I worked with my players. The goal for me was to make sure that they aren't trying to make a god at level 1, or "the chosen one" or any other extremes. I also ask them to expand on details which I can use for plot hooks. I also need to see a good reason for them to be in the party, so that the party has a good chance of sticking.
For an example:
The player said he was a monk and he wanted to be part of a holy order which worshipped a golden dragon. He also wanted his character to unknowingly be the second coming of this golden dragon, in human form.
This rang three bells in my mind - the "opportunity", "why are they here" and the "chosen one" bells.
So I worked with them to adapt this backstory and meld it with the game world. I created the holy order of the golden dragon (it added a decent sized lump to the campaign lore, in fact) and worked out the way it worked. They would be dedicated to recovering the stolen horde of the golden dragon. Seers of the order receive visions of where to find each piece, and acolytes of the order are then sent out to find them. The players character is a low-level acolyte, who was sent out on a recovery mission and was the lone survivor. He carries a single gold coin from the horde, which is what he was sent out to collect. However, he has no way to get back to the order yet, as he was sent overseas, and he was mistreated by the order for being only half-elf, so is not in any hurry to go back anyway.
I worked in that the Golden Dragon was prophesized to return through one of his bloodline, which the PC unknowingly is. I worded it specifically that this is not pre-ordained, and so the PC gets no plot armour. If he's still alive in the right place at the right time, something might come of it.
Meanwhile he's just trying to get some gold and a group to be part of, where I hope the other players will present a welcoming attitude so he feels more at home here than in the holy order.
This provided a motivation to be in the group, a reason for being there, many plot hooks in the future, and grounds for the player to flavour their spells (when they get them) as dragonesque (fireball becomes a flaming dragon, all aesthetic).
So it becomes a collaborative exercise between me, who knows where the world could take them, and the player, who knows very little about it. It seems to work well thus far! I've added the holy order of the golden dragon, an orc tribe of prodigious strength, an underdark town called Styx where the Drow PC comes from. I am also working on a wizards university for the wizard to have come from and an origin for the Ooze PC, because I like PC's to have history!
Also collaborative the players comes up with the stuff they would know in character, I then flesh out all the stuff around it they don’t. So they know there brother has joined a cult, but I then decide what the cult is and what it’s plans are and how they got his brother involved. Much if this I flesh out as the campaign progresses so making it seem like I have seamlessly tied it all together from day one.
I collaborate with my players.They can't just do whatever they want. I ban isekai backstories and the "I get plot armor" or "I am actually a god at level 1 (If we are starting out low level)". Other than that I give whatever freedom they want. It just needs to fit into the world, which I work with them to make sure of it.
As above, I collaborate with the player to fit their story to the world. It is player driven tho - I would never come up with a backstory concept for a player unless they wanted me to.
I give them a choice of prompts to tie them into the story (typically a relationship with a prominent NPC, or a reason to be in the area/seeking out the group), but their backstory is their own. I try to work both the prompt into the story (ie if they chose the relationship prompt they may have a bonus on rolls interacting with that NPC, or if they had a recurring dream they might have access to lore when the time comes relative to the contents of the dream), and any relevant goals from the player's backstory.
Work with your players. This allows you to more easily tie character backstories into plot relevant details. I'm running a LMoP + DoIP campaign, and one of my players is a rock gnome. So I talked with them, and we decided that his character's original home was at Gnomengarde, a location the party visits in-game.
Collaborate, mostly to keep the backstory from being neither a blank nor a novel. I tell them that things should be kept largely vague so the character's background can actually grow as the character plays too, if it's something the game opts to explore. That way, if the players come to say a major city, the fuzzies in a background can grant the DM to say "when you with the merchant marine you came to this port a few times, so some of your contacts may still be active". I like backgrounds in the 100-200 word range tops. I've seen great stuff with even less word count.
Some/many do differently but I prefer playing the game to "discover" the character rather than a heavily wrought session zero "establishing" the character. A heavily developed background will lead to a lot of stuff that's never addressed which may disappoint some hard working players. Better to focus that energy on what's in front of the character than what's behind them.
