🔥 Total Party Chill 5e & PF2e Player Mat - The indestructible ultimate player and GM quick reference! totalpartychill.com/collections/total-party-chill-merch 🔥 Free Backstory Template thedmlair.com/products/rpg-backstory-template

Personally, the best character background I ever saw was this guy who expertly trolled his DM with his backstory, but did it so well the DM wasn't even mad. Basically, on the surface, it looked like a typical terrible "if all this has happened to you why are you still Level 1?" backstory. The player turned in a seven - page chronicle about a brave paladin who's vanquished monsters, killed dragons, destroyed dark Lords, rescued princesses, etc, etc. Then, right in the last paragraph of this epic, the player puts "My character is that guy's brother. He became an adventurer because he got fed up with his mother continually nagging him "Why can't you be more like your brother, Nigel?"

I generally use the, "I am the third son from a moderately wealthy merchant family. I had a happy childhood, receiving an education with my siblings and learning the family business. Unfortunately, being a third son, I will not inherit the family business, so I must venture out and seek my own fortune."

One of my favorite backstories was of a level 1 rogue who was a forgotten god. He was a human thief who was so good that he stole the divinity of one of the deities and he became the god of thieves. He got so bored as a god that he stole himself from history so no one remembers him, and he gave up on his divinity and became human again. In reality he's just a lunatic level 1 human rogue but he genuinely believes all of that.

I made a rogue with a "secretive" background ("I don't want to talk about it" was his regular response when he was asked), but I told my DM about it. His background was that his guild kicked him out after he royally screwed up his first heist (canonically rolled all Nat 1s), so much so that it's legendary within the guild, but isn't well known outside of the guild; and now he's adventuring to pay the bills.

"My character got tired of plowing a field for a living." Background done. If you really need one, remember Brevity is king.

Note for fellow DMs - don’t use all characters’ connections as negative plot fodder (“you enter your house and find your parents/mentor/spouse murdered/kidnapped”). There are plenty of positive ways to use a player’s backstory so that they will be incentivized to actually have connections instead of making friendless orphans over and over.

My first time playing was with a DM who was like "This is not just a sandbox game, it's the whole god damn beach. So build your castles and let me detroy them so you can rise from the muddy remains and make an epic story together" so he sat down with all of us to talk what we wanted to have in our backstories. I think that taught me very well how to write some, cause my first ideas were certainly not the greatest. :))

I had a PC with a Smith backstory once. His reason for adventuring was searching rare ores and learning the smithing styles of different races

It could work for your rogue to be a master assassin from a small town where the thieves guild had three people. Everyone there was scared of you, but now you are a small fish in a big pond.

If you want your character to have already been well travelled before level 1 that’s fine. Remember there are other kinds of adventure that don’t involve fighting that you may have embarked on. My current character for example was an archeologist and hired adventurers to escort him on his expeditions in his backstory. He was basically an NPC escort quest lol

I once played at a table with a rogue who was the dark, broody, mysteriously edgy type who sat in the dark corner with a dark hood on and never talked to anyone. The catch? Never talked to anyone because he had a lisp and a stutter, and hid in the corner so he would be overlooked to avoid conversation XD

Brooding rangers and rogues are alright if you play them correctly. Aragorn is brooding in the tavern and acting suspicious and menacing until Frodo fumbles and exposes himself, then he pulls him out and takes him to the room, interrogates him, then starts to help him.

Ah, that was my second campaign, when I thought “I got it”. Half-elf, Ranger, Archie Sureshot. Entirely unmotivated by the going ons of the party, split off and went into the forest to find whatever he may. He was then quickly tripped and devoured by 2 gnolls

DMs/GMs, be careful when putting one's foot down on players who may have legitimate reasons to play either "The Lone Wolf" or "This is what my character would do" cards. There are going to be times, and many often created by you, where a player is correct in putting their character's foot down for something contrary to what the group wants to do. In the current campaign I'm in, the DM had all of us do personal missions after completing the first adventure. This was to show the different characters different aspects of how the world was breaking. My character and my nephew's character were sent to my character's hometown because of issues within her church and her order. (She's a Paladin of Vengeance and part of a holy order.) At the end of the personal mission, we found evil had made its way into the church and was using the order to murder another friendly deity's people in secret to weaken that god. And a member of my family was trying to stop it. This created conflict when it came time to reunite the party, because most of the party wanted to go fight undead in another town, where my character had several personal stakes that would stop her from leaving. So, yeah, while the rest of the table was understandably frustrated when I played the "This is what my character would do" card, it was totally in line with what that character should and would do: Stick around to fix the order, help defend the innocents, and make sure their sister wouldn't die. Yeah, we didn't solve everything, but in two sessions, we found out there was a resistance movement trying to fix the church, how good people were being turned, and captured the head of my character's order for the resistance movement. It didn't solve everything wrong, but it put a big enough dent that my character could walk away for a little bit and not feel guilty about it.

