This was literally the case for my Fighter turned Vengeance Paladin, he came from a fairly normal, if moderately dysfunctional family as the bastard son of a powerful noble. His father had him before marriage but once married even still his step mother hated him. Still, he never wanted for much and learned to fight and became quite the young knight and warrior, and he was also beloved by his half-siblings. The adventure began when his father sent him out into the world to gain more worldly experience so he could return home and be a good advisor for his younger brother who would inherit the duchy. Over the course of the adventure he lost his family, his homeland became cursed, and became the sole survivor of his friends in the original party. My happy little LG fighter who was fond of drink, a good fistfight, and loved his friends found himself needing to stand as the bulwark for his people against a world hell-bent on destruction. Despite never having any intentions to rule, he found himself needing to step up to the plate and earned his people's independence from their old kingdom and helped maintain it against the empire seeking to conquer it. Easily one of the best stories I've ever written
My little Gnome Necromancer Wizard is idealistic as all hell, but she got her first taste of trauma recently. A powerful spirit controlled the party's dream and demanded they fight to satisfy his curiosity. Everyone else believed they were safe, but she didn't trust him at all because he'd stated plainly earlier that he didn't like Necromancers. When she found out she could feel the pain from this exercise (which did turn out to be innocent), it sealed the idea in her head he was trying to torment her and she started running scared from everyone she trusted in the party after getting brutally executed once and shot, leaving her on Death's door a second time. She thought he'd literally put her in her own little Hell. Fast forward to waking up, and she still didn't know for sure if it had ended and literally three herself out of a 15th story window (with Feather Fall) to escape the monk who had executed her who was now knocking on the door. Fast forward to finding her in a temple seeking sanctuary, which the party happened to need to go to for campaign reasons. Suddenly she assumes she's being hunted, and goes invisible and positions herself to take them out before she can be tortured again. If it weren't for the monk guessing why she was freaking out, he would have been hit with a Finger of Death that dealt double damage because of a cursed item he was wearing and instantly died. And all of this drama because she has no experience handling pressure and traumatic scenarios.
This was absolutely the case for my elfish wizard in my party's Rise of the rule lord's campaign. She came from a richer ranch and when her curiosity outpaced her mother's alchemy skills, she went to magic school, then continued to travel to hone her skills, she stumbled into the campaign with one of her classmates (another PC). He died, the dungeons were nearly always speared with blood, the new character brought in transformed into bears a cat's and tore into enemies gruesomely, another character died after she had taken in more of a leadership role in the group, and thus felt horrible about it. It allowed for so much character growth, as this preppy haughty mage, slowly became an anxious mess!
When she said that, I was like I've done this. I've created a d&d character with a non-tragic backstory and have thought of a horrifying and specific way they could be tramatized
You can put you can be traumatized in both your backstory and then more into campaign that's what happened to one of my characters I didn't ask for this they just kept doing it
Me: "My monk's monastery burned to the ground. So he wanders the world." DM: "So he wanders the world looking for the villains who burned down his monastery and killed his brothers?" Me: "What? No. The fire was an accident. Everyone survived. He just doesn't have any place to live now."
Weirdly similar to mine, but not at all, yet exactly. Basically, I made a desert monastery of monks who would make contracts with ifrits to bind them in their bodies so they could essentially fire bend (yes, sun soul monk, obviously). Since my character was a prodigy at this and every kept praising him for how awesome he was, when it was time to bind to an ifrit, instead of doing what he was supposed to, he tried to bind to the most powerful of all ifrits. So, temple burned down, but it was HIS fault. The master of the temple sacrificed himself to seal the king of ifrits within my character's body so he could use it's powers, declaring I still had good I could do, etc. etc. You know, typical mentor stuff. So now my character travels the world doing what good he can to honor the wish of his mentor. I wouldn't really call it a tragic backstory. I don't know. Yes my character feels guilty about what he did, but he didn't brood or anything. He just traveled the world, doing good, helping people, that sort of thing.
@@jon-paulfilkins7820 That would be great, but no. He "died" and has since become several versions of undead fire elemental (it's a bit weird) and is currently traveling the world battling corruption (which is an evil force in my GM's world and I decided ifrits purge it).
"So why are you an adventurer?" "I asked the most beautiful woman in my village to marry me." "And she turned you down, so you fled in disgrace, I get it." "Uh, no, she said yes. She just wants a big wedding, and we're going to need a big house with room for kids and a workshop so..."
She was starting to say no, but hesitated for a moment when she saw a falling star, and instead said "Bring me that!"...oh, wait, this is starting to sound familiar, but seems like the start of a good story...
my favorite backstory i gave a character which I shared because usually "hey you all took a job protecting this caravan. what made you do that" talk came up. some of the others reasons were honor, glory, to help the world, to make money. you know many of the usual. my character was a bit different. "Oh I just wanted to get away from my ex."
I always wanted to try a grumpy, elderly kobold alchemist who just wants to find and reconnect to his old flame who is a literal adult dragon he met and formed a loving relationship with while originally searching for rare ingredients in her lair. They parted ways on good terms and now, feeling a bit lonely in his older years, he goes out to hopefully spend his last years with her.
I wrote a grumpy elder dwarf (F) who just kinda tagged along with a youthful adventuring group and reluctantly helped out. Nobody asked, so she never told, but she was totally looking for an old flame. The campaign fizzled out after only a few sessions, but her name was Root and I still think about her beard, which she was very proud of and kept in a small braid with a little gold nugget smashed on the end to keep it tied. She was an artisan woodcarver and her fella was the bladesmith that made all her tools. I always thought when her story inevitably came out I'd have her admit she was looking for him, but follow it up with something like *shrug* I need a new knife.
I think the "get traumatized during the campaign" reason for not having a tragic backstory actually illustrates the reason why, conversely, people start with tragic characters: to give them a happy ending.
Not only that, but if you make a character who's had tragedy in their past but isn't particularly an edgelord, you have a character who's seen enough and gotten over it. They'll still _react_ to new bad happenings, but they likely won't be full-on traumatized, which saves you from having to roleplay that (which might be a very uncomfortable experience!)
Yeah, most characters will have some sort of tragedy happen throughout their lives, but i think what’s being talked about in the video is making that tragedy central for the character’s motivations in the campaign.
Absolutely this. I love having well adjusted folks in campaigns who do get messed up. But I definitely really like someone who starts hurt, and heals over the course.
Now to decide if the bird they saw was: A) A normal bird like a Bluejay or Cardinal B) A phoenix/other kind of magical bird C) A monster they mistook for a bird D) Something else (idk it's your character, you do whatever floats your boat)
@@zeniththeantringleader try D): Someone's handkerchief that blew passed on a breeze. Could add a plot twist to make it a magical handkerchief, enchanted by a fey or something that's been messing with the PC from the begining
My first ever character had a backstory that consisted of, and I quote “kicked out of her home for causing too much mischief, shenanigans and tomfoolery that caused too much unrest in her village. Is now travelling the lands to look for something to do because she is bored in exile” Was pretty proud of that one
I have a Bard named timolt who became an adventure because of malicious compliance, his parents wanted hime to make something of himself and get a job so he figured why not travel the world and make music for everyone.
There is a character I have been waiting to play that literally just a dude who makes really good soup. He is on an adventure in search for rare and exotic ingredients. Edit: I forgot to mention he also has no weapons. Instead he uses kitchen utensils such as knives and a cleaver.
@@gabrielandradeferraz386 He's a Berserker Barbarian with the Chef feat. I don't know when I'll get to play him so I haven't really worked out any details on build yet.
@@flameofmage1099 Had a friend who did something very similar, just instead of soup, he was trying to make the greatest ale. Also he wielded a greatclub that had a hollowed inside for storing the ale. Him smacking the enemies helped mix the brew.
I've read something similar where the mc is the most op person purely because he wants to slay huge yummy beasts and meets a little chef demon so now they're both on an adventure to find really good ingredients for the demon chefs recipes
I often like tragi-comedy backstories, like "I need to repay my college debt from the magic school", or "I got isekai'd for making fun of Zeus, and now this world is my witness protection program".
I once had a fighter whose entire shtick was that everyone thought she had a tragic backstory, but it's just part of growing up as a gnoll. "And to your right, the farm where my mom clubbed my dad to death after he gutted my aunts with a pitchfork trying to defend me from her. It was so sweet!"
“My Reward for Killing Strahd was eternal exile from my own kingdom. We managed to evacuate my people, and find a place to live. Which the gods of his domain took exception to.” -Arditi The Second Executioner and Queen of Argo. A former home brew warforged npc who was just supposed to lead the party from Phylandelver to Barovia. Then die. But ended up being resurrected. Then housing the player’s after they took over her creator’s mansion. She then was encouraged to become the leader of the warforged. We last left off with a time skip one shot of the evacuation of Barovia as a tarasque attacked. This ended With Arditi being announced queen of the survivors by my rp group. One player took exception to that and used the wish card of the deck of many things to prevent Arditi from ever stepping foot on the island she rules over. And to revive Strahd. All in all I decided this was interesting enough of a story to promote Arditi from NPC. To “Character I hope to play one day. When I’m no longer forever the dm.”
My first character was a failed merchant who went to wizard school to support his family. Wizard dad went adventuring as research for his dissertation.
Same with superheroes lol. I'm going to give every example I can think of cause why not *Spoilers maybe*. The flash, mother killed father behind bars. Batman, killed during "mugging". Superman, killed along with most of his home planet. Aquaman, mother got the death sentence father lost the love of his life. Green arrow, father killed himself in front of him. Spider-Man, plane crash plus uncle Ben ofc. Ironman, both killed. Thor, both killed. Blackpanther, father killed in explosion.
Here's an idea: a character who is a dad trying to stay as far away from his traveling son as possible, not for any sensible reason like a murder attempt or anything but rather "my boy is an adventurer and I know how these things happen! I'm nothing but a motivation to these people!" Make lots of borderline 4th wall breaking in - universe jokes that implies he reads too much fiction ??? Profit
True story though. My current character probably has one of the most messed up tragic parent deaths I could come up with: His mother died giving birth to a younger sibling. The baby didn't survive either. His father lost his mind when his mother died. He took up necromancy in an attempt to revive her. He botched the revival. Eventually, the mindless screaming monster his mother had become accidently tripped his father who fell and was impaled by a ruby encrusted sword that was among the massive piles of treasure they had in their basement. Followers of the Cult of Mammon probably would have massive piles of treasure in their basement. Also my character was locked in that basement from birth because they didn't want anyone to know they birthed a tiefling child. Odds are Mammon wasn't too pleased about that which is probably why the mother died later on but no one knows that part, not even my character, well I mean I told the DM, but still. The tiefling child was sent as a reminder of where their riches come from and that they shouldn't be trying to hide the fact they originate from followers of Mammon locking him in the basement probably pissed Mammon off even more.
I don't do tragic backstories to make them interesting, i just like that backstory model. It feels easier to convey a motivation through a tragic backstory. Edit: i also like tragic stories for some reason
Exactly! Plus it’s easier for me to do a build up, versus a plain backstory that would probably be a lot more underwhelming. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing though, especially if it’s relevant to the plot.
Also having a living family makes it reasonable to get homesick. Why go out on the road for years if you have a loving family and community to help? Not to mention the DM needing to substantiate any characters from your backstory, with letters, locations, etc...
Im new to dnd but ive been to a character building panel at a con. I have a character w a tragic backstory but i also have one who doesnt. I think it can be easier to convey the motivation for a character who is moving if their backstory is a little tragic. But "happy" or "boring" character can be fun to play with, to try to come up with a backstory for them, like theyve just been whisked along in a journey. A good analogy is "red riding hood." It doesnt have to start off tragic (she goes to give her grandmother baked goods) but along the way, something happens.
I made a monk character that was a total surfer dude at heart, but his monastery was nowhere near a beach. His goal is to finally reach the ocean and learn to surf UPDATE: I finally got to play him for a one-shot and he did some ice-surfing! It was a blast, and he ended up attempting to teach the whole party how to surf.
My most recent PC is a 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia' reference. A Tiefling Bard who lost a priceless family heirloom (a fiddle made of solid gold) to some 12 year old hick in an ill-advised bet and can't go home until he gets it back.
One of my favorite characters was a monk who lost his parents early on, but had already learned to overcome his trauma early on, instead deciding to dedicate himself to making sure no one else had to suffer like he did. He was also a 7 foot tall idiot though, so that probably made him more likeable.
Had a character quite similar. Also a monk, but they were enslaved for the entirety of their youth. So after escaping, they travelled the land to both stay of the radar but also to help and be useful to those they meet.
@@yourigevers9776 my first charachter was a monk, but I didn't like the traditional religious route so I played it more like "she escaped from a cult and adventures to find safe places to take her friends to help them escape". She was a riot. Totally disciplined one minute, but bonkers Rumspringa type antics the next. Freedom is a heck of a drug.
my current character's only trauma was that he was really small and wimpy as a kid and it made him sad. his name is tiberius, and ive decided that his childhood nickname was 'tiny tibby' and now is middle-aged with a halfling wife who tells him that he is big and strong and handsome. he's still pretty short for an elf, but he's so buff these days you'd hardly know he was even part elven
"That way she gets traumatized on the road, during the campaign." This one hits pretty close to home for an old character of mine, an Aarakocra Bard by the name of Reed. He grew up with a happy family in their coastal village and learned from his mother how to play the violin, and as a result wanted to become a traveling minstrel when he came of age. The inciting incident that got him started on adventuring was when his mother disappeared without a trace one day, and found himself kidnapped alongside the other partymembers by a hag. After that incident, he stuck with the other partymembers and started helping them out. Unfortunately, over the course of the campaign he found himself: getting mauled in his sleep by an owlbear, charmed and almost devoured by an ooblex (temporarily making him lose his memories), had another partymember throw them outside a dungeon right before it collapsed on top of them giving him survivor's guilt, and many other horrible circumstances. What began as a happy bard-to-be wanting to follow in his mother's footsteps turned, over the course of the campaign, into a cautionary horror story on why not every person is capable of being an adventurer. To cap this tragic tale off, he died in a total party kill where the last living partymember had to abandon the rest, so his last living moments where seeing an ally leave him to die.
i see our bards have suffered quite similar fates, ain't that a bitch huh? Mine found himself in another plane and had to find his way back home, during the adventure almost all his loved ones died, and the ones that didn't die were never found or went insane and discovered that he was the reason why his home was destroyed. what was once a baker with a will to fight his way back home is now a broken mess trying to not let others repeat his mistakes.
that's the most relatable story i've ever heard! Truth be told, most adventures in these fantasy worlds probably lead to a horrible death while being abandoned by a "traveling companion" It's not like the middle class has good representation, or the life expectancy of residents is north of 30... just fields, forests, and wastelands covered in thousands of years worth of ruins, graveyards and sunken cities.
@@cosmicspacething3474 that's actually something I've done before. I remember that I had a high moon elf cleric named Miriam, who was travelling home and wanted to find her sister. Unfortunately, due to an unbalanced encounter, she ended up dying along with 2 party members. It was the first character death I had ever experienced, so I felt a lot of grief. I was determined to get her what she wanted, so I replayed her in a one-shot. I decided that she was revived by the goddess she worshipped because the goddess took pity on her, and she ended up meeting her sister and finally coming home. Of course, for the person playing Reed the bard, that might not work due to the high amount of trauma he's been through, but it could work. I'm fairly new to tabletop roleplaying and not the best writer.
I can actually relate to that one with my current character in the Symbaroum-game I play in. He´s a human warrior who grew up in a family who´d escaped their homeland after a devastating war and they made their way to a great mountain range and started a mining operation there because his father, as a blacksmith, understood that mining metal is gonna be vital to help build a new country. As such, my character went from living in a very poor situation to pretty well off. Basically, he´s an immigrant with the "american dream"-story who got traumatized after he went adventuring and joined a mercenary company that did some pretty bad stuff.
