D&D General Oh Please give me some Happy Backgrounds!!

[M_Natas]

The amount of actual murder (as opposed to subdual) can vary from campaign to campaign and character to character. Especially in 5E where you can almost always choose to knock people out.

And being discontented doesn't always stem from tragedy at home. As we've seen a bunch of examples of given in the thread. Wanderlust, ambition, religious dedication, a desire to bring justice to the world, to complete a noble quest, to become a hero, to learn arcane knowledge and the secrets of the universe, to serve nature against monstrous invaders or corruptors or exploiters, to become wealthy and able to live a live of luxury and comfort (and/or provide one to your friends and family), or simple boredom can make an adventurer.

It's certainly true that most games have a share of violence that would dissuade most real people, but a lot of D&D campaigns have a more four-color comic take on violence. Characters get scratched and beat up and bloodied but rarely disemboweled or maimed. It's not all survival horror like our beloved OSR can often be.

Yeah, you can always be from a happy knightly family and the family buisness is monster hunting and helping the common folk against bandits.
A devout follower of your god with a happy family who was chosen for a crusade by their God themselves.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

My first though was that maybe the players are (perhaps unconsciously) offering broken-shell characters with grim dark backgrounds as sacrificial offerings to the DM, with the prayer that the DM will go easy when it comes to inflicting grimdark horrors on the characters in course of play.

My second though is that it's relatively easy to get abused characters with horrific backgrounds to go on adventures. Depending on just how bad adventures and the adventuring life can get, in the setting, a player might conclude that a character with a happy background would quite reasonably make strenuous efforts to avoid the Call to Adventure, and that trying to play such a character would cause trouble at the game table and be rude to the DM and the other players.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Honestly, it would be so refreshing to see a player come to the table with a character that wasn't another broken shell with dead family and a horrific childhood.

Well, I can think of people who had a driving need to see what was over there. Percy Fawcett, Sir Richard Burton, Zheng He, Abubakari II. Sometimes there was a purely economic motive to place one's self in harm's way.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I remember watching the first season of Critical Role and just sighing every time yet more tragic backstory got revealed. Some players just think that that's the drama.

Obviously it can and does provide drama. But other things can also provide drama.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

“Soup Dad” Hank the Goliath Watchman of Waterdeep, just wants to help. When he goes on adventures it’s because someone he cares about needs backup or because Waterdeep is in danger, etc.

Finnan O’Foalan eventually became “The Shadow of Death” after spending a century lock in shadow stasis by Mask after he was hanged for sedition, but he became an adventurer because his home in Sembia was in danger of being taken over and he wanted to help stop it. He grew up happy, with a loving family in a town by a river leading to the sea where his family owned a small farm.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I see why and the dark backstory trope is funny to grating sometimes depending on the level of edge the player inserts, but on the other hand I always think: Why would a happy character with an intact social network and support system and a loving family... why would they go on deadly adventures? If they are happy, would they not stay in their happy life with their family, farming and enjoying life?

I’ve seen this a lot, but I always figure it’s super easy to have such a character.

Safe and comfortable doesn’t mean fulfilled. The character left home to find a greater purpose to their life. A calling.

Call to adventure. Someone brings the character on the adventure, not unwillingly but simply unexpectedly, they find themselves an adventurer.

A good thing worth protecting. The character leaves home to save their home, exactly because they have a good life in a good place.

Some people just want to help. The character leaves home because they get word of a problem they know they have the skills or powers to help with, and they are the kind of person who wants to help.

Some people see a long road and need to follow it.

Sometimes a good life winds down before a person is too old for adventure. The kids have kids, the farm is bountiful, and it’s just time to see what else the world has to offer, and hell you’re only 40! Plenty young enough!

And of course there are backstories that aren’t exactly happy but also aren’t tragic. Grew up on the street and pickpocketed a knight who took a shine to the young thief and took them in, stuff like that.

I had a Star Wars character who was a teenage street kid who lived in a junkyard and had a robotic arm, but she was one of the happiest characters I’ve played. Her backstory sucked but didn’t feel tragic to her because it was just how life was, and her focus was on the systems that failed people like her rather than having any singular person to get revenge against.
A D&D version of her I played was an airship mechanic who lost her arm in an accident with the power core crystal of an experimental airship.

Later on the character got a more tragic flashback added to her backstory, though. See she had her memeory altered so she didn’t remember how she lost her arm (Star Wars version), which was an Imperial Inquisitor/Sith Witch had caught her steeling when she was like 10, and had stabbed her arm with a Sith artifact that would have made her into a thrall, and she was found by a Jedi in hiding who cut off her arm, and took her to a different planet and got her a droidified arm. Her memories came back when she saw the witch again during a session, and that’s how she learned she is force sensitive.

Is that tragic? Idk I guess.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I remember watching the first season of Critical Role and just sighing every time yet more tragic backstory got revealed. Some players just think that that's the drama.

Obviously it can and does provide drama. But other things can also provide drama.

Like relationships.

Why are all my things on the front lawn? ....and why are they on fire?
-Something I've never said. Never. Not more than twice. Probably.

 

[haakon1]

Did anyone quote Tolstoy yet?

“All happy families are the same. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Except usually PC’s with tragic back stories don’t even have a family.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Like relationships.

Why are all my things on the front lawn? ....and why are they on fire?
-Something I've never said. Never. Not more than twice. Probably.

Back in the long ago days I was living with a very nice lady who, I learned many years later, has Borderline Personality Disorder. Ah! the interesting times we had.

 

[payn]

Back in the long ago days I was living with a very nice lady who, I learned many years later, has Borderline Personality Disorder. Ah! the interesting times we had.

I had a girlfriend with BPD. Those were interesting times.