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Matt Mercer once said that he viewed character backstories as an invitation, not an expectation: you can leave blank space and possible character hooks in your backstory but you shouldn't automatically expect the DM to bring it into the campaign. If you definitely want elements of your character's backstory to be played out in the campaign, you should specifically communicate that to the DM early on. Otherwise, I think it's up to the DM to pick which parts of which backstories intrigue them enough to build into the campaign.
This is why I think clear, open communication between DMs and players is the number one MOST important part of any campaign! I think a lot of players either don't know that they can ask their DMs for things like that, or don't think it would be welcomed. Matt is in the enviable position of playing with some of his absolute closest friends, so I'm sure their communication is really, really good! Other tables may need a little more of an invitation to give feedback like that.
That's the kind of philosophy I try to keep in mind when I'm writing a backstory for my characters. I try to leave several open-ended hooks of varying interest and importance that they could potentially use, but I try not to make them too integral to the character. If they get used, great, if not, my character's arc doesn't come to a screeching halt. If my DM specifically asks what my character's main goals are, then I may include one or two key hooks on the expectation that they'll get included and resolved in some way.
Liam: Vax and Caleb were both so heavily involved in the climax of C1&2. I'm gonna be the support character this time, nothing heavy, just gonna scribble something in my character's backstory for some motivation... Matt: everyone you care about has been harmed by the BBEGs and apart from Imogen, no one at the table takes anything seriously so guess who's stepping up?!
As a GM one of the things I absolutely love to do is work my PCs backstories into the narrative. If a player gives me some of their story I enjoy thinking about how it narratively fits into the themes of the story we are telling together. That type of communication and trust between a group is what I love so much about the game.
I've got a drow character. The short version of his backstory is that he narrowly survived several attempts on his life; after the third attempt, he ran away to the surface. I have not defined who wants him dead or why. The DM can run with that or ignore it as they see fit. I kind of like not knowing; it adds to the paranoia.
My group recently wrapped a three and a half year campaign. During character creation, I defined a few relationships, firmly requested he not kill my character's sister, and then told my DM her parents had left on a holy mission when she was young and never returned. Their disappearance was something I actively wanted to solve and was my in character reason for leaving home. Elements of my story came up several times, DM tied the mystery I'd left him to the motives of another player's story to create party bonds, and even if we didn't complete the plot arc, we ended the game with me feeling like he'd made it matter.
My heart shattered when a DM I was playing with made my character's backstory into a giant Modify Memory. They basically made the backstory into a "and it all was a dream" and I didn't know what to do with that information moving forward with the game. I left that table.
A good dm can use this kind of twist well but it has to be predicated by one very important factor it must either a.) be used on a player with a one sentence backstory where changing it isn’t important or b.) only do so when it actually enhances the themes present in the backstory and doesn’t throw away their motivations and connections *minor spoilers for bauldur’s gate 3* Shadow heart is a good example of having s character who ends up being wrong about their own identity.
I've been DMing for a party of 3, and thankfully we were all able to make the three backstories link with one another and be crucial to the plot during session zero. Honestly, *never* skip session zero! This is where all the expectations should be clearly defined. D&D is a collaborative story, and that includes the DM to collaborate, not dictate, to the story.
3d6 rolled down the line, cleric. No skills. The name "Pastor Hagbard". A list of tools and guns. A bad portrait of a lutheran. The back side is mostly hard to read lists of town names. There is a dog.
I've had so many backstories ruined by a DM just steamrolling over everything for shock value that never lands; your mentor is dead, your family eradicated, your BFF is a villain! Any time I play with that DM I just give them the bare minimum now 😢
Thanks to your "50 Character Builder Questions for your Tabletop Character" I was able to pull a nice little surprise from their backstory on one of the PCs during a recent session. The character is a Path of the Open Sea Paladin and way back when I asked the question from your list "Describe your first kiss", the PC of this character described having an mutual one-night engagement with someone who was a server at an inn the night before he shipped out of his hometown to start his adventuring career. Fast forward about a year later, when the party just relocated to new city (and the PC had bounced around a few locations before that in their backstory), said PC walks into a high end tavern to meet an informant. The server that comes over to give him his drink says "Hello [player's character's name]. It has been a while" in a melodic voice. The PC got wide eyes and I asked him "Do you recognize them?" which he says no. I have the NPC server realize he doesn’t recognize them, get upset, have the PC roll a Dex save, which he fails, and gets splashed in the face with water with the NPC walking saying in annoyed tone "I guess it wasn't that special after all..." then ask the PC to describe the NPC's appearance and telling the player outside of the game this was the individual he described way back when that he had his first kiss with. The character did not have a good time in the situation but the player really liked and appreciated the flavor from his backstory. I think it also made the other players realize their answers to the questions matter(which we do at the beginning of each session to help them get into chartacter.) So thank you!
For clarification sake, when the player had originally answered the character builder question he stated that it was both the server and his character's last night in his hometown.
Just started up a brand new homebrew campaign and balancing the story of the world with the backstory of the characters has certainly been a challenge. I think the strongest connection can be NPCs. My players have a very "Bioware" mentality. They have a deep care for the NPCs that they encounter, so tying said NPCs into the backstories they wrote themselves is a great way to further that link. Find what your players care about and use that the build connection between the game world and the backstories of the characters.
I'm definitely of the first three levels school of thought--which is your first three levels are your character's backstory. Keeping a character backstory as simple as possible, so you can have an handle on the character is important for the first few sessions--beyond that the forces of the game is what shapes the character. It's a writing approach-- Backstory is the front loaded exposition an author may need to know before sitting down to write page 1, but it's preliminary throat clearing the reader almost never need encounter. It's action that happens out of scene and doesn't hold nearly the power of actions that happen in scene. In writing, but even more so in TTRPGs, action that happens in scene is more powerful because it's what we actually experience. And in an TTRPG, it relies on shared experiences rather than something that happened before the characters ever met. One example of what I'm talking about happened many years ago in a campaign I was running. The party was around 4th level and running a group of slavers to ground, but they got caught up in other plans they were trying to execute, and the slavers were able to move out of the area with their slaves. The party got that they had failed this part of the adventure, and that was a personal sting to each of their characters. As they were going through the trash, the paladin in our group found a simple corn cob doll with corn silk hair that had belonged to a little girl who had been shipped off to who knew where. Fast forward another year, when they are seventh level, and the party is debating on whether or not they are going to help a new group of people--the paladin pulls the doll out of her pack and slams it down in front of the party--and delivers a very powerful speech--this doll is a failure of ours--we failed to help this girl who was shipped off into slavery---we aren't going to fail to help these people in front of us now. The shock in the room when she did that was palpable, because every player there remembered that moment. Afterward, the discussion went directly from whether they were going to help into planning on how they were going to help. This is role playing gold--it draws on the collective memories and experiences of the players at the table. You can't get that kind of thing from a backstory. So my philosophy is the first adventure is page 1 of the character's story.
I can randomly churn out NPCs with a few tables and see what fools show up at the party. We ran into a vampire spy working as a shipping magnate. And this dude who was just connected enough and just dumb enough.
@@andrewlustfield6079 We figured we could not go after slavers one by one, Batman-style. We had to change the Moon. With Jesus. We started to plan out how to instigate a counter-coup to install a danish-backed government with enough legitimacy. If they are going to run a heathen blood-arena in the city, it's not going to stop because we smack a few dealers. We had a stirring speech. In danish, of course. But it was quite stirring. With some poking around and leaning on past contacts we figured out who did not support the rebel princess. This was not people off a list, they were random nobodies we had met in pubs and in gutters and at cheese orgies. One such group was 200 random mutant barbarians we had befriended out in nowhere. You can do a lot when you got 200 moon-barbarians. All the danish were pretty social, in their environment. We had danish who could talk with the mob, we had danish who could visit salons, we had danish who could make street speeches and danish who could intimidate a fool. All danish were constantly drunk. The greatest love stories of the game were random fools we ran into and kept in touch with, including serenading people under balconies.
Using a players backstory is one of the best ways to get your players engaged. I will typically try and talk with players individually before the game starts covering questions over their backstory. I try not to go over a couple of games without something coming up from someones backstory. It may be super small but I want to keep th players engaged.
My DM has incorporated my backstory very loosely, where my character's patron (they’re a Warlock) ocassionally appears and quite literally modifies outcomes and the world around the party, usually for their own personal gain or for fun. Exactly how I described this patron to be like for my character, often being a nuisance as such. It's simple but it's an effective way to do it because I'm much more engaged with the game and look forward to the next time the patron appears and see what they cause to go wrong now lol. Even if nothing else from my character's backstory comes up, I'm okay with that because at least I feel like my backstory has contributed to the campaign and I'm a part of the world :)
My DM has done a good job with this which I'll too-briefly summarize as "the Big Bad knew who we all were even though we didn't know each other". Of the 6 of us, 3 have has the ties exposed, the other 3 have hints, but we haven't got to those "episodes" yet in the overall arc. But it is obvious that it hasn't been forgotten.
When I DM, helping to build a back story is one of my favourite activities. I’ll ask a player to come up with milestones for their character and build around it to the tune of a three hour narrative. I currently have four stories written up (about 4000 words each). I found that the players and myself have a vested interest in the character so everyone will care about them. Also helps me with creating locations and npcs. I love your suggestions, and may steal a few ideas for my games 😊
I have historically had a GM who took my "set in stone" backstory and broke it apart in such a way that my character basically was rewritten. Collaboration is such a key part of TTRPGs, it's always a treat when that backstory is intertwined with the fun of the story (in a way that doesn't overstep boundaries)
I DM for a group of six, and using a mix of the ensemble cast and the full blown plot is really useful! A big thing though, is let your players feel special! Let them have something only their character knows! It’s fun for both of you.
My favorite aspect of DMing is being able yo weave backstories into my overall campaign. For me, it's all about "what, why, & how." The backstory usually answers 1 of these, maybe 2. I explore the unanswered parts of that equation. I also like to take how a player role plays their character to get a read on that for determining how to incorporate a backstory, especially when that backstory is light on detail.
My Seelie Court rep regularly interacts with his backstory. I've even got the group a invite to visit along with doing work for them and getting us rewards. It's a great hook for the DM
The rule in Esoteric is that you might know of other gangs, sometimes intimately, but your mates are the other PCs. A faery PC would know a bit more of the two courts and where to find them. It's often easy to find information about a gang in the city, you are good dishonest folks yourselves after all.
Absolutely love this. In a game I just started, at the top of our very first session, our DM said that they were having a blast designing the four characters who killed my parents and that a meeting was already being planned for one of them. The thrill that that news gave me was just 🥰
The whole Whitestone story arc for Campaign One of Critical Role came out of character background, and the entire party played off of that story line like the bosses they all are. I'm probably having my favorite time with my character background in the current game that I'm in now. I have a adopted sister who I have a psychic link with, she got kidnapped prior to the game, and I've been looking for her. The link brought me to the shadow of the gates of Waterdeep. So, I said, "Damn, now how am I going to find her ?" Then I met my party. The game is not all about me, but the group and the DM are throwing me bones every now and again character wise...And no they're not the bones of my dead sister.
