- Nine years of scientific
analysis has recently concluded that the vast majority of dungeon masters are using backstories incorrectly. And my crack team of
researchers and analysts are never wrong. Okay, okay. The truth is that many dungeon masters probably have no clue how
to use the backstories their players create. And then there are other dungeon masters who extract random elements
from the backstories and find creative ways to cram them into the ongoing campaign. And of course, there are
lots of dungeon masters who know exactly what they're doing and are doing it correctly too. I don't wanna make it
seem like there aren't, because there are, I'm not the only smart person in the room. I think I'm smart, I hope I'm smart. Am I smart? Anyway, using character
backstories correctly is where I think we as
dungeon masters often err, because I think there's a
better way to use backstories. Why the DM should use
character backs stories. So to preface this whole discussion about using them correctly, let's just talk about why you should use your characters backstory in your D&D games to begin with. I think there's a few different reasons. And the first thing that I'll mention is something that I have
definitely observed in my games, that when I bring in elements from a character backstory into the game, and then it could be an entire
adventure, for instance, it could be just a small encounter. I can see on the player's
faces, in their demeanor, that they are really enjoying it, that it is something special and cool for them to experience something that they wrote from their backstory becoming a part of the game
because I chose to integrate it. It's just something that
makes it more immersive, more enjoyable, and rewarding for players when the game master does this. Part of it is simply that
the players get a kick out of seeing something that
they wrote in the backstory come to life in the game. And I think the other side of it as well is possibly part of an
unspoken social contract that exists between the
dungeon master and the players. That is, if you take the time
to write out a backstory, I, the dungeon master, will take the time to see how I can incorporate
it into the ongoing game. Now, obviously one of the primary purposes of a character backstory is to inform role playing for that player. But I, as a dungeon master can also use it to inform my game design. The other thing that backs stories do when you bring them into the game is that it gives the player's character more motivation to do a thing. You see, we're in a role playing game, where we're supposed
to be putting ourselves in the shoes of our characters and doing and saying things
that our characters would do in any given situation. So when something from
a character's backstory comes into the game, that gives that player more motivation to have their character
role play a certain way and interact with that
element from their backstory. And in the case of
something like plot hooks, it gives your player's
characters more motivation to bite that plot hook
and go do that thing. I think it makes players feel as well that they have more agency
and input into the game. That it isn't just the dungeon master pulling all the strings. Instead, the players feel empowered, like they have a say in what's going on in the game world as well. Now, personally, as a game master, I feel that it is extremely rewarding to take something important to the player, to their characters specifically, that the players themselves made and thought about and created, and then taking it,
putting it into the game, making it come to life, and then observing the players' reactions and seeing how much fun they're having with that cool little thing that we did. By the way, if you're
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backer at the link below. How to use character backstories? Now, the most typical way that
I have seen dungeon masters trying to integrate
character backs stories into their D&D games is by taking elements of the backstories and putting them into
the main campaign arc. Now, the main campaign story
arc is the main adventure, the big thing that's going on. If you're running the Icewind Dale module, it's all of the events
that are outlined there in. If you have a Thieves Guild
that is taking over Waterdeep and that is gonna be the
adventure from levels one to 10 or thereabouts, that is the
main campaign story arc. And dungeon masters will
take things from backstories, there was this special sword
the player had growing up and they lost it. And they'll these things and try to slip them into
the main campaign story arc. So you're still running
Icewind Dale, but as you run it you kind of find things from your backstory slipped in there. Of course, the dungeon master
is doing that intentionally because that's the way that works. Or you're defeating that Thieves Guild trying to take over Waterdeep and all the players are finding things from their characters' backstories, just conveniently slipped
into the main campaign. So when we think about pulling stuff from character backstories into our games, this is the way that I feel a lot of people tend to do things, and you will get clever
points for doing it, but it is impossible to do it without your players
knowing that it was rigged. I don't know, for me the way I think, it kind of seems to break
immersion in a little bit when something from their backstory just magically shows up in an adventure they're currently on. They will know you
designed it intentionally. There's no way of getting around that. I mean, you could stretch
this argument and say that they know that the entire game was designed intentionally and... But I feel like this is
probably a little bit more than the standard way
of looking at things. If that doesn't make sense, just yell at me in the comments
and say that I'm an idiot. I mean, hey, it happens. The other thing is that
it could be challenging to pull this off. I mean, as the dungeon master, you're going to have to
look at their backstories and you're gonna have to think of creative and interesting ways to pull all of those elements
into the ongoing campaign. And, and hopefully have it not
disrupt everything, perhaps, I don't know, or maybe disrupting it is not that big of a
