Five Awful Character Backstory Clichés in Dungeons & Dragons 5e
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ส.ค. 2024
- MONSTERS OF DRAKKENHEIM is 300+ pages of eldritch horror inspired monsters for 5e by the Dungeon Dudes! Coming to Kickstarter March 26th, 2024: www.kickstarter.com/projects/... We take a look at some of the most cliche backstory tropes that players use in Dungeons and Dragons, we discuss what to watch out for, and how you can make them work for you.
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TIME STAMPS
0:00 - intro
1:30 - Overview
3:18 - My Family Is Dead!
8:06 - A Bad Motivator
12:48 - Storied History
16:43 - The Lone Wolf
19:49 - Perfectly Boring Person
24:54 - In Conclusion (Wrap Up)
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A bit of strange audio at 4:00 in. Seems to be a small glitch but it's only for about 30 seconds. Our apologies!
Was hoping you would start singing Phil Collins, but I rolled a 2.
Thanks for the heads up
Monty just has the voice of a God. No glitch there.
Robot voice module: Engaged.
Monty voice glitch is my tragic backstory. Now I'm on a quest to find out what haopened
"my parents are dead"
my 80 year old barbarian: well obviously
Hey!
I've got a 81 year old fey-pact human warlock (Louise).
@@brennag7962 elderly characters are the greatest. Especially charismatic ones
Cohen the Barbarian??
@@questionalatbest1827 yeah nice grandma is the beat
@@kmacgregor6361 The first hero stole fire from the gods. It's only fitting that the last hero return it.
‘Both of my parents are dead!’
‘Well that’s a little clich-‘
‘b e c a u s e i k i l l e d t h e m’
You should read Hush's backstory from Batman
Alright Itachi calm down there
@viera THIS WAS MY INSPO
Not only men, women and children too!
Two players out of six in my campaign have this backstory, for different reasons of course lol
"My parents are dead!"
"Oh no, who killed them!?"
"They fell down a hole. It was 10 years ago. Also my village was destroyed."
"By the BBEG?"
"Nah, by a flooding river. Also I'm a lone wolf."
"Oooo edgy..."
"Nah I'm just socially awkward. I want to make friends but I'm like, super shy."
If this was fallout luck would be 1 (also 69 likes (nice))
Does BBEG stand for Big Bad Evil Guy?
@@windmage0168 Yes
@@windmage0168 Yes indeed,you guessed right in first try sir
@@skell6134 woohoo i am smort
I let a player do the “I’ve had epic planar adventures but I’m only level 3” thing once, because the setup was awesome. This was in 3.5, and during his adventures he had gotten level-drained down to lvl 3 by necromantic magic, and the rest of his party killed. Now his memory is so damaged by the attack that he can only remember pieces of it, and he loses his Paladin faith. He lives for 30 years as a humble village blacksmith, trying to forget the old days.
Then a new group of adventurers rise in the village, and he sees himself and his friends in them. He hears the call of his deity deep in his chest for the first time in 30 years. He takes his old gear out of a long-locked chest, reforges the broken pieces-no longer magical but still good steel. This is his second chance, his last chance, and he will protect these bright-eyed youngsters as he could not protect his friends. He swears, with every swing of the hammer: he. Will. Atone.
And yes, the Obi Wan Kenobi is strong in this one.
That's awesome. May his oath be restored and his atonement true.
That sounds BADASS
Yo this is dope
I love that.
One of our DMs started a campaign with all of the player characters meeting at an NPC's funeral. Everyone had a backstory about how they knew the deceased. Thus, the party was formed and the adventure began.
I like it. It doesn’t have to be a revenge story but it could be. Characters know they need to get stronger so they quest together till the beat the bbeg.
Currently DMing a campaign with that exact setup. It’s been great so far, especially insofar as the PCs feel built into the setting with NPC connections.
We had this in our current game. Our uncle/great uncle /family friend respectively died and was lord of a country. Our job to fix it and retake the throne.
Is that Cellar of death?
That's freaking cool
"Your level 3 character did not go to the upper planes, aquire an angel's sword, and challenge orcus to a duel."
You are correct, my real backstory is my character is full of crap
Had a Bard that truly believed he was actually a Great Old One that had been mind-altered by his greatest rival. Of course... it would sound crazy to anyone else, so he kept his truth to himself.
Yeah... he was totally delusional... He ended up multiclassing into Warlock because he ended up making a pact with an actual Great Old One by accident (he thought he was just reconnecting with parts of his former self).
Bruh, that's kinda brilliant. Just a low level character hyping themselves up to get jobs.
The Sniper King returns...
Omg that would be such a cool character, like a dude whos like famous, i slayed houndreads of dragons and is full of it
Lmao when one of my players presented his lvl 1 fighter as such, I told him how it doesn’t make sense. He promptly added compulsive liar to his character sheet.
My human wizard grew up hearing his mom tell stories about his father being an amazing wizard and wanted to be just like him. He taught himself magic and set out to help people after his mom passed away.
The twist is that his mom made up those stories about his dad who was just a regular commoner that died before he was born.
That reminds me of Will Treaty in the Ranger’s Apprentice
Reminds me of “Water Boy”
@@a.morphous66 FINALLY. SOMEONE SAYS WILL TREATY!
It's been years of not finding anyone that knows what that is TwT i finally found one
@@a.morphous66 damn you're right
As a DM, I love "lone wolves" because you can totally play into the power fantasy and give them cool fluff to do. I like to let them scout ahead and stealth kill a single guard or two. Then I'll confront them with a trap, lock, or obstacle that one of the other party members can open. Then they have to get the party involved in the adventure, making the lone wolf almost like a NPC hook. Let's say the lone wolf is a ranger looking to slay an orc captain, but he tracks the captain down to a cave with a mystical lock that the wizard may be able to crack. He groans and heads back to the party. Now the ranger has to ask for help and maybe learns a little something about teamwork.
this is good DMing, support the fantasy they want, and help them into the fantasy group they're in :) bravo
I love this idea.
This works until you end up with a genuinely selfish player with MCS (main character syndrome).
I literally had to remove a player from my group because they were an eternal lone wolf.
The problem I have is that players at the table often don't communicate with each other in character i.e. when the lone wolf finds that trap, he just walks back to the group and then the group moves towards the trap to "disarm it" even though our lone wolf didn't directly TELL them it was there. My players don't roleplay with each other like that, not even to relay important information to their adventuring group. Short of telling my players "your character doesn't know that" I don't really know how to get them to actually talk to one another.
Yeah, you might think this is fun. The rogue might think it's fun. But i hope you asked your other player if they think it's fun. Because if you are doing this often... then you have multiple other players that are sitting there doing nothing while you and the lone wolf are playing dnd without them.
Character: "I never knew my mother, she died before I was born..."
Group: "Awwwwwwww."
DM: "Wait, how is that even possible?"
Character: "I ask myself that every day..."
Technically Speaking, The Mother Could Have Passed Away And The Baby Could Have Been An Emergency C-Section And Technically "Born" Afterwards Sooooo Yeah.
Time stop?
@@TheEternalLightning
Character: "A perverted necromancer was insistent that the child within her womb was still rightfully his so he performed an emergency C-section on her corpse to ensure his heir would have a life that he never had....he "raised" me right."
DM: ...."bruh." :-/
How's that a for a parental backstory? ;)
@@brandonk8948 well thats kinda interesting
@@brandonk8948 *Puts Away My Gnome Necromancer Bard Backstory Thats Eeriely Similar* Yeahhhh Exactly xD
My character:
• killed a Mindflayer,
• Laid a dragon
• Fist fought a dragon,
• Out drank a giant
• Knocked out a beholder with one punch
•has super cool laser eyes
• and is a pathological liar.
O H
and oop
at level 1.
@@Szadek23 oh, obviously
I think you buried the lead there
Unknown to two players in a game, I had set it up where one had killed the others parents. It was quite a moment when they both figured it out.
I NEED to hear this story !!!!
Oh god this is evil. Love it.
@@jfduug4994 One was a former bandit who gave up his ways after a gruesome raid on a town. He went on to become a paladin. The other was a rogue who's parents were killed during a massacre by bandits.
@@friendlygiant2314 holy fuck, the *drama*
not sure if I should be in awe, or horrefied
“My family is dead because the dm tricked me into murdering them one by one” -my first d&d character
My parents are dead ...killed by the reckless actions of another band of adventurers.
yeay . . . .that sounds horrible and awesome at the same time
…Hercules?
@@laserfork7840 Kratos
Oedipus
I'm an angry orphan, a lone wolf anti-social type that would rob my friends in their sleep. I've enslaved Demogorgon as my familiar and made love to angels while falling from Mt. Celestia. Armies run at the sound of my name and kings lay their crowns at my feet.
...
Level 1 fighter.
Dude seriously. People really trying to be legends before they get out of "I got mortally wounded by a swarm of rats" tier
That's the thing I never understood about the folk hero background from the PHB. Like, if I am a folk hero, shouldn't I be at least level 5?
You jest, but I once had a player character with a backstory which basically amounted to what you wrote here.
