Hence the number one rule: cool stuff should be done in the game, not your backstory.
this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2025
337 points (98.6% liked)
RPGMemes
14377 readers
730 users here now
Humor, jokes, memes about TTRPGs
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
The one solution is to end the back story bad 'so anyway, he's learning how to walk again after... That.' or 'crawled into a bottle afterwards, and you'll have a hell of a time fishing her out. In the meantime, she can still manage a cantrip from time to time. Most days.' Especially if you're going for a 'last job' or 'old gunslinger' vibe.
Works really well if your early build is super specialized, and, like 'they still remember how to do that part just on reflex'
Hence the number one rule: cool stuff should be done in the game, not your backstory.
I prefer Fate, where the rules practically require having cool stuff in each character's back story.
Or just start the campaign at a higher level.
But then you're still missing out on killing the dragon.
Ohhh, that's a good one. I'm stealing that!
I thought it was im the rule book that players should do so. If i have an epic backstory im playing and ancient old fart that has not battled in centuries and is not used to it anymore
One of the most fun characters I've played was a broken-down elite super-science soldier who was so addled by basilisk memes and psychotronic warfare that he needed his intelligent gun to remind him where he was every ten minutes.
Yep. Feel like we just had some posts about this. People who write that kind of backstory should just write a book. It's especially bad in games like D&D where you're starting out as a level 1 nobody. Some games, even some games of D&D, start at higher power levels, so the story is at least mechanically plausible.
I personally get pissed when I ask for advice how much backstory is ok for game starting at level 3 or 5 and people still tell me to be dumb nobody who doesn't know how to hold a sword, even though that makes no fucking sense.
I believe Brian Murphy said you can write that backstory for a D&D character and make it work if it's a comedy and all of that greatness is just in your character's head. I don't get to play much but tried to take a similar mindset: my character isn't as badass as they think they are.
I joined a running campaign (still at the low levels) set in a magic library and I had a character with a comically egregious case of that kind of back story. The campaign had a tight foundation with everyone else already knowing each other and being there for a reason.
It wasn't easy to recon me in, so we didn't and I worked this out with the DM. I just had all these things I'd reference. Grand, level-inapproriate adventures, offering impossible feats as part of insane plans, being a key figure in historical events that the others were quite sure had never happened, etc. But absolutely no other sign of insanity or chronic lying in my serious, good-aligned, heroic character.
The DM let everyone have fun scratching their heads over it for a few sessions before they stumbled on my character's series and found out he was just a fictional hero spawned by the library to assist their quest. His level was from the creation magic and had nothing to do with his real-only-to-him backstory.
It worked out in that very very specific setting.
I think the "they think they're a hero but they're just level 1" trope goes in the same bucket as "let's make characters based on ourselves!". Everyone comes up with it but it's rarely as good as imagined.
And this is why my next character is gonna be Steve the fisherman. Been spear fishing his whole life. That's it. That's his backstory. He carries a spear.
Nice day for fishin‘, ain‘t it?
Huh hah
But with all that XP from all the fish he killed, shouldn't he be a high level by now?
And to explain why D&D characters miss half the time, you can just say he was unnecessarily 'correcting' for water refraction still.
And that's the campaign where you start at level 12, lol
Trait: overworked back When you stand for long periods or don't think before folding to pick up stuff or sleep, you are disadvantaged for 10 minutes
I've become increasingly convinced that people don't want to play low level characters. Level 1 characters are neophyte adventurers. Their backstory shouldn't include significant a mounts of adventure, combat, or heroics, because it introduces a significant amount of ludo-narrative dissonance into the campaign.
Unless there's a reason they've been de-leveled.
The only time I ever loved an OP backstory for a lv1 was a friend who was a great mage of death and destruction who destroyed anything deemed beautiful out of hatred.
A witch turned him into a diamond, and his necromancy (somehow) allowed him to possess whomever held the diamond.
He was a goblin for 3 levels and then a wolf ate him and the diamond so we had a pet dog for awhile basically.
empathicvagrant@lemmy.world Backstory is probably the wrong concept for a low-level character. They, instead, have a background. Backstories are prequel fodder, while backgrounds are used to figure out character motivation, and how a character reacts to future events.
Generally speaking, you don't want to fill in blanks you don't need filled i, because it's creatively limiting your future self. If the events that got you to Session 1 are too interesting, you've probably written too much.
Possession is a Ghost (the specific monster) ability that works on contact, pretty standard Necromancy shenanigans to imitate undead abilities.
Yes. That's one reason that the Fate system basically disallows characters ever being low level. Low level starts aren't actually particularly fun, and they can prevent characters from having diverse epic shared backstory.
Counterpoint: I love rugged nobody adventurer types. I love the point in the campaign when you still have to use your brain to solve problems and when wild animals still pose a significant threat. This may be one of the reasons I stopped playing DnD altogether.
It's not fun at low levels because your characters have absolutely no skills whatsoever and it sucks at high levels because over time you only get a bunch of instant-problem-solvers like Tiny Hut, Fly and Teleport.
Good points. I feel like Fate does a better job staying in the interesting in-between for longer, and also supports "epic" stories a bit better (than other systems I have played).
But I haven't tried to force Fate to support the newbie to epic growth, because the rulebook calls out that the Fate rules intentionally ignore supporting the ability to play as a helpless nobody.
ensignwashout@startrek.website I don't know, zero-to-hero is one of the best story tropes out there. Totally nullifying it seems kind of wild to me. But you have to know who you're playing, and if you're playing a highly skilled veteran with a rich history of great deeds, you need to understand that that is not a Level 1 character.
I feel your wife may have just been assassinated in the chaos Thievius, I don't think that dragon would've used a sword
Your anger was misplaced, it was truly the goblin that took both your wife and you.
Seems like panel 3 couldve been their character arc for the campaign
That was obvious. Why would a dragon need a sword to kill a maiden?