D&D 5E HOTDQ backgrounds

[EzequielPR]

I'll be DMing hoard of the Dragon queen very soon and I find backgrounds to be a perfect tool to help players get involved in the story. I want to make custom backgrounds for my campaigns.
did anybody of you make custom background? Can you give me some advise? What topics should I use for this campaign?

thanks for your time.

 

[Thaumaturge]

With my group, just about everyone rolled on the custom bond table first, and they picked/modified backgrounds to fit the bond they rolled. One guy rolled the "You have a secret" bond, and he built his whole character around that idea.

One recommendation I have is to not let people double up on the bonds from the appendix. I had two players roll "you have a secret", I told the second one to roll something else. Each person should have his own unique tie to the adventure, and I see no reason to double use one of the bonds.

Thaumaturge.

 

[fba827]

Many (though not all) of the bonds and background features that i noticed in Hotdq are spins on existing (generic) ones in the phb. (example: there is a background feature about having a cover identity in the dragon cult, though there is a more generic version of that in the phb backgrounds already in saying that you have a cover identity. or there is a bond about having a connection to a specific guy that links to the adventure. whereas there is a generic one in the phb about having a link to "your old mentor" and so on...

so using that idea, rather than coming up with custom ones for the players to choose from, you could work the other direction and let players choose one from the phb and then see how you can twist that to make it apply by adding specifics - linking it to a person, place, or group, or thing in the adventure.