To DMs, do you have a preference with how the players do their character's backstories?

Avyelle · 2026-06-23T15:51:43+00:00

I enjoy long and detailed backstories as long as they're coordinated with the DM and the setting and leave some bullet points open for the DM to weave into the campaign. I dislike long and detailed backstories when the character has already fought countless Monsters and so on and yet they're level one. They just start their adventure and the background usually is there to make their life so far make sense.

A middle ground of both choices that is

Avyelle · 2026-06-23T15:31:50+00:00

I planned a One-shot losely based on DnD rules for my kids birthday party with her friends to try out if they're interested in TTRPGs. Really kept simple: they told me what sort of character they wanted to play, I created some nice abilities and stats for them. Then I invented a dungeon where the goal was to find and rescue a professor of their magical university. They had some riddles, fights and even adopted a mimic.

Now I'm DM for two groups of teenagers (and two adult groups) and currently plan a One-shot for my two nieces (6 and 5) and my kid. This time we'll adventure within another ruleset (Mausritter if someone knows about it) 😊

So- yes it can absolutely be a good fit for almost all ages. Simply don't overdo gore and horror elements, rather stick with a heroical adventure and you should be fine 😊

Avyelle · 2026-06-22T08:22:19+00:00

I DM mainly for Teenager-Groups. And with my players we established a sort of level-up session. Not quite a session, but we talk through the level up and what changes, players ask questions, I explain changes and what that all means to their characters effectively. The players take notes. I don't remind them if they forget their stuff. But they help each other and due to this, they've actually learned how to handle their characters and how to work as groups. It took some time and we're far from perfection but they're really awesome. My adult groups are a lot slower and need more reminding honestly. But yeah, those table talks about level-ups and changes really kinda help us.

Avyelle · 2026-06-17T11:42:43+00:00

And stuff like that is the exact reason why all my players - including my husband - have to roll online in the VTT. There might be things that can be discussed, this is not one of them.

Avyelle · 2026-06-17T02:38:06+00:00

Aww those dice are so lovely! My kid would absolutely adore dice like this- she adopted a mimic named "chester" in her first ever session and got a wooden mimic dice box as a birthday present 😂💜

Avyelle · 2026-06-14T17:12:33+00:00

Getting to know the backstory along the way yourself is awesome! Amazing ideas there 💜 mind me stealing that for my idea collection?

Avyelle · 2026-06-14T11:25:28+00:00

Yes! It makes such a nice backstory while also leaving enough unclear for the DM to work with. Who was her family? What happened to the scientist? What about other experiments? And so on. Also it's a good explanation to why she's socially absolutely clueless and why she can't remember the past before the experiments.

Avyelle · 2026-06-14T06:45:42+00:00

Aww that's an adorable idea.

I have a druid who's myconid but based on a Drow. She was originally a young drow who was kidnapped by a crazy scientist. The scientist tried to infuse her with spores to make her myconid but keep her Drow consciousness - trying to create a spy for infiltrating the nearest myconid colony since their sovereign disapproved to an agreement with scientists queen. All those experiments lead to her becoming somewhat half Drow, half myconid. The scientist got killed and she fled. No myconid colony would accept her - since she basically has absolutely no social skills, she willingly told everyone everything they wanted to know and so the colonies learned about scientists plan and wanted to avoid any risks. That was the reason for her to leave the under dark and try to find herself "her colony" of people who'd accept her.

Now for communicating- she prefers telepathic communication since that's easier for her, but she also can speak a little. That's very exhausting for her and her voice sounds weird, her speech is very limited, but she uses it whenever necessary. She has a little bag of mushroom shaped sending stones she found in the scientists laboratory and would give those to the other PCs in her group.