David Tennant's first appearance as the Doctor in Doctor Who has this ongoing bit where he's sort of discovering himself and his new incarnations capacities and personality. I'm ok with a player going in similarly blank and discovering "I'm the sort of character who Xs instead of Ys" over levels 1-3.
Players usually come up with background and backstory elements, especially when i run one shots. For campaign, i either work one with players, or provide their backstories entirely as i see fit
Players do it, and I exercise veto power, usually over just an element or two. For players who really don’t want to write one, I have (well I had, not sure where it is) a questionnaire for them to fill out that would at least get them thinking about it and give me some basics. Of course, there’s always someone who just wants to be Bob the fighter and doesn’t care about his character’s story. It bothered me until I realized that was what was fun for them. And it meant less work for me since there was one less side plot to incorporate.
So let's give a couple of examples from my current campaign.
:- Satyr Prostitute Sorceror :- Player decided race, class and background and told me she was abandoned as a baby on the steps of a very high quality house of ill repute. The madame took her in and raised her, getting her an education and giving her freedom of choice but she decided to continue in her "mothers" profession, learning that the uniqness of her race, and her fey ability to get people to open up and talk to her, she made it clear to me she is a high class escort, attending to the rich and powerful, as important to have on the arm at events as her other skills. She sees the house as her family, the other people working are her life and everything she earns she gives back to them. Her mother has always taken in the lost, the lonely and been willing to help them, not by putting them to work (unless they want to) but trying to support, comfort and then give them a chance at a fresh start.
I worked with her on working out the details of her "mother", she thought a Tiefling, an outsider and outcast like her but given a satyr's long life and the fact they hit maturity at about 100 I suggested an elf, that would mean she had lived long enough to raise to the level of owning her own house, and could have raised the player character from being the baby, having someone to experience the sorrow of seeing friends grow old and die. This fact means that the 2 of them move location about every 25-30 years, staying in a place long enough to be established while not then having to suffer the pain of so much loss.
The player told me her character believed she had been abandoned, left alone and so has never had a drive to find out where she came from. Satyrs in my world I decided are rare, very very rare in the material plane, they exist almost entirely in the Fey wild and stay away form large population centres so she has never met another like her before.
Now it was my turn. I asked the player if they had any ideas for their parents and she told me, no my character doesn't care so as a player I am saying you decide.
So the story I have come up with is that her "mother" told a white lie. On my world there is an oppressive empire called Etresh, they have expanded aggressively over the past 200 years. They allow and encourage slavery and all sorcerers who are identified are imprisoned by a magic item that then allows a wizard to use them like a battery powering spells far more powerful than they could cast normally. As a result there is an underground railway to smuggle slaves out of Etresh. The Satyrs "mother" was part of this railway, taking in individuals keeping them safe a few days then passing them onto the next contact. The Player was left with her by a women (not her mother) who was scared for the babies safety, she claimed the empire would hunt her down for her so she left the baby with the madame and then set of to leave a diversionary route. She never returned but left several items. The madame waited a week and then fled with the baby, soon after the town she was living in at that point was swarmed by the Empire hunting for something slaughtering and enslaving the whole town when they couldnt find it. The "mother" has not told the player this, first of all because she felt she was too young, and then to protect her fearing the Empire would find her, is is also why they move around as often as they do. But now, an etreshan emissary and trade caravan is camped out at the gates of the town and the mother feels it is time to tell her daughter all she knows and hand her the heirlooms she was left. I have a vague idea of the details about her parents, but will chop and change it until the moment I pull the ripcord and tell that part of the tale.
:- Minotaur Criminal Barbarian. Came to me with the idea that his family are like the russian mob, so I built a nation and background into my world to suit. Then decided his father was in prison, he had an idea he was trying to get a letter to his father but we talked between us, that wouldn't make sense because his home town is a month or so journey from the starting town so we negotiated that he had given his Uncle a letter, his uncle had told him to leave because somehow he had caused his fathers imprisonment by losing his head and killing a corrupt city official in a rage during a smuggling rights negotiation.
In reality Uncle set the father and son up, Father is imprisoned by Uncle, who intends to kill the son. This is all because the Etreshan Empire has offered him the throne of his nation in return for his loyalty. He is then helping them by tracking down sorcerors, escaped slaves and anything else beyond the boundries of Etresh to send back to them. Slavery was one of the practices that the players father was against and he refused to step up and take the throne of a nation claiming that was not their way, especially to become beholden to the empire and eventually replaced.
