There's just no plausible way for someone who has been a stay at home mother to decide to live an adventuring life without something bigger having happened in her past. She has no motivation to go on these awful missions.
I call BS on that one. There could be countless reason why someone witha comfy life would want to change that up. Both Bilbo and Frodo were pretty much stay at home couch potatoes way into their 50s before going on their adventures. Beth from Rick & Morty didn't start "adventuring" until both her kids were teenagers. Granny Weatherwax is ancient and she still goes on adventures. Lady Sybil Ramkin lived comfortably
Bilbo has his home invaded by a 20th level Wizard and a group of dwarfs (3rd level?). Frodo was caretaker of a legendary ring of invisibility. They both had enormous instigating events to go on a single quest, and both of them retired the moment they could get out of it. Neither is suitable as a D&D adventurer. They were also main characters, which D&D characters aren't.
Beth is not an adventurer. Beth is a mother dragged along on psychotic missions by a maniac, which she would prefer didn't happen. She never intends to place herself in danger for profit, as adventurers do, and until Rick moved in (she lives with the greatest genius the universe has ever known, who is also a sociopath) she never went on adventures.
Haven't read the others, but these are not counter examples: they actually prove my point. In order for them to go on adventures, something drastic and huge has changed their life.
To be an adventurer means that you'll do the most dangerous and undesirable work imaginable.
You will have acid spat in your face
You will be swallowed by a giant froghemoth and partially digested in its gut
You will venture into the arctic, or the mouth of a volcano, or mosquito infested swamps, and crypts full of spirits and ghouls
You will be roasted by dragon fire, then resuscitated, then burned alive again
You will be shot full of arrows and stabbed by many swords
You will fall into pit traps onto spikes, be shot with concealed crossbows
You will be betrayed, ambushed, chased out of town
You will speak with fiends and the undead
You will contract rare and fatal diseases
You have to enjoy killing things: if you don't take pride or otherwise enjoy it, this would be a crazy life to choose
You "might" do some or all of these things but there's nothing that says that you "will". Spider-man went to the prom, for example. No Acid or diseases there. And even if you do encounter some or all of these events, that's not the reason you do it. Especially not the last one. You might kill only because you need to. Bilbo for example only killed a bunch of giant spiders. Pippin killed a troll, possibly a few orcs and a few of Saruman's lackeys in the Shire but you don't have to kill people and you don't have enjoy it. You could probably have quite a lot of roleplaying fun with playing a character that avoids killing (there's at least two subclasses dedicated to actively not killing, btw).
Spider Man is not an adventurer, he is a lone crime fighter, with a static location. He was also given super powers by a radioactive spider, making him the sole person capable of stopping the enemies he faces. This is not the same as being a level 1 fighter/cleric/druid or whatever. And if you think that 'going to the prom' is a worthy part of this discussion I am not sure you are thinking about D&D at all.
You are bringing up examples from fiction, but novels are not D&D. D&D requires that the DM offers challenges, and the characters get to choose what they want to do. The characters you are describing are not adventurers, nor would a game of D&D work if set up to operate as one.
But perhaps most importantly about Lord of the Rings, none of the hobbits wanted to be involved in the mission and were forced to by the DM, essentially. This doesn't work in a game of D&D: the characters need to want to go out adventuring because they want to live that lifestyle, unless you are 100% reliant on the DM to place your character and the world in a state of constant peril so that you never have any choice about what to do. Frodo even says something like "I wish this had never happened to us." That mentality makes for a poor D&D character, because they are effectively letting the DM run the character for them. If you run a game and over the course of the campaign the only combat is with a few giant spiders, you don't need to play D&D (and in fact bothering with stats, classes, magic items etc. are a waste of your time - you should just play a different RPG).
Regarding pacifistic characters: 95% of all rules in D&D are combat rules. A pacifist character who refuses to go into combat at all is unplayable (I've experienced this; it destroys the game). If your character wants to just heal everyone, then sure, but they're still enabling the violent characters, so their pacifism is a lie they tell themselves. If you want to play a non-combat game, then D&D is not the game for you.
I think that your key confusion is that you're seeing D&D characters as being comparable to characters from any other medium. In order to work within the structures of D&D, the characters need to work together (no loners), need to be self motivated (the DM cannot do this for you), and need to plausibly choose to cope with the horrors they experience.
All that said, perhaps you just play with a group of people who are happy for the DM to provide 100% of the motivation, and who are willing to be led by the DM (this is how games with younger players sometimes work). If you find that you have an adventuring party composed of a stay at home parent, a retired accountant who just felt like going on an adventure, a bored college student and a mailman, then go ahead and try to run it, but at level 1 when someone says "We need help against these goblins," to keep their characters true to the personalities they've devised, those players will need to be able to justify why after taking a shortsword to the chest the mailman doesn't realise that going back to mailing letters isn't actually preferrable.
I give my players the following in session zero, which might help some of the thought process:
Epic Personal Storylines
Characters must have a clear motivation to be part of the story, and we should base these around the overall story concept (provided by the DM)
Characters who are ‘broody loners’ are discouraged. They are not fun for the rest of the party.
Avoid using a mental health issue as a prop for roleplay
Characters should not be excessively rude to everyone. They can have personal beef, but NPCs will act appropriately to your actions.
Think about a character arc that is not likely to result in your allies turning on you. Group cohesion is important. If your character is a murderous *******, then the other players may not want them around.
Your character goals must be ones that will keep you adventuring. Settling down in a cottage is not a goal.
Each character may choose to begin the adventure with a mystery to be solved. The mystery should be of a magical or epic nature, and is something that the player does not know the answer to (but the DM does). This epic storyline is intended to last at least 5-10 levels of gameplay, with slow reveals, and requires the players to achieve certain things to unlock new powers, magic items, or other types of progress for their character. Players should expect that their characters, whether through items, special abilities, physical changes, rank or otherwise, should become truly awesome and unique.
There's just no plausible way for someone who has been a stay at home mother to decide to live an adventuring life without something bigger having happened in her past. She has no motivation to go on these awful missions.
I call BS on that one. There could be countless reason why someone witha comfy life would want to change that up. Both Bilbo and Frodo were pretty much stay at home couch potatoes way into their 50s before going on their adventures. Beth from Rick & Morty didn't start "adventuring" until both her kids were teenagers. Granny Weatherwax is ancient and she still goes on adventures. Lady Sybil Ramkin lived comfortably
Bilbo has his home invaded by a 20th level Wizard and a group of dwarfs (3rd level?). Frodo was caretaker of a legendary ring of invisibility. They both had enormous instigating events to go on a single quest, and both of them retired the moment they could get out of it. Neither is suitable as a D&D adventurer. They were also main characters, which D&D characters aren't.
Beth is not an adventurer. Beth is a mother dragged along on psychotic missions by a maniac, which she would prefer didn't happen. She never intends to place herself in danger for profit, as adventurers do, and until Rick moved in (she lives with the greatest genius the universe has ever known, who is also a sociopath) she never went on adventures.
