hello my name is guy and you're watching how to be a great GM today we're looking at
adding backstory to your players characters. why would we want to add
backstory to our players characters isn't that their job quite simply the
answer is no you're missing out on a great opportunity if you are the dungeon
master and you don't do this why why is this so important let's jump into it
when we add backstory we are effectively adding to the narrative of our players
characters and in doing so we are creating a world that is real to the
player character and that invests the player as well you're suddenly saying
your character's backstory that you wrote out I'm adding a little bit to it
but we're not going to add in a complete story that belongs to the player it's a
collective that we are involved in here a narrative collective so we've got to
make sure that what we are adding in allows for collective addition not just
us adding in and entire chapter in this poor pcs life so we start by saying what
actually happened what is it that we want to add into this backstory to
effectively create a quest the quests that are going to come out of these
kinds of things of adding a new character backstory is quite literally
going to be exploring an aspect of this individual so that we as the game master
so that the players and their characters learn a little bit more about the
character that they're on a journey with these are great adventures to add to
your campaign in between the main event it builds a whole lot of things and
principally it tells the players I as the game ask to respect your character
and your story and I want to make sure that you feel as if you're part of my
game because my game includes parts of you sounds weird but how do we do this
so we look at the attitude of the PCs that's an important thing too
understand is if the PCs are angry all the time what was the reason for that
anger their back story might hint at it their back story might say they were
raised by slavers and so oh you're angry because you're allowed to be you have a
horrid horrid background that could be one it could also not be included in the
back story so there's something that you could look at you know your PC is always
argumentative where did that come from what inspired that let's go find out and
you can now create this or start to create this back story that's going to
lead us into learning more about the character we then need to decide on what
type of quest is this going to lead us to is it a Thornton quest is it a
discovery quest as a delivery Quest wasn't a collecting quest as you can see
the whole idea is that if one pcs backstory is a war ting backstory where
they have to go and stop an ancient evil uncle who was around when they were
young and has now taken control of the family farm that's a swatting adventure
on the other hand it could be a case of you remember your aunt that you were so
fond of she's died and you need to come to town to collect her heirlooms that
belong to the family it's a collection adventure where of course they get there
they collect the things but on route they're attacked by assassins there's a
dragon that gets involved what are these heirlooms that they are
collecting this this is a very interesting story if it's delivery well
there's other options that we can go with there and of course of its
discovery who or what is behind whatever is happening etc understand your players
as well it's important to realize that your players might not like this
tampering they might not like you adding in the fact that in the characters
backstory there was this diabolical act they might go well my character would
never do that my character doesn't do that and so we turn to holes create this
event what what what what I'm going to try and point to this now what is their
attitude where did that come from what's the type of adventure understand
the play and then we create holes within the narrative so we don't explain the
narrative specifically we don't say here is your story we allow the PCs to tell
us the story and this is how we do it
yeah we had holes we had holes in everything we couldn't understand where
why who done it why they do it what was their name the idea of leaving holes in
a backstory is specifically so that the player can start to incorporate it into
their own story remember this is collaboration this isn't just you
dictating what happened in the past sorry in the past the idea here's that
when you create the backstory you say things like this happened 25 years ago
when you were doing what let the player fill in the details I was working as a
farmer I was a detective with a bad accent whatever they want the coal is to
let them fill in that detail so what happens is suddenly you're a little seed
of 25 years ago the player now takes it and internalizes it alternatively if you
just say 25 years ago when you were working as a detective the player is
gonna go well I don't think I would have had to be a detective I don't think what
I mean does in other words all you are doing is laying down moments and
opportunities for the player to fill in the details let them give you the color
you just provide them the base I think it's pretty simple but make sure you
don't overprescribe 25 years ago was you were doing X you
were then involved in Y and that caused this to happen what was this what was Y
and what was X that's for the player to find out I hope that makes sense
okay so we've got this this space starting to happen what's next next is
that we need to know who else knows so the PC is now starting to develop this
background the player is starting to think how can I incorporate this idea
with that idea how can I move forward now we need to give a name there must be
something if the players background says they were raised in isolation inventor
name but you need to insert some names and if necessary give those names to the
player the player doesn't have the names in their backstory certainly do that be
aware that if the player has a long-lost lover in their backstory and you want to
use that lovers that lover in the adventure make sure that the player is
happy with that and then add a family member always add a family family
members are brilliant they come from all over the place everybody had to be born
at some point everybody had a maker an original creator go and draw on that
those creators might have had brothers or sisters or step brothers or aunts or
uncles or hell even the postman's wives sisters brothers uncles aunt daughter
who was the secretary to the family might know the character you can build a
link somehow into the character so make it a family member why add a family
member it makes it personal it tells the players this is not necessarily
something that can be ignored or trifled with this is important or should be
important to your character and this is not plot related necessarily it's
unlikely I mean sure maybe the character that live one of the characters is the
lead hero in the story in which case family might be used all the time but
generally speaking when family are involved this is now a personal story
and then determine the intent so if it is a swatting adventure is their family
member trying to do something taking over the family farm reinvesting in a
new starship all those kinds of things is their intent good or is it bad is it
maybe they don't have an intent if it is a collection or a discovery or even a
delivery what if the players are delivering their own family member
player characters own family member into a dangerous situation
or they have been found that they're in a dangerous situation and they must now
be saved from that so it depends what is the intent what is the entire purpose
behind it but family is important well of course family is important lot of
players are not gonna have family in their backstory they're gonna literally
just pretend they didn't even exist or they all died that doesn't mean you
can't include family in your little backstory that you're creating in your
plot a long-lost aunt a person of interest from there from from some
distant part I was the old man who used to take your father's dogs for walks and