It's funny, because it made me think about how many characters in books truly don't have "tragic backstories" but instead, tragic things were apart of their life, as much as the bad. Take Frodo, for example. He was raised by Bilbo because his parents drowned when he was young, but while that is tragic, and changed the course of his life, a major element of Lord of The Rings was just how peaceful and happy his life before the quest was. He was happy, Bilbo was a loving guardian, and he had friends and family, and as a rich hobbit, was free to do as he liked. I mean, heck, look at Aragorn, who had, to the say the least, a tragic family history that affected him, and lived most of his life away from his homeland, had many happy moments. He was raised by his mother and elves, fell in love with Arwen, and was a Ranger. His life had tragic moments, and while that tragedy led him to his destiny, it did not define him as a character.
The difference comes to the medium: movies need blank states characters anyone can identify to, and the drama unfolds during the actual story since it's what's interesting to see. Whereas in rpgs characters identification is a given since we created them and we play them, but we need some amount of the story to be happening before the game so that the world feels more rich and vivid outside of the party's POV. Drama involves conflicting characters so it's the most direct way to achieve that.
I've learned that making a character tragic and giving them a "tragic backstory" don't have to be together. I made a warforged spores druid named F.R.A.N.K. 1.0 for a one-shot that never was played, and his backstory is simply he protects his grove and treant master, burying travelers who passed away near the area and caring for the wildlife. The catch is his memory banks only hold around 30 years of memory, and he is way older than that. He doesn't remember anything about his origins, past, or if his master is even a treant or just a big tree. He is doomed to live past and forget anyone he befriends, but his backstory is pretty relaxed and happy.
@@montionetwothree8899 Just out of curiosity how would you imagine F.R.A.N.K looking like? I might draw doodles of him and send them to you if you don't mind
My tabaxi druid has the most tragic of tragic backstories, she's taking a mail order course "even you can druid", but since she is very bad at written tests, she keeps failing her druid exams. right now she's at lvl 8, but she still is unable to get certification that she's a lvl 1 druid that can be entrusted with the safe keeping of a grove. her neverending quest, to get tenure!
One of my character’s backstory is just… dirt. He loves the dirt. Spends all his time cataloguing dirt and rocks, digging through the mines, and trying to search for the lost city of mole-people that might just be a rumor his big sister made up just to mess with him. Turns out, part of the reason he was so obsessed with the local mines is because there’s a magical shard of a defunct talisman ‘calling’ out to him, buried deep, deep, deep under the earth. It gives him a little bit of magical power, and part of his quest is finding ways to track down the other shards, if they still exist at all.
My friend has a character that is literally dirt. When we were originally playing, we weren’t really playing by the rules and just wanted to do something to pass the time, so we were trying to escape a prison and she wanted to try and blend in with the dirt and rolled a nat20. It spiraled out of control from there
If you are a DM, DO NOT kill your PCs’ family and loved ones. They will never write a positive backstory again. You will turn them all into boring edgelords. Instead, use family and loved ones as a different kind of motivator: plain old common guilt. “We have to go to my sister’s wedding or she’ll never talk to me again. At least I need to get her a top-quality gift. Everyone knows I’m the rich sibling now. I can’t be stingy to my own flesh and blood.” The people who get killed along the way (if any) should be people who got involved. Tangled up in the adventure. The PCs should have a chance to protect their families from that kind of involvement, or have the CHOICE to actively endanger them. That’s a much more interesting and guilt-inducing choice, that still won’t make them go “I’m only writing jaded orphans from now on!”
@@emilysmith2965 I think the issue is not with killing their family, but with it being meaningless. Everyone hates when important characters have lame deaths, especially when they don't make much sense. Then the players will go like "Well, why would I waste my time writing a family when they'll just randomly die somewhere?" Make it something epic, dramatic and meaningful, with lasting consequences. Maybe they managed to severely weaken the BBEG, or destroy some incredibly OP magic item he had, making it possible to defeat him. Maybe they left some really important heirloom that will be crucial to the plot, or something the character really wanted to make it more emotional. Maybe they left behind some clue that's the only way you can track down the BBEG. Maybe they died to protect someone or something very important. Like everything in DnD, just make it something awesome and memorable for the players. And give them enough "screen time" before that, so that the other players can get attached to them as well.
Ah, yes, the kindly young bard who regularly prepares Sending to let their parents know that they're doing okay and that the party is nice and they've been staying away from booze on the road. Occasionally quite vocal about receiving inopportune, embarrassingly saccharine replies from wizard mom, who apparently can be a bit overbearing. And then they die brutally and their corpse is unrecoverable for resurrection and the party has to break the news. Enter players's new character. A wizard who will stop at nothing to avenge their baby.
I've got a character just starting out whose brother (played by the DM at the time) told her when she left that he would bring murder and brimstone if anything happened to her. She's a warlock with a homebrew patron; I guess if she dies, my next character is him as a Fiend warlock...
I've always loved more comedic backstories. A few I've heard: *Country bumpkin who accidentally wandered into a situation where a local noble was making a pact with a demon. Character falls into the circle, knocking the noble out of the circle so the demon accidentally makes the pact with the character / country bumpkin. The demon only had enough power to make the one connection, so he's forced to work with this simple-minded, good-hearted character now made a warlock lol. *Character begins adventuring to pay his child support, constantly grumbles about his ex and how he'd prefer to be drinking ale in his comfy armchair in his favorite tavern. *A gnome who used to be a powerful wizard but lost his spell book and now suffers from mild dementia, so starts as a lvl 1 wizard trying to get back to his former glory. Bumbles his ways into some great situations. The gnome constantly expects to be casting high-level spells that end up being cantrips while the character is still low level.
I have an orc barbarian who had to make the same choice as Paris from Greek mythology. Orc decided to eat the apple and now all three goddesses are angry at him, so he aspires to slay them for A.) appearing before him and introducing themselves (if something has a face and name, it can be killed) and B.) making him answer a really tough question and getting mad at him for thinking outside the box. While he may be an idiot, he's not stupid; he knows that as he is, he doesn't stand a chance against them, so he seeks to amass as much power as he can. He will then take them on one at a time because he definitely can't beat all three of them at once.
I've had (brass) dragonborn bard Narrakas Garnucmuuth (who has blow darts because it blends in with his instruments) and his own brewer's kit. Was born in a traveling circus. Adventuring to earn money for them. (He also had weird cartilagenous tendrils coming off his head pulled back into a man bun. Lol) chaotic good. Then I had M'agg Ruhh, a chaotic good half orc paladin of the moon. Not a moon deity, the literal moon. She was raised in the woods by it (according to her anyway) and she was happy. She just wanted to make more friends. She ended up carrying around and using the bbeg as a teddy bear for the majority of the campaign. (He was stuffed into a jar of vodka because he was annoying) She had rap battled a golden golem shaped like a bear (rolled a nat 20) and that caused it enough psychic damage to end it. She also carried around the corpse of a sea monster so she could find someone to bring it back to life so she could befriend it. (She tried befriending it with song during the battle, but rolled a nat 1) She also wandered off to look at fountains and got kidnapped by a giant floating purple baby. And near the end she got briefly possessed by the moon. Then Atistha. My chaotic neutral wildfire druid "dumpster nymph" all mangy with a peg leg and pixie wings. Kept getting almost caught by animal control. Had "knife bonding time" upon meeting the other PCs. They also regularly attended the meetings for the giant rat mafia/uprising prior to the campaign. Just wanted to learn where they came from and if there were others like them. Called one of the bbegs "Gary" before we found out his name was Uthgar. Going into the prep for the final battle, took about 30 sets of handcuffs from some soldiers. Then, offered a bunch of rusty razor blades made into daggers to some torturers we'd been fighting if they'd join us. (It worked) then offered the rats all the handcuffs to protect this girl who lived in the alley by Atistha's dumpster, and to have some of them join the fight (also gave a sequined cowboy hat to one of the rats). It worked out and they all joined us. During the final battle, basically all but one of the party was knocked out for a good chunk of the battle, and the rat with the cowboy hat single handedly saved us. Dragged Uthgar down, and a hoard of rats ate him. (He was this big fire genasi dude-) It was great. There was also a conspiracy board at one point and a mad scientist with seemingly endless pocket rolls. Anyway, the rats did take over the country for a couple months, but lost interest after a while. Then, the girl Atistha got protection for ended up being the princess and took over the throne. Atistha became one of her closest advisors, and the ambassador for the rats. Lol. Sorry for the ramble. I love my characters. And my next one might be even more feral.
I had a character for Theros who was a “legendary hero” (like Heracles and Achilles, destined for greatness) and so was fast-tracked into the army and promoted to general… but he had like 4 wisdom so I had it so he repeatedly just marched his troops into obviously bad situations and traps that any of them could have seen coming, and so was discharged due to his utter incompetence and now wanders to see where that destiny may lie because it’s clearly not in the army
The funniest thing can be miscommunication between the characters on whether someone has a tragic backstory or not. I played a fighter who moped and looked sad whenever he mentioned his wife. Everyone thought the wife had died, but it turns out she was just as home and he missed her. One of my favorites is a monk with the social skills of a goldfish who lives in a backwater village. One day a trio of adventurers stay for a night, and he immediately had the "Oh no she's cute" reaction to the bard. Before he could work up the nerve to say so (it took all night), she had already left town. He promptly left to go adventuring to go find her.
I have a paladin whose backstory is he thinks he's undead and must get revenge on his killer so he can rest in peace, in reality he has a 6 Int and can't wrap his head around the possibility that a more famous orc warlord shared the same name as him and was stopped/killed by an up and coming hero.
Fucking incredible. "Bro, my detect undead didn't pick you up" "Good god.... I cannot be detected by magic. This will provide me with quite the advantage."
@@TheYeetedMeat he could frequently remember childhood details but is also completely convinced he had the other life too and hasn't put together that that isn't possible. Ie. "In spring 2020 I was 18 and camping with my family" then sometime later, "I was killed at the young age of 36 in spring 2020, but I came back."
This makes me feel good about a character I want to play: Old cool dwarf grandma who masters Grave Domain as a cleric as a way to cheat death/ help others stave off death. She has a good family but she's getting old and wants to see the world and adventure before she dies. She obviously always has a sweater on hand for party members, don't want them to catch cold!
I LOVE characters with the very human (ha) motivation of trying to cheat death, or create a legacy or some other way of achieving a form of immortality.
@@paige4163 Craven’s Curios. Financially struggling, hard to find, not always hidden behind the same door. Dusty shelves buckling under the weight of ancient tomes, shiny baubles, enchanted rubbish and masterwork everythings. One could lose their way between the stacks, or find their purpose, or get bored and leave after a brief browse.
My Warlock character (Genie Patron) was a farmboy that fell in love with an Air Genasi girl when they were kids. After years of dating they agreed to marry. This sparked the ire of the girl's Djinni grandfather who believed that a mere farmboy wasn't worthy of his favorite grandchild. Granting him a vestige of power he forced my character to venture out into the world to seek a fortune, prestige, or title that will make him a worthy future husband.
Same for my human fighter Dermont. His dad worked as a miner, but when Dermont got offered more for bodyguarding some rich nobel for a couple of days than his dad made in a year, he was like "Peace, i'm out, check the mailbox for gold". And it's fun riding the line between being in it for the money and keeping your good allignment. I mean how many people can you murder for whatever reason and still call yourself good? On the otherhand that wizard college for his little sister ain't cheap...
@@JCGver I love this! "For the money" may be characterized and misunderstood by others as "evil greed," but he's doing it to take care of his family. See Order Of the Stick for an example. I see this as an excellent foundation, upon which a wide variety of character quirks can be built. Not to mention, the possibility for trauma and/or character growth. What happens, when he has saved up enough money to pay for his sister's entire education, promised it to her, made arrangements to send the gold, and then... It all explodes in a ball of dragon fire, and he not only loses that payment, but his home, too, and now he has to earn it back IN TIME FOR THE SCHOOL SESSION, while also trying to destroy the dragon, before he destroys many others, and while being homeless, with only the gear he was wearing when the dragon struck. And maybe, he'd like to put himself first, and keep the gold to build himself a home and replace lost gear, but that school is going to start soon, and the payment deadline is looming large, and his sister is counting on him, and thanks to his previous success and promise, none of them even thought about pursuing other options, like scholarships, and now there is no time for other options, like scholarships, and if he doesn't come up with enough money for her, by the deadline, she'll miss her ONLY SHOT at this wizard college, because they will only take students who are under a certain age, because they believe if you're too old, you can't fully control your powers, so better to leave them locked away, entirely, so they not only won't take her, but will mind-wipe her and your parents, so they never remember that she ever had the powers, in the first place (for safety's sake. Awoken but untrained powers are dangerous to all around the person who cannot control them). Sounds fun! To play. Not for real life. Ugh.
Pretty much. Mine's got three kids in the monastery his own parents dumped him (repeating the cycle lel). Ofc he also wants to find out who they are and why.
I actively avoid tragic backstories, they're so common they've become boring to me. When I first got into DnD, everyone in the group had a tragic backstory. I made it my mission to prove to these people a character did not have to be tragic to be interesting. I created a kitsune prince whom was beloved and lived in a paradise where almost nothing bad had ever happened. In his home town, he was treated like a celebrity, being smart, handsome and charismatic. He studied the rogue arts, but only because it was tradition in his kingdom, he didn't actually use them to fight. Right before his coronation, he was kidnapped but was rescued by his bodyguard. This was literally the only bad thing that ever happened to him and nothing of consequence actually happened. Even afterwards when he returned home, people praised him for his bravery despite him doing nothing to rescue himself. This moment made the prince realized that he had been falsely praised his whole life. That no matter what he did, people always saw the best in him and he didn't know what real consequences were. Considering he's supposed to rule over people and make decisions that would impact others, he figured this was not a good headspace for him to be in. So he headed out on a journey in order to find out what normal people have to deal with when they fail, thus he can learn to properly understand consequences for his citizens.
Something people that advocate for non-tragic backstories may forget it's that, I don't care that a character can be interesting even without a tragic backstory. I don't make a tragic backstory because "it's more interesting", I make a tragic backstory because I want to, and because I personally like it.
@@THEPELADOMASTER I think the whole community that is "anti-tragic" is more ore less a sympton of the fact that (especially newer players) tend to create tragic backstorys because for a lot of people the word backstory already implies that something tragic happened, which is a mindset we should get rid of. Why? Because it gets stale and the interesting backstories/opportunities get diluted by this.
As a dm, these are the best backstories you can ever possibly give me: "I'm a warlock, and my patron told me to go adventure." Why did their patron tell you that? Well you'll see in 20 sessions hee hee haha
This is basically what I tend to do with my stuff I had one character whose older sister left to do _something_ a few years before the start of the campaign and I told my DM “my character doesn’t know what it is. I don’t know what it is either. You can decide”
Not my character, but my friend has a bard whose thing is that he’s just lost. He was part of a traveling group and one day he just turned around and they were gone. The twist SHE INSISTED ON was that he just has a habit of wandering and the old group got tired of searching for him so they just, moved on. Maybe one day he’ll find his friends, who knows?
@@BlackRainRising nah its fine. Having fun playing a character is all that matters, as long as you're not making something that makes your table uncomfortable.
