dragonslayer and conqueror? It wouldn't be his real backstory, but the one he tells everyone to make himself feel important. Of course, you'd need to create a real backstory as well, and probably one that explains (at least to the DM) why he feels the need to lie about who he is. Any thoughts?
That sounds pretty fun. I'd definitely make sure my fellow players understood from the get-go that the character was lying, though. Might actually develop this if a suitable opportunity crops up.
Maybe, but it might be better to have their characters (and the players by extension) figure it out from context clues, like, why the alleged dragon slayer doesn't know the first thing about dragons. Regardless how you approach this, the DM should be clued in from the start.
Oh definatly! It's even in the 5e players handbook: the Charlatan background feature: False Identity.
I would advice to not write it. That way you will be less consistent in your bragging, mixing the names and the details, making them change as you tell your story more and more. It makes it easier for other players to get that it is a lie, and imho funnier as you can improvise juicier and juicier details as you "improve" your backstory.
That would work, tbh, it kind of reminds me of Jay Gatsby a bit.
I have recently had an offer to join a D&D game for the first time. I have been watching several of your videos over the last few days in prep, but some how.. I feel THIS video was meant for me!
Conglaturations buddy, got any ideas for your character yet?
Haha thanks! As it is my first game I am thinking of keeping it very basic! Just to get used to how it works :)
Nothing wrong with being the guardsman, son of a Smith, LOL!
My first d&d character was a half orc barbarian. His back story, got bored went on an adventure. Sometimes less is more. Lol
Enjoy yourself, my friend. I've got all of 2 sessions under my belt now and it's way more fun than it has any right to be. If you're the only newcomer in the group, you might want to consider the role of party tank. Don't limit yourself too much - you certainly don't have to go for the classic half-orc barbarian, but it's worth noting that some of the more strategically inclined classes are hard to use if you're still getting used to the regular ebb and flow of combat. (Sorcerers and their sorcerer points are bloody amazing, but using them effectively is a challenge.)
Also, don't be surprised if the experience is far more or less technical than you're expecting, especially if you've gotten used to a specific DM from streamed series. All DMs have their own style, you'll adapt to that style in time (or decide that style is unappealing and find another group, because sometimes that happens too).
"There's no way your character will have done all this and start first level...'"
"Oh, okay, cool, what level do I start then?"
** Headdesk **
Anyone else want to know how discovering his mother's adultery let him defeat the ogre?
She was banging the ogre
It will be disappointingly nonsensical.
My favorite backstory was for a lizardfolk cleric named Jabor Fingermuncher. He was born on the only town on the island where the campaign was, it was Tomb of Annihilation, as the runt of the clutch. Because he was too small and bony for his parents to eat, and had a long snout deformity, he was left to die in the wilderness. Eventually, he learned how to hunt, living like a humanoid crocodile in the wild, and he developed the skill to dislocate and relocate his jaw to swallow large prey. Years later, he was found by a priest who brought him back to his church and tried to teach him to speak, and help others with healing magic. He was doing alright, but he was very simple, always using slighty disjointed speech, referring to himself in the third person, and didn't understand anything that wasn't literal. One day, however, he swalloed one of the priests in his sleep, and was forced to leave the monastery. Back in the wild, he learned to use weapons and craft simple ones, even crafting some plate armor from bone and decaying carcass. A few months later, he began to follow a trail of humanoid creatures, feasting on the corpses and following it. One day, he accidentally went past the trail, and the next morning, he decided to retrace his steps, but instead wandered into a party fighting with a group of enemies. Simple as he was, he figured out that they were the ones leaving the trail of corpses, and decided to assist them with his healing magic as a way to obtain food. After helping them, they accepted him into the party, and Jabor became a cleric who crafted weapons from his decaying enemies in exchange for his party members to cut off fingers and toes of the corpses and bring then to him for more crafting and snacks.
I once played a male Tiefling warlock. He was a charismatic (but frightening) guy (you might compare him to Kratos). Thing was, he wasn't that epic at all. He looked terrifing for sure, he was eloquent, intelligent but all he did was bluffing everyone. My DM hated me so much, cause i figured out how to manipulate the major guilts of the starting town. Somewhat like Lord Vetinari. All this before I reached Lvl 5.
Everytime someone asked him about his past, he started to make up a new version of his past life. Tragicly he did that so many times, that he himself didn't know what to beliefe.
Christian Schmid tbh, I'm kinda partial to the 'pathological lies as backstory' type. It can be fun to spin an embellished, dramatic, situationally convenient tale and convince people it's legit with a good roll or few
An example of an excellent backstory. Much better than my friend's warlock who became a warlock because "demon power". Ironically, that goofball had a DM who trolled the stuffing out of him and his character developed by force... into an integral plotpoint that screwed the party over. Good times.
A character that is totally buff and looks dangerous but is actualy a giant with a heart of gold? And the party pressures him to keep intimidating NPCs? Sounds like an interesting character.
You know why the Hulk doesn't rage out when you poke him? _He is always angry!_
Nice to see another Terry Pratchett fan.
1:20 _"Freed the city of Thickens"_
The plot thickens.
11:03 Though it makes for a really terrible back story, it would also come off like your a pathological liar which would make for a _really_ interesting character flaw. As an adventurer _some_ of your stories would be 100% true with no alteration yet others bits completely fabricated without any discernible way of telling one from the other, as truth can often sound more far fetched than fiction.
We have a guy in our party now who uses his familiar to tell him things in celestial and then lies to the party about what the right information is.
How would you play a character like that though? No other party member would trust them, and isn't trust between the PCs one of the most important things?
I have a friend that once DMed a campaign where a character would throw in more and more details of their back story (which they, conveniently, never had written down) that were progressively more outragious. I believe around the 5th week, The Dungeon Master had an NPC tell that player that "They were the most interesting compulsive liar he has ever met." The player actually picked it up and ran with it And it ended up being a really cool character trait.
The best advice for character backgrounds I ever got was to write "just enough to get Frodo out of the Shire, not enough that he's already sailing to the West". The idea being to give your character a reason to have left home, but to remember that the rest of the story is what the game is aiming to build.
Now THERE'S a passage I'm stealing!
That's exactly what I intuitively always do.
“Sure, this can be the backstory your character tells everyone. Now, how about the real story?”
There is nothing wrong with a forty page backstory. As long as you don't expect everyone else to read it all. Personally, I like to have two bits to it, the quick and dirty hand out. Has all the pertinent info on in a paragraph or less. And the extended backstory, which is mostly for my benefit, and usually focusing on a handful of events be they mundane or "extrodinary." Generally as a means of fleshing out thier personality.
"the artifact of oolong" ... darn it, now I want a cup of hot tea even though it's 95 degrees outside
I bloody hope you’re not talking celcius
@@bastiaanmoes3344 Fahrenheit, fortunately. Although if it were 95 degrees Celsius outside, I wouldn't have to heat water to make a cup of tea, so there'd be some advantages to it...
@@One.Zero.One101 pretty sure his name was Rasha or something. Oolong maybe have other meanings/associations, but i know it best as a kind of tea (the kind that's fun to say ;)
@@One.Zero.One101 oolong is the name of the pig that can transform, the turtle's name is literally just Turtle
I just feel like playing Yie Ar Kung Fu! again.
Old, obscure reference is old and obscure.
I know some players like that.
Once I was larping and there was a guy who, in his story, had slayed a god.
My character was a mercenary and blacksmith who wanted to collect the knowledge and materials to produce a magical item that would protect his family against many kinds of dangers, fighting wasn't even my main skill.
