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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Altalazar" data-source="post: 1228029" data-attributes="member: 939">While a good list of questions can give you a lot to think about, I tend to prefer a more open-ended narrative, written by each player, about each character's background.  I think it helps to first give information about the campaign world - so they know what world their character grew up in.  I have a list of nations, a map of the continent, and some information about each.  I have documents about world history.  I have lots of details on certain cities in that world.  I have a list of customized dieties for the world.  All of this information together tells the players what world they are being born into before they even think about making a character.  I think another important part of the process is having all of the players get together and discuss backgrounds together.  This allows for the creation of a balanced party, this also allows for backgrounds for some or all of them to be enmeshed together and complement and build on each other.  I find this can create a very strong party bond from the beginning, which sets the tone for the whole campaign.  One campaign set up that way started with everyone coming from the same small town, all childhood friends - and the first adventure was really the first "real life" adventure of them all upon reaching young adulthood, dealing with a situation that develops after a few of them are left in charge of the equipment shop owned by their parents.  Another group was a mercenary band.  And so on.I think it needs to be an interactive process, with perhaps some revisions, to smooth things out and make sure the background blends well into the world and with the other's backgrounds as well.It is good to have some hooks in there for future plotlines, as well.  In several games, I've had players make up backgrounds long before the dice or character sheets have even been looked at.  Then the character is created to match the background after the fact.</blockquote>

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