i cant belive crispy thinks my back story sucks. told to my face, in this video, with a gun to my head. cant believe.

Longest running campaign, I am playing a paladin who was left at a temple as a baby. We decided she was traveling with the warlock (he was going to find his missing sister) because he came to the temple for help and they turned him away. The DM managed to build on this and my character has found minimal information about her family, but part of her arch has been facing the fact she was supposed to be the next Protector of her home city and now there are consequences. Warlock found his sister, but pissed off his former patron when he got help from a goddess to break his pact. Most of our party has less than a paragraph of backstory because open ended worked best for us.

One of my players is a githyanki and she's asked a few times when her backstory (including a past lover turned mindflayer) might come into play. I had to tell her directly that their level four party won't be going to the Astral Plane anytime soon but I'll do what I can. Fortunately she has a good side goal I can work with now

I think what also helped Caleb's story was that he was genuinely terrified of Trent and his past, and didnt appear to be actively hunting him down. done extremely well!

Love how Ginny Di posted almost this same video today lmao I guess it's different enough, but on the same topic

@CrispysTavern

18 күн бұрын

I see her vids early and I was finishing up this edit RIGHT as hers went up on Patreon.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got on writing character backstories was... To paraphrase, "Your backstory isn't your only story." If we consider the campaign or module the main story, that's where you want the really important developmental stuff to happen. Keep things interesting to play alongside your friends by making sure that you haven't resolved all of the conflict and inner issues your character has before they even meet, trust me, you don't take that advice and the campaign starts to feel a bit epilogue-ish and that's no fun. Also, as an aspiring writer, I'm a big fan of... Writing way too much backstory, but I've never liked writing out like, long biographical "Person was born in place to parents who worked in job" stuff so, I've always been a fan of writing like, these little short story vignettes to explain how my character got where and, how they are. Maybe a fun thing to try out but, I put a lot of effort into diving into the rules and environment of the setting to make sure they work into the content as easily as possible so, making sure your backstory fits with your party like Crispy suggests is definitely still valid lol

I let my players get super creative with their backstories because they help me develop parts of the world that I intentionally left blank. IE notable houses, raiders' organizations, villages that burned down, etc. It's hard building a world from scratch. Even though my players were only level 2 at the time, I had them explore a place called the Tomb of Memories, where the greatest challenge was to experience one of their most painful memories over again. Having all of the characters experience a collective trauma like that helped build the bonds between them :) It also helps to be in a Discord group dedicated to the campaign so you can share all the info and ask questions whenever.

I think my style of backstory tends to be more story, creating a possible hook (or more than one) before I’ve fully fleshed out the character themselves. Basically: early character concept->flesh out backstory-> look for builds that fit story well. For example: hagspawn monster Hunter who wants to destroy their monstrous parent->he hates his lineage, and wants to destroy other monsters to prove to himself that he is good-> neutral good oath of (maybe) conquest paladin, focused on destroying evil. Hooks came early: trying to destroy monstrous parent, trying to help people by killing monsters. Flexible areas: is he part of an order or alone? How known is he, and how prejudiced will people be towards a hagspawn? If there is a lot of prejudice, Does he try to hide his features?

I’m about to jump into a level 13 game and I’m so stressed lmao but I think the fact that the dm has been working with me backstory wise is nice I usually write out my backstories in quick little bullet points but making one for a well over halfway through game is so stressful for me 😔

Everyone in my group created our characters independently but found they all had a vague tie to the feywild. We presented these characters to another friend asking him to DM a forgotten realms setting for us. He rewrote some of the lore and set us up to start in Mosstone and since me and another player didn't know each other well we decided to have a shared backstory of childhood platonic sweethearts to enemies to vaguely reconciled friends. We left a lot of creative backstory decisions up to our DM and he did a masterwork job of tying us all to a shady figure we playfully dubbed "the dark wizard Bobert" who was responsible for brutally maiming and killing one player pre-game in a rockslide that led to her making a pact with a fey patron to save herself, had knowledge about magic sigils carved in my boys skin, and the guy was located in the same place as a psionics school that our third players character needs to go to. My main personal villain input was that my boy was kidnapped by a messed up vampire as a child. It's been over two years and we only just saw the entrance of a vampire and haven't been to the feywild yet. It's not a complaint, we're having a blast at level 7 now but these things take time and patience and trust in the DM whom we love and appreciate.

