Stop writing backstories. Start playing them. We challenge traditional TTRPG thinking by turning origin stories into collaborative scenes—where players become each other’s past, relationships feel real, and party bonds are forged, not forced.

Engaging players in the construction of their characters' backstories is paramount for enhancing immersion and fostering organic relationships within tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs). Backstories serve as the foundation upon which character development rests, providing a rich tapestry of narrative threads. In this episode, we explore the significance of backstories, examining how they can be leveraged to create deeper connections between players and their characters. Through various methodologies, including one-on-one sessions and collaborative world-building, we illustrate how backstories can enhance player engagement and investment in the unfolding narrative. The discussion further delves into the potential pitfalls of neglecting character backgrounds, emphasizing the importance of integrating these narratives into gameplay to enrich the overall TTRPG experience. Additionally, we share personal anecdotes that highlight the transformative power of well-crafted backstories, encouraging listeners to consider their own approaches to character creation in their campaigns.

Takeaways:

• The significance of player backstories cannot be understated, as they enhance character immersion and investment.
• Incorporating individual player backstories into the campaign generates organic relationships among characters.
• Dungeons and Dragons sessions should prioritize character development over traditional party dynamics to foster deeper connections.
• Utilizing NPCs to weave into player backstories allows for memorable interactions and enhances overall narrative experience.

All right, so welcome to the Forge cast. I am the nerd doctor, here to diagnose what's wrong with your RPG game and here to help you fix it.

I'm joined here with my friend DM Scott, and we're here to break down the traditional concepts of TTRPG games and help build up some great ideas for you on how to run better games and enjoy this hobby we all love. So today, we're going to be talking about. I keep calling it origin stories, backstories, you know, whatever you want to.

Whatever you want to define it and just how important that it really is for the story. And. And just to give you our experience. Real quick, Scott, what's your experience?

TTRPG games started off playing Marvel's Hoo Hoo. I don't know if you guys know what that is. Back back in the 80s. Yeah, I'm old.

Was a Marvel comic book that just basically had a page of every single Marvel superhero there was in their stats. And me and my friends, at, like, 13 years old, ripped the page out.

And, you know, he was Batman and he was the Hulk, and then we would actually role play pretending in the city that we grew up in.

And I remember one of my friends was playing Batman, and he was coming over the Tobin Bridge, the big bridge in Boston, and the Incredible Hulk showed up another player and picked up the Batmobile and tossed it into the water. But from there, I segued, went over to basic Dungeons and Dragons, and so now it's been 39 years of me playing D and D. Yeah.

So it's been a long, long time. There you go. I've been playing for the last seven. So much less experience under my belt, comparatively. But I. You know, I got introduced to it by.

I was honestly just. I was gig working at the time. I was fresh out of school, and I was waiting for my license to get in.

So I was just filling my time, and I heard two people talking about this story, and it sounded like a game they were playing. I was like, that sounds really cool. What are you talking about? And they're like, Dungeons and Dragons? I'm like, no.

And.

But one of them just gave me more info. I downloaded a free PDF online and immediately just started building and researching.

And I ran my first sessions with my family, my two brothers, my parents, who all. We all had a phenomenal time. And. And it's just been dnd ever since.

And now you're gonna play until your teeth fall out.

Yeah, no kidding. And. But it's. It's. It's it's way better than poker with the guys on, on Sunday. A lot, a lot more goes on.

Better than any video game, that's for sure.

But anyways, jumping into, you know, you know, when it comes to backstories or the stories, you know, big question. Do backstories actually matter or are they just dmb?

Backstories are huge. I think they're super underutilized by DMS in general.

I know you got some guys that write these, know these mini novels and you got some that just write my parents were, you know, I'm an orphan, parents were dead.

But I think backstories are super underutilized as, as a tool for a DM to give, develop the characters and have the best overall games that they possibly can have.

Well, not to mention just immersion wise, like when it comes to your first session, you know, you're not really your sense of who your character is unless someone you're who spent a lot of time in a mirror, like, who, who's my character? Who is thinking about that you may not really know.

And even then placing him in a world that you may be unfamiliar with is going to be foreign to you. And so one of the things that you had introduced me to when I played in your game is we, you know, we went through our backstory, who do I know?

And then when we played the game, you put me in that area where I'm from, my hometown, and introduced me to those characters that we came up with and I interacted with them.

You had basically wrote up a backstory and me and you together help, you know, customize it to fit in the world.

Yep.

And you know, we both worked on it together until you were happy, I was happy. So now you have this, you know, these pages of this backstory. So how do we utilize them?

What, what I typically have done is I'll start like I did with, with you, Sean, is start with you playing completely by yourself without any other players and starting you off knowing what your backstory is, but just dropping you into the community with some, you know, things going on in your life and just letting you explore the city, your contacts, your family and just really like getting to know your, your character well.

What are the other, what are the other players do while you're doing this?

Well, that's, and that's what I think a lot of DMs are afraid of. I think that they think of like, okay, I've got these four guys that want to play and how do I just run?

Sean, what are the other Three guys going to do.

Well what I do is when we're, when I'm running Sean, I'll invite the other guys to come and I'll actually create NPCs that Sean's got to run into throughout the day. Sean goes into a tavern. I'll have index cards that will say little girl, 6 years old, looking for her dad is lost and confused.

I'll he has no idea what that card says. I hand it to my friend Dave. Dave is about to play that character. I hand another one over.

These are already pre written guy at the end of the bar, it's going to walk over and says come here little girl, come here Melissa, I'll take you home. And you see that he, Dave already knows on my notes that that is not his dad.

Now Sean, I have no idea what exactly how well or what he's going to do playing that little girl. And besides the notes I've given him, I don't know what he's going to do which is awesome as a dm. So I just get to sit there and watch and.

And then you got the other player, John over there who's playing the guy at the end of the bar who is going to pretend to be her father. Whether it's her father or not, we don't know. And they're going to both play this and Sean's going to have to or not have to interact.

And me as a dm, I get to just sit back and watch this organic experience that I have no control over happen.

And so now the your friends that that want to play are playing and it gives them an opportunity to participate in his story and also gives an opportunity to, to role play different things. And it's always been amazing.