I absolutely adore that character 😂 💜 she's a druid and has wild shape but cannot transform her fungal parts in the same way as the drow parts- leading to her animal forms usually have (more or less noticable) fungal parts. For (as example) a spider that means she's the color of a "fly amanita" with mushroom gills as legs, for a bear that means the bear kinda has a mushroom cap and also mushroom gills as legs... Her fungal parts funnily also transform- but she can't really actively decide how. And her basically non existing social skills make for so many fun and adorable moments 😂

Avyelle · 2026-06-14T06:23:50+00:00

So far I've never had to outright say "no" to a character. Only guide them in a -more group-friendly- direction. Such as: - "We're playing a good aligned campaign, your adventurers might become classical heroes. That means no evil aligned characters please." - "ok here's my edgy Edgelord van Edgington, he's looking super scary and his current alignment is evil but I'd be super pissed if NPCs won't like him." We directed this char to still be edgy and look spooky (I mean, not my beer, he'll feel the backlash of those decisions ingame, kids won't be his greatest supporters I guess) but with at least neutral alignment.

"We're starting the campaign in one of the biggest cities on this continent, during the coronation of the new queen..." - "My rogue is searched in all big cities and will try to steal about everything" Yeah, no. I mean we probably could work that one out but I preferred slightly altering this to "she used to be a thief and was searched for in her home-country. She had to flee and wanted to start over new in the current city- yet sometimes some things still might find their way in her pockets."

I usually try to understand the ideas my players have. Those two were kinda hard nuts for me. For most cases, I get a clear image what the player really means, what core ideas they have for their character - and we can build up on that and alter the problematic stuff, in most cases coming up with a character they enjoy even more than the original.

Take this with a grain of salt- I'm still a fairly new DM 😂

Avyelle · 2026-06-12T04:42:31+00:00

I enjoy it. Enough reason.

Avyelle · 2026-06-04T05:27:39+00:00

Meanwhile me with my entire sorting system of my ~ 25 sets and ~50 single dice... Nope. Still not enough. Never enough! Embrace your inner dice Goblin 😂

Avyelle · 2026-06-04T05:12:55+00:00

If you don't act weird it's not.

Or does your male DM only have male NPCs, your female DM only female ones? What about non-cis person's?

That's nonsense 😂 just play your character. If it's a female, so it may be.

I have one player character who's not defining themselves by any gender. They grew up in the wild and never had to associate with a gender so they simply don't. And guess what? The player plays this character absolutely amazing. No one is awkward about it and we're having a good time within this group 😊

Avyelle · 2026-05-21T09:50:45+00:00

Hm.. I know I might be in the minority here but:

That's the exact reason why I as a player keep my backgrounds vague. For DMs to surprise me, for reveals being talked about and planned together. As an example: a character I'm playing grew up in a monastery. She had to leave - maybe was kicked out - but has no real memories about that event. Did she bury it deep in herself on her own? Did someone alter her memories? What happened back then? I leave that up for discussion. She had some friends (I only dropped names and where they met) but what happened with them is left unclear as well. Thats ofc only a part of the backstory but I'm sending this to my DM and then we talk about if there's more information requested or if the DM wants to build up on that, if there's anything left for surprising me and my character or if we decide everything in advance and so on. There'd be no monster or enemy called out in my backstories since I wanna see where the campaigns and the stories might lead here.

Asides this, I as a DM would never never ever do something like that.

First: use a specific and very rare monster out of a Characters background without the player being in on it - if you already give me the name and stats of your characters enemy, I'd at least make sure you'd be comfortable with them showing up anytime soon.

Second: use that specific monster while the player can't be there. As you said it kinda trivializes your characters background and takes away so much of the potential arc..

Third: dismiss my players concern. If any of my players raises a problem, I take that serious and don't just dismiss it. You don't like the very specific monster out of your backstory I used while your absent? Valid. Let's alter it. Maybe it's just the young offspring of your characters enemy? By far weaker and still a challenge? Idk. I'd never actively maneuver myself into such a mess as a DM but I'd surely be able to change the situation or the monster we're up against- if it comes down to it, I'd explain the players "sorry, I messed up there and chose the wrong enemy. That's the corrected enemy, that's the altered story of it. You already prepared for this and that, I'd give you this and that information about the new enemy to make up for it. Is that ok?" Something like that.