This reminded me of a character I played for a short Christmas campaign. She was an adorable tabaxi child (looked more like a huge kitten in adventuring gear) warlock named Lucy. Her backstory was that her father is an adventurer and her mother was a bard. She lived very happily with her mother, but her father was often gone for weeks, months, or sometimes even years all in the hopes of making a fortune. One day Lucy's mother suddenly gave her a backpack full of adventuring gear, and told her that she needed to find her father and bring him home immediately. Her mother then quickly shut the door and all Lucy heard was "someone using their outdoor voice". Lucy had no idea where to go, so she just set off in a random direction to go find her father. Along the way, she met her patron who wanted her soul and in exchange he would give her power and a single KitKat. She had no idea what a "soul" was (she still doesn't) and she wanted a KitKat, so she said yes. For context, this is how adorable she was. Every time she sat in a chair she was too small for it, so she either just stood on the chair or the party would place her on one of their laps. She sometimes didn't know what a word meant but would often still go along with it. For example: the Grinch, "If you help us we will help you find your father. Deal?" He extended his hand towards Lucy. "I don't know what a deal is but ok!" She stood up in her chair and stretched her paws out until she was lying flat on the table with her feet dangling off of it, but was still unable to shake his hand. She stubbornly pawed at the air towards the Grinch's hand while he explained was a deal is. She was just this pure, naive, little kitten that was searching for her papa. At the same time, she was also a terrifying warlock who fought better than anyone else in the party. When she first met the party she had already been wandering for a few years, and she joined them because they agreed to help her find her parents (and she was never taught stranger danger). The party was comprised of the Grinch, Krampus, and an elf who was fired from Santa's factory. They wanted to steal all of the presents and burn them. The moment Lucy was introduced, they all agreed to protect her innocence as much as they could. Even Krampus, who suspected that Lucy was actually a naughty child who should be dragged down to hell, insisted on helping her find her father, so that she can be with her family again. The party even had her cover her eyes and/or ears when they said/did something obviously bad (even swearing). Even at the end of the campaign she still thought that they were good people. To the DM's credit it would have been easy to have Lucy's story be a tragic one. Instead they chose to have Lucy's father be one of the people who transported the presents. When they were reunited Lucy explained to him that her mother sent her to bring him home immediately. His face became white with fear and all he said was, "divorce." That was it. At the end of the campaign Lucy went home with her papa. The end. Her story was not sad at all. She was a ball of warmth that protected the party in more ways than one, so they protected her in other ways. Sure she was ultimately tricked by the party into helping them ruin Christmas, but she never found out about it. Even at the end when the presents were burning, they made sure to decieve her about what happened and even saved one for her (which she then gave to her papa).
I’ve noticed that I’ve started keeping my character’s parents alive just to hit the inevitable session where the DM has to play them. It gives me a glimpse of what normal parental figures are like 😅
Are you ok or do you just mean normal parental figures in DnD because everyone either kills their parents in character creation or inevitably gets attacked by them?
My greatest character’s backstory was basically “He got bored and got hired by seasoned adventurers, making more money in a single dungeon delve than he and his family did in a decade.”
One of my favorite "mystery" character backgrounds was for a half elf who was raised by both parents, but her elven father was extremely close-lipped about his life before meeting and marrying her mother. One day he let slip that he had children from other relationships with other elves, so my character went off to find her half-siblings (one of whom was another member of the party).
The twist being one was a member if the party is so good. (Even if potentially obvious) Out of curiosity did you plan it with the other player or did the DM merge backstories on you?
@@jasonreed7522 the DM merged them. I provided the above information--that her father was very close-lipped about his life before meeting their mother, and eventually let slip that she might have half-siblings--and the other player provided the information that his character's father had abandoned him and his mother when he was a baby. It wasn't very obvious--their shared father was a sun elf, her mother was human, his mother was moon elf (and he took after his mom), and it was SO perfect.
My (most loved) paladin backstory is "as the 16th child, it was always obvious that she would serve The Mountain Goddess." And there she goes, adventuring because if a Goddess tell you to go, you go. No tragic. No loss. Only duty and a lot of praying
Happy backstory: One of my favorite characters ever was an 80-year-old bard named Gloria. She had 8 children, 34 grandchildren, and 27+ great-grandchildren (I created a family tree of her descendants). Gloria had been a travelling bard for her entire life but had settled down with her eldest daughter's family a few years prior to the start of the campaign. When her first great-great-grandchild was born, she declared that she was too old to die at home and took up adventuring. Gloria was forever going on about her family members and and comparing the other party members to them. She was completely unaware of her magical abilities, so her spellcasting always involved a description of the emotions she was trying to evoke (eg. casting Phantasmal Force involved her reminiscing about her half-orc great-granddaughter). She was a very fun character to play and my plan for leveling her up was to always take feats so that her stats wouldn't increase, but I unfortunately didn't get to play her for very long because the campaign fell apart after a few months.
Reminds me of a character consept of again an old grandma whit to many offsprings. But she was and retaired adv like for 70+ years. She sees that a good amount of here younger offsprings wants to be adv too so for inspiration for them she decided to return to adv. She is a sorc and she actively hold here power back to the level of the rest of the group (personality wise she is very kind woman but whan its come to adventuring she become uber professional and she lives by hard cods. So she doasnt care if she die or here group will be hurt by this. She should ruin the hardships they will endure and they should rely on here for great powers. Pretty much sink or swim mentality)also wanted to roll a dice in every new location to find if i have a family member there
I had a character with a happy backstory: meet Alexander Davenport, the second child of Barron Arthur Davenport. As the second child he was not going to inherit his father's title, but that didn't mean that his upbringing on the small estate was free of duties or training. From a young age he was taught to fight with and without weapons, how to act in court, how to manage a household and all that entailed (book keeping, staff training, etc.) and on and on. As he came into adolescence, he was told the reason for all his training: he was going to become a butler to a noble household; not a mere servant, but a trusted companion, advisor and bodyguard. Which noble he ended up serving would depend entirely on him as he would have to attract a patron through his skills. The quickest way to develop his skills, earn a reputation and gain valuable experience was to become an adventurer. So at seventeen he left home with his parent's blessings and set out to test himself against the world. While he was primarily interested in gaining a good reputation and gaining experience, he also wanted to take the time to understand how normal people lived and gain new perspectives. He would also use his time as an adventurer to find out whom among the nobles was worth serving (and maybe find out if the royal palace had any openings). I played this character for quite a while and he actually ended up fairly powerful (level 11 or so if memory serves). He was mostly a monk with a level of sorcerer for some useful cantrips (prestidigitation, mending, and mage hand to help him buttle better) and he actually earned a minor noble title of his own (complete with coat of arms) through his adventures. I haven't played him since the world shut down, but I may play him again someday.
Cool, an 11th+ level Butler would be a very big deal. Plus having Monk levels will make you move faster which I presume will be useful for the job too.
I’ve played a lot of campaigns with the same group, and our tables favorite character has been the human fighter Hugo. He joined up with a group of friends and started an “adventuring” guild where the whole thing was basically just an excuse to one up everyone at taverns with made up stories. Basically everyone in the guild was just pretending to be adventurers for clout. Just regular guys. Hugo basically accidentally teamed up with the party, it was great. The party slowly learning Hugo wasnt the most truthful about his many exploits was a riot
I know this is DND oriented but it’s actually a really cool exploration point for writing a novel. If done correctly you can have a unique hit that reads well whilst breaking one of the largest monomyths ‘The Hero’s Journey’ Edit: Mistake, All these are still calls to action so you don’t really break the Hero’s Journey but it’s still breaking some form of monotony, but I still think this a great idea
This gave me inspiration to make a Dragon born whose parents are humans who accidentally went to a Dragon born egg adoption instead of a farmers market, and just chose the most chicken looking egg there (a white Dragonborn egg) and instead of a chicken it was a him, his motivation for exploring is to find his real parents
Hi Ginny! I created a character who's backstory was both "tragic" and "happy". I was a Firbolg, my husband a Goliath. We adventured together many years ago, and retired as he aged. We grew old together in a cottage we built ourselves. Being a Firbolg, my life expectancy and his were vastly different. My parents begged me not to fall in love with him; they knew the pain that I would eventually feel. I lost him due to time. He grew old, and died a peaceful death in the home we built together. I put him to rest in a grave near our home. My grief never grew easier, I was a alone. Neglected friends and Family. I withered into a hermit. My Firbolg tribe were star watchers, map makers. I was mapping the starts and saw a portends to disaster, and begrudgingly decided to give the information I had to the nearest civilized place, where I got wrapped up in the adventure with the group. I love this backstory so much, because it brings real life situation into our Role Play. Time is, for the most part, an inevitability. My Husband was of the natural/neutral side, so he would have never wanted to have his life extended by magic or healing. My character was just selfish and heartbroken, but still had a really fulfilling and happy life, all things considered.
My character was a daughter of a tavern owner with adventurers coming and going. She was obsessed with their tales and compiled them. She loved singing and learning new instruments. And she just wanted to go to learn more stories and tales and wanted to be a traveling minstrel. She was very happy at home, and also just wanted to see what other people saw.
Getting traumatized on the road is the best for real character creation. In addition, having a background like that gives the DM elements that they get to incorporate into the game.
Oh, and as for an example of this I personally used, I made a Half-elf Archfey Warlock whose pact with Titania was treated as an Oath of Fealty to her. He was a Guide of an out of the way town, where living off the land was more common than the sprawling farms closer to the big cities. He served his community as a handyman, always ready to lend an extra pair of hands or serving as a go between to help settle disputes with words instead of violence. "Everyone has to band together out here. We're all we have." Needless to say, when his Queen gave him an order, he had to follow. He has not earned any real rank in her court yet, but through willing service, he hopes to prove himself a valuable scout and ambassador between her and mortals. He just doesn't quite know what she actually wants.
I usually go for less-than tragic backstories whenever I can. One I've been especially wanting to play though is Connan Chubb, a halfling fighter who runs a meat market and brewery with his family. He and his wife have 11 daughters, and since local tradition says a bride's family pays for a wedding, he converted a pan lid and his biggest fillet knife into a shield and scimitar and is off to make sure his girls growing up get the big parties they dream of.
Honestly I love the whole "The campaign is the trauma". I'm playing an Artificer librarian who was researching Barovia (Curse of Strahd). Up until the campaign start he was literally just a dude who managed books and made some funky contraptions, never even seen combat. Two days in and he's witnessed a *lot* of fighting. He is not okay
Great video! I love non-tragic backstories. I don't even think the reasons need to be as special or compelling as that. "I just want a life of excitement of adventure" and "Adventuring is a good way to make money" are underrated reasons for adventuring. Lots of people (especially prior to the 19th century) would join the military just for adventure.
These are great tips Ginny! You've made me realize that I tend to favour tragedy when writing backstories. Even my cleric who came from a loving family and was adored by her village had a subtle element of tragedy. Since she was selected to be a cleric of the village's god from birth, she was always held to a higher standard than the other children and essentially did not have a childhood. However, it wasn't until she had been sent on a quest by her god and met her party that she started to realize how messed up her upbringing was and the effects it was having on her adult life. Honestly, the only non-tragic backstory I've written was for a one-shot. My character had grown up helping her parents run their inn and, after years of hearing adventurers recount their epic tales, decided to join an adventuring guild so that she might go on her own adventures.
I find myself doing the same thing, to be honest!! Outside of one-shots, my only non-tragic character was my very, very first one - but she was a robot, so I don't even know if it would've been possible to traumatize her, haha!
The first character I wrote also has this theme of big expectations and pressure put on her as a child, which is probably me trying to work through my own issues through d&d... The difference being that this character never cared about said expectations much and stayed true to herself and it didn't end up breaking her the way it did me. As my DM said, interesting how character creation works
"that way she gets traumatized on the road, during the campaign" That basically sums up my philosophy on character creation. I give some basics, but I prefer to let my character develop in play in ways that surprise even me. And they don't always become traumatized. I've had characters become very heroic and I didn't expect them too. I've always felt if you write too much for your character you become bogged down in your backstory. It's certainly not impossible, but it becomes more difficult to move them in many different directions. I create a small catalyst or odd personality trait that gets them moving, and from there I mostly try to create them as young (but capable) and still figuring themselves out so they have room to grow in many directions based on the drama of the game.
I've had a lot of traction taking the "write a backstory" idea, and instead writing "what lessons did I internalize growing up" I play a halfling that grew up in a caravan. We wrote what my mum and dad did, and what it was like to grow up with siblings - but mostly it was just 3 formative experiences: 1. My father being jibbed out of payment by humans, because he was a halfling 2. Getting too drunk at my coming-of-age ceremony and it causing problems for me and mine. 3. Standing up to a bandit that tried to rob my family, and taking up the Sling to protect them. From that I've internalized: 1. The Big will always try to exploit the Small, 2. Alcohol and gambling are liabilities, and 3. Sometimes violence is the answer.
I’d say it depends on what the journey is supposed to provide for the character. There’s approaches other than these, but I imagine alongside the “the adventure is the trauma” approach, there’s also the “the adventure helps with recovery” approach.
My favorite theoretical character is a rouge that worked for a guild. And his job was basically to attempt to get into the stated bank or prison or similar structure. And mark all the ways he could use to get in. So when he was done, he would tell the owners it's weak points, and the building could have better security. Lawful good rouge.
I had a rogue once with the noble background. he learned sleight of hand and stealth to sneak out of the house to party and break into the pantry for midnight snacks. her reason for adventuring? "My parents said I need to learn the value of a gold and threw me out saying don't come back for at least two years or until you can prove you learned your lesson."
One of my favorites was a guy who used to run with a bandit gang. They attacked a caravan, but were defeated. One of the caravan guards showed mercy to him and let him live. The character sought out the guard afterwards and trained under him. Now he adventures to pay that forward. He wants to save who he can
My favorite backstory from a player in my campaign was this: "More than anything my character wants to be a stone mason but got kicked out of his guild because he has all the talent of a potato and that's why he got a job on the island we're all starting on." Ambition, failure and determination to improve his craft. His story arc follows this journey, his despicable potato-punning rival and their eventual partnership.
My current character, a gold dragonborn artificer, actually has a pretty chill backstory. He is a member of a artificers guild that due to the nature of the campaign basically acts as a field agent helping a team explore dungeons to find ancient magic items and figure out how to reproduce them. There is a running joke that the Dwarven Forge Cleric in the group has adopted my character despite both this parents still being very much alive, and sending the occasionally care package.
One of my favorite characters I've ever played is a barbarian with a huge family/nomad tribe. They roam the land in a set pattern, so during summers they were always close to the town the other characters are from. She decided to go on adventures with them bc she wants to protect the party. Her family is alive and well and the party meet them every now and then on the road. It's always super fun and extremely funny
My first character Choca was on her "coming of age" trip that was a tradition for members of her clan. They'd travel the world for a year and come back and tell everyone stories of everything they saw and did. She went with her pet velociraptor/best friend, Vel. She was a happy/go lucky kid who was so excited to see the world and everything it had to offer. Cut to the end of our campaign (it was Curse of Strahd), she died twice, was brought back with a permanent insanity, lost Vel twice, didn't manage to successfully bring her back the second time, got turned into a werewolf, was betrayed by one of the party members, watched more than half of her friends/party members die, and made a personal enemy out of Strahd. That doesn't even begin to include all the horrible traps/injuries she got (she's got a hole in her cheek from a bad injury that go infected). So yeah...she didn't have a tragic backstory going in, but she sure does now, and a lifetime of guilt for some of the decisions she made while in Barovia XD. They won in the end, but it wasn't a happy ending. Not for her at least. She won't be going back to her family.
Another Fun one: My monk is sent off in the world to find that which is most beautiful, so it can be used to adorn the new temple construction, and money wouldn't be bad either. She first suggested a large mosaic of herself, seriously. The other monks thought that perhaps she should go off and learn what beauty is.
I had once in my party a monk who got expelled from his temple because he drank all the ale, like ALL the ale. And they were like: "dude, you have a drinking problem, so go and fix it, bye bye"
I honestly do try VERY hard to come up with concepts that don't bear even passing similarity to Critical Role characters, but at this point they've covered a lot of common themes and they've played 12 different classes and 9 different races, so there is always gonna be a comparison. 🤷♀️ I think the idea of a quest to observe a library of wildshape creatures is pretty unique and cool, personally.
Ok, the bit about finding a map in their wedding chest kinda makes me want a cozy-style mystery where a young couple (Strong Tommy and Tuppence by Agatha Christie vibes) decides to go on an adventure as part of their honeymoon and and fall into adventuring.
I will say also that tragic backstories are very dependent on how the _character views the experience._ For instance, my very first D&D character could have very easily been a tragic one, but ended up being taken to a place where she had some of the most heartwarming stories I've ever seen. Azrei Breval the Witch (a Necromancy Wizard) started her story as the bullied runt of the slums. She was a Half-Elf, looked down upon for her heritage and her diminutive stature, and was frequently bullied - often violently so. Eventually, things escalated to the point where her attackers beat her all the way to death, leaving her to die on the side of the alley. However, that was not how fate would have it, as an old woman - known as a crazy witch to most - came upon her shortly thereafter and Resurrected her (the GM and I agreed that Necromancers should be able to learn Revivify, Resurrection, and True Resurrection, since they are quintessential parts of the manipulation of life force). For most people, being killed and resurrected would be a very traumatic experience, but for Azrei, it gave her perspective. She was already a gifted mind, though she had never had the chance to display it, and ended up having the old woman mentor her in Necromancy for the purpose of using it to help those without the strength to help themselves. She took what could have been a tragedy and turned it into a _drive._
My cicle of Spores Tortle Druid is adventuring because his clan's elders didn't come back, after a routine trading journey. Additionally, he had some dreams foretelling of disaster. So he's out looking for them. So nothing bad has happened to his parents.... yet. That he knows about.