Here is a secret, you can talk to you players about it. In a normal voice. No need for yelling. It would probably go like this: You: "I have a hard time seeing your farmer engaging with the story I am trying to tell, can you tell me why your character would engage with this adventure" Player: "I hadn't thought about that angle, let me come up with something or just change the story" If you try to play WITH your players and include them in the process everything goes a lot smoother. This goes for life in general, if someone does a thing you don't like, try telling you why is bothers you and ask why they do it, instead of just getting angry or frustrated.

Best backstory I ever came up with: a half-orc monk who was raised in a monastery by his loving human father and orc mother who were happily married. He became an adventurer because his parents wanted him to see the wide world and interact with people to broaden his horizons. No tragedy, and I get to play him a little naive because he assumes everyone is essentially good; he chooses compassion first and violence as a last resort.

My favourite PC backstory was my Dragonborn from a normal small town family who had a normal life and wanted to go seek adventure. And my DM just offered. “I see your characters wisdom is low. Would it be alright if that’s what he THINKS?” Best thing ever. His mom was a major quest giver for our party who was… neutral evil at best. And without fail any checks to detect that maybe my home life wasn’t what it seemed I’d roll Nat 1s” it was an amazing backstory that has prompted me to do more with my characters ever since.

I think my favorite back story was a Druid Dragonborn, he tried to do a ritual to turn himself into a red dragon but failed and is now a dragon born and his motivation for adventure was just to find a cure

"My father was an adventurer, my father's father was an adventurer, my father's father's father was an adventurer and the same applies for my mother and her side. I will be one myself, and don't want my parents' gear to be a crutch." This is the backstory of a Sigil resident concept I came up with but never actually used.

My current DM incorporated my character's backstory beautifully in the campaign I'm running. They provided a nemesis who was a dark parallel to my character: my character went through tremendous trauma, but had their family and loved ones to keep them centered and positive in the middle of the tragedy. The nemesis... had lost everything, and had gone mad without loved ones to keep them balanced and centered. When the DM introduced my character's nemesis to the campaign, we were in the middle of the wilderness, and the nemesis allowed us to stay the night at their campfire as they were figuring out if they were going to kill our party or not. They made it explicitly clear what their intentions were, and that they had no reason to change. It was made obvious that they VERY much had the power to wipe us out if they wanted to... but we had a long chat between me and my nemesis that night, and it became clear just how messed up their situation was and how my character's situation was bearable, because I still had something they lost. The next day? They gave us a 15 minute head start, and then the hunt was on. Shenanigans ensued, our druid almost made the most heroic sacrifice but managed to make it out by the skin of their teeth, and now there is a genocidal maniac loose in the world with no one left to center them or keep them in balance, their morality made twisted because of an ancient war. My character then developed a resolve. Initially, they went adventuring to try and bring their forcefully displaced tribe out of poverty/return to their ancestral lands if they are not destroyed in the conflict. Now, though? They realize that the only way this war will end, is if those twisted by it are stopped. She needs to accomplish this, before she becomes twisted herself....

I'm guessing Patrick Rothfuss. I think he even released a novella in Novemeber. We just want Doors of Stone!

With my players, I've learned that they just want to do an adventure. I've tried in a few campaigns to mold it around their characters, but it's always been difficult to tease out info. So now I'm running a pre-written module, and pepper in pieces that touch on their background. Much less heartache for me when they don't get invested in my homebrew setting... They can just do save Faerun from whatever. We're all having fun now, and I'm no longer anxious when game night comes along.

