How NOT to write a backstory

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  • Опубликовано: 24 ноя 2024

Комментарии • 58

  • @pyrinepygween
    @pyrinepygween 13 дней назад +101

    Hey so, I play D&D frequently with Dave here, and I was actually one of the players present for the very short time he was a part. I wanted to give a bit of background on some things on what this guy was like, although my memory is a bit fuzzy on the specifics so take what I say with a grain of salt:
    We were looking for some new players for an upcoming campaign, and I offered to help out the DM by looking for some players myself to ease their workload. I ended up getting 3 new people after a bit of vetting (not very well as can be seen), this guy included who we will just call Wolfboy.
    I had spoken with him before getting him into the game and he seemed to be a very normal guy, I specifically remember him telling me that he loved to roleplay make long and storied backgrounds for his characters that were loved by the previous tables he was a part of. I didn't get a chance to see anything about Wolfboys character until we had that session 0 game. He ended up being an beast master Elf Ranger if i remember correctly. I do think I had a basic idea of what his characters background was before the events of session 0, including I think both the OG and new versions of the background from the DM.
    Session 0 essentially boiled down to just test combat for everyone's characters mechanically, it was set in this arctic tundra the DM sent a horde of goblins at us and we were forced to fight them. It went fine enough, but I recall that Wolfboy didn't really talk much outside of his turn and tried really hard to make his turns "cool". He'd describe how he'd flourish his blade when he struck down a goblin, how he vaulted over their spears with angelic grace, shit like that. It was a little surprising considering what he had told me during the talk I had with him before, but I didn't think much of it.
    Then, and for the life of me I will never understand why he did this, the DM had all the goblins run off as a gigantic Adult Blue Dragon crested the sky and landed before our level 3 party of like 4 dudes (Dave was not present for this I think). Naturally, we we absolutely doomed as there was no possible way we could beat that without some extreme BS or cheesing the system.
    But just when all hope was lost, a Wolfboy stepped forward.
    Our hero approached the dragon and challenged him to a duel, just like how Dave mentioned in his background. The world seemed to stand still as the dragon sized up this elf ranger and smiled, accepting this challenge. The wind howled, the snowdrift seemed to part around our hero as if the very fundamentals of nature itself didn't want to stand in his way.
    Wolfboy was so confident he could take on this dragon, I suppose maybe he thought his background translated to in-game skill? I dunno. What I do know is that the dragon onetapped him with a blast of its lightning breath and Wolfboy fell to the snow singed and seizing, somehow not dead. Wolfboy seemed to be genuinely taken aback by this course of events and to be honest I do not know what he expected. He pretty much stayed silent for the rest of the game except when called upon. I was so fucking comical and weird.
    I don't think he was a problem player or anything, he wasn't overtly mean or rude nor was he hampering anyone's play, he just made such an odd Gary Stu of a character. He seemed a normal dude and he had made characters before that were fine, but hey you never know what goes on underneath the surface. I hope he didn't get slurped into the earth or anything.

    • @grandarkfang_1482
      @grandarkfang_1482 13 дней назад +12

      Bro was probably just a massive Chuunibyou, and thought that he could solo the Dragon because he made a character he thought was really fucking cool. I do find it funny that the Adult Blue Dragon, which can do upwards of 120 lightning damage in one turn, didn't instantly kill the character and the rest of the party.

    • @Shmigg_Shmambuss
      @Shmigg_Shmambuss 13 дней назад +2

      woah

    • @luaqi
      @luaqi 11 дней назад

      ​@@grandarkfang_1482this is the first time I've seen someone use chuunibyou in english what the hell

    • @pyrinepygween
      @pyrinepygween 11 дней назад +2

      @@grandarkfang_1482 Us surviving was mostly DM mercy by not playing the Dragon as tactically as he could have, but Wolfboy surviving was genuinely a miracle.

    • @lesmoonwalker
      @lesmoonwalker 9 дней назад +1

      Honestly, if one of my players survived in that way, I'd think "Hmm, he overestimated himself, but maybe there's actually something here".