@@goliathcleric not really, a name can be legend for good deeds, musical talent... and most level 1 adventurerers are still above average people anyway.
Then there's always one shots and higher level adventures, where it suits fine.
@@jacoblynn6394 My level 2 Tempest Cleric just got dropped by 4 Giant Rats because I was holding spell slots for the next encounter. Crit. Crit. Good night.
“I traveled to the Higher Planes, proved myself worthy to a Solar by defeating him and received his sword. I then challenged Orcus to a duel and defeated him. I saved the world and became a Hero-King”
*gets killed by rats in the first session*
Should have gathered for Whiskey and Cigars that night instead.
to be fair that must have been a hell of a dream
@@Dafuqinator7 Indeed, I believe so.
Bed time stories you told your child, your child that went missing one day.
Ah yes, the pathological liar character flaw
"Both of my parents are dead."
"Ha! Heard that one a million times before."
"They killed each other over their lesson plan for me. It was a pretty epic duel; they both got kinda carried away. Their spirits are pretty happily chilling back at the ol' family cottage."
Ancestral barbarian?
My parents are dead too. They were shot from a crossbow, right on my seventh birthday. They gifted me a crossbow.
One thing that actually was a lot of fun was going against cliché. I was in a party where everyone had lost family or had a horribly dysfunctional family. Then there was me. A nobleman whose entire was still alive and well. We were on speaking terms with each other, and none of us tried to kill each other (sibling rivalry doesn't count!). The worst that happened was my family quasi-disowned me because as a cleric I became an Arcana domain cleric instead of following Pelor. The awkwardness made some interactions absolutely hilarious.
"wow.... this is awkward. My family life seems positively divine in comparison."
The character im currently doing (for a dystopian/cyberpunkesque world) lost her parents because of a group of fanatics that hate people with prosthetics, but she doesn't really want revenge because while she has imposter syndrome (aka she believes its her fault), she also knows her parents werent really great parents anyways, while they weren't assholes, they certainly werent good parents neither
To quote a DnD tiktok I saw, "You're level 1! Your back story should be about how you got tired of planting turnips!"
😂😂😂😂😂😂
I shall use this.
Except you are proficient with some kind of weapon, which essentially suggests that you have at least training or some experience. If you were just leaving the turnip farm you would have no proficiency with weapons unless you were some kind of prodigy.
@@nathanthom8176 plot twist: the weapon is a hoe
@@mariaschneider8181 and you're on a quest to get back your prize turnip before the Harvest festival.
The last time I was a player, not a DM, everyone at the table had some sort of tragic sob story loner background except me. I deliberately played a Dragonborn paladin who was raised by two well adjusted parents who were I fact still alive. Everyone thought it was stupid until midway through the campaign when we needed the insight of a powerful magic user and I chimed in... well, we could always go visit my mother. They were like, your mom was a high level wizard this whole time?!
Imagine thinking having a light hearted backstory is bad.
Also their reaction 😂
@@matttale7918 well, to be fair, normally a well adjusted person with a happy childhood and early adulthood is not someone that you would to expect to be an adventurer. It can be done obviously, but it is rare for someone who is happy to go fight dragons and other powerful enemies.
@@hokutoulrik7345 True, But it’s also not unbelievable that someone well off would want to experience hardship or prove themselves capable of adventuring.
Hell, you could do the bilbo baggins route and join a party cuz some folks need your help.
@@matttale7918 this is true.
@@hokutoulrik7345 You'd think that but every year well adjusted people with happy childhoods and adulthoods risk their life for no reason climbing Mount Everest, so.
Prince Zuko is the absolute best pop culture character i can think of that suits the "my dad is an emperor" backstory in a way that still allows for a player character to go through a campaign and develop and improve along the way. A prince in exile, mistrusted by both the enemies of his nation and the citizens of it. Despises his father but also seeks to prove himself to him. Brilliant character motivation and would be a great character in D&D
Ya know, I thought I was making a really cool, semi unique backstory for my Leonin cleric. A fallen prince forced into exile, by his father who he despises, yet still earns for his approval
Your comment made me realize I just wrote Zuko as a lion
Fuck, I think I just realized I made my character Zuko without realizing it. Abusive father he once sought to make proud, but abandoned once he realized that he wasn't the kind of person his father wanted him to be. Only difference is that his mother is still alive, but she was turned into an archfey through magical fuckery and trapped in the feywild
I also accidentally made my character Zuko with the whole “banished and the requirement for coming home is finding this powerful entity who nobody has seen for generations and might not even be real”
Just letting you know that Zuko's mother may or may not have that exact same fate, except the part about living in the feywild, she's more 'finally free to live her life away from Ozai and all of the trauma'.
Now I want to create an older character whose real backstory is like Uncle Iro but the one he tells people is him getting his own tea shop.
What everyone should understand is that:
1- Tropes are tools to be used, nothing more, nothing less.
2- Cliches are merely overused tropes.
3- A trope that is overused must be so for a reason, it might not be a good one, but more often than people would like to admit it is.
"That's a cool cliché...are you actually going to do something interesting with it or are you just looking to be a pizza cutter character?" (all edge, no point)
Yea like stereotypes
Yeah for the character type i am doing i didnt really have a way to avoid a few cliches here, since our campaign is based on the Project Moon series, which is a dystopian cyberpunk-esque world with a few _totally not_ scps and a lot of classical literature "plagiarized" characters. Very dear people dying and everything in your life sucking is pretty much a unavoidable stample here
Something that's worked for me: replace "I left because my family were killed" with "I left because my family were dickheads" and the DM has way more stuff to throw at you.
If you are doing an evil campaign, your parents are dead and you were the one that killed them
Or “I killed one of my parents by accident and now my family uses my banishment as an excuse to hate me”
"I left because my family were dickheads" is actually a really good excuse, possibly even better than "I left because my family were killed" because then why didn't you just leave the investigation and chasing up to the police, or use your inheritance or something to hire some assassins to kill the murderer? Plus, I've met a lot of LGBTQ people (especially on tumblr) who were more willing to face homelessness and struggle for a job in a bad economy than face their awful family, so in my opinion "I left home because my family were dickheads" is actually a better argument. You could add that you were the Cinderella in your family, and now that you've run away they're trying to legally hunt you down and are telling everyone else you've been kidnapped etc. Again, I've seen people irl do this unfortunately.
Ooooooh, you know what, I might just do this. :D
My cleric. “I ran away from home because my father is a dick, he might as well be dead because fuck him,”
My Player: My family is dead.
Me, DM, behind the screen in my notes: Your family faked their deaths and abandoned you because you're too much of an Edgelord, got it.
My family is dead and I adventure to track down the killer and exact vengeance.
The twist; I killed my family. By adventuring I stay ahead of the law and draw attention away from my crime.
It's not edgy to want to roleplay as a character with no family. Most people tend to idealize themselves in fantasy as being orphans or coming from something which doesn't exist anymore, because it gives them a tabula rasa to start fresh.
@@HamsterPants522 Right. Superman's entire civilization is dead, and he's still pretty cheerful.
@@strangeyoungman Superman is fucking based
@@strangeyoungman But then there’s batman...
I've found that DM's who abuse the 'hooded enemy that turns out to be a family member' trope is the cause of so many orphaned adventurers.
Or just kills theme off the first chance they get I had that happened so mine times it got very boring.
Favorite of my character backstories. I was playing a pair of goblins(a monk and a rogue) that could work in tandem during combat They used to be a bugbear until they met some undefined magical creature in combat that turned him into two goblins. They go around in public one on the others shoulders under a long coat to try and pass as a single character.
I did the same coat thing with a pair of dwarves who deserted their posts in the army, and are convinced everyone they meet is out to kill them as retribution (they’re really stupid)
singer3188 that is a super-cool backstory - I love it! What I’m curious about is how did your monk half of the goblin team get their training to be a monk? That could be a very interesting part of the story as well. Is there a goblin monastery out there somewhere or did some type of mentor monster monk train you? 🧐👿😁
2 goblins in a trenchcoat is always fun.
ah another classic cliche
2-3 small creatures in trench coat
"Is very strange. I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it's over, I don't know what to do with the rest of my life."
-Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride
I guess the moral of the story is that piracy is always an option.
Let's be honest, Princess Bride is one big DnD game
Have you ever considered piracy? You'd make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts.
@@Fektthis stole my thunder 😆
I just gave you your 1000 thumbs up. You're welcome.
Also, the Princess Bride was awesome and can fuel anyone's imagination.
My character is just a person who needs to pay off wizard school debt
Mine worked in a lumber mill until he lost his leg in a log jam. Now he works as a city guard, because a big fat guy with a wooden leg is good at blocking a gateway and it doesn't matter if he can't run fast. Super epic.
I legit had a group that consisted of not just a wizard trying to pay back student loans, but also: a Dwarf Fighter going through a midlife crisis who decided to live his fantasy of being a Warrior, a Cleric who acted like the stereotypical Bard (ie. Fucking anything with two legs) so much that he got kicked out of his own temple and they actively want him dead and a Rogue that only stole shit because it's the only thing he's good at (his skills were all directed at being a burglar), so he decided to be pragmatic and just start stealing shit for cash. It was a fun time.
