Earlier in the Roleplaying 101 series, we looked at how to create a compelling character without an extensive backstory. I’ve found that D&D players who consider roleplaying as a key facet of their gaming experience, myself included, tend to get hung up on backstories. Some backstories are so detailed that they shut down any chance of organic character growth through the events played out at the table, while others are so potent that they threaten to re-center the entire campaign around one single character, like a spice drowning out all the other flavors of an otherwise delicious meal.
We explored last time how these problems can be short-circuited by eschewing a complicated backstory all together. This week, however, it’s time to take a explore how to make a rich, full-bodied backstory that enhances your campaign—and that can improve the game for your fellow players, too.
What Goes into a Detailed Backstory?
Whenever I create a backstory for a playable character, I try my best to include three specific elements. These items are inspired by my study of theater and storytelling, but I have to fight back against that training, too; even though my friends and I love roleplaying together, RPGs aren’t novels or plays. For example, a D&D character needs to be capable of being part of a group of adventurers, and there are ways to make that need congruent with your backstory and the character traits which it informs.
Backstory as Inciting Incident
A character’s backstory is the unified record of the most significant events that caused that person to become one of the main characters in this campaign. If not for one (or perhaps several) significant events in your backstory, your character would never have become an adventurer. What was this event? Was it traumatic, like the murder of your parents? Was it mystical, like the discovery of an ancient and enigmatic magical talisman? Was it patriotic, like a summons from the queen to become a royal knight? Or was it aspirational, like inheriting a suit of armor and finally being able to live out your life-long daydream of going on grand adventures?
The best inciting incidents dovetail with the outline of your Dungeon Master’s campaign. If your DM says that this campaign will be focused around Indiana Jones-style archaeological expeditions, do your best to create a backstory that doesn’t make it challenging for your character to want to investigate ancient tombs and put their artifacts in museums.
Backstory as Tinted Glasses
A character’s backstory is more than a starting point: it’s a lens through which all of their future experiences are viewed. The traumas and joys that set your character on the path of an adventurer will inform their behaviors throughout the campaign. For example, in campaign 2 of Critical Role, Liam O’Brien’s wizard Caleb Widogast had a traumatic event in his childhood that shattered his trust in people and institutions which he admired. Now, he views all people and hierarchies with suspicion, if not outright mistrust.
If you’re having a hard time finding a personality for your character, or you feel like you’re leaning too heavily on tropes, return to your backstory. No one’s personality develops in a vacuum, and everyone reacts to joyful and traumatic events differently. A person whose family was slaughtered by a band of marauding humans and orcs, for example, might react in many different ways. They might swear vengeance against all bandits, or they might cower in fear at the sight of orcs. They might even adopt a twisted philosophy of “might makes right” to justify their loss, and perpetuate the cycle of cruelty that they were a victim of.
Backstory as Character-Defining Choice
Most importantly, however, a backstory is something that a character can either choose to embrace or reject over the course of the campaign. If you’ve ever felt like your character’s backstory was a straitjacket that, over time, prevented you from playing your character the way you wanted to, then you may have needed to have your character reject their past. Most characters in games and stories aren’t actively aware of the way that their backstory has shaped them as a person. However, as a character grows and learns more about themselves and about other people, they may realize that they have the power to change their future.
This sort of self-actualization, whether it’s affirming or denying their past, can be an incredibly powerful character moment if played authentically. The moment a character seizes or rejects their past as a defining element of their personality moving into the future is the moment that character takes control of their destiny. The character transforms from a passive onlooker in their own life into someone who takes an active master of their own self. Some characters start as active, transformative people, which is great! But any character has the potential to grow out of a confining backstory, no matter what their personality is like.
What Stays Out of a Detailed Backstory?
A detailed background can pose problems when it makes it difficult for your own character to grow organically as new events shape their life. That is, when your character lives in the past rather than in the present, their narrative inertia can cause the campaign to lose forward momentum. An excessively complicated backstory can also steal the spotlight from other players, and create unpleasant drama at the gaming table.
As a player, you can use these suggestions as a diagnostic tool to help you make sure that your character’s backstory won’t get in the way of your friends’ fun. As a Dungeon Master, you can also use these suggestions to help get all of your players on the same page, so that they can avoid these pitfalls.
Material that Contradicts the Campaign or Setting
When preparing a D&D campaign with a significant roleplaying element, the best DMs send out a campaign primer to their players beforehand. This doesn’t have to be long—and it could be the subject of a future article—but it gives the players just enough details about the setting and tone of the campaign for them to create characters that mesh with the campaign the DM wants to run. It also lets the DM and the players have a conversation about any elements that they find disagreeable, or absent elements that they think might enhance the campaign.
