Create PCs like THIS for next-level roleplay
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 มิ.ย. 2024
- Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms is a Dungeons & Dragons strategy management game uniting characters from throughout the D&D multiverse into a grand adventure. Log in and use code GINN-YGET-GOLD to unlock Karlach and 3 Gold Chests packed with her gear and start playing now! For more information visit rebrand.ly/ICGinny
► INDEX
0:00 Intro
3:00 How I do it
3:30 Tips for players
7:18 Dear Karlach...
8:27 Tips for GMs
12:00 Examples
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Thanks to Idle Champions, you can log in and use code GINN-YGET-GOLD to unlock Karlach and 3 Gold Karlach Chests! Not sure how to claim a code in-game? Check out this video on TH-cam for an easy step-by-step tutorial: th-cam.com/video/xFxlqZ1Awec/w-d-xo.htmlsi=yUKUqTDRDEBHx-oy.
I laughed so hard at "I'm committing tax fraud" that I woke up my wife, and am now in trouble.
Thank you so much for that combination code that came with the free Karlach champion. I just recently started a 3rd account on my new Samsung Galaxy Tablet, and I was really hurting for some good champions, especially since some of the champions I got was just a few members of the Absolute Advesaries which are characters from Baldur's Gate 3, but i only had the Dark Urge (and now Gale), getting Karlach from your code was fantastic for me and helped me get through a lot of adventures that required 2 good tanks. Getting Karlach with the code really helped me out.
Edit: Also, getting a combinations code as part of a sponsorship for a youtube video is very unusual because most combo codes are provided during an idle champions live stream (which I rarely have time to stop by for), so when I saw this I jumped on it because it was so easy to get something that I wanted for free and yet at the same be potentially helping the content creator. :)
I'm in a game where we all decided to be siblings. It's been amazing for RP, we don't even need to work out details. All we need to do is reference a vague past event. I once said 'This is just like when you got me grounded' and the other player ran with it with no prior planning; His response was 'For the last time, that wasn't my hedgehog!' and now the whole family keeps referencing the hedgehog... My sister still blames me :P
😂😂 incredible. I love it when people are so happy to play along with those kind of jokes! D&D at its BEST
I have done this even when not playing the same race. When people question it, we just look at them like, "What are you talking about".
Back in second edition we played lawful good quintuplets of rangers, paladins, and a cleric. Coming from Army based D&D, the GM just couldn't handle us, so the campaign died quickly. The main thing that came from it was our moto "The family that slays together, stays together.
@@scottmilner1951 I mean, that's one way to find out you're adopted... :D
We had this as well. We each had to come up with a memory that involved us and one other player. I loved just hearing the memories that the other players come up with more me and for each other. Even silly comments managed to get worked into how we saw our own characters and played them.
I’ve been playing d&d for a few years, and the most memorable campaigns were always ones with very close pc relationships. A friend and I teamed up to play a married couple without mentioning it to the other players to see how long it took them to catch on. Now it’s a tradition to make our characters know each other before the start of every campaign we play!
😂😂 that's BRILLIANT.
And I'm betting now they try to guess your connection before the start of the campaign?
@@GinnyDioh absolutely, the relationships evolved from “they’re my older sister” to increasingly ridiculous scenarios like “we met while we were both trying to rob the same necromancer and then started arguing so loudly we both got caught and ended up imprisoned together” 😂
@@stardust5544 bravo 👏👏
@@stardust5544
I love this so much xd
This sounds so much fun!
@@stardust5544 I didn't know there was a right way to build a character but I think you may have figured it out 😂
Examples from Critical Role:
Vax and Vex are brother and sister.
Pike and Grog have a shared backstory.
Caleb and Nott travelled together and have many schemes.
Also:
Molly and Yasha share a history in the travlling circus.
Orym, Fearne and Dorian travelled together.
As did Laudna and Imogen.
Ashton and FCG's backstory is interwoven as well ;)
Ginny's whole theme though fits into one of the best groups in Critical Role one-shots, The Darrington Brigade. There's no reason why those characters would get together, but because they volunteered because they saw Tarion's flyer, it became an immediate connection for this group of very different characters.
Immediately thought of the interactions between Clint and Natasha in Avengers. They'd been in separate movies, but with a few well-done interactions ("You and I remember Budapest very differently!") we got the dynamic between them and it gelled in a way that spoke of years of camaraderie.
Yeah it felt believable enough that I thought I missed a movie lol
DnD mom out here helping everyone be the hero she always knew they could be. Thanks, Ginny.
LOL... One of the games I'm DMing right now has a PC that is the Party "Mother"
edit: I must have been tired when I typed this... Typo corrections and clarity.
I'm playing a dad who always wanted to go on an adventure - it was a sort of "gap year" thing but their life got complicated, responsibility built up with kids, jobs and business....now their kids have grown up and they're finally ready to go on that adventure from when they were younger.
I'm the "dad" playing a paladin that protects his companions. He is making sure everyone comes home. Come hell or high water. We are in Avernus. (Not an actual dad)
I love all of these responses, guys. Keep it up.
@@davidjennings2179reminds me of the Dungeons ‘n Daddies podcast, where four dads ended up whisked to a fantasy land in their van and have to find their kids.
One of the best games I was ever a part of is where we all started as kids and became childhood friends in the same village. We played out a story where something catastrophic happened and we all had to escape and we all got split up. Then we jumped forward as our adult characters and found each other to reunite and fight the baddies who took our home. The banter was AMAZING.
Love this!
Like "It" 😊
My first AF&D campaign was similar. We were all born under a Blue Moon in the same village and were trained to be heroes who could potentially fulfill the prophecy.
In the campaign we are currently playing the eldest children of a Halfling village who got attacked by the evil army and we are now stopping them from ransacking other villages under the guidance of Potartar, the Goddess of Harvest and Health. Her boones to her followers are the abillity to make divine white potatoes, and an immediate knowledge of all foragable plants in an area. We set up kitchens in each town to feed refugees and are working to end starvation.
We thought the home brew of Potartar would be insignificant and funny, but her avatar Mrs. Potato head has visited her Paladin and spoke to him with Mrs. Doubtfire's wisdom twice. She makes sure we always have rations.
My favorite recently has been, "Regardless of your varied backstories, include a reason why you've been a regular at this pub for the last 4-6 months." This way they don't have to be great friends with each other, but they at least know each other a bit because they're the regulars at the same pub 👍
I once DMd for a short campaign and one of the players wanted to try the "you killed my father" background, but they felt that something was missing in the character's depth, so I suggested that the other players could help.
I cannot even begin to describe the joy I felt when they sent me the backgrounds of the entire family of the deceased man, each of them with a different outlook on the quest.
Barbarian grandma included.
Don't make Grandma angry. You won't like her when she's angry...