  • @RagnarokiaNG
    @RagnarokiaNG 13 дней назад +49

    "...attending to her mushroom farm in the cave"
    Ah that explains everything

  • @DK_731
    @DK_731 13 дней назад +17

    Bro wrote a whole prequel series

  • @80yearoldman98
    @80yearoldman98 13 дней назад +57

    We singing of the trees and the vastness of their root systems (below) with this one 🔥🔥

  • @theuncalledfor
    @theuncalledfor 13 дней назад +44

    The earth can mean the ground, the soil, the land. Doesn't need to mean the planet.
    This backstory is still a horrendous flustercluck, though.

  • @spudward1801
    @spudward1801 13 дней назад +18

    Honestly I thought it started well, felt like it was building up the idea of Assuelden suffering pursuit by a society of necromancers due to their parents' past or something, and also being a sheltered island dweller with little understanding of the world outside. Forced to flee back to normal society due to fighting, separated from their only support network, etc etc.
    That actually sounds like a fun wnd feasible character idea.
    Then the reaper happened. And from there it was downhill.

    • @Milosz0pl
      @Milosz0pl 11 дней назад +1

      Reaper appeared
      Palpatine returned
      and Assuelden hawked

  • @guardianHQ
    @guardianHQ  13 дней назад +56

    I think I was pronouncing Assuelden wrong but my way sounds cooler

  • @hybridreaver
    @hybridreaver 13 дней назад +111

    Is backstory a food?

  • @tekiyuyami6406
    @tekiyuyami6406 13 дней назад +30

    What I think the biggest problem with this backstory is, aside from the terrible punctuation, is this dude didn't sound like he was writing a backstory for a character, but more like he was writing the prologue for a book. He very easily could have just gone with "I'm seeking revenge against the skeleton demon that killed my parents."
    Not the worst I've ever seen, Hell, I've written worse, but there seems to be an underlying problem that I just can't put my finger on. I don't know, maybe it's the fact that this backstory doesn't tell us anything about the character and most of it is completely unnecessary. Nah, that can't be it.

  • @condensed_sam
    @condensed_sam 12 дней назад +11

    Dude, I had no idea I was a talking wolf this whole time. Thank you for enlightening me. Glad to hear about my good friend Assuelden again.

    • @guardianHQ
      @guardianHQ  12 дней назад +7

      Did you ever make it back to the island?

    • @condensed_sam
      @condensed_sam 12 дней назад +4

      @@guardianHQ nope. I’m still at sea using that red dragon’s hotspot for wifi.

  • @3_14pie
    @3_14pie 8 дней назад +2

    I think what sets it apart from your typical bad backstory is that he tried making something well written, he just failed miserably

  • @VaellinTheBard
    @VaellinTheBard 13 дней назад +27

    I think I have you beat here. It involves FF14 lore but I had a friend who:
    Accidentally cast the ultimate black mage spell Meteor with no training
    Hid from having cast it because black magic is illegal
    Sister gets mistaken as the caster and is praised endlessly for her untapped talent.
    Was a dancer because she was an orphan. Hates being a dancer though, but still makes her decide to be scantily clad.
    Has the echo which lets her make magitech. With NO INSTRUCTION was able to make magitech armor and a magitech helmet that makes her vision enhanced or something similar.
    Refuses to ever take off the helmet to the point of threatening violende when asked to at bars that ban them (for safety reasons).
    Theres more but Id have to find her profile online and I cant remember the website. Shes been a prime example of a Mary Sue for me for over a decade.

    • @shinobidaniel_12
      @shinobidaniel_12 13 дней назад +5

      Good lord, they're the reason why the tabletop system Anima has a point system

    • @cjhedrick6418
      @cjhedrick6418 13 дней назад +4

      Shit. As someone who's played FF14 for years, there's at least two in-universe reasons per line why this doesn't work. It's kind of impressive like that!

