Hello everyone! my D&D group wants to run a campaign with only wacky/weird/funny backgrounds to see what happens. They were having trouble coming up with backgrounds, so when they asked me for help, I couldn't make them up off the top of my head. So, I turned to the interwebs for help! Do you all have any ideas for wacky/weird/funny backgrounds that could tickle any player's funny bone? Thanks! :)
Quick tip: Do not make a "Pervert" background. It might sound silly at first, but there's no comfortable way for anyone to play that at a table.
Here's one: Fake Hero People recognize you favorably for deeds you did not commit.
Skill Proficiencies:Deception, Performance Tool Proficiencies: Two different types of Artisan's tools
Background feature: Fame acquisition: d4 1 - You invented heroic deeds that never happened but were believed by many. 2 - You are constantly mistaken for a real renowned hero and use that to your advantage. 3 - Your sidekick is the real hero, but your sidekick either lets you take all the credit or your sidekick remains silent by other means such as limited communication abilities or duress from you or even due to death. 4 - A hero died and you took the hero's identity for your own.
Personality Trait: d8 1 - I often exaggerate my reported deeds. 2 - I am quick to espouse my supposed deeds to anyone I meet. 3 - I insist that people provide me with items and services for free for being a hero. 4 - I am always eager to please my fans. 5 - I am always available for hire to make public appearances. 6 - If someone recounts my supposed deeds in an unflattering way, I happily correct them with what I think should be said about me. 7 - I always speak in a boisterous, commanding voice. 8 - I always take credit for any heroic deed if nobody owns up to it.
Ideal: d6 1 - Fame. Everyone should know my name. (Any) 2 - Honor. I will do what I can to earn my reputation. (Good) 3 - Justice. I have the authority to pass judgment on people. (Any) 4 - Fraud. My reputation is a tool to get what I want. (Evil) 5 - Inspiring. I serve as an example of what people should aspire to be. (Lawful) 6 - Fate. There is no chance. Fate decided that I'm to be a hero. (Any)
Bond: d6 1 - I seek to bring honor to my family. 2 - I want to be known as a protector of all peoples. 3 - This makes up for being mistreated in my youth. 4 - I have been one of the invisible masses long enough. 5 - I could have been the hero they think I am if I had the same opportunity. 6 - With enough reputation, I can do anything I wish.
Flaw: d6 1 - I am paranoid that someone will learn my secret and don't know what I would do if anyone found out the truth. 2 - I will take any challenge to prove I am the hero that people say I am. 3 - I use my fandom to discredit anyone who questions my heroic status. 4 - I secretly orchestrate events to demonstrate my heroism. 5 - I see other people without a hero's reputation as weaker. 6 - If I am in a life-threatening situation, I will abandon people if their death is all but certain.
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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.
I don't have a full background breakdown, but one idea that I always find funny in fiction is when someone is adopted by a different race/species, and then grows up fully convinced they're a member of their parents' species, despite all evidence to the contrary.
A dwarf has learned that a priest of Moradin keeps a beer so ancient that even the king does not have enough gold to buy it. To buy that beer is his life’s only goal, and if he can sample the drinks of different lands on his journey, that won’t hurt.
A halfling was eating a meal one day when a spider dropped down in front of his nose. He immediately swore an oath to squish every spider in the world, and was shocked when he received a paladin’s powers. Now he has to follow through.
I don't have enough consciousness to come up with a complete 5e background but:
Solipsist: A person who believes that the only thing that can be proven to exist is the self and only to the point of thought and no further.
In application of a wacky character: Effectively, the character doesn't believe anything exists. EDIT: That includes not believing the character's own body exists and that all that the character experiences are subconscious creations in the character's mind - mind, not brain because the character doesn't believe the brain exists, either. Nothing can convince the character that anything other than the character's own mind exists at all. The character believes that the character's subconscious gets to dictate what the character experiences with currently limited control over it. One of the character's goals can be to learn to control the subconscious to reconstruct the entire imaginary universe according to the character's wishes.
