I better not see my "Dolly Parton as a pirate" gnome warrior on this list.

I had someone who hit me with a big "epic monster hunter, hundreds of dragons" and I was looking at the proficiencies. No survival or animal handling or anything that screamed folk hero. Just the fisherman background... But they did have deception.. Last sentence in teh backstory "They're killed over 1000 town-ending monsters.. at least, that's what they claim." Need more characters like that.

One of my first major campaign with my current dnd group. I don't even think it was session 0 proper, it was just chatting before the campaign started. "Hey, you're playing a Half Elf. This guy is playing a Half Elf. Do you two want to be brothers?" We both said sure. And my god, did we bounce of each other super well and the dynamic came almost naturally, and it really did help draw me into the story even more. Alistair will always have his bear trap and the largest wheel of cheese.

One thing I always recommend for every player, new and old, is to write a "Character Pitch" to your DM. Before you pick a race, before you pick a class, come up with a character concept is only a few sentences long and pitch it to your DM. As an example, here is one I pitched to a DM for my last campaign: A marine that is presumed dead after a mission went horribly wrong. He works as an adventurer to raise money for the families of his fellow marines that didn’t survive that fateful mission. To him, scars on the front of his body are a symbol of pride as it shows he did not allow those behind him to come to harm This simple pitch explores a lot of things (Most significant event in their life, their purpose for going on an adventure, and a rough idea of their Ideals and Flaws). This also gives lots of room for you flesh out a backstory with the DM so that the character fits within the world.

I made a Goliath barbarian named Take. She wasn’t married. She was a big Miss Take.

I made a Kobold Forge Cleric of Moradin and my original idea was for her to find lost forges and techniques. What ended up happening was she became a Twice-Baroned (held two Baronies) Noble with her own estate where she set up a forge that was powered by a Fire Elemental. In her epilogue she married a Dragonborn Noble and lived a happy life so that was fun.

Devil's Advocate: All the players have been given the prophecy that they are the chosen one and come together to realize they are only the chosen ones when they are together. They must now work together to fulfill their respective prophecies.

Playing a human, noble bard in OotA. Didn’t make sense for the setting until my DM and I bounced ideas around about how to fit me in and came to the idea that I didn’t want anyone to know of my nobility. He’s now loosely based on Bean from Disenchantment. Bored of riches, and ran away to play music and sell poetry. One of the other PCs is a hired agent from my family to keep me safe. (My PC doesn’t know). He’s a Dragonborn samurai (played by my son). It’s a great interaction for us, especially since only us 2 and the DM know our true backstory, and I’m able to play it off.

Could you guys do a video on a Campaign Sales Pitch? How to quickly and efficiently get the points and ideas of a campaign into words and to the players so that even before the session 0, they can start ruminating on ideas that help everyone?

One of my players is becoming difficult to DM for because the guy wrote a backstory that he just doesn't engage with. It's like he was trying to skip the cutscenes and just fight stuff. I tried to talk to him about it and get more of an idea of what his character wants, why they're adventuring, etc. and his reasoning came down to (direct quote), "He wants to get stronger and beat the final boss." And...there is no 'final boss' at this point. They've been going on episodic adventures; reoccurring NPCs, etc. In fact I told them from the get go that the plan was this format because the source material I'm using was built to support a 'new adventure every week' kind of framework; the group travels looking for clues about new strange happenings and helps solve them. His character never plays the same twice and when I asked him about it he said that he plays his character based on how he feels that day, so all his characters are going to be bipolar. I basically HAVE to railroad this guy because he just never wants to follow plot hooks or take actions in character. Example: this last session started with one of the players being kidnapped. This was part of a plan where they put tracking magic on them, got them kidnapped, and he was going to follow the magic trail to find the culprit of this multiple kidnapping problem. The tracking magic was his idea. The session kicks off and I describe the trail and the bread crumbs and he does EVERYTHING he can to try to do anything other than that. He wanted to go shopping or find completely unrelated NPCs. Then when he finds the culprit he suddenly decides his character is going to lick the guy's face and bite his finger off; he has, at no point prior, ever played this character like some psychopath. They aren't playing an evil campaign, no one took his finger and it's revenge; there was no rhyme or reason for it. I didn't allow it, straight up. I think he's bored because they haven't had a combat encounter in several sessions but the only reason this is taking so damn long to get anywhere is because he's refusing to engage with anything that will drive events forward. Super frustrating.

As a DM I ask my players to do a max of 4 sentences for back story. Answering 2 questions. Why they left their cozy past life to adventure? What they hope to achieve by adventuring? Everything else is either going to be answered by their traits / lineage or in game as they figure out their character.

