1 Tip for Better Backstories
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- Опубликовано: 20 авг 2024
- Here is 1 tip for better dnd backstories. Focus on concepts in your backstory and not events. You can take a concept a lot further and it is so much easier to continuously incorporate your backstory.
Disclaimer: This video is made from my own opinions and experiences. It is filled with my own bias. You might have a different opinion. Great! Leave it in the comments. However, be respectful and don't shutdown discourse. Thank you - Colin
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When I told my DM I wanted to be a Tortle Rogue for our Pirate campaign, I just wanted to use the standard island backstory from the Tortle book. He told me the Tortle race wasn't in his world, but he loved it regardless. Actually threw the entire Tortle book into his homebrew world. Thus, my Tortle who wanted to get away from home and explore the world was born. He became a Chef who specialized in orange dishes. His specialty was Orange Soup, basically just orange juice and mushroom broth. lol
This is fantastic. My table always has such exciting backstories like this. Turtle people are such a fun race, too. My best friend in high school played a turtle-folk druid who transformed into a dragon-turtle as a pledge to his god. Then he built a war band of turtle people and trekked across the desert with them to save his people from tyranny. It was such a blast at the table.
Great example of an awesome concept to throw into a backstory. Thank you for commenting!
Thank you for helping me. I have been stuck on creating events for my characters, this idea of concepts is so much better. You rock
Glad I could help!
Really love this. This is exactly how I work with my own PCs but also the NPCs in my campaigns. Events can be fascinating if you have a few here and there, but its much more important to give a character shape and decisiveness in the long term. Thats how campaigns get their heart!
The final sentence nails it
I built a character for my Tyranny campaign around the Talis connection (one of the provided bond suggestions). My first thought was that I wanted to create a character who seems like a typical hero storyline but whose story is actually about being the villian’s “dragon” (an archetype of minion). What trait and center could I give that made sense as both a hero and a villain? I figured out “Devotion” was the key, at least for my character. So I built around this concept of devotion. The inciting incident that led to my character’s journey actually starts long before the campaign opening scene.
See, my character and Talis are from entirely different social backgrounds. My character is a commoner and I had Talis be a nobleman’s daughter. The two are tight-knit friends regardless, almost co-dependent to a degree. They have opposite personalities but are equally devoted to each other. The inciting incident that leads my character down her changed life trajectory is because she saved Talis when they were teens. That one lucky shot gave Talis’s father an excuse to separate the friends and cause the grief and pain both my character and Talis had to suffer. By this I mean he “rewarded” my character for saving his daughter by “gifting” (pressuring) her to accept an apprenticeship that was located well out of town. His goal was to isolate his daughter so he could properly indoctrinate Talis into the cult. My character was sent away because she was listened to more by Talis and it often undermined his efforts. However, he did want to make use of my character’s devotion so he did genuinely send my character to learn skillsets that he felt would make my character a good “guard” and “hunting dog” for his child.
Anyway, because both Talis and my character are still highly devoted to each other, it leads to some interesting choices is fun to roleplay that nuance of the pair trying to figure out their new normal now that the father is dead, the pair are adults, and there is this whole conflict with the cult of the dragon. I keep the center of my character’s story as being about devotion. She works hard to convey that, works to protect all she cares about (guard dog is something she doesn’t see as an insult really), works to figure out what she can do to help or appease Talis’s worries and insecurities so she doesn’t make the same betrayal and mistakes of the past. And yes, this means taking down the cult. Because the way my character sees it, due to Tiamat’s entitlement, she will cause destruction and that will include Talis, regardless of any loyalty, or lack thereof, to the Dragon Queen. This means Talis is in danger. So, regardless of Talis seeing it as a betrayal, my character intends to finish the job. Talis being safe and healthy and with a chance to be happy is far more important to her than being part of Talis’s life. So yeah, that’s the devotion part.
I did get rewarded for this recently. Namely, it seems my maneuvering behind the scenes has made Talis ally herself with us. Or more specifically, my character. I await to see if this is a trap but regardless it’s going to be a really fun story to play out. I look forward to seeing what the dm creates out of this hook.
Hmmm... instead of, "My character is a forcefully-retired prodigal knight whose overconfidence caused him to have a pitifully short career when his arm had to be amputated", I could go with, "Wouldn't it be interesting to see a guy who once let the accolades get to his head throw himself into dangerous adventures he probably shouldn't be going on in a desparate bid to recapture a sense of purpose and self-fulfilment?"
... or something. I don't know if I'm qualified to portray such a person, but this is my attempt at thinking along these lines.
Michael De Santa?
Love it. When I make a backstory I make a concept and a want. So right now I'm currently making a rogue that is fateless. Basically the rogue was gonna die within the astral sea looking for a treasure called Solarus with his crew. However, Lady Fate smiled on him and unbounded him from fate with the contract she will kill him some day and that he will help her destroy the powers above since he didn't have a destine fate anymore. So the powers above are gonna try and correct this problem.
Want is the treasure Solarus.
The concept is being a fateless being that goes against the powers above plans for every living creature to have destined fates. That's what I'm going with and I think is currently a strong concept and potential story for my DM.
I think this video would be much better if you listed 10 examples of the concepts you are talking about. Your one example leaves much to be desired.
I'd also love to see more examples!
My thoughts exactly! The provided example is very insufficient to make a clear point, and furthermore it felt incomparable to event-based backstories.
I am gifted with story writing, so I don't have this problem.
What I do is very simple.
I brainstorm a few events in a few words, or search for ideas on the internet.
Like: "Burning house" "kidnapped", "locked up in prison".
And then I use these short events and write at least 2 paragraphs of what exactly happened.
The events can be short ones, but also long ones.
Sometimes I am extremely vague. For example, I wrote that one of my characters proposed to all pretty women
whom he met on his long journey. The DM can create a lot of characters whom I proposed to, and integrate it into the campaign.
Or, it let's say I stayed I am small village at an oasis, where I rested for a few days.
But mostly I am very precise and detailed about the events.
All my events provide the DM a lot of things to work with. Many events have mysteries to it, which i didn't figure out and i let the DM decide on
why something happened as it did in my backstory.
i have at least 10 events written down.
Good video.
isn't this developing a personality for the character, rather than just a back story?? A good character needs both, a back story defense where they came from and a personality defined who they are. "Concepts" you mention like not feeling joy, are personality traits.
idk I don't think solving an issue in a backstory is a problem?