By: Joe Gaylor (LabLazarus)
This is the first of two articles I will write with diametrically opposite opinions. You will get the opposite opinion next week. I’m writing both because it’s a topic I’m deeply conflicted about, and one where both sides have solid arguments. The topic is character backgrounds. Specifically, how much should you write about your character before starting a TTRPG campaign and why. This week, I’ll present the maximalist view, my opinion that you should come to the table with a rich and comprehensive backstory.
At the heart of the maximalist view on character backstories is a simple notion: Characters are people, too. If we are trying to present TTRPGs as a game of realistic people going through adventures, the characters should be as fleshed out as possible. Deeper characters not only give us better stories, but make the games we play at the table both more interesting and easier for everyone involved.
Meet Krag
Before diving into the discussion of how deeper characters make a difference in a game, I want to illustrate what I mean by the idea of character depth. Often in TTRPGs, our characters can be “flat”; they have a profession, origin, maybe a background, and a superficial motivation for their adventures. As an example, let’s consider Krag:
Krag is a barbarian. He has spent much of his life wandering the wilderness. He has journeyed away from his home to prove himself as a warrior and to earn gold and treasure to bring home.
Krag is a totally functional TTRPG character. In most systems, it wouldn’t be hard to draw up a basic character sheet for him with little more than that description. However, if we give Krag a bit more depth, he might look more like this:
Krag is a barbarian from The Great Northern Forest. He was a trapper, used to long forays into the wilderness, with a knowledge of many animal species and an interest in fine and exotic pelts. Over campfires, he traded many stories with other outlanders and became steeped in his people’s oral tradition. When he speaks, he often dives into fables and allegories to make his point instead of stating it directly. He also riddles his speech and actions with small superstitions and rituals. As a man of 52, when he already had children and even a granddaughter of his own, a neighboring tribe laid claim to Krag’s region. They drove Krag and his family from the land. The family resettled in a nearby city, Krag’s wife took a job as a noble family’s maid, and his children took other menial jobs in the city as well. Krag decided to seek his fortune as an adventurer, hoping to earn enough gold and skill at arms to drive out the invaders and reclaim his home. He cannot write, the language of his people is recorded only in complex knotwork, not in traditional writing. He sends these knots as messages and purses of gold back to his family whenever he can. He hopes one day to return home as a hero and teach his granddaughter the ways of the deep north.
Here we have something that gives a lot more detail. Some elements might have been added or shifted slightly, but it is functionally the same character, just deeper and richer. More is certainly possible, but this does give a sense of what I mean by a maximalist character description for the rest of the article and the benefits it gives us in terms of roleplay, context, and inspiration.
Roleplay Benefits
The most direct benefit of a deeper backstory is that it gives more richness to your character and how you play them. It gives you more ideas to draw from for your character’s actions and motivations, gives you more options on how to respond and why, and gives you more details to bring in as you play the game.
The first benefit here is options. As a player, you need to decide how your character reacts to almost everything in the game. A deeper character story gives you more cues to base those reactions on. You can bring in your experiences, family, home, life story, aspirations, and side interests. For example, if you’re playing as the flat version of Krag, you might not have a clear idea of how to react to a child coming up to play with you. The deeper Krag might play a game he enjoys with his granddaughter, or even get a little teary-eyed remembering her.
This is especially true when you are confronted with sandboxes in the game. You know the moment. The GM says, “You’ve reached the town about midday. What do you do?” Playing as a generic barbarian, you probably will have generic ideas. Playing as Krag, you might look for a market selling furs and pelts, look for someone who can bring a message to your family, or walk around the town walls before entering to ensure that only friends will be there.
More fundamentally, you have a more complete understanding of who your character is. By being able to ground your choices on a larger set of personal features, your actions in-game will feel less like you are playing “a barbarian” and more like you are playing Krag. You can add in little ticks, like spitting whenever you mention an undead, or telling a long story instead of giving a straight answer. Even in areas you haven’t fleshed out, you can fill in the details based on better information. Maybe Krag always wants to share a room in the inn because he hates sleeping alone, since he’s used to a big family in a small cabin.