I.... I just have a human character the came from a tribe that lives in the highest peaks of mountains. I built the tribes religion around 4 demons; Demon of Lust, Demon of Death, Demon of Time, and Demon of Desire. Orphans found, produced but unwanted, or of a dead family in(of) the tribe are given to the Demons to be their servants. My character was born of the tribe, and their mother passed at their birth while his father had died on a failed hunting trip.
They were given to the Demon of Death, and the demon himself raised the human child, since the character was one of the very few orphans given to Death due to how rare orphans actually are at the mountain peak. They were raised to kill, but still care, as those under Death basically become his assassins as to try to kill those who continually make choices bringing them closer to Death. Add to the fact, he would "bless" his orphans with immortality if they killed a specific amount of people.
Alec, the character's name, doesn't really care about immortality, they just kills as to consume the person he killed. They're semi-cannabilistic, and enjoys food related challenges, and they claimthat immortality was just a plus as it allows him eat for as long as he wanted to. I actually had Alec sell a pair of legs of another Player's character, cause Alec told the purchaser it was a a delicacy from the Mountain peaks, though in reality Alec knew that if you didn't know how to cook Demi-human meat you would end up deleting an entire town, but they didn't say anything because it's Indirect Direct assassination thus getting him closer to eternal life of food. They're just staying close to the group because of a Player's dwarf character Alec calls "Fat Pig" who promised them that he'd help them get the LARGEST creature in existence to eat, though he does threaten to eat the dwarf on several occasions. Also, Alec also tried eating said Demihuman in a BBEG one-shot event one time before nearly being killed by the BBEG of the event, while being blamed to be The BBEG.
I don't know how far I could have gone with Alec, since I couldn't make it to the campaign all the time and then the Quarantine happened. I'll probably join a different one in the future and continue to use Alecai (their full name, I just like saying Alec) till I have to replace them with a different character in a campaign. Though, they have nearly died on several occasions due to a physical condition, Brittle Bones, I always ask for hp damage for Alec if they do things that that would warrant bones snapping, cause things do get wacky in DnD.
My character is also trying to pay off their debt... to a tutor who was actually a hag, and who taught her enough magic to graduate. So she’s a Wizard! Totally! A diploma and everything. Definitely not a Warlock, that’d be crazy.
I’ve got a few, some as concepts and others I’ve actually played:
- A goblin ranger who’s a raging alcoholic and is generally depressed because she feels inadequate and compares herself constantly to her family’s achievements, and thus is trying to prove herself, all the while ignoring the actual praises of her peers because she just doesn’t feel she’s good enough.
- A human bard who was orphaned at a young age, lost both his biological parents to bandits, but through his mother’s determination, was delivered to a gnome artificer so that he may have someone to call family, and family he became, being raised in absolute kindness, as well as becoming incredibly smart and musically gifted, though also very eccentric. He also has the spirit of a Tiefling wizard hovering him at all times, because he was a little dumb at one point and put on a cursed bracer that housed that spirit, but they’re on okay terms with one another.
- A Fire Genasi barbarian who’s on the search for his mother, the genie, as well as a quest to redeem himself, he was imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, but a different crime he actually committed went under the radar, and he’s trying to repent for his actual crime.
Our DM actually asked me when I was first discussing my background (Changeling Assassin Rogue Guild Merchant) if I would be okay if he incorporated my backstory into the first arc. I had asked to be a tinkerer in the clockwork guild by day but a 'fixer' for the guild by night. By pure coincidence, our plot was going to be a Changeling Guild Master (basically the empire's lead artificer, his Changeling nature a big secret) who was hiring people to fix magical anomalies across the land. Now, I work as his daughter and lead engineer by day, but his agent by night. The premise of the campaign is that he's hired the party to help me with the anomalies because I can't do it myself. The anomalies we are investigating are in the hometown of two other PC's who represent rival factions wanting in on the investigation, and he's conscripted a clockwork sorcerer PC from the guild. We have one more character we haven't touched on their backstories yet, but the DM has so far incorporated our backgrounds really well into the plot and it's very refreshing. The plot isn't *about* my rogue or the other PC's; it's about these anomalies. But because of their backstories they're heavily compelled to participate in the plot.
DM: "And what about your parents? Are they still alive?"
Me: "Yes."
DM: "Oh, wow! Umm okay. Also does your character find the person that released the plague that killed half you village?"
Me: "I don't know, we'll see."
That is when I knew my DM loved me.
Best backstory-
“I just wanted money... So I left home to get a job”
Twist: "I wanted money to pay for an addiction to pizza I have... So I left home to get a job so I have money to last for the rest of my life."
Nah, the best backstory is choosing to be a homeless adventurer because participating in a society is too depressing.
Hmmm... I was just about to write a Master Baker Tiefling warlock that is in a pact with the eldritch cookeh monster!
@@HamsterPants522 so what you are saying is that... We live in a society
@@carso1500 No, society is a spook. lmao
One of my players is an orphan (alcoholism and cancer) and his character's backstory has a big happy family...
OUCH
I have divorced parents and my characters also usually have happy families, sooooo maybe it's just wanting what you don't have.
@@kittyplayz1480 Nat 20 to your feels. I was super nervous to DM as his family NPCs the 1st time.
>mfw I discover that I unknowingly wanted to be kidnapped from my family and be a slave until a loving couple would buy me and take care of me as their son
My girlfriend is a player in my campaign and her parents have also passed. She made a character whose parents are dead and when i asked her why she said "im playing what i know" turns out tears come in all shapes and sizes
Guess they want something, they dont have.
Monty soullessly staring into my eyes, occasionally flashing me a practiced customer service smile, whenever Kelly speaks is an interesting vibe.
Time Stamps
0:00 sponsor
1:11 Intro
3:19 My Family is Dead!
8:06 A bad motivator
12:50 Storied History
16:42 The Lone Wolf
19:50 Perfectly Boring Person
24:54 conclusion
comment for the algorithm this is very important
underrated
Goated comment.
Thank god
5 awful character back story cliches.
Me - oh goodie. Now I can put them all together for my next pc to have the ultimate terrible back story.
No, you’ll create a rift in the space-time continuum!! 🕳
And it will be the best backstory among all players.
Seems to be the goal of most players lately.
My family is all dead, I don't care and have no desire to avenge them, they were also rich so I don't need money. I used that money to create an ancient, unstoppable artefact, and use it to win the great war that threatened to destroy all the planes and slay the Devil king Asmodeus. I'm very antisocial and hate people, I can't take orders and don't play well with others. Despite this, I have no flaws and have never made a mistake in my life, everyone else around me is always wrong.
@@Neutral_Tired sounds like an egomaniac with nothing separating realaity from fantasy.
When I learned to play d and d, my first character was a fugitive rogue. He traveled the land to scape justice for the terrible crime of... tax evasion.
You monster
Don't say the t-word!
😂now that is a good backstory.
so you were wesley snipes
That’s hilarious and awesome! Taxation is theft btw.
My favorite of my character's backstories is one of a recent divorcee sorceress. And the divorce was more awkward than acrimonious since the marriage was arranged and she and her spouse simply *did not* get along on a day to day basis. Left me with:
1. A reason to go adventuring (new life, fresh start, etc.)
2. A reason to generally stick with the party (it's not like she was a career adventurer to start; going alone would be dumb)
3. A set of villains for the DM to call on (just because her spouse took the divorce okay didn't mean her former in-laws were; they were looking forward to sorcerer grandbabies!)
I had a character named Chef Bob in Pathfinder that was an alchemist that studied gastronomy and would thematically incorporate food into all of his spells and abilities. He even had a trio of goblin sous chefs that would run his restaurant while he was away.
I did something similar. Well, when I say similar, I mean he was a great chef. Granted, he was also a stab-happy noble that regularly added questionable ingredients, but the premise at it's core is still there.
Favourite backstory to date: Elderly gnome with 3 dead husbands, and a whole load of descendants constantly checking in, runs away from home to have an adventure before she croaks while being persued by relatives eager to drag her back home
"Edna! Get back here, you forgot your medication!!"
"To hells with the damn medication, I'm gonna go slay a dragon!"
@@wistfuloptimist1238 Circle of the moon druid. Goes from frail 400+ years old crochety person to ELEMENTAL.
My barbarian friend carried me around for a while :P
Bilbo Baggins in LOTR
We all need that grandma
Why does this remind me of don quiote
If you have a lot of players with dead families in their backstories, then have them all grow up in the same orphanage.
My friends and i rolled for backstories using Xanathar's guide, and all 3 of us ended as orphans. I grew up in an orphanage run by a priestess of Hestia while the other two were raised (separately) in the military after a recent war. XD
Oh mannnn it would be like a gaggle of siblings adventuring together, that's awesome!!! xD
We are just starting one like this, a continuation of an old champion where th ed rescued n freed orphans
That's a great idea. If you need inspiration for what kind of camaraderie that can create go play/ watch the Sly Cooper series of games.
