Crafting a good backstory can be a boon for both players and DMs. Welcome to D&D 101, a column that answers reader questions about Dungeons & Dragons (and other tabletop games.) We’ll cover everything from game management skills, character builds, and creating memorable campaigns to some of the trickier “social” aspects of the game. If you have a question that you’d like to see answered in a future column, leave us a comment or find me on Twitter at @CHofferCbus and ask me on there!
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One of my favorite parts about starting a new Dungeons & Dragons campaign is learning about the new characters I’ll be spending time with for the next few months. As someone who almost always DMs, I love learning about what the players want to do with their characters, and what secrets about the world they’re looking to discover with their characters. Backstories are a critical part of Dungeons & Dragons, both for the players and the DM. For players, they give their character an initial reason to become an adventurer and to pursue the plot hooks set in front of them by DMs. For the Dungeon Master, it’s a chance to make the players feel like their characters are a part of the world instead of just playing in someone else’s playground.
When a DM sits down with their players before a campaign starts, they should try to work with their players to develop their backstory into the world of the campaign. Sometimes, this can be as easy as connecting the players to an important NPC or villain, or giving them ties to a particular faction. Other times, the player will suggest some sort of mystery or quest that their players is involved with, and the DM will need to figure out a way to bring that element into the overarching plot of the campaign.
Incorporating a player character’s backstory into a homebrew campaign is usually easy, and can result in some surprising twists that not even the DM expects. Your players will almost always want to pursue a plot hook that ties into their character’s backstory, and it’s usually a lot of fun to pit a player against something from their past. And while it can be tricky to balance personal quests with the overall story, it’s very rewarding to see a player get invested into your world because you found a way to bring in elements they came up with into the wider campaign setting.
Trying to incorporate backstories into a pre-written adventure can be a little trickier, mostly because the adventure’s main plot hooks are already made. Usually, both the player and the DM need to be a bit more flexible. For instance, a player wanting to be a spy may have to settle for being a member of the Harpers if they want to play in an adventure in the Forgotten Realms, and the DM may need to figure out a way to get the Harpers involved in the storyline if necessary. The DM might also tease certain elements or suggest backstories to help their players. For instance, a DM might suggest that their players have family living in Elturel if they want to provide the players with a compelling backstory hook for Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus.
There are a few other easy tricks that both DMs and players can use to tie characters into a campaign. One thing that I like to do as a DM is provide players with a brief overview of a campaign setting before the players sit down to make their characters. This overview usually hints at a few major plotlines that I plan to develop, and gives the players some potential hooks that they can build their story around. Players don’t need to use the elements that I introduce, but some players might get inspired by one of my story ideas and add it to their own character backstories.
Players may also want to write a “generic” version of their backstory and send it to their DM to work on together. In a campaign I recently started for some other ComicBook.com writers, I asked all the players to send me a brief backstory of their characters. Four out of the five players sent me backstories that were easy to incorporate into the pre-written adventure I was running for them, ranging from investigating a strange cult that had corrupted their character’s village, to a magical item stolen from a prince. By keeping things open for the DM, I was able to seamlessly bring their characters into the world of the adventure and give them a reason to keep following the adventure hooks from the campaign.
Collaboration between players and DMs is the key to making players feel like they’re truly part of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Working with a DM to craft a backstory will help the player stay invested in a campaign, and DMs can use the building blocks provided by players to take their campaign to the next level.
