When planning for a character, you must develop a good backstory. You may have seen many blogs and posts on creating a backstory for your character but you still don’t know how to make one. This blog will be about creating a character backstory for the 5th edition and it will offer some ways to get inspiration for it.
To make this simpler we will work on three backstories simultaneously. One for a Fighter/Barbarian type, one for a Rouge/Ranger type, and one for a Wizard/Sorcerer type. To be extra on the nose we will refer to them as Warrior, Thief, and Mage later in the text. The character will be male just to avoid adding extra he/she/they text to all references to the character.
This will follow the Dungeons and Dragons 5e rule set and we will imagine we are creating a character backstory in a generic fantasy setting (Forgotten Realms, Exandria, and so on). The whole process starts when you have no idea what to play but some of these methods are useful even when you have an idea but need to flesh it out some more. When we start making a character all we have is an empty Characters Sheet. From here our options are unlimited.
Choosing a class in relation to your party and the lore
The first thing you want to do is find out what type of character you want to be. Some people start with a class and work from there, and some with personality. We got no idea whatsoever, so where should we start? The answer to that is your party and the DM. See what roles are open in the party or what the DM thinks will best fit. This may not be the answer, but it will do one thing: point you in the direction. You see that your party needs a Warrior/Thief/Mage but what now? Well, you have to make a choice. Luckily Dnd 5e has a lot of subclasses that can make your class choice easy so we will not waste time on that. You made your choice you are a Warrior/Thief/Mage that will now fit your party and the world but who are you?
Letting Stats influence/frame the character backstory
This gets easier to answer now that we have our class. A Warrior is a good fighter, a Thief is a sneaky guy, and a Mage is intelligent in general. We start there. What are you good at and what are you bad at? Simple choices and don’t worry all this can be changed, it is your backstory, after all. Now we are just getting a feeling for the character.
Every character type has its strengths and weaknesses. So, a warrior is good at fighting but what is he bad at? People skills, not educated or maybe he is just aloof. The thief is sneaky but maybe physically weak. A mage is intelligent but probably not great at parties. No matter what you choose now you have your good and bad stats and can start filling up that character’s sheet with some numbers. As you see we are still painting with a broad brush, but we are getting some answers and forming a frame for our backstory to fill.
Questions – the backbone of your character backstory
At this point, it helps to work a bit with your DM to place you in the world, but we are starting in a generic fantasy setting so all tropes are ours to use. By now you should already have some general idea of what kind of a person your character is. It is time to start asking some questions.
Here are some examples of questions to get you started, and you can answer them in whatever order you like.
What is your character’s race?
Is he a typical example of his race or is he unique?
Is he a proud member of his race or does he hide his heritage?
Answering this will get you some racial mechanical benefits like darkvision or some racial feats and give you some glimpses into the personality of your character.
Does your character have a family?
Is the family still alive?
Are they on good or bad terms with them and why?
Does his family approve of his adventuring life or not?
What lengths is your character ready to go to for them?
The answers to these questions will help you create a more believable character since a family would be an important part of their life. You can use this information to help you decide whether to take charisma-based skills like deception or persuasion, depending on their family connections.
Even if you go an orphan route, his “family” are people he grew up with.
How did he get to be a Lvl1 Warrior/Thief/Mage?
Who was his teacher/s?
Where did he study?
Does he owe something for the knowledge he got?
Did his skills come easy or did he have to work hard?
This line of questions will fill a lot of your backstory depending on your choice of class. Your character’s class is what makes him stand out from the typical commoner. Also, this will give you a chance to fill in your skills proficiency. Our warrior became proficient in athletics from his days of hard training, the thief got stealth from his youth avoiding the bigger kids and the mage got arcana from studying the books of magic from his teachers.
What motivates him to adventure?
Did he run away and is hiding from someone?
Does he need money?
Is he searching for someone or something?
Hunting glory or riches?
Motivation is maybe the most important thing in your character’s backstory. This will give you a reason to form a party with your fellow players and their characters. Answers to this should be broad so it’s easier for the DM and other players to join in, but still should be something to keep you and your character motivated to keep adventuring. Getting revenge on the bandit captain is fine, but after you have done it, what will keep you adventuring? Think of something that will keep you motivated throughout the early levels so that once you have spent a certain amount of time with the party, your character will be driven by new motivations.
Most of the questions come naturally, but if you have one of those days when you don’t feel inspired imagine this as meeting a new person, or a job interview. Start simple and the more answers you get will open room for more questions. Ask as many as you like and need to get a picture of who your character is.
Writing down your character backstory
Now that you have the answers, you know who your Warrior/Thief/Mage is, you need to write it all down. There are many ways to do this. You can have it in cliff notes or as a story. It depends on what you feel like and is comfortable writing. But my advice is to write something from your character’s perspective. A small conversation or the whole story told from his point of view. Critical Role season one had this done perfectly. All the characters told their backstories from their point of view, and it made you understand and know the characters better. This will help you get in character more quickly and make it easier for you to slip back into the role, once a long break has passed.
Here we are. Your Warrior/Thief/Mage is ready to roll out. As I mentioned before, there are many blogs and posts on the web that give you inspiration or illustrate how to create a good backstory. However, I feel that this method is the best way to get all of this information straight from you and give your character a unique identity. It is easy to copy a character from a movie or a book and try to play it but making something of your own makes the game more personal and enjoyable. I hope this helps you and if not, please leave a comment on what you would do differently or how I can improve my way of doing it.
