Five Awful Character Backstory Clichés in Dungeons & Dragons 5e

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description below or visit world anvil comm to try it out for free today and now on to this week's episode greetings my name is Monte Martin and I'm Kelley McLaughlin and we are the dungeon dudes welcome to our channel where we cover everything Dungeons and Dragons including advice for players and guides her dungeon masters we upload new videos every Thursday so please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode today we're taking a look at five awful character backstory cliches when we're creating characters for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition we love to imagine the mechanics of our characters but we also love to imagine who our characters were before the adventures begin many of us draw inspiration from our favorite fantasy book series movies comic books video games and more and while there's some brilliant character backstory ideas out there that inform our characters personality traits and ideals and lead to some amazing role-playing outcomes time and time again we see players come to the table with really a cliched character idea and in many cases these classic clichés don't have very good role-playing outcomes all of the examples were presenting today can actually be role played really well and be very rewarding for the players who engage with them and they aren't classics for a reason time and time again we have seen these types of characters in literature or film and television that have these types of cliche backstory elements but the whole idea here is that you can roleplay them really really well but you can also fall into common pitfalls and traps with these types of cliche backstories that can actually lead to role-playing dead ends for your character these story elements have the potential of making your character backstory irrelevant or in some cases they make it very limited in how you can engage with the world the other players or the adventure itself we're gonna dive in and take a look at five of these classic tropes talk about what the problems are and how we can breathe a breath of fresh air into them there's lots to discuss so let's get rolling to kick things off let's start with one of the most cliche story elements in all of fiction and that is the my family or my parents are dead we've seen this time and time again with Batman or Rey from Star Wars or Harry Potter all of which come from a pretty decimated family backstory where they are looking and seeking answers to what that is it is a really awesome plotline to tie into your character but it could in turn make your character just somebody who is wandering around without any real connections to anybody that exists in the world that you've created rather than being a disconnected drifter having a dead family can result in a character that is a burning seething ball of white-hot rage questing for the revenge at those who destroyed their family now let's not mince words losing your parents and your family can be a really traumatic event and trauma is one of those things that does generate great stories for fantasy and dramatic characters but in just many cases player characters default having dead friends and family because they don't want their characters to have any connections to the world that the dungeon master could possibly use against them either but the thing is here that that is exactly what you want when you're creating a character your characters should have NBC connections this actually allows an agency to exist for that character when those NPCs come into play having something to lose as a character means that you have a chance to be more invested in the story and the dungeon master who sees your backstory has an opportunity to take those elements and create something beautiful that will tie your character into that world into that plotline for all of the time that you're playing this character and really allow you to feel like part of the world if you do want to create a character that has dead or missing family members it's really important that you discuss with your DM and make it very clear to your dungeon master that you are interested in solving this mystery and you want this to be an important part of your character's story oftentimes the problem with this is that the dungeon master takes that and says that that has to be the penultimate goal your character leaving that plotline dangling through the entire campaign while your party confronts the big bad evil guy who in typical fashion turns out to be the one that killed your parents I find that we really need to work hard as Dungeon Master's and players to break these tropes it doesn't always have to be that the big bad evil guy wronged every single person in the party it makes a lot of sense when that happens but we can explore alternatives where perhaps maybe your player character gets to solve the problem of their family's missing and murdered members very early on in the campaign and then has to wrestle with that later on and give find new goals and new motivations for adventuring also just because you've decided that this is the main element of your character's backstory it's still worthwhile to think about who they know how they grew up and who they're close to whether that's friends or distant family cousins or brothers and sisters or aunts and uncles you could even do mentors or teachers or close friends at some point in their life these characters must have made a connection to somebody and by adding these NPCs into your backstory you're giving fodder to the dungeon master to create a more well thought-out and interesting world that your character is already a part of there's a great saying that goes people have two families the one that you were born into and the one that you make during your life so even if your character's blood relatives are dead dying or missing your character can have a string of connections to other friends and new family members whether that is lovers or lost siblings cousins or just friends that they've made along the way people that ground your character and give your characters some of a thing to care about if the world is going to be threatened by the big bad evil guy there should be some people that are living in it that your character cares about as well these give your character some meaningful stakes and investment in the world that your Dungeon Master is running your campaign in at the end of the day we find characters that have something to lose far more interesting than characters that have nothing to lose what you want to do is talk to your DM about your care ders image and backstory so that you can work together to make sure that they fit into the world and belong there and that's really what you want to avoid is creating a character who has no connections to anything