(Sadly: Such a character only has nobody else to blame for anything that happens - but in the same line of thought, nothing actually happened according to that character.)
Further way later EDIT: As for motivations, the character is being forced to experience whatever is in the subconscious whether the character likes it or not. So regardless of the reality, the character must make choices based on what the character is forced to experience in the subconscious creation... until the character can control the subconscious.
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.
The unheir, basically if a family is having a first child they want a boy to inherit the title etc. An unheir is created when they have twin boys, to avoid future conflict over the position, the family covers up the existence of one of the twins. So as not to waste this resource they raise the unheir to do the dirty work, anything where the family need deniability. If the unheir is seen they can make sure the true heir is miles away with an alibi, ensuring that no-one suspects the family.
Accidental Hero You never wanted any of this. You "just wanna go home".
Skill Proficiencies:Medicine, Stealth Tool Proficiencies: Two different types of Artisan's Tools
Swept up in Adventure d8 How is it that, despite all intentions, you ended up adventuring? You can work with your DM on the circumstances that took you away from your familiar life. 1. I was recruited into service against my will. 2. I was travelling and returned home to find the entire place destroyed. I had nowhere else to go. 3. I thought adventuring would be fun. I was wrong. It's scary. 4. I was unjustly exiled from my home. 5. I was justly exiled from my home. 6. I was tasked with a job under duress and must complete it before I return. 7. I was lonely and wanted to make friends. 8. I have no idea what happened or what's going on.
Feature: Anonymity. You are so ordinary that people often forget they met you.
Personality Trait: d8 1. I am a social wallflower. I don't like talking to people. 2. I am so done with all of this. I don't really care what happens, now. 3. I try to equate every situation to something that used to happen at home to remind me of better days. 4. I feel compelled to try to be the nice person, hoping to never offend anyone. 5. I never have any idea what's going on or why I'm even here. 6. I always quote the warnings my parents gave to me and regret that I didn't heed them. 7. I daydream about returning home all the time. 8. I am always on the verge of panic.
Ideal: d6 1. Panic helps nobody, but it's not always easy to keep my emotions in check. (Lawful) 2. I am nobody. I shouldn't even be here. 3. None of this is how I imagined it would be and I don't like it. 4. I want to find a good, reasonable excuse to abandon my colleagues without upsetting them. 5. If I stay out of the way, maybe I'll get hurt less. 6. Maybe I can find myself out here, but probably not.
Bond: d6 1. My home is my home. I desire nothing more. 2. There is someone at home I must avoid, or else, I'd return at once. 3. If I learn enough about surviving, maybe I can make my way home on my own. 4. I must adventure to help someone important in my life. 5. I only wish to understand what's happening to me and why. 6. I am working toward overcoming my shame that urged me to leave home.
Flaw: d6 1. I'm easily excited and distracted by new - but safe - things. 2. I still want to be known as a valiant adventurer and will overstate my accomplishments and overestimate my confidence. 3. I constantly bemoan being forced to adventure. 4. I just can't figure out what's going on. 5. If I ever encounter an irrevocable choice between returning home or staying to help my colleagues, I will definitely go home. 6. I am afraid of everyone out here in the world.
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.
I made a Roger Wilco (Space Quest), Alfred Strangetides (Oxventure), Christopher Englebert XVII (Oxventure), Bob (Oxventure), Roger Thornhill (North by Northwest), Greg the Garlic Farmer (Epic NPC), Bodger the Blacksmith (Epic NPC), and several of my non-monastic monks background. I don't know who Cedric Digory is.
(Oxventure likes to shanghai the DMs NPCs into their adventures. Epic NPC is where the players are NPCs of an MMO who were unwillingly caught up in an adventure.)
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.