I defeated the other guy in less than a minute.
Ah, the problems when OC skill doesn't match hype... There's a reason why my larp characters are always casters; I suck at fighting and have health issues that make playing a character with heavy armour... inadvisable.
@@BlueTressym You sound like you need a soul-drinking demonic runesword.
I rather do like the backgrounds. They go well with the topics.
And I'd ask how people felt about a character having a crippling background to tackle the experience at level 1 issue. You can be an all powerful wizard, but you were admitted to an asylum for years where you couldn't practice spells. Or maybe an imprisoned fighter who's body grew frail from the prison sentence. The tragic event here that turns you to adventuring is the even that knocked your level 10 character down to level 1 skills.
Yeah, in a campaign I am currently playing in my PC is a Fighter/Rogue who is a 40 year veteran of his home countries wars (think of this country as even more evil ancient rome). However, at the start of our story him and the other PCs were killed. So in my head canon the reason why he is level 1 instead of being level 14 is because when he was brought back it wasn't done properly, causing him to lose the power he had earned in his tenure. After killing an vampire necromancer, two dragons, a corrupted angel, and a shadow demon did he get back to where he was when the campaign started. It's been a rough year fo the man.
As a rule I'm against them. Experience tends to stick even after a duration of disuse.
it would only explain the lack of stats like strength, constitution and dexterity. But knowledge, skills, wisdom and experience sticks, no matter how long you haven't used them.
As a fencer, Experience and knowledge matters. But being out of practice, is out of practice. It makes life difficult
i did something similar to my 5 level divination wizard in HoftheDQ. she arrived at the group with only five years of memories, a cult symbol tattooed into her neck and she was indebted to the group because they redemed my evil character after her death. She's seen as strange because she gets flashes of her past self and is often says strange things that catch people off guard.
her back story was that she and four other friends were grand wizards in the dragon cult. They originally joined to become dragons but their dream was twisted while they were under the cult. One day she started seeing glimsps of the future that awaited them and she had a fall out with her friends and was force to kill them. She had tried to live a quiet life in her studies but not only was she hounded by the cult she lived with the guilt of killing her friends. She then planned a radical idea to start over. She created a clone and then killed her self but she screwed up the spell. She woke younger without any memories and 50 years had past, making her 120 despite looking 13.
She then met my character who later died years later and was force to relearn all her spells again.
(its just too bad my gm will not use any of this since i play in a game store.)
I often have my characters, when they experience high stress situations in their backstories, either freezing up, being too weak to have an impact on the outcome or having to run off. In some cases, I let them be tools to be manipulated by others, so the thinking and processing of actions aren't based off their own skill level.
This allows for the presence of 'exciting' things to be within your backstory without surpassing the logical skill level you need for a level 1 character.
I'm working on one of those "middle-aged" backstories now. Midalla was an elven scout/forester as a young woman, tasked with patrolling trade routes. In that capacity, she met and fell in love with a human merchant. Eventually, the couple had enough money to start their own businesses, and she retired from the adventuring/soldiering life and became a craftswoman, while her husband opened a trading house. They have two children, one of whom became an adventurer, the other apprenticed in the trading house, eventually taking it over when Midalla's husband retired. As such things go, he grew old and died while she as an elf was still in the prime of her life. Her children are grown and living their own lives (now well into middle age themselves), her husband dead and buried, and she feels the call of the road again so she sells off her business and takes up her bow once again. Well, not her original bow. That enchanted weapon was gifted to a niece years ago when Midalla realized she hadn't strung it in half a decade. But a bow. She quickly realizes that 70 years of not practicing her skills has left her just a little bit rusty (back at low level).
That's always the way it is for elves.
1,way or another they outlive their companions.
Feel free to critique, am curious
Level 1 Tiefling Cleric: Clara grew up in a strangely loving home until the age of 8, while out to gather kindling and berries for her mother she heard angry shouts of men and women. when Clara returned home it was up in flames, and silent apart from the crackling, a priest stood watch but turned as Clara entered the clearing. he smiled almost kindly and then the visage of and old, greying clergyman turned into a Fiendish creature. the guise of a priest once again returned but Clara ran far from him before he could speak to her. the angry shouts drew near as Clara ran so she tore of her shirt unfurling large bat-like wings, flying as fast and far as she could.
Eventually exhaustion took poor Clara and she glided down onto the dirty streets of a strange distant city. when Clara awoke she was still in the street, cold, alone and scared however the people here didn't seem to want to kill her on sight, just swear and spit at her. after 6 months on the streets Clara met a kind young girl called Aerien, they become pretty close over 2 months until Aerien seemed to disappear. 6 months of loneliness later and Aerien returned as a journeyman cleric, offering safety, kindness and a home to Clara, who had almost lost hope in human decency. Clara spent many years training alongside Aerien in the Temple of Bast as a war cleric, sworn to avenge the death of her family and became sworn enemy of the denizens of hell
Yeah this is cool, it also gives the DM the possible opportunity to have monsters rise from the flaming pits of Hell to try to kick your ass which is just metal as fuck
This is pure gold when viewed with closed captions.
When you were talking about an older character who is still level 1 it reminded me of the tale of Don Quixote. Don Quixote had a fairly boring life most of his life and only read books and imagined what it was like to be a knight. He had no experience adventuring until he was in his old age, during which he embarked on his famous journey riding around on a horse tilting at windmills. His partner, Sancho Panza, was younger than he was, but old enough to have a lot of children (I think something like 9+). Sancho had a similarly boring life he was trying to escape.
As for the skills, what you find pretty quickly is that doing something for a long time doesn't necessarily mean you become better. People don't always learn from their experience and they often learn the wrong way to do things, doing that thing poorly for 20 years. Meanwhile people with talent and the right training can perform better. In the case of warriors or knights, people may not be trained at all in that craft, so a 16-20 year old could easily outperform a 40 year old person. Your example of driving is a good one here, because a young race car driver is much more skilled at driving than someone who barely learned to muddle along and spends their time causing problems for everyone else while they are driving. A 40 year old person who has a midlife crisis and decides they will start racing (maybe not professionally) might go take formal classes and spend some time training in the art of extreme driving, etc. Those are just a few examples I can think of off the top of my head.
My favorite backstory was inspired by Game of Thrones (or more specifically, A Song of Ice and Fire which is the book series the show is based on). In A Feast for Crows the characters meet Septon Meribald, a traveling priest. Eventually it comes out that Meribald grew up as a peasant and was conscripted into a levy army during the War of the Ninepenny Kings. After watching his friends die he deserted, became a septon, and traveled the kingdom helping people. A friend of mine used that same outline for one of their characters, they grew up a peasant until they were forced to join the army. They knew vaguely how to use a polearm but but nothing fancy, and after a disastrous defeat they learned that they had been pronounced KIA. So rather than go back to either the army or their village (since they'd just be sent back again) they wandered the countryside doing odd jobs until they fell in with a group of adventurers. It was such a simple backstory but it created so many wonderful role playing opportunities that I wish I could reuse it.
*another fine addition to my collection*
So wait is the High Sparrow a good guy in the books?