and doesn't really care about anything other than their burning hot vengeance even if your character only cares about their burning hot vengeance that gives a DM a lot more to work with then our next terrible trait which is a character that simply has no reason to be an adventurer at all they have no motivation they are a coward unwilling to actually go on the adventure or actually engage with the plot hooks that the dungeon master has put in front of them because for whatever reason money's not worth anything to them or they don't want to help anybody and they only care about themselves your character that you're creating needs to be invested in the adventure if you create a character and the DM presents you with the adventure hook and your statement is my character wouldn't participate in this adventure well it's time to make a new character you need your character to be motivated to pursue a goal to work with others to align with certain people fight against others and achieve something over the course of the campaign if your character isn't motivated or doesn't care then what interest is there in playing this character through the campaign character motivation is a two-way street as a player character if you just present a backstory to your dungeon master and expect your Dungeon Master to go through that and find a reason to motivate your character you're not doing your half of the equation Dungeon Master's have a ton of work to do and when you have to take five completely different or more player characters and find a reason to hook every single one of those player characters into the overall campaign arc that can be a lot of work for the dungeon master so part of it has to be on you as a player to find reasons in your character's personality and backstory to take the bait that the dungeon master presents you this allows you to engage with the adventure even if it doesn't perfectly relate to your character's core motivations one of the ways that you could address this is basically I think that every character in Dungeons & Dragons campaigns in general has to have one of two things that they're willing to do they either have to be able to be willing and able to do a dangerous task for the right amount of money or they have to be able to make a personal risk to help others in need if your character doesn't have a price or ethics and morals then it is very difficult for a dungeon master to present motivations to you as a character if you're not willing to work for money and you don't care about other people who are in need it's really really hard as a DM to hook your character into the plot coming up with a characters motivator could be as simple as just writing down one sentence about your character that you can later expand on this might be something as simple as my character needs to defend their hometown or my family expects this of me or I need to pay off my gambling debt a really great idea is just figure out why does your character need money everybody in the world needs money and it doesn't need to be triggered by greed there's a lot of reasons why every person in the whole world needs some sort of financial income and maybe your character needs a lot of it and needs it fast and needs to go on an adventure to get it because they can be very rewarding another great way to motivate your character is to give your character ideals that are connected to your characters backstory maybe your character in their backstory was mistreated by their master or as an apprentice to another knight or wizard they were constantly berated and treated very badly and today they cannot stand it when someone in a position of authority mistreats people underneath them that's a great role-playing hook that can get your character into some interesting situations and perhaps a lot of trouble but it connects in with your characters ideals and their backstory and gives them a great motivation to roleplay and act in certain situations lastly you want to be careful for overly specific goals for your character when you're creating a backstory your overall goal is to give your DM fodder to connect you to the world an overly specific goal might turn and twist the campaign to make you the main focus when really if you give looser goals or things that you wish to accomplish that could be accomplished in a numb of different ways the DM now has an option of weaving that into the already existing plot lines of the campaign and finding a way to make it stand out for you and your character if your character has such a specific goal that they only want to pursue that goal and nothing else well then the other player characters are just sidekicks in your story and that's not very fair to them you need to have an open-ended motivation for your character so that the other characters motivations and stories can all mesh together and participate equally in the campaign next up we come to another major pitfall with all of these ideas whirling around in your head for your character's backstory there is a tendency to over write and over prepare and that's where we get into the storied history of our character what you are actually trying to do is you're writing chapter 1 of their narrative what was your character doing what were they up to and what was the trigger that sent them on this adventure you stop there and let the adventure fill in the rest of that story over the years I've seen player characters come to me with very ambitious and epic backstories I've had characters that have had dealings with demon Lords and angels travels to other planes of existence lineages involving kings and emperors and powerful wizards already baked into their backstory sometimes this is really really cool and it has been done really really well by some players but in other cases it loads that character with so much baggage and expectation that I have to look at that whole backstory and go hey your characters level 1 there is no way you went to the upper plains got the sword of an angel and came down and challenged Orcas to personally duel him and you're still only third level and now you're gonna go to a cave and fight goblins that doesn't make any sense your character probably isn't going to be a great hero right off the bat but that doesn't mean they can't be heroic I'm gonna use Aragorn from Lord of the Rings as an example a very heroic character but he started off as a wandering Nomad trying to run away from his destiny it was through the adventure or the campaign that he become heroic and that's where you want all the fun things to happen even though he started off as a pretty heroic character really his heroism came out through the adventure your backstory needs to be packed with ammunition that your your Dungeon Master can involve in the campaign if the most interesting things that happen to your player character happened in their past it really sets the whole