5 Questions to Write a Better Backstory for Your D&D Character

“This is it?” Ulv asked in a hushed whisper.

“You wanted rebels. These are the only ones I know of. They’ve come here to talk to you, now say something.” Herlia responds tersely.

You sigh and step forward. You look around the basement of the tavern. Only a few candles hang around giving the room a gloomy cast. You meet the eyes of each of the 5 people sitting on barrels in this dank cellar.

“Thank you for meeting me. My companion here told me that you’ve had certain misgivings about the current regime?” Ulv pauses to let the listeners absorb his words.

“Ay, and we’ve come here to see that justice is done upon his cursed head. Are you gonna’ lead us to march against the king? Are we goin ta fight?” says one burly woman loudly. The others nod their heads and crack their knuckles.

“Your courage is to be admired, but we’re here just to observe and strategize. We don’t want to take any undue risks. Now, who is your leader?” Ulv asks.

“Oh, you mean Burto? He’s a tactical genius he is.”

“Great, where is this Burto?” Ulv asks.

“Oh, he’s in prison.”

What would you like to do?

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Every dungeons and dragons game starts with character creation and if you don’t help your characters flesh our a good backstory, your players will have a stale character they won’t much like. Today, let’s fix that.

Welcome back to How to Be a Better DM. I’m Justin Lewis and I’ll be your host and DM today as you and I learn how to craft better stories for yourself and your players as you DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons.

Today we will be talking about writing backstories, but first some housekeeping items.

As I said before, we have our one-shot in September coming up on September 17th. All the slots for that are already filled but if you want to watch that show you can go to https://betterdungeonmaster.com/watch to watch the whole One-Shot at the time of the game. Otherwise sign up for October’s one-shot with guest host Bone Daddy from This Dungeon is Occupied.

Now, let’s talk about writing backstories.

As we’ve said before, having your players flesh out their character at the beginning can help set them up for an incredible time playing D&D with you as their Dungeon Master. One big part of fleshing out their character is writing their back story. If there’s one thing that any Dungeon Master is aware of it’s that their players rarely write their backstories and if they do, they don’t do it to the level we need. Well, no longer. You see, you, as their DM, will be able to ask them these questions and help them generate the back story they need. If you want, you can even write what they say down. Just make sure to form it in these terms.

One last thing that I’d like to add before we get started. Help your players write backstories that are equal to their level. A level 1 character has only ever done level 1 things and lower. That doesn’t mean that they can’t have an interesting backstory. Instead, what it does mean is that the impact of what they’ve done is generally very small and localized, affecting mostly themselves and their family. They’ve never saved the world. In most cases, they may never have slain anything. For many level 1 characters, causing death is something they learn to do after they start adventuring. If a character is the exception then that should be a huge part of their backstory. What they’ve done is small but the emotional impact is huge.

1. 
   
3. Parents
4. 
   

One of the best ways to start your backstory is by asking “What were my character’s parents like before the character was born?” See, this question will inform your character's story and help flesh out some of the later questions I’ll have you ask. Many of our lives as people are determined by who our parents were before we were born. Where they decided to settle down if they did.

Were your parent's warriors? Were they scoundrels? Were they simple farmers?

Why did they have a child? How do they regard you? When they found out they were having a child, what changes did they make? Did they shift their life away from what they were previously doing? Are they still doing what they were doing? If not, why did they stop?

Let’s do an example:

My character's parents used to run a library in a very small town. They were seen as the knowledge center of the town because the population was so small. They also did some secret jobs for various adventurers that came into town such as acquiring special spell components or herbs. One a few occasions they put their lives at risk for these components but mostly it was mundane items. When they found out they became pregnant, they reasoned a small town could not pay them enough money to allow a family of three to subsist. They then decided to move their library and book store to a much bigger city. This caused a tremendous culture shock for the parents and eventually pushed them to seeking out powerful friends who could help offer protection, for a price.

You see how this simple question has led to a pretty awesome backstory and we don’t even know who my character is yet?

1. 
   
3. Childhood
4. 
   

Now you need to delve into your character’s childhood. There has long been a debate in the world of psychology of whether it is your nature (innate genes from your parents) or your nurture (what affected you after you were born) that determines how you develop. They are now attributing your development on both. We’ve already discussed your nature  (some of your parents’ heritage) so talking about your childhood is moving into your nurture aspect.