Grim Knight um, yes and no. First, the High Sparrow is not the character I was talking about above. I was talking about Septon Meribald, the wandering septon who guides Brienne and Pod to the Quiet Isle. But back to your question. On the one hand the High Sparrow does genuinely seem to care for the poor and wants the rich to be held accountable for their crimes and for the suffering they cause. On the other, he ordered the torture of the Blue Bard and later Ser Osney. He also wants to completely destroy the existing social order and impose what would effectively be a communist state led by the Pope, which is just a recipe for disaster. I wouldn't call him a _bad_ person per se because he has good intentions, but he is definitely a fanatic willing to go to extreme lengths to get what he wants.
Uh so more misguided than the complete arsehole he's portrayed as in the TV show? I heard that in the books Stannis never kills his daughter or does any half the horrible things he does in the books. As for state led by the Pope the Catholic Church did lead Europe relatively competently for hundreds of years (and during an unstable period with constant invasions from the Middle-East, Africa and Asia) which is more than be said for any other government and this is coming from someone who thinks Catholicism is ridiculous.
Wow, I did recently created a backstory based on the same idea, except mine was inspired by the character in the "broken man" speech rather than Meribald himself.
My issue with edgy badass characters is that when the dice isn’t in your corner you can’t really play it off in any way and it just makes you look a bit plebby and full of nonsense.
Mr Edgescourge the killer, impaler of demons, eater of shadows for breakfast, saviour of 9 kingdoms and the most skilled combatant in the world fails his easy dex check to hop a ditch and sprains his ankle. He then proceeds to miss a goblin with his cursed demon blade and in turn took full damage from the goblins poker in its counter attack.
When that happens to a player that has made a silly character like that they just sit there frozen with embarrassment and I’m like, “well yeah we were told we were starting at level 2...”
Pretty late to the party but very competent people can die in very embarrassing ways in real life as well. Like slipping in the bathtub or shower.
That is to say, you might be a "Killer of Gods" but who ever said you're immune to poison?
Easy way to fix that intro backstory:
When they went back in time they entered their younger body and forgot all future events. They sometimes remember them in dreams, so the character has been having dreams of being an epic hero since they were 8. At the age of 16 they joined an order of paladins and at 18 set off to fulfill their dreams.
A good twist on the crazy epic elaborate backstory: it's what your character has been spreading about themself, none of it is true though. Now their arc is learning how to be a real hero/ having to put their money where their mouth is.
One character I've had fun developing is a Tiefling Bard named Hope. She grew up in a little Tiefling hamlet in a rather poor household, when one day a wandering human bard decided to stay in their area. His performance inspired her, and while she innocently sang along with his violin, he took notice of her. He decided to teach her a bit of playing the violin and gave her her first instrument, an old violin that he wasn't using any more. Using that violin, she discovered that her music could be used to uplift and inspire people, especially to those treated as badly as tieflings tend to be. So as a teenager she left home and took on the name Hope, because that was what she aspired to bring people.
I did a "middle-aged+" backstory I played a dwarven cleric who had a backstory that probably made him around level 8 or so. Since then, he had retired, left his homeland, sold all his adventuring loot to start a business, and started a large family. At the start of the campaign (L1) I described him as "The oldest dwarf you've ever seen." He was post-stroke and suffering from the beginnings of dementia, and as such was reduced in ability. He refused to use his family business and assets for his own gear, using instead his old axe and chain mail he had kept as a keepsake. It was vintage- but normal- starting gear. Character was well liked by the group and the backstory never gave an advantage or made anyone wonder why he was starting out at L1 power level. The stroke and dementia also explained his lower stats (Dex and Int). He simple wasn't as agile and while a smart fellow, had trouble recalling facts and assessing situations through logic sometimes.
Planning for my first DnD game. Time to see how many mistakes I made
Edit: Apparently I'm on the right track, because 90% of my PC backstory was their relationship to family and hometown. I was aiming to create pressure points for the DM to use on my PC and everything else was justifying personality traits.
Neko 4 Wife Only a mistake if you give up trying to correct it
Good luck
Neko for wife, waifu for life ;)
My brother recently had to retire his character via death by 1000 goblins, and we're only level 2. In his backstory he was this great, legendary goliath fighter who was favored by a god of war, but then proceeded to get knocked unconscious in every single encounter from levels 1-2 thus far into the campaign. We even had some downtime in which he wanted to participate in some local back-ally bare knuckle boxing tournament, and he lost both fights there too. He felt really discouraged that his great warrior character couldn't even fight a few rats without getting his ass whooped lol. I even felt bad for him too lol. He re-rolled a cleric with a more believable level 2 backstory, and has been really enjoying it.
first of all, Moloch only had one head. I should know, my character killed him in the original timeline. secondly, great video, you da best.
Wiffles Wifflemeister before you were level 1? Haha jk
*_AS AN INFANT._*
Well he had only one hand when you slayed him. Sure there wasn't someone else before you :D
r/Woosh
I've been graced with players who both care about their backstories and allow them to make sense at the same time, even so far as to incorporate mechanics that come from their past.
My party's sorcerer is a pyromaniac because his inherent fire magic abilities are the only thing that stopped the pirates that owned him from throwing him off the ship, and I couldn't be happier.
I knew from that intro that you were going to say, “And that’s my level 1 character backstory.”
Without knowing it my wife wrote the perfect backstory. That allowed me as a GM to work out a entire arc based around saving her family and kingdom that her “older brother” was the lord of. It was truly amazing and to see her and the other players so emotionally invested in saving these people gives me chills every time I think of it.
I typically keep my characters’ backstories simple and vague enough to let me and the DM both fill in the holes later, but there is one character of mine that does have a pretty big and expansive backstory: one that far exceeds his level. The way I got around the level problem was through the character’s age. The character is in his 80s. He used to be a great hero that fought in wars and saved the world on multiple occasions, but he hasn’t gone adventuring in decades and he’s really let himself go. So, he does feel as if he is starting over from scratch, even though he’s already accomplished so much. He’s just really dedicated to getting in one last hoo-raw before he kicks the bucket and to proving that he’s still got it.
I have been guilty of making a backstory several pages long. I kept it simple and described her connections as she grew up as a noble with no chance to inherit anything due to many siblings. She never got to adventuring in any of those pages and became a short chapter, pretty much like the beginning of a book. It was appreciated by the GM and he incorporated one of the siblings into the story itself. Since then, I have kept my backstories to a maximum of 2 pages, usually describing the major events of their lives in colourful detail.
I get many compliments on my story writing.
I like your video background.
My half-elf bard's background
> be my dad, a human bard in an adventure party
> be my mum, elvish warlock in the same party
> sexytimes.jpg
> be me, half-elf
> wants to not be a disappointment
> learns how to entertain
> turns out im a bit of a natural at barding
> i should be an adventurer like dad
What I love to tinker most with creating a backstory is how my character's worst stats gets explained. There's just something more interesting about building a character out of their flaws rather than their glory.
I like the backgrounds! They are nice and not overly distracting.
Yes but they are not backstories. Thats a different thing. If you by backgrounds meant he backgrounds you can chose when creating the character.
They might help you create a backstory. A wizard with the entertainer background. then you have a good setup for a backstory. but the background is not the backstory so to say :)
I meant the backgrounds for the video - the production thing he asked about. :)
This is great advice, but I'm kind of a dingus, so I always try intentionally finding a reasonable workaround for any of these "never do ____" recommendations.
For example:
I created a character whose backstory is that he was a Protector Aasimar Paladin sworn to service of the crown, who was serving as a mid-rank officer with the royal army. Through dutifully following orders, he blithely committed war crimes while ignoring the protests of his Angelic Guide (aasimar are weird). Eventually, he did something so terrible that his Guide abandoned him, causing him to become a Fallen Aasimar...but he still retained his Paladin powers, because he was following orders.