campaign up at a very high bar if the story's already peaked at the climax where's it gonna go from there so make sure that in your backstory you're setting up the threads for interesting things to happen to your character because ultimately the coolest things that happen to your character should be the things that happen at the table during the game if those things have already happened in your character's backstory well you don't get to experience those firsthand during the game itself if you do want to tie your character in to epic and powerful entities in the campaign world such as gods dragons demon Lords and arch wizards you should work with your dungeon master really really closely in most cases Dungeon Master's are thrilled and excited that you want a character connected to the world in such ways and they will be more than happy to talk to you about all the awesome entities that could be floating out there in Peru in the periphery if you want your character to have a noble bloodline that they're part of that they can discover that lineage all you need to say to your DM is it'd be really cool if my character discovered that they were part of a noble bloodline and your Dungeon Master is probably gonna do that for you and they can take it from there in fact you can create mysteries for your character and say to your dungeon master outwardly I want there to be some mysteries for my character that I can solve that relate to their personal backstory I don't want there to beat them there to be there but I don't necessarily need to know what they are yet and in fact for me as a dungeon master there's a lot more that I can work with by a player character by a player telling me what they want for their character in abstract terms rather than being really specific and saying my character is descended from the 19th lineage of King Ormond the next point that we come to is that everybody loves a scoundrel it's one of people's favorite characters in almost any literature movie TV series the scoundrel is always a great character but you want to be really careful when creating a lone wolf type character who doesn't play well with others this is a favorite archetype particularly for new players that are playing rogues or barbarians or other characters that are brash abrasive or in it for themselves the problem with this is that as we said before Dungeons and Dragons is a group activity it's about a group of characters working together to overcome great obstacles explore dungeons and slay monsters and solve mysteries and a lone wolf who doesn't play well with others is a very different cult conceit to manage under these circumstances it works so well in stories and movies because there's an author in control of that character and gets to decide when they break with the party and when they don't for the most dramatic part but if you're gonna be a lone wolf who's gonna break away from the entire party that's gonna short-circuit the game flow in some respect because now the dungeon master either has to exclude you or exclude everybody else when your character goes off on their own commando style to try to solve the problem on their own I've used this pop culture example before for this same type of thing but I'd like to mention Han Solo and the reason is if we look at the other steps here Han Solo was motivated by money but grew attached to the party and decided that he wanted to help them out and protect them anyway this is all through the course of episode 4 and then for the rest of the series he is friends with them this is a great example of how to play a lone wolf type character properly no matter what you need a hook that invests you into the adventure of the party that makes you want to participate with them and through this you should be lenient to the idea of becoming friends with the party even if you're playing an evil character in a campaign you need to have a reason why you're not just murdering the party and that there is a goal that you are working together to achieve I think one of the things that many players who are enamored with the lone wolf idea and character concept Mis is that in so many stories where there is a lone wolf character the lone Wolf's arc is about learning how to not be a lone wolf anymore but in Dungeons & Dragons people that pick up this archetype don't pick up on that that's the arc that you're choosing when you become a lone wolf so if you want to make a character that is a lone wolf you're actually committing yourself to not being a lone wolf anymore and learning how to not be one that's what's cool and memorable about these characters that's what these characters experience in so many literary archetypes a lone wolf that stays a lone wolf is usually a villainous character that dies in the end so we come to our final point which is the perfectly boring person when you're creating a character there's a whole section in there for flaws and time and time again we have seen people create characters who have very weak flaws flaws that will never come up in the campaign and they play their character as if they are perfect beings but this actually creates a very boring character at the table that doesn't engage well with the campaign setting now by flaws we don't mean making a character that has a mechanical weakness such as trying to play a wizard but only giving yourself a ten intelligence score or trying to play a paladin with a negative charisma score that kind of mechanical flawed nature is not necessarily even good for the game or necessary to have an interesting character you might want to explore that idea but having character flaws is about having personality traits that create interesting problems for your character and create conflicts of interest in themselves character flaws can be very simple things like greed avarice or lust things that get your character into a little bit of trouble or cause fun role-playing moments where a character has to decide between doing the right and the smart and the obvious thing or doing the thing that they really want to do people in real life so often do the most illogical thing possible because that's the thing that's convenient or feels good or feeds into their appetites these are flaws and they make people very human and characters in fiction are very very flawed and often succumb to their flaws in interesting ways even though those characters are still competent skilled powerful and strong their flaws give them a counterbalance to all their magical abilities and great powers now there's a fine line here with wanting to create a character that has internal conflict or maybe isn't willing to compromise in certain regards you want to create a flaw that actually makes the narrative for your story more interesting but you also want to avoid creating a negative experience for the other players so when you are thinking of your flaw don't come up with