Haven't read the others, but these are not counter examples: they actually prove my point. In order for them to go on adventures, something drastic and huge has changed their life.
To be an adventurer means that you'll do the most dangerous and undesirable work imaginable.
You will have acid spat in your face
You will be swallowed by a giant froghemoth and partially digested in its gut
You will venture into the arctic, or the mouth of a volcano, or mosquito infested swamps, and crypts full of spirits and ghouls
You will be roasted by dragon fire, then resuscitated, then burned alive again
You will be shot full of arrows and stabbed by many swords
You will fall into pit traps onto spikes, be shot with concealed crossbows
You will be betrayed, ambushed, chased out of town
You will speak with fiends and the undead
You will contract rare and fatal diseases
You have to enjoy killing things: if you don't take pride or otherwise enjoy it, this would be a crazy life to choose
You "might" do some or all of these things but there's nothing that says that you "will". Spider-man went to the prom, for example. No Acid or diseases there. And even if you do encounter some or all of these events, that's not the reason you do it. Especially not the last one. You might kill only because you need to. Bilbo for example only killed a bunch of giant spiders. Pippin killed a troll, possibly a few orcs and a few of Saruman's lackeys in the Shire but you don't have to kill people and you don't have enjoy it. You could probably have quite a lot of roleplaying fun with playing a character that avoids killing (there's at least two subclasses dedicated to actively not killing, btw).
Spider Man is not an adventurer, he is a lone crime fighter, with a static location. He was also given super powers by a radioactive spider, making him the sole person capable of stopping the enemies he faces. This is not the same as being a level 1 fighter/cleric/druid or whatever. And if you think that 'going to the prom' is a worthy part of this discussion I am not sure you are thinking about D&D at all.
You are bringing up examples from fiction, but novels are not D&D. D&D requires that the DM offers challenges, and the characters get to choose what they want to do. The characters you are describing are not adventurers, nor would a game of D&D work if set up to operate as one.
But perhaps most importantly about Lord of the Rings, none of the hobbits wanted to be involved in the mission and were forced to by the DM, essentially. This doesn't work in a game of D&D: the characters need to want to go out adventuring because they want to live that lifestyle, unless you are 100% reliant on the DM to place your character and the world in a state of constant peril so that you never have any choice about what to do. Frodo even says something like "I wish this had never happened to us." That mentality makes for a poor D&D character, because they are effectively letting the DM run the character for them. If you run a game and over the course of the campaign the only combat is with a few giant spiders, you don't need to play D&D (and in fact bothering with stats, classes, magic items etc. are a waste of your time - you should just play a different RPG).
Regarding pacifistic characters: 95% of all rules in D&D are combat rules. A pacifist character who refuses to go into combat at all is unplayable (I've experienced this; it destroys the game). If your character wants to just heal everyone, then sure, but they're still enabling the violent characters, so their pacifism is a lie they tell themselves. If you want to play a non-combat game, then D&D is not the game for you.
I think that your key confusion is that you're seeing D&D characters as being comparable to characters from any other medium. In order to work within the structures of D&D, the characters need to work together (no loners), need to be self motivated (the DM cannot do this for you), and need to plausibly choose to cope with the horrors they experience.
All that said, perhaps you just play with a group of people who are happy for the DM to provide 100% of the motivation, and who are willing to be led by the DM (this is how games with younger players sometimes work). If you find that you have an adventuring party composed of a stay at home parent, a retired accountant who just felt like going on an adventure, a bored college student and a mailman, then go ahead and try to run it, but at level 1 when someone says "We need help against these goblins," to keep their characters true to the personalities they've devised, those players will need to be able to justify why after taking a shortsword to the chest the mailman doesn't realise that going back to mailing letters isn't actually preferrable.
Wow, this is the biggest "I can admit I might be wrong so I'm just going to move the goalposts until they look like toothpicks" I have ever seen! XD Yeah, I guess there's no point in duscussing with you if you just want to strawman and deflect. I mean, Bilbo not being an adventurer? Allow me to lol. And what is to say that OP's soccer mom couldn't have something similar happen to her? Or is that also "no plausible way" that could happen? Most of us are capable of figuring out good motivations for our characters and if we look at many of the heroes and great adventurer of our days many of them were just bored and wanted to do something with their lives. Very few of them did it because they "enjoy killing". What you describe is a murder hobo.
After this rant of yours I don't really expect a reply from you but if you seriously think that complaining about hardships during an adventure (what most people call "roleplaying") "mentality makes for a poor D&D character, because they are effectively letting the DM run the character for them" or that you think "the only combat is with a few giant spiders" (conviently ignoring the encounter with the trolls, goblins, a frigging dragon and a war) makes a bad campaign then you might want to think about what you think D&D should be all about. You do know that you don't have to fight stuff all the time, right? That there's more to roleplaying and RPGs than just killing stuff? Or is that also implausible and " letting the DM run the character".
Your character's background gives you backstory flavor baked into the mechanics. So does your class to begin with. Between "who am I?" and "why am I an adventurer?" you cover everything any backstory really needs and you get suggestions for both of those in your background and the suggested characteristics. You can spruce those up with a more elaborate story if you want, you can reflavor just about anything, or you can come up with something entirely your own - but if you just want a 2-minute backstory everything you want is pretty much handed to you on a silver platter in the books. There's no reason whatsoever to be annoyed with DMs asking for a basic character writeup or to be frustrated with the effort, as it really doesn't (have to) take any.
Something I've noticed about your many character backstories is that they're all very highly detailed, highly specific, high concept backstories. You always go into the little minutiae about everything and try to make your character interesting before the game begins.
You wanna know my number one tip for making an solid character backstory that doesn't frontload everything but gives a plausible starting point? Xanathar's Guide to Everything. Roll on the tables and build a skeleton of your character, then stop. Let the rest get filled in as you play so that your character grows into the game and the party.
A lot of your characters suffer from 'Single Player Syndrome'; like you're trying to be the most important person in the party or like you're protagonist of a single player RPG video game. When it comes to character backstories as a DM I find breadth of information is more useful than depth. I don't need to know how many years a PC spent suffering in the Pit of Longing, thrown there by her evil cultist stepmother. What I need to know is she was a prisoner of a cult, escaped, travelled around, now seeks revenge. Short, punchy, covers a lot of ground in few words.
I think part of this problem is that I am first and foremost, a storyteller and so I am driven to write these stories. It’s not that I want my characters to be the main character in every situation, but I find it hard to write stories for characters without writing them as “the hero”.
Though I do try hard to only make the the hero of their own story.