You need to ask questions like:

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• What was their childhood demeanor?
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• Did they have siblings?
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• Who were their best friends?
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• How did they treat authority figures and why?
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• What did they think about their parents?
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• What did they think about their environment?
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• When (if at all) was their innocence taken from them?
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• When did they learn about death?
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• Did they have a favorite pet?
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These questions will actually set the stage for the rest of your backstory. The backstory is really just a compendium of all the coolest stories of your character’s life. In reality, we all have interesting back stories in real life. We just need to dig deeper and think about those interesting stories that might not be really long but would instead be useful for instructing the player on how to actually play the character they create.

Let’s continue with my previous character. For simplicity, let’s call this character John.

John’s parents always provided for him and his younger brother, though there were times when John’s parents would hide things from their children. John would be inside and his parents would tell him to take his brother out to play outside and not come back until sundown. John remembers a specific time when he came home because his little brother got a scrape and he walked into his house and saw a group of people with Strange white masks. John’s parents immediately got very angry and yelled at him to leave. From that time on, John did everything he could to discover what his parents were up to. He was convinced that it was because his parents were struggling financially, so he also started looking for ways to make some extra money. Because of that, he took jobs very early on and seemed to lose a lot of his innocence and childhood. Meanwhile, John’s little brother became somewhat neglected because John focused more on discovering secrets and making money. As they grew, the two brothers developed a challenging relationship. John loved his little brother but his little brother seemed to fall in with the wrong crowd. Not knowing what else to do, John started inventing in hopes of creating an invention that he could sell that would allow him to spend more time at home with his brother and parents. All the while it seemed his family life fell apart somewhat.

1. 
   
3. Why’d They Leave Home
4. 
   

Let’s think back to Joseph Campbell's hero’s journey. In every mythic hero’s journey tale, the hero is forced to leave their place of comfort. They are invited, or forced out into a world beyond their comprehension and shown things they do not understand. They also start to explore and adventure more and see the world for what it is. This is when their innocence truly leaves them because they have to leave their old self behind and really forge themselves anew.

Here you’ll be answering questions like:

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• How’d they gain their abilities (We’ll actually answer that next)
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• Did they have a mentor, and if so who?
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• What forced them out into the wide world?
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• Why haven’t they returned home yet?
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• What discomforts were the most difficult for them to come to terms with?
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• What are they afraid of now?
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• Who or what did they leave behind and how if at all do they keep that relationship strong?
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• What are they running from or running to?
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• How do they feel about their home?
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• What questions do they have that need answering?
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You see with all these questions, you’re really starting to fill out your character and help yourself understand their decisions and how in the world they’ve landed where they are currently (session 0 or session 1). To be honest, a good DM will help you write these and also give an opportunity to actually play through them a little.

The biggest point of this section of questions is to start to explain why the adventurer’s life started changing from “normal” to a life of adventuring.

Let’s go back to my example with John.

During his adolescent years, John spent lots of time creating inventions. Then he started noticing that some of his inventions began disappearing. One day, he came home from a short walk to find his parents and the people in the strange white masks taking his inventions. He tried to stop them and amidst the struggle, one of his inventions exploded. The blast nearly killed John but set the rest of the house ablaze. John searched the wreckage for his parents and found his mother, dead among the rubble. He also found three of the strange people with the white masks dead as well. Feeling intense grief and shame for the death of his mother, John decided he could not face his brother or father. He decided to flee.

John disappeared into the city and did what he could to survive. He begged for food and even petitioned local machinists for some work. He finally found a Gnome Ironworker from the Kula Uwea Confederacy who took John in because he saw the prowess of the young inventor. John learned various skills there and even got a glimpse of his mentor’s process for smithing Deep Iron. But unfortunately, his past caught up to him. One night, the workshop where John stayed was assaulted by people in mysterious white masks. John’s Gnome mentor was killed, but not before giving John time to escape. Now John runs from the mysterious society with the white masks. Though John has spent years trying to understand who they are, he has found little evidence.

Unbeknownst to John, his brother has joined the White Masked society and now seeks revenge upon John for the death of their mother.

Intermission:

“I never thought I’d miss Rue,” Ulv whispers to Hipam.

“Yeah, I supposed she was good for something…” Hipam whispers back in a very unconvincing tone.

“It’s lucky Judir has such a high tolerance for alcohol,” Ulv mutters.

