Pretty much what they said ^

Different foods, people, customs.

Sidenote: My worlds don't have horses. So what throws my players is when unicorns show up.

Quote from AEDorsay >>

QOTD: What makes a game world seem "foreign" or "alien" to you; what are things you have encountered that have made you think "we aren't in kansas anymore, toto!"

 

I think the big thing I've used is customs.

When the party went beneath the mountain and encountered dwarves, I had some unique customs there.

But, it still felt like "fantasy."

I think where my players really felt it was a region known as "The Broken Lands" - where I made it very clear, from NPCs also traveling to the city of Drastor - that the people there did not tolerate thieves or dishonor. For example, they cut off the hands of thieves, the tongues from liars who spill dishonor on a family, and if you dishonor someone's daughter, you know what else they will cut off. I also made so that if you wear armor or carry weapons, the people take it that you mean to cause trouble and the guards will treat you harshly, almost trying to provoke you. They also don't follow the common gods; rather they have their heroes they "pay tribute to." So even religion from the outside is not welcomed, overall.

The players really felt nervous with everything they did in this town - which was great.

Different weapons and armor. This guy, oh, he's carrying a gnomish hooked hammer. Yep, it has its own rules. These guards are wearing... thatch plate. You better believe it's got a unique set of stats.

Different tools can also work. He has a lens cutter's kit. She sells gas masks. Over here you can see some people using special chisels to carve steel.

But the biggest one is when their magic works differently. Unique spells, different costs than spell slots. These guys crack open an egg to cast their spell, and they can keep casting until they run out of eggs. Whatever.

Question of the Day: Do you, or the DM, write your character's backstory? Do you even care about a backstory? Is it different (who writes the backstory) whether it's homebrew or a pre-generated module (say, like Storm King's Giants)?

I would prefer to write the backstory myself or be given a selection of choices by the GM.

For myself it's not a big deal because all that really matters is what happens when we start rolling the dice.

As a GM sometimes it can be helpful to know what a player might like to see in the game or something I can incorporate into the game. But if there is nothing there that is fine too.

Quote from SirTawmis >>

Question of the Day: Do you, or the DM, write your character's backstory? Do you even care about a backstory? Is it different (who writes the backstory) whether it's homebrew or a pre-generated module (say, like Storm King's Giants)?

I write my own backstories as a player, but I specifically make them fairly short and leave lots of things specifically vague so that my DMs can have lots and lots of free range to play with them however they want to fit things in however they feel like. So if my DM suddenly tells me I have a sister it’s not a problem (unless I specified my character is an only child), stuff like that.

As a DM I ask my players for at least 3 sentences of a backstory that include:

• 1 detail about their character’s home life
• 1 significant event in their character’s life
• How/why they began adventuring

Quote from SirTawmis >>

Question of the Day: Do you, or the DM, write your character's backstory? Do you even care about a backstory? Is it different (who writes the backstory) whether it's homebrew or a pre-generated module (say, like Storm King's Giants)?

 

 Oh, they do.

They being the Players.

Unless it is an NPC, in which case I do.

I provide a lot of extra stuff to help though -- Each Heritage (race) has some element of the people's backstory as a whole in it, and talks about how the typical person grows up. The same applies to the Homeland (where they come from). I also have a more perspective based alignment system, 20 questions at initial start about the character (and we do different questions at 3rd and 5th levels as well), values (codes of virtue and vice), the reason to adventure, the assorted traits and bonds and all that tables from the different books (suggesting XGE first), and a whole section on appearance, tics, and the like.

Most of which is optional at creation to some degree or other. Creating a character is a whole session, at least, as well, because I do the "everyone does them at the same time and together" thing. 

And that all comes before we go into backgrounds, which follow the 2024 approach of "create your own", and are broken up into "ages 1 to 10" and "ages 11 to 20". So everyone has two backgrounds -- Origin (their life as a young child) and Juvenal (their life leading into when they became an adventurer).