When I first started playing, we didn't have backstorirs because it was just throwing characters into the fray. When I wrote my first backstory, it was overly long, trying to be like a novella. Now, I have general bullet points for a quick summary for the DM and 2-4 short paragraphs fleshing out those bullet points (this honestly is more for myself to help envision my character). I tend to keep things general so the character can fit & DM can interpret how he wants to use use elements of my story.

For a long campaign, especially one where I don't know the setting, I really like to start with a broad sense of backstory and talk with the DM about how the concept might translate into the setting and story, and then refine in a few stages (especially when other players are involved in a similar process). Sometimes that can be very condensed (starting with a sentence or two, a few rounds of "should we say your character is from Adventuropolis?" "Sure." "Would it work for your character concept if they were part of an unlicensed startup guild with [other player]'s character?" "Ooh, sounds fun." "Can we update your older sister from 'dead' to 'missing'?" "Sounds like that might end up with some very complicated drama. I'm in."), but it can still work. (Backstories for one-shots, though? Shorter and goofier, with any further details improvised as needed.)

Hi, Crispy! Long-time viewer, first-time caller. I thrive on giving hooks and B-roll. In this campaign I'm currently in (a heavily modified D&D 5e based around the game Rivals of Aether; currently on hiatus), I have my character (an anthropomorphic fish named Faze) be the daughter of a rich and prolific family from the Merchant Port, but Faze herself generally hung out with at the poorer side of Merchant Port, going so far as to overspend at local taverns and small stores because she wants to help in a way that her family refuses. Because of events canon to the actual video games, Faze and her family were displaced, moved to a city called Julesvale, and then ended up going through ANOTHER disastrous event. Julesvale was saved by heroes, the disaster was averted, and life went back to normal. But Faze did not. After dealing with TWO calamities, she figured out that there were just not enough heroes out there, and just waiting for them to show up might not work next time. So Faze's hook was that she decided to become a hero herself, instead. Her family didn't approve of this, going so far as to strip away her rich-girl allowance too. But she doesn't care. She leaves to go become a hero anyway. She's afraid of the Abyss (the shadowy entities that caused both of the calamities in her past), and she knows a lot about the heroes who saved her because she did a LOT of research over the years, even before her first displacement. Those are her hooks. And then there's the B-roll. The family bodyguard who trained her was lost during the first calamity, which could be an interesting NPC encounter down the road. The butler she had was the only one left who believed in her efforts to become a hero; this has already resulted in some sweet roleplay scenes. She struggles to understand the actual value of money despite her best attempts because she was so used to overspending for a good cause; her lack of rich-girl allowance makes her feel bad when she HAS to be stingy with her funds, which makes shopping sections so much more interesting. Her family has an almost ritualistic farewell, where they say "May the tides carry you higher"; this is not only great for adding personality, it has already been used to identify NPCs who are familiar with or even connected to her family. And though we're in a hiatus, the party was in the middle of a boat ride back to a still-under-reconstruction Merchant Port, which should be full of so many fun roleplay opportunities once we get there. It doesn't matter how long your backstory ends up being; what matters is how the others are able to interact with it. Honestly, giving the GM many small threads to pull, many avenues to interact with your backstory, is so much better than the strongest written backstory with limited entrance points. Not only does it make your backstory easier for the GM and the other players to digest overall, it also makes it easier to make your character feel like a part of the world your GM has created. And it lets you play through your storyline without feeling like you're trying to steal the spotlight from anyone else; the more entrance points you provide, the more naturally your story will come up in any given scene. And that's cool!

@DreamerAirazel

18 күн бұрын

Of course, the biggest thing is to communicate. I did not come up with Faze's backstory on my own. I asked if I could have a rich girl. I made sure to place her in the starting city organically (the campaign started in Julesvale, which is where Faze was displaced to). I worked with my GM to establish some of the NPCs that could be used later down the line. And I made sure to openly discuss some of the potential sticking points Faze might have with other characters (like how some of the other characters might not have liked Faze's family of stock brokers; she doesn't either, but the other might not have known that). Communication is always the key.

Better backstories! FOR THE ALGORITHM.

In my friend's Lancer game I made my pilot a former mercenary from a renown band, who split out on her own after being faced with carrying out atrocities. She has a very inflated, hot-shot ego given her past affiliation, and lies to everyone else that she felt the others in her band were holding her back from real greatness. This was really fun because my GM had mercenaries in her game. While the party was attempting to infiltrate a group's stronghold, my character, Eugenia (callsign Steel Thorn), pretended she wanted to join them. When one of the mercenaries invited her, I had her say "I'm in? I can't believe it! Well... I can believe it. I'm me. But still." My group seemed to find it really funny, and it was wonderful finding a roleplay intersection between my character's backstory and personality. 😊

In my experience, it is better to write a backstory after one or two sessions. Player backstories are much easier to tie into the campaign if the players actually know something about the campaign before writing the backstory.