Here's a technique (I totally stole from the KZfaq channel Film Courage) I use when making characters. It solves some of the issues (but not the writing an epic novel). When building characters, start by giving them a Core Wound, a Want, and a Need: The Core Wound is that thing that is driving the character forward in all they do. It is something that is messed up, broken, wronged, etc. that has damaged the character and driving the character to fix. It could be something internal to the character (like a curse) or external (like the loss of a loved one). Whatever the issue, the character won't be at peace until it's resolved. The Want is what the character THINKS will heal the Core Wound and make everything right in the world. Note the word THINKS. This means, the character is going to start out chasing the wrong thing trying to heal this core wound. As long as the character is seeking the Want, they will not find that to fix the Core Wound The Need is the actual thing the character needs to solve their Core Wound. This requires some form of character growth. But once they discover this, the character can actually move forward in their life and heal the trauma of the Core Wound. The neat thing is, once you have this matrix figured out, it starts to answer other questions about the character. Between the Core Wound and Want, the player can see what their character is like. And the DM can use the Want and Need to start crafting the journey the character needs to take. For instance, I could have a character whose wife was murdered. My character might believe that getting vengeance is how they can make that death right in the world. But instead of avenging their dead spouse, maybe they need to accept their wife is dead and come to terms with it. And only when they do come to terms with the death, can they seek justice for her murder. Another example is the character I currently play: An Oath of Vengeance Paladin and Changeling. My first question was, "Why is she so angry?" This lead me to her Core Wound: She was a swapped baby who was raised to think she was someone else until the spell disguising her true nature broke. (A play on the old Celtic Myth of Changelings.) While everyone else in her family recognizes the situation that she was never a high elf, she believes she's currently under a curse. And this leads automatically into her Want: "To find the person who cursed her and have this curse broken." This primal want has driven her to leave her home and hometown behind while she chases anything and everything about curses. This leads into the need: to learn and accept the truth about her situation. And this has led my character to be dark and brooding at times. But as someone who's part of a religious order, she recognizes she needs to work with a group to see to her own personal goals. (But, there are times the goody-two-shoes nature can and does create strife for others in the party, it's tempered by the fact they're an adventuring party and she knows the score.) But she does have a thing for nobles behaving badly (that was used to grant a character who died because of one the former noble's lands) and for curses and those who curse people. All of this from "I am a changeling who believes she is a high elf cursed into being a changeling, and until I break this curse, nothing will be right in the world."

Had a character that went in search of his adopted daughter who ran away from home, intended for it to be a simple reason to pull him towards whatever goal the dm wanted. The DM took that and ran with it to the point where I wanted to throw dice at their head after they made her join the bbegs side, I loved the twist tho it left me just sitting for like 10 mins when I found out.

I have no issues with long backstories. The longer they are the more likely there are at least hints of something that can be brought into the game which a player doesn’t expect.

My favorite type of backstory is a coming of age journey - small town or tribe that fits wherever the DM feels best that sends their young adults to gain experience (find the hermit McGuffey, fancy whacking stick, rare flower, etc,) so they can return and be a productive member of society.

A tabletop roleplaying character backstory really only needs three things: 🥇 a reason to go adventuring 🥈 a reason to party up 🥉 an inspiration for your next long rest's roleplaying time.

When I was a kit in the 80s, I made really short, basic backstories if I made one at all. Then as I got into my teens and twenties, my backstories got more complicated (not better) and more full of tragedy. Now in my forties, I've gone full circle back to simple backstories. My most recent characters were a gambler that skipped town after he was caught cheating at cards, a peasant farmer who's family was going to lose the farm, and a soldier who deserted because he was conscripted and didn't want to fight.

A balance of tragedy and hope is important when making a character. Having a character with a tragic backstory and then adding in things that make that character almost irredeemable (tragedy happens and they abandon their children in their infancy) makes it difficult for your GM when you are trying to play a somewhat moral character.

I love using my players back stories. I just do first couple sessions doing side quests and getting the feel for the group and how they act. Then I start pooling in their back stories and they seem to get much more excited.

