How to Include PC Backstories Into your Campaign - Campaign Creator #23
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- Опубликовано: 28 июн 2024
- We take a look at how you can include player backstories into your campaign and the tips and tricks you can use to make sure it flows with the campaign you are building.
We make use of World Anvil which you can find at www.worldanvil.com
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![Gunna - back in the a [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/oBrbejOHjLw/mqdefault.jpg)
"You see the man you have just slain.. is your brother. *Another Lad."* xD
I think the ideal amount of backstory to hand to a GM is three punchy paragraphs.
*Where are they from?*
Things like racial heritage, social standing, family background.
*How did they learn to do what they do?*
The character is going to start the game knowing how to do some stuff. Are they self-taught, or did they have a mentor? Attend a school? Did they choose to follow their own interests or was that decision made for them by other people or simple necessity?
*Why are they an adventurer?*
Why are they either a member of the party already, or prepared to _join_ with the party during session one? What is it they want?
Of course, you can write more for yourself if you like, but distilling and organising a backstory like this is both a great tool for the player to work out who their PC is (if you can't cut it down to three paragraphs, your backstory's probably too complicated) and a great way to provide a GM with stuff they can actually _use._
did the same 3 out of 4 got this stuff done the other was to shy and did not have an ideal so i helped create some ideals on the fly
"is there a half page version?"
well i guess you don't want to know how he got his thirst for goat milk then.
So, how did he get his thirst for goat milk?
@@warrenokuma7264 oh but first you need to learn of his childhood, because that's where things really get interesting :P
@@Menmenthealth so what was his childhood like?
@@warrenokuma7264 don't even ask, it's probably necessary to learn his entire familys history from his great great grandfathers adventures as a loyal knight of the King to his birth, to properly understand that part...
@@lube6966 Well now I am truly curious
I have an idea for that "epic backstory" where the character has done too much and is only level 1.
Make them old. Perhaps they did all this amazing stuff in their 20's, then got married and settled down. Now they are in their 80's and are reminiscing over that 10 year adventuring period and wish to relive their glory days. Unfortunately, they haven't been adventuring for 50 years and are badly out of practice and lack the fitness they once had.
They may have been a level 10 fighter back in the day, but now they have regressed to a level 1 fighter. Why? Lack of practice and other priorities. This character's partner has now passed away from old age, and their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are busy doing their own stuff, occasionally visiting the fighter. This person does not want to die withering away from old age. They seek the glory of battle. The thrill of adventure. They may be 84 but at heart, they are still young. Just one more adventure. This could be their last adventure...
Ah, good, I'm not the only one who went with this.
I took my PC's backgrounds and setup different areas of the campaign to focus on their characters. It helps that my players have a bit of back story but not super filled in so there is room to do things with them. Just takes a quick sit down with the players and talking to them about aspects of their character story, family connections, etc.
Same. I listened to the things they had in mind, then looked at my world to find context and threats and tried to judge what power level their story was. The Tiers of Play in D&D.
I then created a very rough outline that looks like this:
Wizard (6-7)
Druid (9-10)
Artificer (12-13)
Paladin (15-16)
Bard (18-19)
The level ranges are not hard set. It's not to say their story will take them from level 6 to 7. It's to say somewhere around that range that story hook will come into major play.
I am upfront about this with my players so they know that everyone is going to have their turn in the spotlight and when to expect it loosely.
I also like to seed every person's plot in another character's earlier arc. I do this with a skipping stone mentality. Meaning that in the Wizard's plot there is a seed for the Artificer and the Paladin plot. In the Druid arc there's something for the Paladin and the Bard arc. That way by the endgame every is interconnected in more ways than they started, so that looking back they have this perspective of having needed each other to get where they are.
I'd give Alad an extra 50lbs of weight. 210lbs at 6'9" seems a bit on the skinny side. He seems less "tower of muscle" and more "bean-pole of sinew"
Heavy Metal Studio is right. I’m 205 at 5’8” and consider myself only moderately well built. At only 210 and 6’9” he would be thin.
I trained a few guys 6,5” and over who were muscular and they all weighed over 250. The tallest was 6’8” and about 310.
I knew of a friend who was that tall and sinewy,( think American basketballer) but just as strong. He would best me as we wrestled. Looks can be deceiving. I also have a friend who is Wolverine tall( from canon 5'3) Strong as a small bull and tough. He was good in the ground game, so I would not let him get too close and stick and move. I'm average 5'11.
Oh hey GM here is my Backstory 37 pages. I read the first 300 pages about your world to include my character into it. Also I followed every instruction from "How to be a Great Player" I hope it is to your liking
I love the constant flow of content! You’re an excellent teacher!
