Cliched backgrounds are the unspoken curse of TTRPGs. If I had a copper piece for every ‘orphan with a tragic past’ or ‘fighter out for revenge’, I could retire and open a tavern. The first impression you make is with your backstory, and it can elevate a character you might not particularly care about to being the start of something special.

Remember, not every character you play has to be the D&D equivalent of Batman, with the brooding personality and dead parents. When it comes to the reason that you have taken to a life of high adventure, you have a world of choices and don’t need to fall back on tired cliched tropes that are so basic they might as well come on a table free in every set of dice.

These tips apply to everything from a Rogue in Faerûn to a pilot in The New Republic. It doesn’t matter if you’re new to all this or if you have been at this for years; your background is a much-neglected facet of character creation, and it can be very rewarding.

Nobody is perfect; we are a mix of not only our greatest successes but also our failures.  Maybe you’re playing a Paladin. well, perhaps you briefly worked as a town guard and made a mistake that led to a killer going lose? Or maybe as a young apprentice to a mage, you hurt someone with a misfired spell? A mistake that your character has made can be the impetus that propels them to a fantastic life of adventure.

It can also lead to a very satisfying redemption arc for your character and give the GM pliantly to work with to integrate you into the lore of the campaign.

Consider what your character would have done until Session Zero, and out of that, what is the one thing they would like to have done differently. How does this mistake define them? You could have them bury it and act like it never happened, or do they use it as a fire within them to spur them on to greater acts of heroism?

A character with a secret can be a lot of fun to play. With your background, you need to strike a balance between something that has the potential to be interesting to play and something that will render your character almost unplayable in an ongoing campaign. You can make the secret almost anything, but always speak to your GM first; for example, you could tell everyone your Wizard studied under a wise and benevolent tutor, when in actuality you were trained by a wicked and twisted Necromancer, and you managed to escape their clutches with just the clothes on your back and your spellbook.

A character’s secret doesn’t have to be theirs alone; maybe you have had an affair with someone important in the society you’re from, and they have sworn you to secrecy lest there be a scandal.

 Consider how the secret affects how the character sees the world, how they act within it and what lengths they would go to protect that secret. If you’re playing a paladin, for example, what would they do to keep the secret that their father was a dreaded Black Knight of Kree?

Your character whole-heartedly believes something, something that shapes their every action, something that is their core… but isn’t necessarily true.  You could be playing a rogue who, in a high fantasy setting, is an atheist but would die for the belief that all are born equal. Two core beliefs drive them, but one is demonstrably false, and one is arguably true.

Maybe you’re playing someone from a nomadic background who eschews the gods of civilised men in favour of the animal spirits of their people. Perhaps they hold an odd superstition or prejudices, like they consider all Elves to be duplicitous or are afraid of turkeys.

You can make these beliefs be almost anything. In a world where, in modern day, some people will wholeheartedly pledge their beliefs about a flat earth or that vaccines contain microchips, you can make your fantasy dwarf believe that the Underking has been replaced by a duergar doppelgänger if you like.

This could be a friend, a rival, an ex-lover or just about anybody that your character has some kind of connection to from before session one, as long as they add stakes in the emotional journey that your character embarks on. A good example here is, if you find yourself falling back on the ‘I just want to play a moody loner’ archetype, where would Batman be without Alfred? What about Blade and Whistler? For every brooding antihero, there is someone in their backstory who either cares about them or used to.

The relationship card can contextualize the character; for example, what if you want to play a paladin and decide that you grew up close with a dark elf, you once were as close as brothers, but at one point your lives took very different paths?  Immediately, you add stakes and drama to what could have been quite a mundane background.

This can also be applied to a modern-day setting, like the World of Darkness; imagine two brothers on opposite sides of a vampiric turf war. I have played this scenario, and it was a ton of fun. (We decided to hell with the lot of ‘em and made our side)

No one passes through life without affecting or being affected by other people, so give your character someone who cares about them.

This could be something that was done for them or by them.  It could be that at their lowest point, they received help from an unexpected source; it could be that when they were riding high, someone close to them sabotaged them. Equally, you could make it so that your character helped someone out of the blue or maybe even played a part in bringing someone else low.