That's the thing. D&D doesn't have "their own story". You share that story with the other players, including the GM. Saying that there should be "your own story" in the shared story doesn't really work. Sure, there can be parts of it where your character is the focus of it but it can never be "their" story. Compare it to an Avengers movie. Sure, Peter Parker can show up and steal the scene for a short while, Natasha and Clint can have their thing going on for a bit but all in all it's still an "Avengers" movie. If you all of the sudden stopped the main plot so that Tony could go away and fight a completely different villain for 45 minutes you probably get a much crappier movie. Especially for the peopl ewho want to see Steve Rogers or Wanda Maximoff.
Several of those people literally have their own story: a separate movie or show.
Yeah, that's kind of the point. Why do you think I chose an example with multiple of those characters in it? An RPG campaign shouldn't be "Iron Man" because that makes it less fun for the people who aren't playing Iron Man. Did you not understand that or did you misinterpret it on purpose?
I don’t know. I think that maybe this is something that I need to overcome in order to grow as a player.
That might help. But I think something that will help you more is that a level 1 character is supposed to be at the start of the hero's journey, not halfway through it. That doesn't mean that the character can't have experienced anything before becoming a level 1 [whatever class] PC but it should be the things covered by your background. Which actually does give you quite a bit of room to maneuver but it (purposefully) limits you in scope.
Campaigns don't always start at level 1.
Yeah, so? Has anyone claimed they did? The point being made was about a level 1 character. Of course the situation will be different if you start at a higher level. That goes without saying, doesn't it?
Taking the Avengers example again, several of them had already had their own movie before the first Avengers movie.
And your point is?
If you are starting at level one, I guess you should have a level 1 appropriate backstory.
Yes. That is what everyone has been saying.
That doesn't mean you can't have pages of backstory if you want. Whole novels have been written about people who would be D&D Commoners.
The background still has to be relevant for the campaign and make sure that the PC is playable in a campaign with other PCs. That's the difference from a D&D commoner, as long as they're just a commoner what they have done doesn't really matter.
But perhaps most importantly about Lord of the Rings, none of the hobbits wanted to be involved in the mission
(stares in Merry and Pippin)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
But perhaps most importantly about Lord of the Rings, none of the hobbits wanted to be involved in the mission
(stares in Merry and Pippin)
And Sam.
I agree with this. Merry and Pippin were extremely excited about getting to go on an adventure, and when the adventure got tough and dangerous, they both rose to the challenge and, despite longing for home, dug down deep and showed how heroic they were.
Sam never abandoned Frodo, even when he was told to, and the one time when the two did fall out and Sam started to go home like he was told, he didn’t get far before he realised that he couldn’t abandon his friend and that he was just as much a part of the adventure as Frodo was. Frodo even says as much. He wouldn’t have getting far without Sam.
Even the main character Frodo wants to go on the adventure. He has reasons and a purpose that he wants to fulfil. He chooses to go. Even if you take Gandalf cajoling Bilbo into going on an adventure at the start of The Hobbit, Bilbo is billed as already being somewhat adventurous and not at all like other hobbits (that’s why Gandalf chose him) and although he resists at first, in the end he chooses to go because he wants to.
If none of the hobbits wanted to be there, it would have been easy for them to give up and return home. They had many opportunities to do so and instead chose to stay and continue the adventure, seeing it through to the bitter end.
I'm gonna start out super-blunt, short and sweet, and then I will soften the blow. But I think the blunt needs to be said first. Understand I don't mean any offense by this -- I'm trying to help.
I think part of this problem is that I am first and foremost, a storyteller and so I am driven to write these stories. It’s not that I want my characters to be the main character in every situation, but I find it hard to write stories for characters without writing them as “the hero”.
Blunt answer: Then write a short story or a novel about the character, and don't try to put the character into a game with other players.
The longer, and less brutal answer: Dungeons and Dragons is cooperative storytelling. You are one of several storytellers. Your character is not the hero; the party is. It is an ensemble cast. No one is more important or special than anyone else. Therefore, you need to build a character who is part of a heroic team, not a hero him- or herself. Although there may be individual scenes or perhaps even whole adventures that have more to do with your character than anyone else's, this will happen for other characters, too (if the DM is any good), and therefore you have to share that spotlight with everyone else. Or, put more correctly, in a roleplaying game there should be no spotlight. Everyone needs to be able to participate in almost every scene, or someone at the table is going to be bored. Remember, no one came to a D&D session to watch you play D&D... we came here to play. And that means our character needs to be important in every scene, just like yours does. Maybe yours is a little more important now and again -- this is true for every member of the party sooner or later. But it can't ever be all about you, or I will be bored in the session, and after a while I won't want to play.
Structurally, a D&D game is not a short story, a novel, a movie, or a play. Those elements are written with a protagonist and a story in mind, and (usually) have a single writer with a single purpose. D&D doesn't have a single writer -- not even the DM is that. In fact, in the DM forum here, you will see many of us, including me, explaining to new DMs that the game is not "their story" with the players as readers, but that D&D is cooperative. The story that emerges from D&D sessions is, at its heart, a negotiation. You and the DM and the other players are negotiating with each other to get the story to come out.
And because a D&D story results from a negotiation among the players, it cannot be written beforehand -- before the negotiation happens. This is why a few people have said "nobody cares about your backstory." What this means is that, your backstory is often the only part of the "narrative" that was not created by an at-the-table negotiation. Therefore, although it can add flavor or motivation to your character, it cannot add story to the campaign, because the other players did not agree to it. It wasn't part of the negotiated story, and therefore is almost (but not quite) "non-canon." Oh sure, the DM probably agreed to it with you, but the DM is not the whole table, and none of the other players were part of the negotiation (usually). So it is a violation of the implicit at-the-table contract that we are building a story together by cooperation and negotiation, to bring a long, involved, unilaterally developed backstory into a gaming session.
Now, before anyone jumps in and says, "Our group loves it and we do that all the time" (long-involved backstories that no one else knew about beforehand) -- that's still part of the negotiation. Your group, if it's like this, agreed to the long complex backstory that you bring into the game sight-unseen, before you started. Your cooperative story-telling includes this and everyone has agreed.
And what about the DM's world-building? "Bio, you made up this whole big alt-history Roman Empire game and told players they couldn't play certain races, etc, etc. How is that negotiation?" They all agreed to play in that world, and they asked me to build it. (I offered a choice between an embryonic world we discover together, and one in which I have already created a world with an over-arching storyline that they would uncover as they go, and they chose the latter.) Again -- negotiation. It's OK to have these big story elements, if everyone is on board with them.
But, unless everyone has agreed to it, the only significant and involved storytelling elements in a D&D campaign should result from the cooperative negotiation at the table -- not from pre-written backgrounds (and btw, not from the DM's worldbuilding either).
Always remember than an RPG story only lives in the collective imaginations of the group, and that these collective imaginations can only be joined voluntarily by eager players wanting to participate in the story together. In the old days, RP based MUDs were called "MUSHes" and the abbreviation stood for "Multi User Shared Hallucination." Notice the last two words: Shared Hallucination.