Hello everyone! my D&D group wants to run a campaign with only wacky/weird/funny backgrounds to see what happens. They were having trouble coming up with backgrounds, so when they asked me for help, I couldn't make them up off the top of my head. So, I turned to the interwebs for help! Do you all have any ideas for wacky/weird/funny backgrounds that could tickle any player's funny bone? Thanks! :)
Quick tip: Do not make a "Pervert" background. It might sound silly at first, but there's no comfortable way for anyone to play that at a table.
Here's one:
Fake Hero
People recognize you favorably for deeds you did not commit.
Skill Proficiencies: Deception, Performance
Tool Proficiencies: Two different types of Artisan's tools
Background feature: Fame acquisition: d4
1 - You invented heroic deeds that never happened but were believed by many.
2 - You are constantly mistaken for a real renowned hero and use that to your advantage.
3 - Your sidekick is the real hero, but your sidekick either lets you take all the credit or your sidekick remains silent by other means such as limited communication abilities or duress from you or even due to death.
4 - A hero died and you took the hero's identity for your own.
Personality Trait: d8
1 - I often exaggerate my reported deeds.
2 - I am quick to espouse my supposed deeds to anyone I meet.
3 - I insist that people provide me with items and services for free for being a hero.
4 - I am always eager to please my fans.
5 - I am always available for hire to make public appearances.
6 - If someone recounts my supposed deeds in an unflattering way, I happily correct them with what I think should be said about me.
7 - I always speak in a boisterous, commanding voice.
8 - I always take credit for any heroic deed if nobody owns up to it.
Ideal: d6
1 - Fame. Everyone should know my name. (Any)
2 - Honor. I will do what I can to earn my reputation. (Good)
3 - Justice. I have the authority to pass judgment on people. (Any)
4 - Fraud. My reputation is a tool to get what I want. (Evil)
5 - Inspiring. I serve as an example of what people should aspire to be. (Lawful)
6 - Fate. There is no chance. Fate decided that I'm to be a hero. (Any)
Bond: d6
1 - I seek to bring honor to my family.
2 - I want to be known as a protector of all peoples.
3 - This makes up for being mistreated in my youth.
4 - I have been one of the invisible masses long enough.
5 - I could have been the hero they think I am if I had the same opportunity.
6 - With enough reputation, I can do anything I wish.
Flaw: d6
1 - I am paranoid that someone will learn my secret and don't know what I would do if anyone found out the truth.
2 - I will take any challenge to prove I am the hero that people say I am.
3 - I use my fandom to discredit anyone who questions my heroic status.
4 - I secretly orchestrate events to demonstrate my heroism.
5 - I see other people without a hero's reputation as weaker.
6 - If I am in a life-threatening situation, I will abandon people if their death is all but certain.
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.
I don't have a full background breakdown, but one idea that I always find funny in fiction is when someone is adopted by a different race/species, and then grows up fully convinced they're a member of their parents' species, despite all evidence to the contrary.
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Off the top of my head:
A dwarf has learned that a priest of Moradin keeps a beer so ancient that even the king does not have enough gold to buy it. To buy that beer is his life’s only goal, and if he can sample the drinks of different lands on his journey, that won’t hurt.
A halfling was eating a meal one day when a spider dropped down in front of his nose. He immediately swore an oath to squish every spider in the world, and was shocked when he received a paladin’s powers. Now he has to follow through.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
I don't have enough consciousness to come up with a complete 5e background but:
Solipsist: A person who believes that the only thing that can be proven to exist is the self and only to the point of thought and no further.
In application of a wacky character: Effectively, the character doesn't believe anything exists. EDIT: That includes not believing the character's own body exists and that all that the character experiences are subconscious creations in the character's mind - mind, not brain because the character doesn't believe the brain exists, either. Nothing can convince the character that anything other than the character's own mind exists at all. The character believes that the character's subconscious gets to dictate what the character experiences with currently limited control over it. One of the character's goals can be to learn to control the subconscious to reconstruct the entire imaginary universe according to the character's wishes.