Still can’t wait to do me and my friend’s sorcerer/cleric(maybe Paladin) combo. He’s an aristocrat Dragonborn sorcerer and I’m a variant human butler(cleric or Paladin). We’ve already determined my drink tray is going to double as my shield and a lot of my spells are going to be butler flavored I thought about Paladin because it gives me good offense when I need it but unsure cause it’s definitely less of a support than your average cleric. The flavor is there either way just not sure what kind of mechanics we want yet cause the idea of a slightly cowardly sorcerer buffing his jacked butler with haste before the butler unleashes several divine smites is hilarious. However the party may also benefit from another full caster like a life domain or peace domain butler dishing spells out in the form of hand shaken drinks.

13:02 every time I've tried to get that conversation going everyone clams up 😭 The only thing I've ever gotten ANYONE to agree on before the game was I and another pc both having devil's sight for us to see through my character's darkness and we came up with a narrative reason we both had it (that being doing the same back-alley deal with some low-end devils. We also came up with some defective parts about it that we used at the start).

One character I had was an insane Hexblood Conman who was a Witch Doctor (cleric). One of his big traits is that he was selfish (always went for gold). Sure, he stayed the same generally speaking in the campaign, but he did start to care about his party members more. Eventually, before a big fight, he gave his Aegis Amulet (basically wards off death once) to the Fighter, as the fighter had a family to return to, unlike my character. That was probably the first unselfish thing he had done, honestly. Then, my character died during this fight… I’d say the character arc ended before its time (he had unresolved issues with his hag “mother”), but that’s what makes a death more tragic.

One thing to help shape character's back story is to use the background as the means to contain the story. The background tends to be hand-waved through as just the means to get a few more skills but it is a great way to grow a character without going overboard. You have a base path that can be widened where it possibly could but still restrictive enough to keep story in a nice package. Backgrounds need to be used more than just as more skills.

The worst character creation mistakes made? Holding off creating a spellcaster waiting for your 2nd level spell guide! Your cantrip and 1st level spell guides were so well received.…any plans for the 2nd level guide in the pipeline? we know it’s a big investment of your time, however your insights are so valuable to the community. 👏🏻

I was at one point going to play in a Final Fantasy campaign, where I wanted to make a character that played heavily into the tropes of JRPG party members. I made this character who was from the “Big Evil JRPG Church”, raised to be a living conduit of one of FF’s summon creatures, now on the run to get out of being ritually sacrificed by her corrupt, zealous family. The DM wanted to build the world of the campaign around our backstories, and apparently mine was markedly more grand than what the other players had written for their characters, as whatever we knew about the campaign and its direction seemed to be more heavily hinged on my character and her backstory than the other players’. While at the time I liked feeling important, over time as I realized the game wasn’t going to happen I felt kinda bad about the unintentional main character status I had seemingly written myself into. I will say, I still love the character. I think she’s great, and I’m proud of her as far as character creation goes.

I had a group that had one of our pcs do a short campaign between acts of a larger campaign, giving the other DM a break. For the short campaign it was a Sea based campaign and I played a Water Genasi Druid sailor who's family ran a struggling shipping business. After we finished the big campaign we continued the story of our short campaign but three years later where my character, because of the fame and fortune from his famous adventure, had taken over the family business and grown it to be come moderately successful. It is fun to have the small campaign arc be only part of his fuller character arc. Some of the returning players chose to make new characters for this next campaign while others kept their old characters, so it was still a different dynamic.

Yeaaaaah, my wife, best friend, and I had fully fleshed out backstories from childhood to the present, along with how our individual characters all met. It 100% clashed with the DM’s plan. We ended up not being able to start a campaign with that DM for entirely unrelated reasons, but the point stands, our elaborate stories weren’t going to fit for a beginner’s campaign. Well, not just noob campaigns, but that’s specifically what we’re looking for, so that’s what I wrote.

The first game I ever played in myself and one of the other players talked with each other and the DM about connecting our characters. I was playing a Kenku, Arcane Trickster and he was playing a Half-orc, Trickery Cleric. My Character: Jackal. other PC: Keth. Keth's late wife was a Kenku and was Jackal's aunt. When Jackal was a kid, he and his parents robbed a house that Keth was staying in. after being caught in the act, the organization that Keth worked for at the time realized the family connection and could no longer trust Keth's wife, so they had her killed. Years later, when Jackal and Keth ended up in the same party they didn't recognize each other until one night when they were on watch together talking about their pasts. They then decided to fully help each other in their mutual goals (Until Jackal died)

I tend to make "local" characters. They live / work locally within the campaign setting, sometimes even within the cluster of villages or city the DM starts or has the action in. My last one was really affected by what triggered the campaign. It was the conquering of the city and the takeover of his place of work. He had a personal stake in the campaign events (and he had buttons the DM could push). Since I was playing with my wife, our characters were acquaintances who were forced by circumstance (had to flee the city) to stay together. While we were both academics, we've both done some "field work" and had some experience in the rough (campaign started at level 3). The other characters were members of the opposing force / resistance, friends of my character's boss, and another refugee of circumstance. They gelled VERY well and while they had different motivations, the direction was pointed about the same. Another campaign I played in the characters were acquainted with at least one other character and sometimes have heard of each other. When there was a call for adventurers for hire to investigate something, they grouped as one due to these mutual acquaintance as they preferred to work with each other as opposed to complete strangers. They were all frequent travelers that criss crossed the area of the campaign.