This is why I say, if you feel like a storyteller and you want to "tell a story" with your character -- write the story yourself. That is not the purpose of an RPG. The purpose of an RPG is to experience that shared hallucination -- which, when it works right, is one of the most pleasurable experiences one can ever have.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
And because a D&D story results from a negotiation among the players, it cannot be written beforehand -- before the negotiation happens. This is why a few people have said "nobody cares about your backstory." What this means is that, your backstory is often the only part of the "narrative" that was not created by an at-the-table negotiation. Therefore, although it can add flavor or motivation to your character, it cannot add story to the campaign, because the other players did not agree to it. It wasn't part of the negotiated story, and therefore is almost (but not quite) "non-canon."
This is... gah. I'm not sure I can find a polite way to say it, and the mods frown upon gifs, so just... gah.
Backstory is a tool like any other. It can 100 percent "add story to the campaign". I mean, you ramble on about a party being a 'heroic team with no heroes in it' (which... huh?) but then leave no room for one of the best ways for characters to be heroic -- by overcoming past failures or mistakes.
Beyond that, individual goals can become shared goals. A truly unified party, clicking on all cylinders, will absolutely rally around one member when something from their backstory comes to the fore, because they know the group would do the same for them if something from their past reared its ugly head.
Even the metaphor is flawed. If a D&D story "results from a negotiation among the players", then negotiations only work if each person at the table has a clear idea of their own needs, wants and limits. Negotiation implies give and take, compromise. Without backstories, characters have nothing to give and nothing to compromise on.
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Wow, this is the biggest "I can admit I might be wrong so I'm just going to move the goalposts until they look like toothpicks" I have ever seen! XD Yeah, I guess there's no point in duscussing with you if you just want to strawman and deflect. I mean, Bilbo not being an adventurer? Allow me to lol. And what is to say that OP's soccer mom couldn't have something similar happen to her? Or is that also "no plausible way" that could happen? Most of us are capable of figuring out good motivations for our characters and if we look at many of the heroes and great adventurer of our days many of them were just bored and wanted to do something with their lives. Very few of them did it because they "enjoy killing". What you describe is a murder hobo.
After this rant of yours I don't really expect a reply from you but if you seriously think that complaining about hardships during an adventure (what most people call "roleplaying") "mentality makes for a poor D&D character, because they are effectively letting the DM run the character for them" or that you think "the only combat is with a few giant spiders" (conviently ignoring the encounter with the trolls, goblins, a frigging dragon and a war) makes a bad campaign then you might want to think about what you think D&D should be all about. You do know that you don't have to fight stuff all the time, right? That there's more to roleplaying and RPGs than just killing stuff? Or is that also implausible and " letting the DM run the character".
It's evident that you didn't read, consider, or understand what I wrote, so I won't reengage other than to say that in terms of strawmen and moving goalposts, it was your post that stated "Bilbo for example only killed a bunch of giant spiders" and then now you're involving everything else when it suits you. You're not able to be objective about this, because you're only willing to pick and choose things that suit your pre-determined conclusion, rather than thinking about the topic at hand.
Stating that someone has "ranted" when they're writing on a forum is an attempt to win the argument through insult, as is much of the rest of what you've written. We're discussing D&D. There's no need to get upset about it.
I'm gonna start out super-blunt, short and sweet, and then I will soften the blow. But I think the blunt needs to be said first. Understand I don't mean any offense by this -- I'm trying to help.
I think part of this problem is that I am first and foremost, a storyteller and so I am driven to write these stories. It’s not that I want my characters to be the main character in every situation, but I find it hard to write stories for characters without writing them as “the hero”.
And because a D&D story results from a negotiation among the players, it cannot be written beforehand -- before the negotiation happens. This is why a few people have said "nobody cares about your backstory." What this means is that, your backstory is often the only part of the "narrative" that was not created by an at-the-table negotiation. Therefore, although it can add flavor or motivation to your character, it cannot add story to the campaign, because the other players did not agree to it. It wasn't part of the negotiated story, and therefore is almost (but not quite) "non-canon." Oh sure, the DM probably agreed to it with you, but the DM is not the whole table, and none of the other players were part of the negotiation (usually). So it is a violation of the implicit at-the-table contract that we are building a story together by cooperation and negotiation, to bring a long, involved, unilaterally developed backstory into a gaming session.
Now, before anyone jumps in and says, "Our group loves it and we do that all the time" (long-involved backstories that no one else knew about beforehand) -- that's still part of the negotiation. Your group, if it's like this, agreed to the long complex backstory that you bring into the game sight-unseen, before you started. Your cooperative story-telling includes this and everyone has agreed.
And what about the DM's world-building? "Bio, you made up this whole big alt-history Roman Empire game and told players they couldn't play certain races, etc, etc. How is that negotiation?" They all agreed to play in that world, and they asked me to build it. (I offered a choice between an embryonic world we discover together, and one in which I have already created a world with an over-arching storyline that they would uncover as they go, and they chose the latter.) Again -- negotiation. It's OK to have these big story elements, if everyone is on board with them.
But, unless everyone has agreed to it, the only significant and involved storytelling elements in a D&D campaign should result from the cooperative negotiation at the table -- not from pre-written backgrounds (and btw, not from the DM's worldbuilding either).
Wait, what? As the DM, I don't tell the players the entire history of my world before we start the game, to see if they agree to it. I might tell them the broad strokes, as an "elevator pitch" to get them interested in joining the campaign, but I want most of that to be a surprise.
The story should not come solely from the DM. Players should have agency, which means the opportunity to choose how they act in the situation they're in, but not the opportunity to choose what situation they're in.
Wow, this is the biggest "I can admit I might be wrong so I'm just going to move the goalposts until they look like toothpicks" I have ever seen! XD Yeah, I guess there's no point in duscussing with you if you just want to strawman and deflect. I mean, Bilbo not being an adventurer? Allow me to lol. And what is to say that OP's soccer mom couldn't have something similar happen to her? Or is that also "no plausible way" that could happen? Most of us are capable of figuring out good motivations for our characters and if we look at many of the heroes and great adventurer of our days many of them were just bored and wanted to do something with their lives. Very few of them did it because they "enjoy killing". What you describe is a murder hobo.
After this rant of yours I don't really expect a reply from you but if you seriously think that complaining about hardships during an adventure (what most people call "roleplaying") "mentality makes for a poor D&D character, because they are effectively letting the DM run the character for them" or that you think "the only combat is with a few giant spiders" (conviently ignoring the encounter with the trolls, goblins, a frigging dragon and a war) makes a bad campaign then you might want to think about what you think D&D should be all about. You do know that you don't have to fight stuff all the time, right? That there's more to roleplaying and RPGs than just killing stuff? Or is that also implausible and " letting the DM run the character".
