GREATPC: 6 Questions to create the Ultimate Backstory for your Player Character in Roleplaying

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Important questions for backstory: Where did you come from? Where did you go? Where did you come from, Cotton-eye Joe?

I feel like you should narrate wildlife documentaries...

These are the types of things that separate Role Players from 'Roll Players'

1)What is your name? 2)What is your your quest? 3)What... is your favourite color?

"That's an old film from the 90s." I feel attacked.

How players actually make their character: - What class are they? This pretty much defines 93% of the personality/backstory/race of the player. - What weapon are they using? Is it big with lots of numbers? The more the better. - Is their wardrobe really fashionable? If not just wear lots of black. Now just take a running start and insert yourself into whatever the setting is as hard as possible and you'll "win".

Thank the Lord that someone finally understand D&D isnt about numbers.

Who cares about D&D anymore, I want to hear how the story of Elizabeth ends!!!

"so you can canoodle down the river" lmao i died

I know it's not the point, but as someone vary new to Role playing, the character you made in 20 minutes seems miles better then what I can make in an hour, definitely gonna remember these questions for my next characters.

I remember one of my most endearing characters, I wrote a ranger with a backstory of his family still being alive and well. I'd gotten tired of the PC "orphaned hero brigade" routine we got, where everyone had, one way or another lost their family. So instead, I went the other, he had both parents, and even grandparents still alive, brothers and sisters, aunts uncles and cousins. So why adventure? Well for one, to explore, to become a part of a legend that would be told and retold by his descendants, such as the stories he'd heard growing up. More pointedly, his town had bee a mining town, but after a war had forced increased production, the mine had finally petered out. His road to adventure was him intentionally departing to try and score the funds that would save his town, to help it change over to a more farm-based economy.

Though I didn't watch this during character creation, I am glad that I had the answer to all six questions for my character.

Question links for the lazy. 1. Where was the Character Born? (2:52) 2. Who are their parents? (6:38) a. Are the parents/family still alive? (8:20) 3.What was your character doing before the adventuring life? (10:00) 4. Why did your character leave their previous life? (13:01) 5. What did your character leave behind? (15:01) 6. What does your character want? (motivations) (16:53) As he says in the video, each of these questions spawn more and more specific questions, which can either be explored before play or left as a mystery within the game space for the game master and fellow players to discover together. This is definitely one of my favorite tutorials for character creation out there. Think of the character, not the class, instead of vice versa.

I'd also say to not be afraid of cliches. You aren't trying to write an award winning novel, and cliches exist because they are fundamentally interesting. Also, the DM probably isn't going to delve too deep into your backstory -- it depends, but since there will be at least another 3 or 4 players all with their own backstories, the main focus will often be on things happening in the world. I think a good DM should try to weave in character backstories (I like to do that) but as a player never count on it. Oh, also, it can be okay to be somewhat vague in your answers. Try to at least get a general idea of things, but for instance with the first question you don't have to specify the exact town and street on which you were born. Though I think that question is more focused about where you grew up as that's usually more important than where your mother expelled you from her body. But the point is, you could focus on the type of place where you grew up: the slums, or a tiny forest village, or a noble's estate in a massive city, or in the sewers of that city, or in a dark and secret cult, or on a ship that sailed the seas and only dropped into port for brief resupplies.

"2000 views and counting" my, have you grown.

My friends and I are about to depart from our current adventure to a new one, and during our campaign a running gag started to occur that we just could not get rid of a villian called Gorgon. Every time we tried to guess who did what, even if completly unrelated, the list would be "Gorgon, person a, person b, etc, or Gorgon again!" And as we were thinking of adventures the GM suggested a sea ferring journey and I thought of a character to continue the joke: A failing pirate that would board local army ships so often and unsuccesfully, the sailors wouldn't even arrest him at a certain point, and joked whenever something bad happend that "It's Gorgon again!", a motto he embraced later. But the character wasn't much more developed than a joke, and this really helped me. Thank you.

I am absolutely enthralled by how you speak. Your cadence and voice lend themselves perfectly to this. This channel is like a cornucopia for me, since it interweaves my love of phonetics and linguistics with my interest in both storytelling, fantasy/science fiction, and D&D/role-playing. Thank you for putting effort into these very informative and engaging videos!

I believe that this is a great guide on how to make a character feel real and that, if possible PCs should try to follow this process. In addition to these questions, there is another aspect of a character that I always include to help me and others understand the core personalities of a character: Flaws. Simply put, I always understand that no person is perfect and therefore needs to have something that they're probably not proud of. I base the core flaw that my characters have off of the 7 deadly sins: Pride, Gluttony, Greed, ect. Not to say that my or any character is the pinnacle of these flaws, but they should all have one that stands out from the others. E.G. If a character is gluttonous, that doesn't mean that they weigh 800 lbs and eat everything in sight, but it might mean that promise of a good meal might tempt them or that he or she might be easily killed via poison at a dinner party because he or she feels no sense of danger when he or she is in his or her most comfortable place even if there are known assassins after the party. There are other examples (obviously), so I'll just leave it there

Holy shit man, I have pretty much these EXACT questions as a handout I give to new players.