I'm an old curmudgeon who has been playing RPGs for long enough now that when the big surge in popularity hit circa 2020, my greatest dismay was watching "D&D Advice" videos on TH-cam where people would make the same ignorant recommendations that I saw folks make on forums twenty years ago. It's been extremely faith-restoring for me to watch you (Ginny) catch up on twenty years of theory in just four short years, such that now you're able to give a complete and correct breakdown of D&D's flaws, how other games have fixed it, why D&D hasn't fixed them, and why the best way to fix things is to change the system itself to suit your goals. I hope your fans appreciate the way you've bootstrapped yourself into becoming an genuine guru at this, while so many ostensibly-more-experienced guys on other channels haven't evolved at all! KEEP IT UP GINNY!
I genuinely don't even know how Ginny manages to put together all this in-depth, well thought out advice with such great production quality.
YES! THIS!! Been playing D&D since 1978 and I wish Ginny and her videos were available back then. Ginny Di, you are breathtakingly wonderful in your presentations of the game.
I added a mechanic my players like and pitched it to my GM for his campaign and I simply call it: "The amount you talk is the amount you travel."
So it takes 3 days to get from point A to point B. You aren't gonna be silent the entire 3 day walk, so to simulate the time traveled, banter, talk, get to know each other, talk trash about last encounter, about the big bad. They should eat? Alright what does your character eat? Where do you find that on their journey? It forces everyone to get acquainted a lot faster, suddenly banter shows up in combat. And they don't get the new area/location without talking. They HAVE to talk, whether it's dinner plans or just like talking.
amazing
This is a REALLY good idea!
Absolutely genius, for sure requires a reasonably talented GM, but definitely stealing.
My newest character is from earth, she did the classic millennial joke of standing in a fairy circle being like "Oh no, it would be a shame to get kidnapped by a fairy" but she DID actually get sucked into the feywild. Eventually someone sent her to the elemental plane of Earth thinking thats where she was trying to get to. Then a Genie said "I can't get you to your home, but I can at least get you to the material plane, I'll send you to one of my followers so you're not alone, but you have to protect her." And that is how my character met our party's warlock, and she brought me in to the rest of the group.
That's not a millennial joke. That was an old wives tale from centuries ago. But man, that sounds like a fun way to start.
@@ghostsuru8429 I mean millennial as in the gallows humor that we're ok with with it b/c the world is bad, not the old wives tale itself, lol. But yeah, definitely was a fun way, we're now in Barovia though, so she's learning that even in the fantasy land she's in things could end up sucking. haha
That's a really cool way to bring a character into the party! The first campaign that I played in long-term (I think it was close to 3 years before scheduling and DM burnout made us stop), my character became relevant by helping the party -- that she'd never met before -- fight a green dragon. She gained their trust quickly so the new-party-awkwardness wasn't really there, though creating pre-existing relationships within the party would have been cool too. I think you *can* make it work without pre-existing relationships but it is definitely harder. I just liked how my DM did things for my character, it made her relevant/important to the story, characters, and world immediately.
100% want to steal this at some point
Haha that's cool
In the last Fantasy game I ran, the starting premise was that the player characters were already an adventuring party, and were celebrating their big win over the self-titled 'Goblin King'.
I started the game in a tavern, with the player characters carousing after having just been paid, and then had the patrons ask them about their recent adventure.
I then made the combat tutorial be a flashback to defeating the goblin king, using the bar table as our battlemap, and trinkets, coins, and wine-corks as our tokens.
This gave the player characyers a sense of comraderie, a reputation as capable adventurers, and fans at the inn who they'd told their exploits to.
I actually wrote a TTRPG that is all about telling the exploits afterwards - you roll not for how successful you were, but how you succeeded and whether the listeners believe you!
I played a campaign once where my elf fighter was best friends with a plasmoid wizard. They met when she lost a fight and awoke at the side of the road with the plasmoid trying to eat her thinking she was roadkill. From then, Lavinia and Puddi were inseparable, and Puddi always valued Lavinia for helping her with the game of "food or not food?".
"Food or not food" XDDD! That's adorable.
I ran a campaign where two character had a relationship as lovers that they kept secret even from me. Without knowing about it i had the bbeg force one of them to kill the other (they messed up a lot and got a bad ending). It being a secret made the tragedy so organic they all still talk about the campaign years later. I will probably never have a campaign that good again. We all loved it for different reasons. In terms of party cohesion i had the party conscripted by the military after they were rescued from being kidnapped. Like session 1 was them all waking up bound on a pirate ship and they explained to each other how they got there.
On Dimension 20 they have an unaired session every season to a) establish any pre-existing relationships between PCs and between PCs and NPCs, and b) to actually roleplay out these relationships so that in episode 1 everyone is already in the swing of it.
Incorporating this into a session zero seems like a good idea
I love your point about the lone wolf character being viable with a preexisting connection to another PC! This is what my friend and I did in one of our campaigns.
We played as student wizards from Strixhaven who’d been assigned to partake in the mission as a last-ditch effort to save ourselves from getting expelled. My friend played the “dead inside, disappointed, done” Goth lone wolf whose parents were rich enough to pay him out of trouble, but he stuck with the party the whole way through because I played his lover, a rambunctious ball of energy and red hair, whom he wanted to protect. We ended up being the party’s resident comedy duo. It was so fun and memorable.
First time GMing. Its honestly a super SCARY experience. I've been a player for some time and eventually wanted to be a GM. Thankfully everyone is super cool and helping me on occasion. We're on our 8th session this weekend and my GF is joining my session.
Glad to hear you're enjoying it! DMing is honestly one of the scariest things you can do so it's amazing that you're putting yourself out there!! 🥰
@GinnyDi I try. I learn from my mistakes and give it my all! Right now there going to save children from Dragonborn mercs and then... a fight with a mommy and daddy basilisk to get to lvl 4.
Pretty sure every GM's worst nightmare is Brendan Lee Mulligan bursting into their game and pointing out everything incorrect.
😂😂😂 wait, everyone has those dreams?!
I can't picture Brennan doing that to anyone. Murph on the other hand...
Maybe not Brennan but perhaps Wrennan Wee Wulligan would
this comment is enough to make me break into a cold sweat
Hey now, he'd at least stick around long enough to guide ya in how to fix what was wrong (with some hysterical and blistering commentary!)
My absolute favourite example of this is in World's Beyond Number, where they did a full mini-campaign of all their characters meeting as children, having a little adventure that formed the basis of who they were, and gave them their first ever class features, and then they all reunited as adults at the beginning of the *actual* campaign. I would *love* to do something like that in a game of my own one day.
