D&D 5E How often do you tie in backgrounds?

[Sacrosanct]

From my observations, it seems backgrounds are used mostly for the mechanical reasons (skills and tools), and once the game starts, are largely ignored. So my question is how often do you as a DM tie in their backgrounds into the gameplay? Here's a few example to show what I mean from some of my DMing in the past:

*On of the PCs had a criminal background, and grew up on the streets of the cities. So whenever they would enter a town or city, rather than have the party stumble around asking for directions for things, I would give that player a brief sketch of the city and key points ahead of time to account for his ability to pick up on clues, theives cant, etc. That player would then take the lead on advising the rest of the party on the various areas.

*On PC was a sage researcher, and any time the PCs would try to find research on an area or monster they thought they were about to face, I'd give a bonus to any INT checks. When they'd face a monster they hadn't before, I would allow him to make a check to find out something about that creature after studying it. For example, one time they fought a carrion crawler and after the player described how he investigated it, I let him know the monster's abilities and typical ecology.

* Another PC was an outsider, and I used that to impact reactions he got from urban people and fellow outsiders. I.e., a negative reaction when in the city, but with rural people, got a positive reaction.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

For me it depends on how much detail the player puts into it. If it's just "I was a criminal," end of story, I'm not going to be able to get too much out of that, especially if it's just lip service for the abilities. But if it's "I'm on the lam for embezzling from the Thieves Guild of Calimport; the guildmaster wants the Jewel of Agathor back, but I lost it in a bet," I'd be more likely to use that as a hook.

 

[Eltab]

For my Tiamat group, one player had a Wizard with the "I used to be a gold dragon" background. When the group met up with Arauthator, he took a deep breath to get their scent, focused on the Wizard, and from that point on addressed only him. Everybody else was described in the third person: "You brought a competent archer with you, I see" after sustaining a critical hit.
The reasoning being, only another dragon was important enough for him to speak to directly.

 

[Ahglock]

Backgrounds from the PH? Not at all. Backgrounds a player writes up. As much as I can. I run published campaigns that I modify depending on the characters provided. I have 3 vague backgrounds and 1 solid one. I'm having trouble working on the solid one this time. It's pretty cool but I'm just not sure how to get it to work. I'm creativity impaired this campaign.

 

[iserith]

My take on this is that it's on the player to advocate for backgrounds being useful in their action declarations (e.g. "I draw upon experience as a sage to recall what interesting or useful things I know about [monster]..."). There's always plenty of fictional space for me to say "Yes, and..." to their reasonable offers. I don't really need to come up with anything on my own ahead of time.

 

[pkt77242]

Backgrounds from the PH? Not at all. Backgrounds a player writes up. As much as I can. I run published campaigns that I modify depending on the characters provided. I have 3 vague backgrounds and 1 solid one. I'm having trouble working on the solid one this time. It's pretty cool but I'm just not sure how to get it to work. I'm creativity impaired this campaign.

Shouldn't the background that the player writes up include their background from the PH (or customer one)?

In my group we do frequently use backgrounds for more than just mechanical purposes. In our group it flows both ways, sometimes the DM initiates the use and sometimes the players do.

 

[TerraDave]

I think we are OK with it, and it does take effort from both sides.

But sometimes the campaign just moves on and the past of the characters becomes less important. Background becomes just that, background.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Mercule]

It depends. I give "benefit of doubt" to PCs who play up their backgrounds. There's one Wanderer PC who gets almost as much of a break for food and animals as the Ranger does -- because she runs with it. There's also at least one player who I'm pretty sure couldn't tell you what his character's background is without looking at his sheet, even if you gave him a list.

 

[Oofta]

I try to play off of it. I have an entertainer who's gotten into places because of his fame (perhaps soon to be notoriety BWAHAHAHA) a sailor who knew where to get information about a shipping company, etc.

But it is partly up to the players as well, if the background is important to them, it's important to the game.