It's evident that you didn't read, consider, or understand what I wrote, so I won't reengage other than to say that in terms of strawmen and moving goalposts, it was your post that stated "Bilbo for example only killed a bunch of giant spiders" and then now you're involving everything else when it suits you. You're not able to be objective about this, because you're only willing to pick and choose things that suit your pre-determined conclusion, rather than thinking about the topic at hand.
Just the answer I expected. Yes, I stated that Bilbo only killed a bunch of spiders. You how ever made the false statement that " the only combat [was] with a few giant spiders". That's simply not true. And since you claim that you know about that story, that's a lie. Furthermore I don't think you know what "objective" means, or you are using it wrong or possibly just arguing from incredulity. Just because you don't understand the what other people are syaing doesn't make them wrong and you right. Objective fact is that even though there were multiple encounters that would be classified as combat in D&D terms in the epic campaign "The Hobbit", the main character only actually killed some giant spiders.
And because a D&D story results from a negotiation among the players, it cannot be written beforehand -- before the negotiation happens. This is why a few people have said "nobody cares about your backstory." What this means is that, your backstory is often the only part of the "narrative" that was not created by an at-the-table negotiation. Therefore, although it can add flavor or motivation to your character, it cannot add story to the campaign, because the other players did not agree to it. It wasn't part of the negotiated story, and therefore is almost (but not quite) "non-canon."
This is... gah. I'm not sure I can find a polite way to say it, and the mods frown upon gifs, so just... gah.
Backstory is a tool like any other. It can 100 percent "add story to the campaign". I mean, you ramble on about a party being a 'heroic team with no heroes in it' (which... huh?) but then leave no room for one of the best ways for characters to be heroic -- by overcoming past failures or mistakes.
Beyond that, individual goals can become shared goals. A truly unified party, clicking on all cylinders, will absolutely rally around one member when something from their backstory comes to the fore, because they know the group would do the same for them if something from their past reared its ugly head.
Even the metaphor is flawed. If a D&D story "results from a negotiation among the players", then negotiations only work if each person at the table has a clear idea of their own needs, wants and limits. Negotiation implies give and take, compromise. Without backstories, characters have nothing to give and nothing to compromise on.
It comes down to this. There has been a generational shift in the game. Now, we have all these people who grew up being told "you are special", and who believe D&D is PLAYED how CR is PERFORMED.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to emulate CR or any other kind of entertainment in your home games. [REDACTED] have for generation being doing that in everything from "what class would X superhero be in D&D" to campaigns that borrow, steal and copy from other popular media.
Well, those people who were told they are special now treat their chars as an extension of themselves, which means the char must be "special", and that means some novella describing even the char's parents' names, and of course, every char is driven by personal tragedy, and some huge enemy in their past and present.
Yeah, I'd love to see some evidence backing up this statement because it sounds more like you not approving of how other people have fun...
I would take 10 people who don't care about their background but know how to be a good player in D&D, working well within the group, knowing the mechanics of the rules, working towards group objectives, over someone who thinks their char must somewhere along the line must be the prima donna of the group, who believes that their ability to theatrically act within the game trumps any lack of mechanical knowledge of the game.
That's not really what this thread is about, but now we know your opinion.
Notes: Please keep commentary respectful and constructive.
And because a D&D story results from a negotiation among the players, it cannot be written beforehand -- before the negotiation happens. This is why a few people have said "nobody cares about your backstory." What this means is that, your backstory is often the only part of the "narrative" that was not created by an at-the-table negotiation. Therefore, although it can add flavor or motivation to your character, it cannot add story to the campaign, because the other players did not agree to it. It wasn't part of the negotiated story, and therefore is almost (but not quite) "non-canon."
This is... gah. I'm not sure I can find a polite way to say it, and the mods frown upon gifs, so just... gah.
Backstory is a tool like any other. It can 100 percent "add story to the campaign". I mean, you ramble on about a party being a 'heroic team with no heroes in it' (which... huh?) but then leave no room for one of the best ways for characters to be heroic -- by overcoming past failures or mistakes.
Beyond that, individual goals can become shared goals. A truly unified party, clicking on all cylinders, will absolutely rally around one member when something from their backstory comes to the fore, because they know the group would do the same for them if something from their past reared its ugly head.
Even the metaphor is flawed. If a D&D story "results from a negotiation among the players", then negotiations only work if each person at the table has a clear idea of their own needs, wants and limits. Negotiation implies give and take, compromise. Without backstories, characters have nothing to give and nothing to compromise on.
It comes down to this. There has been a generational shift in the game. Now, we have all these people who grew up being told "you are special", and who believe D&D is PLAYED how CR is PERFORMED. Well, those people who were told they are special now treat their chars as an extension of themselves, which means the char must be "special", and that means some novella describing even the char's parents' names, and of course, every char is driven by personal tragedy, and some huge enemy in their past and present.
I would take 10 people who don't care about their background but know how to be a good player in D&D, working well within the group, knowing the mechanics of the rules, working towards group objectives, over someone who thinks their char must somewhere along the line must be the prima donna of the group, who believes that their ability to theatrically act within the game trumps any lack of mechanical knowledge of the game.
As opposed to grognards who believe it's the old way or no way? I mean, I can take out the ol' broadest paintbrush available and paint a whole group in an unfavourable light too. In my experience most players are happy to compromise and find a good way to play that works for their entire group, rather than rigidly adhere to some arcane set of requirements for D&D that serve no real purpose other than feeling superior.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
There are thousands of pages written supporting the complexity of the structure of the game. There are exceedingly few on "how to write backstories like Frank Herbert or Tolkien" and "how to act like Olivier and McKellen as D&D char". And the reason for that is obvious.
Again, it doesn’t take all of that. All it takes is 3-15 sentences.
You can write a 3-sentence backstory that gives a little insight into home life, a single event that was significant to the character, and the reason they decided to be an adventurer. I guarantee it.
I was raised by my single mom. I watched her struggle to feed me and my brother. Now I am an adventurer to get rich and take care of my hardworking mom.
(That’s Johnny Dangerously’s backstory.)
You can do it, give it a shot. Give us a single, three-sentence backstory. Just try. Just one.
And because a D&D story results from a negotiation among the players, it cannot be written beforehand -- before the negotiation happens. This is why a few people have said "nobody cares about your backstory." What this means is that, your backstory is often the only part of the "narrative" that was not created by an at-the-table negotiation. Therefore, although it can add flavor or motivation to your character, it cannot add story to the campaign, because the other players did not agree to it. It wasn't part of the negotiated story, and therefore is almost (but not quite) "non-canon."
This is... gah. I'm not sure I can find a polite way to say it, and the mods frown upon gifs, so just... gah.
Backstory is a tool like any other. It can 100 percent "add story to the campaign". I mean, you ramble on about a party being a 'heroic team with no heroes in it' (which... huh?) but then leave no room for one of the best ways for characters to be heroic -- by overcoming past failures or mistakes.