I always try to invite my DM to explore parts of my story that I wouldn't mind him tampering with via in-character actions. The biggest thing that everyone must remember is that the DM cannot read minds. If you write this beautiful story about a young adventurer, orphaned because of a terrible attack at a young age, but found sanctuary with a hunter's guild that taught them how to hunt monsters (a la Witcher), and the DM tries to focus on the "find out who caused the attack that killed your parents" part of the backstory, you might be upset because that's part of the backstory you don't really want explored yet, you'd rather focus on tying close bonds to the hunter's guild and creating a deep connection with a pseudo-family. My solution for this would be that when I talk about my backstory, not only would I focus heavily in combat about "I remember the days in the blistering heat as Chiron the Goliath wrestled with me, and all the times he'd pin me to the ground, and I allow the muscle memory to steep through me as I attempt to trip my opponent and shove them prone!", but also, when downtime happens, as everyone is talking about how they want to go buy these potions or this magic item... if my backstory means that much to me, I would use my downtime to write letters to my guildmates, wish them well, tell them of my adventures and send gold to them, asking them to share their adventures in return. Usually, I would also private message the DM, saying (I want to use this gold to buy X weapon or Y potion, but I'd rather it seem like they sent it to me to wish me well on my journey, and they can make up a story on where they found it!). After I do this a few times here and there, the DM has two options: one, leave it as it is, because that's adorable that I use my guildies as a shop like anyone else in the party but also with flavor and a touch of homely love, OR TWO, use the fact I'm giving them a bunch of NPCs and stories for free and either talk about what part of the world they're in and what disasters are going on there, and maybe MY adventuring party has to go help them, because they are under some serious firepower and are recalling all adventurers and I couldn't bear the thought of them dying to something terrible while I'm gallivanting across the countryside. Maybe they come out to meet me, and they don't entirely approve of my party so they want to put us through the ringer, acting like a BBEG but with good intentions to "make sure they can keep me safe", otherwise I'm coming home before I get myself killed, because they ARE like my family. Maybe they come out to meet me and LOVE my party, and approve, and just want to wish me well! Maybe they bring terrible news that my father figure in the guild, the sorcerer, has passed of a fever wrought from a nasty infection that no healing magic seemed to cure, and I'm now feeling the death of my parents all over again, and NOW I can dedicate myself to find out what that cursed wound was, or maybe find a way to bring him back! There are plenty of options I am GIVING the DM, with the only thing I tell him being "This is my new family after my old one died, and I want THIS to be the focus of who my character is, that you can find love from strangers. How you show that is up to you." And if all it remains is just a funny way to describe a shop with letters and stories about where the magic items come from? That's still pretty adorable.
I love including character backstories into my campaign. I have one player who's favorite part of dnd is writing the backstory. I tend to do "the party is the plot" because that's fun for me and the players
Ginny, you are a literal magician. I just had a session with my players last week and have been thinking to myself that I need to include their backstories more into the story because when I've been a player, that's been something huge I've wanted to see. Thanks for the EXACT video topic I need!
I tend to take the ensemble cast approach but I've been wanting to try the "backstory is the plot" approach for my next homebrew campaign. I guess we'll see how well I do with that when it comes around. Also, have to agree that there's nothing more frustrating than a DM totally twisting your backstory until your character stops making any sense. Been there, hated that. I always try to handle with care having had that experience.
One of my players had a past where she escaped slavery and was actively looking for revenge. That wasn’t the central plot, but I rolled with it for a quick adventure and boy was it good. They helped bring down a huge underworld of slavery scattered across multiple kingdoms, and even to this day at some points they run into remnants and she gets the chance to relive the thrill of getting her revenge while staying on par with the rest of the group!
As a DM I like to let the player come up with their backstory on their own. Then I want to go through it and think of how it can be used to weave them in to the main story plot or create interesting subplots specific to that character. I then work with the player to then tweak it in little ways to make it better fit the campaign setting. I want it to be their story while making sure it makes sense within the larger scope. Usually my players are happy to make small changes that make them fit in better and it lets me give them foreknowledge about some settings and situations their character would know going in. I also like to modify the higher level plot to fit the character stories whenever possible. Some of my best games had plot or setting changes in ways I didn't expect as a result of player character backstories being added in. The players also seem to feel more invested in the game when it's more inclusive of their chosen story. It changes the game from a DM running a game for the players to more of a feel of the players being a part of telling a grand story and the DM is just there to set the stage and coordinate multiple overlapping tales. Everyone has the opportunity to be the hero (or villain if they choose) of their own narrative.
For me the most important thing in a campagne is players feeling like they are telling their own stories instead of mine. So I'm very motivated to tie the background stories very heavily into the overarching plott line. I use a mix between the second and third approach in the video. And I'm constantly in touch with the players with questions about their stories if I need additional information. My focus is creating a story in colaboration with the players. Some aren't that interested to partizipate in that way, so sometimes I'm asking too much of them. 😅
I'm the player who usually writes a novella as my backstory, complete with NPCs, enduring conflicts, and crucial character-related details that could be used as story hooks in the future. In other words, I make this process pretty easy, as long as the DM/GM has time to do some reading.
For our party's backstories, we highlight information with different colors. Color one is for things you want to stay the way they are. Color two is for things that are how the character sees it, but might be different in reality. Color three is for info that you are fine with changing. Also each player lets the dm know if they want to know if things change with their character (specifically for color 2)
I'm a GM/DM--first time in traditional fantasy GM, but GM for the third time (the only times I've played TTRPGs)--and I just assumed it was an expectation to incorporate backstories. I do always ask, "is there anything off limits?" and if something fights a potential common trauma (such as child abuse), I always clear it with the players, usually a few sessions in advance. I have found that some players really want that backstory incorporated in, and others "just want to start playing." There's definitely an art to balancing those. That said, I've never had a player who "just wants to play" be upset when another player's backstory shows up. Usually it causes an email or phone call with me the next week to discuss possibility of expanding their backstory so they can experience something similar. It can be moving, comical, healing, and lots of other things. Take the backstories with the care for which they were intended.
I have the luxury of playing at a table with my closest friends, and all of them approach character backstories differently. Two of them write very in-depth, complex backstories with fully fleshed-out NPCs, one writes an average of a couple paragraphs, and one prefers to flesh out her character in in-game RP. What I find works best for my group is matching backstory involvement to how much each player is invested in their backstory. My two heavily involved writers get their characters' backstories and favourite NPCs closely entwined with the plot, and my average-length writer gets a couple significant events centered on her character's backstory. Then for my next campaign, I'm planning to create a few NPCs from my improv-loving friend's character's hometown, and when I introduce them in game, I'll tell her what she knows about them and let her decide what kind of relationship they have. I'm really looking forward to trying this out, I think it's gonna work out really well.
Thank you GINNY! 💖💖 because your videos, am doing my first DM campaign. and literally I made my own rulebook and campaign. now am really now binging on you RP and food making playlists.
Absolutely love this- my main campaign rn has run the gamut on these, and oh boy, no one tells you how satisfying it is after years of gameplay to have the pieces of your backstory come together to form a satisfying narrative!
For my current group I have already been using the ensemble approach and it has been great. I have made things appropriate for the party by attempting to align story threads with at least the general location of plot threads, allowing the party to have little dispute on wether or not they could go over there. By keeping things far from out of the way the players can all go “ya lets kill two birds with one stone and both do their character quest and the main quest!” Their backstories are largely the focus of the current story with the larger story being hinted at through their own quests where possible. Doing this allows me to move along the main story and make a tie between it and their own plotlines. Hopefully this will make the transition into the main plot after most of their backstories are resolved much nicer. When much of it is resolved I plan to still have things show up when possible. Some things they do may even make new threads just as sokka’s sudden feeling of uselessnesss did for him. The last thing I wanted to mention in this is to be willing to let players write some things on the spot. If it isn’t game breaking in any way, them suddenly coming up with “Bob the clown” (an actual character in my campaign) and that being a part of things can help them feel they are a part of the writing process. Sometimes they may want to roleplay a certain situation they hadn’t previously considered such as the person they hired for their art museum. TL:DR this method of backstories is 100% a good idea and I have already seen success with my party of mixed experience.
Limitations can be an inspiration and a challenge for creativity. There's a big and exciting difference between "Let's create something good" and "Let's create something good that can fit inside this small box."
One of the reasons I love prewritten adventures is that it gives me so much more time to include backstories into the story. I am a huge lore-driven DM, but I certainly homebrew lore that doesn't contradict current established lore for the world I run when possible. The book writes a story for me and I write my player's backstory into the plot-line. WIN WIN! I have a mix of players who love combat (but aren't huge min/maxers) and players who just care about the RP. I think in both cases there is an appreciation for backstory elements.
I like practical, actionable lore. How does this impact our platoon of guardsmen eating canned grub in a ditch, where we want to advance 25 and take Building 242. "What's in this dang can?" is good lore. And "So what's the temperament of our company CO?"
50 seconds in and I'm already having a massive endorphin rush. Of course I'm the only one in my group that actually bothers with backstories but it's nice to actually be understood for once
Our method is the 3rd option. It is awesome when the DM riffs in different ways than you've envisioned. It's how we want to play. So it is really fun for our table
I feel like Ginny's videos give such helpful, actionable advice. I'm really looking forward to the one for players on how to make backstories better suited for games! Those kinds of discussions are my very favorite RPG TH-cam content.
I have taken a bit of both the party is the plot and pieces. While not all the characters backstories directly lead into the plot, just due to the locations, there is plot based stuff which will happen. As a quick example, we have a owlin who lived in the shadowfell in my world. While his backstory revolves around the feywild and shadowfell stuff, there’s stuff in both places that connect to the main plot. Meaning if they peruse the plot there, their backstory comes up, if they peruse his backstory there, they have a connect to the plot if they don’t discover it right away. This style of story telling makes my world feel more alive in my opinion.
This was super helpful for me. I often struggle with how to incorporate backstories into the campaign (especially since I'm relatively inexperienced, and am playing a prefab). This guidance gives me some ideas for how I might integrate stuff more successfully. Also looking forward to the player-focused follow-up!
Game I'm running now, 3 characters made deeper backstories, 1 didn't. I've used all the three deep backstories as hooks so far. Next hook is a npc they ran into in the second session will contact the other character with a job. Each hook plays to their strengths and exploits their weaknesses. Everyone is having a blast so far.
