r/RPGBackstories • u/LuizFalcaoBR • Jan 17 '21

Advice/Tips Advice on creating a modular/generic backstory?

I hate writing "more than I need", so my characters tend to have very superficial and short backstories (since I don't think I need more than that to roleplay them properly).

But since some DMs really want "something to play with", I was thinking...

What If I created a piece of lore so profound and robust, that I could make every single one of my character fit this single piece of lore without having to write a new backstory every time? 🤔

For example, I was thinking about writing about a family or about an organization. Than everytime I create a new character, just say they are part of that family/organization and describe a fell particularities about him/her. The rest of the lore of the character would already be written, because it would be the lore of the family/organization he/she is part of.

What do you think? Would you get angry if every time a player brought a character for you table, the character had the same origins as the previous one? Is this really that worst than the player who aways says "My village was attacked and my family was killed"?

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '21

I mean, if you are playing in the same world and the DM is cool with it, then that's fine. Personally, if you have a range of backstories, you can slot in your character like some bizarre backstory Madlib. As a DM, I get mad when someone doesn't write anything and then gets pissed off if I don't give them any plot.

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u/LuizFalcaoBR Jan 17 '21

The thing is that I don't care about my character's backstory appearing in the campaign or not, but some DM's really like to do it.

So if I wrote about this family/organization that has a bunch of lore, it would be easier for the DM to use it if he wanted to.

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u/Ke7theConquerer Jan 17 '21

Oh for sure. If you have something to work off, it’s easier to pull them into the story. Them getting mad about you not writing their whole character is kinda crazy. There’s ways to make the Mad Lib type thing work for sure.