:- Finally Half Elf Bard, player came to me with the idea he had been the bard in a palace, had an affair with the queen, she got pregnant and he had to leave to avoid the scandal taking her down. She was the natural heir, but, a King was required to rule in the name of the queen so she had been married off to an inept and cruel man, if he had this to hold over her then she would lose what little influence she had. He wanted the city to sound scottish, being a half elf he wanted to be raised in an orphanage, then be spotted by a travelling bard who took him on as an apprentice. He then ended up where the queen was. he had a happy childhood in the orphanage and has no idea who his parents are.
I sat down with him and we agreed that instead of a nation the queen was from one of several city states on a peninsular, cut off from Etresh by a large lake and raging river. The city he came from is the closest to Etresh and so has a permanent trade agreement acting as the empires gateway to the rest of the continent. Old Etresh, the core of the empire, believes in the power of purity, Racial purity. There is no issue with any one race, as long as they don't intermix. Half elves and the like are ostracised, the birth of one is a disgrace to both families and so, those who can afford to, ship out the unwanted children. The city state has a number of well established very well paid for orphanages for these "half breed" children of rich families to be raised. He is one of these,
At some point he is going to get a letter asking him to protect his children (twins where born) from the Etreshan Empire who are threatening invasion, or Etresh may be welcomed in by her husband, wanting to get rid of the yolk of being the "husband to" the queen and instead rule in his own name, or both.
So I was brought the shell of an idea, I then shaped and fashioned my world around that idea and worked with the players to smooth out the edges, while keeping control of everything the character would not know. I have also tied them all in so these 3 players will all have a core reason to hate the etreshan Emperor, they may decide to try and kill him (spoiler, he is a beholder)
For your Campaign, do you make the PCs backstory, or let the players come up with it or a mix of both ?
I worked with my players. The goal for me was to make sure that they aren't trying to make a god at level 1, or "the chosen one" or any other extremes. I also ask them to expand on details which I can use for plot hooks. I also need to see a good reason for them to be in the party, so that the party has a good chance of sticking.
For an example:
The player said he was a monk and he wanted to be part of a holy order which worshipped a golden dragon. He also wanted his character to unknowingly be the second coming of this golden dragon, in human form.
This rang three bells in my mind - the "opportunity", "why are they here" and the "chosen one" bells.
So I worked with them to adapt this backstory and meld it with the game world. I created the holy order of the golden dragon (it added a decent sized lump to the campaign lore, in fact) and worked out the way it worked. They would be dedicated to recovering the stolen horde of the golden dragon. Seers of the order receive visions of where to find each piece, and acolytes of the order are then sent out to find them. The players character is a low-level acolyte, who was sent out on a recovery mission and was the lone survivor. He carries a single gold coin from the horde, which is what he was sent out to collect. However, he has no way to get back to the order yet, as he was sent overseas, and he was mistreated by the order for being only half-elf, so is not in any hurry to go back anyway.
I worked in that the Golden Dragon was prophesized to return through one of his bloodline, which the PC unknowingly is. I worded it specifically that this is not pre-ordained, and so the PC gets no plot armour. If he's still alive in the right place at the right time, something might come of it.
Meanwhile he's just trying to get some gold and a group to be part of, where I hope the other players will present a welcoming attitude so he feels more at home here than in the holy order.
This provided a motivation to be in the group, a reason for being there, many plot hooks in the future, and grounds for the player to flavour their spells (when they get them) as dragonesque (fireball becomes a flaming dragon, all aesthetic).
So it becomes a collaborative exercise between me, who knows where the world could take them, and the player, who knows very little about it. It seems to work well thus far! I've added the holy order of the golden dragon, an orc tribe of prodigious strength, an underdark town called Styx where the Drow PC comes from. I am also working on a wizards university for the wizard to have come from and an origin for the Ooze PC, because I like PC's to have history!
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Also collaborative the players comes up with the stuff they would know in character, I then flesh out all the stuff around it they don’t. So they know there brother has joined a cult, but I then decide what the cult is and what it’s plans are and how they got his brother involved. Much if this I flesh out as the campaign progresses so making it seem like I have seamlessly tied it all together from day one.