My first Pathfinder 2e character was was Chaotic Neutral and hearing how that alignment can be a problem, plus a part of her backstory is a tendency to bond deeply with people when she does, I wanted her to start bonded with someone. Well one of the other characters happened to be from a place I had to travel through to get to the adventure location, and ended up being the party moral compass. This meant that I could still play CN and do things like draw a dagger on a tavern patron without hesitation but still not needing to be forced to follow the adventure. At one point when the rest of the players were not committing to the next leg of the adventure path I even used this bond to push the game on "I know that you think this is the right thing to do, and if you say your going to I am in. So why don't we skip the decision making and just say yes to helping."
Your hair game is on point this episode. Our group used this systemized relationshippery in our spelljammer campaign to bond the characters together and it helped out big time. As an already established pirate crew there was no awkward first session where the warriors are puffing their chests at each other, vying for leadership or finding ways to softly railroad the characters into an adventuring party. They already had prepared inside jokes and battle tactics before we even started the first session. I've never been more proud as a DM.
My favorite barbarian (My PC) was a Bugbear who was befriended by a half-elf rogue (Other PC) - Who had been running scams together for months before the campaign. The rogue was the brains and my bugbear, with his mighty 5 INT/8 WIS and 20 STR was the brawns. It was an absolute blast to get to play someone else's challenged wrecking ball. Our table regularly compared us to George and Lenny from Of Mice and Men.
I'm writing a D&D style humor story and have found this to be a really fun way to write character interactions! Several of the characters in the party have history long before the party was formed. The halfling wizard and his ranger daughter met the bard when he was having his flute enchanted. The father kept trying to play matchmaker with them, which led her to come out and admit that half-orc ladies were more to her liking. This creates tension and humor in the party when the half-orc paladin whose dad was a halfling joins the story.
Some of the session 0 homework I give my players is to determine a "call-to-action" for why they would want to find a party and go adventuring. It's helpful to get the ball rolling!
Also you mentioned "lone wolf" characters - while creating a backstory connection for them can absolutely be helpful, I maintain that these kinds of characters can work in 5e. If a character is edgy and moody and quiet, instead of roleplaying with them, their version of "roleplay" can be to describe their body language, their movements and behaviors as they react to stimuli. I once played an edgy rogue like this and we didn't have many issues with roleplay since my character still has presence in the scene, even if he wasn't talking.
Lots of creative ways to solve problems!
My current players drew a connection between two other players ranging from former lovers, distant relatives and former cellmates. A tiefling and a halfling drew the 'distant relatives' one and their web of logic for how this is possible made roleplay much more engaging.
tbf! we had a tabaxi and a half drow/half tiefling in our game who were cousins.... through a human (who adopted one and married the uncle of the other) so anything is possible really :D
My first pc was a halfling who had a human sister which was fun to explain to others lol. My halfling mum married her human dad and made them family.
I played in a FATE Accelerated campaign set in the Dresden Files universe where two of our characters were best friends in high school, and one died in a cult ritual at 18 and became anchored to his best friend. The living one was a gnostic street preacher who was always on the run, and the ghost one was basically a kid who never grew up. The two together were a straight man-funny man duo and an absolute laugh riot! That game was our favorite one to play and produced some of our best characters!
That definitely sounds like the sort of nonsense you’d get in a Dresden Files novel. 😂
Jim Butcher would be proud. Well done, that sounds like an amazing campaign to be in.
One of my favorite one shots was when I and another player both made our characters as Aasimar Rangers, and our backstories said we were from the same town. The DM laughed so hard at the odds (we had no clue the other made a similar character) and we rolled with it - the relation eventually wound up with my character being the father. It was such a fun dynamic and definitely gave us both a reason to stick together.
100% i love the idea of pre-existing roleplay hooks like relationships. for a recent one-turned-four-shot i went a step further and added _motives_ (yeah, it was a murder mystery) and even _public perceptions_ to every character sheet on the table. the players picked from that pile and it really jump started the roleplay at the table. you _know_ what motives you have, and that'll get people interested in figuring out how to pull off their crime. and with public perceptions, players know what people think of their character and can play into or subvert that expectation
Im looking forward to seeing you in the lego dnd session!
the what?
@theadventuresofhuckletaryfin there's a lego dnd set coming out soon, and it includes an adventure that can be played with the set itself. Lego is running a game that can be watched, and Ginny is one of the players.
I'm so excited for everybody to see it! 🥰 It was so much fun to play!
@@TheGreatFunguywhen and where?
@@squali1930 April 6th, 17:00 BST on the Lego website
Ginny Di strikes again! My group is probably sick of me sending your vids to them, but they're very helpful and I want you to keep making them as long as you want to, so I gotta feed the algorithm. In a Traveller game I played in, my PC dropped out of college and another PC was super smart and basically a legend at his college. His character was a few years older, so he was like this mythical creature come to life for my dropout techie. Another PC in that game had bailed me out of some financial trouble in my past and hadn't been paid back yet, so that was another great interparty connection.
My group just started our third major campaign, and though all the players really enjoy the slow burn of revealing their backstories over time as their characters grow closer, this time two players decided to play as an Eladrin father and daughter combo. Even two sessions in it's led to some really unique group interactions and we love it.
When it comes to running one shots, these days I usually have my players all begin as an established party who already knows each other to save on time. In exchange, they recently surprised me by showing up as a group of four tortles who may have been teenage ninjas in their past lives! That led to some amazing moments, like them worshiping the god of pizza and spreading it everywhere they went.
Many decades ago, I played in a D&D-like fantasy game that had a lot of options for character design.
The character that brought the party together was a wealthy sorceress, and as far as anyone else knew, my character was her mostly ineffectual valet and social secretary.
He would occasionally suggest in very deferential tones that she use her magic for some purpose, and while everyone (including the other PCs) was distracted by her loud chants and dramatic gestures, my character would very quietly cast the needed spell--because he was actually a wizard, but he owed her for the student loans her family gave him when the two were in magic school together. Acting as her servant was how he discharged his debt.
Amazingly, the other players never caught on.
I played a bard where the party had two bards and we where in a band together. I was the quiet type person cause of a stutter and the other bard was a chipper over excited person that dragged me everywhere.
We never got this campaign off the ground, but when I was making a character for a Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign, I had a back and forth with another player where we were crewmates on a ship. I was the ship's cook, he was the navigator, and the kickoff for our plotline was that my character found out they were working for pirates, and that the navigator was shanghai'd into service. He "freed" the navigator by kidnapping him and quit his job by setting the ship on fire. We were gonna pick up at the first village we end up in in session one, but for life reasons the campaign didnt even start.
I hope you get to go back to that game! Ghosts of saltmarsh is a lot of fun!
Played with a group where 4/6th of the party were siblings and it was ridiculous fun. Sibling banter is some of the best drama.