Yup, did this with my character, she grew up an orphan in a library ran by a high ranking scholar, also where she met/grew up with her future bf.
We once started a campaign where all of us play as heirs to rich nobles (except for a one runaway slave and a tavern owner) attending a royal banquet. Man, was that chaotic... The ridiculously exaggerated accents, the plot twists, assassination of the king involving our families, war between kingdoms, totally unnecessary humiliation to our half-elf slave rogue, and the unexpected growth of our bard's tavern business which weirdly enough, eventually became a theater and became the most successful source of income in the entire nation.
My favorite thing that’s happened with a “bad motivator” character was that he literally got tied up and dragged along by the rest of the party.
"I was initially a turtle who drank radioactive waste and turned into a monk turtle who knows martial arts." Wait, that sounds familiar.
An uplifted turtle monk? Run it.
@@TimeLord675 One tiny problem. I have no friends.
COWABUNGA DUDES!
I'm a dragonblooded Tortle Sorcerer. I am the heir to my Tortle kingdom, and was raised by the court wizard, but ran away to prove myself worthy. There's a nearby human princess I've captured a few times to kill time, and my rivals are two brothers who service the aqueduct of that kingdom who have foiled me several times.
By favorite spells are Cone of Fire, Burning Hands, Enlarge Person on myself, and I have a monk level to punch fools, and a barbarian level to help me bench press the average ox and for flavor. I convinced the DM to let me trade the wings I should get from dragon blood, in exchange for armor spikes on my shell. I have very high Strength and Con for a sorcerer.
Bwahahaha.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 That is actually the very first character I ran with 5e's new setting. Except I traded the wings for earthglide.
I once played with a dude whose bard character claimed to be an apprentice to Elminster, a guide to Volo and having done business with Mirt the moneylender.
His background stated he knocked on elminster's door and was told to bugger off, he carried Volo's bags in the docks for a copper or two, and he got thrown some change by Mirt in his hat while busking on the streets.
He played his scoundrel persona excellently.
Was he Volo's Guide to Monsters? :-D
Alright, that's clever.
@@arthilas_ in the flesh =)
To be fair he's probably knows Volo. Volo is a mostly useless asshat who knows practically everyone in the Forgotten Realms.
@@GracieLizzy my players learned that after completing chapter 1 of dragon heist
19:30 I AGREE WITH THIS SO MUCH, I was a foolish child making an edgy character who "doesn't want to get attached" back then, but he ended up having a soft spot for a fellow party member and he ended up being a goofy protective mess lmao, he's my favorite character now. After all people who are lonely tend to not want to be alone anymore, right?
I mean the lone wolf that got soft is still a cliché, but it's a way more fun cliché in a team game than the edgy loner.
Welcome to the club 😔
I played a goblin who was separated from her family when she was young, so long that she doesn't know who her real parents were. She was adopted by an elvan traveling potion maker and learned alchemy under him. He became her father figure despite the race difference, showing that family is not by blood, but by bond and love. My DM didn't explore the missing parents part, but I think it was for the better
"My wife and daughter are dead!"
"Okay, well you still have-"
"The rest of my family killed them."
And THAT'S a interesting backstory
I took that base for my hexadin.the goddess he works for was venerated by the cultist who killed her loved ones
Thanks, i am stealing that for my next PC LOL
"my sister! Good to see you again! It has been so much ti-"
*she pulls out a knife*
"le fuck ?"
This was almost my real life backstory
"The goal of the Lone Wolf... is to not be a Lone Wolf anymore." That's pretty awesome.
or just attact them to a character who does work well with the group (basically make them the introvert adopted by an extrovert friend).
The chad paladin and a virgin rogue
It's honestly the best way to play one of those characters. There's nothing wrong with being the lone wolf if that's just a character trait and not the only defining element of a character. Having seen a good lone wolf character play out before in a campaign I ran once it's always heartwarming watching the distrusting and brooding character open up slowly, make a friend and eventually become a better person after finally facing whatever problems they're dealing with.
I love this so much.
@@WTFproductions0523 facts.
Backstories I've used: On the run because my alterego killed everyone in my class in an experiment that went horribly wrong.
A minor prince ritually exiled by his people for being to old and going senile. Now only looking for a glorious death
A barbarian only looking to take care of his totem magical beast. Unfortunately, his magical totem is crazy wild
A child is delivered by undead shades to a monastery, he grows up realizing that life in the monastery is not for him
A crusader from the real world boards the last ship after the fall of crusader kingdoms of the levant. His ship flounders in a strong storm and he wakes up in a strange and magical land
I had a character with a dead family but he already had figured it all out and became a mentally healthy person. So he eventually became a bard helping out people in need when they wanted help because he was the only person who could relate
When your Rogue's mother died of natural causes, leaving him with his awkward dorky gnome step dad
I love this
Six seasons and a movie
My (elf) rogue was adopted by a circus, and only left because there was a curse/disease that makes him age normally like a human
You can resume this with: "Remember there's other people at the table playing with you, including the GM. Your fun shouldn't come at the expense of theirs"
The last campaign I ever participated in was nearly 10 years ago. We had the following backstories:
Human bard Ren- Had just received journeyman status from the Bard's College and wanted to have the kind of epic adventure that he could write an epic song about.
Goliath barbarian Ecksagal Stonebreaker- Came from a village that enjoyed centuries of prosperity partially due to an alliance with halflings. He had worried that after an incursion with bandits that peace had made them soft and vulnerable. He left his wife and baby daughter to seek out the wealth, experience, and notoriety necessary to make sure his village would never become victims.
Half-elf wizard Margus- After learning his first spell he was filled with a hunger to know more but also with the wisdom to know that such power had consequences. He was deeply concerned with preserving "the balance." As a result he was true neutral.
Halfling cleric Jardin- His entire village was wiped out by a, at the time of him joining, unknown force. He was narrowly saved by paladins who had seen the smoke plumes. He was brought back to the temple and raised by the High Abbot. He had read every book in their library by the time of his joining the party and the High Abbot wanted him to join the party so he could see the ills and good of the world and decide what the best way to help people was.
Tiefling rogue Chara- Initially her past and motivation was not known. Rogues am I right? Except she was in fact Princess Chara Falligrin of the the Sapphire Throne. She was next in line for the throne when her mother decided to step down, it was a matriarchal monarchy. She had slipped away because she needed to see the land she was destined to rule. She left a note for her mother and father before leaving the city in the night. She needed to be the one to decide when or if she would finally become queen.
And we were all level 1 from the start. Except Jardin who joined later and was given level 3 status.
A princess gone rogue (literally!).
I love it!
For the "My parents are dead" cliche that was one of the first thing i tried to make sure i didnt do when making my character its generally easier to just say "my parents are dead feel bad for me" which is why i kinda did the opposite my character is motivated to just pay off a incredible debt that his parents have stacked up. i like the debt thing because it gives me a better reason for why i became an adventurer.
Got drunk, got married, got sober.....ran like hell. Became an Outlander. I am now hunted by her 4 brothers to bring me back to my -3 Charismatic Wife.
Lmao
Are you sure you aren't playing Loki?
@@HuchiaZ I doubt he has 3 children that are all humanoid beasts that have the sole purpose to destroy the world lmao
Hahah... run... run...
@@thatonebabygoat8503 could be before he meets the wild woman to have said beasty children.
Fleshsmith meets the party: "Are you the ones _delivering_ the spare parts I requested, or _are_ you the spare parts I requested? I'd rather not make that mistake again."
*writing character backstory based on this*
@@baxterbruce9827 Haunted One or absented-minded Frankenstein?
@@gyrrakavian I was thinking something closer to the second one (I have way too many characters and literally no chances to play them *sigh*)
@@baxterbruce9827 Tell me about it. Same.
I just came up with a way to explain having a Simic Hybrid in Fayerune (escaped Mindflayer test subject) and she's loosely based on Newt from _Aliens._
Then, there's my harpy abjuration wizard (Quilynn Ashfeather), my Southern gentleman ghostwise halfling bard (Jonah Highhill), and my shadow sorcerer tabaxi (Fish heads).
@@gyrrakavian I have a Dragonborn Barbarian that wants to be a great chef (I have a name written down, but I don't remember his last name), an Aasiamar Bard whose DAD has one of those absurd backstories and he just wanted to be a musician but no one would leave him alone ("I made love to an angel as I fell from Mt. Celestia" kind of backstory), I have a Wizard (Actually, I made two versions of this character, the other is a Warlock, I might make a Sorceror version too, but anyway) that grew up in a town where magic is taboo and he finally left his home and now wants to see all the magic the world has to offer
Oh,and I tried making a class without using any of the class's levels, Paladin wasn't that hard
One of my favorite characters I played was York, a ditzy sheepkin Druid with a dead dad. He was a farm boy who was kinda stupid and naive. The twist is, he was a pathological liar. After his father’s death, York and his mother were left with massive amounts of death. His only option was to work for a crime lord behind his mother’s back, and this gets his kidnapped at the beginning of the campaign. It was really fun playing this character, especially when he was interacting with the other party members. The duality of his character (being a ditzy and slow farm boy but also a mysterious thief) was so fun to play around with.
crime and sheep, sounds like living in York in real life
I thrive on making characters with alive but flawed families. I had one sad dad character who’s wife left with the kids pre campaign, and when we ran into them during the campaign it was a great RP opportunity! My current character has coddling over protective parents, but due to a curse forcing my character to kill something with a soul every day, he had to leave in order to avoid the risk of killing them and others in his remote village.