I think my newish player party member made a significant mistake when he made an Eldritch Knight/Barbarian multi-class in our new campaign (started at level 10).

A great 'heroic' background, especially for a lower level start (1-5 or so) is to be a local hero, not by saving the realm from Tiamat, but just exceeding there expectations of their abilities. Maybe the one who bravely fought off a half dozen kobolds single handed and saved a family's cow! Or maybe saving the mayor of the hamlet from an assassin or a thief (maybe just by being in the right place at the right time). This could be a great start for an adventurer. Maybe the character is a reluctant hero who doesn't want that fame (which is why they leave).

I find that stacked parties (I’m the healer, you are the fighter, they are the thief, etc.) tend to have less dynamics. Almost like an assembly line campaign. Great advice, guys!

I love seeing d&d content that isn't just tier lists, it always seems much more helpful

Really embarrassed to admit I made more than one of the most common mistakes my first time playing lol

I have someone in my group who can't help but make the "antagonistic character". It didn't matter how much prep we did in session 0, we even tried stating "Your characters all need to get along, the conflict will be with NPCs, environment etc" for some people it's just part of their personality

6:30 I've done this twice, and once it worked out, once it didn't. I made one character that really fit the setting, but didn't fit the playstyle at all, it was an all in skill monkey with absurd social skills, and while it worked great like 5% of the time, the campaign was so combat heavy that other players ran laps around me. I filled a niche that wasn't actually needed. Another character I made ended up as the "Fish out of water/New life in new horizons" type where she was a pirate in a very much not pirate setting, but it translated to having an unorthodox outlook and method of problem solving for the area that ended up really being what the team needed, offering teamwork and coordination (Ships don't run themselves) while also having the rough and tumble that comes with being a pirate, acting as bodyguard for the squishier team while suggesting the tougher decisions. What made her work was her willingness to change and a desire to leave the pirate lifestyle behind, put away the dread and terror, pick up mercy. It reflected in her swapping to monk to self reflect and develop.

I'm actually starting a Drakkenheim campaign later today and I've rewritten my backstory a few times after talking with my DM to see what fits better. I'm playing an Arcane Hand Monk named Jason Hawke and he is a survivor of the meteor strike. He was on the edge of the city when the meteor hit and he was raised by his grandfather from his dad's side, (and as I write this comment my DM had to cancel on today) and was trained by a monk by him. His little brother was in the Amethyst Academy, his dad (who left the family) is a Paladin of the Silver Flame and his grandfather is a former Paladin that left the order. I left all other details open for the DM to play with a determine for himself.

Not a hot take. Not checking in with DMabout what will work for the game was my #1 answer

Witch bolt is an absolute blast in BG3. It upcasts very well by adding d12's. Can be destructive wrathed, can be twincasted, and lightning vulnerability is very easy to give. It can also be crit on it.

Congrats on the "Fully" funded kickstarter fellas!

When joining a campaign I ask the DM 1) What campaign world are you using? 2) If the party is recruiting a new member what class would they be trying to recruit (what gaps are they trying to fill)? 3) What classes and sub-classes are not allowed? 4) What level are the characters in this campaign? 5) Is this a good/evil and or urban/outdoor campaign? Then I create a character and backstory that fits. I have my class preferences but sometimes its fun going outside your comfort zone and being something different.

I haven’t watched your videos in a while, been too busy, but when I clicked on your video, I had a rush of nostalga to when I first started playing. Your channel was probably my favorite when I first started really learning the rules and I binged all of your videos Heard y’all got an Emmy Award for Dragons of Drakkenhiem campaign, congrats!

It’s interesting that you mention a Menzoberranzan drow in a setting without Menzoberranzan, because that’s my exact situation with one of my games. The setting is homebrewed, and there was drow, but no Menzo, no Lolth etc.. but after talking about it the DM liked the idea and added it.. but the city was destroyed and my character is one of the few who remember it. We both had a great time coming up with ways to meld both the world and the character. Both of us being open to changing our ideas worked and were having a great time

That's why I have so many characters whose backstory ends with "and then they fell into the malfunctioning portal and found themselves in an unfamiliar realm" or "and then they travelled for over a year to escape their home which had become a hellscape". Setting a player's backstory in a far off realm/kingdom gives multiple benefits, first being that you can still incorporate those background elements that might not fit with the campaign setting. Also this gives you the opportunity to play the "fish out of water" character who is unfamiliar with the norms and customs of the campaign land. Finally this gives an opening to the DM to create enemies who might have followed you from your old life.