Beyond that, individual goals can become shared goals. A truly unified party, clicking on all cylinders, will absolutely rally around one member when something from their backstory comes to the fore, because they know the group would do the same for them if something from their past reared its ugly head.
Even the metaphor is flawed. If a D&D story "results from a negotiation among the players", then negotiations only work if each person at the table has a clear idea of their own needs, wants and limits. Negotiation implies give and take, compromise. Without backstories, characters have nothing to give and nothing to compromise on.
It comes down to this. There has been a generational shift in the game. Now, we have all these people who grew up being told "you are special", and who believe D&D is PLAYED how CR is PERFORMED. Well, those people who were told they are special now treat their chars as an extension of themselves, which means the char must be "special", and that means some novella describing even the char's parents' names, and of course, every char is driven by personal tragedy, and some huge enemy in their past and present.
I would take 10 people who don't care about their background but know how to be a good player in D&D, working well within the group, knowing the mechanics of the rules, working towards group objectives, over someone who thinks their char must somewhere along the line must be the prima donna of the group, who believes that their ability to theatrically act within the game trumps any lack of mechanical knowledge of the game.
As opposed to grognards who believe it's the old way or no way? I mean, I can take out the ol' broadest paintbrush available and paint a whole group in an unfavourable light too. In my experience most players are happy to compromise and find a good way to play that works for their entire group, rather than rigidly adhere to some arcane set of requirements for D&D that serve no real purpose other than feeling superior.
You know why the "old way" hung around so long? Because it worked, and still works. The amount of decent, let alone good, novelists and actors has not changed per capita since, well forever. The talent needed to actually entertain a group of D&D players by an individual player, or actually an individual player and the DM, with some story that the player concocted has also not changed in the last 5, 10, or 40 years. It is still incredibly rare, next to zero.
I watched a player totally freeze up last session when my char, who was having a conversation with an NPC, turned to another player, and in char, asked "what do you think?". He completely froze. Opened his mouth, and nothing came out. MOST people are NOT GOOD ACTORS. D&D was never designed to be a theatre improv piece, exploring the feelings and motivations of these creations of our imaginations. It was designed for human beings to immerse themselves inside a ton of rules and stories by PROFESSIONALS which created a rich world, and allow said normal untalented humans to enjoy the game within that construct. These players do not have to worry about being able to write creatively, or the need to act.
There are thousands of pages written supporting the complexity of the structure of the game. There are exceedingly few on "how to write backstories like Frank Herbert or Tolkien" and "how to act like Olivier and McKellen as D&D char". And the reason for that is obvious.
There is plenty of absolute dreck written about interpreting rules (I'm sure I've written some of it) and there is a lot of good advice you can find about storytelling and performing in TTRPGs. Maybe your point is that there are a lot more players who think they are expert rules lawyers than think they are expert dramatists. I suppose that could prove your point that more players prefer to play a mechanics-driven game, or it could be because people who master dramatic arts study human behavior and have the self-awareness to know when they're not the world's foremost experts.
In any case, it has no bearing on whether the first group can play the game the way they like, and the second can play the way they like. Stop telling people how to have fun.
The old ways are good because people used them and had fun. People are using new ways and having fun, but that's immaterial. The old ways are the only correct ways, as evidenced by the fact that I prefer them, and everyone who doesn't use them is a disrespectful child who lacks discipline and common sense, and who should begone from my lawn posthaste. :P
If anyone's feeling like their closely held opinions are being unfairly attacked here, consider whether those opinions are actually contributing anything to the conversation started by the OP. Because it seems to me that "backstory is bad" is not a helpful contribution to the topic of "how do I make my backstory good." Read between the lines here. The point of comparison isn't your table that doesn't involve backstory, it's all the tables that use them, and that enjoy them when they're done well.
Like, if I came around asking how to dress like a businessman for my new business job, you wouldn't respond by telling me that businesswear is ugly and uncomfortable, and I should wear jorts, right? You're welcome to have that opinion, but it's not helpful in this context.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to emulate CR or any other kind of entertainment in your home games.
This might come as a shock to Dennis and his theories about a "generational divide", but those of us who played TTRPGs other than D&D back in Days of Yore were coming up with backstories long before Crit Role ever existed.
I mean, try rolling into a World of Darkness campaign with "I left home at 18 seeking fame and fortune" as the full extent of your character's pre-game history. Try coming up with a character in Champions, or Palladium's TMNT, without some kind of origin story.
I had backstories for Rolemaster characters (where did he get those magical tattoos?) and GURPS Fantasy characters (why does he hate dwarves so much?). Not so much for BECMI or AD&D, but then, D&D in those days didn't give characters a background option either. Even then, I do recall coming up with something for some of my non-human AD&D characters to explain why they were doing what they did.
The idea that substantial backstories are just some millennial fad, like Tik Tok or hula hoops or social justice, sullying Dennis' precious game is absolutely hilarious to me.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
You can do it, give it a shot. Give us a single, three-sentence backstory. Just try. Just one.
I'm a lazy custos (janitor) at a monastery. I'm not very good at smart stuff. Someone - and I'm not saying who - may have burned down the monastery in a hilarious accident.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Haven't read the others, but these are not counter examples: they actually prove my point. In order for them to go on adventures, something drastic and huge has changed their life.
Spider Man is not an adventurer, he is a lone crime fighter, with a static location. He was also given super powers by a radioactive spider, making him the sole person capable of stopping the enemies he faces. This is not the same as being a level 1 fighter/cleric/druid or whatever. And if you think that 'going to the prom' is a worthy part of this discussion I am not sure you are thinking about D&D at all.
You are bringing up examples from fiction, but novels are not D&D. D&D requires that the DM offers challenges, and the characters get to choose what they want to do. The characters you are describing are not adventurers, nor would a game of D&D work if set up to operate as one.
But perhaps most importantly about Lord of the Rings, none of the hobbits wanted to be involved in the mission and were forced to by the DM, essentially. This doesn't work in a game of D&D: the characters need to want to go out adventuring because they want to live that lifestyle, unless you are 100% reliant on the DM to place your character and the world in a state of constant peril so that you never have any choice about what to do. Frodo even says something like "I wish this had never happened to us." That mentality makes for a poor D&D character, because they are effectively letting the DM run the character for them. If you run a game and over the course of the campaign the only combat is with a few giant spiders, you don't need to play D&D (and in fact bothering with stats, classes, magic items etc. are a waste of your time - you should just play a different RPG).
Regarding pacifistic characters: 95% of all rules in D&D are combat rules. A pacifist character who refuses to go into combat at all is unplayable (I've experienced this; it destroys the game). If your character wants to just heal everyone, then sure, but they're still enabling the violent characters, so their pacifism is a lie they tell themselves. If you want to play a non-combat game, then D&D is not the game for you.