I had sorta the opposite problem once. The DM asked me for a backstory and to make sure it had: Important people, important events, adventure motivation, and a fear. Seemed logical to me, so I wrote about being a blacksmith's son, detailed his family who were almost all still alive and well, said he got a job as a town guard and eventually became a follower of Tyr, hoping to become a Paladin of Tyr (he was a fighter). His motivation was that he had failed to ever get Tyr's blessing, and was tasked by the leader of his temple to venture into the world and discover what he could learn to earn Tyr's blessings. His fear was gnolls, as his town had once been raided by gnolls when he was young, and from his hiding spot he saw the horrible things they did to the villagers. The DM then took all of this, and mangled it so badly that I was constantly missing the story threads meant for me. He decided it wasn't gnolls that attacked my home, but a mass of shadows and eyes (It was just Alucard from Hellsing), and that my whole family had been killed by this shadow and my entire village was destroyed except for me, who was left alive for...reasons? And I was adventuring for revenge. Also he leveled me up between sessions and gave me a level in Paladin at level 2. It was awful, and I instantly lost all interest in my own character.

I love the novella backstories, those players are the ones who are actually invested in the game. and as a side note, I think it's fine to tweak player backstories if you have to to make them fit, but any changes need to be discussed about and agreed to by both you and the player

In my current campaign playing in Icewindale. I created a Tabaxi Rogue, but I did not have a back story UNTIL my DM handed me a piece of paper saying, "You were raised by Yeti's." So my back story is my nomad Tabaxi parents were killed in a raid, but I was taken they had never seen a kitten so I was allowed to live as a pet, stealing food to survive and slowly learning tools and weapons from other adventures who the yeti's raided. After learning their language, I escaped, so now I'm trying to find my ancestors.

A backstory inspired by Terry Pratchett (Diskworld novel series) I have wanted to use a character who begins as any other, and his story is that he is actually a forgotten god with zero powers. In Pratchett's novels, a god is only as powerful as he or she has true believers, so in the beginning the character would be just like any normal Joe. His initial ambition, to get back up there. Still, he does has enemies if they knew who he really was.

I'm generally pretty lenient about character backstories as a GM (and I inevitably always am cast in the role of GM, since A: I'm the only one with a complete collection of the AD&D books, and B: I'm generally the only one who can come up with a story both in depth prepared, and off the cuff / on the fly, and C: I'm also the only one willing to play out the NPC's in character and give every one of them a singular unique voice and attitude... And the most important, D: I love being the basic storyteller, while also loving to improvise and weave the player's stories into the narrative as we go. Love it! 😂

I have a necromancer I want to play. He's a necromancer because his father became a ghost that is slowly deteriorating into a specter and eventually fading from existence entirely. He wants to invent a spell to turn incorporeal undead into ghosts, if nothing else. So, he specializes in necromancy. Though he and his father were involved in the clergy before, my wizard still fears an overzealous cleric will simply slay his father's ghost before he can pass on properly. Thus, he tries to keep his main goals secret. For his open goals, he's seeking revenge against the villains that murdered his father in the first place.

i always like writing backstories with a reason to adventure together. Something like the PC had a family member try to take out a goblin den on their own and their bones were shipped back to town or something. Or they tried doing something on their own in the backstory which led to unforeseen consequences. I'll also usually write two, one that's a about a page that i give to the dm that has the necessary info (name, origin, reason to adventure, etc), and one that's more like 4-8 pages for flavor that is shared with the dm but they don't usually read or use that, and i'll use that as the basis to role play.

After reading all of that I would put it down. Take a deep breath. Then state “bro, you’re level 1. Chillaxe.”

This reminds me so much of one of my first characters: a fallen aasimar vengence paladin. As someone from Reddit kindly told me, I developped this 20th level backstory of conquering hells just for a level 1-3 player. It was actually such a weight off my shoulders to drop the pomp and focus on the root circumstances. Now he's a begruntled soldier who fell from grace after refusing to continue on his guide's genecidal path. Helm took pity on him, tested his heart with an introduction to a temporary guide (a wereraven-like companion), and laid out a path of redeption for the soldier. Though begruntled, he sticks with the party cause it does bring him comfort.

One of my major rules in my campaign is your progress has to feel organic. For instance, if you're looking to dual-class, how did your character come to acquire the knowledge of the other class you're trying to dual-class? And then when picking new proficiencies, you had to have used those skills before you can select it at level up.

You brought up Witchlight as an example of not being able to incorporate a backstory much, but one of my players asked if they could be a Hexblood, being a child of one of the three main ladies. My thoughts immediately started racing in excitement and I said yes. Long story short, they were the child of Endelyn of Yon and it was sooo much fun when they finally met her. While I am still a new DM, I encourage rewriting modules a little to have fun ideas like this!

