From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd


SO, go watch this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixgzbL0r0s0
(Or don't, since I'm just going to describe it here anyway. You'll
probably enjoy their rendition more, though).


IT'S a short comedy video of a bunch of players in a D&D gaming,
meeting in the proverbial tavern, and introducing their characters.
Each one tries to out-compete the others, Four Yorkshiremen-style,
with who has the most tragic backstory. At one point the beleaguered
DM even snarks, "well, that's enough for your 1st level characters,"
trying to rein them in. It's a bit over-the-top, but funny.


BUT it's not really the video I wanted to discuss. Rather, watching
that video reminded me of my own D&D sessions. Because we had similar
issues in our games: all to often, our characters --some of my own
included!-- would have these epically long histories. They weren't
always dark and full of woe (but often were), but it all seemed a bit
much for starting characters, some of whom would have a hard time
winning a battle against a 1st Edition House-cat.

BUT, really, that video reminded me of TWO characters in particular
who suffered from this angsty plight (No, this time, neither of them
were mine) who perhaps epitomized the problem like no other. You'll
forgive me if I don't remember specific details but I think you'll get
the gist.

*

LET'S start with Andy's character. He was a 1st level fighter, of
course, but one who had amassed an amazing history. We were, at the
time, playing in the Forgotten Realms, and his character had managed
to involve himself -even if only peripherally- with pretty much every
major event and character to that point. He'd met Drizzt and
Elminster, he'd dallied briefly in Thay, he'd sailed to Maztica and
back; the lot. But when the DM called him on this, and asked how he'd
done all this and yet was now here in a tavern bereft of all the most
basic skills, Andy explained, after a moment's thought, that as his
character had low wisdom, he thus 'hadn't learned anything from his experiences.' It was such a perfect answer that the DM allowed his
character. His stories made for perfect 'grizzled old warrior'
commentary throughout the adventure that it was the right call. The
only downside --for Andy, that is-- is that his character gained the
nickname 'The Gump'... after the eponymous movie "Forest Gump", whom
had a similar career. Since Andy envision his character as slightly
less carefree (and less mentally challenged) than Forest, this irked
him terribly, but he was never able to escape the nom de guerre.

*

PETER joined a different campaign sometime later. His character --a
fallen paladin-- likewise had quite an impressive history, but in his
backstory he was much more directly involved in the action. He'd
fought demons, toppled evil monarchs, and rescued cities from
rampaging dragons; he'd done it all. But, it was explained, all that
backstory also earned him innumerable enemies, one of whom eventually
caught and tortured him for years. Also, being undead (and this being
a 2nd Ed game), they'd sucked away all his levels until he was a
pitiful level 1 character again. After his nemesis was defeated (by
some other adventurers) the battered paladin re-emerged into the world
to try and make something new of himself. The DM grumbled a bit, but
allowed the character.

THERE was a follow-up to that, though. A few adventures later, the
party was hired to clear out some wights from a local cemetery.
Because the characters were relatively low-level, the DM conveniently
allowed them access to a priest who offered Restoration spells at an
extremely low price. It was a special offer mainly made because the
monsters were too high-level for the players.

[Rules-As-Written, the Clerical /Restoration/ spell didn't
actually restore levels lost to energy drain, but it's
been a house-rule used by pretty much every DM I played
with in that era. Level drain was such a nasty, permanent
attack that was granted to waaay too many low-level
monsters that everybody tried to mitigate its effects one
way or another]

AFTER a while, Peter pointed out that, with his hoarded gold, he
could probably afford to pay the cleric to restore him to his
original, back-story character level. He then graciously allowed he
wouldn't do this, in order to maintain party balance, but strongly
suggested the DM recompense him in some other way for this sacrifice.
The DM, in turn, agreed that there was nothing in the rules that would
stop the player from restoring his character, and if Peter wanted to
do that the DM would allow it... but then rule that Peter's character
would fairly quickly start remembering all the Unfinished Business
from his former life that he'd put off because, as a low-level
schmuck, it had been beyond his abilities up to that point. That
business being more important than the random adventures (and far too
difficult for his current companions to face), he'd have to leave the
campaign and go off on his own... effectively retiring the character.
Player's choice.

(Peter stayed low-level... but he was a disruptive player who didn't
really fit in well with the rest of the group, and he parted ways a
little bit later.)

*

ANYWAY, watching the video (do you remember the video? This is a
post about a video) reminded me of those particular characters, and
I'd thought I'd share their stories here.


DO you have any other tales of PCs with outlandishly detailed back
stories unsuitable for 1st level characters?




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From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

Never experienced that myself, but I have to admit the
two stories you shared were pretty funny. Thanks for
sharing.
--
There are the known knowns, things we know we know; and the known
unknowns, things we know we do not know; but there are also the
unknown unknowns, those things we don't know we don't know...but
what about the unknown knowns, things we do not know we know?
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From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

On Tue, 7 Oct 2025 02:27:27 -0000 (UTC), Mortimer Houghton <mortimer@VivoBook.X512D> wrote:

Never experienced that myself, but I have to admit the
two stories you shared were pretty funny. Thanks for
sharing.