I just discovered your channel 2 days ago, and I love it! I'm currently working on a medieval-fantastic japanese themed campain (based on the Rokugan system) as a GM and your advises are very helpful. Thank you for your amasing work, the content is great, so is the presentation, especially the intros.
Yea, he's pretty awesome. Best part? All his content is useful regardless of what system you're using
I don’t know if I’m the only one who thinks this, but it frustrates me when my players come to me with these super inconsistent backstories.
“When he was 17, he started adventuring... he is now 18... he is now a level 15 fighter.”
“She killed her clans chief, the greatest warrior she’s ever known... level 1 Bard.”
“His parents were poor and inexperienced workers... he was left several magic items in their inheritance.”
The bard one is only inconsistent if she killed him outright. Maybe she poisoned him, betrayed him to a rival tribe, purposefully failed to provide assistance to him, leading to his death. Maybe she misled him into a dangerous situation, etc.
But the others give me a headache.
@@b.ashley9222 I figured with the bard example that her clan's chief was the level 1 Bard, and that she just didn't know that many warriors.
Except adventurers are kind of the heavy hitters of their world. Most people are average , so her defeating the greatest warrior she's ever known...not that big of a deal considering most of the people she knows are probably run of the mill town folks. And maybe a city guard if she's lucky.
The fighter, cool, the kid has just seen some shit that's all. Basically he's been through a previous campaign and the chronological length of a campaign could easily be a year. Extra points if he's silently crying over the ashes of his lost childhood and haunted by the friends he lost along the way.
Parents were poor and inexperienced workers that left you several magic items. Cool. How long have those items been in your family? What made them so special that your parents refused to sale them for personal gain? If they're that important, who else in the world wants them and what are they willing to do for them in order to take them from you? How many people have you told about those items?
Canaris4 She was the level 1 bard. Not the clan chief
LupineShadowOmega you see, those would work if it weren’t for the fact that they never gave any indication of this. the fighter one makes actually no sense, because a level 15 adventurer is for all intents and purposes, a major hero. Level is an indication of experience, and to “experience” that much in a year is unrealistic, especially when they gave no indication in their back story to what they did that made them so skilled in just a year. He didn’t have some master trainer who taught him everything he knew, he didn’t go through a grueling experience that was important enough to mention in his backstory, he didn’t even mention that he had traveled outside of his town before this point. In the bard’s backstory, her clan chief was a hero in his own right, who had been an adventurer when he was younger before settling down. The one with the working parents, The parents gave a him magical weapons and armor, along with a golem Manual and one of those amulets that prevents disease. He didn’t tell me why they had these items, he just said that he inherited them from his parents. No indication of how they got their hands on stuff that powerful (and seeing as how his mother died of disease, why they didn’t use the amulet), let alone why they didn’t sell that stuff if they had the means to get out of poverty. These are the sorts of things that are frustrating, you can have these backstories(despite how obnoxious they are), but if you explain nothing, then the only explanation I can give to these players is “you were incredibly lucky to make it to this point, and congrats, you now have no character development, or even any character on your character”
I prefer to discuss character backstories in active chat or a conversation rather than getting everything in a single email. It gives me the chance to inform the player about aspects of the setting their characters should know about, it lets me encourage players who aren't good at backstories by prompting them, and it lets me intervene with players who are good by stopping them from writing a long story that would make no sense for the setting and for their level.
I do this as well! It also allows players who don’t like WRITING backstories/don’t know where to start to have an extra boost
Poor Alad, his fate is sealed. He's destined to be brought down by an attack from his side because he has bitemporal visual field loss from his pituitary adenoma (advantage to attackers from the side). His pituitary adenoma lead to his acromegaly (uncontrolled growth), and his bitemporal hemianopsia. His early death will be a mercy, rather than life with crippling arthritis and heart failure! Ahhh, the perils of playing with a DM who is an MD!
🤓🧐LOL. 🤯
Wow, this brought back memories!
My current campaign IS the PCs backstories. Each one in turn helping the other resolve their quests. One seeks out his father who is a pirate, another seeks to stop the unsealing of a Demon general, another is hunted by demons, and another still must cure a disease infesting their clan before it kills them all.
Careful with overusing "Unpack this". It became quite obvious this episode.
Absolutely adore this channel btw.
8 million views in less than a week, sponsored content, and you did it all shit faced. You sir are not only a legend in the DnD community but a fucking YT icon!
One thing I found very useful in the Broken Earth book for Savage Worlds which says for character creation ask each PC for them to create 1 NPC for adding to the world
Yeah, I try and get my players to aim for three, but it varied depending on the group. It's useful to have a Rival, a Relative, and an Ally. Though the relative can fall into either of the other two roles. Mentors, Rivals, Relatives, and Allies are vital character concepts in my opinion and it gives me as a DM something I can work with.