I think that your key confusion is that you're seeing D&D characters as being comparable to characters from any other medium. In order to work within the structures of D&D, the characters need to work together (no loners), need to be self motivated (the DM cannot do this for you), and need to plausibly choose to cope with the horrors they experience.
All that said, perhaps you just play with a group of people who are happy for the DM to provide 100% of the motivation, and who are willing to be led by the DM (this is how games with younger players sometimes work). If you find that you have an adventuring party composed of a stay at home parent, a retired accountant who just felt like going on an adventure, a bored college student and a mailman, then go ahead and try to run it, but at level 1 when someone says "We need help against these goblins," to keep their characters true to the personalities they've devised, those players will need to be able to justify why after taking a shortsword to the chest the mailman doesn't realise that going back to mailing letters isn't actually preferrable.
I give my players the following in session zero, which might help some of the thought process:
Wow, this is the biggest "I can admit I might be wrong so I'm just going to move the goalposts until they look like toothpicks" I have ever seen! XD Yeah, I guess there's no point in duscussing with you if you just want to strawman and deflect. I mean, Bilbo not being an adventurer? Allow me to lol. And what is to say that OP's soccer mom couldn't have something similar happen to her? Or is that also "no plausible way" that could happen? Most of us are capable of figuring out good motivations for our characters and if we look at many of the heroes and great adventurer of our days many of them were just bored and wanted to do something with their lives. Very few of them did it because they "enjoy killing". What you describe is a murder hobo.
After this rant of yours I don't really expect a reply from you but if you seriously think that complaining about hardships during an adventure (what most people call "roleplaying") "mentality makes for a poor D&D character, because they are effectively letting the DM run the character for them" or that you think "the only combat is with a few giant spiders" (conviently ignoring the encounter with the trolls, goblins, a frigging dragon and a war) makes a bad campaign then you might want to think about what you think D&D should be all about. You do know that you don't have to fight stuff all the time, right? That there's more to roleplaying and RPGs than just killing stuff? Or is that also implausible and " letting the DM run the character".
Your character's background gives you backstory flavor baked into the mechanics. So does your class to begin with. Between "who am I?" and "why am I an adventurer?" you cover everything any backstory really needs and you get suggestions for both of those in your background and the suggested characteristics. You can spruce those up with a more elaborate story if you want, you can reflavor just about anything, or you can come up with something entirely your own - but if you just want a 2-minute backstory everything you want is pretty much handed to you on a silver platter in the books. There's no reason whatsoever to be annoyed with DMs asking for a basic character writeup or to be frustrated with the effort, as it really doesn't (have to) take any.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Yeah, that's kind of the point. Why do you think I chose an example with multiple of those characters in it? An RPG campaign shouldn't be "Iron Man" because that makes it less fun for the people who aren't playing Iron Man. Did you not understand that or did you misinterpret it on purpose?
Yeah, so? Has anyone claimed they did? The point being made was about a level 1 character. Of course the situation will be different if you start at a higher level. That goes without saying, doesn't it?
And your point is?
Yes. That is what everyone has been saying.
The background still has to be relevant for the campaign and make sure that the PC is playable in a campaign with other PCs. That's the difference from a D&D commoner, as long as they're just a commoner what they have done doesn't really matter.
(stares in Merry and Pippin)
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
And Sam.
I agree with this. Merry and Pippin were extremely excited about getting to go on an adventure, and when the adventure got tough and dangerous, they both rose to the challenge and, despite longing for home, dug down deep and showed how heroic they were.
Sam never abandoned Frodo, even when he was told to, and the one time when the two did fall out and Sam started to go home like he was told, he didn’t get far before he realised that he couldn’t abandon his friend and that he was just as much a part of the adventure as Frodo was. Frodo even says as much. He wouldn’t have getting far without Sam.
Even the main character Frodo wants to go on the adventure. He has reasons and a purpose that he wants to fulfil. He chooses to go. Even if you take Gandalf cajoling Bilbo into going on an adventure at the start of The Hobbit, Bilbo is billed as already being somewhat adventurous and not at all like other hobbits (that’s why Gandalf chose him) and although he resists at first, in the end he chooses to go because he wants to.
If none of the hobbits wanted to be there, it would have been easy for them to give up and return home. They had many opportunities to do so and instead chose to stay and continue the adventure, seeing it through to the bitter end.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
I'm gonna start out super-blunt, short and sweet, and then I will soften the blow. But I think the blunt needs to be said first. Understand I don't mean any offense by this -- I'm trying to help.
Blunt answer: Then write a short story or a novel about the character, and don't try to put the character into a game with other players.
The longer, and less brutal answer: Dungeons and Dragons is cooperative storytelling. You are one of several storytellers. Your character is not the hero; the party is. It is an ensemble cast. No one is more important or special than anyone else. Therefore, you need to build a character who is part of a heroic team, not a hero him- or herself. Although there may be individual scenes or perhaps even whole adventures that have more to do with your character than anyone else's, this will happen for other characters, too (if the DM is any good), and therefore you have to share that spotlight with everyone else. Or, put more correctly, in a roleplaying game there should be no spotlight. Everyone needs to be able to participate in almost every scene, or someone at the table is going to be bored. Remember, no one came to a D&D session to watch you play D&D... we came here to play. And that means our character needs to be important in every scene, just like yours does. Maybe yours is a little more important now and again -- this is true for every member of the party sooner or later. But it can't ever be all about you, or I will be bored in the session, and after a while I won't want to play.
Structurally, a D&D game is not a short story, a novel, a movie, or a play. Those elements are written with a protagonist and a story in mind, and (usually) have a single writer with a single purpose. D&D doesn't have a single writer -- not even the DM is that. In fact, in the DM forum here, you will see many of us, including me, explaining to new DMs that the game is not "their story" with the players as readers, but that D&D is cooperative. The story that emerges from D&D sessions is, at its heart, a negotiation. You and the DM and the other players are negotiating with each other to get the story to come out.
And because a D&D story results from a negotiation among the players, it cannot be written beforehand -- before the negotiation happens. This is why a few people have said "nobody cares about your backstory." What this means is that, your backstory is often the only part of the "narrative" that was not created by an at-the-table negotiation. Therefore, although it can add flavor or motivation to your character, it cannot add story to the campaign, because the other players did not agree to it. It wasn't part of the negotiated story, and therefore is almost (but not quite) "non-canon." Oh sure, the DM probably agreed to it with you, but the DM is not the whole table, and none of the other players were part of the negotiation (usually). So it is a violation of the implicit at-the-table contract that we are building a story together by cooperation and negotiation, to bring a long, involved, unilaterally developed backstory into a gaming session.
Now, before anyone jumps in and says, "Our group loves it and we do that all the time" (long-involved backstories that no one else knew about beforehand) -- that's still part of the negotiation. Your group, if it's like this, agreed to the long complex backstory that you bring into the game sight-unseen, before you started. Your cooperative story-telling includes this and everyone has agreed.