It would probably be more for the player side of this topic (so the later video you mentioned) but Seth Skorkowsky brought up a point that sometimes a GM not using a player’s backstory was actually the player’s fault sometimes because they never brought it up themselves and so the GM made it less of a priority. The example he had was in a Traveller campaign - he did the skit of the PCs walking into a bar and seeing what was there in two ways, once with the PCs just passively waiting for the GM to bring up their backstories and thinking about what they wanted (“Man, I wish Seth had put some Omicrons in this bar, he knows my character hates those guys and this would be a great time for some to show up!”), and then the second time with them actively asking about those elements (“Hey Seth; are there any Omicrons in this bar?”). The scene didn’t change in either version - there were no Omicrons in either version - but it kept those elements fresh in the group’s mind and would make it easier for Seth to remember to add a plot line involving Omicrons for that player sooner. I believe the videos I’m thinking of were his Character Backstory 101 and 201 videos.
Great timing with this video since I'm currently working on a new character's backstory for the weekend: A human with an actress mother and various half siblings of inhuman fathers. A half orc, a half elf, an air genasi, a tiefling and an Aasimar I have planned so far. But now I am thinking that if his mother had an affair with a Djinn resulting in that air genasi, maybe she got to make a wish like no longer visibly ageing, to cling to her spot in the limelight. But why would the Djinn want her to have his child? And now I'm also considering that maybe she also made some benefitial deal with a devil resulting in that tiefling child, and a celestial resulting in the aasimar. Like she's just a regular charismatic woman able to outsmart greater powers for her own benefit and by playing various sides she avoids any downsides on her part. And maybe her getting caught in some trouble with this that her son, my character could try to help her with using his sorcerous powers. He has no idea who his father is and is her oldest. I'd leave it to the DM to decide any details about his father, he already seemed interested to work with that at session zero.
My DM has made the whole campaign involving our backstories, it was amazing too as it seemed at first it wasn't and them bam we are thrown into this whirlwind of a campaign, so far its been really fun.
I always try to leave a lot of space in my characters backstory for DMs to play with however they’d like. Usually, the deal is that if i havent established it, its free to be whatever. I make clear what are character assumptions and what is established. This has worked relatively well for me, because it means i have no idea whats coming, but i also have to make sure i dont set expectations that may not be met. I think the hardest part is just making sure that you are ok with the tie ins being TRULY whatever, and if you want drama, communicating that.
Incorporating backstories is my favorite part of DMing! I use the ensemble cast method and my parties love creating backstories and giving me things to work with and leaving some stuff up to my interpretation. While we wait for Phandelver and Below to come out, my party that just finished the original LMoP (my first full campaign as a DM!) is currently on a side-quest that relates to both some loose ends from the campaign and a way to incorporate a new party member who joined us. It seems to be going well so far!
You mentioning Lines and Veils reminds me of something from another game I am playing. "The GM and other Players can’t read your mind, and if you want them to respect your boundaries, you have to make them aware of them. If you feel that the elements you banned from the game are still present, try talking with the group. It’s likely they misunderstood your definition or simply forgot about an item on the list. Pointing it out is usually all it takes to fix this. If a Player or the whole group insists on including banned elements or topics in the game, even after you point it out, stop playing. Either ask the group to talk this over, or - if you’re either not comfortable with it, or don’t see any chance for improvement - leave the table. It may sound dramatic, but that’s what you should do. If everyone else is having fun but you’re suffering, they’re actually having fun at your expense, and that’s unacceptable."
One thing that worked out really well for me is playing out part of the backstories of the players by organising a "prologue" where it's just that one player and I either playing out something they wrote in their backstory, or if their backstory is already pretty well defined, play out how they went from where their backstory ends and where the adventure will begin. With one player who was perfectly okay with playing out whatever he wrote, and changing up everything that would go differently, I had 3 whole prologue sessions where he did enite heists, one of which being for the BBEG. It both really helps the players fill in the "Why am I adventuring" and "What on earth am I doing here", and helps me understand their backstory better, and also helping me with plothooks in the future. Aside from that, it makes the "I wrote your backstory" approach also a lot more fun, as it feels like a little secret between you and the player. It's absolutely wonderful to see the reaction of my players when hinting at something like that, and definitely worth the effort in my case. Word of warning. Always make sure your players actually care for a prologue, and make sure you have the time to put effort into it. When I started, I was new to DM'ing, and doing a prologue for 6 people was definitely more work than I initially anticipated.
Just joined my first DnD campaign, with a character I spent a while thinking of a good backstory for, and was delighted to hear my DM tell me he was excited to use the backstory for plot hooks later on :) (he's a former criminal enforcer turned wandering paladin, and still has a lot of loose ends related to his past that I'm excited to see how my DM ends up using them) so yeah, hearing that my character backstory matters to the DM has definitely increased my excitement to play!
The difference between imaginitive and creative is that imaginative is anything with no restrictions while being creative is making something within restrictions. The dm has to be creative with the backstory, but imaginiative with the gameplay while players have to be imaginative with the backstory and creative with the gameplay.
That last bit about lines and boundaries concerning a character's story actually being freeing is super useful btw. If I didn't know what type of story or history my players were comfortable with, often times i would err on the side of cautionand not create much fiction for them, hoping not to ruin whatever cannon they had in their head. This would leave the worlds surrounding their backstory feel empty compared to any pieces that were all my creation. If you flat out ask for what things can be played with or developed by you and what should be left alone, you'll have the reins to do a whole lot with their story.
Oh my god can you read minds? This video is coming out at the perfect time! I was literally about to hold a session with my party regarding how to integrate their backstories into the campaign and what I can do for them! Thank you for this video! It's awesome!
My DM style and campaign building is of the "intense/party is (part of) the plot" type. Character creation is a collaborative venture, we roll and choose life events, and make sure the important parts of the characters past get worked into that lifepath. During the process, I will make sure plot connection is also built into their background, and for my most recent campaign even made connections between several members of the party - all before the first session. It makes for a deeply interconnected world that the characters and players feel like they are truly involved in and an important part of as the story unfolds. The other benefit this gives is making gathering the party together and driving the plot forward very easy - the characters/players are already invested.
One thing I really love about my DM is is that he does a great job incorporating backstories. Some of the group left some details out for him to fill in and they really love how he filled in the blanks. I always put in a lot of details, but if I need a new character I'm going to leave some blanks on purpose. I've written some backstories for backup characters and I always put in notes at the end inviting the DM to fill in certain gaps, come up with additional ideas and collaborate.
In my current campaign I, for the first time, really started to weave my players' backstory very tightly into the story and it's the best thing ever! I fell in love with one character in a back story so much, I kind of shelved my own baddie and made them the new BBEG. We sat down, clarified and changed things and over time found ways to connect the players' backstory in different ways. (I had the full consent of everyone involved to do that, in moderation of course.) This way the whole world felt more rounded, since the other Players could feel that there was stuff going on in the background, for every party member. And seeing the other Backstories being featured in the campaign, even made some players want to build a bit on the stuff they've had given me at the start. This is something I always kind of did and tried to do, but it feels so rewarding and exciting to really try to bring my players story to the foreground this time.
One of my favorite things about the last game I was in was how much my dm did with my back story. It was a 3.5 game so he created a custom prestige class for him and created a whole position in that church that didn't exist before. Aside from all the mechanical uses, it added a lot of fun flavor.
Hey Ginny! i just wanted to comment to tell you how helpful all of your videos have been for our college table, and how thanks to you we have made some really good memories thanks to the ideas that I was able to use as the DM!
In my campaigns I usually take a prewritten module to paint the broadstrokes and give me dungeons/encounters/etc, then have my players make characters and whatever their backstories are IS the campaign. I find out how I can connect it to the overall plot and then slowly dripfeed them information until they discover how they were secretly involved since day one. For example, my current Tyranny Of Dragons game has a tiefling bard who's parents were killed when they were a baby. So I wrote up a powerful devil who bargained with their parents, and since he's a devil (and Tiamat is in the Nine Hells), he also has a connection to Tiamat's overall scheme that the party hasn't discovered yet.
Fantastic!! I've had DMs who were very minimal or disapointing with how they incorporated backstories, but I've also had DMs who went all out and made player backstories integral to the plot, or even just weaved in the necessary bits to make it extremely satisfying to get started on the adventure, knowing that somewhere along the lines the mysteries would be solved. It's the best! Can't wait for the other part of this tango! 😃
I’m a forever DM now, but when I played in a game run by a high school friend I wrote a backstory that provided the emotional background for my character to be adventuring. The first session my DM promptly got the name of the main organization from the backstory wrong, I only figured out he meant it to be an emotional moment for my character when he stared at me expectantly. His reaction afterward immediately told me my story was secondary to his here was little to no collaboration here and colored the rest of my short time at the table. Ultimately it was a good thing though because as a DM now it makes me ever aware of including the things my players give me and using their backstory to it’s fullest potential
I've been running a game for ten years and I've come up with a creative way for my players to work on their backstories without it interrupting the main plot. I have created a mail system and the players get letters from family, NPCs unique to them, and random people they may not even know. This way they can share as much or as little as they like and continue to develop their goals they wrote in their backstories. Just thought I'd share since I love my system so much.
I look forward to the player-focused video. I always find, as a player, it’s more fun if my backstory ties in with the world and plot my DM is building so I try to communicate that so we can both enjoy engaging with it
I used a variant of the last technique in my campaign. I had a main plot in mind and I used all the player's backstories to bind them to this plot, giving them motivation to group together and tackle this big problem. As the campaign goes on, I then either tie some new backstory elements to the main plot or I do the ensemble cast approach for backstory related short quests. Binding all the backstories into the main plot was definitely the hard part but once it's done, the result is really satisfying. With players never feeling like they don't belong on this journey.
So, I'm running my first long term campaign and I've been doing all of these. I even asked if they wanted episodes about them to incorporate their own backstories. Theyre even the central piece and i made sure to tie all of them together during our Session 0 and they've been loving it.
I'm definitely a method #3 DM. The story stretches beyond the backstories, but almost everything of overarching significance comes from their past. The first place I look for a new plot hook is unused bits of backstory. The one thing I would add to these tips is, make sure you have at least one or two hooks left for the endgame.