If he's a Tortle, wouldn't they both be dead, or are you ignoring that bit of the lore? I had a Tortle Druid too, and my party ignored the Tortle-breeding lore as well.
@@valeriexjohnson Given the events that have already transpired, and my familiarity with D&D lore, I'm pretty sure they've been abducted by mind flayers. So .... no, not alright, I'm sure. And it hasn't just been them, random people all over have started to be abducted too.
My grave cleric was an elf acolyte who just came of age and headed off on a pilgrimage for Avandra and due to that our DM has decided to tie the main plot to everyone in her backstory! Poor Verna is now level six and thoroughly traumatized
I have a player that's adventuring because she just wants to see animals. That's her whole goal, heck the only reason she's with the party is she thought the dragonborn was a big lizard thing and started following him.
So far I only have one character with a happy backstory and he's an awakened dog, he's just a happy potato and I love to play him! What's even more interesting, is that my DM seems to have decided to make his master (owner) some sort of villain in our campaign, which I can't wait to find out more about!
The happiest backstory I ever wrote for one of my characters consisted of her growing up coddled and praised by her two loving, reasonably well-off parents. The driving force for her character was her massive ego and desire to be similarly adored by everyone she met.
I play a wizard called Thaddeus Klemp who is actually just an introvert and appreciates a good cup of coffee. He's in his mid-40's, has a family, wife and three kids, ran the local pharmacy... One day, his wife split, took the kids and half his stuff, sent the kids to some boarding school and is now with the local chad blacksmith. Nearing depression, Thaddeus got up one day and decided "When I was young, I had all these ambitions and I wanted to see the world before I got Linda pregnant. Time to get my second wind, bitches!!!" So he sold his pharmacy, got some supplies and hit the road. I make a point of it that he's a loving father who writes letters to his kids every week and gets little magical trinkets and toys for them wherever he can find them.
Most of my characters have had positive backstories, Especially my Druid Elanna, she was a quiet girl who always spent all of her free time talking to the plants and animals in the forest she lived near and was found by a high druid who asked her parents to take her as an apprentice. Years later she left to "Learn the name of every leaf and flower in distant lands" of her own volition.
Recent character I played for a one-shot: a sorcerer-type who doesn't want to be an adventurer, but is too embarrassed to admit that to his parents, so goes adventuring anyway.
A lot of main characters arent that tragic. Maybe they have parents that died, but that was ten years ago and they kinda moved on. I think its the call to adventure that makes a lot of characters interesting. Something like getting accidently involved in defeating a dark lord, because its the right thing to do and they have the ability to help. (With great power comes great responsibility. If you can help someone you should.)
Dude, this happened to me last game. Long in short was character I played was part of a large scale colonial effort in a recently discovered star system. Because of how subjective time is effected by Near Light Drives, he can never see anyone from his previous life. He does well enough for himself, but leave it to the GM to insert obligatory Big Bad destroys home planet scene. He was surprised though when I just said "Oh yeah, I came from that dirtball years back. It was a nice enough spot. I just had to know the galaxy was bigger than that. Still... these assholes did just blow up a planet. We should probably get the authorities involved if they aren't already." A.) Got no connection to this rock anymore. B.) These assholes just blew up a PLANET. Five nobodies from some other random rock aren't gonna be much trouble. DM goes : "What about your family, your friends? Like your house, you're favorite restaurant...?" I just pointed to our starting world. He actually upset. It was kinda off putting.
I just had my very first D&D session. Our whole group are newbies, including our DM, so we decided to not go too deep into backstories yet because we're still struggling with literally everything else, but I think we still have some rough notes each. I knew from the start I wanted to play a rogue, but didn't want her to be all negative, so her backstory is only slightly tragic xD I used the standard "she is an orphan and had to steal to survive" trope, but the people at the orphanage she grew up in were actually really nice to her and she considers them her family - they're just really poor. So she started stealing to support herself and the others, got a bit addicted to the thrill and shiny things, so she went from being a pickpocket to doing burglaries to also doing treasure hunts and so on and regulary sends some of the money back to the orphanage to support them, even if she doesn't live there anymore. She knows that the world isn't always fair and isn't totally naive, but has overall a positive view on things and tries to make friends where she can. In contrast to our other rogue she's definitely more bubbly and outgoing xD ...that means, in theory, I still struggle with the roleplaying part, but it was just the first session, so whatever xD
I haven’t gotten to play him, but I have a Dwarf wizard/archaeologist who would absolutely go out adventuring to see ancient ruins and learn the secrets of the past.
I once roll played a human bard/archaeologist that wanted to become a world famous author from their in the field research. Traveling with Adventueres seemed like the best way to attain her goal. Unfortunately only got her to level 3 before I was not able to play again due to a change in my work shifts.
I like mixed backstories, where there's some kind of tragedy that may spur the character, but doesn't haunt them and make them traumatized. While real-world tragedy often traumatizes, it also sometimes just... sits there. Take the 'parents died at a young age' backstory piece that is used so commonly. I have two characters in a novel I'm making that both have had their parents die at a young age, but one of them is mostly indifferent because they weren't very close with their parents, and the other is too cold-hearted to show any care that it happened. That's of course not at all their whole characters, but I just like having tragedy that doesn't always lead to grief and trauma. In certain circumstances, it can be more realistic.
This is great! I always tell my players to just give their characters a "Reason for adventuring" instead of worrying about making a whole backstory, which can be overwhelming for newbies. Now I have a good video to point them towards for inspiration!
I play a fey elf that went off on an adventure to learn from giants (fighter/rune knight) because he was told stories about them as a kid by his mother
I still like my latest character's backstory, she had a perfectly quaint life growing up as an Idylic princess in a fairly sheltered life who felt like nobody really takes her seriously since she's the youngest person she knows. But, the 'catch' is that she's a proper recognized child of Asmodeus and grew up in the 9 hells.
Yo, what if the reason she left the 9 hells wasn't becuase she was evil, but just because she was bored? Like, she just wanted something different and the Material Plane has plenty of it.
One of my new favorite things to do with my friends is to roll a d20 for trauma. We've had 2 nat 20's and a natural 1 in the same campaign, which made for a wonderful dynamic. It's fun to do with friends, and build a character off that
I like weird backstories over tragic ones. My characters were: a gnome artisan that wants to found a new artisans guild where it's acceptable to steal precious gems and metals to "bring them to their full potential", a monk that basically behaves like a cleric and wants to convert people to the faith in her Goddess (using her fists) and a noble girl that was kidnapped during her journey to find a suitable husband and now has to escape from the Underdark. Ok, now the fourth one maybe is a bit traumatized... but that's one character in 4.
Played a dwarven cleric who was guileless, curious, and incredibly talkative. His mother didn't know what to do with a chatty dwarf, so she turned him over to the temple of Moradin ('Moradin made you, Moradin knows what to do with you!'). He excelled as an acolyte, but asked the priests so many questions. They made him chisel all of his homilies and prayers in stone, thinking that would slow him down, but he ended up learning to chisel as fast as he could speak. Finally they petitioned Moradin for a quest, any quest, to get him out from underfoot, and Moradin sent the chatty, inquisitive dwarven priest on his first adventure.
I love the idea of a happy, lovable character suddenly revealing a more tragic side to them. Weather it's through combat or they just need a moment to process what they're *really* feeling instead of pretending to put on a face. This can lead to some very interesting plotlines during Campaigns.
Lately I've been creating characters who are older than the average adventurer. They've lived a long life of peace and quiet, but now that their children have left the nest, they dedicate their golden years to travel the world with a party of lovable dorks
If anyone is interested in more detail: one is a paladin who served as an acolyte for his local church, always devoted but carrying on a humble job. He's happily married and his children are starting families of their own. However, one day he received a vision from his God, who called for him to fulfill a greater duty. And so he said goodbye to his wife and went on an adventure, promising he would come back to her once his job is done (so I'm really doing all I can to keep him alive, lol. He's the party's tank and healer, and his main role is protecting them) The other, more recent character I made is a sweet old grandma, an owlin wizard, who after a comfy life as a history teacher, decided to follow the dream of her younger self of traveling the world, going on adventures, and delving into the mysteries of the arcane arts! She's very excited about everything that happens, kinda like an enthusiastic tourist, lol. If the campaign remains happy-go-lucky, she'll probably have a lot of fun. And if the DM decides to incorporate some drama, it will be interesting to see her development as she confronts the hash realities of the adventurer's life
One of my characters is a "gnome" warlock. Rexi Feywick was created by a forest deity to be his companion and help keep the forest safe. However, being so new to the world, she wondered off and wound up following a group of strangers. Now her father (and patron) keeps a close eye on his happy go lucky, inexperienced daughter until she eventually finds her way back home.
one of my favorite characters i made is still my happy-go-lucky rogue from a very loving family that ran a thieves guild. she wanted to go out and improve her rogue skills and cause a bit of mayhem and mischief before returning to take up her mom’s mantle as the head of the guild. bonus points for being a half-elf that never knew the elven side of her family and so the very first elf she meets is a fellow pc whose wild, eccentric ways shes CONVINCED are normal elf behavior that she should start emulating.
most of my characters who have terrible depressing backstories: my old man goblin artificer who just wants to live a little: yoohoo, bug summer blowout
I'm like 50 seconds in and I'm just floored with how much I enjoy that starting pitch and I'm writing this comment so I don't forget to interact after the finish watching the video. Thank You very much ma'am
The current project is making an assassin wizard who had a loving family home of two hardworking parents. Sure her magic tutor was a hardass, but she just really really likes magic and killing people on behalf of others orders is an efficient way to get better at it after she was given the opportunity to do so, esp as a driven career woman. Gradually changing her opinions (or not) on the morality of her place in that is likely going to be her arc.
I had a character called Larry who’s backstory was that he was the newly hired member of the town guard, and he wanted to prove himself to his commanding officers. The rest of his group were older, more shady and jaded, and the fact that Larry hadn’t experienced much trauma in his life and was still quite naive meant the others felt they had to shelter him from the less savoury parts of the job. He was a fun character to play.
I have a story where one character had a rough, abusive childhood and struggles to find a feeling of belonging, constantly seeking affirmation. His best friend was raised in a fairly nuclear family with supportive parents, and she’s landed a stable job with no considerable conflicts. It makes it interesting to see how each of them approach problem solving, and how they learn more about each other’s perspectives.
Wow, I'd read/play that story! Sounds right up my alley, dealing with things like attachment theory, child and developmental psychology, etc., especially in the form of fiction!!
"that way she gets traumatized on the road, during the campaign" - best elavator pitch for non-tragic backstories, hands down imo
This was literally the case for my Fighter turned Vengeance Paladin, he came from a fairly normal, if moderately dysfunctional family as the bastard son of a powerful noble. His father had him before marriage but once married even still his step mother hated him. Still, he never wanted for much and learned to fight and became quite the young knight and warrior, and he was also beloved by his half-siblings. The adventure began when his father sent him out into the world to gain more worldly experience so he could return home and be a good advisor for his younger brother who would inherit the duchy.
Over the course of the adventure he lost his family, his homeland became cursed, and became the sole survivor of his friends in the original party. My happy little LG fighter who was fond of drink, a good fistfight, and loved his friends found himself needing to stand as the bulwark for his people against a world hell-bent on destruction. Despite never having any intentions to rule, he found himself needing to step up to the plate and earned his people's independence from their old kingdom and helped maintain it against the empire seeking to conquer it. Easily one of the best stories I've ever written
My little Gnome Necromancer Wizard is idealistic as all hell, but she got her first taste of trauma recently. A powerful spirit controlled the party's dream and demanded they fight to satisfy his curiosity. Everyone else believed they were safe, but she didn't trust him at all because he'd stated plainly earlier that he didn't like Necromancers. When she found out she could feel the pain from this exercise (which did turn out to be innocent), it sealed the idea in her head he was trying to torment her and she started running scared from everyone she trusted in the party after getting brutally executed once and shot, leaving her on Death's door a second time. She thought he'd literally put her in her own little Hell.
Fast forward to waking up, and she still didn't know for sure if it had ended and literally three herself out of a 15th story window (with Feather Fall) to escape the monk who had executed her who was now knocking on the door.
Fast forward to finding her in a temple seeking sanctuary, which the party happened to need to go to for campaign reasons. Suddenly she assumes she's being hunted, and goes invisible and positions herself to take them out before she can be tortured again. If it weren't for the monk guessing why she was freaking out, he would have been hit with a Finger of Death that dealt double damage because of a cursed item he was wearing and instantly died.
And all of this drama because she has no experience handling pressure and traumatic scenarios.
This was absolutely the case for my elfish wizard in my party's Rise of the rule lord's campaign. She came from a richer ranch and when her curiosity outpaced her mother's alchemy skills, she went to magic school, then continued to travel to hone her skills, she stumbled into the campaign with one of her classmates (another PC). He died, the dungeons were nearly always speared with blood, the new character brought in transformed into bears a cat's and tore into enemies gruesomely, another character died after she had taken in more of a leadership role in the group, and thus felt horrible about it. It allowed for so much character growth, as this preppy haughty mage, slowly became an anxious mess!
When she said that, I was like I've done this. I've created a d&d character with a non-tragic backstory and have thought of a horrifying and specific way they could be tramatized
You can put you can be traumatized in both your backstory and then more into campaign that's what happened to one of my characters I didn't ask for this they just kept doing it
Ah yes, "The tragic backstory is the one we made along the way"
Absolute spice 👏😩✨
so true, it almost kinda hurts. :')
I was not prepared for that LOL
All the murder we did must have started SOMEBODY'S tragic backstory
Exactly. No need to start traumatised. You’ll get traumatised soon enough.
My favourite character I made was a single dad who, after his daughter left home to learn healing, mid life crisesed his way into being an adventurer
I'm definitely gonna steal that
@@jjkthebest the greatest compliment
I’m stealing this toooooo
That's awesome, I love it.
wow, i love this
The issue comes when the bard needs to go west, the sorcerer north, the rogue south and the fighter east, all due to their backstories.
This is what the campaign hook is for.
If the group supports one another you can do all 4 together, one at a time, and probably resolve your issues more successfully with friends along.
Just cuz people have different goals in life doesn’t mean we can’t all take the trip together
@Caiden Leonard Can't the DM decide the path and locations in a way that logically works with every character?
The DM be like: "there is a massive chasm that created a continental slip, all the directions are north now"
Me: "My monk's monastery burned to the ground. So he wanders the world."
DM: "So he wanders the world looking for the villains who burned down his monastery and killed his brothers?"
Me: "What? No. The fire was an accident. Everyone survived. He just doesn't have any place to live now."
This is so perfect, I love it! Totally fits the monk vibe too
This is the best one well done 🤣👏
Weirdly similar to mine, but not at all, yet exactly. Basically, I made a desert monastery of monks who would make contracts with ifrits to bind them in their bodies so they could essentially fire bend (yes, sun soul monk, obviously). Since my character was a prodigy at this and every kept praising him for how awesome he was, when it was time to bind to an ifrit, instead of doing what he was supposed to, he tried to bind to the most powerful of all ifrits. So, temple burned down, but it was HIS fault. The master of the temple sacrificed himself to seal the king of ifrits within my character's body so he could use it's powers, declaring I still had good I could do, etc. etc. You know, typical mentor stuff. So now my character travels the world doing what good he can to honor the wish of his mentor. I wouldn't really call it a tragic backstory. I don't know. Yes my character feels guilty about what he did, but he didn't brood or anything. He just traveled the world, doing good, helping people, that sort of thing.
He's now questing for a Stonemason to build a fireproof monastery?
@@jon-paulfilkins7820 That would be great, but no. He "died" and has since become several versions of undead fire elemental (it's a bit weird) and is currently traveling the world battling corruption (which is an evil force in my GM's world and I decided ifrits purge it).