we were this close yes I met him twice once bringing the dogs back one once
bringing them in you know that kind of stuff when you when you you can find
anything and create anything if you just think about all the characters got they
were raised by wolves and they never met nobody well that's fine because the wolf
is now the main reason for the entire little Side Story use that the wolf died
20 years ago everyone was killed I am alone well maybe there was a tree oh I
used to watch you as a boy you were the wolves there all right now I was so
tired but I was there i watch you from a distance I love you I don't know where
that came from but you can drive through you get my point okay so the idea is
that we are building this narrative the last thing that we need to add is the
outcome what happens if there is no action
if the PCs just they just don't they don't care they don't follow through the
adventure runs in the background and you don't ever have to worry about adding
these kinds of backstory adventure quests into your game ever again and
perhaps it's time to look for new players as well I know that sounds harsh
but if the players are not interested and they only want to solve the problem
because that's the problem and all that that backstory stuff is just too emo
nonsense namby-pamby wishy-washy digitally nonsense then you as the
dungeon master or the game master are perhaps not being allowed to explore
your full creative potential because of this limited focus so if they don't do
anything but they don't do anything because they can't in actual game your
aren't on the fifth moon of wherever it needs to be rescued we're on the other
side of the galaxy and our ship is broken that's on you
GM you should have made sure that when you're introducing this new quest it is
achievable by the characters within the space of time that they have allocated
and that is the important thing you must allocate time in your plot for
the pieces to take action time is always going to be on your side you control the
speed at which everything happens so if the players feel like they can't leave
the main plot because in five days time the world is gonna end it don't matter
what kind of story you're putting into this background character development
story they ain't gonna do it because saving the world is more important
however if you've painted yourself into a corner and you said the world is gonna
end five days if you don't fix it it's all it's all done and then you want to
have this backstory moment it's as simple as pie to have some other
organization caused a delay the PCs find some kind of bad guy who reports that it
there's been a delay because some other organization attacked the bosses forces
and we've got to regroup or the device is no
longer operational and it's gonna take him a couple days eh it makes a PCS feel
like the world is living and breathing be it buys them some time see it allows
you to add in the complication to your story who's this other organization that
caused a delay all those kinds of things should be playing in your mind so that
you can give the PCs enough time to go up and do these side quests having said
that you need to watch out if they run out of time there need to be
consequences if you don't do this your game is going to feel exceptionally
overbearing to the players I know I do this all the time I literally got to one
point where a player turned to me and said there are so many quests that need
to be done now there I don't know which one to choose and you don't want that
you don't want them to have to to choose between one or the other unless it's a
specific setup you're going for but generally speaking you want the players
to be able to go on each quest think of it in terms of time management on your
behalf and it's not difficult to insert a little bit of time into this whole
thing so what is the time frame how long should it take the PCs to do this and
how long can they delay something m'm portent if you are offering them a quest
that is going to delay them for years they may not take it at the same time if
it's just an hour-long journey they may not take it either because it might not
be worth their time so you need to balance how long is it going to take and
what is their current quest going to do whilst they're on this that's important
however however even though you've now made space in your campaign for the
players to play in and to go on this quest you must still put time in there
because there should be pressure there should be ramifications if the if the
PCs don't do it within a certain time they will fail and that then leads us to
the ramifications what are the ramifications and and how do we do that
so that's another important thing is is how do we put this pressure on how do we
run these games without losing a sense of timing even though they had been
given vast amounts of time the important thing to bear in mind is that when they
run out of time if you've given them a time frame and they run out why the
ramifications is the family member dead is the story day can they pick it up at
a later stage is there some way in which you can bring it back does it mean the
PCs didn't really care there's a very big indicator that what pcs do what they
choose to do is where their interest lies use that but make sure to keep
pressure on them so although you might have given them time with the main story
the secondary plot this little side quest that you've created if they don't
do it in a timely manner and it doesn't matter it ain't part of the big story it
is simply something for fun if the PCs are dragging their feet they're probably
not interested in it anyway in which case you should move on and get back to
your main plot it's simple as that really once we've got this in place
we've worked out how we're going to fit this all in and everything is now going
to be working that allows us to add in these very interesting backstories these
very interesting ideas that really incorporate the player into the game in
a way that we haven't before realized perhaps they are now invested because
this real-life situation we've all had it and that for me is the key takeaway
from this particular video is if you can emulate what happens in real life to the
players themselves it makes the game feel more real now by that I mean it's
not a case of going through the players personal history and pulling out stuff
to get them to go through that absolutely not and you should be very
careful if you are handling delicate situations that could have intense
emotional attachment on behalf of the player that goes without saying
the important thing is is that when we talk about flying on a starship through
space we don't have any personal context we don't do that yet as
a species at least not in the way that we talk about in science fiction so
there's no grounding there's no reality but when that starship comes across the
annoying mother-in-law or the brother who is a layabout and doesn't do
anything and just sits around all day that is something that a lot of us will
have a connection to everybody has an uncle who drinks a little bit too much
is slightly slimy and no one really likes it he's always around because he's
he's really into family he just as a greaseball we all have a bigger pardon
we all have those so include that into again find bits of reality that you can
insert into your narrative and your narrative your story your adventure
becomes that much realer because we identify with it rather than just having
to imagine what it's like adding in these little moments adding in these
backstory quests will raise your game to the next level like you cannot believe
and I cannot emphasize enough how much fun you can have whilst planting these
very loosely woven holed adventures all over the place and letting the players
help you to create something truly awesome from their backstory
until next time however well I apologize my accent was just everywhere today it's
just crazy crazy this is a new thing we're trying out so give me give me give
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you're like and well that's the end of this video and the axe