My favourite character still lives at home and has a great relationship with her parents. She also has like 8 siblings. She started off as a kobold raised by halflings and was convinced she just had a skin condition. She's kind of an airhead but the most innocent little bean, and the party would always do things like covering her eyes/ears if there was excessive gore or sexuality. I miss playing her so much 🤣

Back in 2e. I had a character that started at 3rd level. She had been a shrine guard for the last 70 years. She was very old and would have died in a couple of years of old age. She got the call from her God to go out and do XYZ. Joined a party passing through. two game years of been an old female ranger was fun. Moaning about aches and the young ones. God kicking you in that arse to get you adventuring. An easy hook to get a character going.

My current campaign I told them I was going to build a massive story in the likes of a Final Fantasy, so they all wrote their backstories from a first person perspective this way character motivations and the like for NPCs can only be speculated from their point of view. And then after receiving them all, I wrote the adventure hook so they are all tied into the game. Everything that happens has a tie to 1 or more PC at any given time even if they don't recognize it.

I appreciate that you are sharing from your own mistakes made and sharing the lessons learnt. That is some great character development!

One thing to note about secrets: A secret about your character that dies with your character or the end of a campaign is a bad secret. A character secret should be more like an elephant in the room than a needle in a haystack.

I will argue that a character who doesn't play well with others can be excellent *if* the players goal is to have them learn they are wrong for it. I once had a guy play a human fighter who despised working with others, but after he got utterly wrecked by bandits that surrounded him, and captured, and we ran a rescue mission, he started to "come around" the players goal had always been to learn to work with others as a part of the story

For my new dnd players, here's a solid way to get a neat and simple backstory. I call it the rule of school. One page, 4-6 paragraphs describing Who they are, where they are, and how they got there, make sure it fits the theme of the current dnd, done. If you wanna embellish and add more, go ahead, just get together with and work with DM on that. The more you speak with the DM. Communication is key.

Blacksmith is pretty easy to explain as long as it's a campaign with downtime and a home base. I'm adventuring to get access to all of those cool metals out there so I can make my party cool stuff. But overall, I agree with every point. My first guess is George R.R Martin, but there could be others.

Like, I know I went overboard with my backstory. It is tragic, and she had a terrible life, but she found a way out and is adventuring to explore the world and learn about it. (As well as hopefully find a cure to a curse or two and get a little revenge along the way) I will also say, we are in a 100% home brewed campaign that’s been going on for almost 2 years now. The DM is also a good friend of mine and we designed a custom class to fit with her (Loosely off of Eldritch Knight) cause nothing else fit her. I’m thankful that I didn’t end up with any of the issues that could have arisen cause I have a *long and convoluted* backstory.

I have, twice, experienced the GM inverse of what you are describing. In two separate occasions, two different GMs for entirely different groups of players (except for me) asked players to provide them with characters and backstories, including having them assist with worldbuilding. In the first of the two, the GM wanted each PC to help him build their nation of origin with culture, locations, the whole nine yards. In the second of the two, the GM didn't ask for that specifically, but since I wanted to play a character who was 'on the run', they asked me to provide setting details within my backstory about where I came from. Having done all this, both GMs began their games with a Session 1 Apocalypses that destroyed everything. I think the GMs intended this to help make the destruction personal, but in the first case, it was mostly just the death of time - we'd all put in a fair amount of work, so seeing it thrown on a fire didn't make us sad about the world lost but angry that the GM had pissed us about. In the second case, since it was a new (homebrew) setting, none of us knew jack about the setting before it blew, so it lost all impact. Also, since many of us had built our characters with the starting setting in mind, having it immediately destroyed meant that many of our characters no longer worked or were fun to play. So to any aspiring GMs out there - please don't do this. It isn't creative, interesting, or original - it's just annoying. If you want to run in a post apocalyptic setting, tell the players that up front. Bait and switch tactics destroys player trust in new GMs. (Oh, and the 'gm inverse' thing - I mean instead of writing an edgy novella to a GM that doesn't care, these GMs asked us to write novellas and then went full edge-lord and burnt them in front of us).

Personally, I've always been a fan of the hyper tragedy backstories because the characters can start off on a self improvement/self betterment arc.

Seeing your Gamemaster as your ally in telling the best story possible seems to be the core adage here. Work together with everyone in the group so that it enables everyone to have the most fun.