This caused him to realize that his Oath was flawed, and he resigned. This broke his Oath, and he lost his Paladin powers as well.
At the start of the campaign, he's a level 1 fighter, struggling to re-learn how to fight without any magic propping him up (eventually becoming a Battlemaster). His goal is to become a good enough man that his Guide will return, though he suspects that's impossible.
Unfortunately, the campaign that I built the character for wound up falling apart before it ever started :/
Damn, that's actually pretty good. Mind if I use that as an example?
I've got a few examples of 'experienced characters who have been demoted to lvl1' that I've either seen or done myself. In one campaign two of our players had magic using elves. The particular subrace of elves was basically demon worshipping high-elves who were the creators of necromancy in the setting. One made a necromancer who's power was tied to his ancestral spirits, so in his farm he was a powerful necromancer, but as soon as he left it and went adventuring he basically had no way of showing what he was truly capable so currently he was trying to strengthen his ability without the support of his family spirits.
The second character (mine) had been the court bard/courtesan for the evil elves' magical elite leadership, keeping herself where she was through staying on the good side of the members, the demons she'd made deals with and having a good understanding of how the intrigue was going. Due to a lot of events that would take too long to explain fully (we'd made the setting through Dawn of Worlds and I'd written my characters backstory to intertwine with some of the events that had happened in the original game), she had been a part of a failed attempt to use the previous ruler's magic to turn the entire ruling class into liches but it had actually resurrected said previous ruler, killing all of the participants but my character (she was spared because they were sisters), but the event nearly completely destroyed my character's ability to cast any magic. The campaign was set a few decades after this, my character had taken to travelling the world and the demons she'd originally made a deal with was only now just starting to be able exert an influence on her again (thus starting as a lvl 1 bard and then continuing as a warlock from then on), though she hadn't yet realised she was able to cast spells again, instead all her magic was happening at an instinctual level without her even thinking. (Really sad that campaign fell through before we got to explore either of them more).
I also, as I was typing this, remembered another player in a different campaign that made a old wizard who had once been a powerful mage, but he had for the last few decades held a position as a research professor at a magical university teaching the kind of subject that nobody cared about as dementia was slowly starting to set in, so adventuring ended up being a way to help reinvigorate his mind somewhat as he tried to remember how to cast combat spells again. Finding workarounds to have badass backstories that can justify a lvl 1 start can be really fun.
@@tomhazell983 I created a level 1 205 year-old Elven Fighter who had roamed the continent for over 100 years as a musician, not doing anything courageous or heroic, he would just play his lute and sing, in a band with his half-elven daughter and his half-elven lover. Then one day the village they were performing for was attacked and burned to the ground, killing his daughter, his lover anddisfuguring him for life. In this way, he is technically experienced, but not in adventuring.
@@tafua_a I assume he then had "Knowledge [thing]" points in spades. Also... Was his HE lover the mother of his HE daughter? Wouldn't that make the daughter quarter elf?
@@drago939393 in 100 years, he met loads and loads of lovers.
that's one reason i don't start pcs at 1st level. i usually start them at 3rd, and offer another 3000xp (basically 4th level) if they complete an approved backstory
That's actually a good idea I think. If a player has a good back story, reword them with lvl 3. If not then lvl 1 they go.
Level 3 generally gives more options for character customization anyway, as that's when you get into the specialization, so the players can be more creative. Whenever we played (except for the first 2-3 times ever), we always started at level 3.
Yes, this. I wholeheartedly agree.
Starting at 3rd level usually avoids early game balance/stupidity induced deaths and helps the slower start characters feel like they have something to contribute. Also the characters look more satisfying on paper for the players.
wow a little bit bitter? I think ? not sure why though , people should have a right to play what their Dm allows just like you have a right to be bitter ... but I also have a right too call you on it .... IT IS JUST A GAME .... it is about having fun not how its always been done
As a general rule, when starting at "Level 1" or whatever the equivalent, I try to keep characters limited to one major exciting event event they took part in, though a string of smaller exciting events can also work if they're part of something like fighting in a long war. They character took command of a squad during a battle, or they won a big race, or were part of the hunt for an infamous criminal. These are all things that most reasonable people would see as impressive, but they're not anything that strains credulity for someone with Level 1 capabilities.
Everything else is as you suggested, emotional and personal connections, family, friends, enemies, where they're from, because all that stuff? On top of making your character seem more real those are called "Plot hooks" DMs LOVE plot hooks and including a solid handful in your background is a path to brownie points.
I have a couple of rules on backstories. First, you should be able to sum up your backstory in a sentence or two. Anything more and you won’t have a well developed concept nor will anyone at the table remember it. Second, your character should be active and not passive in his or her backstory. Relating a bunch of things that happened to your character tells you nothing about who that character is.
I might suggest that a summary of just a sentence or two, might be a bit short or shallow... But certainly a goal of between two and six sentences (basic, non-compound, correct form, sentences btw) would be a valid quantifier for about how complicated a backstory needs get... Simply put, if it takes you more than six sentences to "broad-strokes" summarize your character, you're probably getting way too detailed or epic.
In the same note, if it takes less than two sentences to summarize how he grew up and why he became an adventurer, it's probably a bit "light"... not to say "impossible", just... less than optimal. ;o)
I think too many get bogged down in the actual writing of it. Just give yourself a few bullet points and roll with it. In all honesty nobody cares about your level one's backstory. A simple where they are from and just wanting to get out and see the world is all you really need. Personally I build my character's story as I go only noting their goals and where they are from. Their goals naturally lend answers to the question of "why adventure" and unless I want my family to be a plot point I mostly leave them in vagaries.
Probably comes from playing chaotic characters but that I just like my characters to develop naturally. I am experienced enough of a player that I don't NEED a backstory dictating how my character should play. Sure this won't work for everyone but IMO a lighter backstory with some goals is far better than a bogged down one. It helps that I don't play magic characters and stick to monk, fighter, and rogue mostly. Down-to-earth classes are far easier to organically write than casters who had to have learned their craft SOMEWHERE or from SOMEONE.
Though I do enjoy writing warlock backstories in 5e as to how they came about making a pact with such a powerful entity.
Ahem, to quote Saitama---
20 WORDS OR LESS.
Another possibility I like to use sometimes is that maybe your character DID have some amount of experience (just don't go overboard, say, level three or so), but it's atrophied due to time and/or injury. A knight who saw a half-dozen campaigns in the war ten years ago and has barely trained since is certainly not operating on the same level he was back then! Provides good "trying to get back into the groove" roleplaying fodder for the first couple of sessions.
A good example of an older character starting out (40+ years old or more) is the iconic wizard from Pathfinder. He started off boring, raised in a rich family with money to blow until one day they lost it all (if I remember correctly). He decided to become a wizard after that.
For my older character, I decided to make his current adventure a return for him. He settled down for some time, married and had children, but his children all branched out on their own and his wife had passed away during the winter. So rather than stay in an empty home, he decided to return to go out and see the world again after a couple of decades of peace.
My crazy old level one wizard was given (A.K.A. sold) to his elven master when he was a kid. Unfortunately she was a shotacon and he was adorable. She never let him learn any truly dangerous magic because she neither trusted his ability nor wanted him to grow strong enough to leave. As he grew older he still retained his youthful face and excellent good looks. Unfortunately as he got old he became increasingly irritating and increasingly unattractive. Eventually after one of their all-to-common arguments about his desires to become an adventurer, rather than convince him to stay like she had always done, she told him to leave. Now he's a partly senile old man with limited practical magical skill but a wealth of knowledge from studying books. (variant human=skilled feat and sage background) And that's how I made my 75 year old level one wizard.
