We’ve talked previously about the simplest ways to make a character that doesn’t step on other players toes, that fits into the game, and one that is fun to play.

Next we’ve talked about how you can use the personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws to create some back story for your character. This allows you to really start creating a backstory for your character and your role playing. You can review 201 here.

Now we’re onto really delving into the backstory and what makes a good backstory. This will be covered in the final two posts about creating backstory and creating your player character.

When creating a backstory there are a few things that you should be writing into your backstory:

Role Playing Prompts –
This is probably the trickiest one to explain, but basically you are looking to expand upon the personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws that you’ve previously created or at this time create those along with your backstory to give you things to role play with. But now you get the chance to really expand upon that. If you have a flaw that you hate all goblins, well, now you can explain why you hate all goblins since they murdered your family and burned down your village. So as you develop your backstory, look to drop in those little tidbits of information to support the personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws. Also, look to add in more role playing elements for you. You can create little pieces of story that are going to give your character a more rich background and more depth to role play with.

A Reason to Adventure –
This one is pretty straight forward. You need a reason to be about adventuring. If you spent your whole life on a farm and you are going to inherit the farm, why are you out adventuring? Or if you are a hermit in the woods who hates people, why are you adventuring? Give yourself a reason to be adventuring, and a reason to keep adventuring. If a bunch of goblins killed off your family and burned down your village, that’s probably a reason to start adventuring to get revenge and also a reason to continue adventuring after you get revenge because you don’t have a place to go back to. It doesn’t have to be that tragic, and with elves or other longer living races, you might adventure just to leave your mark on the world. But use your backstory as your opportunity to create a reason why you are adventuring and why you will continue adventuring with the adventuring party.

Goals/Story Hooks for Your Character
Now, this is partially covered when you create your bonds as they can be things that is your characters goal, but work on adding in some goals and story hooks for your character that the DM is going to be able to use. It doesn’t mean that all of them will be used, but they are things that the DM can use if they want. In our example of wanting to get revenge on the goblins who killed your family, that’s a story hook that the DM can use. If you write that you’ve already taken care of the goblin in your backstory you’ve now closed off that part of your backstory and completed it already. The DM now can’t pull out your hate of goblins, give you the chance to track down the goblins and maybe have a change of heart about goblins as a whole. As a DM, I really appreciate those bits of mystery that people leave in their backstories. In the first season of Dungeons and Flagons, we had a great example of this as Ashley’s character was left somewhere as a young child and all she remembered from it was the stars in the sky. That gives me a ton to play with as a DM.

If you have, especially the first two added into your backstory, you are going to have a character that has a reason to go adventuring and a fun character to play. The last piece really allows you to be more a part of the story and have those story arcs that really focus in on you. If you are a player who wants to sit back and enjoy the story more, having less of those hooks is going to make it so you’re less involved.

Are there other backstory elements that make a good Dungeons and Dragons character? Have you done these while creating characters before?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter at @NerdologistCast
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.Facebook 

Everything it gives you really works the best that way. Even your skills such as being able to use a disguise kit really push you towards being a rogue. I think that’s one of the weaknesses of some of these backgrounds, they align too closely with a particular class, and in the case of urchin, I think it’s probably the most glaringly obvious example of a background like that. I personally think the best feature to this background is that you get general knowledge on city planning and layouts. That sounds weird that it is one of the cooler things, but being able to walk into a town, and within a few minutes be able to generally guess the layout, that’s fun.

So what are some non-rogue classes that you can turn into an interesting backstory with this background?