If you're gonna do the "my parents are dead" cliche, I would recommend trying the Superman route. Clark Kent lost his biological family, but grew up with loving human parents, so the guy never knew what it meant to be an orphan. And even though he carries the weight of surviving Krypton's death, he still has parents who he'd consider parents, even if they didn't give birth to them.
Great advice! That adds a lot of depth and story telling potential to work with. Sounds like an Aasimar or Tiefling might fit well here.
That or only kill off one of the parents. Leads to fun drama with how the death affected the relationship between the character and the living parent.
@@JNJTabletop I can say with confidence it does, indeed, work very well for an aasimar. Because I definitely did it for my protector aasimar paladin; left in a small town temple by her birth parents for reasons at level 15 are still unknown. She was taken in and raised by a human couple (though they already had a bunch of kids, just to be not so obviously Ma & Pa Kent).
It's hard to avoid dead or missing parents with the Urchin background. I'm playing an urchin at the moment and even though he has no idea what happened to his parents, it's not a motivation. He had fun growing up on the streets and becoming a rogue with his Fagin-like parental figure.
Well it's a whole lot better than the batman route.The last thing we need is another brooding person who is antisocial because his parents died.
Playing a non-edgy rogue is so fun. Character had a fairly nice childhood, parents are still alive, and he’s neutral good (doesn’t like stealing from innocents and unnecessary killing). Subclass is arcane trickster so he reads a lot and always talks about becoming a great wizard even though he’s not great at it. He’s also a bit of a coward that heavily relies on his allies to encourage him. Basically, instead of a depressed, edgy, yolo, and criminal rogue he’s a happy, normal, coward, and only wants to help people and become a famous hero.
Robin hood but cooler?
David Vitale not cool lol. I played him as easily creeped out and very nervous with most, even obviously easy, encounters.
@@Bigryguy95-epic neat
Lol, yeah, I've had a lot of fun playing light-hearted rogues. I styles one after Rufio from Hook, there was my running attempt to play Rogue who worked for the church of The, God of Justice.
My favorite one, though, was my Human Rogue, Clint. Grew up in a small Hamlet as the 8th of 9 children, (all alive at start of game). Decent enough life, his family was one of the more prosperous families, a nice quiet life if he wanted it.
Why is adventuring? Well, the whole things boils down to that life just not being for him, until one day, as he's running around, he came across SE old ruins and saw his first dungeon. It was love at first delve, and so now he's obsessed with traveling the world and finding lost relics, treasures and the like. Any treasure he didn't need he sent home (the DM kept track of this, and I got sidebarred finally at one point when the DM informed me that I'd sent some 10,000gp home, which would unbalance the home economy).
@@dragonstryk7280 neat backstory man
A third category of motivation: novelty. The character seeks novel experiences.
That's actually what I'm planning to do with my first character (though I do want a character arc that steers toward motivation category 2)
I got something like this going on. A celestial being who was fascinated with mortality and decided to give up his powers to live a mortal lifetime just for the sake of experiencing it. Except he has a very glamorized view of what life is and is oblivious to the harsher realities of loss, prejudice, suffering... So my main goal with him is to have him learn to actually appreciate life instead of having this glorified view of it.
It's always good if you're doing the dead family trope to think of other characters you might know. Like in one campaign literally all of us were orphans, but we had the woman who ran the orphanage, other people we grew up with, and we each had to make up a vague idea of someone we knew outside of this, and it worked!
"You're character probably isn't going to be a great hero right off the back"
Me: takes folk hero background
My barbarian Rook has that. He's not a hero in that he won many battles (even as a barbarian), he's a hero because he once spent several nights searching for kids lost in the woods, traveled a long distance to ask the clerics of the big city for help with a plague that'd hit his tribe, and I've had him mention something with a flooding river once but I haven't actually fleshed out what that particular story will be.
There's more ways to be a hero than killing things, even if those things are evil tyrants and terrible demons.
Oh no, a bunch of backwater villages think you are real neat :O
It could be of the "Jaynestown" variety?
Ah yes, the trickster
@@dinohansen5074 This is a perfect example of a folk hero. Jayne, as we know, is a greedy stooge. But the legend is greater than himself, and is tarnished by the revelation of who he really is. The story is of a level 20 gregarious hero, the reality: level 1 murder hobo.
The short version of this video: "Don't be so far up your character's ass that you forget you're at a table with other people, with their own characters and priorities, and you're supposed to be a team with them."
This actually helped me elaborate on my character so much! I was going to just go into the campaign and be like, “i dunno, my whole family is dead” but now I’ve decided that she helps her aunt and mother run a shop in a small town. Her dad died of a natural disease and the best friend was unfortunately mauled by a bear (and she watched as it happened) I’ve had a concept for it for a while and this really helped me develop it further as a new dnd player. Thank you so much!
The she in this context is my character Rena. Sorry for not adding that :)
has this panned out at all? I'm quite curious I like it
"A lone wolf that stays lone wolf is usually a villainous character that dies at the end."
Rey in Star Wars: *I pretend I didn't hear that*
Rey is one of the worst written characters of the past decade.
That quote is kind of against the antihero or edge type of character and is simply not true. There are plenty of hero type lone wolfs in fiction. It is just unproductive to play that character with other people as it makes DM job and everyone elses dificult. So save that type for your one on one gaming or writing and play with other players without being the edge lord.
pretty sure she makes a bunch of friends and allies.
@@vitezjura its not, anti heroes aren't lone wolves. they usually have very strong ties to someone or something that they fight to protect specifically.
fighting alone does not make someone a lone wolf.
being an anti hero seems generally more about using morally questionable methods than anything else.
@@wesleywyndam-pryce5305 Even if they have strong ties to someone or something they still usually work alone or are typically lone wolves. Examples of antiheroes: Snape from Harry Potter, Man with no name from Dollars trilogy (basically invented the antihero), Solid Snake from Metal Gear series, Batman from Tim Burton series, Kakashi from Naruto, Vegeta from DBZ. Antihero is just a hero with a little edge to it or a more realistic hero also a hero who does heroic things but doesn't always use heroic means.
RE: Flaws - Don’t be afraid to let your table run a few sessions even if people aren’t 100% on their characters yet. You may find that character traits, including motivations and flaws, may come out organically during play.
I had a female high elf ranger begin a level 1 campaign with “dead/missing parents” and no flaws. First time player, it’s all good. By just letting them play it out for a session or two, they became more comfortable and understood their own character better.
They eventually came upon a great roleplaying moment where, after a fight, they weren’t paying attention because they were chowing down on sweets. The famous line was, “After battle, I get snacky.” It fit the character so well I jumped up and yelled, “That’s your flaw! Write it down!”
Which led to another great moment where the party is being chased through the forest by wolves. The rogue takes a cunning action to scamper up a tree and hide, makes the roll and is like peace out. The cleric, clanging along in plate armor, yells, “For goddess’s sake, drop them some food!”
To which the ranger screams, “NOOOO! Not my snacks!!”
A bit silly, but also it sets up a scenario where the player character prized an item of low significance (food) against the lives of their party members. Textbook character flaw. And that was all completely organic at the table. Again, don’t be afraid to just let those sorts of things happen. You may be surprised.
loved this story!
Organic flaws are the best flaws. No GMOs in my character!
Very recently, While playing through Rise of Tiamat, my Elf Arcane Archer was frightened for the entire fight of our encounter with the first dragon (this worked out really well too, since my character was the only one to have not fought a dragon of the current party. RoT isn't the first campaign we've done with these characters). I've since made it a note that my character has an inherent fear of dragons, and doesn't want to touch them, and will avoid them as much as they can. Obviously still fighting them when needed, but more mundane scenarios like:
DM - "There's a dragon flying overhead"
me - "I run to the nearby forest and hide."
and avoiding the dragon corpses while our barbarian cuts out scales and teeth to sell/add to his necklace
This was never intended for the character, but sometimes a couple of bad rolls can lead you in a fun new direction for your character.
It's going to be very interesting in a couple levels when the draconic sorcerer in the party sprouts his wings in a couple levels, and my character who now has a fear of dragons has to see this.
A friend and his party also ran into some fun ordeals like this. They're playing through Curse of Strahd, and their paladin has an addiction to Dream Pastries (even after learning they're made with kids), and actively tries to steal them from his party-mates bags whenever he can. Again, this is the Paladin.
I can agree, my character in my brothers game, lives knowledge, to the point where he'll pretty do most anything to get it. In a town we were in he eaves dropped on quite a few people, and then inserted himself into the conversation to get info he wanted, so yeah he's not to good with personal space or values lol.
If you write "superhero" backstories with a level 1 character, you should play with a flaw called *LYING*
Omg, and the other party members have to figure out what's true, cause not everything they say is a lie.