The iconic Pathfinder's wizard (his name is Eren, right?) I remember to be the only one with an actual cool backstory that I liked. He started as a normal human and then became an adventurer because some reasons, he feels way more like a person than the rest of the entire cast.
Chrysanthus I believe his name is Ezren, but I totally agree. His backstory was a lot more relatable to me.
My 56 year old Wizard is a scholar, until now he has never really been out adventuring, at least not in any areas that have been a danger to him or given him any experience as to what that life is like. Most of his time has been spent on research, learning the intricacies of magic so he can craft his own masterworks and also in his later years searching for a way to become a youthful immortal as he wants to be able to continue his research and gain knowledge indefinitely.
I have been thinking of trying something fun and saying he had discovered parts of a recipe for immortality but some of the ingredients are quite rare and have lead him to adventure ("Ashes of an immortal creature" Curse of Strahd is the campaign he will be played in) however he has procured and experimented with some ingredients and now everytime he uses his magic his body returns to a much younger age of 23.
I stole a few minor details for my backstory from a book. Since I was pretty sure that none of my other party members have read that book, I was okay with that.
But I soon realized that my character turned into a carbon copy of this book character. I scrapped everything and started over. I kept most of my backstory but my character arrived at a very different conclusion and worldview. It was the spice I needed to make my character truly my own and now I love her :)
Don't be afraid to take inspiration from somewhere but be careful not to copy a character that you already like.
Hrunthnir the half-orc barbarian was about to be arrested by the town watch, but he became a folk hero by rolling double natural 20's at disadvantage on an Animal Handling check and riding a terribly destructive beast out of the town. After recovering from his drunkeness, he returns to lavishings of praise he's not sure he deserves, because he was far too inebriated off of his dorsum from skull-crushingly strong ale to remember exactly what he did.
Level one or level two, and why do you think so?
Did he kill anyting? If so level 1 if he killed anything/many things level two.
I recently penned a 20 page backstory for how my character obtained her sword. Just a sword. A normal, mundane sword that a level 1 character would have.
I was VERY mindful of what a level 1 Hexblade Warlock would be capable of. She tracks a target, but it is very easy because her quarry left an extremely obvious trail. She fails a stealth check and gives away her position to two goblins which turns into a challenging fight. That kind of thing. She doesn’t use any spells more powerful than cantrips.
It is mostly the story of how she became friends with a dwarven blacksmith. There’s a lot of characterization for this blacksmith as he is one of 4 NPCs I’ve introduced to the game world for my DM to make use of.
Writing it was actually quite rewarding creatively for me. I found that adhering to the D&D 5e rules and what a level 1 can do helped me to craft a believable narrative. It also helps that my DM loves it when the players assist with worldbuilding in this fashion.
On this note of levels, it's good to note that even level 1 characters are a cut above the average person (especially when rolling), for certain classes, this can allow for some intense back stories that focus on the little details. For fighters, being in war is an obvious one, but one they can take both an active and passive role in: "yeah, I dealt the finishing blow to the enemy's ogre, but then holy hells did I run for cover when their wizard came out. I was on the edge of their fireball but managed with just some singer on my armor."
My current guy's back story was a soldier in a war, but a wizard started fighting an enemy druid (explanation: as an adventurer, he didn't like our side bringing siege weapons and armies through the countryside so abusively), the druid then called forth a giant swamp creature (the battlefield bordered the swamp off a mountain pass) and I ended up getting swallowed whole. I managed to survive by forcing it to puke me up since it didn't manage to bite into me.
Doing stuff like that where you encounter stronger creatures only to outsmart or cleverly get away could be what gave the character their first level, so that way actually killing even low CR monsters is them getting better at leaving things dead faster.
I once wrote a multi-page backstory of how my halfling grew up on a farm. It included all the family details (three brothers, one sister, both parents. etc.), anecdotes, side stories, hypotheses and opinions. All that because my character was a blabbermouth that couldn't keep his lips shut for more than two minutes; and every time he would start running his mouth, I would glance into the backstory for inspiration, e.g., for how my big sister's husband has always been a know-it all and this one time he visited our farm, they...
Honestly I have a running gag in my group where I make my characters backstory so needlessly tragic it was almost self aware which we all got a laugh out of.
Those are great for a good laugh.
As a general rule of thumb when I create characters I tie in experiences that draw my character into the class I chose for it. Like going into the military for a fighter, or joining a thieves guild for a rouge.
I haven't really tried playing yet. I'm mostly just constantly looking at starting. That said, the character ideas I have tend to have somewhat simple backstories that more explain why they behave the way they do rather than anything else. For example, I had an idea for a Cleric of Kelemvor that essentially holds a day job as a grave digger, caretaker for a graveyard, and often make-shift undertaker. The last duty also has him comforting people about the nature of death and how it's not necessarily a bad thing in hopes of helping the grieving of the living. Another character is a human stealthy character (possible rogue?) that is, oddly enough, quite lawful. He was actually a night watchman of his village and therefore learned to move around quietly to avoid being spotted when he was in quiet pursuit of a criminal. His weapon, however, is a pole arm as, well, most medieval night watchmen carried pole arms. With this he also carries a lantern/torch. He's essentially a stealth investigator but both, as explained, are otherwise fairly normal people, if not nearly commoners in their own right.
Best advice I have heard regarding backstories is that the most interesting things to happen to your characters should not happen before the game starts. I do not worry so much about what the equivalent level you should be to accomplish something, that seems really hard to judge
I love the character creator in Xanathar's Guide for this reason. It brings the 5e much closer to Traveller - my favourite character creation system. Some people don't like it and I can see why. However, so far I have created 3 characters with the system in Xanathar and the variation is incredible. There is even a Life Events table and character gets more rolls the older they are. The events are usually not that remarkable, but they help with the background creation. Characters might even end up with some extra gold, treasure map, potions or a powerful ally. Even if players don't want to just randomly create a backstory, I suggest they roll at least for the Life Events.
I recently had the occasion to play a character without knowing their backstory, because of torture-induced amnesia. Discovering the backstory through the GM has been an absolute treat, and although I would be cautious to recommend it, it has been my favourite character building experience so far, because it is highly co-operative, and leaves ample space to build the character I'm playing into the story of the campaign.
If there is anything I would add to your points, Guys, it is to leave the story ambiguous in key parts. "I was a princess" may be very interesting, if there is enough wiggle room for the GM to actually riff off of that backstory. "I was the princess of this and that, and we were unseated by this and that character, because of this and that reason, leading me to do this and that, resulting in this and that" is not so great, because there is seldom enough room in a campaign to explore such specifics. If the story is fortuitously vague, the GM may just fortuitously bring in a personal connection to you, which makes the role playing experience that much more intense and immersive. TL;DR: leave space for a story that you have not yet told to be explored together with your GM and your fellow players, and the actual sessions of play will be richer for it.
with my first character, i specifically tried to not make him too fantastical. con man from underdark pissed off the wrong nobility and had to flee and leave his pregnant wife behind with most of his fortune. the dude died during the campaign. RIP Tebryn Vandree.
One of my characters had the backstory that they were found unconscious on a battlefield with no memory of their past and I worked with our dm that we would gradually find out about their past as we worked our way through the campaign.