Then they pick their class, and that usually cements it. In regular terms, the flow is Ability Scores, Race, Home, Alignment, Personality, Appearance, Background, Class.  Backgrounds can be varied when we use them -- sometimes earlier, sometimes later -- but the previous is the usual order. Each step adds another layer to the character (for example, the Values stuff includes some basic ones in the Heritage and Homelands, because you have family values and social values, and to them is added the hand picked ones, and so you end up with a bunch of them that may then conflict with personality or background stuff, creating interesting dilemmas).

When I am asked to write backgrounds, they follow a predictable path, lol -- a bunch of ugly shit happened, and you overcame it in some way.  I am sometimes asked to do it, especially for newer players, but I generally avoid it and prefer to just ask questions to help them figure out things.

Quote from SirTawmis >>

Question of the Day: Do you, or the DM, write your character's backstory? Do you even care about a backstory? Is it different (who writes the backstory) whether it's homebrew or a pre-generated module (say, like Storm King's Giants)? 

 Any DM would insist on writing their players’ PCs’ backstories is too much of a micromanager for me to want to play with them.

Quote from IamSposta >>

Quote from SirTawmis >>

Question of the Day: Do you, or the DM, write your character's backstory? Do you even care about a backstory? Is it different (who writes the backstory) whether it's homebrew or a pre-generated module (say, like Storm King's Giants)?

I write my own backstories as a player, but I specifically make them fairly short and leave lots of things specifically vague so that my DMs can have lots and lots of free range to play with them however they want to fit things in however they feel like.

 See, I did too, and I even made it clear to the DMs what I was doing and why, but they just didn't do anything with it.

From now on I think I'm going to just invent stuff that's so far away that there's no point for the DM to bother saying it's untrue. My characters are all have girlfriends but they live in Canada and I don't have any pictures of them

You know that's kinda funny.

I didn't say anything to IamSposta's approach, but I will say that the more involved a backstory is, the easier it is for me to create something. 

I love to work backstory stuff into my campaigns -- a campaign outline isn't finished to me until I have that. And I like to have at least one surprise (drawn from their backstory) as well as to add something into the plot of some aspect of the Campaign at some point. Since my campaigns can have simultaneous plots, and in part because I use fairly traditional or standard structures that have certain archetypes, whenever I see a chance to link one I will grab it.

(for those who are really familiar with Propp's stuff, I blend several different heroic cycles [hero's journey, virgin's promise, heroine's journey] together and use propp's fairy tale archetypes throughout for key NPCs)

I never plan it out, though -- it has to come from the backstories and the overall campaign in combination, or it doesn't work. This is how I can have the standard romance plot blend into the whole, for example (I always do triangles and a choice, an everyone calls them "Toni's Hallmark Moments" because I am bad at them and they can be a little predictable, but sweet).

Sometimes I might suggest adding something in during character creation if an idea spurred by something going on hits me, but mostly it is first in consult with the player and then it is later sitting and thinking up something that makes use of features the player may not have considered in their choices and ideas.

I will say I don't even try to link something in until 3rd level or so. Gotta give them time to forget it will happen, lol.

GAARRR!!!! I just had a whole Dorsay style essay post extolling the benefits of a more concise backstory written out, and DDB just effing ate it!!! GAAHHH!!!

Quote from IamSposta >>

GAARRR!!!! I just had a whole Dorsay style essay post extolling the benefits of a more concise backstory written out, and DDB just effing ate it!!! GAAHHH!!!

 I hit liked as if it was a consolation hug.

as one can imagine, I get this a lot, and so the feelz are very real.

Quote from AEDorsay >>

Quote from IamSposta >>

GAARRR!!!! I just had a whole Dorsay style essay post extolling the benefits of a more concise backstory written out, and DDB just effing ate it!!! GAAHHH!!!

 I hit liked as if it was a consolation hug.

as one can imagine, I get this a lot, and so the feelz are very real.