Just hopped in on the kickstarter at the last minute 💪🏼❤️ thanks guys

I love this advice so much. I recently started a campaign with a character in mind for which I had built a fairly robust backstory. I felt the need to do this because it’s an odd build; a low intelligence (9) wizard that relies on the few spells they get to enhance their physical abilities. As we got closer to the start of the game, another player asked if they could play an elderly character, which we all said sounded great. This led to group deciding to do an Oops, All Old Fucks campaign and I needed to completely rework my backstory to fit the new age of my character. Ultimately, this character turned out so much better than I had originally conceptualized. Now I have an old harengon with a cursed spellbook that limits their memory to 15 days, they take constant notes to stay on top of things, and they’re spellbook contains two sets of spells to prepare depending on the needs for the day with a large amount of rituals to round things out. Depending on what I prepare, he either is in sleuth mode or assassin mode. It’s incredibly fun. For context, our DM runs this campaign like a heroic sitcom. Like Golden Girls meets John Wick.

Great video! You guys should tier list all of the eldritch invocations

LOL - Ranger 7/Rogue 3/Barbarian 3/Fighter 1 (currently) ... hehehehe

I avoid writing a rich backstory for my character until at least a few sessions in. One big reason is to see if the character will survive long enough to even warrant a backstory, and the other big reason is to get a feel for the campaign. Even then, I try to limit my backstories to a few paragraphs at most, that way I don’t overload the GM or fellow players with a novel of information.

One thing I do first is I get the setting info from the DM, then I come up with a character concept that I allow the dm to have major input into suggestions for the background facts. I give the rough idea and the dm gives me the equivalency in my ideas in his/her setting. I hash it out together with my DM so it melds with their setting and I can use elements in my backstory that are already included in the overall story, lastly I get a rough poll of the other player characters rolls/behaviour, classes and rough personality types. If you’re married to a character you’ve come up with on your own more often then not I’ve seen it not work in the story or with the other characters in the setting simply because a player is not included or factoring in the other characters and settings. I’d much prefer a new unique character that works incredibly well in the story than something I’ve come up with on my own that ends up not working in the setting or party. It’s also important to factor in how you want to run your character personality, if you wanna play a smarty pants character or low intelligence character it can be problematic if other player characters tried to implement the same character personality you’re going for so always try to get some inclination of what the other players are thinking to give yourself a good chance at putting a unique spin on your character personality!

You can have a starting character that has met gods, demon lords, and ancient dragons...if you take the Entertainer background and have them be parts of plays your character was in.

I have really been getting into these worst/best/what to do/what not do videos lately. Nice job!

Omg! Another awesome T-shirt. I love Dino Riders. Man that would be a fun game to run too! Anyway, great video and wonderful tips guys.

Here's an interesting experience: I'm the Mark of Healing Halfling Shepard Druid of the party (Healer as primary role), a god kills me. My party mates kill the god, then stuff my corpse into the bag of holding to take back to the temple for resurrection. Before they leave the god's lair they loot it, my friend who is playing the Barbarian turns to me and asks me to keep a tally of the loot they took...I'm DEAD! Yes, I'm in the bag of holding, but still dead...lol

Love the Dino Riders shirt Kelly! I had the T-rex as a kid, loved that thing!

My main mistake was not preparing a Backstory for my character beyond "My character has a tragic event that happened, a mentor helped her to try and get over it(and failed), and suggested that taking the opportunity to adventure was for the best." My DM helped me work out what that tragedy was(twin brother's death that she blamed herself over), the how, where, and why it happened, and the inciting incident for how she wound up with the characters we played as. It gave us a nice side-quest to do and had a nice piece of custom loot designed specifically for it.

Backed the Kickstarter but having trouble with the Ghostfire website to order other things... hoping to pick up a couple Drakkenheim things while I wait for Monsters of Drakkenheim! Hoping Sebastian Crowe's Guide ends up on D&D beyond someday, too.

Just had to comment for the Dino Riders shirt. Favorite show when I was a kid. For my group that formed 4 years ago, I was the only one with experience so I had to roll the spell caster (Druid) and constantly save the group with control spells and healing.

I have a player who offered no backstory. But like 6 or 7 sessions in, his character started looking for members of the thieves guild that he used to be a part of…thing is, that was news to me…and the homebrewed world didn’t even have a thieves guild! I ended up making one and we decided it would be a side quest for him to get back in… And we haven’t mentioned it again in a year.

My favorite character that was really shaped by the world was Kre'al the half-orc druid. My brother was running a campaign for my cousins, their wives and some friends; all of them first time players. He brought me in to help with explaining rules and such. Before I came in, I had ZERO idea of what character I wanted to play, so I talked with my brother about things that had happened. In one of his early encounters that was explicitly to teach the players that Murder-Hobo is not the way, the level 1 party fought and killed a wolverine that had been snarling at them from near a bush. In a hole near the root of that bush were 3 baby wolverines. Instantly, my character was made. "Along the road, you see a large figure trudging towards the town. Cradled in his arms are 3 small furry beings." Hugh, Jack, and Logan eventually became my animal companions, through a Pathfinder druid variant that allows the druid have as many companions as they want, but the total level of them cannot exceed the druid level.