Yeah, you know, I just sit back and I watch and so yeah, that's one of the things I think people are afraid to do one on one backstories because they think that the rest of the party is going to be on the sidelines. Absolutely not. No.

And just as someone who like we did that and then vice versa, I went and did the same thing when we played someone else's character. And I'll tell you as someone who is playing those NPCs it's a lot of fun.

It's a lot of fun to kind of help build and immerse someone where they are in one of my games.

This woman who's playing a fourth daughter of a bunch of kids of dwarves in a ship riding town and she's taken, she decides and I have no idea what she's going to do. I have a couple lines of NPCs to hand out, and players play her siblings. And I had some people, she might walk by and interact within the town.

And she decides to take all of her siblings lunch at, at, at work. And I'm like, okay, so I just throw these out there. And now she's interacting with people in the town.

Right.

She's getting the experience of where she is from, which, you know, I don't. I've not seen. And you know, with games like Critical Role, I don't. I don't really see that. That type of situation.

I mean, do they place characters in the town for them to interact with when they're all kind of in together in a story? Yeah, but how many times do you go through a game where you organically bring the party together?

Which brings us to the next question is, well, and how do you get together?

That's the biggest reason why you want to have. First you want to have the player run by himself. And I usually do it for at least one session.

Sometimes it's two or three sessions where a player is just playing by himself, dealing with whatever. Like I said, the things that are going on, his community, who are his contacts, who are his family, let him interact with them.

You know, let's say he's a thief in the town, but he does not. He's not affiliated. There are there gangs in the neighborhood that are trying to recruit him or threatened by him. Let him play all that.

And then you have your main story in the background. You've got your campaign and your campaign. You're weaving that into very slowly and you're doing it from different avenues.

From Sean is experiencing this, John is experiencing that. And you weave the campaign so they organically come together.

Not like instead of, you know, your typical, your party starts at a bar, guy walks in, hey, I'm looking to hire everyone for 500 gold. Or you start in a prison cell where your players are just forced to work together versus. I like to create relationships.

I like to create where it makes sense that Sean's character would help Dave's character. Not just because that's otherwise. It's like a board game. We're just working together because we're supposed to.

Because that's how the game's supposed to work. No, I want Sean to want to work with David. Even if it's his own personal reasons. They have nothing to do with David.

Still, at the end of the day, I weave it. It's organic and they, you know, Sean and. And another player named David. They had both started completely by themselves.

And by the time that they had met each other and it wasn't forced, it was completely organic. And they developed a relationship together where it made sense why they would die for each other versus you met at a bar.

Yeah, I mean, well, I mean, and we weren't completely foreign to each other when we first met. You actually put yourself in a very sticky situation in our. In our, like, very first session, or maybe it was second session.

I think I had said that you guys were. Had. Had attended the same school together, and as. As young, younger, we played chess chat together. And it wasn't a very tight relationship at all.

It was a high buy thing if you saw each other in the street. But your stories over several sessions collided.

Well, and we were both. We're both playing very socially awkward people in this campaign. So, like. But the funny part was the story that. That came from it.

Where you, like, is the big question that I think everyone might be thinking. I was like, okay, well, what if they don't come together? Well, you put us in that situation where it could have been very easily have gone south.

And what had happened is. Is like, I am. So I'm meeting up with him. My. My chest.

I don't remember.

I think I'm. His backstory, where his family is involved in the local mob.

Yep.

And so a part of me and the way my character is playing as, like an assassin build is using him to see if I can flush out information to a degree. But ultimately, you know, we have that.

Interaction, I mean, to give some context. Like, what it was is, is that you were an aspiring assassin.

You're.

And you were trying to learn techniques on how to pick locks. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because you were not involved any kind of crime syndicate, you wanted to keep what you were doing very personal, very.

You didn't want.

You didn't want to, like, go through the traditional channels.

Yeah.

You had known David's character from school and knew that he was a bit of a prodigy, a scholar, and had learned that he was actually in charge of the city's library. And you felt that maybe because you had a relationship with them in school that maybe you could approach him and.

And maybe he could direct you to some. Some books or literature on locksmithing, and that's kind of how you guys started going. Came together.

Yeah.

But that was after several sessions of you dealing with your own. Your family dynamics and other stuff like that, which, again, I think is so important because they Learn who they are.

That's the most important thing is like you're not building a party. You should be focused on building people.

So if you build, if he really knows who his character is, then your game is just going to be so much better versus hey, your guy. Sean, you're an orphan. And now you're at a bar and a guy walks in, says 500 Gold who wants to work together.

You have no sense of who your character is.

Sure, you know and well, just going back to the question, like we obviously the DM has an outside looking view. They know all the characters and they can find ways to whittle them together.

But have you ever been in a situation where someone has built a character and they just never got with the party, period?

No. As the dm, I mean you do magic. I mean and you definitely don't want to force it. And if you don't want it to feel forced.

And there's, there was obviously there's some times where I am planning on you to come across him.

And even if, and it has happened in our games where I've had a player come to where you guys were and similar problems and thought you would interact and you guys really didn't even interact at all, that's fine. We keep the game going. I find other avenues. I, I create other opportunities. That's what I do. And it doesn't have to, you know, I just don't force it.

I really, truly want it to feel that it's organic. Clearly not organic because I'm behind there, the, you know, the puppet strings.

Sure.

But that's the plan. Even if it doesn't happen the first time, you can create as a team. You create opportunities, you know.

Well, it just shatters the, the idea that people should just work together because we're all there to play.

Right? I mean if, if you're at a bar and I'm at the other end of the bar and someone jumps you or something like why do I care?

Why am I going to risk being stabbed? Why am I going to risk being put in prison? Why? But if we have, you know, I started on this side of town, you started on the other side of the town.

And after several sessions we became friendly or you helped me out with something. Now I'm more inclined to get involved with you, to help you. And then boom, now you got a story where me and you are together. You know what I mean?

Just like that.

Absolutely. And one of the things that I, you know, it because of how much freedom and, and we'll we'll talk about this more in a future podcast.

But one of the things that we went through it towards the end of our campaign was this ultimate decision of. We've been working together with good reason for a very long time. We've been playing this game for over a year.

Yes.

And we did not end up going in the same direction. We actually separated.

