I would make it a plot hook, if a player was just in the army, have them meet an NPC and you can just say “they where your commander. Or, “the villain takes off the mask and you see the face of your father!”. You can also ask them specific questions along the way, instead of asking “what was your back story” ask questions like “what was one thing you did that you aren’t proud of” or, “was was one mystery you never figured out” I sometimes have my players leave some blank space so that they can add things like this.
If you’re character has had their memory wiped than there are questions like who where you before? Who wiped your memory? Mabey the character is the true heir to the throne but they don’t know it. Maybe the character is starting to get their memory back “you have a flashback of a time as a child, you mother whispers a secret in your ear, what did she tell you?”
things like this are much funner than just messing with them. You don’t what your character to regret anything in their character creation
I have not read all the responses as I have not yet had time, but would echo the call not to punish the ones who don't, but to go above and beyond to reward those who do. Essentially, the old adage: you get out of it what you put into it. That will make for interesting stories, and give little mechanical benefits to characters as they grow and are developed in relation to their background. I otherwise would ask for a background, and if the answer is "what does it matter?" I would leave it be, and just "it really doesn't.". If they then ask why they don't get custom tailored stories with little mechanical bonuses, you can point out how they just drifted through life, never building any ties. Just don't be angry/mean about this at any point. Cause chances are, they will never bring it up, cause they honestly are not interested, or, the next character will have background.
In a game I played in I was running a character who was simply answering a call for aid from her son.
That malformed wood elf ranger was converted into a Knowledge domain Cleric at the request of my DM who promptly killed off the son and rather than start his campaign at the settlement where he set the first game he wanted us back the port city where there are plenty of adventurers but none at the small settlement we were at and also no means of locating the body of my character's son.
I ran the next game so to correct his mess and I do mean mess I established my character had been banished from another world after her son was killed twice in front of her.
The short version she was recovering from amnesia so now was seeking a way home or at least the means to contact the grandson she left behind in the care of the dubious safety of an elven fey warlock.
That DM after I ran a few sessions of my game and he ran two of his he decided his setting of Torbillo Sound was also on Exandria despite previous stating it wasn't before I started my campaign.
In my campaign I had a Folk Hero Fallen Aasimar who couldn't be bothered to come up with a reason he was a Folk Hero a Shadow Sorceror Performer, his wife a Rogue with her own band of bards and an Acolyte Cleric.
After much coaxing I had the half elves and the paladin share a nemesis not that they noticed and I had hoped to eventually get the cleric to reveal something other than his mentor as a subplot of his own.
I was so annoyed at my DM's inability to care enough about his game to keep his story straight that I quit the group.
Yes you can use amnesia as part of your background, however unless your DM is up to the task I suggest if you want to avoid unnecessary problems make it easier on yourself.
In the above case I only used that to course correct a DM who eventually revealed he really didn't have a clue whilst I care far too much enough to try to get my players to ask questions only they wasn't interested in the game so I hope you have better luck with your players OR your DM.
I hope they care enough about the game to actually ask you questions or want you to ask them questions.
I have a few players or have ran into a few players before that just refuse to make a backstory for a character even after giving them the context of the world and their limits. I.E. Some how your character ends up joining the royal army of what ever nation they belong to given from the world context.
What are some examples you would do to mess with or punish a player that refuses to take the time to write a backstory, or even just goes with "My character has amnesia" (Player doesn't have flaws or anything)
I won't punish them, people play DnD for different reasons, in my current campaign I have 8 players, 4 of them wrote a backstory, 4-5 bullet points (that is all I ask for as a backstory). the other 4 have nothing and I really don't care. If a player has no backstory how does it impact you? You can still write a campaign can still tell a story and throughout the course of the campaign the players can fill in any details that are important, I have played in and DM'd many games that saw players concocting details like parents names, where they grew up, why they are adventuring on the fly during sessions, one campaign we where 2 years in before one player even had to think about his dad, his name, if he was alive or dead and what his job was.
If they claim amnesia, have it come up - amnesia is a backstory, just a lazy one, so have people recognize them, try to talk to them. If they are a swashbuckling rogue then there's every chance they have enemies they've forgotten - or, you could discuss with them the possibilities of them creating a backstory which can be incorporated into a quest, like it turns out that they slept with the favourite daughter of the local mob boss, whilst cheating on the son of another, and so have 2 families after them and no idea why. Work with them to establish the basics of their character, and then create an interesting story to catch up with them for a session or two.
Amnesia does not have to be a lazy backstory. I have a Warforged who was found and reactivated. As far as he is aware he is the only warforged in the world, he asked me as the DM to decide everything up to the point he was “turned off” and he has then, session but session as required, come up on the fly with information about his time between waking up and meeting the party.