@@WinterPains *finger guns*
May I introduce you to Helainthus Flüglemeier?
They once were the captian of a feared group of pirates, but were seperated from their crew while they were singlehandedly fighting off a dragon turtle.
At some point they lost their memories and joined the circus, where they learned to play the lute and began traveling the world.
Also, they aren't actually a tiefling, they used to be human and came from the future, where people have forgotten how to use magic and now he has to find a way back to his own time, but they are also the chosen champion of a god and have to stop the end of the world, by going on an adventure!
Or maybe they are really just a child, who was bored living in a small town with their loving (adoptive) parents, and one day just took the lute their mother had taught them to play, and left to travel the world for a few years...
We may never truely know...
or have someone who used to be legendary but something happened that crippled them or made them lose their power and they are trying to regain it
@@gorkroymorkins2023 That reminds me of the unnamed hero of a game series I used to love.
The guy essentially killed a god in the first game and the way they explained him starting from level 1 in the second game was that when he won, the entire temply they fought in collapsed onto him and he was buried in there for 2 weeks...
I had only ever done cliche backstories but was a little sick of it myself so when I made my Sorceress, I made her a noble and the eldest of 3 siblings, everyone intact. Her task was to go out into the continent and experience the world away from the keep so one day when she's older, she has the knowledge and power to run the estate when her parents pass. That is her father's wishes. And she's cool with that, very attached to her family and writing to them. I also felt I gave our DM something to work with there. What if something happens during the campaign? Lots to pick on for whatever he thinks he can incorporate? If he cares to at all : ) whatever! : D
Dead parents/family are a trope mostly because families tend to sit in one place, whether you're an adult or a child, if you're part of a family, you usually want to live and work somewhere close to them so you're never apart for long.
An easy fix for this is to have your character's motivation for adventure to be making a living to support their family.
I had a character's whose parents were dead. But here's the important part: _that wasn't all there was._
They were dead because this character was rather old. Making "dead parents" all your character is, that is the problem, I believe.
I have a gunslinger ( Ringo ) whose mother died during childbirth and his father raised him as an outlaw. As part of his backstory, Ringo was 16 and doing a bank robbery with his dad's gang, though Ringo was wounded in the midst of the robbery, while his dad and the gang left him for dead. Agreeing to work with the law in the capture of his dad's gang, which works out for Ringo due to the fact he was already going to set out for revenge, which he personally declared that as he watched his dad and old gang run off.
Yeah,i tend to do dead parents because most of the time i don't use it is the basic reason...but most of my characters instead of parents,have mentor figures,friends etc... The only one that had parents that matter...was a changeling that killed a noble and took her place.(I had just one character that had almost nothing...that was a vampire with 1000 years old. That most of her character was her blinded hatred for vampires...and the fact that she had nothing left in the world.
Hermon the great my current character in a friends campaign was a part of family of shifter nobles, his whole family is dead, the kicker here is I don’t know why, because he (and our bard) lost their memories. So for all I know I could’ve murdered themself.
I currently play a night elf arcane trickster that actually killed both of his parents at BIRTH because he has a curse that hexed people if they look into his eyes, and that he would pass out one day for every person sucsessfully hexed . They got their lungs turned into flowers. Apparently his mom didn't get cursed by a demon , but in fact she cursed her baby to kill the parents for leaving her cult of warlocks to find their tribe and losing their viginity(two big no no's in the cult). Now he's trying to find the person who cursed him and taking revenge for his dead parents and most of his tribe, unknowing that he killed them from turning their lungs into roses.
My barbarian's an old man who became an adventurer because he's an elf with only a 100 years left to live, he's a war veteran, and after his wife died he needs something to give him excitement.
My favorite "dead family" backstory came from my Rogue Swashbuckler. She grew up with her brother in an alternative religion (other people would uncharitably call it a cult) and longed to see the world outside their little commune. So she escaped, dragging her brother along with her. They took up service on a pirate ship as deckhands, but eventually her brother got into a fight with the captain and died at his hands. She blamed herself for having brought him along, for having dragged him onto the ship. After making an attempt on the captain's life she fled and actually took up her brother's name, intent on becoming as famous and well-known as possible so that the whole of Faerun would remember him. Outwardly, she's very charismatic and cheerful, but it's just to cover up the inner turmoil and hurt. Only the party members closest to her know the real story.
That's quality. Clear motivation, adversaries, plausible for level 1 character, and a little bit of a trauma scab for the DM to pick at if they want.
I'm using this in my game for an NPC! :) I am currently building my world. Let me know if you're interested in details- but this is a great!
@@Girlhead That's awesome! I'd like to hear them!
My last character was the child of two adventurers who fell in love and married, then settled down once they had collected enough loot. He had a good upbringing, and was sent on his first adventure with their blessing. I wanted to avoid the "orcs killed my parents" cliche. His goal: "Stealing coin and stealing hearts!" (He's a swashbuckler rogue)
Character backstory idea, have your characters parents be abusive instead of dead. It makes great conflict later on. Say the player sees their abusive father living in the streets and divorced, they have the conflict of: do I help him get back on his feet despite everything he did to me?
And of course in the end the party member can maybe decide that he wasn’t a great guy anyway, and the party is thier really faintly. It makes a nice emotional moment.
For my current Dragonborn Paladin, knew I wanted to play a slightly grizzled, experienced, older character...but we were starting at lv1.
So I gave him a backstory as a carefree knight (think fighter-bard) who ended up in a horrific folly adventure gone wrong. Most of his buddies were killed and he himself suffered an injury that left him near death for months. When our campaign opens, he’s recovered enough to start fighting again, a bit, and needs to find a new way to get by in the world-enter some strangers and a job board. Level 2 comes and his magic starts to return to him. Level 4 and wow, he’s feeling much stronger again.
We’re at level 5 now and it’s been SO much fun to role play-especially with the two teenage party members, who he has a sort of exasperated mentor relationship with. Definitely recommend the midlife-disaster backstory!
I want to do something similar with a future character for Rime of the Frostmaiden. An Aasimar Paladin/Barbarian who was a mercenary, considered absolutely ruthless and maybe attained a level of 5 or 6. But then gave it all up because simply, her priorities changed and she resented her celestial blood.
So, she settled down, had kids (adopted), and hung up her armor and sword. I figure, years later, she’s regressed in skill back to level 1. But it’ll come back to her, as soon as she starts adventuring again. Which she does begrudgingly, because protecting her family is now most important and that is her motivation.
that's such a great idea!
I have a concept for a human paladin who's EXTREMELY religious and has a strong dislike for everybody who doesn't in some way strongly resemble a human (due to his belief that there was a revolution against the gods when a powerful person became a god and lead his people, who would later become humans, against the gods {with the help of sympathetic gods}. The rebels won and the followers of the god of man were blessed with human form {and their allies blessed with whatever forms their gods saw fit} and their enemies were cursed to become savage creatures who inherent sin {although my character does believe that they can repent} and their enemy gods became demons {with the most powerful becoming the accursed five}.). He was part of a holy order tasked with defending the faithful and purging the heretics, until the other species had enough of being slaughtered, formed a coalition, and destroyed their cities (ending in a last stand at a port city where anyone capable of fighting fought in a last stand, holding them off until most of the refugee ships fled for mythical continent that may not exist). After the fighting he and many other stranded survivors fled and went to spread the word of their dead faith. He also hates 'foul sorcery' and those who practice it while being okay with 'divine magic' (the difference being who uses the magic, the purpose of the magic, and whether the magic is related to demons/unnatural entities or divine entities). He used to be quite powerful, and still is, but he is limited by self doubt, perceived cowardice, perceived failure, his overwhelming prejudice and extremism, and the need to constantly repent for any shortcomings (real or imagined). Who knows as this all just a concept, maybe the DM could throw in a curveball and I figure out that the guidance I thought came from my god was actually from a demonic entity.
He also believes that all tieflings are irredeemable abominations who should cherish the loving warmth of the flames, as is, in his mind, a merciful fate for a living incarnation of all that is impure. In his mind flame cleanses all of their sin, and those whose beliefs are anathema to his should willingly throw themselves upon the pyre, just as he would if he were deemed irredeemable.
Laura McMillan very nice idea!
My current character is a Scourge Aasimar Way of the Long Death Monk who WAS a high level warrior, but then he and his platoon (he co-founded the Special Ops of his home country) were ambushed during the Hobgoblin War and the glyphs and emotional trauma blasted me to level one. So I am able to present a character who is well-informed and experienced compared to his younger/more naive party members, yet is basically re-learning the basics when it comes to his physical and emotional state. My DM also has me roll PTSD CON saves throughout gameplay whenever he deems it appropriate. It’s a freakin blast to play !
Character idea: an orphan (hear me out) falls into a deep depression after the death of their whoever, and is coerced into trying adventuring by their therapist to 'get active' and find something to 'channel their interests into', the therapist comes along as a background/support character to ensure the orphan's progress
...The therapist is their patron.
@@TheSuperMegaPlus the character is a Great Old One warlock
Oh my god, that's wholesome as fuck and I'm here for it.