Great video. I try to give my DM/GM enough plot hooks to give me something, but not make the entire group/adventure about me. It's really fun when something I wrote shows up in the adventure. I especially try to give the GM/DM enough rope to hang me with - something to come back and bite me on the ass
I love player backstories so very much. I once built a campaign that used each character's backstory to build each section of the campaign. I came up with the overall arc, the main and major NPCs that were important for the story, then took each backstory and used it to create each major step. For example, the first major NPC they meet is the guildmaster of their guild and unbeknownst to players and characters, this guild master was in a poly relationship (one partner being the BBEG and one being another important NPC that happened to be a werewolf), so finding one one character has a tragic history with werewolves I immediately created a situation in which the werewolf NPC had run away and gone feral (because of one of the key items) and he was not only creating werewolves in the nearby forest but it was his pack that had attacked the character and his friends when the character was a child, that the character's friends were now werewolves themselves, and gave the character a chance to try and save his friends while saving the NPC. It was pretty awesome and the player loved it. Another player asked for my help in making a good hook for the backstory and together we came up with her character's sister had disappeared years ago and everyone felt they knew where but just could never remember. I created a town that had been sent into the Feywilds by a Wish spell gone wrong (due to another key item) and was cursed that only those who had been to the town before it was transported could remember its existence - you could read about it, but as soon as your eyes left the page, you forgot about it, you could hear about it but once the speaker was finished with the sentence, you forgot. I did things like that with each character, designed a key item to defeating the BBEG with each backstory in mind, and together we made an amazing world that I'm slowly putting up onto World Anvil
My very first character's backstory was basically "He was captured by some kind of cultists who wanted to sacrifice him to their patron.He started praying to anyone who would listen and eventually was heard and rescue by some wildlife send by Silvanus. In return he became a Cleric in his name." The main story was based around investigating followers of Bhaal which we found out later were the ones that kidnapped him. I left my backstory vague on purpose so the DM had an easy time to integrate it in a way that didn't feel forced.
For my newest campaign (launched in April) I asked my players to send me at least a 50 word backstory, which I took and wrote out a minimum 3 page backstory for each character, with the players help. We fleshed out starting areas, formed stronger bonds to NPCs and set up a shared history to local events other characters would recognize. It was such a fun and unique way of drawing my players into the home brew world I’ve spent 2 years creating
Lines and veils are actually so helpful! Just like you said, it allows you to know the bounds of creation. I had one such experience with a player who was like "whatever you do, my mom shouldn't be killed or hurt." It allowed me to ask, "Ok, can she be... inconvenienced? Spoken to rudely?" And just like that a 7 foot tall dragonborn sorcerer is casting Fear and then CHASING THE PEOPLE WHO WERE MEAN TO HIS MOTHER
One of the encounters my players really liked was an evil tree which put everyone except one player who was immune magically to sleep. From their pov they walked into a foggy room in the dungeon and woke up in their worst or most traumatic memory that was on their character sheets. The other player who couldn't be forced to sleep was fighting the undead who had been victims of the tree before. Needless to say it was a very fun encounter and helped everyone grow closer to their characters in a somewhat organic way.
My DM is insane, and ties in the entire party's backstory to the sessions. We got a halfling barbarian baker searching for her father, an agnostic Tiefling cleric finding get own power, and a Tiefling paladin reconnecting with her sisters.
I liked how a couple Pathfinder adventure paths did it, with the traits that were available to characters at creation that had certain interactions with the campaign. Like in Jade Regent and Wrath of the Righteous there were a few times even in the 4th or 5th book (level 12+) when a trait would be referenced in text with something like "if X, then Y." Or how JoCat in his Necrohunt campaign managed to take a couple different minor character points and the players agency turned them into full blown side quests...
My current DM is newish, she has been running our and her first campaign for 4 years now. Despite all of us being new to DnD at the time, she somehow did create a plot where all of our backstories tie together to create the main story. Of course she had written tons of fantasy novels and stuff before we all started playing dnd, many with large casts so I think the practice from that translated over to making a DnD story really well
As someone who has so far only DMed modules, it can be challenging to tie player backstory into a main narrative that has already been written. I struggle especially with in CoS, which is a very self-contained world. I like to try and find elements to tie into the main narrative as character motivation, but I like the idea of the ensemble cast approach. Some good old side questing can sometimes be exactly what one needs in a game.
In my first time playing D&D the DM actually used an NPC from a character's backstory as the boss of the champagin. I'm pretty sure that creativity was one of the main reasons that I love D&D so much.
Really fabulous video!! As a DM and player, I really try for the "party is the plot" approach even in pre-written campaigns. It's difficult but really fun to get everyone involved and invested in the story! And I love the LotR segment XD
The last campaign I delivered was its own thing but I interwove one of the character's backstory through it to give it some additional enjoyment from the group and with the current campaign I've done the same. For the next campaigns (one in progress) I've used those character back stories again, singling out each one (similar to delivering a single session but broadening it to be the story arc for the campaign) and so far it seems to be working very well. I've even started to sow the seeds for the third and final back-story campaign within this current one so that we have a jumping point for where to go after this campaign comes to a close :) Nice work as always, your videos have been really useful for my players as well so thank you for that.
I cut somewhere between "ensemble" and "party is the plot". There is an overarching plot that I'm telling, but my PCs inform how I drive it. For example, we spent the past while in Sharn because the noble in our party was from there, and his family and connections helped finance their operations. The current BBEG is our warlock's patron, which also pissed off an archfey who is providing the warlock an alternative. There are hints about a problem brewing in another country, and that will tie in to our Kalashtar's backstory. Our barbarian's father was friends with a critical NPC, and that led the barbarian to get close to the warforged in the area, which ties into the bigger overall arc that we'll hit 3 sub-arcs from now. That same critical npc is adversarial toward one of my players and his family. So while I'm playing out my desired story of dragons vs devils (Barons - Eberron), my players are also playing out their character arcs.
I'm a new dm and I've been so concerned about making sure every pc gets their moment to shine (assuming the players want that) and let their backstories come to light in appropriate ways and moments. I recently was playing in a campaign that felt like my character's entire backstory was being overlooked or wasn't even read by the dm, and it was so frustrating. Ended up leaving the party both in-game and out because it just made no sense for my pc to stick around anymore, and it was a tough decision. This is also why I'm so concerned about it as I step into the new role of DM on my own - I'd hate to make my players feel that way! This helped a lot, thanks Ginny!
I'm running a campaign now where the players range from completely uninterested to invested to the point where they want to write how their backstory fits in the main story, without having a clue where the story is going 😂
I am a DM that often gets praise from my players because of my skill, and whenever I'm asked for DMing advice, my go to response is to make the players' backstory the plot. I don't remember who said it (knowing myself it was probably Brennan Lee Mulligan) but I remember them saying something along the lines of "the backstory should be the trajectory of how the story will go" like pulling back and aiming a bow. This style of DM makes everything so much more cinematic, every reveal is taken so well by the players. I remember the first time the party in one of my current games met one of the main bbeg's and one of my players realized it was an old student/friend of theirs that they thought was dead. The table erupted with excitement. It also leads to more interesting interactions with NPCs, such as the time my bard player distracted their evil dad by convincing him that his wife was cheating on him. Some of the most hilarious roleplay I've had to do. Def recommend "party is the plot" approach, especially for a more roleplay heavy table
You could have your cake and eat it too with the brother having joined the king's guard. Later he gets sucked into a cult. I know you have to be careful with messing with family members. The occasional sibling in peril is great, but having a family that mostly alive and well, even if they've been lost or something, and then having a family reunion field day skill challenge when you finally find them is pretty fun.
My point is that it's not really the DM's cake - it's the player's! It's up to the player to offer the DM whatever slices of their cake they are willing to share 😜
Even dead pcs can have meaningful backstories too! When my character died session 5, I talked with my dm and we decided to include a journal my character kept on her body. We worked together to include enough mystery about the character’s origin and name drop relevant characters as well, and it was written in a language only one other party member could read, so he could choose to share or keep the information to himself (to summarize, my character was the runaway daughter of a prolific cult leader). Last night we just had our fourth session since the character passed, and the only place we could find shelter in a new settlement was… a branch of the cult her dad started. The party member who kept the journal contents secret caves, and reads it to the other members. It was a really smart move, as it was an immediate way for the dm to make the party hate the cult, and gave all our characters motivation to go after them. We even met a dmpc from my character’s past who was fighting against the cult too! All in all it was a phenomenal session, and as a player it meant a lot to see my deceased character still have pull in the story.
Backstories are my favorite thing! When creating a character, that's my starting point. Unfortunately, every game I've played in for the last eight years did not have any interest in backstories. They were all hack and slash. I decided to run a game and told the players to make backgrounds and this was what one of them gave me... verbatim. "Grew up in a monastery. Was bullied a lot. Became a monk." Thanks. How I long for a good game.
I feel your pain friend. You spend all that time and effort putting your heart and soul into a backstory that truly brings your character to life and getting a "sure, whatever"... honestly I have a hard time understanding why I even bother showing up anymore
@@firestorm165 the story is really the only reason why I want to play. Yes, I like being powerful, but I also like creating memorable stories. I couldn't tell you 90% of the bad guys I fought, but two minutes of Julia, the barwench that was devoid of any personality (in a game with great storytellers), has stuck with me for 30 years. For me, it's all about role-playing moments.
@@danlayne9436 absolutely agree. My favorite moment was when my DM gave me a character beat completely by accident. He was just supposed to be generic noble quest giver number 47 but with the quirk "likes exotic meats", which happened to include Pegasi. My oath of devotion paladin/celestial warlock took great offense to this so at the celebratory feast she was making pleasant small talk with a serene expression on her face. At the end of the dinner she cast fly on herself and superman tackled him out the window to the surprise of everyone in universe and at the table. She then flew straight up with that same serene expression softly singing the song from her childhood that inspired her dreams of becoming a knight for the entire duration of the spell, the noble and DM frantically panicking all the while. When the spell wore off at roughly 72,000 ft (if my maths is correct) she let go, watched him drop (noting sarcastically that a flying horse would be rather useful right now) and recast the fly spell on herself. Of course instead of a satisfying splat DM pulled out a feather fall spell from somewhere so now it's going to be done the hard way.
Hello, so I’ve been subscribed for a while - I will say out of all others explaining or just doing dnd content you keep my focus and get things across so simply and quick. You’re an adhd person best friend Ginny 😂
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Ok, the having (what I assume is) a fan blowing your hair during the LOTR Ad. was a nice touch that made me laugh for some reason.
Seeing you advertise stuff from Ravenburger feels so wierd, it is such a traditional German company. That's pretty cool!
Matt Mercer once said that he viewed character backstories as an invitation, not an expectation: you can leave blank space and possible character hooks in your backstory but you shouldn't automatically expect the DM to bring it into the campaign. If you definitely want elements of your character's backstory to be played out in the campaign, you should specifically communicate that to the DM early on. Otherwise, I think it's up to the DM to pick which parts of which backstories intrigue them enough to build into the campaign.
This is why I think clear, open communication between DMs and players is the number one MOST important part of any campaign! I think a lot of players either don't know that they can ask their DMs for things like that, or don't think it would be welcomed. Matt is in the enviable position of playing with some of his absolute closest friends, so I'm sure their communication is really, really good! Other tables may need a little more of an invitation to give feedback like that.
That's the kind of philosophy I try to keep in mind when I'm writing a backstory for my characters. I try to leave several open-ended hooks of varying interest and importance that they could potentially use, but I try not to make them too integral to the character. If they get used, great, if not, my character's arc doesn't come to a screeching halt. If my DM specifically asks what my character's main goals are, then I may include one or two key hooks on the expectation that they'll get included and resolved in some way.