"So why are you an adventurer?"
"I asked the most beautiful woman in my village to marry me."
"And she turned you down, so you fled in disgrace, I get it."
"Uh, no, she said yes. She just wants a big wedding, and we're going to need a big house with room for kids and a workshop so..."
"She said yes, and this is our honeymoon!"
@@santiagonutter8052
[As you say these words, a ghostly woman appears from behind you, positively beaming]
She was starting to say no, but hesitated for a moment when she saw a falling star, and instead said "Bring me that!"...oh, wait, this is starting to sound familiar, but seems like the start of a good story...
@@Gilleban Stardust used to be one of my favourite stories when I was younger.
I like that one!
"I'm here to kick ass and protect family--
And I'm all out of family"
-Your average adventurer
Dom Toretto approves.
Takinng applications to being the new "found family" members
Lmao I'm tempted to hand in exactly this as a backstory. Word for word.
this needs more likes
my favorite backstory i gave a character which I shared because usually "hey you all took a job protecting this caravan. what made you do that" talk came up.
some of the others reasons were honor, glory, to help the world, to make money. you know many of the usual. my character was a bit different.
"Oh I just wanted to get away from my ex."
I always wanted to try a grumpy, elderly kobold alchemist who just wants to find and reconnect to his old flame who is a literal adult dragon he met and formed a loving relationship with while originally searching for rare ingredients in her lair. They parted ways on good terms and now, feeling a bit lonely in his older years, he goes out to hopefully spend his last years with her.
I wrote a grumpy elder dwarf (F) who just kinda tagged along with a youthful adventuring group and reluctantly helped out. Nobody asked, so she never told, but she was totally looking for an old flame. The campaign fizzled out after only a few sessions, but her name was Root and I still think about her beard, which she was very proud of and kept in a small braid with a little gold nugget smashed on the end to keep it tied. She was an artisan woodcarver and her fella was the bladesmith that made all her tools. I always thought when her story inevitably came out I'd have her admit she was looking for him, but follow it up with something like *shrug* I need a new knife.
Isn't that a Witcher plot?
Isn't that zoophilia ?
@@-randomuser-4897 no it can verbalize and can communicate her desires
That's so sweet wtf
I think the "get traumatized during the campaign" reason for not having a tragic backstory actually illustrates the reason why, conversely, people start with tragic characters: to give them a happy ending.
Not only that, but if you make a character who's had tragedy in their past but isn't particularly an edgelord, you have a character who's seen enough and gotten over it. They'll still _react_ to new bad happenings, but they likely won't be full-on traumatized, which saves you from having to roleplay that (which might be a very uncomfortable experience!)
Yeah, most characters will have some sort of tragedy happen throughout their lives, but i think what’s being talked about in the video is making that tragedy central for the character’s motivations in the campaign.
I have character idea that will be traumatizing other charactrs
@@FlameUser64 I absolutely love this in C3 of Critical Role
Absolutely this. I love having well adjusted folks in campaigns who do get messed up. But I definitely really like someone who starts hurt, and heals over the course.
“I saw a cool bird once and I’m trying to find it again” is definitely gonna be my next backstory
Now to decide if the bird they saw was:
A) A normal bird like a Bluejay or Cardinal
B) A phoenix/other kind of magical bird
C) A monster they mistook for a bird
D) Something else (idk it's your character, you do whatever floats your boat)
@@zeniththeantringleader try D): Someone's handkerchief that blew passed on a breeze.
Could add a plot twist to make it a magical handkerchief, enchanted by a fey or something that's been messing with the PC from the begining
Wasn't that a whole thing in season 1 of Ninjago?
@@zeniththeantringleader isnt B literally the subplot of the first pokemon anime (ho-oh)
@@darrellmarshall1782 That would be a really fun idea!
My first ever character had a backstory that consisted of, and I quote “kicked out of her home for causing too much mischief, shenanigans and tomfoolery that caused too much unrest in her village. Is now travelling the lands to look for something to do because she is bored in exile”
Was pretty proud of that one
I have a Bard named timolt who became an adventure because of malicious compliance, his parents wanted hime to make something of himself and get a job so he figured why not travel the world and make music for everyone.
There is a character I have been waiting to play that literally just a dude who makes really good soup. He is on an adventure in search for rare and exotic ingredients.
Edit: I forgot to mention he also has no weapons. Instead he uses kitchen utensils such as knives and a cleaver.
Please tell me he is super optimized and bronken as hell
@@gabrielandradeferraz386 He's a Berserker Barbarian with the Chef feat. I don't know when I'll get to play him so I haven't really worked out any details on build yet.
@@flameofmage1099 Had a friend who did something very similar, just instead of soup, he was trying to make the greatest ale. Also he wielded a greatclub that had a hollowed inside for storing the ale. Him smacking the enemies helped mix the brew.
I've read something similar where the mc is the most op person purely because he wants to slay huge yummy beasts and meets a little chef demon so now they're both on an adventure to find really good ingredients for the demon chefs recipes
I read a post about a chef barbarian who has one 'spell', which is when he bonks his pan on their head whilst screaming ' Cast Iron!'
I often like tragi-comedy backstories, like "I need to repay my college debt from the magic school", or "I got isekai'd for making fun of Zeus, and now this world is my witness protection program".
I once had a fighter whose entire shtick was that everyone thought she had a tragic backstory, but it's just part of growing up as a gnoll.
"And to your right, the farm where my mom clubbed my dad to death after he gutted my aunts with a pitchfork trying to defend me from her. It was so sweet!"
“My Reward for Killing Strahd was eternal exile from my own kingdom. We managed to evacuate my people, and find a place to live. Which the gods of his domain took exception to.” -Arditi The Second Executioner and Queen of Argo.
A former home brew warforged npc who was just supposed to lead the party from Phylandelver to Barovia. Then die. But ended up being resurrected. Then housing the player’s after they took over her creator’s mansion. She then was encouraged to become the leader of the warforged.
We last left off with a time skip one shot of the evacuation of Barovia as a tarasque attacked. This ended With Arditi being announced queen of the survivors by my rp group. One player took exception to that and used the wish card of the deck of many things to prevent Arditi from ever stepping foot on the island she rules over. And to revive Strahd.
All in all I decided this was interesting enough of a story to promote Arditi from NPC. To “Character I hope to play one day. When I’m no longer forever the dm.”
I need to try something like This at some point
My first character was a failed merchant who went to wizard school to support his family. Wizard dad went adventuring as research for his dissertation.
@@AtaraxianWist Yeah, I also quite like the "I became an adventurer to pay my wizard student debt" kind of backstory. ;)
The most dangerous job in any rpg: being the main characters parents. Lol
Same with superheroes lol. I'm going to give every example I can think of cause why not *Spoilers maybe*.
The flash, mother killed father behind bars.
Batman, killed during "mugging".
Superman, killed along with most of his home planet.
Aquaman, mother got the death sentence father lost the love of his life.
Green arrow, father killed himself in front of him.
Spider-Man, plane crash plus uncle Ben ofc.
Ironman, both killed.
Thor, both killed.
Blackpanther, father killed in explosion.
Here's an idea: a character who is a dad trying to stay as far away from his traveling son as possible, not for any sensible reason like a murder attempt or anything but rather "my boy is an adventurer and I know how these things happen! I'm nothing but a motivation to these people!"
Make lots of borderline 4th wall breaking in - universe jokes that implies he reads too much fiction
???
Profit
@@Xazyv this is gold
True story though. My current character probably has one of the most messed up tragic parent deaths I could come up with:
His mother died giving birth to a younger sibling. The baby didn't survive either. His father lost his mind when his mother died. He took up necromancy in an attempt to revive her. He botched the revival. Eventually, the mindless screaming monster his mother had become accidently tripped his father who fell and was impaled by a ruby encrusted sword that was among the massive piles of treasure they had in their basement. Followers of the Cult of Mammon probably would have massive piles of treasure in their basement. Also my character was locked in that basement from birth because they didn't want anyone to know they birthed a tiefling child. Odds are Mammon wasn't too pleased about that which is probably why the mother died later on but no one knows that part, not even my character, well I mean I told the DM, but still. The tiefling child was sent as a reminder of where their riches come from and that they shouldn't be trying to hide the fact they originate from followers of Mammon locking him in the basement probably pissed Mammon off even more.
@@kraziecatclady Shit, that's really creative and cool. but also jesus.
I don't do tragic backstories to make them interesting, i just like that backstory model. It feels easier to convey a motivation through a tragic backstory.
Edit: i also like tragic stories for some reason
Exactly! Plus it’s easier for me to do a build up, versus a plain backstory that would probably be a lot more underwhelming. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing though, especially if it’s relevant to the plot.
same here. i love it when the pain is so raw too, especially when conveyed well and then how it ties into everything else
Also having a living family makes it reasonable to get homesick. Why go out on the road for years if you have a loving family and community to help?
Not to mention the DM needing to substantiate any characters from your backstory, with letters, locations, etc...
@@seeker296 well, i never said a tragic backstory needs your whole family to die. Tragedies can happen without involving any deaths.
Im new to dnd but ive been to a character building panel at a con. I have a character w a tragic backstory but i also have one who doesnt. I think it can be easier to convey the motivation for a character who is moving if their backstory is a little tragic. But "happy" or "boring" character can be fun to play with, to try to come up with a backstory for them, like theyve just been whisked along in a journey. A good analogy is "red riding hood." It doesnt have to start off tragic (she goes to give her grandmother baked goods) but along the way, something happens.
I made a monk character that was a total surfer dude at heart, but his monastery was nowhere near a beach. His goal is to finally reach the ocean and learn to surf
UPDATE: I finally got to play him for a one-shot and he did some ice-surfing! It was a blast, and he ended up attempting to teach the whole party how to surf.
omg.. that is awesome and wholesome 😃😢
Did he get to go surfing in the end?
I too need to know if he got to go surfing in the end
It's been five months since this comment was published but I'm obsessed with surfer monk man and I need answers
@@somethingc13ver55 I actually didn’t get to play him 😫 some day…
My most recent PC is a 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia' reference. A Tiefling Bard who lost a priceless family heirloom (a fiddle made of solid gold) to some 12 year old hick in an ill-advised bet and can't go home until he gets it back.
Love it
niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice
absolute 10/10. gotta steal this for a NPC lol
This is fantastic
My most recent PC Bard is that hick.
One of my favorite characters was a monk who lost his parents early on, but had already learned to overcome his trauma early on, instead deciding to dedicate himself to making sure no one else had to suffer like he did. He was also a 7 foot tall idiot though, so that probably made him more likeable.
Had a character quite similar.
Also a monk, but they were enslaved for the entirety of their youth. So after escaping, they travelled the land to both stay of the radar but also to help and be useful to those they meet.
@@yourigevers9776 my first charachter was a monk, but I didn't like the traditional religious route so I played it more like "she escaped from a cult and adventures to find safe places to take her friends to help them escape". She was a riot. Totally disciplined one minute, but bonkers Rumspringa type antics the next. Freedom is a heck of a drug.
my current character's only trauma was that he was really small and wimpy as a kid and it made him sad. his name is tiberius, and ive decided that his childhood nickname was 'tiny tibby' and now is middle-aged with a halfling wife who tells him that he is big and strong and handsome. he's still pretty short for an elf, but he's so buff these days you'd hardly know he was even part elven
Saw this comment and I thought that you were talking about this character I like that's a monk 😭
Aang from avatar the last Airbender?
"That way she gets traumatized on the road, during the campaign."
This one hits pretty close to home for an old character of mine, an Aarakocra Bard by the name of Reed. He grew up with a happy family in their coastal village and learned from his mother how to play the violin, and as a result wanted to become a traveling minstrel when he came of age. The inciting incident that got him started on adventuring was when his mother disappeared without a trace one day, and found himself kidnapped alongside the other partymembers by a hag.
After that incident, he stuck with the other partymembers and started helping them out. Unfortunately, over the course of the campaign he found himself: getting mauled in his sleep by an owlbear, charmed and almost devoured by an ooblex (temporarily making him lose his memories), had another partymember throw them outside a dungeon right before it collapsed on top of them giving him survivor's guilt, and many other horrible circumstances.
What began as a happy bard-to-be wanting to follow in his mother's footsteps turned, over the course of the campaign, into a cautionary horror story on why not every person is capable of being an adventurer. To cap this tragic tale off, he died in a total party kill where the last living partymember had to abandon the rest, so his last living moments where seeing an ally leave him to die.
i see our bards have suffered quite similar fates, ain't that a bitch huh?
Mine found himself in another plane and had to find his way back home, during the adventure almost all his loved ones died, and the ones that didn't die were never found or went insane and discovered that he was the reason why his home was destroyed. what was once a baker with a will to fight his way back home is now a broken mess trying to not let others repeat his mistakes.
Therein lies the joy of reusing characters!
that's the most relatable story i've ever heard! Truth be told, most adventures in these fantasy worlds probably lead to a horrible death while being abandoned by a "traveling companion" It's not like the middle class has good representation, or the life expectancy of residents is north of 30... just fields, forests, and wastelands covered in thousands of years worth of ruins, graveyards and sunken cities.
@@cosmicspacething3474 that's actually something I've done before. I remember that I had a high moon elf cleric named Miriam, who was travelling home and wanted to find her sister. Unfortunately, due to an unbalanced encounter, she ended up dying along with 2 party members. It was the first character death I had ever experienced, so I felt a lot of grief. I was determined to get her what she wanted, so I replayed her in a one-shot. I decided that she was revived by the goddess she worshipped because the goddess took pity on her, and she ended up meeting her sister and finally coming home.
Of course, for the person playing Reed the bard, that might not work due to the high amount of trauma he's been through, but it could work. I'm fairly new to tabletop roleplaying and not the best writer.
I can actually relate to that one with my current character in the Symbaroum-game I play in. He´s a human warrior who grew up in a family who´d escaped their homeland after a devastating war and they made their way to a great mountain range and started a mining operation there because his father, as a blacksmith, understood that mining metal is gonna be vital to help build a new country. As such, my character went from living in a very poor situation to pretty well off. Basically, he´s an immigrant with the "american dream"-story who got traumatized after he went adventuring and joined a mercenary company that did some pretty bad stuff.
It's funny, because it made me think about how many characters in books truly don't have "tragic backstories" but instead, tragic things were apart of their life, as much as the bad. Take Frodo, for example. He was raised by Bilbo because his parents drowned when he was young, but while that is tragic, and changed the course of his life, a major element of Lord of The Rings was just how peaceful and happy his life before the quest was. He was happy, Bilbo was a loving guardian, and he had friends and family, and as a rich hobbit, was free to do as he liked. I mean, heck, look at Aragorn, who had, to the say the least, a tragic family history that affected him, and lived most of his life away from his homeland, had many happy moments. He was raised by his mother and elves, fell in love with Arwen, and was a Ranger. His life had tragic moments, and while that tragedy led him to his destiny, it did not define him as a character.
The difference comes to the medium: movies need blank states characters anyone can identify to, and the drama unfolds during the actual story since it's what's interesting to see.
Whereas in rpgs characters identification is a given since we created them and we play them, but we need some amount of the story to be happening before the game so that the world feels more rich and vivid outside of the party's POV. Drama involves conflicting characters so it's the most direct way to achieve that.
I've learned that making a character tragic and giving them a "tragic backstory" don't have to be together. I made a warforged spores druid named F.R.A.N.K. 1.0 for a one-shot that never was played, and his backstory is simply he protects his grove and treant master, burying travelers who passed away near the area and caring for the wildlife. The catch is his memory banks only hold around 30 years of memory, and he is way older than that. He doesn't remember anything about his origins, past, or if his master is even a treant or just a big tree. He is doomed to live past and forget anyone he befriends, but his backstory is pretty relaxed and happy.
Whoa. And what does F.R.A.N.K. stand for, if I may ask?
I feel like I'm gonna steal this and make it an NPC in my world
Damn dude, that's awesome!
@@kyrauniversal Sorry for the late response. It stands for Forest Region Assistance and Nature Knowledge. Really proud of that acronym.