I have another player who really didn’t care about backstory so told me she was left as a baby at a brothel and raised by the madame and working girls. As a player she didn’t care about her parents at all, now I have weaves it into a story and there is potential she might find out more of where she comes from.
Messing with players because they’re not doing things the way you want them to is silly. It’s unlikely to help in any way, so you just end up making things worse out of pettiness. And 5E comes with backgrounds, which are pretty much pre-baked backstories ready to go. I honestly don’t see how this has to be an issue.
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I have not read through all of the other replies, but for a bit of fun what about introducing some sort of random element to it?
Kind of like rolling a d20 for Wild Magic, maybe when the party encounters a new story element (NPC, village, group, item, etc), you could choose to roll 1d20 (or have the player roll). On a roll of 20, it turns out that that element is somehow tied to their backstory (they knew the NPC growing up, they are wanted in the village for some crime, their father/mother/brother was a member of the group, they wanted to find that item, etc)
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You cannot make a character without a personality. (Ideals bonds flaws etc)
I would not allow the player to play the character if there is nothing there.
As for amnesia, make a backstory and don’t tell them. Ask them to make a personality traits and ideals and flaws. As for bond it should either be something that happened after amnesia or one thing they remember or “I lost my memory and I am determined to rediscover who I was.”
If the game starts and they don’t have a backstory start and tell them to make it and once they finished writing it introduce the character.
You cannot make a character without a personality. (Ideals bonds flaws etc)
I would not allow the player to play the character if there is nothing there.
As for amnesia, make a backstory and don’t tell them. Ask them to make a personality traits and ideals and flaws. As for bond it should either be something that happened after amnesia or one thing they remember or “I lost my memory and I am determined to rediscover who I was.”
If the game starts and they don’t have a backstory start and tell them to make it and once they finished writing it introduce the character.
Sorry you dont need those formalised things. One sentence can cover it.
“Raised with a younger brother I always protected who died when I wasn’t there for him.”
That tells me all I need to know for session 1 and as a DM I may never explore it more.
But you can absolutely make a character without knowing there personality, as a player I work that out over the first 10 sessions.
Just because your character has amnesia doesn't mean they don't have a background.
Found drifting at sea aboard the wreckage of a ship sunk by pirates returned to the shore where they recovered from their loss at a village temple gradually becoming say an Acolyte or a Sailor if they're determined to find out about their lost past...
Sure you don't recall your past, but that doesn't include the time set after you were found with that amnesia doesn't it?
I'm still wondering about the character I ran in a campaign until the DM messed it up after he decided to co-opt the setting I was using for my campaign.
That started off with just the character answering a call for aid from her son.
Because the DM messed up his introductory story by involving my character's backstory and then refused to follow up on that claiming it wasn't important...
And that was when it got altered to her having suffered from amnesia due to being banished from her own world and having witnessed her son killed in front of her twice.
So the next game he ran she was now seeking a way back or the means to contact her surviving family.
So yes they can get away with amnesia, but not the background, bonds, flaws and ideals.
Perfect excuse to change those details once they get their memory back though...
That may just not be a part of game play that interest them or they don't know how to go about it. If the latter is the case, I love to help them create backstory by using the This is Your Life section in Chapter 1 or Xanthar's. It provides roll tables to help you figure out who your character is, and can be a ton of fun. I have also found that be setting up time, one-on-one with each player and rolling it out with them is extremely beneficial for me as the DM. I feel like I should know and understand their character as well, it allows me to flavor sessions that appeal to the players and helps me know when and how to work in things that directly relate to the player.
Simple: Make VERY interesting roleplay and narrative with players who make backstories, and if one of the no-backstory players complains about being left out or accuses someone of “Main Character Syndrome,” hit them with the “You didn’t file your paperwork,” meme.
Simple: Make VERY interesting roleplay and narrative with players who make backstories, and if one of the no-backstory players complains about being left out or accuses someone of “Main Character Syndrome,” hit them with the “You didn’t file your paperwork,” meme.
I completely disagree with this method. If you have a mix of experienced players and new players, you will end up punishing the new players for being new.
There are people out there that aren't story writers, a GM should not hand penalties because they don't find a backstory interesting.
I currently run three campaigns and I didn't ask for backstories for any of them. If the players wrote them, it was fine, if they didn't, that was fine too. The point of playing is to have fun, not look for an excuse to hand out consequences to your players.
The important features of a backstory are that it should cover
Why is this character an adventurer?
What plot hooks does the character have that will allow the DM to pull them into the story?