And, and, you know, obviously we'll, we'll get into that in other, other episodes of this, but I do not believe in keeping the party together. If it makes sense for the party to be together, they should be together.

But I could tell you, Sean, David, other players in our games, if his player feels he needs to take a left and David feels he needs to take a right, they do it. They don't blink. And I don't blink either. We just keep the show going.

We. We separated, came back together, like three times over the course.

There's been some times where you guys will separate, and it's been seven or eight sessions separated. But again, when he's playing, David's over here playing npc so that, you know, the, the party doesn't stop by any means.

No.

And I could tell you there's never been any one of our players, and I think we have like five in this particular campaign. We have. Every single one of them shows up, even if they're not playing. If they're not playing their guy, they will show up.

Four guys will be playing just to support his guy, to be able to play those NPCs, to see where his stories goes. And they're becoming better players for. Because I'm throwing, you know, this week he's a dwarf. This week he's a little girl.

This week he's, you know, a pissed off guard. He's at the end of the bar and, and, and he thinks Sean's being too loud. Let's see what David's going to do about that.

And, and again, the thing that I love is when I hand these out, I just sit back and just say, where the hell is this going to go?

Yeah.

And it's awesome.

Yeah. No, it's some of the most memorable.

I, I will say that the, the origin story backstory that we played for my character was the most memorable session I've had in my seven years, which to be comparatively is not very long. But it was such a sobering moment because of the.

I think the big takeaway for me was to place character defining choices in front of those players for yourself, not as a party. Yeah. No, no, no. Yeah. So that you discover, okay, how does my character approach this choice?

Right.

And I think that defines your character long over the whole campaign.

You're setting a stage, you're setting precedence on how you conduct yourself.

Do you know what I mean?

And you're not thinking of it again, like, I think a lot of. Lot of these games that are ran are. It's a party. It shouldn't be a party. You. You. You build the player and then you create.

Then you build the party organically. But the.

The party will be so much better because each individual player has just is so, you know, like seasoned and experienced and on knowing who he is. And so you have these dynamics when they're together and that are so individual versus what's good for the party.

Like you guys all play for what's good for yourself. If. If in my job is. Is to make it so that what you're doing is something as yourself and as himself want to do together.

Yeah.

You know, and sometimes it doesn't happen. Like there's some. Literally we played a year and a half and we're at the. The.

The most important part of our game and him and David had a completely different. Different ideas on what needed to be done and they both just Goodbye. Goodbye. And they're both going.

It was complete. Wasn't as. It was a little more violent than that.

But you know, these guys had been friends for a long time, but they had a falling out on what needed to be done. And as individuals they did and. And they're. They literally just split apart with the potential to never see each other again again.

But the game keeps going, you know,.

And it was just funny how it all turned out which. Which we'll say for another time, but. Yeah, but it was just. Which I think made the story way better.

The other thing about the backstory is that's important. It's not. And about running them individually is. Is about being able to revisit some of that backstory and be able to touch on it later.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, you know, let's experience it and not just being a. Well, let's just say we did.

We started today was session and like, you know, you're coming up something very generic and you know, your parents were killed by this. This merchant and he disappeared on this ship never to be seen again. And now you're.

You're.

You're homeless and you're running around. We're role playing you. You're playing as a thief in the community and dealing with all these problems.

Here, but the back, the real important part of that story, that isn't important right now. Right now we're just dealing with how.

You're going to eat.

That's how we're going to play. But now we know that there's been a merchant that has killed your parents that disappeared on this ship. Now I file that we play for a year.

A year goes by and now he's in the middle of some sort of mission where he needs to get to the city guard and distract him right at the sunset before to get his friends in through the gate. But he sees a boat at the docks and he sees people loading it and it looks like it's going to leave in a minute.

And it looks the name is the same name of the boat as the man that disappeared 12 years ago that killed your mom and dad. Now what do you do? Do you know what I'm saying? You're supposed to be there or you do there. And so you got this moral dilemma.

And again very generic example. But I always. I wouldn't say always but I like to revisit some of these players backstories where you have these moral dilemmas and things like that.

Well, on top of that I feel like the one thing that I would do is I take that a step further and be like you're gonna, you're gonna experience life with your mom and dad and then also experience murderer.

We just recently played a game where I had a dwarf and we. He's playing inside an underground city. Huge, huge underground city. Dwarven city. And he gets a promotion.

All of my players that were here were playing dwarven family members and they had dinner together and they had jokes and it felt, it felt very real to him.

It was so much fun.

And then after two, three sessions, his whole family gets killed and he's left behind the feeling of having role played with his family and have them had being killed registered far more than if you just told him your family was killed. He had actually interacted with these people, his wife, his kids.

And I think that exactly you playing that instead of saying that's what happened exactly every time. Now he's in a position where he's trying to get revenge on what happened.

That revenge is so much of a stronger feeling for him because he interacted with his brother, his father, you know, so absolutely those things are super important to touch on to play.

Yeah. So it's just not red herrings. It's actual experiences, immersion. Which brings us to a great question.

Have you ever ignored a Player's backstory on purpose?

No. One thing I. One thing I.

When I get new players, lots of times they'll hand me this backstory, and it will be insane and just doesn't fit into the game.

Yeah.

And, you know, I try to work with it so we can get to what he wants, but it fits in the scope of what my game is. Yeah. And I definitely don't ignore them, but there has been some that, like, yes, my father was a God.

You know, I mean, backstory or something like that, you know, just some off the chart stuff. But I think backstories are awesome.

And depending on which, you know, sometimes it depends on what the backstory is, who the player is, and I try to revisit some of them, not all of them. You don't want to, you know, you don't want to be every single person's parents that got killed. Now they bump into the guy that killed their parents.

But I like to. I definitely want to utilize that. That background.

Yeah.

You know.

Well, you know, bringing to the question is just like, do you kind of. You already kind of answer this, but you do you touch on every single character's backstory?

Obviously, if you're role playing it where everyone's experiencing it, that's whole. That's one thing. But later in the campaign, well, let's.

Say, like you're, you know, for example, let's say that your guy lives in a city now, but he grew up in another city, you know, 2,000 miles away. And our campaign is way up here.

Now, I would definitely touch on the fact that he's from the south, where maybe, maybe he sees someone somewhere in the campaign that looks familiar to him.