And what about the DM's world-building? "Bio, you made up this whole big alt-history Roman Empire game and told players they couldn't play certain races, etc, etc. How is that negotiation?" They all agreed to play in that world, and they asked me to build it. (I offered a choice between an embryonic world we discover together, and one in which I have already created a world with an over-arching storyline that they would uncover as they go, and they chose the latter.) Again -- negotiation. It's OK to have these big story elements, if everyone is on board with them.
But, unless everyone has agreed to it, the only significant and involved storytelling elements in a D&D campaign should result from the cooperative negotiation at the table -- not from pre-written backgrounds (and btw, not from the DM's worldbuilding either).
Always remember than an RPG story only lives in the collective imaginations of the group, and that these collective imaginations can only be joined voluntarily by eager players wanting to participate in the story together. In the old days, RP based MUDs were called "MUSHes" and the abbreviation stood for "Multi User Shared Hallucination." Notice the last two words: Shared Hallucination.
This is why I say, if you feel like a storyteller and you want to "tell a story" with your character -- write the story yourself. That is not the purpose of an RPG. The purpose of an RPG is to experience that shared hallucination -- which, when it works right, is one of the most pleasurable experiences one can ever have.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
This is... gah. I'm not sure I can find a polite way to say it, and the mods frown upon gifs, so just... gah.
Backstory is a tool like any other. It can 100 percent "add story to the campaign". I mean, you ramble on about a party being a 'heroic team with no heroes in it' (which... huh?) but then leave no room for one of the best ways for characters to be heroic -- by overcoming past failures or mistakes.
Beyond that, individual goals can become shared goals. A truly unified party, clicking on all cylinders, will absolutely rally around one member when something from their backstory comes to the fore, because they know the group would do the same for them if something from their past reared its ugly head.
Even the metaphor is flawed. If a D&D story "results from a negotiation among the players", then negotiations only work if each person at the table has a clear idea of their own needs, wants and limits. Negotiation implies give and take, compromise. Without backstories, characters have nothing to give and nothing to compromise on.
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
It's evident that you didn't read, consider, or understand what I wrote, so I won't reengage other than to say that in terms of strawmen and moving goalposts, it was your post that stated "Bilbo for example only killed a bunch of giant spiders" and then now you're involving everything else when it suits you. You're not able to be objective about this, because you're only willing to pick and choose things that suit your pre-determined conclusion, rather than thinking about the topic at hand.
Stating that someone has "ranted" when they're writing on a forum is an attempt to win the argument through insult, as is much of the rest of what you've written. We're discussing D&D. There's no need to get upset about it.
Wait, what? As the DM, I don't tell the players the entire history of my world before we start the game, to see if they agree to it. I might tell them the broad strokes, as an "elevator pitch" to get them interested in joining the campaign, but I want most of that to be a surprise.
The story should not come solely from the DM. Players should have agency, which means the opportunity to choose how they act in the situation they're in, but not the opportunity to choose what situation they're in.
Just the answer I expected. Yes, I stated that Bilbo only killed a bunch of spiders. You how ever made the false statement that " the only combat [was] with a few giant spiders". That's simply not true. And since you claim that you know about that story, that's a lie. Furthermore I don't think you know what "objective" means, or you are using it wrong or possibly just arguing from incredulity. Just because you don't understand the what other people are syaing doesn't make them wrong and you right. Objective fact is that even though there were multiple encounters that would be classified as combat in D&D terms in the epic campaign "The Hobbit", the main character only actually killed some giant spiders.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to emulate CR or any other kind of entertainment in your home games. [REDACTED] have for generation being doing that in everything from "what class would X superhero be in D&D" to campaigns that borrow, steal and copy from other popular media.
Yeah, I'd love to see some evidence backing up this statement because it sounds more like you not approving of how other people have fun...
That's not really what this thread is about, but now we know your opinion.
As opposed to grognards who believe it's the old way or no way? I mean, I can take out the ol' broadest paintbrush available and paint a whole group in an unfavourable light too. In my experience most players are happy to compromise and find a good way to play that works for their entire group, rather than rigidly adhere to some arcane set of requirements for D&D that serve no real purpose other than feeling superior.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Again, it doesn’t take all of that. All it takes is 3-15 sentences.
You can write a 3-sentence backstory that gives a little insight into home life, a single event that was significant to the character, and the reason they decided to be an adventurer. I guarantee it.
You can do it, give it a shot. Give us a single, three-sentence backstory. Just try. Just one.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
There is plenty of absolute dreck written about interpreting rules (I'm sure I've written some of it) and there is a lot of good advice you can find about storytelling and performing in TTRPGs. Maybe your point is that there are a lot more players who think they are expert rules lawyers than think they are expert dramatists. I suppose that could prove your point that more players prefer to play a mechanics-driven game, or it could be because people who master dramatic arts study human behavior and have the self-awareness to know when they're not the world's foremost experts.
In any case, it has no bearing on whether the first group can play the game the way they like, and the second can play the way they like. Stop telling people how to have fun.
The old ways are good because people used them and had fun. People are using new ways and having fun, but that's immaterial. The old ways are the only correct ways, as evidenced by the fact that I prefer them, and everyone who doesn't use them is a disrespectful child who lacks discipline and common sense, and who should begone from my lawn posthaste. :P
If anyone's feeling like their closely held opinions are being unfairly attacked here, consider whether those opinions are actually contributing anything to the conversation started by the OP. Because it seems to me that "backstory is bad" is not a helpful contribution to the topic of "how do I make my backstory good." Read between the lines here. The point of comparison isn't your table that doesn't involve backstory, it's all the tables that use them, and that enjoy them when they're done well.
Like, if I came around asking how to dress like a businessman for my new business job, you wouldn't respond by telling me that businesswear is ugly and uncomfortable, and I should wear jorts, right? You're welcome to have that opinion, but it's not helpful in this context.
This might come as a shock to Dennis and his theories about a "generational divide", but those of us who played TTRPGs other than D&D back in Days of Yore were coming up with backstories long before Crit Role ever existed.
I mean, try rolling into a World of Darkness campaign with "I left home at 18 seeking fame and fortune" as the full extent of your character's pre-game history. Try coming up with a character in Champions, or Palladium's TMNT, without some kind of origin story.
I had backstories for Rolemaster characters (where did he get those magical tattoos?) and GURPS Fantasy characters (why does he hate dwarves so much?). Not so much for BECMI or AD&D, but then, D&D in those days didn't give characters a background option either. Even then, I do recall coming up with something for some of my non-human AD&D characters to explain why they were doing what they did.
The idea that substantial backstories are just some millennial fad, like Tik Tok or hula hoops or social justice, sullying Dennis' precious game is absolutely hilarious to me.
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I'm a lazy custos (janitor) at a monastery. I'm not very good at smart stuff. Someone - and I'm not saying who - may have burned down the monastery in a hilarious accident.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.