    • @phantom-ri2tg
      @phantom-ri2tg 13 дней назад +6

      "Hid from having cast it because black magic is illegal
      Sister gets mistaken as the caster and is praised endlessly for her untapped talent."
      Kay..

  • @VidelxSpopovich
    @VidelxSpopovich 13 дней назад +3

    I’m glad to see you’re still doing this man. I remember when you were just the weird High Guardian Spice autist and I was hoping that you’d find some kind of niche on RUclips. I hope you continue to see success in your endeavors.

  • @pumpernickel8337
    @pumpernickel8337 8 дней назад +1

    Listening to this was actively making me tweak out- omg what is going on 😭😭

  • @LegendaryDorkKnight
    @LegendaryDorkKnight 13 дней назад +16

    ....wait. They mentioned that Jonah was an elf and Sylvia was an elf (sorry, a "she elf"), but that Assuelden is a half elf. Was...was this a cuck fetish story repurposed into a D&D character?
    Also, I'm FAIRLY certain that Yandry is a wolf and not of any humanoid race. This raises the question of how TF Assuelden learned archery. If Yandry is sending him to human civilization for the first time, how did Assuelden know archery?
    Why is this dragon fighting in his human form? YOU'RE A DRAGON!!!
    This is the SECOND draft and some much already doesn't make sense.

    • @Tioko
      @Tioko 13 дней назад +5

      3:35 It says “high elf”, though, not “half-elf”

  • @12fuzzyrats
    @12fuzzyrats 13 дней назад +6

    There once was a Dragon named Vragnar the Red!

  • @MrAuthor3DS
    @MrAuthor3DS 13 дней назад +5

    So few commas...!

  • @sailoranime289
    @sailoranime289 3 дня назад

    On the bright side this writing has A more consistency plot than High Guardian spice.

  • @predatitor4183
    @predatitor4183 13 дней назад +9

    Reading only a second of the text i notice that somehting its wrong with how they put the backstory, first it doesnt have any order

  • @Kingdomall
    @Kingdomall 8 дней назад +1

    please watch the She-Ra reboot and relive how bad it is.

  • @zjungta
    @zjungta 13 дней назад +11

    Not too bad... for a novel. Maybe. But for a D&D character, no.

  • @HappyAspid
    @HappyAspid 11 дней назад +1

    Is summersault a food?

  • @LeeroyPorkins
    @LeeroyPorkins 13 дней назад +1

    Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra

  • @PudgySasquatch
    @PudgySasquatch 9 дней назад +1

    This is physically painful to listen too, your cringe tolerance as always astounds a deeply terrifies me.

  • @Shin_Mothra
    @Shin_Mothra 13 дней назад +12

    Only 8 minutes in, and this is already way too much detail. My backstories and the backstories I get from my players focus solely on the main character's life, not their parents' entire biography. They also shouldn't be written like a novel. They should be a bit utilitarian and open for integration into the story.

    • @Milosz0pl
      @Milosz0pl 11 дней назад +1

      what do you mean you dont want to integrate earth destroying demonic skeletor and dueling dragon into your stories

  • @dolphincrescent54
    @dolphincrescent54 13 дней назад +11

    Still better than High Guardian Spice.

  • @BlackVulcanX
    @BlackVulcanX 13 дней назад

    Have you tried a new tabletop called Utopia?

  • @80yearoldman98
    @80yearoldman98 13 дней назад

    Million hunfreth

  • @inkchariot6147
    @inkchariot6147 13 дней назад +7

    This is horrible, aren't backstories supposed to have character limits?

  • @3_14pie
    @3_14pie 8 дней назад

    the pretentiousness of this guy lol

  • @cheeseisyummy64
    @cheeseisyummy64 13 дней назад +2

    First

  • @VainerCactus0
    @VainerCactus0 13 дней назад +1

    Way too long and convoluted lol.

  • @cheeseisyummy64
    @cheeseisyummy64 13 дней назад +2

    First