Character background stories- what are the most common tropes that appear?

[Panda-s1]

You're right, and I guess that explains why you don't see many characters made that are struggling with their faith. They KNOW there is a god!
How would you build the start of a campaign so that a cleric was struggling? Or perhaps just not a very good Cleric, and so couldn't be certain that his God would intervene to grant him spells?

wait, isn't this how faith works in Eberron? or at least used to? also idk, cleric struggling with faith is actually pretty interesting, I've seen it work pretty well once or twice even.

• Vengeance due to loss of partner.

I'm actually surprised OP didn't mention vengeance in the original post. don't forget:
-vengeance from loss of family
-vengeance from loss of friends
-vengeance from loss of village

 

[Richards]

Since I've been primarily the DM for the majority of my role-playing career, I've only had three PCs in recent years (now that my son has taken on the DM role for his own campaigns). So, my PC background motivations have been:

• Adventuring because his lies are catching up with him and it's time to skip town
• Adventuring because he was conscripted into service by the king's adviser
• Adventuring because he's been a slave to the drow his whole life and his masters have commanded he do so

Johnathan

 

[Eltab]

Your cell botched a mission and cost The Organization dearly. It wasn't your fault, but you knew the power of guilt-by-association. You decided to join another cell in the next country over, before the word could spread ... but it still feels like you went into exile.
(Zhent, with an eye to AL faction membership)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm actually surprised OP didn't mention vengeance in the original post. don't forget:
-vengeance from loss of family
-vengeance from loss of friends
-vengeance from loss of village

i ran an unusual Ranger with that last background. She was a retired woodlands adventurer who had settled down and raised a family when a band of raiders razed her village- she was the sole survivor. So Granny grabbed her staff and set out bent on bringing them to justice.

(Meta: she was first level because her skills had atrophied from disuse. As she shook off the rust and dust of the years of dormancy, her old knowledge and skills gradually returned.)

 

[aco175]

Besides the obvious lone survivor of an orc attack on the village there is the waif turned thief since he grew up on the streets.

Most of the PCs in my games used to be soldiers and scribes, but nothing on their early life besides growing up in the city a few hundred miles away. Not sure if that is me or the players not having family interact much in the game. We played a game in Phandalin and eventually traveled to Waterdeep. There was some family gloss over RP but not much.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Revenge (family killed by X, the Conan gambit, as I call it)
Visions
Ale & Whores (funding thereof)
Greed
Obsessive Greed
Head injury
Struggling Musician working day job

 

[prabe]

Struggling Musician working day job

There seems to be some redundancy here.

 

[Celebrim]

I think you covered the biggest ones already.

Almost all fairy tales begin with family problems, so fairy tale backgrounds of missing parents or mysterious parentage are very common.

Also common in myth and fairy tales are strange and powerful mentors or teachers, and so again you see a lot of those. It's also very common (and convenient) for replacement PC mid-campaign to be protege's or minions of some important introduced NPC. If there isn't a specific mentor, then the player often wants to have been inducted into a secret society of some sort.

If you don't see a mysterious or powerful mentor, then almost invariably they have some sort of feral childhood where they did on their own.

If the circumstances of birth aren't unusual, then it's often usual to have parents or mentors murdered and so the character has a motive for revenge. More rarely, but still fairly common, some relative is still alive or in need of redemption or rescue, and so the motive is rescue or redeem the family member.

There are also quite a lot of characters who have a criminal past, and are either now released from prison or bondage or else are fleeing to keep their past from catching up to them. In some cases, when the player wants a noble but tormented character, then the character will have escaped from kidnapping or slavery.

Often the character has escaped from some sort of near death experience or disaster. If this was a widespread disaster, they are often the sole survivor.

As you mention, visitations by the deity and personal callings to serve are common for divine classes like clerics and paladins. It's been a while but I've also seen "child of prophesy" backgrounds where the player hints at some story arc they want to be involved in.

It's very common for fighter classed individuals to have some mundane profession like caravan guard, sailor, or member of the city watch just prior to beginning the adventuring career. It's also fairly common to have "third son of a minor noble that has inherited only a family sword and is out to seek their fortune" as background. Bonus points if the noble family is cursed, disgraced, exiled, or otherwise down on their luck.

One thing in the thread I haven't seen but I think is really cool is "Running away from a forced marriage." Good concept.

 

[Aldarc]

"Orcs/goblins/BGEG killed all the NPCs of my backstory so that the GM can never use my NPCs against me."

 

[Celebrim]

"Orcs/goblins/BGEG killed all the NPCs of my backstory so that the GM can never use my NPCs against me."

That's not nearly as effective of a solution as a player might think. In my game, that just might mean that you've got ghosts haunting you, or that someone that the player thinks is dead actually is alive, or that the goblins were killing everyone to prevent the accomplishment of a certain prophesy and the PC is the one that got away.

I've taken to just asking the player:

"Do you want your backstory to matter?"
"How much do you want me to 'mess with you' on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being madness inducing mind shattering horror and one being "I'm good thanks"?"