As a player, once you have a campaign primer, take note of the setting—where and when and in what world the campaign takes place—and the tone; that is, if the campaign seems like it will be lighthearted and airy, or grim and gritty. You don’t have to go out of your way to match your character to the setting or the tone, but you should do your best not to contradict anything that your DM has presented to you.
Backstory Mismatch
Just like wealth inequality, backstory inequality can cause tension at the gaming table. This occurs when some players at the table write long and complicated backstories, while others keep their prose short and sweet. Neither style is better than the other, but there are times when an overlong backstory can hog the DM’s attention, and even steal the spotlight from other players during gameplay. A concise backstory that sufficiently explains your character’s motivations and idiosyncrasies is fantastic, but an epic-length tale complete with genealogies and replete with NPCs for the DM to steal has the power to enchant a DM. It might be sunk-cost fallacy (“I spent so much time reading this backstory that I’d better make use of it!”) or it might be actual usability (“Look at all these NPCs and plot hooks my player provided me with!”), but it can make players whose backstories are shorter and more utilitarian feel underappreciated.
If you have this problem as a DM, you can try to solve it by requesting that all backstories be of a specific length, just as if you were an English teacher asking for an essay. One page is a pretty good length. Alternatively, you could ask for everyone to provide one NPC and one character-based plot hook related to their backstory. And if someone doesn’t deliver what you’re asking for, turn it back and ask action. If you find that this tactic isn’t working with one or two of your players in particular, they may not be looking for the same type of game as you are. This is a good point to see who actually wants to play a roleplaying-focused campaign, and who wants something else out of their D&D experience.
Overfilling
Likewise, your backstory shouldn’t be an exhaustive history of your character. For one, it takes an excessive amount of time to write all that. Second, leaving space in your backstory is a boon to your friends, and your DM. The benefit to you is that it allows you to improvise new backstory elements if you need to. Or, if creating entirely new backstory elements mid-game isn’t appealing to you, it can allow you to add new details to your back-historical events that help smoothly integrate your backstory into the current events of your campaign.
Leaving room for further elucidation in your backstory is helpful for your fellow players and for your DM because it gives them opportunities to link their stories to yours. Allowing events from one character’s backstory have some significance in another characters’, or in the larger plot your DM is weaving, helps the story of the campaign feel like a united tapestry, rather than a patchwork quilt of different characters.
What guidelines do you follow when creating your characters’ backstory, or when asking your players to create one for your campaign? What’s the best backstory you’ve ever created? Share it in the comments below!
James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and the Critical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, the DM of Worlds Apart, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and Kobold Press. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his partner Hannah and their feline adventurers Mei and Marzipan. You can usually find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.
Phenomenal guide, I think being so guilty of overfilling a backstory, I often am flabbergasted when a new player rocks up without a backstory, yet I was once there. But yes, definitely guilty.
Again, great guide I shall be using thoroughly - keep it up!
I have made to many characters with detailed backgrounds who die in their first fight. But characters with detailed backgrounds are normally more fun to play. Especially drow.
Great article as always James.
One method of generating backstory I like came from the Dresden Files RPG. Without settling too long on the details, each player comes up with a previous adventure for their character. Then you pass the sheets around the table, and now the other players describe their role in that previous adventure. It creates a rich history, but just as importantly, a shared history. It's always a good bet to start the game with the characters knowing each other already, but having actual details to flesh it out will make it feel a lot more visceral to the players.
Of course, if that sounds like too much work, a different resource for that might be a Group Template. Fear the Boot, a gaming podcast, has a 10-question form that covers the basics of why the adventuring party is together and what keeps them that way. Definitely worth considering for any Session 0 work.
I have a few general rules for my players' backstories that I also follow when rolling up a new character.
1. Use bullet points. This keeps it legible and encourages brevity. Each bullet should cover a single event, and should be limited to 1-2 sentences.
2. Keep events limited. I don't need to know about every time a character has used the bathroom, and the same goes for other small details in the character's life. Players are free to dream up those details, but I only need what I can possibly use as a plot device. In most cases, I don't even need the names of parents, siblings, etc. Mostly just the ones who actively played a role in that character becoming an adventurer.
3. The game should be the story. We gather together to share an experience. Not to hear you talk about imaginary experiences your character has had before the game began. There can be major events that occurred in the character's life, but those should be factors that made you decide to become an adventurer, not necessarily adventures on their own. A level 1 character is certainly more capable and experienced than a normal commoner, but they should still be several adventures away from being a legendary warrior IMO.
None of these rules are set in stone, but I give them to give the players a baseline to consider. If they want to drift away from these rules, they should consult me and I'll try to lean "Yes" on why their ideas can work.
My own character actually breaks rule #3, as he's an old grizzled army commander with a lot of battle experience. However, he was injured and disgraced, so he no longer has the fighting ability he once had, nor does he have command over troops and resources. I wanted an interesting backstory, but I still tried to justify why this character would be starting at lvl 1. So I say that in his prime, he was maybe the equivalent of a lvl 8 or 9 fighter, but now he's back where he started and has to work his way back up.