I usually write a backstory where there was one event of badassery that elevated them from normal to level one adventurer. Maybe they killed the dragon by dumb luck or managed to save their hometown from a small goblin raid. As long as it’s a believable event that they could pull through without necessarily being a god of battle then I believe it’s a safe backstory.
One of my first characters was this ragged drunk man, who did have a pretty wild backstory, but he'd regressed from basically Level 7 back to 1 because drowning his depression and lounging around for years had caused him to lose a step. It's not necessarily a matter of bowing to your limits, it's a matter of being creative within them, if you ask me. Focusing on relationships more than events is just another way of doing that.
I personally always write too much for my backgrounds. I tend to get an idea for a character, and before I know it I've already written four pages on early childhood alone. I try to avoid writing backgrounds that would give my character any numerical advantages. My most recent written background is for a character in Pathfinder, and I often feel a lot of regret for writing it the way I did. Essentially, she used to be a evil God (though she doesn't know it), and for punishment for her Hubris to challenge a more powerful God (Sarenrae), she was cast down to the Material Plane, and given a weak body, her memories stripped away. She later showed minor divine power, and some Clerics assumed she had natural talent for being a cleric, and took her to a monastary, where she became (ironically) a priestess of Sarenrae.
I regret writing it the way I did because it feels like it supercedes the GM's story in some ways, and I made my character too much of an spotlight magnet. I often wish I could just hit the undo button, but it's too late for it, and the GM has sort of molded the story around my character.
I think that's actually a pretty cool idea. As a GM, I would totally work with you on how to have that in the world without letting it take over.
This is why I usually hide my backstory for a few levels, it gives the character an air of mysterious and makes the full backstory sound better when you tell it at level 8
Exception to your problem. You could have done many heroic things but been cursed into another body or been cursed into losing almost all of your "strength" or "power" and you have to make the grind to once again achieve power.
In systems with a class concept (i.e D&D) there is also the angle to take of 'how you acquired the skills and proficiencies to become XYZ class". Even something as simple as a D&D fighter starts the game with rafts of proficiencies in a huge range of weapons and armour types; probably more so then even a professional soldier would have had in many periods of history.
Going from a "level 1 peasent" to a "level 1 fighter" is something that can give even newbie characters a bit of crunch to their backstory without "over-levelling".
How to be a Chef in DND at 1st level:
Be son of cook
Be Apprentice of cook
Help a friend, who is a cook
I think the joke about the long winded over bloated backstory was more tedious and long than most backstories I've encountered.
But regarding the backgrounds provided in the PHB, I think a lot of them are solid and inspiring on their own. They don't cover every avenue, but then, you're perfectly able to make your own- the book has no problem with this as long as your DM is fine with it, it's all very basic.
I pretty much always get a lot out of my character creation backstory wise just from Race, Background, and Class. For example I've got a half elf oath of the ancients paladin artisan who guards merchant caravans between elven and human lands, selling their own wares. They're very into their elven heritage and do their best with the whole ancient oath happiness and light thing. Makes toys for children and such, feels a kinship with those displaced from their home or what have you all half elf style.
One rule I have for making backstories is, "Why does this character have the motivations that he or she has? What caused them?" That generally leads to explaining what the person has lived through, rather than necessarily did.
I think my second favorite character backstory I ever ran was the son of one of the leaders of a pirate town that was protected by a strait whose currents seems to shift and change on the devil’s whim, so that only those that lived in the area for some time could navigate it. He had gotten into various bits of trouble in various towns in the realm and often changed his name and look as a result. At one point he acted as a scout in a royals navy, where he became friends with one of the other characters in the game, and they both eventually decided to make a name for themselves.
That story is nice, not too extreme, but also gives flavor to both the world and the character.
My favorite character backstory I created was because, while it does have action, it's left vague. But as you hear it, you come to believe this archer had a pretty successful life, both on the front lines and with his wife. He had just built his own home, and he had just had his first child when everything was ripped away from him. An orc horde ripped through his village, and, despite a last stand from the the archery unit and local militia, it was in vain. The whole village was burnt to the ground and, as far as he knew, all slaughtered as he believed he was the only one to escape. For years after, in his depressed and hopeless state, he wandered from pub to bar doing menial tasks to earn money until he finally saved up enough to buy a new bow. No longer could he drink in dishonor. He knew he had to use what he still remembered of his military training to do some good in the world, it was the last thing he had.
I'm DMing for the first time with a group of friends on Pathfinder, level 1, and a homebrew setting. Two of them were new but on the opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to their backstories. Unfortunately, I'm actually having a lot of trouble with one of them.
The first one was a really vague human paladin. All I got was a guy who was really self deprecating but became a paladin through "hard work". I had nothing to work with and worried that his experience would suffer. Fortunately, I got him to rewrite it and collaborated with him to expand on it further, and it really showed during our sessions.
The second one was a very detailed backstory of a female Ifrit sorcerer, but it basically boiled down to "a very talented pyromaniac who got in a lot of trouble as a kid but then went to a magic school, skipped grades, and became nobility because she was so talented". I took issue with the guy's emphasis on her pyromania, unrealistic "talent", and lack of motivation or redeemable traits. Much to my regret, I ended up rewriting it and asking for his approval instead of having him do it. He accepted it, but from how he's played, he doesn't seem to remember any of it and falls back to his original draft. He thus tends to play the character in a very aggressive manner and flaunts her "noble" status even though we never discussed it. While I absolutely despised the character, I tried to let it go since it wasn't impeding the gameplay much and the guy has several issues that I didn't want to drag in by antagonizing him. It was only when he started bugging me endlessly about hypothetical situations and arguing my rulings that I actually got mad.
I'm now running a second campaign without him in the group; we're still planning on continuing the first since the second one is supposed to be an off shoot, but I feel a bit guilty saying that I enjoy running the second one more.
You never need to feel guilty about finding an obnoxious player annoying. if a player is openly disrespectful (and ignoring your concerns, arguing with your rulings etc. is disrespectful), the ditching them is not in the least unreasonable, especially if you've already tried to deal with it like an adult.
Before the new bloodlines came out for Pathfinder (long ago and far away), I wanted to create a darker sorcerer than what was available. I worked with my DM to create, what is now, the Abyssal bloodline. Give or take.
The backstory: A noble girl betrothed to a man she doesn’t love. Her young lover well below her station. Dark woods haunted by a demon. And a pact with said demon to set her beloved and her free to be together.
The result: The first of the “gypsy” lineage. A distant descendant who was supposed to be the gateway for the demon to enter this plane away from his prison in the woods. A sorcerer with a demon bloodline, nightmarish dreams of being possessed by a demon committing horrible acts with his body and dissociative amnesia now on his own in a strange city. And a GM with lots of possible hooks and a richer world to work with throughout this many campaigns.
(Above is the cliff notes version. It was all written out on few pages in story format).
All this with a backstory that fits the stats on the paper.
My thoughts about your video, as a first-time viewers are as follows:
1. The background images are fine. I see them in your glasses, but that is a non-issue
2. Your voice is amazing. You should read audio books professionally.
3. OP backstories are lame. I have a character with a lot of experience, but most of it is in studying the gods-not in fighting or casting spells. Characters can have dimension and depth without being experts in adventuring.