@@TheSuperMegaPlus that definitely seems like the kind of thing one of the more benevolent archfey would do, especially one with powers of either empathy (like telepathy, but emotions instead of thoughts) or prophecy (has a vague idea of what the future holds)
The therapist is a player character too, a bard.
His vicious mockery is him saying in a deadpan voice "How does that make you feel"
Having plenty of NPCs that have close ties to your character is so important! My character doesn't know who his parents are, but his adopted mother figure (who was an awful person and is a key villan now in the story), his twin sister he's trying to help get out of a cult, NPCs that he's interacted with in the past BEFORE meeting with the current party. Give your character friends! The party doesnt need to have ever met them but the DM may be able to slip em in, leading to some fun roleplay and story too!
Maybe we need videos like this for DMs. I have seem over and over “mysterious” DMs that don’t give us much to work with.
Tip for the "my family's dead, and I want vengeance" trope: Give them their vengeance early, and have them ask, "Now what?" Kinda like what happened to the Avengers in Endgame after killing Thanos.
Inigo Montoya.
>like thanos
Soooo the big bad comes back as a lich?
Great for roleplay.
My new lvl 5 char already got his vengeance, now he seeks the means to bring his dead fiance back to live ...
@@kayas7574 That works too.
My character has a family who loves him except they love him a little too much, he's the only non-caster in the entire bloodline and they doted on him because they considered him weak
It'd be so funny if your character was a barbarian or something. A family of scrawny but doting relatives babying a giant hulking behemoth all cause of his natural talent not being spellcasting.
@@thetruegavinator I went with an archery build but that is also a valid concept
That’s a really good idea, I like it 🙂
@@thetruegavinator or reverse - a family of raging barbarians nursing their flimsy spellcaster child because they love him regardless.
I had a fighter character once that was the only child of a paladin and a druid but he was never able to awaken any magic of his own. So his paladin father taught him how to fight using weapons and physical strength and his druid mom taught him how to identify the different properties of plants. He grew up with a deep respect for nature and all living things which made learning how to kill in combat hard for him. He would end up taking a few levels in barbarian later because the complexity of the world really started to piss him off and he never learned a healthy coping mechanism for negative emotion.
I actually did run a character with a bit of a storied history when I made my first ever dwarf. Thing is, after his adventure, he quit being an adventurer for nearly 200 years. He's near the end of his life when he picks up adventuring again, but did so with the intent to show his grandchildren (and one very spoiled son) that you don't need to be rich or possess artifacts to do great things. He's kept a journal and a ledger of his finances since starting off with just a few gold coins. Also not adventuring for years took it's toll on his old body as he reverted back down to level 3.
So far, this has led him to being known as a lovable grandpa from a noble background who has on more than one occassion kept party members alive through healing magics and through lay on hands (there is no real healer in this group, so paladin heals ftw.)
I honestly love characters who adventure just cause their bored.they adventure for the sake of adventure. There is so much that you can do with these characters. Also you never know for sure what they're going to do. Like you might have a guess based on alignments. Characters don't really need to be motivated by money or good/evil morals.
My friend once played a lone wolf character who didn't value his own life and wanted to preserve that of others above all things. It usually played out like this:
- We get a quest and discuss how to advance
- He splits up from the party to solve the problem on his own to avoid the others being in danger
- He gets overwhelmed by the enemies and lies incapacitated on the ground
- The rest of the party arrives and saves him
- The lone wolf is annoyed that the others got themselves in a dangerous situation just to save his worthless life and complains about how he doesn't want help
- His character gets pissed because the others won't listen to his lone wolf nonsense
- My character gets pissed because of how ungrateful and uncooperative he is
This happened multiple times pretty much that way. One time my character was so annoyed by him he started to call out this childish behaviour. My character spent most of his youth in a forest so he explained how nature handles cases like this: "A lone wolf joins a pack or he dies." The lone wolf character obviously didn't listen and the conclusion of the discussion was:
"I never asked you to help me, so don't expect any gratitude. If you're going to complain about it afterwards, then maybe you should stop trying to save me."
The next time the lone wolf character set off on his own my character didn't come to help him.
...He died. In a forest. Bitten to death by a pack of wolves.
I guess the DM agreed with you, lolz. That's just so poetic!
@@amberkat8147
Love the pack of wolves touch.
I need to know what kind of stats this dude was rocking. Wis 7, Cha 4?
palpatine_ironic.jpeg
Brutal. Love it.
I feel like Rogues (especially Drows) often lean into the edgelord category, so it was pretty fun playing as this Drow Rogue/Bard of mine. He used to be a talentet thief despite his young age, but then unintentionally changed career-paths when he snuck into the cart of a circus ringmaster one day. Basically, he punched the guy in the stomach to knock him out but accidentaly saved the ringmaster from choking on a grape. He was grateful for the rescue and so the rogue got recruited as a circus clown. And then he became an adventurer so that he could get cash to fund the repairing of the circus.
TLDR; low-energy drow rogue accidentaly becomes circus clown, by saving the leader of a traveling circus. Tends to honk his nose for comedy.
The first drow I created was a bard with the assassin background, who got more interested in the disguises and personas she created to get close to targets than she was in killing people, so she ran away to become a musician/performer, and ended up adventuring while learning her new craft.
That would explain both stealth and dexterity.
Dexterity: often did tricks with juggling, tightrope, or unicycle.
Stealth: used to walking around with jingling bells attached without making them move too much.
My current Half-Drow has a loving family (as far as Drow can love ;) ), but loves to exploit the cliches of being the son of a human slave (a lie), being exploited by the drow when he was young (a lie), hating Lolth (also a lie) and being a decent being working to shake of the prejudices against drow (you guessed it ... a lie) when dealing with "surface dwellers". He keeps claiming that he "got away" from the Underdark and has been adopted by those who found him ... also a blatant lie. :D But since everyone expects (Half-)Drow to have a "tragic"
background it works well :D
Playing an Arcane Trickster always makes me play a more showy Rogue who isn’t focused on stealth but distraction, like a street magician.
Great video, guys! I like that you propose ways to tweak/revise these archetypes to make them work instead of just saying "never use these"
I personally like to think about how my class ties into my backstory. After all, there must be a reason my character trained in these particular skills/combat styles. I haven't played him yet, but I just created a kobold Circle of the Moon druid who learned the magics of morphing into large, dangerous predators because, as a kobold, he's naturally pretty weak and is constantly pushed around or hunted by creatures and people who are stronger than his kind. Looking forward to seeing how his story plays out!
“My back story is the Thieves Guild said they are going to break my legs if I don’t pay them the money I owe them. My motivation is not getting my legs broken. My ideals are… I really like having functioning legs.
I like the idea of having a character with dead parents who's set on getting revenge but doesnt know who did it and later finding out that the death of your parents was unintentional and the person who killed them feels bad about it and couldnt stop them from dying. Like imagine if the killer was another player character. Yoooo.
Yooooo this is good
That's kinda like Batman and Joe Chill.
Dude. Next time I dm and someone in my group has dead parents I'm so doing that
@@allisontrouten6891 Make sure you ask the player character you make the killer first otherwise it's power playing.
You mean sandman in spiderman 3?
Your character doesn't want to go on the quest? I'll take that character sheet, you need to write up a new one. This character's now an NPC.
Easy button
Is it bad that I now want such a character at my table so I can force the plot upon that character, Rincewind style? 😅
Characters that want to go out and slay monsters are extremely boring. The best heroes are the unwilling ones. Those who don't *want* to go questing, but by their circumstances find themselves forced to in order to protect themselves or others.
@@nucleargandhi2709 the key is reluctant hero...not a "oh hell no, I'm going to wash my hair now" character.
I worry about this in the new campaign I recently joined. One player appears to be only motivated to travel, which I suppose is fine, but in a dungeon when things got hairy this PC ran and I don’t know if I want to play with a character who is a coward...
Dragonborn who hatched into the care of a band of travelling bards. The events that lead to his parents entrusting him to people outside of a clan still unknown.
Grew up with them travelling from town to town, eventually picking up a Tabaxi who had been given the gift of yearning to travel who had joined them to see the world (since that is a Tabaxi trait). This is how their youth was spent
One night a town they were staying in was assaulted and in the flames and chaos the Tabaxi (his closest companion; them both usually being particularly avoided wherever they visit due to their particularly foreign nature) had convinced him to flee to the next town, the Dragonborn not realizing the lie when the Tabaxi turned back to "grab the supplies he had forgotten and that they will meet up one town down"; knowing after that his companion went back to try and find the rest of their group.
So now his personal quest is to find everyone he lost, and the Tabaxi (Dust) is my backup character who will show up later on; either trying to find his closest friend to discover he had died not too long before Dust had finally found him, or when I have made it far enough to start comfortably rotating characters or just retiring Torinn (the Dragonborn).
It also fits really well for a Lore Bard who excels at support and denying opponents; the wish to not lose anyone else, with the pursuit of knowledge and understanding feeding directly into his search for his family.