 
Thank you.🙏 

Quote from AWierdPotato >>

Quote from SirTawmis >>

Question of the Day: Do you, or the DM, write your character's backstory? Do you even care about a backstory? Is it different (who writes the backstory) whether it's homebrew or a pre-generated module (say, like Storm King's Giants)? 

 Any DM would insist on writing their players’ PCs’ backstories is too much of a micromanager for me to want to play with them.

 Ah, but some people either don't want to, or aren't sure of a backstory, so they may ask their DM to do it.

Especially for a bunch of first time players. I did that for a group that had never played D&D (except one of them had been playing for a few months). So I asked them to fill out their flaws, scribble down any ideas they had for a back story (whether it was a simple, "I want him/her to have come from a farm background" (one liner) - or more. And I wrote it up and fleshed it out, made sure they were cool with it and welcomed any changes. 

Like AEDorsay, the more fleshed out a background, the more I have to pull from. I will always, 200% of the time, use a character's backstory and find a way to weave it into some legs of the adventure. This makes their character and background feel important, and often really gets that player super engaged when that happens.

A good example, is what I call my "Work Game" - one of the players had NEVER played D&D. She'd played CRPGs, and was an avid World of Warcraft player, so she understood the concept behind D&D. But had never played it. And she made a High Elf Cleric - and she didn't RP too much - she pretty much played it like a WoW character, just dropping heals and casting spells. (Which is all right... we all get something different from D&D... some want RP, some want to just hang out, some want to just roll dice, some want to make the best character and kill everything, whatever brings you to the table!) However, when I worked in the story with the Drow and the poisoning of the Dwarves - her RP suddenly kicked in because she was aware in my world how the Drow are viewed - especially by the High Elves. (In my world the Drow turned on the Elves, hating that they were being restricted by what magic was "right" - and turned to evil. So she was really into it. And has RP'ed much more since then. Then the story came to the Githyanki (which in my world have a different origin than standard D&D - they're elves who worship an ancient serpent demon-god, and they're hated by all elves - even the Drow) - so once again, her RP kicked into high gear. And they even rescued a female Drow captain - and SHE did the RP with the Drow captain to say they should be allies - for now - because the greater enemy is the Githyanki. It was very, very epic.

Now - now that she's played and RP'ed so much - now I bet she could create her own character background very easily.

... or maybe I am a micromanager that you'd never want to play with. lol

One of the most important things about having characters create a back story is that you can't push them to do "more", though.

I have a lot of stuff set up to help guide that process -- but sometimes even my most experienced player will skip over it. And newer players will give brief one word answers, lol. The Values system we use is super simple -- basically an idea based on the Seven Heavenly virtues and the seven deadly sins. It can, ultimately, by itself, provide all the backstory basis one could want -- so some folks will jump to that part and work backwards. Others will skip it entirely.

The detail stuff I have for creating Appearance, for example, is mostly for helping the player describe their character to an artist (I even include hex color codes, lol). And isn't essential to start off with.

All told, I can usually do a complete back story with background and traits in four paragraphs. Some of my players do it in that many sentences, lol. I'm wordy. We all know this, lol.

I can often work with what I am given -- the more information (not necessarily detail, I may have misspoke earlier) the easier it is. I usually have 9 characters to work with in a given session, so I already have a high demand. If I only have four to six, the demand is less, things change a bit.

But also, I start thinking about all of it from the first. While everyone is figuring out their characters, I am figuring out how I will drop them into the story, how to tie them into the world, how to adjust encounters and revise traps, and all of that.

I am also throwing out the zero session stuff and the jokes and being a good hostess (digitally or in person -- if I could afford to send out frozen food packs each session I so would, lol) and answering questions and talking about little things about the world.

So it can be a bit hectic for me. If everyone is quick, then we move into the meeting of the minds (where the players describe how they meet). If it takes a bit more time, then we move into that in the next session. It is the "calm before the storm" in a lot of ways, and so I hate having to try and push someone into doing anything they aren't ready for yet.

