Player 5: My parents were adventurers and pressured me into this life. Every summer it was adventure camp. Battle training for three hours a day on top of lessons in navigation, foraging, survival, and lute lessons. I’m only doing this because I have no other skills. Thanks mom & dad…
This is exactly what I would do if I rolled god like stats
All they ever wanted was to sit in a library and copy texts.
I imagine every now and again an ancient tome speaks to them only for them to roll their eyes and put it in a special chest their parents gave them.
“You could play music at this tavern.”
“I think I’d rather get eaten.”
My current campaign has a character whose parents still live in the town where the adventure is largely based. A lot of effort is spent convincing other townsfolk not to tell his mother what he’s been up to. It’s fantastic.
My sister is currently playing as a sentient plate of nachos.
I don’t even know what fucking books she found the rules for that in, and I don’t know if I want to know.
Player 1’s father is obviously the Warlord.
Player 2’s father is also the Warlord. He killed the father in the same way Darth Vader killed Anakin Skywalker.
Player 3’s mother sold their soul for the Warlord to fall in love with her.
Player 4’s Father is the Warlord and Player 3’s Mother. Except after they got together they settled down for a happily ever after.
I always make my characters have both parents alive and well, and generally from a good home, if not an entire good region as well. Both my current Lancer and Fabula Ultima characters get into issues due to generally being who they are, and not necessarily from being raised in dire circumstances or having a tragic background.
Heck, one fun contrast to me is that my Lancer character is a young-ish noble who had everything she could want, and decided to venture out in the stars half for the thrill and half to spread her family’s reputation, while the rest of the party are more mature and jaded adults who don’t know any other type of life. The fact that she could stop at any point and go back to a comfy life isn’t a drawback to the roleplaying, its a plus and adds more good conflict between them.
I’m playing a wizard who had a great life but was fascinated by the Underdark and wanted to go there. Everything was fine until she started adventuring lol.
One of my favorite player backstories was a well-to-do guy having a midlife crisis and going on adventures while still writing home sometimes to assure The Wife that he’s just on a business trip.
That’s awesome. I might steal that at some point.
My two favorite backstories are
Techlan Que, the halfling former snake oil salesman. His dad’s in jail for selling snake oil, but he’ll be out in a year or two. In the meantime Tek and his brother are working to put their kid sister through wizard school and send money home to ma because she doesn’t have a paying job
And Simon Blackwood Jr., a kobold rogue. His parents were high ranking thieves’ guild members before they retired to take care of their kids, but they took one last job to clear some kobolds out of a cave. They couldn’t bring themselves to smash the only egg, so they brought it home and raised him as their own son. Now he’s 8 years old, fully grown and out looking for work, much to his mother’s dismay. She’d prefer he to to school with his older sisters, aged 11 and 13
Guess who the DMs gonna kill first
That’s novice stuff. It’s a cheap emotional gut-punch that weakens that character’s ties to the world and story. You can do so much more if you keep them alive:
- They can hand out quests, as they think their child could handle it.
- They can help out with certain tasks, like watching a tavern or storing stolen goods.
- They can be a good twist villain later in the game, because they’re tied to the heroes.
- They can be a good fake-out villain, because it’s suspicious you haven’t killed them yet.
- Another PC can literally bang this PC’s mum.
- They’re not angry, just disappointed in you when you fail a quest
“The Hansen boy killed three dragons this year, that must be so nice, they must be proud.”
You know when your parents ask you to fix the printer because you’re the IT person in the house? That, but it’s goblins. You’re the goblin-fighter person in the house. And you’re getting paid in a dessert your mum was making anyway.