I've played spouses with other PCs in a few games too. A dragon burns down a tavern? "My love, it's our 14th anniversary all over again."
Earlier this year, I joined an ongoing campaign with a tiefling Harper who was sent to spy on another PC, a half-elf who happens to be her semi-distant cousin. My character is very reserved and not trusting of other people, but she needs to gain the trust of everyone in the party to make her cousin open up, and it's led to some of my favourite roleplay moments I've ever had at a D&D table.
In my most recent campaign, I'm the party's healer, and also well known as a prominent doctor in town. I had passing familiarity with everyone because of that, particularly one person that's gotten into a lot of scrapes over time and needed to be patched up, because he has sticky fingers. Meanwhile, I've also been tapped a few times by the less ethical members of the local government to perform various... unsavory methods of extracting information from prisoners over time. That got me introduced to another party member who tends to run in the underbelly of the city and cleans up crime scenes professionally. It was great getting to see a tactic that my group has kinda taken on organically over time be featured in your video! I know there's not really any wrong way to play tabletop games, but it sure helps reinforce that there are things that can be right!
There was a clever spin on Traveller’s version in that Traveller campaign on the Glass Cannon Network, Voyagers of the Jump, where they don’t decide on the actual connection until a mid-session flashback so the two players can each pick a skill that they know will fit with the campaign.
EDIT: Seth Skorkowsky has an example of this in a video he did of mechanics to borrow from other systems (full title escapes me) and he started using it in his own games because he was a player in the Glass Cannon campaign.
Honestly just having pairs of characters makes everyone much more comfortable. I played at a table where we had six players - one were the privileged son of a merchant and his (reluctant) bodyguard, as you suggested; two were just war buddies, and my friend and I were drinking/travel buddies.
It already made the first fight much more meaningful in watching out for one another, and the heir/guard had, over thr course of the campaign, one of the most beautiful bromances I've seen to this day, despite the players not knowing each other before the game started.
It also makes at least one piece of your backstory immediatly meaningful at the table!
I love your advice. I have connected relationships between my own PCs because i love the developing storylines they have with each other, but never thought to connect the players together in the same manner. As I have only months of D&D experiences under my belt, this is invaluable advice that I am certain I will seek to incorporate in my games, both as a player and DM.
"You don't generally become someone's sibling over the course of the adventure" happened twice to me. First time was one of our bards and my wizard share a half brother, that my wizard didn't know existed, but share no blood between them. The second time our wizard latched onto my cleric as a brother figure but if THAT doesnt count she died and her disease became the next player character that was JUST born and my cleric gave them his last name.
The minute I wrote that line, I was like... I guarantee somebody's done that, I need to quality this statement 😂
I definitely like to weave my players' backstories together as much as I can. One of my favorite relationships was one my players came up with on their own, being inspired by the lore. The grung mystic saw the tortle ranger as his slave, where the tortle saw the grung as his best friend. The tortle's mind has been addled by a steady application of the grung's poison (the tortle wouldn't accept food from anyone other than his best friend). As a slave master, the grung didn't actually exert much control over the tortle, and basically only told the tortle to do things he would have done anyways.
The best example of this I've seen in a liveplay was in EXU: Calamity when Aabria and Sam, who I don't think had roleplayed together before, made the legendary decision to play divorcees whose positions forced them to work together. The tension was hilarious and the sense of backstory their bickering brought to the table made both characters feel more real. And of course it turned out they weren't over each other and wanted to protect each other even if they weren't prepared to concede any of their old arguments. It was funny and sweet and added so much to the show.
Sometimes you can improv character relationships, or give the party prompts for someone to fill in on how they'd be connected to you.
For example...
I was in a one-shot module last weekend. As such, we had to already know each other, but didn't have much time to coordinate backstories, so there was some hand-wavy "you all already know each other" after we gave the elevator pitches of our characters' backgrounds.
The game was going to start with us at the after party of a wedding. But my character was kind of an edgy, brooding bastard with a revenge plot, so why would he be at some random wedding party?
So I said to the group, "I had learned that one of the people I'm trying to get revenge on is at this wedding, so my character basically said to the group 'someone get me into this party'" and one of the other players says, without missing a beat, "Oh, that was me for sure!"
... and yes, it was the bard who said that : )
I was relatively new to the friend group in college, and I was entirely new to Dungeons and Dragons. When one of the veteran players suggested we could have an established relationship prior to the game beginning, I jumped on the chance with both feet. That relationship, he the OP feral human and me the little lizard person that could somehow control him, gave us some amazing RP opportunities, and an excuse to sit together so he could help me with the rules. It also made us closer out of game too. I will always appreciate him for that.
I feel inspired by this video!
I've had this idea for a character that I will not be playing next time around so if my friends read this comment, it won't spoil anything. The character is a Changeling Warlock/Bard who literally sold his soul for rock and roll (or fantasy equivalent) and, in the process, had to sacrifice (trap or something darker) a mortal traveller to appease his new patron. The character then takes on the form of this traveller and goes to the mortal plane as them.
With connections, it would be SO much fun to go to someone in the group who likes to improvise and build a connection to them but have the connection be the false identity and tell them to make stuff up about you!
I have a character recently who is incredibly cold and self centered Prince. Helping people purely cause it helps him and his goals out in the future. But everyone loves him because one of the other characters is a body guard who grew up with him and now they travel with each other. The body guard is the only one Prince would literally leave everyone to die for. And he’s had multiple moments of dropping everything to make sure his body guard is okay.
It seems like despite how he treats others, everyone is invested in the story between the two and it makes them want to interact with one or the other. It’s been a lot of fun to see how that plays out.
It sounds like obvious advice but the way you implement this is so much better then what we have been doing. Thanks for this!
You're so welcome! Glad it was helpful
Agreed! Things that make so much sense and are that much richer with examples and ideas to implement in our next games. Amazing point to especially include all players that might not jump in with as much alacrity to forge existing connections.
And wooooo! Fate Core! “Character Creation IS play.” I reference Ginny’s inspiration video for all metacurrency in all my games. I dish it out for collaborative world-building, and will likely start adding it for building connections. “Choose to know!”
I’ve been gorging on so many GMing videos to hone those skills, and I love videos and articles that help me be a better player. Next time I sit down as a player I’m going to announce I need a connection.
2:37 And by “Tabletop Police…” are we really talking about the Pinkertons? 😉
One of my favourite characters was the sister of another PC and it was so fun, we even got to meet the 2 character's other siblings and moms. I'm starting a new campaign soon too so this couldn't be better timing.