Liam: Vax and Caleb were both so heavily involved in the climax of C1&2. I'm gonna be the support character this time, nothing heavy, just gonna scribble something in my character's backstory for some motivation...
Matt: everyone you care about has been harmed by the BBEGs and apart from Imogen, no one at the table takes anything seriously so guess who's stepping up?!
As a GM one of the things I absolutely love to do is work my PCs backstories into the narrative. If a player gives me some of their story I enjoy thinking about how it narratively fits into the themes of the story we are telling together. That type of communication and trust between a group is what I love so much about the game.
I've got a drow character. The short version of his backstory is that he narrowly survived several attempts on his life; after the third attempt, he ran away to the surface. I have not defined who wants him dead or why. The DM can run with that or ignore it as they see fit. I kind of like not knowing; it adds to the paranoia.
My group recently wrapped a three and a half year campaign. During character creation, I defined a few relationships, firmly requested he not kill my character's sister, and then told my DM her parents had left on a holy mission when she was young and never returned. Their disappearance was something I actively wanted to solve and was my in character reason for leaving home. Elements of my story came up several times, DM tied the mystery I'd left him to the motives of another player's story to create party bonds, and even if we didn't complete the plot arc, we ended the game with me feeling like he'd made it matter.
My heart shattered when a DM I was playing with made my character's backstory into a giant Modify Memory. They basically made the backstory into a "and it all was a dream" and I didn't know what to do with that information moving forward with the game. I left that table.
Don't blame you; that's a shabby way to treat you and the effort you made with it.
That's pretty shoddy DM work - they wanted something as a big reveal and did it at your expense. They need to understand this is collaborative.
Good move
“Agency Eliminated!!”
A good dm can use this kind of twist well but it has to be predicated by one very important factor it must either a.) be used on a player with a one sentence backstory where changing it isn’t important or b.) only do so when it actually enhances the themes present in the backstory and doesn’t throw away their motivations and connections
*minor spoilers for bauldur’s gate 3*
Shadow heart is a good example of having s character who ends up being wrong about their own identity.
I've been DMing for a party of 3, and thankfully we were all able to make the three backstories link with one another and be crucial to the plot during session zero. Honestly, *never* skip session zero! This is where all the expectations should be clearly defined. D&D is a collaborative story, and that includes the DM to collaborate, not dictate, to the story.
Darby's first law of GMing: The character sheet is the player's wishlist for the campaign. If its on the sheet, it should be influencing play.
3d6 rolled down the line, cleric. No skills. The name "Pastor Hagbard". A list of tools and guns. A bad portrait of a lutheran. The back side is mostly hard to read lists of town names. There is a dog.
I've had so many backstories ruined by a DM just steamrolling over everything for shock value that never lands; your mentor is dead, your family eradicated, your BFF is a villain! Any time I play with that DM I just give them the bare minimum now 😢
I hope you can find a better DM. 😢 That's honestly so cruel and unnecessary.
Remember that no D&D is better than bad D&D! You deserve better, hope you can find a group that fits your play style!
Thanks to your "50 Character Builder Questions for your Tabletop Character" I was able to pull a nice little surprise from their backstory on one of the PCs during a recent session. The character is a Path of the Open Sea Paladin and way back when I asked the question from your list "Describe your first kiss", the PC of this character described having an mutual one-night engagement with someone who was a server at an inn the night before he shipped out of his hometown to start his adventuring career. Fast forward about a year later, when the party just relocated to new city (and the PC had bounced around a few locations before that in their backstory), said PC walks into a high end tavern to meet an informant. The server that comes over to give him his drink says "Hello [player's character's name]. It has been a while" in a melodic voice. The PC got wide eyes and I asked him "Do you recognize them?" which he says no. I have the NPC server realize he doesn’t recognize them, get upset, have the PC roll a Dex save, which he fails, and gets splashed in the face with water with the NPC walking saying in annoyed tone "I guess it wasn't that special after all..." then ask the PC to describe the NPC's appearance and telling the player outside of the game this was the individual he described way back when that he had his first kiss with. The character did not have a good time in the situation but the player really liked and appreciated the flavor from his backstory. I think it also made the other players realize their answers to the questions matter(which we do at the beginning of each session to help them get into chartacter.) So thank you!
For clarification sake, when the player had originally answered the character builder question he stated that it was both the server and his character's last night in his hometown.
Just started up a brand new homebrew campaign and balancing the story of the world with the backstory of the characters has certainly been a challenge.
I think the strongest connection can be NPCs. My players have a very "Bioware" mentality. They have a deep care for the NPCs that they encounter, so tying said NPCs into the backstories they wrote themselves is a great way to further that link. Find what your players care about and use that the build connection between the game world and the backstories of the characters.
I'm definitely of the first three levels school of thought--which is your first three levels are your character's backstory. Keeping a character backstory as simple as possible, so you can have an handle on the character is important for the first few sessions--beyond that the forces of the game is what shapes the character. It's a writing approach--
Backstory is the front loaded exposition an author may need to know before sitting down to write page 1, but it's preliminary throat clearing the reader almost never need encounter. It's action that happens out of scene and doesn't hold nearly the power of actions that happen in scene. In writing, but even more so in TTRPGs, action that happens in scene is more powerful because it's what we actually experience. And in an TTRPG, it relies on shared experiences rather than something that happened before the characters ever met.
One example of what I'm talking about happened many years ago in a campaign I was running. The party was around 4th level and running a group of slavers to ground, but they got caught up in other plans they were trying to execute, and the slavers were able to move out of the area with their slaves. The party got that they had failed this part of the adventure, and that was a personal sting to each of their characters. As they were going through the trash, the paladin in our group found a simple corn cob doll with corn silk hair that had belonged to a little girl who had been shipped off to who knew where. Fast forward another year, when they are seventh level, and the party is debating on whether or not they are going to help a new group of people--the paladin pulls the doll out of her pack and slams it down in front of the party--and delivers a very powerful speech--this doll is a failure of ours--we failed to help this girl who was shipped off into slavery---we aren't going to fail to help these people in front of us now. The shock in the room when she did that was palpable, because every player there remembered that moment. Afterward, the discussion went directly from whether they were going to help into planning on how they were going to help. This is role playing gold--it draws on the collective memories and experiences of the players at the table. You can't get that kind of thing from a backstory.
So my philosophy is the first adventure is page 1 of the character's story.
I can randomly churn out NPCs with a few tables and see what fools show up at the party. We ran into a vampire spy working as a shipping magnate. And this dude who was just connected enough and just dumb enough.
@@andrewlustfield6079 We figured we could not go after slavers one by one, Batman-style. We had to change the Moon. With Jesus. We started to plan out how to instigate a counter-coup to install a danish-backed government with enough legitimacy. If they are going to run a heathen blood-arena in the city, it's not going to stop because we smack a few dealers.
We had a stirring speech. In danish, of course. But it was quite stirring. With some poking around and leaning on past contacts we figured out who did not support the rebel princess. This was not people off a list, they were random nobodies we had met in pubs and in gutters and at cheese orgies. One such group was 200 random mutant barbarians we had befriended out in nowhere. You can do a lot when you got 200 moon-barbarians.
All the danish were pretty social, in their environment. We had danish who could talk with the mob, we had danish who could visit salons, we had danish who could make street speeches and danish who could intimidate a fool. All danish were constantly drunk.
The greatest love stories of the game were random fools we ran into and kept in touch with, including serenading people under balconies.
Legolas-Ginny Di raising her arrow to protect her friend is something I didn't know I needed in my life, but... Wow. I'm so glad you thought of it.
Using a players backstory is one of the best ways to get your players engaged. I will typically try and talk with players individually before the game starts covering questions over their backstory. I try not to go over a couple of games without something coming up from someones backstory. It may be super small but I want to keep th players engaged.
My DM has incorporated my backstory very loosely, where my character's patron (they’re a Warlock) ocassionally appears and quite literally modifies outcomes and the world around the party, usually for their own personal gain or for fun.
Exactly how I described this patron to be like for my character, often being a nuisance as such. It's simple but it's an effective way to do it because I'm much more engaged with the game and look forward to the next time the patron appears and see what they cause to go wrong now lol. Even if nothing else from my character's backstory comes up, I'm okay with that because at least I feel like my backstory has contributed to the campaign and I'm a part of the world :)
My DM has done a good job with this which I'll too-briefly summarize as "the Big Bad knew who we all were even though we didn't know each other". Of the 6 of us, 3 have has the ties exposed, the other 3 have hints, but we haven't got to those "episodes" yet in the overall arc. But it is obvious that it hasn't been forgotten.
When I DM, helping to build a back story is one of my favourite activities. I’ll ask a player to come up with milestones for their character and build around it to the tune of a three hour narrative. I currently have four stories written up (about 4000 words each). I found that the players and myself have a vested interest in the character so everyone will care about them. Also helps me with creating locations and npcs.
I love your suggestions, and may steal a few ideas for my games 😊
I have historically had a GM who took my "set in stone" backstory and broke it apart in such a way that my character basically was rewritten.
Collaboration is such a key part of TTRPGs, it's always a treat when that backstory is intertwined with the fun of the story (in a way that doesn't overstep boundaries)
I DM for a group of six, and using a mix of the ensemble cast and the full blown plot is really useful! A big thing though, is let your players feel special! Let them have something only their character knows! It’s fun for both of you.
My favorite aspect of DMing is being able yo weave backstories into my overall campaign. For me, it's all about "what, why, & how." The backstory usually answers 1 of these, maybe 2. I explore the unanswered parts of that equation.
I also like to take how a player role plays their character to get a read on that for determining how to incorporate a backstory, especially when that backstory is light on detail.
My Seelie Court rep regularly interacts with his backstory. I've even got the group a invite to visit along with doing work for them and getting us rewards. It's a great hook for the DM
The rule in Esoteric is that you might know of other gangs, sometimes intimately, but your mates are the other PCs.
A faery PC would know a bit more of the two courts and where to find them. It's often easy to find information about a gang in the city, you are good dishonest folks yourselves after all.
I love how you say establishing boundaries can be freeing! So true in many aspects of life.
Absolutely love this. In a game I just started, at the top of our very first session, our DM said that they were having a blast designing the four characters who killed my parents and that a meeting was already being planned for one of them. The thrill that that news gave me was just 🥰
The whole Whitestone story arc for Campaign One of Critical Role came out of character background, and the entire party played off of that story line like the bosses they all are.
I'm probably having my favorite time with my character background in the current game that I'm in now.
I have a adopted sister who I have a psychic link with, she got kidnapped prior to the game, and I've been looking for her. The link brought me to the shadow of the gates of Waterdeep. So, I said, "Damn, now how am I going to find her ?" Then I met my party. The game is not all about me, but the group and the DM are throwing me bones every now and again character wise...And no they're not the bones of my dead sister.