“I think he actually cast protection from poison before starting this drinking game,” Herlia whispers.

The group sits at a table in one of the seediest taverns in the city. Across the room sits Judir, bellowing loudly and drinking with another man. That man is one of the captains of the city’s prison. He is one of the captains with a key to the city’s prison. Judir’s job is to get the man blind drunk and then to have one of the group steal his key. None of the group were particularly suited to thieving, not like Rue was. You’ll just have to make do.

“Either way, just keep an eye out for anything suspicious. We don’t need to…” Ulv whispers and then cut off as he notices the captain of the city Prison throw a right hook right into Judir’s jaw. Immediately that table erupts into a brawl.

“Guess we’ll have to do this the not sneaky way,” Cojari sighs as he gets up from the table and joins the fight.

1. 
   
3. Gaining Abilities
4. 
   

One of the more important singular questions in writing a backstory is “How did they start to gain their abilities or discover their abilities?”

Each adventurer in Dungeons and Dragons is on the path to becoming something special. Even level 1 heroes have started something amazing. The question to answer is how did they begin? Let’s look into this for each class.

Barbarians: You need to explain where and how your character started learning to fight. You also need to explain the source from which they draw their rage.

Bard: You need to explain how they started to learn how to use music to access magic.

Cleric: You need to explain how your character is connected with divinity.

Artificer: You need to explain how your character started to learn to tinker.

Sorcerer: You need to explain how your character discovered their latent magical abilities.

Wizard: You need to explain how your character first interacted with magic and what drove them to learn it.

Warlock: You need to explain how your character first connected with their patron.

Rogue: You need to explain how your character fell into the underworld of crime.

Ranger: You need to explain how your character learned the arts of survival and how you learned certain aspects of magic.

Monk: You need to describe how your character started practicing the art of ki and self-discipline.

Paladin: You need to explain how your character both learned the art of weaponry and how they connected with divinity.

Druid: You need to explain how your character first connected with the magic of nature and why that impacted your character.

Obviously these aren’t all the questions you need to answer about your character’s abilities but they will get you started.

Let’s go back to our example with John.

John met his gnome inventor mentor while walking the streets trying to sell knick knacks here and there The gnome saw that John had created various trinkets and thought to teach the boy something new. John became intensely interested in the gnome’s teachings and the gnome found a willing pupil. He brought John into his home and made him his apprentice. A year went by, during which John learned the beginning’s of artificing. He witnessed various miracles wrought by his gnome master’s mechanical skills. Over the year, the two became great friends and the gnome finally gave John his own tinker’s tools as a gift. Unfortunately, the apprenticeship came to an end when the mysterious group with the white masks attacked the gnome’s home and killed his mentor. John escaped with his life, the tools given to him from his mentor, and his mentor’s journal of schematics.

1. 
   
3. Current Quest
4. 
   

You can’t finish your backstory writing session without figuring out what your character cares about right now. As you start playing with your character, you have to pull all of their emotional baggage and past into the present by having it have residual effects on what they do right now. So answer the following questions:

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• What is your character’s goal right now?
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• What are they trying to accomplish?
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• Why do they care about that thing?
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• What are the main obstacles stopping them from doing that?
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• What resources do they need to accomplish that goal?
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• What will they do once they achieve their accomplishment?
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This is crucial information. So stepping back into the Justin role where I’m talking to you the DM instead of being the DM talking to the player. You need your players to fill out this particular question. This informs on some of the character’s main motivation right now and it can help you align their desires with some of the other members of the party to hopefully gel the group together. That is, of course, assuming that you are starting with the characters not knowing each other. Let’s go back to our example with John the Artificer.

John has now left the town where he grew up. He spent a year or so on the road just trying to survive. He realized that his mentor’s journal was an arcane creation and each page was sealed by an arcane cipher. On each page, he had to solve a certain riddle in order to access that schematic. John also realized that the strange society was still following him. He’s been moving from town to town trying to evade him but they always seem to find him. He assumes that his brother still wants revenge on him for the death of their parents. Unknown to John, the society actually wants the journal for a very specific schematic they’d actually hired the gnome to create. The gnome created the schematic but then realized that the specific invention was too dangerous. John’s brother volunteered for the mission, not for revenge, but to convince John to join the mysterious society.

John’s goals now are to unlock the journal and learn about the white-masked society and avoid his brother and the society.

As always, this episode...