I suppose it depends on the group. Some don't really bother with
backstories for their characters. I've known some DMs who get quite
upset if your character /doesn't/ have a backstory; they take it as a
sign that didn't see your avatar as anything but a token, rather than
a character in and of itself.

But that attitude did sometimes lead to situations like in my original
post, where the backstories became so grandiose and top-heavy that
they became ridiculous.

I tend towards the "your character should have a backstory" camp
myself, but I try not to force it on other players, and I don't think
it's a mandatory part of the game. Different people play D&D for
different reasons; some people (like myself) like the theatre of it,
the story. Others just like the mechanics. If this difference is
leading to a conflict within the players and DM, it probably means
somebody is in the wrong gaming group ;-)


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From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

On Tue, 7 Oct 2025 02:27:27 -0000 (UTC), Mortimer Houghton ><mortimer@VivoBook.X512D> wrote:

Never experienced that myself, but I have to admit the
two stories you shared were pretty funny. Thanks for
sharing.

I suppose it depends on the group. Some don't really bother with
backstories for their characters. I've known some DMs who get quite
upset if your character /doesn't/ have a backstory; they take it as a
sign that didn't see your avatar as anything but a token, rather than
a character in and of itself.

But that attitude did sometimes lead to situations like in my original
post, where the backstories became so grandiose and top-heavy that
they became ridiculous.

I tend towards the "your character should have a backstory" camp
myself, but I try not to force it on other players, and I don't think
it's a mandatory part of the game. Different people play D&D for
different reasons; some people (like myself) like the theatre of it,
the story. Others just like the mechanics. If this difference is
leading to a conflict within the players and DM, it probably means
somebody is in the wrong gaming group ;-)

Our group does backstories, but they are usually light, probably
befitting a level 1 character.
--
There are the known knowns, things we know we know; and the known
unknowns, things we know we do not know; but there are also the
unknown unknowns, those things we don't know we don't know...but
what about the unknown knowns, things we do not know we know?
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From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

On Tue, 7 Oct 2025 16:41:19 -0000 (UTC), Mortimer Houghton <mortimer@VivoBook.X512D> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

On Tue, 7 Oct 2025 02:27:27 -0000 (UTC), Mortimer Houghton >><mortimer@VivoBook.X512D> wrote:

Never experienced that myself, but I have to admit the
two stories you shared were pretty funny. Thanks for
sharing.

I suppose it depends on the group. Some don't really bother with >>backstories for their characters. I've known some DMs who get quite
upset if your character /doesn't/ have a backstory; they take it as a
sign that didn't see your avatar as anything but a token, rather than
a character in and of itself.

But that attitude did sometimes lead to situations like in my original >>post, where the backstories became so grandiose and top-heavy that
they became ridiculous.

I tend towards the "your character should have a backstory" camp
myself, but I try not to force it on other players, and I don't think
it's a mandatory part of the game. Different people play D&D for
different reasons; some people (like myself) like the theatre of it,
the story. Others just like the mechanics. If this difference is
leading to a conflict within the players and DM, it probably means
somebody is in the wrong gaming group ;-)

Our group does backstories, but they are usually light, probably
befitting a level 1 character.

Oh, most of ours weren't as bad either. But it did happen, more than a
few times, that a player would come in with an excessively detailed
history (and sometimes I was that player, I admit). Alternately, the
player might have a fairly basic backstory, but over the course of
several adventures we'd fill it in with more and more details.* Either
way, one way or another a few characters had pre-adventure biographies
that probably could have filled several fantasy novels ;-P

Which is fine. Like I said, as DM I always appreciated players who put
so much effort into their characters. It got a bit antsy if the player
put stuff in the game that blatantly violated the tone or lore of the
world, but in pretty much every occassion the player was considerate
enough to accept my edits to keep things in line with the rest of the
campaign.

The only real problem is if a player uses this extensive back-history
to try and give themselves advantage over the other players (or the
game). I didn't DM in either of the examples in my original post, but
I'd have been fine with Andy's character. Peter's (especially after he postulated the idea that he could magic his way to 15th level), not so
much.

But also, there are some people who just don't care for that sort of
stuff. They just want the fun of killing trolls, finding loot, and
solving their way through trap-dungeons. That's absolutely fine too...
although that player probably wouldn't have as much fun in campaigns I
ran, where character-interactions had a lot more import.






* there was one character who started the game with a fairly basic
backstory: family murdered by goblins, found by an adventurer who
raised him and the PC later took the trade as his own. But several
years later we'd discovered he was the prince-descendant of a lost
kingdom, the orcs were led by a wanna-be god, and all sorts of
nonsense of the sort. We joked about how soap opera-ish the whole
thing was becoming, but we were having fun so we didn't really care.


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From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

On 10/7/2025 8:52 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Oh, most of ours weren't as bad either. But it did happen, more than a
few times, that a player would come in with an excessively detailed
history (and sometimes I was that player, I admit). Alternately, the
player might have a fairly basic backstory, but over the course of
several adventures we'd fill it in with more and more details.* Either
way, one way or another a few characters had pre-adventure biographies
that probably could have filled several fantasy novels ;-P

I think Critical Role gave people the idea that all character
backstories needed to be so complex (although that of course always was happening)

I am more in the camp of: "your proper backstory starts from level 1"
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