@@montionetwothree8899 Just out of curiosity how would you imagine F.R.A.N.K looking like? I might draw doodles of him and send them to you if you don't mind
My tabaxi druid has the most tragic of tragic backstories, she's taking a mail order course "even you can druid", but since she is very bad at written tests, she keeps failing her druid exams. right now she's at lvl 8, but she still is unable to get certification that she's a lvl 1 druid that can be entrusted with the safe keeping of a grove. her neverending quest, to get tenure!
The best kind of tragedy: perpetual failure and disappointment
LMFAO
"Even YOU Can Druid" HAHAHAHAHA!!! CRACKED ME UP!!!
I absolutely love this backstory. Thank you.
In some ways too real
One of my character’s backstory is just… dirt. He loves the dirt. Spends all his time cataloguing dirt and rocks, digging through the mines, and trying to search for the lost city of mole-people that might just be a rumor his big sister made up just to mess with him.
Turns out, part of the reason he was so obsessed with the local mines is because there’s a magical shard of a defunct talisman ‘calling’ out to him, buried deep, deep, deep under the earth. It gives him a little bit of magical power, and part of his quest is finding ways to track down the other shards, if they still exist at all.
My friend has a character that is literally dirt. When we were originally playing, we weren’t really playing by the rules and just wanted to do something to pass the time, so we were trying to escape a prison and she wanted to try and blend in with the dirt and rolled a nat20. It spiraled out of control from there
@@gay_deltz I love that haha, sounds chaotic
"I'd like to blend in with the dirt"
"roll for it."
"nat 20!"
"you are the dirt"
Character: **has parents**
The Party: **disorganized grumbling and discord**
Character: *has parents*
DM: *Grinch smirk*
@@ZaynahZihoa DM: *Loads shotgun*
@@ZaynahZihoa had* parents
If you are a DM, DO NOT kill your PCs’ family and loved ones. They will never write a positive backstory again. You will turn them all into boring edgelords.
Instead, use family and loved ones as a different kind of motivator: plain old common guilt.
“We have to go to my sister’s wedding or she’ll never talk to me again. At least I need to get her a top-quality gift. Everyone knows I’m the rich sibling now. I can’t be stingy to my own flesh and blood.”
The people who get killed along the way (if any) should be people who got involved. Tangled up in the adventure. The PCs should have a chance to protect their families from that kind of involvement, or have the CHOICE to actively endanger them.
That’s a much more interesting and guilt-inducing choice, that still won’t make them go “I’m only writing jaded orphans from now on!”
@@emilysmith2965 I think the issue is not with killing their family, but with it being meaningless. Everyone hates when important characters have lame deaths, especially when they don't make much sense. Then the players will go like "Well, why would I waste my time writing a family when they'll just randomly die somewhere?"
Make it something epic, dramatic and meaningful, with lasting consequences. Maybe they managed to severely weaken the BBEG, or destroy some incredibly OP magic item he had, making it possible to defeat him. Maybe they left some really important heirloom that will be crucial to the plot, or something the character really wanted to make it more emotional. Maybe they left behind some clue that's the only way you can track down the BBEG. Maybe they died to protect someone or something very important. Like everything in DnD, just make it something awesome and memorable for the players. And give them enough "screen time" before that, so that the other players can get attached to them as well.
Ah, yes, the kindly young bard who regularly prepares Sending to let their parents know that they're doing okay and that the party is nice and they've been staying away from booze on the road. Occasionally quite vocal about receiving inopportune, embarrassingly saccharine replies from wizard mom, who apparently can be a bit overbearing.
And then they die brutally and their corpse is unrecoverable for resurrection and the party has to break the news.
Enter players's new character. A wizard who will stop at nothing to avenge their baby.
I love this backstory! It's also a creative way to deal with a character death!
I've got a character just starting out whose brother (played by the DM at the time) told her when she left that he would bring murder and brimstone if anything happened to her. She's a warlock with a homebrew patron; I guess if she dies, my next character is him as a Fiend warlock...
The first character is good, the second is very Mary sue
@@melonyfbb Second character is powerful overbearing wizard mom, aka older, aka not Mary Sue.
I do not think that word means what you think it means
I've always loved more comedic backstories. A few I've heard:
*Country bumpkin who accidentally wandered into a situation where a local noble was making a pact with a demon. Character falls into the circle, knocking the noble out of the circle so the demon accidentally makes the pact with the character / country bumpkin. The demon only had enough power to make the one connection, so he's forced to work with this simple-minded, good-hearted character now made a warlock lol.
*Character begins adventuring to pay his child support, constantly grumbles about his ex and how he'd prefer to be drinking ale in his comfy armchair in his favorite tavern.
*A gnome who used to be a powerful wizard but lost his spell book and now suffers from mild dementia, so starts as a lvl 1 wizard trying to get back to his former glory. Bumbles his ways into some great situations. The gnome constantly expects to be casting high-level spells that end up being cantrips while the character is still low level.
I have an orc barbarian who had to make the same choice as Paris from Greek mythology. Orc decided to eat the apple and now all three goddesses are angry at him, so he aspires to slay them for A.) appearing before him and introducing themselves (if something has a face and name, it can be killed) and B.) making him answer a really tough question and getting mad at him for thinking outside the box. While he may be an idiot, he's not stupid; he knows that as he is, he doesn't stand a chance against them, so he seeks to amass as much power as he can. He will then take them on one at a time because he definitely can't beat all three of them at once.
I've had (brass) dragonborn bard Narrakas Garnucmuuth (who has blow darts because it blends in with his instruments) and his own brewer's kit. Was born in a traveling circus. Adventuring to earn money for them. (He also had weird cartilagenous tendrils coming off his head pulled back into a man bun. Lol) chaotic good.
Then I had M'agg Ruhh, a chaotic good half orc paladin of the moon. Not a moon deity, the literal moon. She was raised in the woods by it (according to her anyway) and she was happy. She just wanted to make more friends. She ended up carrying around and using the bbeg as a teddy bear for the majority of the campaign. (He was stuffed into a jar of vodka because he was annoying) She had rap battled a golden golem shaped like a bear (rolled a nat 20) and that caused it enough psychic damage to end it. She also carried around the corpse of a sea monster so she could find someone to bring it back to life so she could befriend it. (She tried befriending it with song during the battle, but rolled a nat 1) She also wandered off to look at fountains and got kidnapped by a giant floating purple baby. And near the end she got briefly possessed by the moon.
Then Atistha. My chaotic neutral wildfire druid "dumpster nymph" all mangy with a peg leg and pixie wings. Kept getting almost caught by animal control. Had "knife bonding time" upon meeting the other PCs. They also regularly attended the meetings for the giant rat mafia/uprising prior to the campaign. Just wanted to learn where they came from and if there were others like them. Called one of the bbegs "Gary" before we found out his name was Uthgar. Going into the prep for the final battle, took about 30 sets of handcuffs from some soldiers. Then, offered a bunch of rusty razor blades made into daggers to some torturers we'd been fighting if they'd join us. (It worked) then offered the rats all the handcuffs to protect this girl who lived in the alley by Atistha's dumpster, and to have some of them join the fight (also gave a sequined cowboy hat to one of the rats). It worked out and they all joined us. During the final battle, basically all but one of the party was knocked out for a good chunk of the battle, and the rat with the cowboy hat single handedly saved us. Dragged Uthgar down, and a hoard of rats ate him. (He was this big fire genasi dude-) It was great. There was also a conspiracy board at one point and a mad scientist with seemingly endless pocket rolls. Anyway, the rats did take over the country for a couple months, but lost interest after a while. Then, the girl Atistha got protection for ended up being the princess and took over the throne. Atistha became one of her closest advisors, and the ambassador for the rats. Lol.
Sorry for the ramble. I love my characters. And my next one might be even more feral.
I had a character for Theros who was a “legendary hero” (like Heracles and Achilles, destined for greatness) and so was fast-tracked into the army and promoted to general… but he had like 4 wisdom so I had it so he repeatedly just marched his troops into obviously bad situations and traps that any of them could have seen coming, and so was discharged due to his utter incompetence and now wanders to see where that destiny may lie because it’s clearly not in the army
The funniest thing can be miscommunication between the characters on whether someone has a tragic backstory or not. I played a fighter who moped and looked sad whenever he mentioned his wife. Everyone thought the wife had died, but it turns out she was just as home and he missed her.
One of my favorites is a monk with the social skills of a goldfish who lives in a backwater village. One day a trio of adventurers stay for a night, and he immediately had the "Oh no she's cute" reaction to the bard. Before he could work up the nerve to say so (it took all night), she had already left town. He promptly left to go adventuring to go find her.
oh my gosh I love these!!!!
I have a paladin whose backstory is he thinks he's undead and must get revenge on his killer so he can rest in peace, in reality he has a 6 Int and can't wrap his head around the possibility that a more famous orc warlord shared the same name as him and was stopped/killed by an up and coming hero.
Fucking incredible.
"Bro, my detect undead didn't pick you up"
"Good god.... I cannot be detected by magic. This will provide me with quite the advantage."
This is incredible, and I love it. I might steal it.
It's just too good not to use.
@@theuncalledfor hey. Intelligence is about memory too. Maybe he just has really good memory.
@@TheYeetedMeat he could frequently remember childhood details but is also completely convinced he had the other life too and hasn't put together that that isn't possible. Ie. "In spring 2020 I was 18 and camping with my family" then sometime later, "I was killed at the young age of 36 in spring 2020, but I came back."
This makes me feel good about a character I want to play: Old cool dwarf grandma who masters Grave Domain as a cleric as a way to cheat death/ help others stave off death. She has a good family but she's getting old and wants to see the world and adventure before she dies. She obviously always has a sweater on hand for party members, don't want them to catch cold!
Love this idea!
I LOVE characters with the very human (ha) motivation of trying to cheat death, or create a legacy or some other way of achieving a form of immortality.
Awesome!
I once played a guy who wanted to inherit his father’s store, so he set out on a quest to take his 12 older brothers out of the running.
After that would he still want the store or would an offer from the assassins guild be more enticing? 😄
@@michaelpettersson4919 It was a really cool store...
What kind of store was it?
@@paige4163 Craven’s Curios. Financially struggling, hard to find, not always hidden behind the same door. Dusty shelves buckling under the weight of ancient tomes, shiny baubles, enchanted rubbish and masterwork everythings. One could lose their way between the stacks, or find their purpose, or get bored and leave after a brief browse.
@@seem_okay_studio that's understandable then
My Warlock character (Genie Patron) was a farmboy that fell in love with an Air Genasi girl when they were kids. After years of dating they agreed to marry. This sparked the ire of the girl's Djinni grandfather who believed that a mere farmboy wasn't worthy of his favorite grandchild. Granting him a vestige of power he forced my character to venture out into the world to seek a fortune, prestige, or title that will make him a worthy future husband.
I love this one.
Man hit him with a classic "Hey kid, do you like proving yourself?" and I'm here for it.
DM: Why'd you take up adventuring?
My Character: Money.
Same for my human fighter Dermont. His dad worked as a miner, but when Dermont got offered more for bodyguarding some rich nobel for a couple of days than his dad made in a year, he was like "Peace, i'm out, check the mailbox for gold". And it's fun riding the line between being in it for the money and keeping your good allignment. I mean how many people can you murder for whatever reason and still call yourself good? On the otherhand that wizard college for his little sister ain't cheap...
@@JCGver I love this! "For the money" may be characterized and misunderstood by others as "evil greed," but he's doing it to take care of his family. See Order Of the Stick for an example.
I see this as an excellent foundation, upon which a wide variety of character quirks can be built. Not to mention, the possibility for trauma and/or character growth.
What happens, when he has saved up enough money to pay for his sister's entire education, promised it to her, made arrangements to send the gold, and then... It all explodes in a ball of dragon fire, and he not only loses that payment, but his home, too, and now he has to earn it back IN TIME FOR THE SCHOOL SESSION, while also trying to destroy the dragon, before he destroys many others, and while being homeless, with only the gear he was wearing when the dragon struck. And maybe, he'd like to put himself first, and keep the gold to build himself a home and replace lost gear, but that school is going to start soon, and the payment deadline is looming large, and his sister is counting on him, and thanks to his previous success and promise, none of them even thought about pursuing other options, like scholarships, and now there is no time for other options, like scholarships, and if he doesn't come up with enough money for her, by the deadline, she'll miss her ONLY SHOT at this wizard college, because they will only take students who are under a certain age, because they believe if you're too old, you can't fully control your powers, so better to leave them locked away, entirely, so they not only won't take her, but will mind-wipe her and your parents, so they never remember that she ever had the powers, in the first place (for safety's sake. Awoken but untrained powers are dangerous to all around the person who cannot control them).
Sounds fun! To play. Not for real life. Ugh.
Pretty much. Mine's got three kids in the monastery his own parents dumped him (repeating the cycle lel). Ofc he also wants to find out who they are and why.
Gotta make a living somehow lol
My Character: I had nothing better to do
I actively avoid tragic backstories, they're so common they've become boring to me. When I first got into DnD, everyone in the group had a tragic backstory. I made it my mission to prove to these people a character did not have to be tragic to be interesting. I created a kitsune prince whom was beloved and lived in a paradise where almost nothing bad had ever happened. In his home town, he was treated like a celebrity, being smart, handsome and charismatic. He studied the rogue arts, but only because it was tradition in his kingdom, he didn't actually use them to fight. Right before his coronation, he was kidnapped but was rescued by his bodyguard. This was literally the only bad thing that ever happened to him and nothing of consequence actually happened. Even afterwards when he returned home, people praised him for his bravery despite him doing nothing to rescue himself. This moment made the prince realized that he had been falsely praised his whole life. That no matter what he did, people always saw the best in him and he didn't know what real consequences were. Considering he's supposed to rule over people and make decisions that would impact others, he figured this was not a good headspace for him to be in. So he headed out on a journey in order to find out what normal people have to deal with when they fail, thus he can learn to properly understand consequences for his citizens.
Is not having an overly sheltered and spoilt youth it's own trauma? :-P
Well, that kind of is a tragic backstory, ngl. But also, your character is basically Buddha.
Dude, I *love* that!
Something people that advocate for non-tragic backstories may forget it's that, I don't care that a character can be interesting even without a tragic backstory. I don't make a tragic backstory because "it's more interesting", I make a tragic backstory because I want to, and because I personally like it.
@@THEPELADOMASTER I think the whole community that is "anti-tragic" is more ore less a sympton of the fact that (especially newer players) tend to create tragic backstorys because for a lot of people the word backstory already implies that something tragic happened, which is a mindset we should get rid of.
Why? Because it gets stale and the interesting backstories/opportunities get diluted by this.
"My character killed their parents, by accident. It haunts them"
**Stares in Caleb Widowgast**
Yup. Definitely his back story. Just need to add the evil mentor/Trent.
Caleb is more “I killed my parents on purpose”
@@Specter_1125 it was pretty much a purposeful accident
It was not by accident though. He knew what he was doing he just thought it must be done.
@@Specter_1125 I was brainwashed/hypnotized into thinking that my parents were traitors and accidentally on purpose burned them to death
As a dm, these are the best backstories you can ever possibly give me: "I'm a warlock, and my patron told me to go adventure."
Why did their patron tell you that? Well you'll see in 20 sessions hee hee haha
This is basically what I tend to do with my stuff I had one character whose older sister left to do _something_ a few years before the start of the campaign and I told my DM “my character doesn’t know what it is. I don’t know what it is either. You can decide”
Not my character, but my friend has a bard whose thing is that he’s just lost. He was part of a traveling group and one day he just turned around and they were gone. The twist SHE INSISTED ON was that he just has a habit of wandering and the old group got tired of searching for him so they just, moved on. Maybe one day he’ll find his friends, who knows?
Maybe he'll form a new travelling group with a loxodon and a tabaxi
@@JimBob4233 or with a sword-wielding fighter named Zorro?
@@MrSimpsondennis I dunno, I feel Alonso Quixano is more the Hispanic fighter for this scenario
Doing a dungeon crawl accompanied by a bard with this this disability has got to change things:D
@@MrSimpsondennis I was gonna go with Luffy or (Alabasta) Ace 😂
Ginny Di: "ditch the tragic backstory"
Liam O Brian: "how about no?"
Bahahaha this is so true tho.