And I would expect the "Who led my brother down this dark path!!! They must pay. They all must pay."
I swear on my father's grave, Spiderman will pay.
I like to do this too!( maybe not quite elaborate as yours) Lovely! Thanks.
6`9 nice
Alad has the most awesome name ever.
I've never had a GM link my character backstory to their game in any way; they mostly have their plot set hard and don't really have room for anything else, so we're mostly just characters trying to get to the end.
Ah, well. Beats not having a game at all.
This is why I'm a DM and not a player. After years of interweaving personal character plots into a whole, I can't join a game where my character just feels like an insignificant addition meant to balance the action economy until the story is over. I wish I could find a group I could be a player in with a DM that cares as much as I do about character arcs.
"Oh good, they're not an orphan. Let's fix that."
That beginning reminded me of Old Man Henderson and his 500 page Backstory of Doom. XD
legit have a player that handed me a 30 page backstory. He was a 200 year old elf who, before lever one had been raised by 3 different families, 2 of which were royal and the third was part of a fey court, traveled to 4 different planes, met 3 gods directly, and got kidnapped by 2 separate cults on 2 different occasions before joining another cult and becoming a teacher within that cult. He then left and was guided by druids for a time and then attacked by a demigod and woke up next to the party.
holy fucking shit
Epic video guy
I love this vid
Please keep it up it really cheers me up
And first
Thank you so much you are amazing
Thanks so much for the heart guy
...some brillant people have done... False Hydras.
If a player wanted to get really creative, they could've had one of those 9 brothers already being an adventurer, and if Alad inherits the farm, he could retire and become the new head of household, and the adventurer brother who'd come to the funeral could join the party instead. Just a random idea I had at the end.
Alad is such a wonderfully Warframe name, too. Remidns me that I had to drop my follow-along worldbuild, but I couldn't follow many of the recent videos anyway, since I'm not using worldanvil.
You should come up with some other ways to put in "subscribe" though.
All my players have "my family and everyone i knew is dead" as their backstory.
Okay, fine. _How?_
@@nickwilliams8302 they all tend to go for the [something] killed my family/town/what have you not, and now I'm out for revenge.
@@Tursam Honestly, they probably did it to not let you have any say about it and all that. Boring people.
Reinvent their backstories, of at least 1 of them, and say that their parents hadn't actually died and go on from there in your head.
Or have them elaborate how it happened and what actually fucking happened too, maybe they start talking about those as a group.(Party has to get to that point sometime) Maybe some are related, for the kicks.
Can I have a 2 page background or backstory?
Submit less than 1/2 page. Leave room for DM to fill in some specifics. Discuss making it longer.
don't write up something that would be appropriate for a level 20 PC when you have a level 1.
Depends on your players.
As a general rule the exciting parts of your character shouldn't be in their past, it should be in their future. It's the adventures ahead that level them up. As a DM I vastly prefer story hooks over background.
The elements at play in your character's past can be vast and extensive but largely still unknown to your character. As a player it will feel more exciting when loose expectations are filled in surprising ways than if firm outlines are followed to the T.
Story hooks require very little and it's often a good idea to look at the mechanics or flavor of your class for inspiration. Why is it different when your bard sings a song versus every other tavern singer? What is the source of that deep rage in your barbarian? What was the nature of your arcane study as a Wizard and how did you get your spellbook?
Tying this to a particular NPC is really helpful to DMs, too, because they have a point of context with which to introduce your story and let it be known we're focusing on your character here a bit.
I tend to ask for at least three NPCs for every PC application. Having a rival, an enemy, and an ally/mentor is more useful than any tragic orphan backstory ever will be.
Defeating anything in your backstory is a big no in my book. Unless you're talking about defending your friend from the local bully or something quaint like that. Maybe you saw light combat as a soldier. No defeating commanders during important battles, or being a former war hero who slew a whole regiment on his own but now he lives with the regret of the people he couldn't save or whatever.
Leave opportunity for tragedy and heroism in your future.
So yeah I ask for a list of Player Goals, Character Goals, and at least three NPC connections, as well as an explanation of your class abilities. Player Goals are things you want, meta wise or whatever, to see happen with your character. Character Goals are their motivations. For some reason people struggle here when it's actually the most important. I find motivation can often be easier with discussion with the DM about the other things such as how you got your powers and the NPCs in their life.
@@fhuber7507 Being level one doesn't mean having a very limited backstory. It's a total fallacy and it's nonsense when you think about it.
Thanks guys, you really helped me out. :)
Damn it it's a boy let's name him Aboy...
Alad, Adude, Aboy, Aman, Another Lad, Aladthree, Morelads, Yetmorelads. Stillnogurls, and Tymtustop.