You know what I mean?

So I will, in different ways incorporate his background into it, make it so it's not irrelevant. It's got to be relevant. And I mean, everyone in life's backstory is relevant. So I definitely do not ignore it.

You know, others, I will drop and make it a. An important facet into the campaign or create some moral dilemma. I mean, I had one guy who was playing a paladin. He grew up as a hymn.

His father owned slaves, and his father had bought him an orc to play with. And as they grew older, the orc and the son became very tight. The son stole the father's horse.

Father came home, was going to beat him for stealing the horse. The orc stepped up, said, no, I did it. He didn't want his friend to get the beaten, so he almost beat that orc to death.

The orc lost an eye, and then the father ended up selling the orc off. The son told the orc before he was sold off that when I get older, I will find you and I will set you free. Now, flat fast, let's go forward.

Five years later, he ends up that same player, flees that city, never see the orc. Ends up changing his ways, becomes a paladin, adventuring in our game for a year and a half. And then he finds out that this orc has been arrested.

The same orc has been arrested and is charged with murder and is up in this tower now, him as a paladin. He goes to the tower. He goes up and sees his old friend, the orc, who he promised that he would help set him free.

And he asked the orc, did you do this? The York swears to him he didn't. This paladin, please. For, for the the court to let him go. They say, absolutely not.

Says paladin decides to break his oath as a paladin. This is totally on his own to free his friend.

Yep.

But that was not even what the campaign was about. Yeah. That was like in the middle of him just showing up at a city, he heard the guy's name be announced being up for execution in the morning.

And from a friend from 15 years ago. But it changed the whole course.

Yeah.

Of that player's life.

Sure.

He fell from grace.

Yeah.

But it was an awesome moment, you know?

Yeah. No, absolutely. What's the worst? What's worse? No backstory or a 10 page novel?

No backstory. Would you fall from the sky? Like, who, who are you?

You know what I mean?

Like, I, I, I, I've had, you know, new players and I get it. I have a new player. He just showed up, he's like, I'm playing a thief, and he says, my guy's name is Thefto and I'm psycho. Okay. Theft.

Yeah.

I mean, you gotta. It. I show players that aren't that creative with backstories, and I will help with them. I'll make suggestions and help them grow one, you know?

Well, to me, it shows a lack of investment.

100%. There is a definite lack of investment with the not having any backstory.

But I've literally got 27 pages where I'm just like, you know, it gets crazy. But yeah, you definitely toss one in.

The air and find out if I.

Get a new player.

When you catch is the one that.

I will help them with a backstory. And obviously, I want them to like their backstory because I utilize them somehow, some way, and it gives the. The.

The player some sort of compass on, you know, if you know where you're from, you kind of get an idea where you're going to go.

Yeah.

I mean, a great example, I would say that, you know, where a campaign doesn't necessarily, I would say, require a backstory is the Curse of Strahd campaign, where they're literally pulled out of their world and they're put into a demiplane. Where. Where are they going to face anything outside of that.

That world? So the idea in the game is. And I'm familiar with the. The Curse of Stride. I ran it. That it's not relevant. Because I would think so.

That it's even more relevant.

Well, so my. My cousin's the one running that game right now. I'm a player in that right now.

And so he got to experience me running backstories for him in our previous. Before they went to Ravenloft, before we went to. Well, so in a previous campaign, he got to experience me doing a backstory for him.

Gotcha.

And he loved it so much that when we went to do Curse of Strahd, he wanted to do that because he wanted. He thought, I don't want to just throw you guys in and then pull you into Strahd. Let's do some origin stories and figure out.

He wanted to know who he was before he got there.

Exactly.

Yeah, that 100%.

And it was. And it was awesome. So he ran. I got a character that I've been wanting to play for years because I've been a forever dm. So I'm playing with you.

And playing with him have been my first experience as a character. But. But he. I got to play one of my characters I've been wanting to play forever, and I get to experience that backstory.

And it was awesome.

It was what it was. It was such a great time. And it definitely has feeded into who my character is in the campaign, without a doubt.

Yeah.

But should players expect their story to be used in the campaign?

I mean, with me, I wouldn't expect anything, but I utilize them. Unless it's just. Absolutely. If there's nothing, I. I can't think of a backstory that I don't touch on.

And like I said, it doesn't have to really be like, you know, the. The darkest parts of their backstory.

It could just be, like, where they're from or bumping into, you know, if you're a wizard bumping into a fellow wizard that you said your character Went to this particular school, bumping in years later, bumping into a fellow wizard that went to the school. I'll definitely be introducing aspects of your background.

You know what I mean?

You know, unless you leave earth and you go to the moon, your background, your backstory should revisit in a million different ways.

Well, I mean, just to touch on, like, just psychology of realism for a second. Like, you've got your memory. Like, your memory as outside of game is no different than you using your imagination to experience something in game.

Like, I remember you taking me through scenes of experiencing my mother's cooking in game.

Yeah.

And. And interactions with my family, and it's trivial, silly.

Why would you want to role play it, you know, with your mother? Because later on when your. Your mother vanishes again, you're more invested.

I mean, you.

You'd be out doing different things throughout the day with your career, and you would come home to where your mother and father was, and we would role play that. And it didn't have. It wasn't. It wasn't like long and drawn out or boring, but at least you had some interactions with people that were.

You were connected to. So then later on, when I take them away from you, you know, it's not just like a sentence, your mom died. Like, you got to interact with your mom. You.

You got to eat your mutton stew that your mom made. She would bitch about your bed not being made. You know, stuff like that.

Well, fast forward. You know, I'm at a point in the game where it's like, okay, I've already experienced the loss of my mom.

Yep.

And I still don't know what's happened to my dad or my mentor.

And so one of the things, one of like, where I am right now, going back to my hometown, one of my goals, even though it's not like this isn't the campaign.

Right.

The campaign's happening around me, but I still want to know what happened to them.

Right.

Because I've experienced those memories of interactive.

Connections to them, which. Exactly. If just pen and paper says you have a mom, that's great. If you get to role play that mom with you, you have.

You have a better connection to your mom in the game.

You know what I mean?

Your. Your decisions are going to be different because you interacted with your mom versus me. Just telling you, you have a mom that you interacted with.