something that could directly impact the rest of the players negatively now this may sound like a lot but one thing to keep in mind is that we're not all great writers not all of us are going to create masterpiece characters that would be written in books for years to come but a simple sentence or two to create a flaw that is simple for you to attach on to and play throughout the game is good enough sometimes a flaw can be a very strongly held principle this is classically seen with the lawful good paladin or even a borderline pacifist character that is conflict averse it is important to be aware that there are certain personality traits that can actually shut down role-playing situations and so we want to remember to have flaws still create a positive play experience if your character's flaw is that they have anger issues you need to be careful that those that role playing those anger issues doesn't boil over into acting aggressive towards other players outside the game if your character is a largely peaceful person that doesn't want to harm others you're gonna have to square that with the fact that Dungeons & Dragons is a pretty violent game about killing monsters and so if your character it has scruples about killing and violence you're gonna have to square that with the typical things that happen in a Dungeons & Dragons game and how your character is still going to be willing to participate in the adventures on the flipside a really creative flaw will lead to many humorous moments in a campaign and memorable directions for your character to go in when you're thinking of your flaws there's a distinct difference between creating a greedy rogue who steals from the party or creating a greedy rogue who's gonna definitely grab that gem that is probably a trap in the dungeon but when they get the treasure they shared amongst the party that they've grown to love this is the difference between a flaw that might impact negatively on the party such as stealing from them or a flaw that's actually fun to play at the table oh no don't grab that gem oh you greedy bugger it can actually be a lot more fun to play into that then affecting the party directly sometimes it can be very interesting for a character to have multiple loyalties for example maybe your character is loyal to a nation or an order of mages or a Thieves Guild but then they also have their loyalties to their party members because they have a personal connection maybe some of the party members are actual friends and family members these sorts of conflicts of two different organizations that your character is involved in having diametrically opposed or even just sometimes conflicting goals can give your character interesting moments that they have to roleplay through because they have to make interesting decisions about what they're going to do at the end of the day the key elements to all of these cliches is that they can be fixed simply by working with your DM and leaving things somewhat open-ended for the DM to help you manipulate and weave into the plot lines of your campaign all of the things we talked about today could be played really really well the problem is that a lot of players come with a packed backstory that is too long overwhelming and full of things that conclude themselves that don't allow them to really participate or be included in the adventure or the campaign setting so work with your DM and figure out how to your character into the fabric of the adventure that you are about to go on when Kelly and I make characters for our campaigns there's a constant back and forth between the two of us either as players as in Dungeon Master's oftentimes I have asked Kelly Joe and Jill and my other players to make revisions to their character backstories to either weave elements together to create overlapping plot threads or better integrate their character ideas into the world and the campaign itself I think it is really important that players and Dungeon Master's are open with each other as a player you should tell the dungeon master the type of experience you want to have for your character do you want your character to get revenge on the people that killed their family do you want your character to discover a great mystery do you want your character to have a faded destiny involving a deity tell your dungeon master that that's what you want from the campaign and then they will be able to work with you to make sure that that sort of thing happens at the same time when you tell your dungeon master what you want for your character as a general goal not as a specific one that means your dungeon master will be better able to point out to you hey you know if you change these two things about your character's backstory it's gonna make it possible for me to make that revenge that you want to get part of our story part of our campaign if you maybe change the deity that your character is worshiping from this one to this one that might fit a little bit better about what you want to do so be open to revision during the character creation process do all this during session zero and maybe even between session zero and session one massage the backstory just a little bit get these all working together and you will definitely have a memorable character but it's a process that you have to engage in through dialogue between yourself as a player character and your dungeon master and you both have to be willing to make changes and revise things in order to make a truly awesome and memorable character backstory so this has been five awful character backstory cliches in Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition if you have any stories about the great characters that you've made that might even use one of these cliches tell us about them in the comments below the videos that we create on our channel are made possible thanks to the contributions from our incredible patreon supporters and we thank them very very deeply if you are enjoying our show please consider checking us out on patreon and becoming a part of our great discord community don't forget to check out our live play in the worlds of Dragon hime which airs Tuesday nights at 6 p.m. Eastern at twitch.tv slash dungeon underscore dudes you can also find all of the previous episodes from those campaigns right up over here and we have plenty more guides for the classes of dungeons of dragons 5th edition right up over here please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time in the dungeon

Channel: Dungeon Dudes

Views: 580,908

Rating: 4.8957982 out of 5

Keywords: dungeons, dragons, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, games, accessories, rules, rule, gameplay, play, game, rpg, d20, player, character, D&D, 5e, DM, PC, tips, advice, guide, guides, review, dice, books, book

Id: 3prWqpSXQaE

Length: 28min 34sec (1714 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 11 2020