Your character's backstory and traits are not just yours they are also both your GM's and your fellow player's. D&D is a team game so you want to make sure that what you're doing is helping your friends have fun as well. You can be the tragic emo anime main character if another character wants to be the sunshine to your gloomy-ness so that the combination of you both makes it fun for the GM and the other players

You are spot on for how helpful it is to make backstories during Session Zero! As a DM/GM it gives a chance to get all background-related hooks organized, and a great chance to get input from the whole group.

As a brand new DM this is great advice. It makes me glad to know I am already on the right track. This is stuff I already have planned for!

Debt of Bones by Terry Goodkind and New Spring by Robert Jordan are both classic examples of the series-interrupting novella.

Throughout the video I kept thinking back to my current character's backstory and how much I've been loving my current character. One thing that I'm hoping my DM will incorporate into the game is the fact that my character is a runaway from a noble family who in the past have hired mercenaries to attempt to capture her alive and bring her back to her family. At the current point in the campaign, the leader of a thieves guild is cutting off her family's communications with mercenary groups to protect my character. I'm genuinely excited to fight the occasional mercenary band once that protection wears off.

What I have learnt, which is very useful for DM's and players, is to create a timeline. The most important points of the backstory should be organised chronologically and by year. That way, the DM and the player have a well-organised overview and don't have to scroll through endless sheets of backstory every time to know when something happened. Especially with older characters who have experienced a lot, the overview is really good.

My most recent character, Ahlai the fox witch, has a fun and simple backstory. She got a magic patron that she doesn't know much about but they told her that something very important in the southwest seas and she needs to go there. (southwest seas were the campaign is happening) she has no idea what she's looking for yet and the patron wont give specifics until he says "Its time to know" which gives me a perfect excuse to adventure with the party, and plenty of time to work with the gm on what the heck that actually means for the fox. (GM said that they will be using backstories for adventures.) I'm excited!

My characters are often skilled people like blacksmiths or leatherworkers but of course they had reasons to adventure! Great guide to give my players too!

An idea I had for a character that I will absolutely let everyone here steal is someone who acts all “I’m a lone wolf, I don’t work with others” but if you abandon them, they’ll be like “No wait come back”

One character I want to play that I’ve created before but didn’t really go anywhere since the campaign died was a Psi-knight Fighter by the name of Xander, the first word he heard upon waking up. He woke up in a cave absent of all memory with only a sword, shield and armour to his name. When asked about his history, he would pull from stories he’s read in books. The eventual reveal would be that he is the manifestation of a beholder’s dream, and his desire to adventure was the pull to find and reunite with the beholder that…”birthed” him

AD&D player and sometimes DM here. We never worried much about your story. Basically we were all here for the gold.

I am big on the Distant loner concept as I am not RP strong, but I have found that more often than not whatever motivated the party to do something is sufficient motivation for me to solo it and eventually someone will get in trouble and mutual survival becomes the group motivation.

Old school, no back story. The adventures you went on is your back story

nothing is more satisfying as a player than having your dm reference and incorporate your backstory, and on the flip side of that, there is nothing more satisfying as a dm than seeing your players’ eyes widen as you bring up their backstories in the game

"Yes and* is not a one size fits all tool, "no but" and "no because" are also important tools that slot in alongside "yes and". The first can offer a route towards genuine collaboration while the second is literally a way of telling a player why something is not going to be ok so the player can come back with something adapted to the reason. Having those mentioned in the recent mcdm rpg was a great shift

See, I personally don't think the farmer or blacksmith who doesn't want to leave isn't a bad part of the backstory. As a DM, I don't see that as "Oh, they don't want to adventure" but rather "Oh, I see a unique session 1 idea where their place of business is destroyed and something of extreme value was taken, forcing them to leave. Now I don't have to have them starting in a tavern. And there could even be an ongoing mystery as to WHY that place was attacked."