Yeah.

Like, same thing like I said with the dwarfs when you guys all played the guys, Dwarfs family members, they were.

Making fun of them.

And, you know, having A just a family dinner. And we role played it for like 30 minutes. When his family got killed 10 sessions later, it really resonated with him.

Yeah. You know, so 100%, he, he played a super drunk out of body character.

Oh yeah.

For a whole session practice. Yeah.

He didn't shower for like two weeks. He was drunk all the time. Yeah.

And like, even when it came down to some important decision making for the party, he was unable to participate because he was, he was playing his character so well because he had interacted with those, those family members that he just couldn't see himself just changing gears and let me do what the party needs right now.

Sure.

Because he felt my character right now, there's no way that I would be able to, to function like that. Yeah. With this loss. And that loss is more real because he got to interact with them.

Yeah. And well, brings basic question now. So now we have a method of putting together a good backstory.

You know, have the players involved, let the creativity of the table kind of put it together, weave it in later. But in terms of what, what is a good backstory in the sense of what elements do you put together for them?

Like, you leave a lot up to NPCs and other players, but what to you comprises a good played backstory when you're, when they're putting the game?

Well, I think the, the oldest one is a. I don't want to. I hate the orphan one. Everyone's an orphan.

You know what I mean?

I hate that. I actually, I, I'll put it this way. The best backstories are the ones that you have more connections to, the ones where you have family.

I agree.

Or you have, or you, you have a girlfriend. You start off with that. I think those things are excellent because those are, those are tools that DM can utilize.

Those are, those are things he can hurt and take and, and kidnap and damage and create fear and threats and.

You know what I mean?

And, and, and, and all that. And you also gives the DM an opportunity to have the other guys play those people where you're more connected to them.

So later on, if he wants to utilize them as pawns or whatever, they resonate more to you. So I think a better backstory is one that is more connected to the community, connected to family more in simple. Doesn't have to be.

He's the son of a king.

You know what I mean?

It doesn't have to be.

It also takes away the need to write a 10 page backstory. If you know you're Going to play it. Yeah. So it makes prep a little bit easier for players, but, I mean, you're.

Still going to have a backstory, but you're going to bring us up right to today. Do. I mean, this is. This is your backstory right to today, and then we're going to play that. Yeah. I personally like to start all backstories.

It's not always going to be this way, but in a. In a city.

Because starting a back, I mean, I have done it with guys, a farmer or whatever, but it's just better when they're connected to a community, village or anything, and they get to interact with the different people and you end up finding who you are more so by the different things that are coming at you.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. Well, it begs the question of, like, okay, do you have problems with people being able to separate what they should and should not know in the game?

Like, you got a player who played the backstory with them.

Yeah.

By the NPCs.

But.

And maybe it was something secret, but they shouldn't. But their character shouldn't know, but the player does.

Yeah. Yeah. So if there's. If we're having a game, we're running you and we have our friends here who are playing NPCs.

If I know that there's something important that's going to happen, number one, if I. If I know in advance, I don't have them come.

Number two, there's lots of times where I've literally asked you to come with me and we'll step into another room for a few seconds. And lastly, the only things that I would be more concerned about with them not knowing are things that may affect how they play their characters.

Sure.

You know what I mean?

If it's just affecting you, I don't care if they, you know, let them know.

But if it's something that, like, that is going to affect or did affect or is connected in some way to who they are or what's going to happen to them, then absolutely. I don't want them to know.

Sure. So on the one hand, we. We hold on to the tight stuff that we're not supposed to know.

And so that for the dramatic reveals later or for effect, decision making. Right.

But ultimately it's supposed to be more fun for everyone to get to be a part and see of how you became who you are character as well, which ultimately allows everyone to get to know each other's character on a deeper level. Because how much time in a game do you spend like Tell me about your life.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

No. 100. That's another wood. That's a really good aspect of it, is that these players, they actually end up becoming invested in your story.

Yeah.

And you for them, too.

Absolutely.

And you understand their character a little bit better.

You know what I mean?

And it isn't just, you know, a little painted figure on a board. You understand? You understand, like when David's character said, I'm not coming with you. I'm not doing that, and you guys argued back and forth.

It wasn't like your character could not understand why David didn't want to go. No. You guys had completely different opinions about things, but you understood each other's opinions because you had a.

A very slow burn of connecting with each other, learning each other, and it made sense.

He's probably my only friend in the world.

Yeah.

So. Which. Which is what made it so that it came to flow.

Yeah. To.

To be fair. And. And just, you know, side note, I did not kill him. I did not hurt him. I had a paralyzing strike ability, and it just happened to work.

I took what I needed.

I can tell you, as the dm, though, I was horrified because I've got a year and a half invested in this game. And I knew I'd spoken to both players privately, and they were both saying, I. I'm not doing that. And he needed something that David had in his bag.

And David said, I'm not giving it to him. And I said, oh, man. A year and a half invested in this game. Someone might die today.

And.

But I don't stop that. I don't prevent it. I don't have, like, I just let it go where it goes.

And then I think that from a player perspective, too, we were a complete understanding of, like, look, whatever's going to happen, going to happen. We. We just care about the story more than, like, what's going to happen right here. Because I think this is what would actually happen.

And here's the thing. No matter how that interaction turned out, none of the players would have been mad because everyone who.

Everyone's invested in the story, and everyone understood everyone's position, even though they didn't agree, they understood it.

You know what I mean?

And if you had died, you wouldn't have been mad. No, I would have been upset.

I wouldn't.

Disappointing because you've been playing for a long time, but the situation called for that to happen.

You know what I mean?

And. And give away. We save the world.

Yeah.

Anyways.

Oh, so that's actually something for me is like, are like, what kind of goals do you think are important goals for characters to have going in for their characters? Because I think regardless of backstory, players should have goals short term and long.

Well, I mean, when I read someone's backstory, I don't know, like, I don't really know about what you, what you say is terms of. In terms of goals. Like.

Well, just make my character as an example. My goal at the time was I was not yet joined the Assassins. I was under training. So my current goal.

That was pretty obvious. Yeah, you were, you had a mentor and you were trying to get into an organization. I mean, that was pretty obvious.

But I mean, give me an example of, of another goal. So. Because that's, that's an obvious goal and of course I'm going to.