When I was young, I ran away from home to the big city to become part of the circus. It turns out that the circus doesn’t just allow every runaway into their troupe without you having some skill first. I had spent the little money that I’d taken from my parents to get to the city, so I had to start panhandling to try and get money. I must not have been all that good at it because a monastery took pity on me and let me stay at their place. They offered to train me and give me a roof over my head, as long as I continued to earn my way. It was doing some odd jobs around the monastery, and if I wanted more money, I had to continue to panhandle. Soon I’d found my own spot to sleep out in the town and while I stayed working with the monastery for training, I spent my days with the other kids who were earning money on the streets. One day a man came and offered a lot of the kids money to do some work for him. I didn’t really need the extra money and I could always go back to the monastery, so I turned him down. But a lot of kids went with him. He came back a week later and offered the deal again. Then after doing that and getting fewer and fewer takers I saw one of his guards taking kids by force. I realized that the kids he had been taking weren’t coming back either.Now I want to know what has happened to my friends and stop this man.

Alignment: Neutral Good
Class: Monk

I was an unwanted child. My parents already had three kids, and apparently I was an accident. I understand why they didn’t want another child, now, thinking back on it. They weren’t able to feed us all, and they had to send out my oldest sibling to work before she was done with her education. I felt like I wasn’t wanted, which I wasn’t, and even though my parents and siblings said that they loved me, I didn’t feel it. I ran away from home, just into the city we were in. I was hopeful that I’d be able to find someone who wanted me. I wasn’t able to do that, so I just hung out and begged for money or scraps of food. It was a horrible lifestyle, but I refused to go back to my family if they really didn’t want me. I heard from other urchins that they had tried to find me for a little bit, but given up assuming I’d been kidnapped. Eventually I felt bad, but instead of going back, I started going to where my oldest sister was a kitchen help. It was a school that taught magic. So I’d sit along the side of the building, listening to my sister work in the kitchen. But then I heard something more interesting. It was a classroom that had it’s windows open near the kitchen. Soon I was sitting under that window learning about the theories of wizardry. I was so curious that I bought a little notebook and started writing down what they were teaching. It took me forever practicing in back alleys, but eventually I was able to cast a spell. One day I realized that my sister hadn’t come to the kitchen for a few days, so I went off to look for my family, just to make sure they were all right. There had been a fire in the poor district of town and their house had burned down, but according to some people they hadn’t been killed. I decided it was time to return home, and I realized how much I missed seeing my sister every day so now I’m looking through the town to find where they might have gone.

Alignment: Neutral Neutral/Chaotic Neutral/Lawful Neutral
Class: Wizard

The under city is a place that no respectable person goes. Thankfully for everyone, I’m not a respectable person. My horns show that I’ve been demon marked and therefore I am bad. I wasn’t really given a choice in that, people always told me that I was a monster. Things down in the under city are even terrible for me. I don’t get enough food, and I have to scavenge what I can. There was a plague that’s broken out down here before, and I barely escaped with my life. In fact, when I got sick, everyone left me for dead, because the plague always killed. A kind doctor came to me and said that if I were willing to help him in the future, he’d be able to help me. I agreed because I didn’t want to die. I didn’t realize what I had done though. A few months later he came asking me to burn down a temple. Now, I’m not very religious, but burning down a temple seemed like a bad idea.  I told him no, but he insisted and my plague came back to me, and I felt my body withering away again. I promised again to help him and burned down the temple that night. Now I need to find a more permanent solution to my illness because I don’t want to do more like that.

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Class: Warlock
Race: Tiefling

The worst thing that can ever happen to a dwarf is that they are made casteless. It doesn’t happen often because you have to do something very wrong. That’s what I did, something very wrong. I was part of a raiding party out in the  mines fighting off a band of Drow who were coming up from the underdark. Things were going poorly for us, but as a dwarf you never leave a comrade behind. I was scared though, so I took off running and left left the four remaining members of my troop fighting. They were able to kill off enough drow to drive them back, but when they came back and found me hiding, my warrior caste was removed and I was sent down into the slums as a casteless. I want to return to where I was before, but you have to do something heroic and I don’t think I can do that on my own.

Alignment: Neutral Good
Class: Fighter
Race: Dwarf

There are some ideas for playing an urchin who wasn’t a rogue. What have you done for an urchin backstory before? Have you played a character where them being an urchin was an important part of it?

This also wraps up the D&D backgrounds, I hope that you’ve enjoyed them.

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter at @NerdologistCast
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.