Liam is to tragedy like Caleb is to fire. Not always great for them, but too beautiful to pass up. 😅
I think once in a while a dark back story can be ok, just think it's a little overdone sometimes
@@BlackRainRising nah its fine. Having fun playing a character is all that matters, as long as you're not making something that makes your table uncomfortable.
If we're all Batman, then none of us is Batman.
I have a Half Orc Artificer who just want's to make toys for kids. He's traveling to find out what kids like what toys. Adventuring funds his Goals.
Please tell me you are playing Curse of Strahd!
@@docnevyn5814 its just for standard 5e. my group basically just got into D&D
This is so cute!
@@LookMyMoonEyes thank you.
Awww
This reminded me of a character I played for a short Christmas campaign.
She was an adorable tabaxi child (looked more like a huge kitten in adventuring gear) warlock named Lucy. Her backstory was that her father is an adventurer and her mother was a bard. She lived very happily with her mother, but her father was often gone for weeks, months, or sometimes even years all in the hopes of making a fortune. One day Lucy's mother suddenly gave her a backpack full of adventuring gear, and told her that she needed to find her father and bring him home immediately. Her mother then quickly shut the door and all Lucy heard was "someone using their outdoor voice". Lucy had no idea where to go, so she just set off in a random direction to go find her father. Along the way, she met her patron who wanted her soul and in exchange he would give her power and a single KitKat. She had no idea what a "soul" was (she still doesn't) and she wanted a KitKat, so she said yes.
For context, this is how adorable she was. Every time she sat in a chair she was too small for it, so she either just stood on the chair or the party would place her on one of their laps. She sometimes didn't know what a word meant but would often still go along with it. For example: the Grinch, "If you help us we will help you find your father. Deal?" He extended his hand towards Lucy. "I don't know what a deal is but ok!" She stood up in her chair and stretched her paws out until she was lying flat on the table with her feet dangling off of it, but was still unable to shake his hand. She stubbornly pawed at the air towards the Grinch's hand while he explained was a deal is. She was just this pure, naive, little kitten that was searching for her papa. At the same time, she was also a terrifying warlock who fought better than anyone else in the party.
When she first met the party she had already been wandering for a few years, and she joined them because they agreed to help her find her parents (and she was never taught stranger danger). The party was comprised of the Grinch, Krampus, and an elf who was fired from Santa's factory. They wanted to steal all of the presents and burn them. The moment Lucy was introduced, they all agreed to protect her innocence as much as they could. Even Krampus, who suspected that Lucy was actually a naughty child who should be dragged down to hell, insisted on helping her find her father, so that she can be with her family again. The party even had her cover her eyes and/or ears when they said/did something obviously bad (even swearing). Even at the end of the campaign she still thought that they were good people.
To the DM's credit it would have been easy to have Lucy's story be a tragic one. Instead they chose to have Lucy's father be one of the people who transported the presents. When they were reunited Lucy explained to him that her mother sent her to bring him home immediately. His face became white with fear and all he said was, "divorce." That was it. At the end of the campaign Lucy went home with her papa. The end.
Her story was not sad at all. She was a ball of warmth that protected the party in more ways than one, so they protected her in other ways. Sure she was ultimately tricked by the party into helping them ruin Christmas, but she never found out about it. Even at the end when the presents were burning, they made sure to decieve her about what happened and even saved one for her (which she then gave to her papa).
oh god this is amazing, i can imagine her floofy face and starry eyes
What the heck?! So wholesome! Omg.
I now want to hear a podcast about this wholesome tale
Sounds adorable
I’ve noticed that I’ve started keeping my character’s parents alive just to hit the inevitable session where the DM has to play them. It gives me a glimpse of what normal parental figures are like 😅
Are you ok or do you just mean normal parental figures in DnD because everyone either kills their parents in character creation or inevitably gets attacked by them?
uh did you mean to say it like that?
God mood
Def mood
Bro???
My greatest character’s backstory was basically “He got bored and got hired by seasoned adventurers, making more money in a single dungeon delve than he and his family did in a decade.”
Same! My character just wanted not be bored. There should have been a "Just wants to" part
One of my favorite "mystery" character backgrounds was for a half elf who was raised by both parents, but her elven father was extremely close-lipped about his life before meeting and marrying her mother. One day he let slip that he had children from other relationships with other elves, so my character went off to find her half-siblings (one of whom was another member of the party).
The twist being one was a member if the party is so good. (Even if potentially obvious)
Out of curiosity did you plan it with the other player or did the DM merge backstories on you?
@@jasonreed7522 the DM merged them. I provided the above information--that her father was very close-lipped about his life before meeting their mother, and eventually let slip that she might have half-siblings--and the other player provided the information that his character's father had abandoned him and his mother when he was a baby. It wasn't very obvious--their shared father was a sun elf, her mother was human, his mother was moon elf (and he took after his mom), and it was SO perfect.
@@SupremeViola I can't imagine how glorious that must have felt when it finally was revealed in game.
My (most loved) paladin backstory is "as the 16th child, it was always obvious that she would serve The Mountain Goddess." And there she goes, adventuring because if a Goddess tell you to go, you go. No tragic. No loss. Only duty and a lot of praying
Happy backstory:
One of my favorite characters ever was an 80-year-old bard named Gloria. She had 8 children, 34 grandchildren, and 27+ great-grandchildren (I created a family tree of her descendants). Gloria had been a travelling bard for her entire life but had settled down with her eldest daughter's family a few years prior to the start of the campaign. When her first great-great-grandchild was born, she declared that she was too old to die at home and took up adventuring. Gloria was forever going on about her family members and and comparing the other party members to them. She was completely unaware of her magical abilities, so her spellcasting always involved a description of the emotions she was trying to evoke (eg. casting Phantasmal Force involved her reminiscing about her half-orc great-granddaughter). She was a very fun character to play and my plan for leveling her up was to always take feats so that her stats wouldn't increase, but I unfortunately didn't get to play her for very long because the campaign fell apart after a few months.
EVERYONE needs to play an old character at some point. They're just so fun!
@@wilsan806 heheh old dwarven characters
Reminds me of a character consept of again an old grandma whit to many offsprings. But she was and retaired adv like for 70+ years. She sees that a good amount of here younger offsprings wants to be adv too so for inspiration for them she decided to return to adv. She is a sorc and she actively hold here power back to the level of the rest of the group (personality wise she is very kind woman but whan its come to adventuring she become uber professional and she lives by hard cods. So she doasnt care if she die or here group will be hurt by this. She should ruin the hardships they will endure and they should rely on here for great powers. Pretty much sink or swim mentality)also wanted to roll a dice in every new location to find if i have a family member there
I had a character with a happy backstory: meet Alexander Davenport, the second child of Barron Arthur Davenport. As the second child he was not going to inherit his father's title, but that didn't mean that his upbringing on the small estate was free of duties or training. From a young age he was taught to fight with and without weapons, how to act in court, how to manage a household and all that entailed (book keeping, staff training, etc.) and on and on. As he came into adolescence, he was told the reason for all his training: he was going to become a butler to a noble household; not a mere servant, but a trusted companion, advisor and bodyguard. Which noble he ended up serving would depend entirely on him as he would have to attract a patron through his skills.
The quickest way to develop his skills, earn a reputation and gain valuable experience was to become an adventurer. So at seventeen he left home with his parent's blessings and set out to test himself against the world. While he was primarily interested in gaining a good reputation and gaining experience, he also wanted to take the time to understand how normal people lived and gain new perspectives. He would also use his time as an adventurer to find out whom among the nobles was worth serving (and maybe find out if the royal palace had any openings).
I played this character for quite a while and he actually ended up fairly powerful (level 11 or so if memory serves). He was mostly a monk with a level of sorcerer for some useful cantrips (prestidigitation, mending, and mage hand to help him buttle better) and he actually earned a minor noble title of his own (complete with coat of arms) through his adventures. I haven't played him since the world shut down, but I may play him again someday.
Cool, an 11th+ level Butler would be a very big deal.
Plus having Monk levels will make you move faster which I presume will be useful for the job too.
I’ve played a lot of campaigns with the same group, and our tables favorite character has been the human fighter Hugo. He joined up with a group of friends and started an “adventuring” guild where the whole thing was basically just an excuse to one up everyone at taverns with made up stories. Basically everyone in the guild was just pretending to be adventurers for clout. Just regular guys. Hugo basically accidentally teamed up with the party, it was great. The party slowly learning Hugo wasnt the most truthful about his many exploits was a riot
Sounds like a slightly less sinister version of Gilderoy Lockhart, TBH. 🤣
Okay i love this idea for an npc and I'm totally putting it into my campaign
@@jeremyfrost2636 Lol, yeah Hugo actually turned out to be capable, its just... He had NO idea what he was getting into XD
I know this is DND oriented but it’s actually a really cool exploration point for writing a novel. If done correctly you can have a unique hit that reads well whilst breaking one of the largest monomyths ‘The Hero’s Journey’
Edit: Mistake, All these are still calls to action so you don’t really break the Hero’s Journey but it’s still breaking some form of monotony, but I still think this a great idea
This gave me inspiration to make a Dragon born whose parents are humans who accidentally went to a Dragon born egg adoption instead of a farmers market, and just chose the most chicken looking egg there (a white Dragonborn egg) and instead of a chicken it was a him, his motivation for exploring is to find his real parents
My rogue is lizardfolk. His mother died when he was young. No emotional baggage. Great food at the wake, though.
Based lizard folk
No... Oh my gosh that's so terrible and so funny
Hi Ginny! I created a character who's backstory was both "tragic" and "happy". I was a Firbolg, my husband a Goliath. We adventured together many years ago, and retired as he aged. We grew old together in a cottage we built ourselves. Being a Firbolg, my life expectancy and his were vastly different. My parents begged me not to fall in love with him; they knew the pain that I would eventually feel. I lost him due to time. He grew old, and died a peaceful death in the home we built together. I put him to rest in a grave near our home. My grief never grew easier, I was a alone. Neglected friends and Family. I withered into a hermit. My Firbolg tribe were star watchers, map makers. I was mapping the starts and saw a portends to disaster, and begrudgingly decided to give the information I had to the nearest civilized place, where I got wrapped up in the adventure with the group. I love this backstory so much, because it brings real life situation into our Role Play. Time is, for the most part, an inevitability. My Husband was of the natural/neutral side, so he would have never wanted to have his life extended by magic or healing. My character was just selfish and heartbroken, but still had a really fulfilling and happy life, all things considered.
My character was a daughter of a tavern owner with adventurers coming and going. She was obsessed with their tales and compiled them. She loved singing and learning new instruments. And she just wanted to go to learn more stories and tales and wanted to be a traveling minstrel. She was very happy at home, and also just wanted to see what other people saw.
Getting traumatized on the road is the best for real character creation. In addition, having a background like that gives the DM elements that they get to incorporate into the game.
Oh, and as for an example of this I personally used, I made a Half-elf Archfey Warlock whose pact with Titania was treated as an Oath of Fealty to her. He was a Guide of an out of the way town, where living off the land was more common than the sprawling farms closer to the big cities. He served his community as a handyman, always ready to lend an extra pair of hands or serving as a go between to help settle disputes with words instead of violence. "Everyone has to band together out here. We're all we have." Needless to say, when his Queen gave him an order, he had to follow. He has not earned any real rank in her court yet, but through willing service, he hopes to prove himself a valuable scout and ambassador between her and mortals. He just doesn't quite know what she actually wants.
I usually go for less-than tragic backstories whenever I can. One I've been especially wanting to play though is Connan Chubb, a halfling fighter who runs a meat market and brewery with his family. He and his wife have 11 daughters, and since local tradition says a bride's family pays for a wedding, he converted a pan lid and his biggest fillet knife into a shield and scimitar and is off to make sure his girls growing up get the big parties they dream of.
That's so wholesome I love it
Everyone loves a good dad
"My character's parents are both dead"
"Well MY character's parents were poly, so she has EIGHT dead parents"
Stealing this
😭 Ahg Ouch
Dead parents²
Kind of accurate for mine as my dragonborn grew up in a clan that was completely slaughtered lmao
@@Lizzy3D pssh, that's nothing. Try a *kobold* who's tribe was slaughtered.
Honestly I love the whole "The campaign is the trauma". I'm playing an Artificer librarian who was researching Barovia (Curse of Strahd). Up until the campaign start he was literally just a dude who managed books and made some funky contraptions, never even seen combat. Two days in and he's witnessed a *lot* of fighting. He is not okay
Great video! I love non-tragic backstories. I don't even think the reasons need to be as special or compelling as that. "I just want a life of excitement of adventure" and "Adventuring is a good way to make money" are underrated reasons for adventuring. Lots of people (especially prior to the 19th century) would join the military just for adventure.
These are great tips Ginny!
You've made me realize that I tend to favour tragedy when writing backstories.
Even my cleric who came from a loving family and was adored by her village had a subtle element of tragedy. Since she was selected to be a cleric of the village's god from birth, she was always held to a higher standard than the other children and essentially did not have a childhood. However, it wasn't until she had been sent on a quest by her god and met her party that she started to realize how messed up her upbringing was and the effects it was having on her adult life.
Honestly, the only non-tragic backstory I've written was for a one-shot. My character had grown up helping her parents run their inn and, after years of hearing adventurers recount their epic tales, decided to join an adventuring guild so that she might go on her own adventures.
I find myself doing the same thing, to be honest!! Outside of one-shots, my only non-tragic character was my very, very first one - but she was a robot, so I don't even know if it would've been possible to traumatize her, haha!
The first character I wrote also has this theme of big expectations and pressure put on her as a child, which is probably me trying to work through my own issues through d&d... The difference being that this character never cared about said expectations much and stayed true to herself and it didn't end up breaking her the way it did me. As my DM said, interesting how character creation works
@@GinnyDi
"that way she gets traumatized on the road, during the campaign"
That basically sums up my philosophy on character creation. I give some basics, but I prefer to let my character develop in play in ways that surprise even me. And they don't always become traumatized. I've had characters become very heroic and I didn't expect them too.
I've always felt if you write too much for your character you become bogged down in your backstory. It's certainly not impossible, but it becomes more difficult to move them in many different directions. I create a small catalyst or odd personality trait that gets them moving, and from there I mostly try to create them as young (but capable) and still figuring themselves out so they have room to grow in many directions based on the drama of the game.
I've had a lot of traction taking the "write a backstory" idea, and instead writing "what lessons did I internalize growing up"
I play a halfling that grew up in a caravan. We wrote what my mum and dad did, and what it was like to grow up with siblings - but mostly it was just 3 formative experiences:
1. My father being jibbed out of payment by humans, because he was a halfling
2. Getting too drunk at my coming-of-age ceremony and it causing problems for me and mine.
3. Standing up to a bandit that tried to rob my family, and taking up the Sling to protect them.
From that I've internalized:
1. The Big will always try to exploit the Small,
2. Alcohol and gambling are liabilities, and
3. Sometimes violence is the answer.
I’d say it depends on what the journey is supposed to provide for the character. There’s approaches other than these, but I imagine alongside the “the adventure is the trauma” approach, there’s also the “the adventure helps with recovery” approach.
My favorite theoretical character is a rouge that worked for a guild. And his job was basically to attempt to get into the stated bank or prison or similar structure. And mark all the ways he could use to get in. So when he was done, he would tell the owners it's weak points, and the building could have better security. Lawful good rouge.
So basically a whitehat hacker doing pentests.
@@khazuul1337 exactly, I think that might be what gave me the idea in the first place honestly 😅.
I had a rogue once with the noble background. he learned sleight of hand and stealth to sneak out of the house to party and break into the pantry for midnight snacks.
her reason for adventuring?
"My parents said I need to learn the value of a gold and threw me out saying don't come back for at least two years or until you can prove you learned your lesson."
One of my favorites was a guy who used to run with a bandit gang. They attacked a caravan, but were defeated. One of the caravan guards showed mercy to him and let him live. The character sought out the guard afterwards and trained under him. Now he adventures to pay that forward. He wants to save who he can
My favorite backstory from a player in my campaign was this: "More than anything my character wants to be a stone mason but got kicked out of his guild because he has all the talent of a potato and that's why he got a job on the island we're all starting on."