The bait worked, I am here. :p

I've never started a campaign with a backstory prepared, it's something I develop as the campaign begins. I always pick a background from the standard D&D backgrounds as a jumping off point though and make it my own. When it comes to how I like to play, I'm not interested in long-winded roleplay or angst that ties into my character's backstory, I'm not even invested in the DM tying my backstory in with the campaign because I know they have enough to plan with the adventure and all the other players' backstories. I'm more interested in how I can use my backstory to help solve problems in the adventure. Like being able to speak to an NPC because I have smuggler connections or knowing how to destroy a wooden building from my experience as a lumberjack. Also being able to determine the difference between what I the player would know and what my character would know.

by the way, I just subscribed not because I like your videos, which I really do, I subscribed because of the frequency of community references

The first set of characters my group and I ever made were a mess because we didn’t talk out our back stories. The DM didn’t advise us on what sort of characters to make so they’re an assortment of random backgrounds and themes. As players we also didn’t work together to make back stories of similar characters. Because we were making our first characters they were all over. So we dropped into Waterdeep dragon heist and ended up with a party of 7 characters who didn’t care about treasure but with a villain chosen who was meant for a greedy party. (Note: there were only three players, each with two characters, and a dmpc not a table of six players. Yes we know this is bad and are implementing a Bulder’s gate camp system to limit parties in the future)

I never put pressure on my players for their backstories or how much they interact with my world. I know to some players that just stresses them out. I do however make remarks on the scope or content of their backstory. When we start at level 0 or 1 i do tell them to keep it low. Your character is just starting out and has probably not experienced so much? I personally enjoy it the most when characters grow and evolve within the campaign and do not arrive as a ready made person. Make them imperfect, make them lost and try to find their bearings, make them grow into the campaign. Allow yourself and your character to grow beyond the backstory.

I think that resolving a character's backstory is fine, so long as the player and character are invested in resolving their teammates' backstories.

Coming into this video worried and leaving super validated!

I have an approach to how I handle my characters' backstories. They're never famous people right off the gate, but they have some measure of renown (or notoriety) at least in the region they're from. I cover some key events from their childhood that developed their personality and ideals, I pitch some narrative flavoring to the DM that explains the class I'm making them--my barbarian having giant's blood deep in his ancestry to explain him being Path of the Giant, for example--and I give one key event, nothing grand like killing a dragon or anything that over the top, but significant and life changing (or life threatening) enough to explain their stakes. Sometimes I can cover that in one page, sometimes I need two, but I always try to leave it open ended enough so that who they are when the campaign ends might not be who they were when they started

Love me a good Ms. Frizzle reference. lol

I usually have a really hard time writing my back story ahead of the game since I don't "know" my character yet so my characters voice and following from that their backstory usually develops over the course of the first few sessions. Also concerning min and max length I totally agree that forcing someone to write a certain amount of text isn't helpful. Instead when I gm I usually go with something like write as much as you feel like but please tell me the like 5 most important parts as like a summary that way I don't force anyone to cut or pad their story I know what of the story is important to them but I still have the entire backstory to fall back on and to pull details from.

I found that I don't like long backstories. What i have asked my players to do is give me 2 things 1) A long term goal or dream they seek to fulfill. 2) a secret that they would only disclose to their closest friends. They get to choose whether or not they will divulge this secret to the rest of the party. When writing backstories, I find that I try to write my stories as, well, stories! I treat it as an actual epilogue or first chapter of an actual book. I think it helps me get into the narrative mindset.

New player here. I have a character that's an exaggerated version of me. A goblin bardlock (eloquence/archfey). An old vagabond who's seen some sh... He makes a pact with the frost prince as he too was dumped rather unceremoniously and became cold and embittered. But understands that is not the way. So now he means to convince his patron to join them on adventures and help the prince find his way back to the light. And hopefully find closure for himself along the way

I like having a backstory that is detailed, but also can be bullet pointed. I have a character I would love to play in a game, but sadly where I live the only groups are full of people basically half my age (Frick being 40) or full of people who feel like unnecessary racism and sexism is needed to be DnD. (I say unnecessary as you can use such topics to build out a world, but these are just racist and sexist for the shake of being racist or sexist. No story purpose, no lore purpose, no world building purpose, just those topics because they HAVE to be there.) I can summarize my character's backstory, but I can undergo a lot more details.