I always try to invite my DM to explore parts of my story that I wouldn't mind him tampering with via in-character actions. The biggest thing that everyone must remember is that the DM cannot read minds. If you write this beautiful story about a young adventurer, orphaned because of a terrible attack at a young age, but found sanctuary with a hunter's guild that taught them how to hunt monsters (a la Witcher), and the DM tries to focus on the "find out who caused the attack that killed your parents" part of the backstory, you might be upset because that's part of the backstory you don't really want explored yet, you'd rather focus on tying close bonds to the hunter's guild and creating a deep connection with a pseudo-family. My solution for this would be that when I talk about my backstory, not only would I focus heavily in combat about "I remember the days in the blistering heat as Chiron the Goliath wrestled with me, and all the times he'd pin me to the ground, and I allow the muscle memory to steep through me as I attempt to trip my opponent and shove them prone!", but also, when downtime happens, as everyone is talking about how they want to go buy these potions or this magic item... if my backstory means that much to me, I would use my downtime to write letters to my guildmates, wish them well, tell them of my adventures and send gold to them, asking them to share their adventures in return. Usually, I would also private message the DM, saying (I want to use this gold to buy X weapon or Y potion, but I'd rather it seem like they sent it to me to wish me well on my journey, and they can make up a story on where they found it!). After I do this a few times here and there, the DM has two options: one, leave it as it is, because that's adorable that I use my guildies as a shop like anyone else in the party but also with flavor and a touch of homely love, OR TWO, use the fact I'm giving them a bunch of NPCs and stories for free and either talk about what part of the world they're in and what disasters are going on there, and maybe MY adventuring party has to go help them, because they are under some serious firepower and are recalling all adventurers and I couldn't bear the thought of them dying to something terrible while I'm gallivanting across the countryside. Maybe they come out to meet me, and they don't entirely approve of my party so they want to put us through the ringer, acting like a BBEG but with good intentions to "make sure they can keep me safe", otherwise I'm coming home before I get myself killed, because they ARE like my family. Maybe they come out to meet me and LOVE my party, and approve, and just want to wish me well! Maybe they bring terrible news that my father figure in the guild, the sorcerer, has passed of a fever wrought from a nasty infection that no healing magic seemed to cure, and I'm now feeling the death of my parents all over again, and NOW I can dedicate myself to find out what that cursed wound was, or maybe find a way to bring him back! There are plenty of options I am GIVING the DM, with the only thing I tell him being "This is my new family after my old one died, and I want THIS to be the focus of who my character is, that you can find love from strangers. How you show that is up to you." And if all it remains is just a funny way to describe a shop with letters and stories about where the magic items come from? That's still pretty adorable.
I love including character backstories into my campaign. I have one player who's favorite part of dnd is writing the backstory.
I tend to do "the party is the plot" because that's fun for me and the players
Character-driven role playing is my bread and butter. Great video ma'am.
Ginny, you are a literal magician. I just had a session with my players last week and have been thinking to myself that I need to include their backstories more into the story because when I've been a player, that's been something huge I've wanted to see. Thanks for the EXACT video topic I need!
I tend to take the ensemble cast approach but I've been wanting to try the "backstory is the plot" approach for my next homebrew campaign. I guess we'll see how well I do with that when it comes around.
Also, have to agree that there's nothing more frustrating than a DM totally twisting your backstory until your character stops making any sense. Been there, hated that. I always try to handle with care having had that experience.
One of my players had a past where she escaped slavery and was actively looking for revenge. That wasn’t the central plot, but I rolled with it for a quick adventure and boy was it good. They helped bring down a huge underworld of slavery scattered across multiple kingdoms, and even to this day at some points they run into remnants and she gets the chance to relive the thrill of getting her revenge while staying on par with the rest of the group!
As a DM I like to let the player come up with their backstory on their own. Then I want to go through it and think of how it can be used to weave them in to the main story plot or create interesting subplots specific to that character. I then work with the player to then tweak it in little ways to make it better fit the campaign setting. I want it to be their story while making sure it makes sense within the larger scope. Usually my players are happy to make small changes that make them fit in better and it lets me give them foreknowledge about some settings and situations their character would know going in. I also like to modify the higher level plot to fit the character stories whenever possible. Some of my best games had plot or setting changes in ways I didn't expect as a result of player character backstories being added in. The players also seem to feel more invested in the game when it's more inclusive of their chosen story. It changes the game from a DM running a game for the players to more of a feel of the players being a part of telling a grand story and the DM is just there to set the stage and coordinate multiple overlapping tales. Everyone has the opportunity to be the hero (or villain if they choose) of their own narrative.
A framework is fun and hold things together. You are all Delta Green. You are all danish moon-navy. Or we want to be a gang of chimneysweep-thieves.
For me the most important thing in a campagne is players feeling like they are telling their own stories instead of mine. So I'm very motivated to tie the background stories very heavily into the overarching plott line. I use a mix between the second and third approach in the video. And I'm constantly in touch with the players with questions about their stories if I need additional information. My focus is creating a story in colaboration with the players. Some aren't that interested to partizipate in that way, so sometimes I'm asking too much of them. 😅
just wanna say that i wholly appreciate the fact that you have quality subtitles for every video that you post❤❤
I'm the player who usually writes a novella as my backstory, complete with NPCs, enduring conflicts, and crucial character-related details that could be used as story hooks in the future. In other words, I make this process pretty easy, as long as the DM/GM has time to do some reading.
For our party's backstories, we highlight information with different colors. Color one is for things you want to stay the way they are. Color two is for things that are how the character sees it, but might be different in reality. Color three is for info that you are fine with changing. Also each player lets the dm know if they want to know if things change with their character (specifically for color 2)
I'm a GM/DM--first time in traditional fantasy GM, but GM for the third time (the only times I've played TTRPGs)--and I just assumed it was an expectation to incorporate backstories. I do always ask, "is there anything off limits?" and if something fights a potential common trauma (such as child abuse), I always clear it with the players, usually a few sessions in advance. I have found that some players really want that backstory incorporated in, and others "just want to start playing." There's definitely an art to balancing those. That said, I've never had a player who "just wants to play" be upset when another player's backstory shows up. Usually it causes an email or phone call with me the next week to discuss possibility of expanding their backstory so they can experience something similar. It can be moving, comical, healing, and lots of other things. Take the backstories with the care for which they were intended.
I have the luxury of playing at a table with my closest friends, and all of them approach character backstories differently. Two of them write very in-depth, complex backstories with fully fleshed-out NPCs, one writes an average of a couple paragraphs, and one prefers to flesh out her character in in-game RP.
What I find works best for my group is matching backstory involvement to how much each player is invested in their backstory. My two heavily involved writers get their characters' backstories and favourite NPCs closely entwined with the plot, and my average-length writer gets a couple significant events centered on her character's backstory. Then for my next campaign, I'm planning to create a few NPCs from my improv-loving friend's character's hometown, and when I introduce them in game, I'll tell her what she knows about them and let her decide what kind of relationship they have. I'm really looking forward to trying this out, I think it's gonna work out really well.
Thank you GINNY! 💖💖 because your videos, am doing my first DM campaign. and literally I made my own rulebook and campaign. now am really now binging on you RP and food making playlists.
Absolutely love this- my main campaign rn has run the gamut on these, and oh boy, no one tells you how satisfying it is after years of gameplay to have the pieces of your backstory come together to form a satisfying narrative!
For my current group I have already been using the ensemble approach and it has been great. I have made things appropriate for the party by attempting to align story threads with at least the general location of plot threads, allowing the party to have little dispute on wether or not they could go over there. By keeping things far from out of the way the players can all go “ya lets kill two birds with one stone and both do their character quest and the main quest!”
Their backstories are largely the focus of the current story with the larger story being hinted at through their own quests where possible.
Doing this allows me to move along the main story and make a tie between it and their own plotlines. Hopefully this will make the transition into the main plot after most of their backstories are resolved much nicer. When much of it is resolved I plan to still have things show up when possible. Some things they do may even make new threads just as sokka’s sudden feeling of uselessnesss did for him.
The last thing I wanted to mention in this is to be willing to let players write some things on the spot. If it isn’t game breaking in any way, them suddenly coming up with “Bob the clown” (an actual character in my campaign) and that being a part of things can help them feel they are a part of the writing process. Sometimes they may want to roleplay a certain situation they hadn’t previously considered such as the person they hired for their art museum.
TL:DR this method of backstories is 100% a good idea and I have already seen success with my party of mixed experience.
Limitations can be an inspiration and a challenge for creativity. There's a big and exciting difference between "Let's create something good" and "Let's create something good that can fit inside this small box."
One of the reasons I love prewritten adventures is that it gives me so much more time to include backstories into the story. I am a huge lore-driven DM, but I certainly homebrew lore that doesn't contradict current established lore for the world I run when possible. The book writes a story for me and I write my player's backstory into the plot-line. WIN WIN! I have a mix of players who love combat (but aren't huge min/maxers) and players who just care about the RP. I think in both cases there is an appreciation for backstory elements.
I like practical, actionable lore. How does this impact our platoon of guardsmen eating canned grub in a ditch, where we want to advance 25 and take Building 242. "What's in this dang can?" is good lore. And "So what's the temperament of our company CO?"
50 seconds in and I'm already having a massive endorphin rush. Of course I'm the only one in my group that actually bothers with backstories but it's nice to actually be understood for once
Our method is the 3rd option. It is awesome when the DM riffs in different ways than you've envisioned. It's how we want to play. So it is really fun for our table
ah truly nothing better than refreshing utube and seeing a new ginnydi vid, hype !
I feel like Ginny's videos give such helpful, actionable advice. I'm really looking forward to the one for players on how to make backstories better suited for games! Those kinds of discussions are my very favorite RPG TH-cam content.
I have taken a bit of both the party is the plot and pieces. While not all the characters backstories directly lead into the plot, just due to the locations, there is plot based stuff which will happen.
As a quick example, we have a owlin who lived in the shadowfell in my world. While his backstory revolves around the feywild and shadowfell stuff, there’s stuff in both places that connect to the main plot.
Meaning if they peruse the plot there, their backstory comes up, if they peruse his backstory there, they have a connect to the plot if they don’t discover it right away.
This style of story telling makes my world feel more alive in my opinion.
This was super helpful for me. I often struggle with how to incorporate backstories into the campaign (especially since I'm relatively inexperienced, and am playing a prefab). This guidance gives me some ideas for how I might integrate stuff more successfully. Also looking forward to the player-focused follow-up!
Ravensburger does games now??? Not just puzzles????
My world is changed forever.
Game I'm running now, 3 characters made deeper backstories, 1 didn't. I've used all the three deep backstories as hooks so far. Next hook is a npc they ran into in the second session will contact the other character with a job. Each hook plays to their strengths and exploits their weaknesses. Everyone is having a blast so far.