What you wrote in a few concise paragraphs is something I've been trying to communicate for decades. Awesome work.
My celestial eladrin fell down some stairs...the Infinite Stairway, to be specific.
After his fall, he ended up in the Material Plane, but the shock caused his personality to fracture, and now he's your typical Eladrin, fluctuating between the seasons and colors.
As a Glamour Bard, he's slowly regaining his original celestial appearance, as part of the normal glamour features.
Naturally, he has the "Far Traveler" background.
It's a perfect fit!
Voila, backstory is all done!
I'm having trouble coming up with a backstory for my dwarf wizard.... All I know is that he left his mountain village to seek more knowledge, arcane and otherwise
This helps me so much! I often create characters with far too much backstory and my DM has no idea what to use and what not to use. Awesome article, I hope to see more like it
I started a campaign about a month back with an interesting situation where only two of my players had a fleshed out backstory (one of them pretty detailed) and the other three had absolutely no backstory outside of the backgrounds they chose (and two of them chose the same one, lol). That said, everyone had a pretty good idea of how they wanted to play their character, and it went pretty dang well.
I like to ask my players for 1-3 NPCs (don't have to be for plot hooks, just at least people their PC cares about), 1 long-term goal, and a couple things their PC cares about so if I as a DM present one of those things I know they will react to it (aka Knives)
I used to really enjoy writing down my more fleshed out character backstories, but I was never one for writing a biography. I instead wrote a short story for that character, which would highlight either a defining moment in their life (how they became an adventurer) or why they were in the area that the campaign was starting in.
My favorite backstory I ever wrote was for a Pathfinder Oracle. The character was born blind, and the story recounted the moment she was granted sight by the god she would later follow.
Surprised no one has mentioned the helpful backstory prompt generators in Xanathar's and how they can help flesh out or assist in brainstorming unique backgrounds.
Good Essay :) Thank you!
But you missed this whopper of a PITA:
The Overhyped Backstory...
Jolly MacVengeance was slighted by a foreign prince so he went away to train. He trained until he could heft cows over his head and could sneak past the most wary cyclops, and this all took a while week! He then waged a one man war on the foreign prince's army, slaying over a thousand fully armored soldiers while only being cut once, and that a minor annoyance that healed into a super cool scar over his right eye. Finally in a grand showdown, Jolly threw a massive bolt of lightning that literally shattered the entire fortress the prince had hidden in. There was nothing left so Jolly hit the road as a 1st level Ranger.
Remember to write the back story to your character's starting level. If you are first level, killing an ankheg is a good start for a Folk Hero; a hilariously raunchy getaway started the road to adventurer status for the Entertainer... John Wick is not 1st level, but your character is.
Sometimes that backstory is a list of basic events, sometimes it is prose. Haeck's advice to "provide one NPC and one character-based plot hook related to their backstory" is a great baseline that can help tie your PC to the campaign. And from my experience I can surely suggest that the game is so much bigger when you invest in the setting and story! :D
I once played a Dwarf Wizard. He was a devoted follower of Moradin and served as an up and coming smith. However, his greed got the better of him and he stole some mithral bars from the stores. He had them for the better part of an evening before his self loathing and sense of guilt caused him to return the bars to the stores. He told the Forge Master what he had done, and his shame for it. The Forge Master sent him on a quest to retrieve a great artifact and to return it to the clan to reclaim his honor...
I'm going to make my players read this so they understand why I'm asking them all the questions I do. 😅
As a DM, I find that the length of a backstory is not what determines it's usefulness to me, it's the detail that it has. Specifically, details and hooks that I can incorporate into the game. Giving me NPCs that I can work with is always a bonus as well. Here are some questions you might try asking yourself about your character to try to flesh out some of those details:
Where is the village? Does he have responsibilities there that he is shirking? Did he leave family\friends behind that might try to find him?
As a wizard is he self-taught or did he have a mentor? Does this mentor have any enemies that might try to hurt him indirectly through a pupil?
What is his end goal for the knowledge he is seeking once he find it? How will he know when he has found "enough"?
Is he seeking something specific or just general knowledge? If specific, are there others seeking this thing as well? If general, does he have a destination in mind for where to begin his journey?
Another question I'd try to answer here: How far is he willing to go to attain this knowledge? One of the classic fantasy adventure elements is forbidden knowledge and the cost incurred for seeking/attaining it. (This is half the premise of the warlock class.)
Admittedly, I might be guilty of overfilling my backstories. I typically have about three paragraphs of material. On the plus side, we're currently running a modified Out of the Abyss, and since all of my backups have no connection to the Underdark, a lengthy backstory doesn't really interfere with anything the DM is planning. My current character is a little more connected to the Underdark, but the DM still approved the character.