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

[Kite474]

So far never. Now player's do have backstories/gamestories that run the gamut of:
1. "LE wannabe warlord" turned dangerously close "LG wanna be "world unite-er"".... May also eventually steal the Antichrist
2. Disenfranchised Noble who became a bard to piss off dad turned "I keep ing up everything.... Also may have sired the Antichrist"
3. Bastard child of evil Emperor whos still pissed at dad. Background was used for an incredibly stupid 4th wall joke
4. A drow who followed the "How to have an edgy backstory" manual to the T
5. Two plain jane children of nobles off to make mom and dad proud
6. An old criminal after the man who sold him out and betrayed him
7. A young women raised in the woods who eventually learned she was the descendant of a Hunting god.... Who is a massive prick I might add
8. A quack who keeps collecting body parts for unknown reasons
9. A former university professor turned servant of the old gods
10. A pair of utter murder hobos
12. A Dwarf with a weird fetish for boats and a nose for ancient temples

So generally "Backgrounds" themselves have only really been used for skills. Though player's still have backstories some grand, some small, and some nonexistent (which is really fine. Those two murder hobos tend to be more "Roll with punches to forge identity" kind of guys which works great).

At least from my point of view it's mainly due to the mundanity of them. As they are essentially supposed to be your 9-5s before you decided to go kill monsters and rob tombs for a living. Even the most off the wall ones feel too.... "normal" I suppose, at least how they are presented

 

[Limitless-Adventures]

Depends on if my players weave them into their concept or not. It is the life they left behind, so sometimes it's not a big deal to them. Though i try and bring them up once at least during the campaign. If the players like the hooks and npcs that arise from them I'll repeat later, if not I drop them.

 

[Li Shenron]

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?

The problem (if it's a problem...) is that there are TWO possible concepts of background:

1) your background is what you are while not adventuring
2) your background is what you were before adventuring

A lot of people just don't even see 1) as an option because of certain people in the industry having excessively pushed idea 2) to the forefront, but this is NOT the only idea that the 5e designers themselves supported, as they've been talking about both concepts since early playtesting phases.

It generallly depends on what is your gaming group's take on downtime.

My personal preference is adventures that happen scarcely in everybody's life, so you get a lot of downtime in my campaigns. So your background describes who you are most of the time, what is your role in society. Every now and then, you have a true adventure, and your class describes what is your role in adventuring. That's option 1).

Other people like continuous adventures that never really have a break, so once you become an adventurer, you just have no time to go back and do whatever you did as a member of society, because you're beyond society. Maybe once in a while the rest of the world remembers that you were a merchant or a blacksmith, and you get to use that to your advantage, but that's as far as your background matters, while your class is what you do 100% of the time. That's option 2).

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

As a DM I incorporate the party's backgrounds whenever I can do so. In fact, my most recently started campaign relied upon the background of each character to bring them all together as a party with a shared goal - the guild artisan chosen to represent the guild in brokering a deal with a neighboring nation; the noble of that neighboring nation asked to serve as a guide through the nation; the criminal son of a local noble sent to prove his worth for once, representing the nation in brokering the mentioned deal, or else be cut-off from the family name and wealth; the army officer tasked with the protection of the prior folk during their travels; and the exile of a far of nation volunteering aid in this endeavor as a favor to those that have aided him since his exile and as an opportunity to study a wider array of martial practices (his life's work being a treatise on the art of combat).

The campaign frequently involves one character or another directly engaging in some activity that is only present because of some element of their background.

As a player, I've only played the one character so far, but the background strongly informs both the character's personality and the particular way in which I choose to get things done - specifically that I use my Bad Reputation feature as often as I can find a reason (such as openly stealing a bag of salt, and not trying to diffuse a bar fight before it started because I knew I wasn't at risk of arrest for such minor crime as slapping around some punk that talked trash at me, and I used "Do you know who I am?" as a means to determine that the suspicious fellow offering my party help could be trusted, because no one that knows who I am and still wants to risk getting on my bad side is competent enough to consider a threat even if they do plan on a double-cross).