Well, what was, what was F school? He was just managing the bookstore. Okay.

So F. His friend David plays F. His. His character was the son of a crime boss who basically told him as his mother who was a prostitute.

The crime boss ended up marrying a wealthy merchant's daughter and told the prostitute who is David's mom, if you see me on the street, you don't know me because I don't want my wife to know that I have ever had children's before. So I don't know you. You don't look at me.

But what that crime boss did do, even though he'd never acknowledged him publicly as a son and never met with him, he gave him a job at a library that the crime boss owned because it was really a front for hiding and fencing goods in the basement. And his F's goal, I would say in the beginning, he didn't really have a goal.

I just dropped him in this situation where he was very upset by the fact that his father would not acknowledge him. His father had two kids who are riding white horses down the street, who are untouchable and wealthy.

F is barely existing inside of this, this one room shack above the library. And I wouldn't say that there was a goal for him. His was just survival. But I definitely created a situation where he had resentment and let.

I let him do what he want with that, if anything at all.

So at least if not a goal, a motivation, right?

A motivation, absolutely. But. Absolutely motivation. I mean, what's. You can't just show up and just say there's nothing happening. You have to.

You have to put out those, you know, the little breadcrumbs.

You know what I mean?

Yeah. And.

But that whole thing about his family had nothing to do with the overall campaign. And see that's the awesome part is at the time they think that this is this thing with his father, him trying to get in a thieves guilt.

That this is what this whole campaign that had nothing to do with what was happening in the back.

Oh, we had. We had no idea what was going on. But we. I'll tell you that those sessions were some of my favorite. Those are awesome game like.

And those had nothing to do with the override over the overall story.

It only built our connection. It only built our friendship. That was the soul made when the bomb dropped.

And it was time to immerse yourself into the overall end of the world story. You guys being together made so much more sense.

Yeah.

You go running into a burning building for him made sense. It wasn't like, well, we're a party. I'm supposed to go in and get the fight.

No. There were multiple times where I was like, I'm like, I. I saw people tracking him and they were.

He was about to be killed or, or you know, ambushed by a bunch of three people. And the only reason he survive is because I was able to chime in and get in there with some sneak attacks right in the middle of it.

Which again, this is why I'm so upset about the fact that he wouldn't hand over the magic item I needed to save the world is because I had saved this guy's life. I don't even know how many times in the game like. Like I had been there for him sometimes. Not always for my own selfish goals. No.

And there was some times where you guys would be role playing and arguing about in character in the games and some of those sessions were fantastic. You know, we had two arguing brothers.

Exactly. It got to a point where I'm just like, I'm tired of your man.

Yeah.

You need to get it together. I've been saving your ass. Brotherhood. Yeah.

Makes sense for you know, your. Whatever you're entering into. Why. Why am I going with you? Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Absolutely. Well, he did chime in.

And it doesn't have to be that I even like. You mean you could just. You could, you could cultivate it where your players are going to do the.

Do the same thing together but for completely different reasons. That doesn't matter. And then when they're together and you know, he's there to protect the merchandise, I'm there. I own the merchandise.

He's just an employee.

I mean.

But as we travel together again, real cheesy example. A relationship builds and that change in that relationship you utilize for the, you know, when, when the stuff matters.

Yeah, you, you know, so you just have to create those opportunities.

Well, does it. Because you put so much front end work to building the relationship to the meaning of the game and it was just us to start.

Did it make it difficult for you to incorporate the other players who came in later in the game?

No, because, you know, whatever kind of madness is going on in your world first, I play with them, I get, I get whatever's going on in their life happening and it's very easy to weave your path into their path for a million different reasons. That's never hard.

We've had a guy that came into the game, a year into it, boom, dropped right in and you know, played him for one or two sessions and you know, he knew who he was and we were able to weave him in the story where it didn't felt like I just pushed him into your story.

You know what I mean?

And I don't find it hard at all, you know, and I don't find it hard when you guys say I'm going this way and you guys go that way. I mean it's challenging but fun. And, and I love having the, you guys having this freedom where you do whatever you want.

It just brings in player agency.

You just, you feel like you are the main character in your story and if you are not in, you don't have to be like, you probably like have an idea of who technically is the main character in your game, but.

You have stronger players than others. No doubt.

But every player feels like the main character in their story and like they are a part of something.

Well, because their, their choices are really their own and they're. I, I encourage, like, don't. I say it all the time. Will there be a middle of a session and I'll say don't do this.

Don't do what you think is best for the game. I literally have said that like a hundred times.

Yeah, the game.

What is, excuse me, what is the best thing that you can do for you or that makes sense for you, your character? I'm not saying what is like selfishly for you, but what would your character do right now? Would he go and help him or would he leave?

What about those situations where you feel like people are leaning into that decision in a way that is counterproductive? Like, like, you know, you hear those stories about these players who are like.

And I haven't, I haven't personally experienced, but like, look, like this is what my character would do. You know what I mean? Like, they do a completely.

If they, let's put this way, if, if it's what their character would do and it's a dick move. Well, somewhere along the line I have to take some responsibility for creating a situation where that happened. Do you know what I mean?

Or.

But if the player just randomly does something, I mean, I do my best not to create a situation where that's going to happen.

But if, if you guys all meet together and say like one guy's traveling on the road and you're up ahead with a campfire, it's snowing and you know, you're, you're a player character. He's a player character and he just asked if he can share your fire and. But he decides he wants to pick your pockets.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

I mean, then it's game on. If you capture, if you catch him and you kill him. We've had many, many times where our players have killed other players.

We have, we have one guy, got a custom picture of his guy, wrote up a 10 page backstory session. One murdered by the rest of the players just because. Too aggressive, you know what I mean? There's five guys that have been super tight.

This one new player rolls up to the campfire, talking aggressively to them, you know, brandishes his sword. These five guys are killers that have been traveling for a year. This is a new player dead. I mean, it happens. I, I don't encourage it, but it happens.

Well, I think sometimes it has to happen.

Well, I think at some level, characters have to be written to cooperate in some way. Like, you can't be necessarily the lone wolf who's never going to work with anybody.

I mean, that's a, the, the idea is though, if I am running your character individually, I have to make it. We're going to run a session or two, so I'm going to understand what you're about.