deal, that's up to you and your group, I suppose, to decide. But the point is, is it's not always the easiest exercise in the world to make that all fit together. So, I submit to you that there
is a better way to do this, a better way to take your
players' characters' backstories and pull them into your ongoing game. And the way to do this is by
creating something that I call character story arcs. So you have the main campaign story arc, the Thieves Guild or Icewind Dale, but you also have story arcs
that happen off on the side and we call those the
character story arcs. And the basic idea here is that something from
a character's backstory, that sword that they lost, for instance, becomes an entire adventure
that the whole group goes on, because remember, we run
group games around here. For instance, from my
Ancient Dragon campaign, I had a player character named Krindar and Krindar had a backstory, obviously, and from his backstory one
of the things that happened is that he was responsible for
killing both of his brothers and he's unaware of his sister's presence, life, dead,
alive, he doesn't know. So in the game his two
brothers arrived as revenants, tracking him down and
attempting to get vengeance. In that confrontation Krindar learned that his sister was actually
alive and what she was up to. This resulted in an entire
adventure kicking off to resolve that element
from his backstory, Krindar kind of got turned to stone at one point in the game, so we never really got to finish that, but it was leading somewhere
interesting. (laughs) Another example of a character
story arc was Cassim, also from my Ancient Dragon campaign. This is the campaign I run
for my patrons, by the way. Now Cassim was estranged from his family and his father basically disowned him and kicked him outta the house. Years later when he was
adventuring with the current group, his sister tracked him down
and told him about a problem that their family business was having. She also mentioned that
father's health was failing and it might be his last
chance to talk to father and possibly make amends
with their relationship. Though the group had to
wrap up a current adventure that was very, very
important for them to go on, and then they went off, down south to Amn to start on this character adventure arc, character story arc, you
know what I'm talking about. So then Cassim and the
entire group of adventurers got to help Cassim's family and Cassim had a chance to
make amends with his father. And Cassim didn't die or get turned stone before this kind of resolved itself so they actually got to play through it, and that was nice. Somebody's like, Luke, why don't you just stop killing the characters all the time so they get a chance to
experience all these things? Yeah, I've made videos about that before, you should go look at some of those. If you're finding this video helpful, please give me a thumbs up and leave a comment for
the algorithm down below. Let YouTube know that I don't suck and that fried rutabaga is delicious. Somebody's right now
Googling, what is rutabaga? It is one of the primary
ingredients in pasties, which is a Michigan delicacy. Now I'm hungry. I think there are two big advantages of using character story
arcs in your games, instead of trying to take
things from backstories and cram them into the
mean campaign story arc. The first one is, is that
it's just simply less work to make a character story arc than try to cram stuff
from their backstories into the main campaign story arc, it's just easier to implement. The second thing is that
it gives you a break from the main campaign story arc. Like, every so often you just get tired of doing the same thing,
fighting the same villains. And so character story arcs offer you the opportunity
as the dungeon master to design different adventures and your players to go
on different adventures. It's a change of scenery, it makes things more interesting perhaps. And you can always get back to
your main campaign story arc when you get done with the
character story arc, usually. 'Cause sometimes things
go way off into the weeds and you never quite get back to what you were originally doing. I mean, it happens, it happens. By the way, I do have two
older videos on my channel called "Campaign Creation Part 1" and "Campaign Creation Part 2," and they are both a
deep dive into this idea of having a main campaign story arc and a character story arc. It delves into details and
the second one, Part 2, literally we walk through
and give you an example of how to design a campaign with both of those elements in it. There's probably a link somewhere for you. How to implement character story arcs. Implementing them isn't that big of a deal and I kind of already talked
about it a little bit, but basically you just have
your main campaign story arc with all the different
adventures associated with it. And then every so often
you introduce a plot hook for a character story arc,
an entire adventure, perhaps, or maybe just an encounter, that's based on a character backstory. And then your players have the option to, instead of going and continuing things on the main campaign story arc, they could do something instead from one of plot hooks for
my character story arc. And I recommend giving them
the choice, present plot hooks, don't like fish hook them and
drag them in one certain way. But a lot of times what you're gonna find is that when you present a plot hook, that is based on a backstory,
that player's character is going to want to go do that thing. Now you can do this with
both home brew campaigns that you're running and
modules that you're running. There's really literally no difference in how to implement those things. Now, obviously if you're running a module, anytime they go off onto
a character story arc, you're going to have to
home brew that adventure. Like there's no module written that will account for those things. One thing I would caution you
against and suggest doing, if you are running a
module, is ask your players if they would like to
see character story arcs. They're probably gonna say yes, they're probably going to enjoy that. But there's also a chance