4. I was drunk and couldn't pay attention to all of it, but the parts of this video I caught were A+. Just keep saying words with that beautiful voice.
level one characters wierd me out if you play a long lived race like elves or dwarfs - this 100 year old elf has just grown up and is level one? And that half-orc fighter over there is a grown-up at 16 years that is now level one as well? what the hell did the elf do for 84 years not acquiring any skills whatsoever? Learning to speak, walk, and generally growing up surely can take longer for the long lived races, but honestly it doesn't make any sense to me at al. Even if that elf did nothing of value at all during that time, like farming or living a cushy lifestyle as Guy described here, there is just stuff you pick up during everyday life for a hundred years, be it due to hobbies or just general interest. Some skills and knowledge should have been gathered over that time.
I guess there really isn't a way around that problem, I mean you can't just forbid players to choose long-lived races for level one characters, that'd be too invasive in my opinion. If a player wants to play an elvish sorceress at level one she should be able to play that character - still, I find it hard to suspend my disbelief there.
In general I think having races that need 110 years to even be a functioning adult is kinda sketchy in the first place, even in a fantastical setting that is really, really strange. I mean how long is an elven woman pregnant then, 4-5 years? I get that it's fantasy and that there are areas where thinking too hard about it isn't worth the hassle, but when you want to create a believable story stuff like this is a challenge, at least for me.
A K
A book could.be written about:
- What they don't tell you about the" longlived races"
1) extremely Immature, it takes around 100 years for them to create any kind of sense.
2) learning difficulties, if not with a band of foreigners they improve themselves very little.
3) prudes. If they bred more they would rule the world.
Yah, typically long lived races wont be taken seriously by there piers till they are much older then if it had been someone with closer to our own lifespan.
Maybe not so much learning difficulties, well depending on the setting and the race in question, but why ever accept good enough when you have the time to practice perfection.
I would take it not as them not having skills, but rather, not having any relevant skills. Sure they may be experts in their day to day tasks, but they probably don't start weapons training/magic training until fairly late in their development, making their acquisition of character levels functionally the same. I would also assume that they might not reach the physical maturity to be adventurers until that point. Maybe they know a lot about magic or weapon handling, but their bodies and minds can't handle the strain of battle and constant spell casting.
In the case of elves, in most settings they think fundamentally differently to humans. That 1st level Elven Wizard *has* in fact been hitting the books for 100+ years, but they can only cast first level spells because they don't care about the outward manifestation of magic (spells), they care about deep understanding of magic. Similarly an elven swordsman is the guy being talked about in the quote "I don't fear a man who's practiced five thousand kicks, I fear the man who's practiced one kick five thousand times" or however it goes.
For dwarves it's easy to imagine there's a very strict means of education and training. They learn by rote, after all the older generations did think up every answer to every problem you'll ever encounter, you just have to learn them all and how to do them.
Another way to look at it is the elf or the dwarf are in fact fully adjusted members of their own society, perhaps a baker or smith, but they have zero experience adventuring. In some settings there's a fairly well documented phenomena where elves get a bit bored and go on an adventure just because it's something new to do, then after the first quest get bored of *that* and decide to stick with the home life. Same deal with dwarves.
Well, often we attribute it to a certain cultural lack of haste, particularly when it comes to elves. I mean, when every member of your species lives for seven centuries, you're not going to be in such a rush to learn how to do everything as someone who's likely to clock out not long after 60. But if we look at it more closely we realise that they *do* have things that they've learnt.
Let's compare the wood elf to the lightfoot halfling; the halfling has a few traits, they're lucky, they're brave, and they're nimble, and as a lightfoot they're also stealthy - the first three are inherent, the luck is esoteric, the bravery cultural, and the nimbleness a natural result of their small size and mechanical +2 to dex, Naturally Stealthy is a learned improvement of a natural consequence of their small size and is practically cultural to boot (which is why none of the other small races get it). The elf on the other hand, has naturally good senses (dark vision and perception proficiency), and being of fey origin, is naturally resistant to some magical effects and doesn't sleep like other beings. And then we hit the big ones. Mask of the Wild is learned over decades. Elves are not naturally small like the halfling, they're actually about the same size as humans, so whilst they do have that same mechanical +2 to dex, they have the same amount of body to hide as we do (the reason for it not being stealth proficiency is because they're not good at hiding in general, just good at hiding in natural environments, because hunting is their cultural priority). And then they have their weapon proficiencies. Only elves and dwarves get racial weapon proficiencies, and it's not because they're particularly martial races (well, dwarves might be a bit, but compared to orcs and half orcs?), but rather because they have all that time.
Gnomes don't make no snense.
My most recent character creation had a bit of a unique dilemma. I was to join a group of level 11 characters as a level 11 myself (I had previously been part of the session, but real life stuff had kept me away for a while. My prior character was dead after I handed him over to the DM as an NPC and even so he asked me before putting it in a scenario where he was likely to die, which he did).
In many ways that left me alot of wiggle room for a backstory, but also questions like "What kind of reputation, if any does my character have? And if not, why are they not well known?"
Ultimately I went with a Female Elf Horizon Walker Ranger of some 200+ years of age and I decided to basically split my backstory in 2. The stuff I would have used had this character been level 3 (our standard starting point) and the stuff that led up to level 11.
The basic stuff involved my character beeing scout and one of the protectors of a elf hamlet. It was relatively peaceful, my character had a husband and son, all that good stuff. She was also a devoted faithful of Corellon. Of course, not much of a call to adventure if everything is peaceful, so her family ended up dead due to an outside attack while she was of scouting a different potential threat.
Heartbroken and shaken in her belief she decided to take a pilgrimage to gather her thoughts, figure out what to and and reaffirm her faith. This is where she would have encountered the party had we been going with level 3 characters.
But, that was not where things were gonna go, so I continued from there. In broad terms her pilgrimage had pretty much the opposite effect in regards to her faith, seeing people in dire need cry out to the gods for help and finding no answer ultimately broke her own faith (note she still believes the gods exist, she just thinks they are pricks) and she returned home only long enough to leave her talisman with Corellon's symbol at the local temple and then set of for parts unknown.
This is where the Horizon Walker part of her class heavily comes into play, because lacking a goal and still shaken from her experiences she decided to just go where her feet took her, eventually beeing drawn to a portal to a realm beyond the material plane and the otherworldly wonders she saw momentarily distracted her from her sorrow and pain.
From there she chased that experience, traveling between planes. Sometimes she would spend significant time in one location that caught her interest (or for other reasons, I got a few pages of basic short stories I can bring up if asked about her adventures) and eventually spent a very, very long time away from the material plane. The dangers and rigors of her travels hardened her as she became ever more in tune with the otherworldly landscapes she traveled through, before eventually returning to the material plane.
And that is the gist of it. She joined up with the party only a few months after returning to the material plane, meaning she hardly had time to really learn what had happened in her absence or establish her own reputation. The long time spent traveling also meant many of the skills she had developed while settled down with a family had not been maintained.
The way she joined up tied into her own chase of experiences, where she met a toymaker who makes magical toys, beeing interested in the toymakers work and then encountering the party when the toymaker is kidnapped as said toymaker was a NPC significant to the rest of the party as well.
The fact that my character knew next to nothing of the rest of the party's adventures meant that there was plenty of moments where I (In character) could go "What?" while my own character experience with the planes is something the rest of the party had not done much of (at that point).
In the end the party ended up with a elf of significant skill and experience, always ready for a new experience or place to go, but also weighed upon by her past and deeply snarky whenever the talk falls upon the gods.
in one of my backstorys i have created an entire planet (sci fi setting) for my charackter, but the chrackter herself only was a tourguide for tourrist.