I’m running a campaign with 4 PCs at the moment. 3 of them knew each other prior to the events of the campaign, and 1 they met after the inciting incident. He happens to be familiar with their situation so it naturally made sense for him to join them. I played separate one shots with each pair of the 3, so they could form bonds/figure out how they felt about each others characters. It’s been a godsend because they now have connections that the other players don’t, and allows them to have smaller interconnected stories within the bigger story. Like my rogue having a mentor type bond with the son of my fighter. Or my fighter being one of the only people not to underestimate my Ranger. Or the rogue wanting to platform the Ranger and let him prove himself rather than fall into his imposter syndrome.
Played a one-shot of a Wildmount campaign and my character was a human fighter while the rest of my party were all some form of beast/magical race. I remember having connections with three members of the party: worked with a dark elf in the same soldiering company who unbeknownst to my character betrayed the company where I was the only one left (yet still on friendly terms), a dark elf/half orc who healed me after said betrayal, and a kobold that I caught trying to steal scrap from my things and won my character over with their lovably timid and mischievous personality. It is my favorite game so far. ❤
My husband and I often make up a shared backstory for games we play in. It all backfired once though, when we decided to play an adventurous but naïve academic and his over-protective mother-hen cousin convinced their family would blame her if she let him walk off a cliff. The rest of the party kept assuming my character secretly had a crush and I had to remind them every few sessions that we were not that kind of family 😫
Currently in a casual D&D game where two of the members are besties from a small town and it's made a WORLD of difference in their RP since one of the besties is a brand new player. I'm playing a faun barbarian whose kids are grown and she's empty nesting so she feels very protective of these children who are just starting their adventures. They can get into so much trouble! (That's the idea ;) )
Love your point about the lone wolf character using a preexisting relationship to join a group. I actually used that in one of my more recent games. My character didn't even want to be an adventurer. He was a sword for hire and the party's artificer had hired me as a bodyguard. We had a lot of fun with him being all "I want to examine this place!" and me being all "It's not safe. You shouldn't go in there." Then he answered "I'm not going. WE are going. Who's paying you?" It worked out beautifully, was a blast, and let me play a very different sort from my usual flamboyant and high charisma sorts. I joked with our table about just being a weapon for the artificer, even if I did have more going on, just way more quietly.
My favorite example of characters having a connection established before the game started is from a game that's on potentially indefinite hiatus. I was playing a character that's a rebuild of my very first TTRPG character: an unrepentant and abrasive thief who only steals magic items because they want a challenging heist. Knowing that they're a little hard to get along with anyway, I asked the table if anyone wanted to be antagonistic with my character. The result was a truly frightening and persistent werewolf who is only not killing the thief because the thief is the only one who knows where the sacred relic they stole is being kept. They've built this mutually wary partnership based on said werewolf being darn handy in a fight and wanting the thief alive long enough to recover the sacred relic, and the thief learning from experience that this is one person they can't sneak away from no matter how hard they try
One of the games I've played for many years, Mutant: Year Zero, has relations between PCs and NPCs as a central feature. In fact, putting yourself on the line for them is rewarded with EXP.
That being said, this is very useful advice I wish we would've had when we started. Will definitely take it with me whenever I'm starting in a new group.
I almost always start a new campaign with a "you've all traveled here for the last couple of Rides in the same caravan" or whatever variation on that. I encourage people to talk to other players to talk to each other about pre-existing relationships, because thats often also the richest backstory and where I can take a lot of ploot hooks. Fantastic advice, Ginny
Roll 2d6
1. Family
1. Siblings
2. Distant Cousins
3. Family Friends
4. Cousins who are equally likely to inherit
5. In love with the same person
6. Black sheep of the family
2. Friends
1. Friendly Rivals
2. Childhood Friends
3. Friend of a Friend
4. Former co-workers
5. Neighbours
6. Mentor & Student of one trait or another
3. Fellowship
1. Longtime adventuring companions
2. Reluctant Allies
3. Bound together by a sacred oath
4. Members of a guild
5. Traveled to town together
6. One’s the brains, one’s the brawn
4. Secrets
1. The only survivors
2. The only two who know the secret
3. Members of a secret cult
4. Witnesses to an assassination
5. Each carries half of a treasure map
6. You keep him close because he knows your secret
5. War
1. Brothers in arms
2. Mercenary and Employer
3. Fought in the militia together
4. Served opposite sides in the last war
5. A blood debt still needs to be repaid
6. Refugee & Helping Hand
6. Magic
1. Both carry a curse
2. Trained together
3. Blessed by the same church
4. Servants of the same supernatural power
5. One dreamed that the other would save their life… long before they met
6. Linked together by a dark ritual
OR, roll 1d20
Is a sibling of
Was saved by
Served with
Protected by
Adventured with
Is a friendly rival of
Childhood friend of
Is magically bound to
Survived with
Escaped with
Apprentice of
Acolyte of
Idolizes
Drinking buddies with
Business associate with
Lost a bet to
Is indebted to
Was trained by
Dueling partner of
On the run with
Our group started a really cool mini campaign recently where our DM had us use relationship prompts in session zero.
Since the campaign is meant to take place over several time periods, our party begins as a scrappy group of kids/teens.
Having pre-existing group dynamics for this was wonderful. It felt really natural to fall into the mindset of our young characters -- who they stick close to, who they're wary of, who they look up to, who they want to protect... we've had three sessions and I'm so attached to this party already.
Ginny, thanks for being so articulate, funny, entertaining and bringing my awareness to those situations ! Btw, your hair is really pretty
I’ve been doing this sort of thing for yeeeears. I am SO glad it’s finally getting talked about here. This might be the best advice for any table top group. It will always improve your gameplay.
This is such a great idea. I was playing a new game with some old friends about a month ago and it was our first session of a new RPG. One of the players rolled up his character and then started figuring out how he knew all the other characters. And that was how the rest of us met. It was so simple and so fun.
I just recently started a campaign where the early party members were a 3 man team of village guards. The dynamic between them was pretty wholesome: the hobgoblin barbarian was the team leader, and he would frequently butt heads with the human monk, who played as a “lancer” or the foil to the barbarian’s more serious demeanor. And lastly was the human druid, who worked well as the heart of the trio, usually being an in-between or a mediator for the other two. The party has grown since then, but most of the characters who’ve since joined were also a small group of their own; in a second team of three that recently joined the main party, two of them were cousins from a distant island. It really helps to establish prior relationships between characters sometimes because it gives them something in common and plenty to talk about when there otherwise wouldn’t be much chemistry.
I always give the players a reason to have gathered before even a one shot. Recently, ran a one shot where the party was being hired to track down a missing prince and bring him back alive. One person played a criminal that was given the chance to earn freedom, and another played a member of the Guard that worked with them first hand after they were arrested. Everyone else was an adventurer, and had already established a solid reputation within the guild itself. That gave everyone an excuse to already be at least mild acquaintances, or at the very least be aware of each other's accomplishments.
Same. My plot hook for session zero is usually enough to draw them together and give them a reason to party up.