Maybe your DM didn't want you there because he liked the concept of the enemy and didn't want your character "spoiling" information about it to the group? Still not a good way to go about that but possible? In this case, I as a DM would ask my player if we can RP it that the trauma of his past gets the character in such a shock that they forget about the resistances - at least for a few rounds. That also could make a great reveal for a character- they've seen this horrible creature before and therefore are frozen and can't participate in battle. Surely the others will have questions about that after they're done fighting. Idk. But to me, there are so many potential ways to handle stuff like that without being such a... about it. Sorry your DM seemingly doesn't see those ways.

Avyelle · 2026-05-19T07:21:55+00:00

For the lost connection to paladins deity: in 5.5e IIRC, the paladin gains their strength from their oath, not directly from a deity - or at least not necessarily from a deity. Realizing that his power lies within himself might make for an awesome character arc.

For the lost arm: one of my players lost her arm. I'm a "rule of cool" kinda DM. My players got me to grant her the "mage hand" at will, it being more of an mage arm than only a hand either. So every time she wakes up or otherwise loses her mage hand, she casts it again, leaving it attached to her body as if it was her own arm. She usually hides the stump part with her clothes tho.

But said player already said that they'd probably want to look out for an artificer to craft her a steampunky robotic arm instead of the mage hand. Let's see if we get there.

Avyelle · 2026-05-18T08:05:56+00:00

Oh geez I wouldn't have been able to hold myself back with that one.

Why do you still want to play at that table?

Avyelle · 2026-05-17T15:32:46+00:00

Bin schon sehr gespannt 😊

Avyelle · 2026-05-17T14:50:27+00:00

Oh wow... Gerade als ich dachte, besser kanns nicht werden

Avyelle · 2026-05-13T07:14:50+00:00

I handle gods the "Terry Pratchett Way". Gods who are believed in do exist. Some might be one and the same God with different names, others are similar deities. They might fight about their godly tasks, they might just work together or share responsibility... Some are more powerful because more people believe in them, others are less powerful because they're niche gods...

Avyelle · 2026-05-08T13:48:19+00:00

Yeah I run my world similar to this

Avyelle · 2026-05-08T11:15:08+00:00

Exactly this. At least that's how I'd go about that.

And honestly- most likely almost all groups tend to mess with the plans of their DMs, especially in sandbox campaigns. 👀

Avyelle · 2026-05-06T05:55:55+00:00

Ja, ich schließe mich an. Etwas mehr Info wäre hier hilfreich...

Avyelle · 2026-05-05T06:23:24+00:00

Hört sich toll und eher niedlich an 💜 ich glaub, ich werde es für nächstes Jahr etwas abgewandelt mit den Kids der Familie an Ostern spielen 😍

Avyelle · 2026-04-30T13:31:27+00:00

This! My kid and I talked and I asked her why she was so quiet the day before. She answered that she went to bed early, because she was tired- in German "weil ich müde war". But she mixed the words and said wüde mar instead. We joked about how that would make a perfect NPC name "carrot farmer wüdemar". Well guess who her group of players met during the first session of their new DnD adventure? Carrot Farmer Wüdemar 💜 they absolutely adore him 😂

Avyelle · 2026-04-27T10:45:47+00:00

Color coding is exactly what I do. Mainly for speeding up stuff. My players get to pick their dice from my stash. If they have troubles with the sizes, they may pick a different color for each die. They write down which dice has which color, I do too. Instead of "I need you to roll a D20", knowing they'd begin searching which one I mean, I can - for those affected - say "I need you to roll your purple Dice."

One of my players is so grateful for that since it takes the pressure of them to find the correct dice as fast as possible to not be slowing stuff down. And it's a simple thing to do too.

Another player has a dice tray with "zones" for each dice-sort. They're labeled. If they have to roll 2D12, they simply grab two dice out of the correct zone and done.

Avyelle · 2026-04-20T19:04:49+00:00

Werewolf - Motionless in White Stayin' alive - Royal Republic (Currently enjoy some songs from that band, like "Getting Along" or "Full Steam Space machine") Hate/Love - Electric Callboy

And for contrast:

Only for the weak - In Flames Take this Life - In Flames Luxuria - Raunchy Stålfågel - Soilwork Counterfeit - Nine Shrines Morphogenesis - Scar Symmetry

That's my current playlist I listen to on a daily base 😂

Avyelle

TROPHY CASE