This action could be either a defining characteristic of your character, like you’re a selfless hero of the light who always tries to do the right thing, or it could be a behavioural aberration; you normally wouldn’t have tried to sabotage anyone, but they had it coming.

Consider how this kindness or cruelty shapes how your character sees the world. Do they sincerely regret acting out of pique and have been trying to make up for it with good deeds? Maybe the reverse is true, and they are annoyed at a moment’s kindness, making them look weak.

This could be something that they never got to do – like an apology left unsaid to someone who died, or an unfulfilled ambition, like maybe your fighter character was never accepted into a guild, and you have set out to prove yourself.

Regret in fiction and games can be a major motivator in moving the plot forward and always makes for an interesting character. A few small regrets can add texture to your ‘by the numbers’ cleric,  who secretly regrets telling the archbishop he was a stuck-up old goat the night before he died.

Always think how this moment in the past will affect how they behave moving forward. It could be a major or minor driving force that propels them to a life of adventure.

As much as it would be a good tongue-in-cheek joke to take this bit of advice and play a Dragonborn who likes to relax by playing Houses and Humans, there are lots of ways you can add unusual details to your character’s background.  Maybe they are a tough-as-nails soldier that also likes gardening? In GURPS, there is a system for adding odd little habits- called quirks- to your character. The system of GURPS is one of my all-time favourites, and the quirks system in particular is one of the reasons for this.

For example, maybe your ex-smoker novelist character in Call of Cthulhu keeps his last cigarette behind his ear in case of ‘Nuclear war’ or you could have a Monk character who is a strict vegetarian but can’t resist bacon.

Small quirks like this are what make a character fun to play and can elevate your cookie-cutter fighter from being just a collection of stats to someone you will look forward to playing.

Everyone has red lines, things that they would never do, no matter what peer pressure they were subjected to, no matter what the villain threatens, there are always some things that they would never do.  It could be something as simple as ‘would never commit murder’ or ‘would never steal’ These are really good starting points for a moral compass but are just the baseline; almost everybody wouldn’t kill another person unprovoked.

What about your character’s moral compass is different to the norm? The life of an adventurer is one of violence, so it would probably be a good idea not to make it a complete moratorium on fighting.

Having a character with a particular taboo can lead to some interesting tension and moral dilemmas, for example, if you decide to play a character who has a big problem with slavery, and the party ventures to a part of the world where it is common. Already there are conflicts and opportunities for really good roleplaying.

It’s normal to embellish your past just a little, like the fisherman who tells stories about the size of the fish they ‘almost’ caught. What is a story that your character tells about their past that isn’t necessarily completely true? Maybe you’re playing a Monk who insists that alcohol has never passed his lips- apart from one time when he got blackout drunk on rice wine and stole the leader of the monastery’s favourite bonsai tree. An inconsequential detail, perhaps, but it is a detail that you would need to bear in mind the next time rice wine is offered to you.

It could be that your fighter claims they were at the battle of calamity ridge, when in fact they were miles away herding sheep. This stolen valour could lead to some interesting and unexpectedly tense roleplay moments if they should meet an actual veteran of that battle. You could decide that your character claims to be of noble lineage when in fact they are just from peasant stock.

Consider what things about your character they would like to be true so much that they lie about it to everybody, including themselves.

Your character has an object they carry with them that holds immense sentimental value. It could be that they wear their dead mother’s wedding ring on their pinkie finger, or maybe your wizard keeps with them a stuffed toy from their childhood. Whatever it is, it’s an object that tells an important story about the character and can add depth to them and lead to some nice roleplaying moments.

Always tell your GM about the item and what it symbolises to them. It could be a broken weapon (the first they ever wielded) or a lock of hair from a childhood sweetheart. Make the story unique and personal to them. What would they do if they lost the item? How does it tie into their journey?

A good backstory isn’t just about where your character has come from, it’s also about where they are going and will shape how you play them moving forward. Always bear in mind that it’s not just one thing; your characters’ backstory is just the start, and how they were shaped by it will continue to shape them.

You should use these tips to build your unique backstory, mix and match and sound off in the comments if you can think of anything that I missed.

When you do come to hand this all in, consider having a conversation with your GM rather than just handing them a massive information dump, and you will be well on your way to creating a memorable and fun character to play.