And when I understand what you're about, that's going to give me the, the right idea on how I'm going to weave you into that story. Even if you're a selfish person, your guy doesn't care about anybody.

He doesn't care about this, this whatever it is that you do that I know, whatever that carrot is. Yeah, I'm going to utilize that carrot. Or if I, or I'm going to create a carrot to bring you to them.

You know what I mean?

And then lots of times you bring these players together for their own Reasons or similar reasons. The idea of us two together traveling that way seems a lot safer than me traveling that way alone seems safer, you understand?

But if you got some jerk player that just wants to, you know, you get rid of him real quick, you know, it's fair.

So we kind of touched on this a little bit. But like, as there is tragedy overused.

Oh, it's definitely over. Everyone's got a. You haven't. I would love of a character. Hear me as character. She's like, life is great. My family is wealthy.

You know what I mean?

I wake up every morning to a pedicure. I mean, that does not happen.

Do you know what I mean?

It does not happen. Everyone's got a dead mother, dead sister, raped uncle there. You know what I mean? But yeah, I mean, tragedy is overused. And I don't think.

Like, we have one player, Lulu, a female gnome. She comes from affluent family, doesn't have. Her background is just like family lives in one of the most prestigious cities in the realm.

Wealthy, no problems. Like, nobody writes that backstory.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

Doesn't give me a lot to work with. But when she goes home or, I mean, there's still some things I can. You got a wealthy family. There's a lot of things you could do with that.

But I don't think you have to touch on every background like. Like that. Exploit it. You don't have to exploit everyone's background.

Sure.

You know, like when he's in the area, he'll visit home and he'll see his parents and you know, he's always dirty. She's always dirty looking from traveling and they'll take care of it and they'll interact. But that's the background that he wanted.

And I'm okay with it because I don't think we need five people who's. Everyone. Everyone. We're all orphans here.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

We got the rich kid over there, you know?

Well, she's. She's always thrown me off in. In the game, that's for sure. Well, so that brings me to kind of the flip side.

Do funny light characters work in serious campaigns? Like people making joke characters?

Yeah, I, I'm. I'm notorious for making up an NPC named Mushroom that I will sometimes drop into the party and. And he's a. A goblin. He's an idiot. And I think it's.

I think it's for. You're saying for a player. Yeah, yeah. I think it's awesome. I think you have to Be able to have that comic relief to have that.

You know, if you watch the A Team, you got Murdoch with you. You got that idiot with you. I think it's awesome. Sometimes, though, being that idiot can get you killed.

Sure, my NPC has been killed in more than one campaign because he was trying to be helpful, but he was, you know, it would the Goblin be sitting at the table with the party, and the party would be talking about how they're going to sneak into the guards. The guards. The guard house. But they needed to get the keys at midnight, and the Goblin just decided, I'm gonna get them for you now.

You know what I mean?

And, like, they're looking up the one like, what the hell is he doing? And, you know, sometimes they end up.

You know, there's been campaigns where they've end up my goblins and his mushroom, and, you know, they end up getting rid of Mushroom. Like, yeah, man, he's causes too much problems. So, yeah, if you play that character, it comes with risks, but it's also really funny.

You know what I mean?

But that character, if he's going to be that guy, you got to make sure that there's someone in that party that really is invested in him and cares about him to keep his ass alive, you know, fair.

Well, so is it. Is it the player's job or the DM's job to make a usable backstory? I feel like, what. The way that. It's a community thing.

I feel like the way that we do things, we keep coming back to kind of the same answer with is just like, make it a cooperative. It is.

You give me a. You write out what you want. I look at it, I say, well, these things won't fit, but these will. I mean, you go back and forth like we do.

We probably text back and forth and talked on the phone seven or eight times until we were like, you're like, yeah, that's cool. And then boom. Launched, you know.

Yeah.

And as someone on the other side of it who's also been DM and had people try to work with it, like, well, this doesn't really fit in the world the way that it is. We might be able to work. Make it work this way if we, you know, do that.

Yeah.

Like it sometimes way over the top.

Yeah. You know, or someone will show up with their pre roll character and they got like a, you know, vorpal sword with them and stuff like that.

Well, you know, it brings into questions like, why are you. Why are you bringing me this backstory when you know nothing, nothing about my world.

Because if like short of like playing in Faerun where everyone knows, not everyone, but like most people know the history of Feyru, I provide like.

I think if you're going to do that, like I did with you, I provide kind of a. I sent you like an email. It gives you. It wasn't like. It wasn't a book. It was, you know, three, four pages of generalize what the world was.

So you know, if it is it high magic, you know, up north there's no slavery, down south there's slavery. It gave you some basic stuff. And then from that you we talked about where I would like you to start the game at.

Because if you know, you got this giant world and I want to start my game, you know, in Florida, but you saying you want to make your guy, he lives in Alaska. Well, that's going to be a problem.

Sure.

So we say, okay, we're going to start in Florida. This is the game's going to start. And then so we focus in on that and they give you a lot of information about that. And then from there you build.

Yeah.

And then you come back and we.

Bounce back and forth.

We find the happy medium.

And though this is a more of a mechanical question than anything else, but do you like games starting be like before their level one, where before they've even chosen their class and doing a backstory that will lead to the decision.

That I've never had a guy start like level 0 nothing. A level 1 nothing. He usually tells me what the classes he wants to be and.

But level one means, I mean I know you're already committed using up a level, but level one means you just, you don't, you don't. About that class.

Yeah, you know, I mean you don't.

Know anything about it. You just, you know, if you're a thief, you're one step above begging.

You know what I mean?

So yeah, I mean I always have them least and I've never had anyone that told me they didn't want to. I mean I wouldn't care if someone says, hey, I want to play a commoner.

And.

But see the problem is is unless I know what they want to do, how do I push that on them? They're a commoner.

I mean, well, someone said we gotta.

Say you gotta start the day off. He goes by, he sees the nice show stink. I don't really like that. He goes by, sees the wizards.

No, no, no. So like someone would know what class they gonna be.

Yeah, but they don't want necessarily want to know how they came to that decision as their character. I. And I'm just using the example of DC20 just because they.