(Sadly: Such a character only has nobody else to blame for anything that happens - but in the same line of thought, nothing actually happened according to that character.)
Further way later EDIT: As for motivations, the character is being forced to experience whatever is in the subconscious whether the character likes it or not. So regardless of the reality, the character must make choices based on what the character is forced to experience in the subconscious creation... until the character can control the subconscious.
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.
The unheir, basically if a family is having a first child they want a boy to inherit the title etc. An unheir is created when they have twin boys, to avoid future conflict over the position, the family covers up the existence of one of the twins. So as not to waste this resource they raise the unheir to do the dirty work, anything where the family need deniability. If the unheir is seen they can make sure the true heir is miles away with an alibi, ensuring that no-one suspects the family.
Accidental Hero
You never wanted any of this. You "just wanna go home".
Skill Proficiencies: Medicine, Stealth
Tool Proficiencies: Two different types of Artisan's Tools
Swept up in Adventure d8
How is it that, despite all intentions, you ended up adventuring? You can work with your DM on the circumstances that took you away from your familiar life.
1. I was recruited into service against my will.
2. I was travelling and returned home to find the entire place destroyed. I had nowhere else to go.
3. I thought adventuring would be fun. I was wrong. It's scary.
4. I was unjustly exiled from my home.
5. I was justly exiled from my home.
6. I was tasked with a job under duress and must complete it before I return.
7. I was lonely and wanted to make friends.
8. I have no idea what happened or what's going on.
Feature: Anonymity.
You are so ordinary that people often forget they met you.
Personality Trait: d8
1. I am a social wallflower. I don't like talking to people.
2. I am so done with all of this. I don't really care what happens, now.
3. I try to equate every situation to something that used to happen at home to remind me of better days.
4. I feel compelled to try to be the nice person, hoping to never offend anyone.
5. I never have any idea what's going on or why I'm even here.
6. I always quote the warnings my parents gave to me and regret that I didn't heed them.
7. I daydream about returning home all the time.
8. I am always on the verge of panic.
Ideal: d6
1. Panic helps nobody, but it's not always easy to keep my emotions in check. (Lawful)
2. I am nobody. I shouldn't even be here.
3. None of this is how I imagined it would be and I don't like it.
4. I want to find a good, reasonable excuse to abandon my colleagues without upsetting them.
5. If I stay out of the way, maybe I'll get hurt less.
6. Maybe I can find myself out here, but probably not.
Bond: d6
1. My home is my home. I desire nothing more.
2. There is someone at home I must avoid, or else, I'd return at once.
3. If I learn enough about surviving, maybe I can make my way home on my own.
4. I must adventure to help someone important in my life.
5. I only wish to understand what's happening to me and why.
6. I am working toward overcoming my shame that urged me to leave home.
Flaw: d6
1. I'm easily excited and distracted by new - but safe - things.
2. I still want to be known as a valiant adventurer and will overstate my accomplishments and overestimate my confidence.
3. I constantly bemoan being forced to adventure.
4. I just can't figure out what's going on.
5. If I ever encounter an irrevocable choice between returning home or staying to help my colleagues, I will definitely go home.
6. I am afraid of everyone out here in the world.
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.
you made a cedric digory background
I made a Roger Wilco (Space Quest), Alfred Strangetides (Oxventure), Christopher Englebert XVII (Oxventure), Bob (Oxventure), Roger Thornhill (North by Northwest), Greg the Garlic Farmer (Epic NPC), Bodger the Blacksmith (Epic NPC), and several of my non-monastic monks background. I don't know who Cedric Digory is.
(Oxventure likes to shanghai the DMs NPCs into their adventures. Epic NPC is where the players are NPCs of an MMO who were unwillingly caught up in an adventure.)
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.
A sorcerer who disbelieves in magic and creates rational explanations for spells and effects.