I do quite enjoy this and it does leave a lot to be invested in
I love what you said at about the 16:30 mark about mystery in your back story. I'm currently playing a Fiend-pacted Warlock and in the last session I told my group's DM that when the pact was formed, my character did not 'read the fine print'.
Can't wait to see where he goes with this.
I have used the 'my village was burned to the ground and everyone was killed' backstory once before, but only after our pyromancer made their backstory 'I accidentally burned a village to the ground the night I gained my powers, but have no memory of it'.
My objective was to find out who burned down my village, whilst growing to see the pyromancer as a father figure through our travels. Their objective was to regain their memory of that fated night, and atone for it.
It worked really well, and ended with them asking me to put them out of their misery (they were dying already) so they could be with their deceased wife once again. This was ultimately my original objective, but conflicted with the character development.
My favorite instance of the "my parents are dead" story was for one of the players in the first game I ever DM'd. She actually found and killed the man responsible in our third or fourth session, but that opened up a connection between her family and the larger plot I had planned for the rest of the campaign, and "my parents are dead" turned into "my family has a bloody history going back thousands of years that they kept hidden from me, and now that history is having an impact on the modern world." It was so satisfying every time something new was revealed to her that made perfect sense, and yet changed everything she thought was true.
My most recent character has the Urchin background. Her parents were killed in front of her when she was a young child by the corrupt empire where magic was outlawed because they resisted arrest for using magic. She wanted this empire dismantled, but she was an orphan on the streets just trying to survive. Dismantling the empire was the goal of the campaign, so this worked well. Especially since her and the two other characters got arrested and sent to a "re-education" program (basically a prison training them to be monkeys for the empire, since they're the only ones allowed to use magic) for getting caught using magic as adults. So dead parents doesn't always mean no hook or the vengeful hook doesn't work.
Side note I'll also never give any character with that DM a family because he likes to alter the families differently from how the player writes them as part of the background to fit his narrative and do his own "surprise" twists without discussing it with the players first. It's happened too often to ignore.
Interesting that you mentioned length of backstory. I have a character who would be very easily recognizable by the wrong people. She helped fight in defense of her home before they were betrayed from within. Short and sweet. But, I had to go into how she goes about discussing herself. She is a 6'5 Eladrin with purple hair. There are very few elves in the world who are that tall. And none of them are not related to her. Purple hair is very specific to elves of the region she comes from. This is canon in the campaign, not just her story. So. She had to cut her hair short. She has to walk with a bit of a slouch. And she always wears something on her head to cover her hair and her ears.
I'm currently working on a Pokemon-based TTRPG and one of my friends already has a backstory figured out and it revolves around his father being killed and his mother going missing. I have been trying to brainstorm ways to have his character be more involved in the story and not fall into that pit of cliches that you guys mentioned at the beginning. Thankfully, my friend gave me some extra material that can make his character be more involved with the storyline besides just "my mom's gone and my dad's dead"
Imagine making a Rogue character who was a rogue simply because she felt that those kinds a skills would always be in demand among adventurers. A Rogue who joined an adventurer's guild as a bright-eyed newbie, wanting to find a group of people she can bond and go on quests with (having a fairytale view of adventuring, admittedly) and ends up partying up for the first time with a *That Guy.* A Paladin who turned out to be emotionally abusive, manipulative, controlling and basically just wanted someone (multiple someone's, in the case of his "party" of sycophants) to control. He wouldn't be all bad - he's very good at Performative Goodness, and the quests he undertakes have genuine good outcomes for the people he helps. He seems to have some Not-Bad qualities that make it easy to see why someone would fall into his sphere of influence. But those little bits of silver linings don't make up for the fact that he's a huge douche.
When the Rogue left his party, the Paladin used his shiny reputation and high charisma to turn every party she ever joined afterwards against her in an attempt to coerce her back into his sphere of influence. Is he in love with her? Is he just spiteful? Does he consider this a game and he doesn't want to lose? Is this just a weird form of Well-Intentioned Extremeism that manifests in a disgustingly toxic way? Who knows! All the Rogue knows is that her life's been a living hell since she joined the guild, and this party is her last attempt at living that ol' adventuring dream before she just... quits.
Race and Background left intentionally vague. Anyone can steal this. Genders subject to change. Let me know how it goes in your group!
Awesome concept!
I was with a rogue player who was from a noble background. Rich parents but he was a trouble maker, stealing and dealing for the adrenaline rush. Hid it from his parents well.
We need to make this little lady a party, I'm working on a Swords Bard that might work for this, be back if and when I finish him
@NoahofWill I have a Bard that wanted to be a Paladin since he was a little kid. He jumped at the chance to become one and wanted to be mentored by a Paladin that had saved his town a few years ago, but soon found that he was a horrible, abusive person that had merely surrounded himself with brownnosers and people blinded by his good deeds to the horrible person he was, he eventually just left without a word and joined the College of Swords. He learned much from the College, but still wanted to fulfill his childhood dream, he decided to study the way Paladins fought and invested all his time in learning their spells. A few years later, he decided to join the guild and decided to join a party as far removed from that Paladin as possible.
As with OP, race, gender and background are kept pretty vague, gender also subject to change, anyone can steal if they so choose, but I WOULD like to know how your campaign went if you used it
PS. Wanted to include a Paladin that was a terrible person anyway, thank you to NoahofWill for including that in his own
NoahofWill
I find that, much like the “Edgy, Loner Rogue” trope, the A-hole Paladin that is seen as a good guy is also a very common trope as well. Sort of like Snape in Harry Potter, except reversing the “A-hole” public persona vs the “Noble” private persona that made Snape such a good character type. The only other Paladin trope I see more than the Heart of Gold Paladin with a Corrupted Heart is the trope of the Callous Paladin that enforces law regardless of circumstance.
I find them both to be as boring and uninteresting as the edgy rogue trope.
I had a character with a good twist on the dead parents backstory! She was an elf, however she was adopted by a human father after she had lost her memory. They grew up together, but as the years past, her father was getting older and older. The elf was still a child when her father died of old age. After he died however, she took his name and set out on an adventure to discover who her elven parents are and to regain her lost memory.
I like it!
i have this idea for a character that i haven’t fully fleshed out yet, but basically, it’s a lvl 20 wizard who, through some magical mishap, got their soul stuck in a lvl 1 (non-caster) character’s body without any access to their magic. now, they have to gain enough power and spellcaster friends to Wish themselves back into their original body and regain their old life.
My favourite backstory has to be when we had a cheerful halfling lady in our party who kept dropping anecdotes about her first, second, third... Xth husband/wife and we were all like "haha halfling divorce rate go brrrr".
Turns out she is cursed by a malevolent entity (whose true identity we don't know yet) to murder everyone she gets close to and now she's trying to kill herself before she kills us.
"The real revenge for my family was the friends I made along the way"
🤣
actually valid in some cases too
Given me an idea for a character background.
What the party sees:
Lone wolf, edgelord, orphan, no last name, little practical experience despite knowledgeable about many regions.
The Truth:
High born 'child' running away from noble society, and needs to be scarce whenever the party deals with nobility. Well read and has lots of epic adventures to tell, but lacks the skills to back up those stories.
His parents are both alive, loving environment, well off, but the character is just running away from responsibility.
That is almost exactly a character I have been playing for about a year now. He's quite fun!
But that's quite the cliché, too....
I alone played with 3 players who had this exact backstory
@@steinistein8611 everything is a cliche at this point. and there is a reason for every cliches too. The dead parents is literally the best way to be an adventure, like why would you go on deadly adventures if oyu got a safe and happy life ?
That sounds like James from Pokémon
I have an extremely similar character, except his parents are nobles in an industrial military monarchy that actively tortures and abuses lower class citizens, and he ran from home and honed his rage to instead tear down everything they ever built
You guys helped me design my best character to day, so in short, thank you so much for all of your advice.
In long:
My 17 year old Hadozee Hexblade as a simple backstory. He and his captain had a fateful confrontation over a mysterious sword. My character obviously won at the young age of 14. He has an intelligence of 8. He cannot read due to backstory, he has verbal diarrhea (Though well-meaning) and has severe confidence issues leading him to frequently make poor, impulsive decisions both in and out of combat in an attempt to either pump himself up, or due to a sheer lack of self control. None of his actions are evil, they are just - "stupid". Ultimately, all he wants is to be accepted and loved by people he looks up to - which is the exact opposite of how his captain treated him calling him "A stupid little monkey" (Something Uri-yo calls himself frequently when he makes a mistake)
That being said, he's easily my favorite character I've ever played. Every RP opportunity is clear with both NPCs and PCs.
I learned a lot from the DnDudes and their advice as I used to like to play the Loner/Standoffish Badass who doesn't get along with people. I enjoyed being mildly antagonistic towards everyone. But now, with little Uri-yo the 17 year old Hadozee Hexblade with very little confidence, a fairly vague yet specific enough backstory, and a strong desire to be loved by those he calls his new found family. (His real family is still alive - he just has never had an opportunity to go home - Astral Sea and all, given away to be a Midshipman at age 7.)
Thank you guys for helping me create my favorite character to date.