Most epic example of pre-established character relationships I've seen so far in a live play was in EXU: Calamity, where two of the players made the legendary decision to play bitter divorcees who still had to work together and stay civil around their mutual friend group (the other PCs).

Great advice in this one My favourite character I have played is Lupes a happy go lucky Halfling who became a warlock accidentally just before the campaign started. As he adventures he became more and more obsessed with his patron. Even though at times he would try to rid himself of this, he eventually couldn’t resist his patrons influence and his madness had him make an attempt on the life of a friendly NPC. He was horrified by this and fled the party. He is now in the hands of the DM and I am playing a himbo triton paladin. Was such a fun character, who I didn’t know much about when I started. I’m very excited to see how the dm brings him back into the campaign.

I often run into the issue where everyone is dead set on what class they want to play, and they don't think about party composition and balance. So I always have to change my character that I wanted to play to ensure the party is balanced. I was the first one during my most recent session 0 to say that I wanted to play a monk, and then everyone else picked front line classes (paladin, fighter, rogue melee build) and I had to change to a warlock. I love playing a warlock but I was really excited about trying something new

My dudes I hear you when it comes to the backstory. I tell my characters that a backstory is more about giving their character life, but the story I present, mostly pre fabricated ones, I won’t be making major changes for a backstory. My characters that I make are always open end, so they always easily fit in. Also, awesome shirts!

I find this often happens with new players specifically because they're so excited to play their first game and first character that they go all out with their backstory

OMG Dino Riders! Absolute legend Kelly. Had to comment on the T-shirt before I even started the video

Today's been a rough day, so I needed a good healthy distraction to get me by. Thankful the dudes posted today ❤

I think these ideas would even be good for the two types of games I have started to run so my players can change up what characters they are running. Both of them are based around Ling campaigns one in Star Wars and one in a fantasy world, both have long term goals but based around short campaigns where they choose the character for that missions they want to play, characters are only removed completely if they die.

I once played a Rock Gnome who was an Armorer Artificer who worked for an adventurers guild making armor. I worked with my DM ahead of time to homebrew a unique armor to replace the Guardian and Infiltrator options. We developed the blueprint and determined ahead of time what components would be necessary to complete the armor. The rest of the party were members of the same guild that I had previously done work for. We started the campaign with me seeking out the other party members and hiring them to help me get the component. I agreed to let them split the rest of the loot however they wanted, and I agreed to make them each a unique item (Approved by the DM of course) along the way as well. This worked quite well. Each character had some small tie to each other from previous jobs as part of their backstory. It made for some interesting campfire conversation in our short and long rests. The armor components became the main campaign quest, but going to all the different places to get them lead to some crazy stories that we all laugh at today.

i went with a Ranger (later multi classed into bard {get yer head outa the gutter}) basic backstory was he part of a roving band of warriors protecting the roads in and around the sword hills. his parents are dead, killed by (a yet to be named Orc warlarod). hes a bit of a loaner but knows when to work with others. but is reserved at first. ive enjoyed playing him and seeing his growth.

I played in an epic with that warrior/hype man pair! Still stands out as one of the most memorable public games I was part of. I was the one playing the dragonborn with the bagpipes he blew his fire breath through.

Do you think you guys could do an episode on Mounts, Mounted Combat and the likes. Rules as written seems a bit underdeveloped and would love to hear your thoughts on it. Additionally what are your thoughts on a Fighter Cavalier using a Wildshaped Moon Druid as a mount? What kind of odd rules and regulations would you have to put in? Thanks for your time and consideration. Much love and keep up the good work!

The best case of unintended background I've had happen to me was when both another player and I picked the Bounty Hunter background and the GM pointed it out so we decided to be partners. The characters actually complimented each other very well, he was a Barbarian and I was a Warlock.

I had a very fun character, he was a Triton who had slain a kraken as part of his backstory. What he left out when telling the tale was that he was part of an army sent to kill the beast, he just happened to get a killing blow in, breaking formation and getting his squad killed as a consequence. I played him as a self absorbed and arrogant, thinking he could handle everything himself. As the campaign went on, he learned to rely on teammates and grew beyond his vain need for glory. The story came full circle when he was willing to sacrifice himself to allow the rest of the party to escape a group of rival adventurers.

My character from a dnd campaign that ended a few months ago in tier 4 The rest of the group had ended up in prison so I had to come up with a character that was in a mine in chult as a forced laborer. I ended up with Finnan Tealeaf. A human anthropologist in love with halfling culture. A friendly scholar that had been talked into adventuring. Chult being chult everything had gone wrong for the meek scholar. When the group meet him in prison he was feared in prison as being brutal and crazy. He was a Devil warlock, but instead of a devil he worked for Cegilune, goddess of night hags. As a matter of fact he was struggling with himself all the time. Shifting between his meek, kind and scared persona and a cruel vindictive side. As a matter of fact I was allowed to use the transformation rules from Grim Hollow. As part of his deal with the hag he was turning into a Yugoloth. He was actively selling deals to NPCs the characters liked behind their backs but also helped rebuild a temple to Tyr as part of the group. Was a lot of fun. Later on in the campaign our characters met one of the baras. Semi divine servants of Ubtao and my character managed to break free from his pact with the hag and instead pledged fealty to ubtao. He turned way less crazy, and overcame his cowardice. He changed from becoming a demon into becoming an elemental. Turned much more serious and into a objectively better person. Later on It became a running gag that they missed the old fun Finnan. 😂

As a beginner, I often ask the DM for advice and let them know if I am looking for a spell caster, a brute, or a samurai’s The DM typically give me 2 or 3 presets to choose from, which really helps.