I collaborate with my players.They can't just do whatever they want. I ban isekai backstories and the "I get plot armor" or "I am actually a god at level 1 (If we are starting out low level)". Other than that I give whatever freedom they want. It just needs to fit into the world, which I work with them to make sure of it.
As above, I collaborate with the player to fit their story to the world. It is player driven tho - I would never come up with a backstory concept for a player unless they wanted me to.
I let players come up with their backstory, but I help to determine the party’s reason to ally/to be in the location.
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
Ariendela Sneakerson, Half-elf Rogue (8); Harmony Wolfsbane, Tiefling Bard (10); Agnomally, Gnomish Sorcerer (3); Breeze, Tabaxi Monk (8); Grace, Dragonborn Barbarian (7); DM, Homebrew- The Sequestered Lands/Underwater Explorers; Candlekeep
I give them a choice of prompts to tie them into the story (typically a relationship with a prominent NPC, or a reason to be in the area/seeking out the group), but their backstory is their own. I try to work both the prompt into the story (ie if they chose the relationship prompt they may have a bonus on rolls interacting with that NPC, or if they had a recurring dream they might have access to lore when the time comes relative to the contents of the dream), and any relevant goals from the player's backstory.
Work with your players. This allows you to more easily tie character backstories into plot relevant details. I'm running a LMoP + DoIP campaign, and one of my players is a rock gnome. So I talked with them, and we decided that his character's original home was at Gnomengarde, a location the party visits in-game.
Collaborate, mostly to keep the backstory from being neither a blank nor a novel. I tell them that things should be kept largely vague so the character's background can actually grow as the character plays too, if it's something the game opts to explore. That way, if the players come to say a major city, the fuzzies in a background can grant the DM to say "when you with the merchant marine you came to this port a few times, so some of your contacts may still be active". I like backgrounds in the 100-200 word range tops. I've seen great stuff with even less word count.
Some/many do differently but I prefer playing the game to "discover" the character rather than a heavily wrought session zero "establishing" the character. A heavily developed background will lead to a lot of stuff that's never addressed which may disappoint some hard working players. Better to focus that energy on what's in front of the character than what's behind them.
David Tennant's first appearance as the Doctor in Doctor Who has this ongoing bit where he's sort of discovering himself and his new incarnations capacities and personality. I'm ok with a player going in similarly blank and discovering "I'm the sort of character who Xs instead of Ys" over levels 1-3.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Players usually come up with background and backstory elements, especially when i run one shots. For campaign, i either work one with players, or provide their backstories entirely as i see fit
Players do it, and I exercise veto power, usually over just an element or two.
For players who really don’t want to write one, I have (well I had, not sure where it is) a questionnaire for them to fill out that would at least get them thinking about it and give me some basics.
Of course, there’s always someone who just wants to be Bob the fighter and doesn’t care about his character’s story. It bothered me until I realized that was what was fun for them. And it meant less work for me since there was one less side plot to incorporate.
So let's give a couple of examples from my current campaign.
:- Satyr Prostitute Sorceror :- Player decided race, class and background and told me she was abandoned as a baby on the steps of a very high quality house of ill repute. The madame took her in and raised her, getting her an education and giving her freedom of choice but she decided to continue in her "mothers" profession, learning that the uniqness of her race, and her fey ability to get people to open up and talk to her, she made it clear to me she is a high class escort, attending to the rich and powerful, as important to have on the arm at events as her other skills. She sees the house as her family, the other people working are her life and everything she earns she gives back to them. Her mother has always taken in the lost, the lonely and been willing to help them, not by putting them to work (unless they want to) but trying to support, comfort and then give them a chance at a fresh start.
I worked with her on working out the details of her "mother", she thought a Tiefling, an outsider and outcast like her but given a satyr's long life and the fact they hit maturity at about 100 I suggested an elf, that would mean she had lived long enough to raise to the level of owning her own house, and could have raised the player character from being the baby, having someone to experience the sorrow of seeing friends grow old and die. This fact means that the 2 of them move location about every 25-30 years, staying in a place long enough to be established while not then having to suffer the pain of so much loss.