Ambition, failure and determination to improve his craft. His story arc follows this journey, his despicable potato-punning rival and their eventual partnership.
My current character, a gold dragonborn artificer, actually has a pretty chill backstory. He is a member of a artificers guild that due to the nature of the campaign basically acts as a field agent helping a team explore dungeons to find ancient magic items and figure out how to reproduce them.
There is a running joke that the Dwarven Forge Cleric in the group has adopted my character despite both this parents still being very much alive, and sending the occasionally care package.
One of my favorite characters I've ever played is a barbarian with a huge family/nomad tribe. They roam the land in a set pattern, so during summers they were always close to the town the other characters are from. She decided to go on adventures with them bc she wants to protect the party. Her family is alive and well and the party meet them every now and then on the road. It's always super fun and extremely funny
I love this!!
My first character Choca was on her "coming of age" trip that was a tradition for members of her clan. They'd travel the world for a year and come back and tell everyone stories of everything they saw and did. She went with her pet velociraptor/best friend, Vel. She was a happy/go lucky kid who was so excited to see the world and everything it had to offer.
Cut to the end of our campaign (it was Curse of Strahd), she died twice, was brought back with a permanent insanity, lost Vel twice, didn't manage to successfully bring her back the second time, got turned into a werewolf, was betrayed by one of the party members, watched more than half of her friends/party members die, and made a personal enemy out of Strahd. That doesn't even begin to include all the horrible traps/injuries she got (she's got a hole in her cheek from a bad injury that go infected).
So yeah...she didn't have a tragic backstory going in, but she sure does now, and a lifetime of guilt for some of the decisions she made while in Barovia XD. They won in the end, but it wasn't a happy ending. Not for her at least. She won't be going back to her family.
Another Fun one: My monk is sent off in the world to find that which is most beautiful, so it can be used to adorn the new temple construction, and money wouldn't be bad either. She first suggested a large mosaic of herself, seriously. The other monks thought that perhaps she should go off and learn what beauty is.
I had once in my party a monk who got expelled from his temple because he drank all the ale, like ALL the ale.
And they were like: "dude, you have a drinking problem, so go and fix it, bye bye"
@@Hrorwulf 'How do you solve a problem like Maria?"
THATS AMAZING LMAO
Sounds like a narcissistic idiot. Love it!!!
"Druid on a coming of age journey"
Keyleth, is that you?
*Goldfish
*Keyfish
"we're gods"
You could have turned into literally anything at that point...
And she did it again.
I honestly do try VERY hard to come up with concepts that don't bear even passing similarity to Critical Role characters, but at this point they've covered a lot of common themes and they've played 12 different classes and 9 different races, so there is always gonna be a comparison. 🤷♀️ I think the idea of a quest to observe a library of wildshape creatures is pretty unique and cool, personally.
Ok, the bit about finding a map in their wedding chest kinda makes me want a cozy-style mystery where a young couple (Strong Tommy and Tuppence by Agatha Christie vibes) decides to go on an adventure as part of their honeymoon and and fall into adventuring.
I will say also that tragic backstories are very dependent on how the _character views the experience._ For instance, my very first D&D character could have very easily been a tragic one, but ended up being taken to a place where she had some of the most heartwarming stories I've ever seen.
Azrei Breval the Witch (a Necromancy Wizard) started her story as the bullied runt of the slums. She was a Half-Elf, looked down upon for her heritage and her diminutive stature, and was frequently bullied - often violently so. Eventually, things escalated to the point where her attackers beat her all the way to death, leaving her to die on the side of the alley. However, that was not how fate would have it, as an old woman - known as a crazy witch to most - came upon her shortly thereafter and Resurrected her (the GM and I agreed that Necromancers should be able to learn Revivify, Resurrection, and True Resurrection, since they are quintessential parts of the manipulation of life force). For most people, being killed and resurrected would be a very traumatic experience, but for Azrei, it gave her perspective. She was already a gifted mind, though she had never had the chance to display it, and ended up having the old woman mentor her in Necromancy for the purpose of using it to help those without the strength to help themselves. She took what could have been a tragedy and turned it into a _drive._
My cicle of Spores Tortle Druid is adventuring because his clan's elders didn't come back, after a routine trading journey. Additionally, he had some dreams foretelling of disaster. So he's out looking for them.
So nothing bad has happened to his parents.... yet. That he knows about.
If he's a Tortle, wouldn't they both be dead, or are you ignoring that bit of the lore? I had a Tortle Druid too, and my party ignored the Tortle-breeding lore as well.
@@valeriexjohnson Given the events that have already transpired, and my familiarity with D&D lore, I'm pretty sure they've been abducted by mind flayers. So .... no, not alright, I'm sure. And it hasn't just been them, random people all over have started to be abducted too.
My grave cleric was an elf acolyte who just came of age and headed off on a pilgrimage for Avandra and due to that our DM has decided to tie the main plot to everyone in her backstory! Poor Verna is now level six and thoroughly traumatized
"Saw a cool bird once and want to find it again." Pokémon reference: Ash seeing Ho-Oh?
Nah, probably not.
I have a player that's adventuring because she just wants to see animals. That's her whole goal, heck the only reason she's with the party is she thought the dragonborn was a big lizard thing and started following him.
@@novaiscool1 That’s adorable
My thoughts exactly. That scene still gives me goosebumps 21 years later :D
The first thing I thought of!!!
So far I only have one character with a happy backstory and he's an awakened dog, he's just a happy potato and I love to play him! What's even more interesting, is that my DM seems to have decided to make his master (owner) some sort of villain in our campaign, which I can't wait to find out more about!
7:37
Ginny: "And then you receive the official title of..."
Me: "... Pokémon Master. Oh. Wait--"
The correct title would be Beast Master, no relation.
@@Kebutor Copyright infringement strikes?
The happiest backstory I ever wrote for one of my characters consisted of her growing up coddled and praised by her two loving, reasonably well-off parents. The driving force for her character was her massive ego and desire to be similarly adored by everyone she met.
I play a wizard called Thaddeus Klemp who is actually just an introvert and appreciates a good cup of coffee. He's in his mid-40's, has a family, wife and three kids, ran the local pharmacy... One day, his wife split, took the kids and half his stuff, sent the kids to some boarding school and is now with the local chad blacksmith. Nearing depression, Thaddeus got up one day and decided "When I was young, I had all these ambitions and I wanted to see the world before I got Linda pregnant. Time to get my second wind, bitches!!!" So he sold his pharmacy, got some supplies and hit the road. I make a point of it that he's a loving father who writes letters to his kids every week and gets little magical trinkets and toys for them wherever he can find them.
Most of my characters have had positive backstories, Especially my Druid Elanna, she was a quiet girl who always spent all of her free time talking to the plants and animals in the forest she lived near and was found by a high druid who asked her parents to take her as an apprentice. Years later she left to "Learn the name of every leaf and flower in distant lands" of her own volition.
The artificer: "They called me a fool, but I'll show them! I'll show them all!!" **
Basically Senku from Dr Stone
Recent character I played for a one-shot: a sorcerer-type who doesn't want to be an adventurer, but is too embarrassed to admit that to his parents, so goes adventuring anyway.
Adventuring is not a common career. So it's strange that the sorcerer's parents were expecting them to do so, seemingly without reason.
OMG THAT REALLY IS BRILLIANT!!! I am SOOOOO trying this with some of my characters
A lot of main characters arent that tragic. Maybe they have parents that died, but that was ten years ago and they kinda moved on. I think its the call to adventure that makes a lot of characters interesting. Something like getting accidently involved in defeating a dark lord, because its the right thing to do and they have the ability to help. (With great power comes great responsibility. If you can help someone you should.)
Me: Creates a character with a tiny bit of tragedy in their backstory
My GM: Ima turn that sad up to 100
So the your cat runs away and becomes evil Warlock
Been there.
Dude, this happened to me last game. Long in short was character I played was part of a large scale colonial effort in a recently discovered star system. Because of how subjective time is effected by Near Light Drives, he can never see anyone from his previous life. He does well enough for himself, but leave it to the GM to insert obligatory Big Bad destroys home planet scene. He was surprised though when I just said "Oh yeah, I came from that dirtball years back. It was a nice enough spot. I just had to know the galaxy was bigger than that. Still... these assholes did just blow up a planet. We should probably get the authorities involved if they aren't already."
A.) Got no connection to this rock anymore.
B.) These assholes just blew up a PLANET. Five nobodies from some other random rock aren't gonna be much trouble.
DM goes : "What about your family, your friends? Like your house, you're favorite restaurant...?"
I just pointed to our starting world.
He actually upset. It was kinda off putting.
@@TheSimpleMan454 Now that a interesting life you live.
I just had my very first D&D session. Our whole group are newbies, including our DM, so we decided to not go too deep into backstories yet because we're still struggling with literally everything else, but I think we still have some rough notes each. I knew from the start I wanted to play a rogue, but didn't want her to be all negative, so her backstory is only slightly tragic xD I used the standard "she is an orphan and had to steal to survive" trope, but the people at the orphanage she grew up in were actually really nice to her and she considers them her family - they're just really poor. So she started stealing to support herself and the others, got a bit addicted to the thrill and shiny things, so she went from being a pickpocket to doing burglaries to also doing treasure hunts and so on and regulary sends some of the money back to the orphanage to support them, even if she doesn't live there anymore. She knows that the world isn't always fair and isn't totally naive, but has overall a positive view on things and tries to make friends where she can. In contrast to our other rogue she's definitely more bubbly and outgoing xD ...that means, in theory, I still struggle with the roleplaying part, but it was just the first session, so whatever xD
I haven’t gotten to play him, but I have a Dwarf wizard/archaeologist who would absolutely go out adventuring to see ancient ruins and learn the secrets of the past.
I actually had a character kinda like that.
A Dwarf prince Wizard that went on a quest to learn more powerful magic to better protect his kingdom.
I once roll played a human bard/archaeologist that wanted to become a world famous author from their in the field research. Traveling with Adventueres seemed like the best way to attain her goal.
Unfortunately only got her to level 3 before I was not able to play again due to a change in my work shifts.
I haven't played an archeologist yet but have been meaning to; I think people often overlook how compelling an archeologist character can be in D&D
Bruh I also have a dwarf wizard archeologist, Skalli Sundrisson, Necromancer, what are the fucking odds
I like mixed backstories, where there's some kind of tragedy that may spur the character, but doesn't haunt them and make them traumatized. While real-world tragedy often traumatizes, it also sometimes just... sits there. Take the 'parents died at a young age' backstory piece that is used so commonly. I have two characters in a novel I'm making that both have had their parents die at a young age, but one of them is mostly indifferent because they weren't very close with their parents, and the other is too cold-hearted to show any care that it happened. That's of course not at all their whole characters, but I just like having tragedy that doesn't always lead to grief and trauma. In certain circumstances, it can be more realistic.
Yeah good point.
This is great! I always tell my players to just give their characters a "Reason for adventuring" instead of worrying about making a whole backstory, which can be overwhelming for newbies. Now I have a good video to point them towards for inspiration!
I play a fey elf that went off on an adventure to learn from giants (fighter/rune knight) because he was told stories about them as a kid by his mother
I still like my latest character's backstory, she had a perfectly quaint life growing up as an Idylic princess in a fairly sheltered life who felt like nobody really takes her seriously since she's the youngest person she knows.
But, the 'catch' is that she's a proper recognized child of Asmodeus and grew up in the 9 hells.
Yo, what if the reason she left the 9 hells wasn't becuase she was evil, but just because she was bored? Like, she just wanted something different and the Material Plane has plenty of it.
One of my new favorite things to do with my friends is to roll a d20 for trauma. We've had 2 nat 20's and a natural 1 in the same campaign, which made for a wonderful dynamic. It's fun to do with friends, and build a character off that
I like weird backstories over tragic ones. My characters were: a gnome artisan that wants to found a new artisans guild where it's acceptable to steal precious gems and metals to "bring them to their full potential", a monk that basically behaves like a cleric and wants to convert people to the faith in her Goddess (using her fists) and a noble girl that was kidnapped during her journey to find a suitable husband and now has to escape from the Underdark. Ok, now the fourth one maybe is a bit traumatized... but that's one character in 4.
"The Last Starfighter" is a sci-fi example. The adventurer was not traumatized, but was amazed by what's 'out there'.
Good vid! 😃
Played a dwarven cleric who was guileless, curious, and incredibly talkative. His mother didn't know what to do with a chatty dwarf, so she turned him over to the temple of Moradin ('Moradin made you, Moradin knows what to do with you!'). He excelled as an acolyte, but asked the priests so many questions. They made him chisel all of his homilies and prayers in stone, thinking that would slow him down, but he ended up learning to chisel as fast as he could speak. Finally they petitioned Moradin for a quest, any quest, to get him out from underfoot, and Moradin sent the chatty, inquisitive dwarven priest on his first adventure.
I love the idea of a happy, lovable character suddenly revealing a more tragic side to them. Weather it's through combat or they just need a moment to process what they're *really* feeling instead of pretending to put on a face. This can lead to some very interesting plotlines during Campaigns.
Lately I've been creating characters who are older than the average adventurer. They've lived a long life of peace and quiet, but now that their children have left the nest, they dedicate their golden years to travel the world with a party of lovable dorks
If anyone is interested in more detail: one is a paladin who served as an acolyte for his local church, always devoted but carrying on a humble job. He's happily married and his children are starting families of their own. However, one day he received a vision from his God, who called for him to fulfill a greater duty. And so he said goodbye to his wife and went on an adventure, promising he would come back to her once his job is done (so I'm really doing all I can to keep him alive, lol. He's the party's tank and healer, and his main role is protecting them)
The other, more recent character I made is a sweet old grandma, an owlin wizard, who after a comfy life as a history teacher, decided to follow the dream of her younger self of traveling the world, going on adventures, and delving into the mysteries of the arcane arts! She's very excited about everything that happens, kinda like an enthusiastic tourist, lol. If the campaign remains happy-go-lucky, she'll probably have a lot of fun. And if the DM decides to incorporate some drama, it will be interesting to see her development as she confronts the hash realities of the adventurer's life
One of my characters is a "gnome" warlock. Rexi Feywick was created by a forest deity to be his companion and help keep the forest safe. However, being so new to the world, she wondered off and wound up following a group of strangers. Now her father (and patron) keeps a close eye on his happy go lucky, inexperienced daughter until she eventually finds her way back home.
one of my favorite characters i made is still my happy-go-lucky rogue from a very loving family that ran a thieves guild. she wanted to go out and improve her rogue skills and cause a bit of mayhem and mischief before returning to take up her mom’s mantle as the head of the guild. bonus points for being a half-elf that never knew the elven side of her family and so the very first elf she meets is a fellow pc whose wild, eccentric ways shes CONVINCED are normal elf behavior that she should start emulating.
most of my characters who have terrible depressing backstories:
my old man goblin artificer who just wants to live a little: yoohoo, bug summer blowout
I'm like 50 seconds in and I'm just floored with how much I enjoy that starting pitch and I'm writing this comment so I don't forget to interact after the finish watching the video. Thank You very much ma'am
The current project is making an assassin wizard who had a loving family home of two hardworking parents. Sure her magic tutor was a hardass, but she just really really likes magic and killing people on behalf of others orders is an efficient way to get better at it after she was given the opportunity to do so, esp as a driven career woman. Gradually changing her opinions (or not) on the morality of her place in that is likely going to be her arc.
I had a character called Larry who’s backstory was that he was the newly hired member of the town guard, and he wanted to prove himself to his commanding officers. The rest of his group were older, more shady and jaded, and the fact that Larry hadn’t experienced much trauma in his life and was still quite naive meant the others felt they had to shelter him from the less savoury parts of the job. He was a fun character to play.
I have a story where one character had a rough, abusive childhood and struggles to find a feeling of belonging, constantly seeking affirmation. His best friend was raised in a fairly nuclear family with supportive parents, and she’s landed a stable job with no considerable conflicts. It makes it interesting to see how each of them approach problem solving, and how they learn more about each other’s perspectives.
Wow, I'd read/play that story! Sounds right up my alley, dealing with things like attachment theory, child and developmental psychology, etc., especially in the form of fiction!!