If a character told me I would, I would be all in for that. If you told me, hey, I want to be a thief, but I want to play how I became a thief. Yeah, I'm in. Yeah, I love that. Yeah.

I mean, that's exactly what we're talking about. I mean, I would have no problem with that at all. That would be very cool. You know, like, okay, I'm first level wizard, Scott.

Let's start on how did I become a first level wizard. Let's do that.

Yeah. And which.

I'll just do my quick chime in if you, you know, the other systems do have it, but DC20 does have a sponsor for, you know, novice and level zero characters so that people can play them before they've actually chosen or get nuggets of parts of it. So just from a mechanical perspective.

So just as a quick sponsor, this podcast is dc2forge.com where you can get all of your digital companion stuff for DC20, the game and basically whole world building DM screens, everything you need. But anyways, diving back in. Do DMs owe players anything when it comes to their backstory? No, actually, let's.

I'm going to skip that question because he's definitely already answered it, but we've already kind of talked about most of this. Ah. So the, the. This one we've talked about in the background, but it'll be great for this.

But if a player tells you what they want, should you give it to them or make them struggle for it?

I just. Me and Sean are not on the same page at this. Never tell me what you want, ever.

Because I think if you say, you know, I really like a dagger, a magical dagger. I mean, now that you find that magical dagger after you said it, it's cheesy. Me. Don't tell me what you want.

Don't tell me, because I just think it's convenient, you know what I mean? You know, you want a magical dagger, do some research. Your character have. Do some research, have them seek out someone that makes magical items.

Have them. Something like that. But I mean, telling me I'm nobody, you know, like, I know I'm the dm, but how does that work?

How does your character tell me that you want a magical sword?

Yeah, I don't want to know what you want and what you want, because then it makes it very hard for me to give it to you because I find it a little cheesy for me to give you what you want. I am a notoriously stingy when it comes to magical items. I run a very low magic game. They're there.

But I think that magic is supposed to be magic, supposed to be rare.

If, you know, if you're at a bar and a guy pulls out a flaming sword and there's 13 other swords in there that are glow in the dark, I think that's just lame. It's not my style. So, yeah, I don't want to know what you want. I know Sean's a different dm. He's a good dm. He has his own style.

Me, I definitely don't want to know what you want. I mean, I definitely. If I knew that you were a ranger, the chances of you finding a magical bow man, not very good.

You know what I mean?

I mean, there's just not like a store you can go buy a magical boat or. Or they're not laying down in some, you know, alleyway waiting for you.

Statistically, what's the chances of that, you know, but is there other ways of you getting that made or. Or finding a guy that does have one and maybe killing them? I don't know.

But for me, it's less about, you know, telling me what you want, whereas more just like. Like, I divvy this up into two different categories. Number one is tell me what your character is thinking.

Like, like if you've got goals and that involves getting something, finding something, then if their character is going to actively try to look for that in game, that is a totally separate story. In which case I might create up. I might create opportunities. It really depends on what.

And obviously I'm not going to give you exactly what you want if that is.

But if they, if it is, does make sense for the story, for the game, and for their research of them getting it, then I will might create an opportunity for them to do so. But it's going to cost them. It's going to cost them time. It's going to cost them.

I just want to see it in character. Yeah, if you want. If there's something you want, play it, play it in game. I'm not Amazon, you know, you can't tell me what you want.

If you find out in game how to do it, find it in game, get it made in game, I'm not going to, you know, this isn't a Legend of Zelda. I'm not going to have a flame of waiting for you.

And that's one aspect. The other aspect is, you know, maybe, maybe like a player has an idea for like an overall end goal for their, their character arc, their story.

And I don't know if that's exactly what I would do, but having that knowledge gives me to your point where you were saying carrots and tugs and pulls and so they may never get it.

But I want to know that information so that I can leverage that information in terms of their character in the story and the player's interest as well. But that's, that's just me. But important thing that we haven't really touched on.

We've been diving deep into backstories and so I think for the last segment we will. Oh, we're actually going to run out of time. So we'll, we'll actually save this for maybe next time, maybe in the future.

Because session zero is a whole nother really topic, you know, prepping for the game and you know, before we ever get any actual role play. But I, we may do that next week or.

I think the thing we're leaning towards for next week's topic is the split the party concept which we've touched on a little bit today. But going into definitely split the party.

And, or even when you run by yourself a little bit, we talk more about what those cards are that, that I give out to the, the other players that are playing, the situations where I would or wouldn't give those out.

You know what I mean?

Because there's definitely times I don't want my player the you guys playing NPCs with some situation that you got going on. There are a lot that I do though and, and that's the same type of thing as splitting the party.

You're going to have your other half of the party playing these NPCs. So no one's home for three weeks,.

But we'll, we'll dive into splitting the party and session 0 and either next session or the session after that. But otherwise today I think has been a really good and productive conversation about backstories and the importance of them.

Do you have any final tips and tricks you want to say before we sign off?

No, I just think that it is the crime not to utilize the backstories and it. And more. It's a. Stop focusing on the party and start focusing on the players. Then your party will be better, your game will be better all around.

Yeah. And my advice is if you're, especially if you're a new dm because I'm, I'm fairly new comparatively to. To Scott anyway, is don't be afraid to try it.

I mean, don't be afraid to take the reins off yourself, especially if you're a new dm. This is. This will help. And these are. If they're new players too.

This will help you and your players grow together in terms of role play, immersion, everything like that. So don't be afraid to give it a shot. And because everyone's here to tell a story and have a great game. So I wouldn't. I wouldn't stress on.

I wouldn't stress on it.

So you've already done it, right, with your party, right?

Yeah.

And it's worked out great.

Oh, it was amazing. Some of the best sessions we've ever ran and to the point where my. The DM of my other game that I'm playing right now random for us too.

So it's awesome. Every time I'd see someone experiences, they roll it over into their next game and we experience it another way.

Good deal.

But again, thanks for listening, guys. Again, we are here to, you know, break down traditional thoughts of the game and help build up ideas so that you guys run great TTRPGs.

Again, I am the neurod doctor, here to diagnose what's wrong with your RPG game and here to help you fix it with my friend, D.M. Scott. And maybe next week, maybe two weeks, we'll take a look at our schedules and see if we can do this again.

Awesome.

All right, have a good one.

Take care.