I rarely use backstories myself in my games beyond the most surface level. As I tell my players the back story should be for you to explain how your character acts and thinks. That the real story begins when we start and the past is past. The most I end up adding are elements like a PCs religion or allowing the player to act out parts of who they were prior. Then the game starts the story, not what was fabricated beforehand. That goes for the GM too as I start a game with no clue where it will lead. No preplanned plots, storylines, BBEG, just an open world that develops and changes as we play. This is why backstories are, mostly, worthless to me. As I stated, I only encourage players to do it to create their characters' overall personalities for them to play it. Telling the players to try to keep their backstories to one or two paragraphs, at most. A perfect backstory, as far as I am concerned, was my Paladin PC. It was summed up in two paragraphs that he was raised in a family of coppers, joined the military, found himself in combat where he was one of the lone survivors, escaped the dungeon they were fighting in while fleeing the monsters with the remaining soldiers to come upon the rising sun, which stopped the monsters from coming out. He from then on devoted himself to Lanthander and joined his temple once his military service ended, now seeks to spread the light of Lathander. Simple, easy, gives motivation, done.

This is a very useful video. I just wanted to thank you for making it as well as providing the backstory resources from your website.

the 2 best backstories i had was 1) mage that grew up in a magic "stronghold" so they were highly respected, but were sent out to get experience with the real world as a 10 year requirement before they could complete their final trainings. they were so used to being respected by everyone, when they got out "in the real world" it was culture shock to find out most did not like them because magic users could make the "impossible" happen at whim. 2) a ranger that grew up very far away from civilization in a large forest part of a community that lived with balance of nature/animals without being tree huggers. they received a vision from the loci of the forest that imbued them with knowledge of a nature god and to go out an learn the ways of the world with a charge to help any injured animals in need. not monsters, but animals. led to some fun circumstances

Still waiting for Winds of Winter

Isekai background are the only background we need 😂

I havent actually played D&D but i did make one Reborn character before it was turned into 3 on Beyond. Short and simple, character woke up in a "lab" as a scrap iron robot with scattered memories. He roamed essentially the underdark mapping out what he could. Eventually he found his way to the surface where he decided to become a cartographer, adventuring and making his own maps of a world he had forgotten while trying to find his past. His only social interactions have been with a voice from a ring he found in said "lab" who is not the friendliest thing.

I had a character that, as a backstory, was a famous captain in the airship navy and THEN an infamous pirate captain after that. Keyword being was. He lost a lot of his magical power after nearly dying and being stranded on a deserted island for twenty years. Avoiding the people that could recognize him was a big part of playing him.

When making my backstory I always start with what setting we are in so my character feels like he belongs in that world in my Kingmaker 2e campaign I am playing as a Jadwiga Winter Witch from Irrisen who got sick and tired of the constant backstabbing so he left his homeland to become a adventurer he is now the ruler of the new kingdom my group has built

A good backstory is very useful. A book is bad and one sentence is too short.

I made a former soldier on the run from the empire he used to serve, my DM loved it because it gave him a lot of room to use, especially as I also had sheets for his old war buddies. The reason why he was at a low level was because he had been in hiding for so long he had gotten thoroughly rusty in his skills.

My current favorite backstory right now is I'm playing my first bard and the backstory is that he was a well-known and wealthy musician. Although he does develop a bit of a gambling addiction. At the peak of his life he goes all out with a party. He got his hands on a deck of many things and pulled the ruin card. Stripping him of wealth and title, sending him into a 20-year long spiral of desperation and squalor. He joins the party to try and regain his lost wealth

My first character had a little bit of this, but I think the idea was pretty cool. My character was a half elf who fought in the dawn war and ended up being trapped into the astral plane ever since then. My character was effectively an astral elf, but with none of those benefits. And (now this was before bg3 came out) I effectively had the same source of safety as the gith, with a permanent spell effect keeping me alive. If I ever walked into an anti magic aura though things would've been very bad.

Robert Jordan

You just saved my dm a whole novella 😅. Thank you for this video it was perfect timing I got way far into it. Definitely cutting back to what he needs.

My first character was a trickery cleric who was casted from their church due to corruption. He also has a dog who needs a d100 roll to determine if it will go haywire and run around the area eating as mush food as possible. If the dog dies, the cleric becomes CE and will do anything to bring the dog back until he dies or the dog is revived. Now I use him as an NPC in my campaign to act as a knowledgeable guide. Everyone knows him now because he’s a recurring character in all of my campaigns.

Here's the entirety of my typical backstory: "I grew up on a farm dreaming of seeing the wider world, so I became an adventurer."

I love when my players give a good backstory. I can work in an unique bad guy for them. Allies to assist them or even a temp place of refuge at a family or friends' house.