I had a character who had this very robust backstory who traveled the world with a group of heros and saved the world from a powerful demon lord and he started at level one... but, this character was actually the squire of the actual hero. I wrote it like this grand quest backstory and ended it with, "But this is not my story. This is the story of the knight I served... as his squire."
I had expertise in things like cook's tools etc. thanks to my kind DM who made me very good squire duties, basically I did all the minor work like polishing equipment etc. you know squire stuff... anyway, I never went into combat with my knight in my backstory until I took up a sword and decided to leave and prove that I to could be like him.
See I'm trying to get closer to that initial guy.
I always am just like, my hometown had really restrictive laws so I grabbed a guitar, a map, and some lunch then became a bard.
Why change? Your backstory's just fine! I like "rags to riches" adventurers, so my adventurers always have backstories more along the lines of "I was born to a family of barley farmers, but after seeing how the priesthood of Chauntea blessed our farming community and worked with us to ensure more bountiful harvests, I chose to leave my family for the cloister and become an acolyte of Chauntea, Goddess of the Harvest. Soon after reaching Age 15, I became a deacon of the faith, and soonafter, a priest, walking the farmlands and blessing the good earth as I beheld the priests before me doing in my youth." And however my Cleric of Chauntea gets tangled up in adventuring from there is largely up to the DM. :-)
Honestly, if I got into DnD I'd be a bit interested in RPing as a refugee. You'd have a character with a potentially rich backstory that might feed off some of a particularly ambitious DM's ideas, who may have had it all, lost it and is working to earn it back, and who may have some interesting insight and tidbits to pass on as the players go out and about.
Call me crazy, but I tend to do it backwards. I fill out the character sheet first, decide what I want this character to be capable of (mechanically), then write a backstory to tie it all together. Funnily enough, those backstories tend to be rather short, especially for first level characters.
I actually like the "background"-feature of D&D 5e, it makes it easier to answer the question "what was the character doing, before the start of his adventuring life?"
D&D specific, I'd say that if your background doesn't explain how you aquired the skills that define your class this is a separate thing one should write into the backstory as well.
How is doing the background AFTER filling out the first sheet with stats considered backwards? The backstory boxes from the DnD sheet is LITERALLY on the back of the first page.
Great Video, made me rethink things in Background Stories. Your Background in your videos is fine, they don't detract at all from your Videos - in fact - I didn't even think about it, or the Lighting, until you bought it up - I was focused on listening to your tips and such. Keep up the good work!
11:35 Guy I don't mind the background. I don't focus my attention on that. I focus my attention on you. Unless you have an outrageous dragon battle behind you. I'm focus on what you're saying .
I generally tell my players that I will reward some modest xp or perhaps a bonus proficiency (I run a 2nd Ed AD&D campaign) for a worthy backstory. I've found while many players will have a few notions about their PCs history, backstories in general are difficult for them. the "20 questions to ask your character" test is a great answer to this...as is concocting a teacher/mentor/trainer/rolemodel they can have a long running relationship with...(however, if you're following the Mono-myth model...at some point, the mentor must die, be incapacitated, or otherwise neutralized, so the PC can "step up" into their proper role....)
When I was storyteller for a long running LARP, i told the players that a well written backstory could be worth as much as 3 xp, if it 1) was decently done, 2) had internal consistency and didn't overreach, and 3) was entertaining to read (thus lending to good narrative material for both players and myself as ST...)
Some players have a real knack for coming up with interesting and colorful backstories ,full of opportunity for the DM to latch onto and make the story very "real" for the player.... but they tend to be the exception..
Ah yes. The ever delightful Gary/Mary Stu/Sue. "So you've defeated an evil demi-god, and thwarted the machinations of an evil cult that followed him? And you're 18 years old and level 1? Uh-huh. Sure bud. How about you rewrite that for me?"
That's not what a Mary Sue is.
I mean... how old was Simon when he defeated the Spiral King from Gurren Lagann?
@Clocktopus From Wikipedia: "A Mary Sue is an idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character... *They can usually perform better at tasks than should be possible given the amount of training or experience.* "
@Matteus Silvestre That's fair, but in this character's case he did not have a drill that could pierce the heavens :P
Indeed, and then somehow they die early from a lvl 2 mob or something. But they killed a god in the past...
The opening bit is what I think RA Salvatore would show up with if Drizz’t was an actual D&D character
Okay, Guy, I will clarify something you said... "A 40 year old has been driving a car for 20 years and should be a better driver than a 20 year old." The key word is SHOULD. However, I've found that SHOULD and IS are two different things. While it is very rare to find a 20 year old who drives with the safety and confidence of a 40 year old, IT IS FAR MORE COMMON TO FIND 40 YO'S WHO DRIVE LIKE THEY'RE 20!
Okay, Rant mode is now off. You may proceed.
Jack Linde I get what he's trying to say with the comparison, but I do feel like adventurers should be set apart from the common citizen of the world. Else it would be kinda lame. You are gaining experience by fighting evil and traveling through forests. Not bailing hay, or butchering pigs. Player characters and significant NPCs are going to be head and shoulders above the rest. I consider most citizens level 1, unless they are trained soldiers, fighters, or mages.
Okay, you kind of missed the joke: (I was taking a jab at bad drivers.)
And, I think you missed the point of Guy's video as well. Sure, there has to be something that sets your character apart from the common chatel he or she is from. But, that quality isn't going to be the character's history. Heck, you can play a character who's beginnings are nothing more than being one more useless get from a large family of mud farmers, and he or she simply decided one day that walking the adventurer's path was more interesting than wallowing through a muddy field for the rest of their life.
No, that quality that's going to set your characters apart from everyone else is found within them.It's what they do on the adventures they go on, not what's listed in the backstory. It's like writing up Hercules as a level one character, except that you've included his whole epic story as the backstory. You're not trying to roleplay Hercules after he's come back from the adventure. You want to play him as he sets out for the first time, before he became a hero. You're looking to explore the journey that turned him into a figure of lore and myth.
Jack Linde no I did get your joke! I wasn't trying to disagree with you, I was actually agreeing! I just mean that his comment about his qualms with the DM guide, the reason he made the driving reference, is that older people in the world should be higher level, and that's what I disagree with. Mundane tasks like driving or cooking, or farming don't level someone up. I would say significant battle and combat experience level someone up. That's all I was trying to say. Driving was a bad analogy :) we're on the same team here! Lol
Jack Linde for instance, a farmer who harvests grain for 30 years would remain level 1, because there is no Farming character class, but a farmhand that was responsible for keeping wild beasts away from the horses and sheep could be leveling because he is using combat skills that make sense to level in the system. I'd say even then he wouldn't level past the CR of the types of creatures he's fending off.
Probably because they've either been driving recklessly since age 20 or they had a midlife crisis and started driving like they were 20 again--in red sportscars, with younger partners-out of nostalgia.
I entered into a campaign after the other players were already a few levels in. I was a Warforged Artificer. Having little to no creative ability when it comes to backstories, names, interpersonal relationships, etc, I simply found it easiest that the party found the Warforged inert in the dungeon they were exploring at the time. He has amnesia - no idea how he got there, where he came from, or why he was made. Correspondingly, he has very little in the way of personality except for a cold, robotic, socially-stunted pragmatism. Thus absolving me indefinitely of ever actually having to come up with any sort of origin or backstory for him. . . I felt pretty clever, although frankly it's just laziness and lack of inspiration. But it does leave the door wide open to weave him into the world in all sorts of interesting ways in the future, since Warforged are entirely non-existent in the current era/setting.