All of that is to say, with more information about your character, you can play the game and make choices better and more easily.
Context
In addition to the advantages at the table, a more nuanced backstory helps ground your character in time and space. You’re not just a set of numbers on a page who comes from somewhere, is somewhere, and is going somewhere (assuming you make those death saves).
If you give your character a specific home and origin, you provide more ways to interact with the world around you. You’re not just from “the wilderness,” you’re from “The Northern Forests,” a place that people might know about already. Merchants might try to take advantage of Krag because Northerners are known to spend excessively while travelling outside their homeland. If you can, use a place your GM already created, so that you fit neatly into the setting. Even if the GM doesn’t provide that information, you can work together to build that information in ways that make sense.
A more nuanced life story can explain skills, interests, or ideas that your character has. Often, when building a character, you will decide to pick up an ability or skill because it’s interesting, or it fills in a gap in the party. If these are purely mechanical choices, they feel less core to your character, and in some cases, they’re even forgettable. Krag has stealth and proficiency to disarm traps, not because “the party didn’t have a rogue,” but because of his time in the forest as a trapper.
Finally, in terms of context, we can talk about what comes next for a character. A character with motivations behind their adventures that are more complex than “I like gold and killing things” probably has a plan. They are going to do something after they retire. This gives them a reason not only to adventure, but to succeed and survive. It makes everything matter so much more. Krag needs to get home to his granddaughter and reclaim his stolen land. He can’t die in a dungeon far from home.
Just like you are from somewhere, have done things, and have a plan for the future, your character should, too. Grounding your identity in the world around you is a powerful way to make the game feel more real.
Incentives and Hooks
The last big benefit of a more complex backstory is that it gives the GM and player more to work with when building campaigns, adventures, and quests. Every detail is something the GM can weave either into the narrative or setting in ways that matter to you, making this a story not about “a barbarian” but about the heroic Krag.
Characters with birthdays, backgrounds, cultures, and families have a range of significant events that can make their way into the game as hooks or sidequests. They might be rituals, holidays, or life events, and might happen once, sporadically, or every year. Krag celebrating the feast of the sun at the winter solstice or trying to attend his son’s wedding, can be a great way to add interest to the game and take a breather while adventuring.
The same is true for families, community members, and other people, or even things that matter to a character. Having someone from your past arrive on your doorstep in need is a way of kicking off a side quest or complicating an adventure that feels very personal and specific. It doesn’t even need to be a single individual. Krag meeting a group of travelers from the Northern Forests who were waylaid by bandits pushes him in a way that feels unique to him.
With a richer understanding of a character’s desires and dreams, a GM can better tempt and move a character, either toward good or evil. General quest hooks work well enough, but it’s much more compelling to place the character as an individual at the center of the story. Anyone can be offered a bag of gold to clear out a dungeon, but only Krag can be goaded by rumors of a dungeon that features in the oral traditions of The Northern Forests, getting to explore a place he had heard about for years.
All of that shows how a richer backstory gives a GM more resources to work with and the ability to customize hooks and events in ways that feel personal to your character.
Conclusion
Flat characters can work for short campaigns and simpler stories. There is nothing wrong with them per se. However, by adding depth and nuance to a character and embracing the maximalist strategy of backstories, you can add a lot to your game. You get more options and information on which to base your character’s actions. Your character’s adventuring career has context, both in the story of their life and in the world where they live. Your GM has more levers to pull when creating hooks and stories that feel personal to your character. It has so many benefits, why wouldn’t you want a long backstory?
Well… I’ll get to that next week.
About the Author
Joseph Gaylord has been playing TTRPGs and TCGs for 25 years, with almost 50 titles to his name on DMsGuild as an author, co-author, or contributor. He is on most social media as LabLazarus.
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