My DnD group was just having a similar discussion about this yesterday! We were talking about how initial concepts and backstories can shift or change from what they may be originally both in discussions with the group and through initial gameplay, even if you go in with a more loose concept. For instance, my half-fey bladesinger was supposed to be pretty judgemental and know it all (very mean girl, that 8 charisma does her no good) but I realized pretty quickly that it worked better in the group dynamic to shift away from that and make her more naive, awkward and occasionally blunt. But having that flexibility really helps for that change, and also imo makes it easier to allow for character growth if you already have that mindset of change at the beginning.

In our last campaign I played a Trickster cleric. Nobody played a rogue this time so Hanna, with her smuggler background, slowly developed some of the skills of a rogue. She worshipped a deity that had once been a thief risen to godhood, and was herself quite greedy. Her faith refused to allow her to destroy any treasure (imagine finding The One Ring). She was a halfling and our group liked using her sneakiness a lot. The lizardfolk barbarian took a shine to her, which caused a lot of havoc and made for some wonderful heroics in the game. The DM even awarded her gloves of thievery on a lucky roll of the dice.

I very much agree, backstory is vague so that it can be adjusted to the setting, but gives an idea for who the character is. Also, if you're me you have 10 characters that are very different and you can pick one that fits the setting and party best when joining a campaign.

Man, you really called me out ... When I was new I took witch bolt with my arcane trickster rogue. Big mistake.

I love how Monty points out the payoff that comes from being open to allowing your PC to be influenced by the campaign, instead of trying to steer the character to a preconceived end state. For over a year in a playthrough of LMoP, DoIP, and Beyond DoIP, I've been playing a half-drow who wanted to be a cleric or, at least, a bard because of her hero worship of a few particular sisters from the Forgotten Realms. Instead, she's ended up being a hedge mage who must scrounge magical knowledge from the occasional spell scroll she finds or by slaying evil wizards and claiming their spellbooks. Having claimed a Staff of Defense early in the campaign, it changed how I played her and curtailed all hope of successfully pursuing the gish playstyle I imagined for her. Now, instead, she mostly prepares defensive spells, control spells, and a few ranged attack spells, and just stays in the backline swearing in frustration as performs her magic. She's certainly not the heroine she hoped to be when she took up the mantle of an adventurer, but on the rare occasions she does triple digit damage on a turn, she's probably pretty pleased with herself.

I used to make my backstories complex and long, used to think about lots of details about the characters lifes and all. Most of the times, I would end up limited by the vision I had when building the character and finding myself having to think about what my characters would do. Nowadays, I think about the general idea I want for the character and find who they are and build more elements to their story as the campaign goes. For example, Im currently playing a Curse of Sthrad campaign where a friend of mine invited me last minute, so I kind was sucked in to Barovia after they had already started. I flushed out an idea of an old lady, a druid who was motherly and liked to cook, she was an earth genasi and strong; thats all I had. Today, I know she is a giver, and she gives so much of herself to others, having spent her whole life taking care of her tribe's children, that deep inside she feels alone. I know that even though she feels that way, she also feels acomplished in her life because she helped guide so many younglings through a life of adventures and happiness, but still something was missing. So, she decided to start to leave her tribe in search of her own adventures. There is still a little bit of guilt. Has she forsaken her people? All of this to say it's a fun way to build your character through gameplay, I find it helps create more complex characters since you can react in an organic way not bound by your own preconceived notions of how they would act, so nowadays I never dwell to much on backstories before a campaign starts!

That "Dino Riders" shirt is most definitely not a mistake. Im currently running a Fighter / Articifer. Fighter was a Prerequisite. The only part that I was interested in was the Articifer part and playing more of an ambiguous support player to branch out from the usual PC's I have portrayed in the past. It's working out. I did come to the table with 3 other characters but probably would've passed on the campaign altogether. Had there been any pushback on Character 1. Session Zero is the most important part of a campaign, but I don't know if I would deliberate with other players about my player. And it's not something that I encourage (or ban) at my table whenever I am in the other Chair. Not knowing your party members roles and stuff adds a tremendous amount of realism to the equation to discover in game each others traits. I have also been known to pepper in higher CR Levels in areas where large crowds are gathered. B/c the story is not about the party , it's about the world, and then the PC's become the focal point. Start a fight with a randomly rolled up arch mage, and you're simply going to be in for it.