The player told me her character believed she had been abandoned, left alone and so has never had a drive to find out where she came from. Satyrs in my world I decided are rare, very very rare in the material plane, they exist almost entirely in the Fey wild and stay away form large population centres so she has never met another like her before.
Now it was my turn. I asked the player if they had any ideas for their parents and she told me, no my character doesn't care so as a player I am saying you decide.
So the story I have come up with is that her "mother" told a white lie. On my world there is an oppressive empire called Etresh, they have expanded aggressively over the past 200 years. They allow and encourage slavery and all sorcerers who are identified are imprisoned by a magic item that then allows a wizard to use them like a battery powering spells far more powerful than they could cast normally. As a result there is an underground railway to smuggle slaves out of Etresh. The Satyrs "mother" was part of this railway, taking in individuals keeping them safe a few days then passing them onto the next contact. The Player was left with her by a women (not her mother) who was scared for the babies safety, she claimed the empire would hunt her down for her so she left the baby with the madame and then set of to leave a diversionary route. She never returned but left several items. The madame waited a week and then fled with the baby, soon after the town she was living in at that point was swarmed by the Empire hunting for something slaughtering and enslaving the whole town when they couldnt find it.
The "mother" has not told the player this, first of all because she felt she was too young, and then to protect her fearing the Empire would find her, is is also why they move around as often as they do. But now, an etreshan emissary and trade caravan is camped out at the gates of the town and the mother feels it is time to tell her daughter all she knows and hand her the heirlooms she was left. I have a vague idea of the details about her parents, but will chop and change it until the moment I pull the ripcord and tell that part of the tale.
:- Minotaur Criminal Barbarian. Came to me with the idea that his family are like the russian mob, so I built a nation and background into my world to suit. Then decided his father was in prison, he had an idea he was trying to get a letter to his father but we talked between us, that wouldn't make sense because his home town is a month or so journey from the starting town so we negotiated that he had given his Uncle a letter, his uncle had told him to leave because somehow he had caused his fathers imprisonment by losing his head and killing a corrupt city official in a rage during a smuggling rights negotiation.
In reality Uncle set the father and son up, Father is imprisoned by Uncle, who intends to kill the son. This is all because the Etreshan Empire has offered him the throne of his nation in return for his loyalty. He is then helping them by tracking down sorcerors, escaped slaves and anything else beyond the boundries of Etresh to send back to them. Slavery was one of the practices that the players father was against and he refused to step up and take the throne of a nation claiming that was not their way, especially to become beholden to the empire and eventually replaced.
:- Finally Half Elf Bard, player came to me with the idea he had been the bard in a palace, had an affair with the queen, she got pregnant and he had to leave to avoid the scandal taking her down. She was the natural heir, but, a King was required to rule in the name of the queen so she had been married off to an inept and cruel man, if he had this to hold over her then she would lose what little influence she had. He wanted the city to sound scottish, being a half elf he wanted to be raised in an orphanage, then be spotted by a travelling bard who took him on as an apprentice. He then ended up where the queen was. he had a happy childhood in the orphanage and has no idea who his parents are.
I sat down with him and we agreed that instead of a nation the queen was from one of several city states on a peninsular, cut off from Etresh by a large lake and raging river. The city he came from is the closest to Etresh and so has a permanent trade agreement acting as the empires gateway to the rest of the continent. Old Etresh, the core of the empire, believes in the power of purity, Racial purity. There is no issue with any one race, as long as they don't intermix. Half elves and the like are ostracised, the birth of one is a disgrace to both families and so, those who can afford to, ship out the unwanted children. The city state has a number of well established very well paid for orphanages for these "half breed" children of rich families to be raised. He is one of these,
At some point he is going to get a letter asking him to protect his children (twins where born) from the Etreshan Empire who are threatening invasion, or Etresh may be welcomed in by her husband, wanting to get rid of the yolk of being the "husband to" the queen and instead rule in his own name, or both.
So I was brought the shell of an idea, I then shaped and fashioned my world around that idea and worked with the players to smooth out the edges, while keeping control of everything the character would not know. I have also tied them all in so these 3 players will all have a core reason to hate the etreshan Emperor, they may decide to try and kill him (spoiler, he is a beholder)