There are ways of starting a campaign without those, typically because you work for a third party who is giving you quests, but it makes the DMs life a lot easier. Another helpful thing to address is "why are these people working together", but that requires group back story.
Isn't the problem here is that they don't even want to do that much?
I agree with the above that they need to be involved in the game to become invested but the question is how much are they willing to do so and how much does their DM have to come up with if that player doesn't?
You could easily come up with the situation where a PC has a back story where they're searching for a lost loved one only to discover they're being held by a foe whose continually torturing them and is willing to give them up if that PC replaces them.
And when that PC refuses to go ahead with that insanity they're punished simply because the DM clearly doesn't have a clue about the game they're running!
That is just an example all the three sentence backgrounds in the world won't help if either player or DM isn't invested in playing or running their game properly.
Simple: Make VERY interesting roleplay and narrative with players who make backstories, and if one of the no-backstory players complains about being left out or accuses someone of “Main Character Syndrome,” hit them with the “You didn’t file your paperwork,” meme.
I completely disagree with this method. If you have a mix of experienced players and new players, you will end up punishing the new players for being new.
There are people out there that aren't story writers, a GM should not hand penalties because they don't find a backstory interesting.
I currently run three campaigns and I didn't ask for backstories for any of them. If the players wrote them, it was fine, if they didn't, that was fine too. The point of playing is to have fun, not look for an excuse to hand out consequences to your players.
Fair point. But it's worth mentioning that as a DM, I'd help new players make backstories and tie them into the world. But if a player, new or experienced, outright refuses to make a backstory, then I feel that this method is justified. It's their decision to not make one. They may simply not enjoy role-play, or they don't understand how it works. That's why a DM should ALWAYS help new players create backstories if it will help with the role-play. But no one should force their players to do something they straight-up don't enjoy, and the players should take advantage of fun opportunities.
I suppose what I'm saying is this: As a DM, one responsibility is to help players, new and experienced, create characters full of story and personality if that's what the group will enjoy. But if any one player refuses to make a backstory or role-play, they don't have to. The other players who do enjoy role-play will take part in it instead. And if a player who initially refused to role-play realizes that they feel left out of the narrative and want to participate, then help them build their character's personality and backstory.
Some players prefer to just relax and let the story happen to them. I don't fault them for wanting that out of D&D. You can't make people interested in something.
You can still engage them through consequences from the actions they take within the campaign. I do this instead of saying "you don't get screen time because you didn't make a back story." If they engage back, you can run with it. If not, then you turn to the other players. But I still try to create roles in those other storylines for "observer" type players so that they can engage if they want to.
Some people are just too lazy or don't want to take the effort to write even a brief backstory.
IMO, a DM who spends a lot of time prepping adventures for the group has every right to expect players to put at least a modicum of thought into their character other than just as a bag of optimized stats. Doesn't have to be elaborate, and I'm not going to use it to constrain your character, but jeez at least make an effort.
On the other hand, I am not as big a fan of the bond/flaw/ideal stuff. I tell players they can choose these or not, or choose some of them and leave others alone, as they want, or choose them later as they develop their character naturally through play, and they should be used as a tool to help them play their character. For some players, I do think they are legitimately constraining however, as the player feels compelled to measure each and every reaction and decision by those handful of vague traits.
I would make it a plot hook, if a player was just in the army, have them meet an NPC and you can just say “they where your commander. Or, “the villain takes off the mask and you see the face of your father!”. You can also ask them specific questions along the way, instead of asking “what was your back story” ask questions like “what was one thing you did that you aren’t proud of” or, “was was one mystery you never figured out” I sometimes have my players leave some blank space so that they can add things like this.
If you’re character has had their memory wiped than there are questions like who where you before? Who wiped your memory? Mabey the character is the true heir to the throne but they don’t know it. Maybe the character is starting to get their memory back “you have a flashback of a time as a child, you mother whispers a secret in your ear, what did she tell you?”
things like this are much funner than just messing with them. You don’t what your character to regret anything in their character creation
I have not read all the responses as I have not yet had time, but would echo the call not to punish the ones who don't, but to go above and beyond to reward those who do. Essentially, the old adage: you get out of it what you put into it. That will make for interesting stories, and give little mechanical benefits to characters as they grow and are developed in relation to their background. I otherwise would ask for a background, and if the answer is "what does it matter?" I would leave it be, and just "it really doesn't.". If they then ask why they don't get custom tailored stories with little mechanical bonuses, you can point out how they just drifted through life, never building any ties. Just don't be angry/mean about this at any point. Cause chances are, they will never bring it up, cause they honestly are not interested, or, the next character will have background.