I was running a campaign with two people who decided to have a backstory that revolves around each other. This made roll play with them so much fun. Whenever something interesting happened with one of them, the other got some spotlight too; and they were ok with that! It overall made the campaign all the more interesting. 1 year later they got into a relationship (not saying this will happen, it just was just so sweet).
I did this for my campaign as well. I had 3 of them, that already got along, be pirates that used to sail together during the Orc Wars. One of them was the captain and the other two were his officers. It worked out quite nicely. The others had firm relationships, even family, with other NPCs. That worked out even better than I had hoped. It brought the whole team together and they were invested in each other's stories. It helped them play their characters better as well. So I agree with you, it's a great idea and does make player easier and more fluid.
My fiancé and I have recently realized this technique is such a great way to cut to the action, get rid of the messiness of characters struggling to find reasons to stick together, and getting to the good stuff so that they can RP from there! Forged in the Dark systems also tend to “cut to the action” like this. Thank you for sharing your experience with this version to the community!
Bond mechanics are Great for Role-playing. The system I've been using is based on Dungeon World's take on Bonds, where exploring and developing your Bonds with the other players is one of the main systems that rewards XP. You're just as incentivized to kill an epic boss monster as you are to meaningfully role-play with the other character. My addition to this is to better define how to write these Bonds so that they more clearly define what your current relationship is, and how you'd be interesting in exploring how the relationship might develop. A State & a Hook.
"Daniel seems naive to the ugly reality of the word."
Good luck with your new campaign
!
Thank you! 🥰
My group actually stumbled into this method when I ran a campaign in Hunter: The Reckoning. Which if you haven't heard about it, your players are basically playing monster hunters.
The setting was in a small town in the forests of modern day Missouri. I picked a real town so that they could use Google Maps to figure out where everything is. They quickly realized this town was so small that there was no way they didn't already know each other. Even though they all had unique backgrounds, they immediately knew that all the characters had been going to the same bar for years. So when one started being stalked by a band of vampire children, they were all quickly pulled into the plot by association
Mentor (Ilias, mecenary) of my OC named Aster, before even know him actually kidnapped him and bring him to evil circus manager, because he saw Aster changes into unicorn. That made him wants that unicorn. Ilias has commision to bring back "lost kid". After all Ilias saves Aster from evil man and they decided to travel together. Love this story.
GINNY POSTED A NEW VIDEO!!! Thank you so much for your helpful tips!!
I have been playing DND because of you and I am so happy that I have found your channel ❤
So glad you're enjoying my content 🥰
Hope you've been loving playing your game too!!
I usually try to give my characters at least one person in the party, discussing it with the player of course, that already has some form of connection with them. Now, I can’t always do this, like with ongoing campaigns I join, but in those cases I usually try to find themes and ideas, maybe even sharing the same hometown, that will help me blend with the others of the party far more quickly. Also, and this is because it’s my own personality bleeding through, I have characters who look at the party and want to protect and care for them. I’m a bit of a compulsive caretaker irl so my characters will share certain aspects of this trait and it usually helps a ton with party cohesion. Found family is not uncommon in the groups I play with. Now this isn’t always the case but I usually try to use my intro to make my character appealing to the other players in such a way that they want their characters to latch on.
For an example I was a session late joining this newish fey themed (we are all fey or born/created in the feywild) campaign I’m in. So I had to bring my character into the fold for a party that had a whole session to bond already and started hitting their stride together. For this campaign I was a druid, dream circle actually, and when my character got to the door where the party had long rested, I told the dm that, instead of opening the door and introducing myself, that I actually turned into a spider and crawled under it. I then latched onto the party, who started investigating, not noticing my character. At some point I end up going through a portal with the artificer’s homunculus and when they come through themselves, I am hold the homunculus and handing it back to them, apologizing and just being nice. The other players found the whole thing so hilariously comedic that I was able to fold in my character to the party with ease. My character has also kept that disarming nice side and uses it for the party and lets it be a huge part of their fey nature (yes, pulls pranks). The hilarious part is that this campaign was meant as a long term horror one and now it’s more like we are the horror except it’s comedic, like the Addams family but fey themed. And that was how I introduced that character and folded in my character with ease.
As I said, I don’t always have the leeway of binding my character into the backstory of others but I try where I can to do so, even opening up my own backstory for a newly joining player to weave theirs into my own sometimes. Like for one, I had my ranger know the father of our newly joining paladin to the party.
But regardless, suspending one’s belief and communication is important. It’s usually good to play with people who know you to do this but not always necessary.
And for Ginny, man this video was great timing! I actually just finished putting together some characters with one of my dnd friends for future games. We designed out a pair of fairy cleric siblings, one is serious and the other a prankster and we are setting up some hilarious backstory things to maybe refer to in rp. Since this friend and I have such sibling energy irl, we plan to incorporate that vibe when we finally can play these two together. Hoping that campaign goes well!
(Edit:oh and example of another character. I actually had the ties for this character be on multiple levels. I chose a lot of parallel themes that would highlight the character arcs of the other players, made the character a caretaker by giving them that big sibling energy, had the character have a complex about protecting people due to previous incident in their backstory, had my character be close friends to npc the party was there to see and rescue (the same npc who is friends with another pc of the party), be from the same hometown as another pc even though the two had never met (allowed for bonding over homesickness and discussing places of interest there), and, most importantly, I gave this character a somewhat meta feeling trait. So, some people irl might tell you “I just had a feeling that it was important I do ‘such and such’” right? I gave this character that trait. They have strong hunches that are almost prophetic that they rely on. For them, I had them basically get to know the party and think “I need to go with these people when they leave, I need to be there with them because it’s important feeling.” Yeah so, little meta but I rp it like the way an irl person would do so. Despite that, this character is still really cautious by nature so isn’t fully reliant on that strong hunch ability. The character I had find and “test” the party in such a way that they could give themself excuses to follow through with their hunch. It worked and the character is very beloved by the party and well integrated. I’m actually shocked by how well they were and it’s been great rp this character, definitely my favorite of my characters.)
I joined a friend's game 10 sessions in, after they list a player. The party had just acquired a ship by killing off the pirates that sailed it. They need more crew than just themselves to sail it.
My character is a variant human Fathomless Warlock. I started the game with the Chef feat and made my character a ship's cook for the past 15 years. So I got hired on as the ship's cook for the party's ship.
Yes, Willem can throw eldritch blasts, breathe underwater, and has a swim speed of 40, but he sees himself as the ship's cook. The other stuff is new and handy.
The other party members are like the captain and officers. Our first quest involved parlaying with a tribe of Orcs. Willem joined because he was the only PC who spoke Orkish.
Willem is fun to play because I am a foodie irl, and enjoy cooking.