that they are going to say, no, we signed up to play Curse of Strahd, we really just wanna play Curse of Strahd, and that's fine too. So ask your players. So the next question is going to be, how frequently should you
implement character story arcs alongside the main campaign story arc? There's really no set rule to this, it's mostly to your tastes
and your players' tastes. I personally like to have a cadence where we go on maybe
two main campaign arcs, advance that adventure along a little bit, that module if you're playing a module, and then after two of those,
we have a character story arc. And then we go back to playing the module or the main campaign story arc. And again, this is not a set rule, this is a personal preference and sometimes it goes that way and sometimes it goes
completely different. For instance, in my
Ancient Dragon campaign, it has gone completely
off the rails right now. We were on a main campaign story arc that had to do with fae creatures that were making deals with devils. And there were demons
coming into Waterdeep, there was this whole thing going on. The players went south to Amn to help with Cassim's family
that I mention before, they took care of that situation. And then they learned
about a Domain of Dread. This is a home brew Domain of
Dread called the Dark Shards. And they needed to go there
for X, Y, and Z reasons. They went there, they entered, and now they don't wanna leave. You see, they've discovered
that in the Domain of Dread, there's a whole bunch of people that are essentially slaves and suffering. And there's obviously
a deep, dark overlord and all of her children that
are ruling with iron fists and my players want to stay there and kill every last one of those bad guys. So yeah, we're off the rails,
completely off the rails and it's kind of fun. Maybe someday we'll get back to Waterdeep and take care of those pesky demons. Now you might be asking yourself, how exactly do I incorporate
the character's backstory? Like in other words, should
I talk with the player and say, hey, I'm thinking of pulling this thing into the game and I might do this, that or
the other, what do you think? Is there another way that
we might pull this thing from your backstory into the game? And you might think of
collaborating with your player so that you both together can decide how to pull that game element from their backstory into the game. And I would say, don't do that. Somebody like, might think that it's a clever,
interesting idea, you know, getting them involved
in creating the campaign and all this kind of stuff, but it's really just
going to completely ruin the suspense, the mystery, any surprise that they might have. Half of the fun of seeing
something from your backstory turn up in the game is that
you don't see it coming. You have no idea that the dungeon master is going to do that thing. And then out of nowhere, it's coming alive before your eyes. So if you're conspiring with and collaborating with the player about their backstory
and bringing stuff in, you lose all of that. Another implementation detail
that I failed to mention is that you want to rotate the different characters
backstories as well. Like, you're gonna go on
your main campaign story arc, a couple adventures here, and then an adventure based upon one of the player
character's backs stories. And the next time it's around
to a character story arc, you're going to take
somebody else's backstory and have something happen there. And you just kind of go around rotating, giving all of the player
characters their chance. And you're gonna find
that some backstories are gonna have more hooks in there, more things you could pull out and turn into things for the game and others will have fewer things. If you run out, if there's nothing you
can pull from a backstory and you're just totally getting
lost, just ask your players if they'd be willing to expand
on their backstories more. Ask them pointed questions,
ask them about X, Y, and Z, and see if you can get them
to give you more information that will give you more
material to work with when you're trying to
see what you might use from their backstory in the game. I do have a plan on creating
another video at some point that gives a little bit more information about how to take things
from players' backstories and turn them into specific
adventures and things like that. There is a method perhaps, or
methodology for doing that, that I wanna share with you, but that's gonna have
to be a different video because I'm looking at
my timestamps right now and we're getting kind of long. How to get players to create backstories. Some of you throughout this
whole video have just been like, uh-huh, Luke, that's great. That's great, Luke, that's wonderful. Thank yous, thank you, Luke! But my players don't
even make backstories. So how in the world do you think that I'm gonna take something
out of their backstory and turn it into a character story arc if they don't even write back for me! Calm down, dude, it's gonna be okay. It's going to be okay. The thing is that some players may not even know where to start when you ask for a backstory. If they're a new player, they
might be clueless and lost. I have several new players in my youngling campaign right now, and if I were to ask them
to create backs stories, they would give me blank stares. I think the trick is to make
it easy for your players to create backstories and to give them a framework
for building their backstory. For instance, I have nine
questions that I ask my players that help establish their backstory and give me the information I need to build character story arcs. I'm not gonna go over the
nine questions right here, but if you're interested, you can get them in my
RPG backstory template. It is free on the DM Lair
store, where you can also get lots of other dungeon master
resources if you want. 5e adventures, digital maps,
back issues of Lair Magazine, we got a whole bunch of cool
stuff out there for you. But the RPG backstory template
with those nine questions is 100% free, go out, grab
it, use it in your games, it's gonna make things easier for you. Click on the screen now to watch my "Campaign
Creation Part 1" video, or to back the Lairs
& Legends Kickstarter. And until next time, fried
rutabaga for the win.