One of my favorite character's I've ever played was a Sorcerer Warlock multiclass that we made to convert Eldritch Blast into a more reusable Dragonborn Breath Attack. The way we explained it away is he was a fragment of an old Wyrm who spent the majority of his life cursed by a warlock to be basically a big scaly toddler. He was really fun especially once he got some Wyrm Blood in him and the majority of his cognitive function returned it shook the whole party, then he cracked his head and it was gone. Now that he has a steady supply of Wyrm blood, he remains in that more lucid state, and now his primary motivation is to reach that previous level of power before he was cursed, putting up with the humans and learning that he's not so above him anymore.

One of my favorite characters had this insane over the top backstory where he was a lowley peasant that gained power from a devil and worked hard to grow his cult. Eventually he became the leader of this massive cult and could wield his master's supreme power. Then my DM got the end and realized the reason I was level 1 was because I was at the brothel when heroes came into the cult's lair and massacred everyone including the devil granting me power. I was playing a level 1 fighter who insisted on being a powerful warlock and when he was confronted about not having magic would just respond that his master was testing him.

I hate George so much for doing that...

You only need a name, class, and 1 quirk. Those are the 3 things other players will use to remember your character.

I once played a Paladin who was a legendary and revered hero with a wealth of adventure and stories of his accomplishments behind him. To justify him starting at level 5, I said he had spent years and years in retirement, and was now a withered old man, wanting to put his armor on and raise his blade for one last adventure. Basically, he had to re-learn all his old moves from his youth. The DM was ok with it, and the party loved the concept :)

I had an idea that I didn't have a chance to use but I wanted to play an amnesiac paladin that was pretty much a blank slate with the only memory being that he must uphold his oath. Was going to ask the DM to allow me to slowly regain pieces of my memory every level up + every time the DM decided that it would be an interesting time to give my character some memories back. The interesting part was going to be the characters actual backstory where they would be irredeemably evil and would make for some interesting RP possibilities where the my character would have to wrestle with who they are now and the memories of who they were before.

Just had the idea of a 1st level party being sent to pick up a Player's Character at a well known, well connected wizard's tower. The player in question creates a huge fanfare describing a Lvl20 Wizard agreeing to aid them. "Why yes, with all my years of experience and superior intellect, I shall aid your paltry party...by sending my apprentice. Go on, Steve. Say hello to your new friends." Enter the Level 1 Wizard

I made a little cowboy, his name is Teery, he named himself, all he remembers is waking up in a crawlspace with a good grasp on the english language and surrounded by alot of tarantulas Teery enjoys eating tarantulas Teery’s name is an acronym It is pronounced “Terry”

I joined up with a game and made a very fun version of the "dark past" character- a pickpocket who had been talked into joining a suicide cult, only to back out at the last moment out of cowardice- leaving the souls of all the people who did die able to haunt him, and a very angry wizard who would have become a lich out for revenge. So he had ready-made motivation to go out and adventure, along with an obvious hooks (our DM altered an encounter where we fought a cult to be the same wizard pulling the same stunt again), and it was a great moment when, after a bunch of combat encounters of hiding in shadows and launching arrows, he finally came out to help his new friends so that he wouldn't watch them die, too. It also made going into the Phantom sub-class very appropriate, as he learned how to better control how he was being haunted.

If it comes to stealing an anime backstory, I'd go with Fran's from Reincarnated as a Sword. Spent four years as an illegal slave only to escape when she stumbled upon a sentient sword during a monster attack. Change it so you don't know if the rest of your family is dead or alive and you've got a hexblade warlock with a reason to adventure.

Good lord, that intro. I wrote a novella for a backstory once---for a level 5 PC--where the first chapter was standard bg, followed by a chapter for each level they gained, written as if I played them up to that point. That, and I wrote it like a real story--'Show; don't tell', and all that. They had flaws, family, friends, and were well integrated into the game world, and had not just one, but several solid motivations both for adventure and sticking with the party.

Joining up for my first D&D campaign and had no idea where to start for my character's backstory. The template was a big help

Just this past week, I have come up with what I hope is an interesting human fighter - a former noble Samurai who lost everything in a peasant revolt, but escaped with the young (kidnapped) kitsune whom he is sworn to protect. They are now living lying low in [wherever the campaign begins], my character as a history teacher and his young lord as a student. I got a lot of ideas for what the GM could use to call this character to action. Only thing I would need is to actually find a game 😅