Another time we were exploring some ruins and ran into another group. As the other PCs began some tense diplomacy, Willem got out a hunk of bacon and began slicing it and frying it over the fire. He added some honey and chopped almonds and was soon passing out sweet bacon treats to everyone. Flasks were produced and shared. Soon both groups were relaxed and talking like old acquaintances.
Never underestimate the magic of good food!
@@SanJacintoArtGuild That’s awesome! I do the same with languages for my linguistics scholar character to some degree. They tend to come off more as an anthropologist though lol, because it’s my personal irl interest but it works! Also write poetry. I actually soothed an upset npc friend of my character by writing them up a poem and sharing it with them and even cheered up the group when I wrote one for them too. I write poetry irl and I’ve also written up some fairytale like short stories to share during rp that the little-sister vibe pc (that’s the vibe, not the blood relation) asks for during downtime. It’s made for fun interactions for sure! But yeah, with languages, our party has taken to having a “study group” before long rests for the night because we are all teaching each other languages. We make tons of bilingual jokes now because of it! Always a lot of fun to take your own interests and integrate it!
When introducing my little brother to his first d&d campaign, we decided that his stoic, honorable warrior (who was essentially a mercenary captain) was my angsty teenage druid's boss, who had a soft spot for her because she reminded him of the daughter he lost a long time ago. This was a lot of fun because it was so different from our dynamic out of character - and it led to some great roleplay moments when his character lost all his memories and embarked on a madness/darkness arc, forcing my character to become more mature and responsible and try to rein him in.
My group just started doing this and one of the bonds was a damaged Warforged repaired by an artificer in the party. Now I am a hitman that grew up in the streets and was called to work with the party by someone that I knew in those same streets. We had this moment in which the game was hijacked by our conversation but we where able to notice and have a small sidebar while the DM let other players play. I admit is a fun and smart move. Also in one campaign I played a Greedy Warlock and someone played the stereotypically dumb Barbarian so we agreed that my character was hiring his as a bodyguard/brute.
We're actually gonna do something this for our next campaign! My Bloodhunter is gonna be traveling companions with the Paladin (rough and touble sellswords), and the Wizard and Sorcerer are gonna be twins (elven nobles). We've also already prepared some solid reasons for them to travel together (My bloodhunter really wants to meet their dad, who as the royal mage can help him find out more about his curse and grand my character access to the royal library. The Paladin is a Plasmoid who doesn't really vibe with other people, so she'll stick with my Bloodhunter. And the nobles are basically recruiting allies for a grand quest given by their dad, so they'll take any help they can get)
I'm hoping to make some pre-existing backstory stuff with the Paladin's player, given that our characters have probably been traveling together for quite a bit now. She generally doesn't talk as much so I'm hoping the character connection will also give her somewhat consistent chances to engage in rp. Should be quite interesting!
Yes, my purchase of baldur's gate 3 was a business expense 😅
My group started out playing Monster of the Week where the character sheets have prompts for history w the other PCs, things like: "They came to you for advice and you got them out of trouble. What was the trouble?" and "They saved your life back before you knew the supernatural was real. What monster did they save you from?" And now when we play other games like DnD, we carry those same relationship idea over. We've played as a family of paranormal investigators, a group of college friends on vacation, a pair of mercenaries who just ran into each other on the road, and the classic groups of strangers hired for a quest. But always with the caveat that this isn't our first quest together, so we decide as a group how we met and how long we've been working together. This automatically adds so much lore to a game right at the beginning that's perfect for building on and skips over the awkward "getting to know strangers" beginning part.
I feel like this is explaining the players doing their part to tell a good story. Like poor players make video game main characters that the DM has to fit together into a party whereas good players either do it themselves or make it very easy for the DM to do that. One of the best players I’ve had in this area was actually a first timer who irl was very friendly so he naturally wanted to be friends with characters in game and it bonded everyone in about 10min
My favorite example of this was when I was in the navy. Irl, that was basically the only thing tying us together. We read the flyer, sent a text, made a character based on the info provided, then met up for session 1 (which became 0, but I digress).
When we all sat down, we quickly realized, we had all made rogues. Turns out, we were all used to being the 5th member who handled utility stuff the rest of the party forgot about. We turned out to all be different specialists though, so rather than start from scratch, we decided that we were a band of street urchins that snubbed the thieves guild in one way or another and decided to start our own. We quickly started working in “noodle incidents” and anecdotes about each other based on our character sheets and things worked out really well.
Side note, if you haven’t done an “oops all” campaign yet, you really should. It was one of the best campaigns I’ve ever been a part of.
The podcast dungeons and daddies did a good job of this. The party is a carpool to their sons' soccer game.
They all already had a reason to be together and all knew each other but not super well
Josh knows too much!
😅😅
In my current game that I'm running, I've got a Necropolitan Artificer, and a Dwarven Druid who traveled together before session zero.
The Druid is currently fighting for control over his body with an entity that was imprisoned inside a magical dagger. This has created some amazing RP moments between the two characters.
Both players are usually Min-Maxers, so the fact that they're viewing their characters as more than just a stat block and spell list is a HUGE win, and makes me a very proud DM.
We also have a Monk/Fighter and a Soul Knife Rogue who both were born and raised in the same country. As the campaign has gone on and they both have rolled tons of skill checks for regional lore because their characters would know these things, and it's bonded the characters.
I recently GMed my first oneshot and I simply said you all know each other. They were themselves as Commoners in a small village which got attacked. They had to flee and seek aid from the near alchemist/artificer, who was researching on a secret weapon. This machine transformed their conciousness in the body of an old hero from afterlife (their actual PCs). These heros also just knew each other being hundreds of years in Valhalla, drinking and so on. Since I designed the PCs for my players and it was eight of them, I didn't really put much time into backstory. I just chose a background which seemed to fit and done.
Thankfully two of the veteran players, the Zealot Barbarian and the Light Cleric, immediatly started their friendly rivalry which one of their gods is the best. This felt so natural and broke the ice for roleplaying right from the start.
WELL ACTUALLY-
This was a huge problem with my last character,. For context we have had a campaign going for almost 3 years now and are over 60 sessions deep. My last character was my second one of the campaign, and they just showed up out of no where, This not only made RP a little more difficult, but I had that character leave the party after a very short arc due having no reason to stay with these people. In contrast my current character had backstory ties with not only a few of the other characters, but with my previous character I've played, which has inticed the party and my character to learn more and brought them together towards that common goal.
Several years ago I ran a one-shot with strangers on a cruise ship, and I used *exactly* the "tell me two connections you have to other players" trick. It worked *so well*, the game ran so smoothly for role-play. I've been a dedicated adherent to the technique ever since.