But that's also why we revisit those things later, as part of the regular game. They've had some adventures, they've decided they want to change things about their character, they came up with a cool idea from something in a previous session. By revisiting it at 3rd level we can expand a little more, but also adjust and adapt and tweak. Then we do it again at 5th level, and from there they are usually very familiar with their characters and comfortable in what they have and how they are going to do it. We don't go up in levels *that* fast, so there is some in-game history to build on.

And by that time, all of the things I like are there. Because I've also been learning their characters. THey are amazing, every time. 

Also, side benefit, if anyone dies at low levels, they can quickly make up a new character, lol. After 3rd it gets harder, and by 5th, they are so invested that I am terrified of killing them, lol. 

Quote from AEDorsay >>

Also, side benefit, if anyone dies at low levels, they can quickly make up a new character, lol. After 3rd it gets harder, and by 5th, they are so invested that I am terrified of killing them, lol. 

 Yeah - I have a homebrew rule. Up until Level 3, you can go -10 health. You're considered bleeding out. And giving a potion or healing spells do not work because the wound is too grievous - so, if you're below 0, spells and potions do not do any good. A person must be stabilized (Spare the Dying or a successful Medicine check). Medicine Check DC is 10 + the amount below their health. So if they're -2 below their health, Medicine Check DC is 12. If they're -10, then the DC is 20. Every failed Medicine check inflicts 1 more point of damage to the dying person. Once stabilized then they can potion and drop spells on them all they want. If a person is damaged to exactly 0 HP, they fall unconscious and potions and spells will work. Only if they fall below 0 does the above apply.

I do this because between level 1 and 2, a lucky crit by an enemy can bring a player to death. I'd much rather have them be in the game. Once they reach level 3, then it's normal death saves and what not - because by then, they've got a larger pool of HP and they've also selected the "path" of their class which is also going to make them more durable. However, I do maintain the rule that if someone goes down (to below 0) - they must be stabilized (same above rules) before potions and spells can do any good. This puts use to the Medicine check which is so rarely, otherwise used in my game. They would, as I said, continue to do death saves. So if they do 3 successful death saves, they go to 0 and are unconscious. Same thing, if they drop to 0 exactly, potions and spells will work. Only below 0 would they not.

Quote from SirTawmis >>

Quote from AWierdPotato >>

Quote from SirTawmis >>

Question of the Day: Do you, or the DM, write your character's backstory? Do you even care about a backstory? Is it different (who writes the backstory) whether it's homebrew or a pre-generated module (say, like Storm King's Giants)? 

 Any DM would insist on writing their players’ PCs’ backstories is too much of a micromanager for me to want to play with them.

 Ah, but some people either don't want to, or aren't sure of a backstory, so they may ask their DM to do it. 

 
There’s a difference between someone asking their DM to write their backstory vs a DM insisting on writing the characters’ backstories.

One of my players wanted a backstory and he’s pretty new to dnd so I helped him with it. I didn’t dictate it I just wrote it and he can modify it as he sees fit.

Quote from IamSposta >>

Quote from SirTawmis >>

Quote from AWierdPotato >>

Quote from SirTawmis >>

Question of the Day: Do you, or the DM, write your character's backstory? Do you even care about a backstory? Is it different (who writes the backstory) whether it's homebrew or a pre-generated module (say, like Storm King's Giants)? 

 Any DM would insist on writing their players’ PCs’ backstories is too much of a micromanager for me to want to play with them.

 Ah, but some people either don't want to, or aren't sure of a backstory, so they may ask their DM to do it. 

 
There’s a difference between someone asking their DM to write their backstory vs a DM insisting on writing the characters’ backstories.

 Yeah, but I didn't ask if the DM insisted. I just asked who, generally does it. They themselves, does the DM, or some people don't even care about backstories (DM and players alike).