I made a character who was taken in by a guard when her parents were arrested. Taught and raised to dislike her own roots and original culture... now as the campaign stands, ive got a character with an identity crisis quite literally manifested in her warped appearance and the sudden aquisition of magic which rendered her a pariah at home... so she wanders with the few people who didnt cast her out or judge instantly (party) just getting as far from home... simultaneuously, shes hoping to find her "father" far up North since he left a few years prior for work... course, this was before any changes... So far im loving this character, others seem to really enjoy interacting with a rather friendly albeit closed off character who really cares for the others just really sucks at showing it or standing up for people due to a shattered self image... albeit a little sadistic having been raised with an "any means" mentality and only recently having aquired magical powers which are very destructive, grotesque and unpredictable (using extra source books; Valda's Spire of Secrets (Witch Class))... All I know is that making characters that are inherrently flawed, people who do have somr issue that can be related too, or a representation of some real issue, just taken to extremes tend to make really compelling characters as they work on themselves, they connect with people, NPC's... Characters are ultimately as fun as you care to make them... trying to be cool for the sake of cool is not necessarily fun... convey that you care for your character, that there is room for others, allow your characters ti fail and die, a personal quest unfinished on an impactful character may motivate the party who cares to honour their fallen... Just dont cram your character in others stories, you just have to be invited or open discussion through RP to involve yourself, just got to have a character that learns from the others and evolves along the story

Once used Ghost of Saltmarsh fisherman backstory in a homebrew campaign 😂😂😂. Literally made an NPC turned player character. Soulknife rogue. Did not understand how he got his skills nor could he explain how he could link minds for telepathy. Survived the campaign where every pc became famous artificers, wizards, guild leaders. My guy just likes fishing and bought a boat. Went back to his mundane peaceful life, now with a small company and fishing crew.

I made a character with minimal backstory, but fleshed it out as I played. She was an EEEEEEEVIL cleric. As the plot keeps going, I filled in the gaps as I told stories from her perspective. It worked out well to humanize her more, since she, being Evil, freaked out the good people but as she told more stories of growing up, they related to her more and showed more understanding to her less social traits. The wiggle room in a backstory not completely fleshed out at the start let me improvise stories of growing up in a cult.

When people say work together on back stories with other players, I get confused on how much they mean. For instance, what about keeping secrets from other players as a player? I, of course, let my DM know everything and give them veto or editing power.

As a DM, I just ask your background to meet the following: Be able to summarize it in 2~3 sentences. It can be longer, but a short elevator pitch should be easy. "My character is an X who comes from Y and can do Z because of reasons A, B, and C." Backstory must tell me where a character comes from, what they care about, why they can do what they do, and what their goals are (big goals or small goals, they must want to adventure). I've had players do short summaries, I've had them do pages of backstory, and I've had people who's stories were a bit jumbled but still met the requirements. My games are focused on builsing cultures and how they interact so things can have meaning and so you can understand the atmosphere of the world. People's kindness means more when there are people who are cruel for arbitrary reasons, and it makes befriending NPCs and learning about the world more rewarding. To that end, I make quests specific for each player and I make their homelands come up eventually. Your lives matter as much as your heroic adventure to me.

The biggest lesson you will ever learn about backstories is that, while they can affect the campaign, they don’t have any actual weight on the campaign. Your campaign is happening now. Your backstory tells you where you came from, and it explains why you act the way you do, but in the end what matters is what’s happening in the current story.

I admit that I stress out about length. In my weird little pea-brain mind, I have it in my head that if it's too long, the GM just won't read it.

My biggest disappointment regarding a DND campaign was regarding my character's backstory. I matched the world, the setting, gave a few pointers for NPCs that could be connected to my character (for example my character's mother and sister) all I got was a lousy encounter with 2 characters that could have been strangers for all I knew. A horror story of it's own.

Better backstories!!

I just wrote my life story into my character

In my last campaign, I was the only player (out of 5) who gave my character a backstory at all, putting a lot of thought and effort into expanding upon the minimal backstory of a premade character. My DM decided to reward my efforts by taking my character's backstory and wiping his butt with it, deciding that my character's farm should be destroyed and his family murdered for the sake of "narrative stakes" (🤮) Because of this, I've decided that this time around, my character simply won't have a backstory for the DM to flock with. But instead of just defiantly crossing my arms and refusing to make a backstory (believe me the temptation was there), I decided that my character has amnesia. He doesn't know who he is, where he comes from, how old he is, he's not even sure if the name he goes by is his real name. If this is how the DM is going to treat backstories, then he can be the one to think it up.