It would probably be more for the player side of this topic (so the later video you mentioned) but Seth Skorkowsky brought up a point that sometimes a GM not using a player’s backstory was actually the player’s fault sometimes because they never brought it up themselves and so the GM made it less of a priority.
The example he had was in a Traveller campaign - he did the skit of the PCs walking into a bar and seeing what was there in two ways, once with the PCs just passively waiting for the GM to bring up their backstories and thinking about what they wanted (“Man, I wish Seth had put some Omicrons in this bar, he knows my character hates those guys and this would be a great time for some to show up!”), and then the second time with them actively asking about those elements (“Hey Seth; are there any Omicrons in this bar?”). The scene didn’t change in either version - there were no Omicrons in either version - but it kept those elements fresh in the group’s mind and would make it easier for Seth to remember to add a plot line involving Omicrons for that player sooner.
I believe the videos I’m thinking of were his Character Backstory 101 and 201 videos.
7:53
I did not know that you recently DMed critical role campaign two.
Must be a joy to DM for Talisien.
RIP 💀
Great timing with this video since I'm currently working on a new character's backstory for the weekend: A human with an actress mother and various half siblings of inhuman fathers. A half orc, a half elf, an air genasi, a tiefling and an Aasimar I have planned so far.
But now I am thinking that if his mother had an affair with a Djinn resulting in that air genasi, maybe she got to make a wish like no longer visibly ageing, to cling to her spot in the limelight.
But why would the Djinn want her to have his child?
And now I'm also considering that maybe she also made some benefitial deal with a devil resulting in that tiefling child, and a celestial resulting in the aasimar. Like she's just a regular charismatic woman able to outsmart greater powers for her own benefit and by playing various sides she avoids any downsides on her part.
And maybe her getting caught in some trouble with this that her son, my character could try to help her with using his sorcerous powers.
He has no idea who his father is and is her oldest. I'd leave it to the DM to decide any details about his father, he already seemed interested to work with that at session zero.
My DM has made the whole campaign involving our backstories, it was amazing too as it seemed at first it wasn't and them bam we are thrown into this whirlwind of a campaign, so far its been really fun.
I always try to leave a lot of space in my characters backstory for DMs to play with however they’d like. Usually, the deal is that if i havent established it, its free to be whatever. I make clear what are character assumptions and what is established.
This has worked relatively well for me, because it means i have no idea whats coming, but i also have to make sure i dont set expectations that may not be met. I think the hardest part is just making sure that you are ok with the tie ins being TRULY whatever, and if you want drama, communicating that.
Incorporating backstories is my favorite part of DMing! I use the ensemble cast method and my parties love creating backstories and giving me things to work with and leaving some stuff up to my interpretation. While we wait for Phandelver and Below to come out, my party that just finished the original LMoP (my first full campaign as a DM!) is currently on a side-quest that relates to both some loose ends from the campaign and a way to incorporate a new party member who joined us. It seems to be going well so far!
You mentioning Lines and Veils reminds me of something from another game I am playing.
"The GM and other Players can’t read your mind, and if you want them to respect your boundaries, you have to make them aware of them. If you feel that the elements you banned from the game are still present, try talking with the group. It’s likely they misunderstood your definition or simply forgot about an item on the list. Pointing it out is usually all it takes to fix this.
If a Player or the whole group insists on including banned elements or topics in the game, even after you point it out, stop playing. Either ask the group to talk this over, or - if you’re either not comfortable with it, or don’t see any chance for improvement - leave the table. It may sound dramatic, but that’s what you should do. If everyone else is having fun but you’re suffering, they’re actually having fun at your expense, and that’s unacceptable."
One thing that worked out really well for me is playing out part of the backstories of the players by organising a "prologue" where it's just that one player and I either playing out something they wrote in their backstory, or if their backstory is already pretty well defined, play out how they went from where their backstory ends and where the adventure will begin.
With one player who was perfectly okay with playing out whatever he wrote, and changing up everything that would go differently, I had 3 whole prologue sessions where he did enite heists, one of which being for the BBEG.
It both really helps the players fill in the "Why am I adventuring" and "What on earth am I doing here", and helps me understand their backstory better, and also helping me with plothooks in the future.
Aside from that, it makes the "I wrote your backstory" approach also a lot more fun, as it feels like a little secret between you and the player. It's absolutely wonderful to see the reaction of my players when hinting at something like that, and definitely worth the effort in my case.
Word of warning. Always make sure your players actually care for a prologue, and make sure you have the time to put effort into it. When I started, I was new to DM'ing, and doing a prologue for 6 people was definitely more work than I initially anticipated.
Been watching for many years now. DM since the late 80's. Still learning stuff from you. Thanks.
Just joined my first DnD campaign, with a character I spent a while thinking of a good backstory for, and was delighted to hear my DM tell me he was excited to use the backstory for plot hooks later on :) (he's a former criminal enforcer turned wandering paladin, and still has a lot of loose ends related to his past that I'm excited to see how my DM ends up using them) so yeah, hearing that my character backstory matters to the DM has definitely increased my excitement to play!
The difference between imaginitive and creative is that imaginative is anything with no restrictions while being creative is making something within restrictions.
The dm has to be creative with the backstory, but imaginiative with the gameplay while players have to be imaginative with the backstory and creative with the gameplay.
Ginny's adverts are the only youtube adverts I get excited to watch.
That last bit about lines and boundaries concerning a character's story actually being freeing is super useful btw. If I didn't know what type of story or history my players were comfortable with, often times i would err on the side of cautionand not create much fiction for them, hoping not to ruin whatever cannon they had in their head. This would leave the worlds surrounding their backstory feel empty compared to any pieces that were all my creation. If you flat out ask for what things can be played with or developed by you and what should be left alone, you'll have the reins to do a whole lot with their story.
Oh my god can you read minds? This video is coming out at the perfect time! I was literally about to hold a session with my party regarding how to integrate their backstories into the campaign and what I can do for them! Thank you for this video! It's awesome!
My DM style and campaign building is of the "intense/party is (part of) the plot" type. Character creation is a collaborative venture, we roll and choose life events, and make sure the important parts of the characters past get worked into that lifepath. During the process, I will make sure plot connection is also built into their background, and for my most recent campaign even made connections between several members of the party - all before the first session.
It makes for a deeply interconnected world that the characters and players feel like they are truly involved in and an important part of as the story unfolds.
The other benefit this gives is making gathering the party together and driving the plot forward very easy - the characters/players are already invested.
One thing I really love about my DM is is that he does a great job incorporating backstories. Some of the group left some details out for him to fill in and they really love how he filled in the blanks. I always put in a lot of details, but if I need a new character I'm going to leave some blanks on purpose. I've written some backstories for backup characters and I always put in notes at the end inviting the DM to fill in certain gaps, come up with additional ideas and collaborate.
In my current campaign I, for the first time, really started to weave my players' backstory very tightly into the story and it's the best thing ever! I fell in love with one character in a back story so much, I kind of shelved my own baddie and made them the new BBEG. We sat down, clarified and changed things and over time found ways to connect the players' backstory in different ways. (I had the full consent of everyone involved to do that, in moderation of course.)
This way the whole world felt more rounded, since the other Players could feel that there was stuff going on in the background, for every party member. And seeing the other Backstories being featured in the campaign, even made some players want to build a bit on the stuff they've had given me at the start.
This is something I always kind of did and tried to do, but it feels so rewarding and exciting to really try to bring my players story to the foreground this time.
One of my favorite things about the last game I was in was how much my dm did with my back story. It was a 3.5 game so he created a custom prestige class for him and created a whole position in that church that didn't exist before. Aside from all the mechanical uses, it added a lot of fun flavor.
Hey Ginny! i just wanted to comment to tell you how helpful all of your videos have been for our college table, and how thanks to you we have made some really good memories thanks to the ideas that I was able to use as the DM!
In my campaigns I usually take a prewritten module to paint the broadstrokes and give me dungeons/encounters/etc, then have my players make characters and whatever their backstories are IS the campaign. I find out how I can connect it to the overall plot and then slowly dripfeed them information until they discover how they were secretly involved since day one. For example, my current Tyranny Of Dragons game has a tiefling bard who's parents were killed when they were a baby. So I wrote up a powerful devil who bargained with their parents, and since he's a devil (and Tiamat is in the Nine Hells), he also has a connection to Tiamat's overall scheme that the party hasn't discovered yet.
Fantastic!!
I've had DMs who were very minimal or disapointing with how they incorporated backstories, but I've also had DMs who went all out and made player backstories integral to the plot, or even just weaved in the necessary bits to make it extremely satisfying to get started on the adventure, knowing that somewhere along the lines the mysteries would be solved. It's the best!
Can't wait for the other part of this tango! 😃
I’m a forever DM now, but when I played in a game run by a high school friend I wrote a backstory that provided the emotional background for my character to be adventuring. The first session my DM promptly got the name of the main organization from the backstory wrong, I only figured out he meant it to be an emotional moment for my character when he stared at me expectantly. His reaction afterward immediately told me my story was secondary to his here was little to no collaboration here and colored the rest of my short time at the table. Ultimately it was a good thing though because as a DM now it makes me ever aware of including the things my players give me and using their backstory to it’s fullest potential
I've been running a game for ten years and I've come up with a creative way for my players to work on their backstories without it interrupting the main plot. I have created a mail system and the players get letters from family, NPCs unique to them, and random people they may not even know. This way they can share as much or as little as they like and continue to develop their goals they wrote in their backstories. Just thought I'd share since I love my system so much.
I look forward to the player-focused video. I always find, as a player, it’s more fun if my backstory ties in with the world and plot my DM is building so I try to communicate that so we can both enjoy engaging with it
I used a variant of the last technique in my campaign. I had a main plot in mind and I used all the player's backstories to bind them to this plot, giving them motivation to group together and tackle this big problem. As the campaign goes on, I then either tie some new backstory elements to the main plot or I do the ensemble cast approach for backstory related short quests.
Binding all the backstories into the main plot was definitely the hard part but once it's done, the result is really satisfying. With players never feeling like they don't belong on this journey.
So, I'm running my first long term campaign and I've been doing all of these. I even asked if they wanted episodes about them to incorporate their own backstories. Theyre even the central piece and i made sure to tie all of them together during our Session 0 and they've been loving it.
I'm definitely a method #3 DM. The story stretches beyond the backstories, but almost everything of overarching significance comes from their past. The first place I look for a new plot hook is unused bits of backstory. The one thing I would add to these tips is, make sure you have at least one or two hooks left for the endgame.