 

[Azurewraith]

As a DM I incorporate the party's backgrounds whenever I can do so. In fact, my most recently started campaign relied upon the background of each character to bring them all together as a party with a shared goal - the guild artisan chosen to represent the guild in brokering a deal with a neighboring nation; the noble of that neighboring nation asked to serve as a guide through the nation; the criminal son of a local noble sent to prove his worth for once, representing the nation in brokering the mentioned deal, or else be cut-off from the family name and wealth; the army officer tasked with the protection of the prior folk during their travels; and the exile of a far of nation volunteering aid in this endeavor as a favor to those that have aided him since his exile and as an opportunity to study a wider array of martial practices (his life's work being a treatise on the art of combat).

The campaign frequently involves one character or another directly engaging in some activity that is only present because of some element of their background.

As a player, I've only played the one character so far, but the background strongly informs both the character's personality and the particular way in which I choose to get things done - specifically that I use my Bad Reputation feature as often as I can find a reason (such as openly stealing a bag of salt, and not trying to diffuse a bar fight before it started because I knew I wasn't at risk of arrest for such minor crime as slapping around some punk that talked trash at me, and I used "Do you know who I am?" as a means to determine that the suspicious fellow offering my party help could be trusted, because no one that knows who I am and still wants to risk getting on my bad side is competent enough to consider a threat even if they do plan on a double-cross).

Glad I'm not the only one that abused my bad Rep feature oh cpt.James got into some hijinks.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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?

It depends on the players.

If enough of them are into it, I do. If the PCs are largely just murderhobos thrown together at a whim, I usually don't bother.

I will say, though, that the best campaign I EVER ran had a lot of player buy-in to the idea- superheroes of an alternative 1900 Earth with Jules Verne/HG Wells/Space:1889 type elements (run in HERO)- and my use of PC backgrounds and player table-talk to add depth to or even create adventures kept enthusiasm high throughout the campaign's run. As I recall, I managed to get almost everyone's background brought to the fore at least once.

Most fun I ever had as a GM, most fun my players ever said I created.

 

[Imaculata]

I only tie in backgrounds that have been written by the player him/herself, and which seem suitable for my existing plot.

 

[MrHotter]

One reason I don't like to be a player is that I've not found a DM who really cares what the player backgrounds are. If the campaign does not change depending on what kinds of characters are in it, then it's probably not the kind of game I want to play in. One day I'll find a DM who fits well with the way I'd like to play, but until then I'll just keep being the DM.

As the DM, I've also ran groups where the players did not care what the player backgrounds were. If they players want dungeon of the week campaigns, I can do that, but I prefer stories that last the lifetime of the campaign and reveal information about the characters and the world.

 

[Ranthalan]

I will usually work with my players before a campaign to create a fairly detailed backstory for their characters. The campaign I create will revolve around those details.

 

[iserith]

One reason I don't like to be a player is that I've not found a DM who really cares what the player backgrounds are. If the campaign does not change depending on what kinds of characters are in it, then it's probably not the kind of game I want to play in. One day I'll find a DM who fits well with the way I'd like to play, but until then I'll just keep being the DM.

As the DM, I've also ran groups where the players did not care what the player backgrounds were. If they players want dungeon of the week campaigns, I can do that, but I prefer stories that last the lifetime of the campaign and reveal information about the characters and the world.

I see it as the players' responsibility to bring their backgrounds to the fore first, then I as DM will respond by adapting to it during play. If the player is not pursuing goals based on the character's background, then I can't be given to care about adding those elements. If the character's parents were killed by orcs, but the player never does anything in the game to get revenge or seek out which tribe was responsible or whatever, then I don't feel obligated to stick orcs in his or her path just because he or she wrote it on a sheet of paper before we were actually playing.

Oftentimes what happens is a player will create a background and then they don't do anything with it. This is part of the reason that I ask players to create backgrounds that are the length of a tweet, then reveal more detail during play. Then in my usual "Yes, and..." fashion, I will accept and add to it, framing the PCs into conflicts that speak to what has been established. I definitely won't gather four or five background write-ups and plan my campaign around that.