The only character I ever got banned was a 1E Kensai specialized in Jo Sticks (trust me a major ouch in 1E); the DMs problem was that he was also proficient in shrubbery design (really: Landscape Gardening in 1E Oriental Adventures).

I backed the kickstarter just in time today! New mosters and especially new lairs are really exciting. I've been running a few of the Flee, Mortals lairs and they've been a blast. I have no doubt these will be great too

Not DnD but the LARP I go to. A good friend of mine and I have very conflicting views (I a chaotic good necromancer and he a Cleric of the god of law) but we had a great conversation OOG first before hand and set our parameters on how far we would push our conflicts. We've had extremely intense RP moments but at the end of the day we still fight side by side.

Cleric/Paladin protip! If they're dead set on a mythological god not in the pantheon, let them worship them as a Saint or archangel in service to a god that fits. So Example, Thor is a saint to Kord, aphrodite is in service to Sune. Also a fun promotion to give your pious character at high levels.

Typically, I play a few sessions to find out the setting and situation before I write my backstory. That way I can make sure it matches up with the campaign.

I usually brainstorm rough ideas rhen talk to the DM so we can make sure they fit into whatever story they are trying to tell.

I feel like there's a story behind that smile and laugh when mentioning thinking that Witchbolt is a good spell. At first glance the description sounds good, so it is understandable. As for the topic of fully fleshed out backstories for new characters, that was always something that really struck me with Baldur's Gate 3. The backstories would be beyond ridiculous if a player brought them to the table for their level 1 characters. Having a minor misadventure or two in the backstory is good though.

Well my group just finished up a campaign! I played as a Leonin, Rune Knight Fighter. To get to the point without give you just PARAGRAPHS to read, he is the “classic second child” in his family where he’s proud of his race and its might and is very egotistical on his own current abilities. Gets banished from homeland and told he can’t return without proving to be a good(characteristic) warrior, so he decides that only through constant 1v1 combats can he most swiftly achieve his goal. By the end of the campaign he only slightly favored his race over the others and found greater fulfillment in conquering a foe with the help and team work of his companions. Still greatly enjoys duels just doesn’t feel the need to seek them out “all the time”.

One of the best character backstories I ever did as a player (and it was TOTALLY derivative!) but I always thought was great because it could be ported to almost any campaign... but alas the DM at the time did absolutely nothing with it. Sheridan, a swashbuckler and a bit of a dandy. He had run away from his mother (Hyacinth, a social climber who had her eye on some day having a title.) and father (Richard, a long suffering, mid-level bureaucrat). He had two aunts Daisy and Rose who took care of his ageing and infirm grandfather who was the duke of a small backwater province renowned for it's pork production. A third aunt, Violet, had married well and lived in a small castle but would have nothing to do with the rest of the family... unless she needed some of Hyacinth's old clothes for her husband. Sheridan lived in abject terror of receiving an invitation to a candle lit dinner at his mother's home.

I like writing a shorter back story and then adding some questions that I don't know the answer to. So then these answers can be implemented into the campaign by the dm and I get to be surprised and react to them. So far it har worked really well.

I make tons of characters and only give back stories if I decide I want to play that one next. Currently I have two back stories, the one I'm playing now, and the one who I'll play next when the current one dies/ retires.

That's why you should keep a library of hundreds of developed characters you wish to play one day, ranging from an evil duergar cleric who wishes to cleanse the world with fire to a kenku bard who found an mp3 teleported from Earth and communicates only with quotes from Nickelback songs. Live your life that way and no campaign will ever surprise you.

In my current Ebberon campain I made an arcane trickster rouge who when I built him was supposed to be a very cool Indiana Jones/ James bond type (w/out being a lone wolf), but as our game has progressed he has turned into some what of a bumbbling fool that still has things work out for him seemingly by luck, and is full of quirky nerotic ticks. He is a mess of a person and I love him for it.

Hey Dudes! I would LOVE to see you guys make videos for a couple of "rough around the edges" scenarios. Firstly being ship combat! It would also be cool to see a video for chase scenes/tailing! I have noticed over the years that these two situations can be a little odd at the table and oftentimes managed poorly. I believe that the community would greatly appreciate and enjoy a discussion on how you guys approach these scenarios to make them fun and exciting for everyone at the table 🤘🏻

Had a friend where it was his first time playing d&d and didn’t really want to write a backstory, so I helped him with it. He was a rogue who had had a really tragic backstory, but had had his memory wiped so he was working with issues of amnesia. He also made a connection with a character who he had gambled with and owed them money, but didn’t remember. Seemed solid to work with as a DM. He turned up roleplaying this as a character who started PVP fights with PC’s, would never help move the story forward, and eventually killed a beloved NPC in a town right in front of most the town and got beaten to death by the town members. It was a bad first experience for him. All in all, my advice: let your characters write their backstory.

Excellent video Dungeon Dudes!

@13:40 - No, you should be having BOTH of those conversations. It's still important to coordinate party roles.