In a game I played in I was running a character who was simply answering a call for aid from her son.
That malformed wood elf ranger was converted into a Knowledge domain Cleric at the request of my DM who promptly killed off the son and rather than start his campaign at the settlement where he set the first game he wanted us back the port city where there are plenty of adventurers but none at the small settlement we were at and also no means of locating the body of my character's son.
I ran the next game so to correct his mess and I do mean mess I established my character had been banished from another world after her son was killed twice in front of her.
The short version she was recovering from amnesia so now was seeking a way home or at least the means to contact the grandson she left behind in the care of the dubious safety of an elven fey warlock.
That DM after I ran a few sessions of my game and he ran two of his he decided his setting of Torbillo Sound was also on Exandria despite previous stating it wasn't before I started my campaign.
In my campaign I had a Folk Hero Fallen Aasimar who couldn't be bothered to come up with a reason he was a Folk Hero a Shadow Sorceror Performer, his wife a Rogue with her own band of bards and an Acolyte Cleric.
After much coaxing I had the half elves and the paladin share a nemesis not that they noticed and I had hoped to eventually get the cleric to reveal something other than his mentor as a subplot of his own.
I was so annoyed at my DM's inability to care enough about his game to keep his story straight that I quit the group.
Yes you can use amnesia as part of your background, however unless your DM is up to the task I suggest if you want to avoid unnecessary problems make it easier on yourself.
In the above case I only used that to course correct a DM who eventually revealed he really didn't have a clue whilst I care far too much enough to try to get my players to ask questions only they wasn't interested in the game so I hope you have better luck with your players OR your DM.
I hope they care enough about the game to actually ask you questions or want you to ask them questions.
Best wishes.
Why would you want to "punish" someone?
How about being a bit more positive and break things up into about 5 simple questions with default answers?
I won't punish them, people play DnD for different reasons, in my current campaign I have 8 players, 4 of them wrote a backstory, 4-5 bullet points (that is all I ask for as a backstory). the other 4 have nothing and I really don't care. If a player has no backstory how does it impact you? You can still write a campaign can still tell a story and throughout the course of the campaign the players can fill in any details that are important, I have played in and DM'd many games that saw players concocting details like parents names, where they grew up, why they are adventuring on the fly during sessions, one campaign we where 2 years in before one player even had to think about his dad, his name, if he was alive or dead and what his job was.
Amnesia does not have to be a lazy backstory. I have a Warforged who was found and reactivated. As far as he is aware he is the only warforged in the world, he asked me as the DM to decide everything up to the point he was “turned off” and he has then, session but session as required, come up on the fly with information about his time between waking up and meeting the party.
I have another player who really didn’t care about backstory so told me she was left as a baby at a brothel and raised by the madame and working girls. As a player she didn’t care about her parents at all, now I have weaves it into a story and there is potential she might find out more of where she comes from.
Messing with players because they’re not doing things the way you want them to is silly. It’s unlikely to help in any way, so you just end up making things worse out of pettiness. And 5E comes with backgrounds, which are pretty much pre-baked backstories ready to go. I honestly don’t see how this has to be an issue.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I have not read through all of the other replies, but for a bit of fun what about introducing some sort of random element to it?
Kind of like rolling a d20 for Wild Magic, maybe when the party encounters a new story element (NPC, village, group, item, etc), you could choose to roll 1d20 (or have the player roll). On a roll of 20, it turns out that that element is somehow tied to their backstory (they knew the NPC growing up, they are wanted in the village for some crime, their father/mother/brother was a member of the group, they wanted to find that item, etc)
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
You cannot make a character without a personality. (Ideals bonds flaws etc)
I would not allow the player to play the character if there is nothing there.
As for amnesia, make a backstory and don’t tell them. Ask them to make a personality traits and ideals and flaws. As for bond it should either be something that happened after amnesia or one thing they remember or “I lost my memory and I am determined to rediscover who I was.”
If the game starts and they don’t have a backstory start and tell them to make it and once they finished writing it introduce the character.
Sorry you dont need those formalised things. One sentence can cover it.
“Raised with a younger brother I always protected who died when I wasn’t there for him.”
That tells me all I need to know for session 1 and as a DM I may never explore it more.
But you can absolutely make a character without knowing there personality, as a player I work that out over the first 10 sessions.
Just because your character has amnesia doesn't mean they don't have a background.
Found drifting at sea aboard the wreckage of a ship sunk by pirates returned to the shore where they recovered from their loss at a village temple gradually becoming say an Acolyte or a Sailor if they're determined to find out about their lost past...