Pretty dark and a bit off to me: Accidentally killing your own brother without any clues or opportunities too 1) figure out it's your brother BEFORE you kill him? 2) the brother doesn't reveal this to influence the PC and avoid death? SEE I don't have a problem putting the brothers at odds or even making them enemies I have a problem with the illogic of the brother not using this to STOP his "good" brother from accidentally killing him! AND removing players agency too much by removing their ability to have a CHANCE to recognize their own kin. maybe a DC 20 insight check while fighting to realize the fighting style, height etc. reminds you EXACTLY of your brother. So a chance at least! I'd use this story against murder hobos more to encourage them to not JUST kill everything without thinking of the consequences. I would not use this on lower level emotional good aligned PCs who are very invested in their backstories and will be too hurt by accidentally killing kin. READ your players what can they handle? What would be more fun? I still say the "evil" brother wouldn't react to their brother trying to kill them, by staying silent behind that mask (unless they are being mind controlled) Can you think of a relative who wouldn't try to manipulate YOU to their own benefit who is also a dangerous criminal. And not being killed by the PC's is definitely to the evil brothers benefit! Sorry for the rant I just had some suggestions related to that random example. I'd do this more at high level so the players maybe have the possibility to resurrect the slain brother. Killing or capturing etc a PC's relative is one thing; having the PC accidentally kill them is WAY HARSHER emotionally. This kind of thing may go too far to some sensitive players and have the effect of making them less likely to play or just making their character become very pacifistic and keep not killing (even when the best thing would be to kill) I'm saying the repercussions can be detrimental to future sessions. Some players and characters will be fine while a few will not be.
Overdoing the family deaths and crisis only encourages the "my family is all dead/orphan backstories for logical and obvious reasons! Also I have a defense of the orphan PC theme It makes more sense for an orphan with no living family attachments or commitments to become an adventurer in the first place! I still prefer a mix of backstories and encourage living relations!
The new world anvil features seem very useful! I also remind everyone a DM binder is great, especially if the internet goes down temporarily.
Great video thanks!
Player asking with big open puppy eyes: So I took like ALL NIGHT LONG trying to give my character a deep and meaning full backstory, what do you think?
DM, after flipping through the thick dictionary like book: Umm, I have a few notes...
Literally every backstory I ever had:
Chaotic Neutral Amnesiac Orphan Drifter with no friends, family, home, or plans.
BOOM DONE.
Suck it GM! You can't ambush me with your bullshit.
What if the real enemy is a carrot and to defeat him it must be planted in the father farm, and everyday you should take care of him ... or the world will end :)
ruclips.net/video/Mps2dyypfGw/видео.html
@@___Nightbreeze This is exacly what i mean.
In my experience... I just wish GM's would bother. Some people like a basic adventure but I think it's boring if it doesn't matter who you are. Oh god here we go - not the old 'you have too much back story to be level one' fallacy. You should know better, Guy. Just because the mechanics of the game might make you level one, doesn't mean you're a babe and nothing's ever happened to you. You can start play as a middle aged elf - hundreds of years old. Is anyone seriously going to tell me that nothing's ever happened to them? What if your background is a soldier? 'You can't have been in a battle, you'd have leveled up' - it makes a kind of sense, until you stop for a second to think about it, then it's absolute nonsense.
I think that's a grave misunderstanding of the joke.
The idea isn't that your level 1 character needs to be completely unexperienced, but that the experiences they do have are applicable to their current situation. The joke he plays for laughs here is that often times too many people will say their character has done everything under the sun prior to the adventure. They've slain a dragon, become a high ranking military member, uncovered a conspiracy, inhereited a large amount of wealth, and any number of disconnected things.
It's okay for your level 1 character to have had experiences, but they should be singular and focused experiences that inform their current position prior to the adventure.
Let's also not forget that it gives you room to grow. If you start the campaign having already done multiple campaigns worth of adventures off-screen, then what else is left for you to really do? The appeal of a character needs to be in what they have yet to do, not what they have already done. The past is there only to inform and set up their future.
Player9 is mostly correct. But nonsense is in the eye of the beholder. A cloistered monk who has done nothing of seriously life-changing may be middle aged and start adventuring. If you want to play a war-torn soldier who has spent his life on campaign and slain dozens or hundreds of enemies - fine, just start your character at level 5, or level 10. But if you are creating a level 1 character that is someone who is fundamentally starting their career. This is the moment when your elf - young and tender - started on their journey to become the middle-aged elf you want them to be. It's a matter of you want the GM to incorporate and respect your character, excellent, they should, but equally so you should respect what the GM has placed before you - a person starting their adventure, not half way through it.