I had a DM one time insist my backstory wasnt long enough after like 3 rewrites, and I got fed up and petty. Used my college writing talents to fill out a 5 page APA formatted research paper on my character they later admitted they "Didnt read"

Y'all, I think Crispy misunderstood the use of "lesbionest."

Funnily enough this was actually the first time I wrote a backstory that was more than 2-3 sentences 🤣

Hey crispy !

@CrispysTavern

18 күн бұрын

Hey hey!

Worst thing you can do for a backstory is to include a hundred different detailed locations, names, extremely minute details. Because your DM is absolutely going to miss a lot of that and you also are probably Conjuring into existence things the DM didn't want slash plan for. Talk to your DM before writing a novel of a backstory

Huzzah!

LOL and GinnyD just dropped her video on fixing her cringe backstory. Well timed

I'll be honest, I don't trust DMs to work my backstory into the main campaign anymore. I've had 3 separate DMs tell me that they were going to use my backstory to make the next part of the campaign only for every conceivable part of my backstory to be retconned because the DM either didn't read, forgot, misunderstood, or just changed it because they felt like it. Like first game: Tiefling sorlock with demon blood, his patron is a demon. His bloodline magic is demon. EVERYTHING IS DEMON, THAT'S THE POINT. Nah, DM wrote a story about how my tiefling's father made a pact with *devils*. My character gained his tiefling features when he was a teen, nearly an adult. Nope, DM retconned it to being from birth. My character ran away from home after his family attempted to poison him because the setting was victorian london so *very* religious. Nope, DM made the parents love their children FOR their tiefling features. They wanted to be more like their children, so they continued working with devils! Etc. Etc. 🤦‍♂️ Another game: Module had the gate to celestia mysteriously close in the middle of a war with giants, leaving many stranded without most of their powers. They were essentially aasimar now. So my paladin, being one such celestial, wants to reopen the gates to return home and, if possible, get back to the war for the fate of the realms. Nuh uh, this DM somehow got it in his head that I wanted my character to become the ultimate holy avenger on earth by collecting holy relics from around the globe... what? Dude couldn't even remember my character was female, despite her art being visible the whole time and me exclusively using "she/her" pronouns. 😅 Third game. Playing a plasmoid druid who is essentially the drainage from a bunch of magical experiments that gained sentience. So it's an "ooze" with magic from potions sloshing around in it... Nope, DM retconned them into being some ancient nature spirit that needs to go to shrines in its image to regain its former power. 🫠

No more than two pages that's enough room to give expose on your character and some fill out to why they are the way they are

Better backstories

So does it suck to not have a backstory? Because it feels like it sucks to me. I am having a severe trouble coming up with one. Just freaking one . 😡

2:22 Sounds like you were combining Let's be honest with "Lesbian" which sounded like "Lesbianest"

That's all verry good advice, but I had to object to the "you need a hook or else what's the point ?" First off : Having a hook is a really good idea. I object the idea that it would be an absolute necessitity. What I think a character needs is a drive toward adventure and an evolution path. One of my characters doesn't have a hook (although we can work one out.) He's a traveler from a far away land came here to visit and flee the pressure he had as an accademic student. He'll have to go back someday, but there is no hook. Fahim (that's his name) is just verry curious and got involved in local affairs, that's what got him into the narrative. His evolution path being about finding faith in himself to stop fleeing when things get messy. So far he got himself in danger to save childrens and put his empiristic approach to problem solving at use for his newfound friends. I think he's doing pretty well :)

My D&D character's backstory is super-gaunt with essentially zero hooks. :)

Kind of unrelated but I'm a new dm and I just got a guy playing as a worm, like an actual worm. Basically he just takes control of dead bodies and use his goddamn worm brain powers to animate the body, it was so funny I couldn't say no

backstories suck overall /jk

What's with the make up? Can't you people just be normal?

@CrispysTavern

16 күн бұрын

Your definition of "normal" is my definition of "boring."

@norrismilstead7209

16 күн бұрын

@@CrispysTavern you people are as boring at this point like blacks always saying how oppressed they are

@CrispysTavern

16 күн бұрын

Norris. Did you get beat up in high school?

@norrismilstead7209

16 күн бұрын

@@CrispysTavern no sadly I was the kid who beat people like you

@CrispysTavern

14 күн бұрын

Keep telling yourself that Norris. The fact you had to edit that message makes it even funnier.