Sure you don't recall your past, but that doesn't include the time set after you were found with that amnesia doesn't it?
I'm still wondering about the character I ran in a campaign until the DM messed it up after he decided to co-opt the setting I was using for my campaign.
That started off with just the character answering a call for aid from her son.
Because the DM messed up his introductory story by involving my character's backstory and then refused to follow up on that claiming it wasn't important...
And that was when it got altered to her having suffered from amnesia due to being banished from her own world and having witnessed her son killed in front of her twice.
So the next game he ran she was now seeking a way back or the means to contact her surviving family.
So yes they can get away with amnesia, but not the background, bonds, flaws and ideals.
Perfect excuse to change those details once they get their memory back though...
That may just not be a part of game play that interest them or they don't know how to go about it. If the latter is the case, I love to help them create backstory by using the This is Your Life section in Chapter 1 or Xanthar's. It provides roll tables to help you figure out who your character is, and can be a ton of fun. I have also found that be setting up time, one-on-one with each player and rolling it out with them is extremely beneficial for me as the DM. I feel like I should know and understand their character as well, it allows me to flavor sessions that appeal to the players and helps me know when and how to work in things that directly relate to the player.
~ May all your rolls Crit ~
Simple: Make VERY interesting roleplay and narrative with players who make backstories, and if one of the no-backstory players complains about being left out or accuses someone of “Main Character Syndrome,” hit them with the “You didn’t file your paperwork,” meme.
I completely disagree with this method. If you have a mix of experienced players and new players, you will end up punishing the new players for being new.
There are people out there that aren't story writers, a GM should not hand penalties because they don't find a backstory interesting.
I currently run three campaigns and I didn't ask for backstories for any of them. If the players wrote them, it was fine, if they didn't, that was fine too. The point of playing is to have fun, not look for an excuse to hand out consequences to your players.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Proof that you don't need extensive backstories:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/118709-three-sentence-backstory
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
The important features of a backstory are that it should cover
There are ways of starting a campaign without those, typically because you work for a third party who is giving you quests, but it makes the DMs life a lot easier. Another helpful thing to address is "why are these people working together", but that requires group back story.
Isn't the problem here is that they don't even want to do that much?
I agree with the above that they need to be involved in the game to become invested but the question is how much are they willing to do so and how much does their DM have to come up with if that player doesn't?
You could easily come up with the situation where a PC has a back story where they're searching for a lost loved one only to discover they're being held by a foe whose continually torturing them and is willing to give them up if that PC replaces them.
And when that PC refuses to go ahead with that insanity they're punished simply because the DM clearly doesn't have a clue about the game they're running!
That is just an example all the three sentence backgrounds in the world won't help if either player or DM isn't invested in playing or running their game properly.
Fair point. But it's worth mentioning that as a DM, I'd help new players make backstories and tie them into the world. But if a player, new or experienced, outright refuses to make a backstory, then I feel that this method is justified. It's their decision to not make one. They may simply not enjoy role-play, or they don't understand how it works. That's why a DM should ALWAYS help new players create backstories if it will help with the role-play. But no one should force their players to do something they straight-up don't enjoy, and the players should take advantage of fun opportunities.
I suppose what I'm saying is this: As a DM, one responsibility is to help players, new and experienced, create characters full of story and personality if that's what the group will enjoy. But if any one player refuses to make a backstory or role-play, they don't have to. The other players who do enjoy role-play will take part in it instead. And if a player who initially refused to role-play realizes that they feel left out of the narrative and want to participate, then help them build their character's personality and backstory.
Also I was being funny by referencing a meme.
Some players prefer to just relax and let the story happen to them. I don't fault them for wanting that out of D&D. You can't make people interested in something.
You can still engage them through consequences from the actions they take within the campaign. I do this instead of saying "you don't get screen time because you didn't make a back story." If they engage back, you can run with it. If not, then you turn to the other players. But I still try to create roles in those other storylines for "observer" type players so that they can engage if they want to.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Some people are just too lazy or don't want to take the effort to write even a brief backstory.
IMO, a DM who spends a lot of time prepping adventures for the group has every right to expect players to put at least a modicum of thought into their character other than just as a bag of optimized stats. Doesn't have to be elaborate, and I'm not going to use it to constrain your character, but jeez at least make an effort.
On the other hand, I am not as big a fan of the bond/flaw/ideal stuff. I tell players they can choose these or not, or choose some of them and leave others alone, as they want, or choose them later as they develop their character naturally through play, and they should be used as a tool to help them play their character. For some players, I do think they are legitimately constraining however, as the player feels compelled to measure each and every reaction and decision by those handful of vague traits.