Daisy Frederiksdottir was a bard. a half orc bard, back in 3.5 when that was taking a real arrow in the foot for the character. She had been raised by her human father, the blind bard Frederik, and played a massive digeridoo she used as a greatclub. She wanted to show people that art can connect all kinds of people, even the ones with tusks, and maybe meet her mother's people someday. Her great backstory was killing the lieutenant of a local bandit chief and having to leave town so the bandits' reprisal didn't fall on the town. Low stakes local hero.

One thing I should have added, for brand new players, don't pick what class you are going to play, let the dice decide. Roll the stats in order, and play what they tell you fits those stats. If they are truly awful, roll again, but no switching. Then, only pick frm the basic classes and races, in 5e, players handbook only, page 45 for classes. It is the best way to learn the game, Go Basic. I ran a one shot for experienced players, using this method and they enjoyed it so much, it became a campaign.

My first character was an 80yr old wood elf who ran away from home to be a hero. He promptly got lost in the woods for a couple decades.

Something that can cause a mismatch that isn't always the players' fault is when the DM presents either a specific campaign vision and then changes it, or presents too vague/open a remit for creation. An example I can easily think of is my first proper campaign as a player (rather than a DM) where I ended up creating a hexblade with a storied past for the level 12 homebrew campaign we were going to be in. Then the DM kept bringing the starting level back down and I had to keep reconsidering my backstory in light of this, and eventually (once I was too married to the concept to play something else) the campaign ended up being Hoard of the Dragon Queen and we were starting at level 1. All the work on the character's backstory (especially mapping out their homeland, family tree, motivations and relevant NPCs) was essentially thrown out the window, and without the context the character looked like a kinda tropey one-dimensional edgelord who didn't have as much reason to be where he was. I eventually enjoyed playing that character, but it took time to be seen as the charismatic nobleman with a knack for finding something to love in each of the other party members, and not the emo hexblade who just wanted vengeance - and that was largely down to the DM sacrificing any attempt to integrate the characters more into the world before we played.

Had a guy want to play a dampire, gm ended up making him a dead ringer for his vampire father, the big bad. He loved the problems this created, and at one point convinced an army to turn on itself with an amazing deception roll. Wore a face wrap most of the time.

Before watching the video, this are the 2 mistakes I've learnt to avoid. 1st, including the answers to secrets or mysteries about your character past (or future). If the character doesn't know, then the player shouldn't either. Trust the DM to come up with the solution themselves. 2nd don't make character builds that click or start working at higher levels. Think what's fun from the get go.

I had a really great character I made, absolutely loved her, but unfortunately wasn't able to play to her fullest potential due to circumstance. In my local gaming shops, a group of us were doing AL type one-shots because the organizers never knew who was coming or what level they would be. It was a mixture from 1s to teens. That said, I was able to bring this character somewhat to life through the different DMs and situations. Then, I was given an opportunity to play in an actual campaign. I decided I would bring my character to that one, only for me having to leave the campaign early due to circumstance. I would love another chance, just don't know when that might be. Nearly a year ago, long before I had even heard of Baldur's Gate III, let alone played it, I came up with a backstory for a character I would later learn was actually very similar to Shadowheart's. There were a few very important differences, however. My character, named Morganna le Fey (AL version), or Arilyn "Midnight" Moonchild (campaign), was a twelve-year-old half-elf who had been abandoned at a Thieves' Guild/Church of Darkness masquerading as an orphanage where the Mother Superior and her acolytes were raising child-soldiers. In the Morganna version, she started as a Shadow Sorceress, became indoctrinated by the cult and became a twilight cleric. I think after that, she became a wizard though I don't remember her subclass, perhaps bladesinger. Midnight, as everyone knew her (very few people actually knew her real name), started out in the orphanage as a twilight cleric before being captured and banished from the city she had been living in. The campaign had a lot of exploration and piracy themes which was awesome, and I would've liked to have been able to continue with it. While at sea, since she was no longer at the orphanage and under the influence of the Mother Superior, Midnight decided she wanted to explore her powers in a different direction and took up wizard for bladesinger. She was already very good with weapons, particularly hand-crossbows and short swords, thanks to being trained as a child-solider and acting as a combat medic on the various raids her cloister did. I think if I were to redo her, I would probably start her as a divine soul sorceress both for her innate powers and connection to the darker gods. I doubt I would go bladesinger again though, simply because I don't really care for melee and prefer slinging spells from afar. I would also probably keep her as a sorceress instead of going wizard. Maybe one level of wizard for ritual casting and some baseline spells I don't want to use for my spells known, like shield, feather fall and stuff like that. Maybe turn her into a sorlock, would certainly be appropriate as well.

I broke few recomendations. I have group of ligh human cleric inspired by Warhammer, so he is little bit humans 1st, tabaxi artificer former dwarf slave, dwarf holy cleric and human barbarian (local folk hero villager). We got one session and it was awesome as the group have to work together in isolated village, but work around their agendas. I am super hyped and players give me good feedback.