Great video. I try to give my DM/GM enough plot hooks to give me something, but not make the entire group/adventure about me. It's really fun when something I wrote shows up in the adventure. I especially try to give the GM/DM enough rope to hang me with - something to come back and bite me on the ass
I love player backstories so very much. I once built a campaign that used each character's backstory to build each section of the campaign. I came up with the overall arc, the main and major NPCs that were important for the story, then took each backstory and used it to create each major step. For example, the first major NPC they meet is the guildmaster of their guild and unbeknownst to players and characters, this guild master was in a poly relationship (one partner being the BBEG and one being another important NPC that happened to be a werewolf), so finding one one character has a tragic history with werewolves I immediately created a situation in which the werewolf NPC had run away and gone feral (because of one of the key items) and he was not only creating werewolves in the nearby forest but it was his pack that had attacked the character and his friends when the character was a child, that the character's friends were now werewolves themselves, and gave the character a chance to try and save his friends while saving the NPC. It was pretty awesome and the player loved it. Another player asked for my help in making a good hook for the backstory and together we came up with her character's sister had disappeared years ago and everyone felt they knew where but just could never remember. I created a town that had been sent into the Feywilds by a Wish spell gone wrong (due to another key item) and was cursed that only those who had been to the town before it was transported could remember its existence - you could read about it, but as soon as your eyes left the page, you forgot about it, you could hear about it but once the speaker was finished with the sentence, you forgot. I did things like that with each character, designed a key item to defeating the BBEG with each backstory in mind, and together we made an amazing world that I'm slowly putting up onto World Anvil
My very first character's backstory was basically "He was captured by some kind of cultists who wanted to sacrifice him to their patron.He started praying to anyone who would listen and eventually was heard and rescue by some wildlife send by Silvanus. In return he became a Cleric in his name."
The main story was based around investigating followers of Bhaal which we found out later were the ones that kidnapped him. I left my backstory vague on purpose so the DM had an easy time to integrate it in a way that didn't feel forced.
I'm so glad you made this video, I writing a campaign to DM for my brothers and I will definetly use the things in this video.
For my newest campaign (launched in April) I asked my players to send me at least a 50 word backstory, which I took and wrote out a minimum 3 page backstory for each character, with the players help. We fleshed out starting areas, formed stronger bonds to NPCs and set up a shared history to local events other characters would recognize. It was such a fun and unique way of drawing my players into the home brew world I’ve spent 2 years creating
Lines and veils are actually so helpful! Just like you said, it allows you to know the bounds of creation. I had one such experience with a player who was like "whatever you do, my mom shouldn't be killed or hurt." It allowed me to ask, "Ok, can she be... inconvenienced? Spoken to rudely?" And just like that a 7 foot tall dragonborn sorcerer is casting Fear and then CHASING THE PEOPLE WHO WERE MEAN TO HIS MOTHER
One of the encounters my players really liked was an evil tree which put everyone except one player who was immune magically to sleep.
From their pov they walked into a foggy room in the dungeon and woke up in their worst or most traumatic memory that was on their character sheets.
The other player who couldn't be forced to sleep was fighting the undead who had been victims of the tree before.
Needless to say it was a very fun encounter and helped everyone grow closer to their characters in a somewhat organic way.
My DM is insane, and ties in the entire party's backstory to the sessions. We got a halfling barbarian baker searching for her father, an agnostic Tiefling cleric finding get own power, and a Tiefling paladin reconnecting with her sisters.
Love your D&D content, really helpful for remembering all the things that go into the hobby we love :) Keep it up ;)
i love ensemble cast campaigns. honestly in most DND sessions (and RPGs as a whole) the character questlines are always the most fun and enticing
My outline is random network criminal bums who need quick cash. I'm not sure if that's the same outline.
coming up with a backstory is my favorite part of character creation so I'd love the Party Is The Plot or Ensemble Cast
I liked how a couple Pathfinder adventure paths did it, with the traits that were available to characters at creation that had certain interactions with the campaign. Like in Jade Regent and Wrath of the Righteous there were a few times even in the 4th or 5th book (level 12+) when a trait would be referenced in text with something like "if X, then Y."
Or how JoCat in his Necrohunt campaign managed to take a couple different minor character points and the players agency turned them into full blown side quests...
My current DM is newish, she has been running our and her first campaign for 4 years now. Despite all of us being new to DnD at the time, she somehow did create a plot where all of our backstories tie together to create the main story.
Of course she had written tons of fantasy novels and stuff before we all started playing dnd, many with large casts so I think the practice from that translated over to making a DnD story really well
As someone who has so far only DMed modules, it can be challenging to tie player backstory into a main narrative that has already been written. I struggle especially with in CoS, which is a very self-contained world. I like to try and find elements to tie into the main narrative as character motivation, but I like the idea of the ensemble cast approach. Some good old side questing can sometimes be exactly what one needs in a game.
In my first time playing D&D the DM actually used an NPC from a character's backstory as the boss of the champagin. I'm pretty sure that creativity was one of the main reasons that I love D&D so much.
The party is the plot is my preferred game to DM. I love taking a little backstory and making it something so much more in the world.
Really fabulous video!! As a DM and player, I really try for the "party is the plot" approach even in pre-written campaigns. It's difficult but really fun to get everyone involved and invested in the story! And I love the LotR segment XD
The last campaign I delivered was its own thing but I interwove one of the character's backstory through it to give it some additional enjoyment from the group and with the current campaign I've done the same. For the next campaigns (one in progress) I've used those character back stories again, singling out each one (similar to delivering a single session but broadening it to be the story arc for the campaign) and so far it seems to be working very well. I've even started to sow the seeds for the third and final back-story campaign within this current one so that we have a jumping point for where to go after this campaign comes to a close :)
Nice work as always, your videos have been really useful for my players as well so thank you for that.
I cut somewhere between "ensemble" and "party is the plot". There is an overarching plot that I'm telling, but my PCs inform how I drive it. For example, we spent the past while in Sharn because the noble in our party was from there, and his family and connections helped finance their operations. The current BBEG is our warlock's patron, which also pissed off an archfey who is providing the warlock an alternative. There are hints about a problem brewing in another country, and that will tie in to our Kalashtar's backstory. Our barbarian's father was friends with a critical NPC, and that led the barbarian to get close to the warforged in the area, which ties into the bigger overall arc that we'll hit 3 sub-arcs from now. That same critical npc is adversarial toward one of my players and his family.
So while I'm playing out my desired story of dragons vs devils (Barons - Eberron), my players are also playing out their character arcs.
I'm a new dm and I've been so concerned about making sure every pc gets their moment to shine (assuming the players want that) and let their backstories come to light in appropriate ways and moments.
I recently was playing in a campaign that felt like my character's entire backstory was being overlooked or wasn't even read by the dm, and it was so frustrating. Ended up leaving the party both in-game and out because it just made no sense for my pc to stick around anymore, and it was a tough decision. This is also why I'm so concerned about it as I step into the new role of DM on my own - I'd hate to make my players feel that way!
This helped a lot, thanks Ginny!
I'm running a campaign now where the players range from completely uninterested to invested to the point where they want to write how their backstory fits in the main story, without having a clue where the story is going 😂
I am a DM that often gets praise from my players because of my skill, and whenever I'm asked for DMing advice, my go to response is to make the players' backstory the plot. I don't remember who said it (knowing myself it was probably Brennan Lee Mulligan) but I remember them saying something along the lines of "the backstory should be the trajectory of how the story will go" like pulling back and aiming a bow.
This style of DM makes everything so much more cinematic, every reveal is taken so well by the players. I remember the first time the party in one of my current games met one of the main bbeg's and one of my players realized it was an old student/friend of theirs that they thought was dead. The table erupted with excitement.
It also leads to more interesting interactions with NPCs, such as the time my bard player distracted their evil dad by convincing him that his wife was cheating on him. Some of the most hilarious roleplay I've had to do.
Def recommend "party is the plot" approach, especially for a more roleplay heavy table
You could have your cake and eat it too with the brother having joined the king's guard. Later he gets sucked into a cult.
I know you have to be careful with messing with family members. The occasional sibling in peril is great, but having a family that mostly alive and well, even if they've been lost or something, and then having a family reunion field day skill challenge when you finally find them is pretty fun.
My point is that it's not really the DM's cake - it's the player's! It's up to the player to offer the DM whatever slices of their cake they are willing to share 😜
Even dead pcs can have meaningful backstories too! When my character died session 5, I talked with my dm and we decided to include a journal my character kept on her body. We worked together to include enough mystery about the character’s origin and name drop relevant characters as well, and it was written in a language only one other party member could read, so he could choose to share or keep the information to himself (to summarize, my character was the runaway daughter of a prolific cult leader).
Last night we just had our fourth session since the character passed, and the only place we could find shelter in a new settlement was… a branch of the cult her dad started. The party member who kept the journal contents secret caves, and reads it to the other members. It was a really smart move, as it was an immediate way for the dm to make the party hate the cult, and gave all our characters motivation to go after them.
We even met a dmpc from my character’s past who was fighting against the cult too!
All in all it was a phenomenal session, and as a player it meant a lot to see my deceased character still have pull in the story.
I like that nothing in the world should be dependent on PC survival.
Backstories are my favorite thing! When creating a character, that's my starting point.
Unfortunately, every game I've played in for the last eight years did not have any interest in backstories. They were all hack and slash.
I decided to run a game and told the players to make backgrounds and this was what one of them gave me... verbatim.
"Grew up in a monastery. Was bullied a lot. Became a monk."
Thanks.
How I long for a good game.
Why did he become a monk if he was bullied by the monastery?
I feel your pain friend. You spend all that time and effort putting your heart and soul into a backstory that truly brings your character to life and getting a "sure, whatever"... honestly I have a hard time understanding why I even bother showing up anymore
@@TheGIJew. No clue, but in his defense, he spent nearly 30 seconds coming up with it.
@@firestorm165 the story is really the only reason why I want to play. Yes, I like being powerful, but I also like creating memorable stories. I couldn't tell you 90% of the bad guys I fought, but two minutes of Julia, the barwench that was devoid of any personality (in a game with great storytellers), has stuck with me for 30 years. For me, it's all about role-playing moments.
@@danlayne9436 absolutely agree. My favorite moment was when my DM gave me a character beat completely by accident.
He was just supposed to be generic noble quest giver number 47 but with the quirk "likes exotic meats", which happened to include Pegasi. My oath of devotion paladin/celestial warlock took great offense to this so at the celebratory feast she was making pleasant small talk with a serene expression on her face. At the end of the dinner she cast fly on herself and superman tackled him out the window to the surprise of everyone in universe and at the table.
She then flew straight up with that same serene expression softly singing the song from her childhood that inspired her dreams of becoming a knight for the entire duration of the spell, the noble and DM frantically panicking all the while.
When the spell wore off at roughly 72,000 ft (if my maths is correct) she let go, watched him drop (noting sarcastically that a flying horse would be rather useful right now) and recast the fly spell on herself.
Of course instead of a satisfying splat DM pulled out a feather fall spell from somewhere so now it's going to be done the hard way.
Hello, so I’ve been subscribed for a while - I will say out of all others explaining or just doing dnd content you keep my focus and get things across so simply and quick. You’re an adhd person best friend Ginny 😂
I have a session zero today, so this is great!