In my most recent family game, the _primary_ joining mechanic to get the party together was having them all be on a gondola that was used to access a floating portion of a city when one of the players (a city councilor) had an assassination attempt take place. Since another player was a councilor's bodyguard and another dug up dirt on nobles in their spare time, that had some links going even before 'you're all implicated' was a factor. The other connection was between my younger sister and her husband, where she played a criminal faerie who was sent to steal an expensive robot... which was her husband's character. They hit it off, fled the scene together, and were living it up in the sewers when things kicked off.
I had two player characters V and K. V was a Firbolg druid who was exiled from his grove for breaking the vegetarianism rule and K was a son of an elven ambassador who ran away and was raised by the thieves' guild. But what K does not know is that K's father is the reason for V's exile. A long time ago when K's father was on a diplomatic mission V volunteered to guide him through the forest. Stuff happened and both ended up at a ruined Lolth's temple. Lolth being Lolth, cursed both to lose the most precious thing in their life but obviously didn't tell them the nature of the curse. V became an obligate carnivore hence getting exiled from the tribe and K's father became cold and distant towards K so that K would run away. Neither of them knew what was happening. Only years later did V figure out that his curse was attached to the incident with K's father and tracked K down and "joined the party" to learn more.
This would have been quite the ride. I planned a bunch of stuff with V's player. But sadly V's player had to drop out. K is still there in the game. Hopefully, I can do some "guest appearance" with V down the line to resolve this.
A tip I heard from Blades in Dark about this very thing "Roleplay session 1 as if it was session 12 where the party already figured out how they work as a team, defeated a previous arc already and generally already know each other. This helps give room to do flashbacks to create backstory of party that helps narrative and quickly allows party to get on with the adventure as quickly as possible"
As a DM, I try to provide a character focused reason. They can, and should, invest themselves in figuring that out. But it helps if there’s at least a prompt. This ranges from “you worked together before” to “a mysterious note tells you to stay close to a specific party member if you want your *insert backstory goal*”
I always do something similar to this during my session zero. We aim to make sure that each character has SOMETHING in common with each other character. So maybe the sketchy rogue and the knight have a hard time coming to terms with their worldviews and personal history but it turns out they both hold a special place in their heart for cooking. Maybe the knight used to bond with his mother growing up by cooking with her in the kitchen while his father was gone and the rogue always enjoyed learning to cook to help make something for him and his younger brother to look forward to eating on the very rare occasions they were able to eat in their poverty.
Bam. Both characters end up finding something in their downtime to help them interact and open up toward one another.
Ok, I had to pause to comment this. My very 1st "real" dnd campaign I was twins with another PC, Trouble (her) and Strife (me). We were Tiefling's, She was a bard, I was a rogue and together we grew up in Calimport scamming, conning and robbing. We had set "plays" we would do, each with a code word or phrase, akin to Thor and Loki's "Get help". It was great, the RP between us was amazing and having the connection to her allowed me to play the brooding, "lone wolf" kind of rogue I wanted to be. However, there were two major problems with this, imo at least. 1.) None of the other 3 PC's knew us or each other before session 1. However, that didn't stop at least two of the other PC's from assuming they could, instantly, be as close or familiar with us, which just didnt sit right with me. We had the history, we had the backstory and connection and they just kinda clicked right in like the their PC's had known us as long as we had known each other. There was very little, if any, of that new group awkwardness because of it and felt "meh". B.) (and this is the real problem, the other is neither here nor there tbh) She died. Got her throat ripped out by Strahd about 2-3 months into it. It. Fucking. Killed me. I fell too deep into the RP of it and I actually mourned her, grieved. I would have nightmares about it, have to rewatch it 100's of times, wake up screaming or crying, it really did a number on me, I'm not really sure if I have 100% gotten over it tbh and this was nearly 8yrs ago. It's rough. The upsides are amazing, the RP, the drama it was great. But bear in mind that if that person you are related to, married to, just close to, if they die in character, it hurts irl when its done "properly". And thats why I'll never play a character that is related to or has any kind of relationship prior the S1 again.
I am lucky enough that the host of our D&D game is also my best friend, and this is pretty much protocol for us. Every time we start a new campaign there is an obligatory phone call where the two of us discuss how our characters are connected. We've been siblings, step-siblings, brother-in-laws, employee/employer, and all sorts of other combinations. And you are 100% correct. I wouldn't do it any other way.
When I run one-shot games, I have a little trick I like to use. I begin by informing the players that they're part of an established adventuring group. Then, during character introductions going clockwise, I ask each player to add a brief tale about how the character before them once saved their life (skipping the first player at first and circling back around). It helps create the bonds between characters, establishes the mood, and encourages everyone to listen closely to each other's backstories. All in about 10 minutes, without any prep time.
For my latest game I said to my players, "You all heard about adventurers saving your town from dangers lurking beneath a few weeks ago, and were inspired to try to become adventurers yourselves. Looking for like-minded locals you came together and agreed to make preparations then meet up on the morning our game will start." This meant everyone already knew each other and could decide for themselves to form deeper connections if they wanted.
In one of my campaigns, I started with the guidance of "you are all 17-19 year old kids in this remote village, where your parents are shipbuilders. Every 2 years they take a ship to port to sell, and this is the first year you are all old enough to be left home alone without adult supervision." Worked great. We had a pair of siblings, a on-the-track-to-be-married couple, and a couple negotiated backstory shenanigans. Made for a super cohesive group, and let me start an open sandbox campaign in a small area and then grow from there. Their first adventure was fighting 3 skeletons -- by which I mean, they hid at midnight of the full moon by the spooky old altar, saw the skeletons, and ran away because undead are scary. But the paladin rallied them, and they went and raided the temple library and their parent's attics for gear, and came back the next night and destroyed the skeletons (and got hooked in to the story I'd written that eventually led them to finding the secret way out of their valley).
Our current campaign had us started with all characters being in some way tied to my character (because main plot reason only the DM and I knew). Three players are her adoptive children, one knows her through her through her late mentor and the last party member met her through delivering mail to her on the regular. Even our newest player made it so that their character knows her (a fey creature always recognizes his queen as they put it)
It's created such a fun dynamic and stuff hits different. PCs dropping during combat is more dire, rp moments and reveals are intense, the main story where everyone is pulled in a different direction contrasts the family dynamic really well, it's so good. Even if not to this level, I highly recommend playing from time to time that characters already know each other/someone in the party to some extent.
My brother started a oneshot with a short prologue where we summarized our group's first quest together. "D, what kind of monster did you face?" "A froghemoth!" "T, D saved your life, what happened?" "A collapsing tower almost fell on me!" "K, we were there to find something you were looking for." "A spellbook my mentor had lost!" We did some rolls and the whole thing took about 5 minutes, but afterward we felt like a cohesive group going into the actual quest of the oneshot, even making references to our past adventure together during play.