Fallen_Mage |
Here is the situation.
I have a friend that wants to start a new campaign with 1st level characters and I've managed to talk my wife into giving it a try. After looking through the books, she has decided to play a Half-Elf Sorceror with the Verdant Bloodline.
Normally I don't have an issue coming up with a backstory but, I'm hitting a stone wall for ideas here. I've come up with two so far. One where she is looking for her parents after they were taken in a bandit raid and the other is her searching for an ancient artifact.
Can anyone help me on this? I just need some seeds here as to why she turned to a life of adventure. I can figure out the rest of the details later.
Thanks in advance.
Umbral Reaver |
Her grandmother is a dryad, thus the verdant bloodline. She spent a lot of time with her to learn the basics of sorcery but after hearing one too many tree puns, she decided to take up adventuring to get away from the incorrigibly wooden humour of her mentor. Secondly, as she grew up she also became increasingly embarrased about her grandmother prancing about in the nude all the time.
:P
Lightbulb |
Can anyone help me on this? I just need some seeds here as to why she turned to a life of adventure. I can figure out the rest of the details later.
Thanks in advance.
I read that one GM does something like this:
Come up with a series of questions:
Who was you best friend as a child?
What was your relationship with you father like?
What job did you parents have?
Did you have a favourite distant relative?
What did you want to do before you discovered your magical powers?
How did your family react when your powers began to show?
etc etc
This starts to fill in some of the background of the character.
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Next come up with a series of increasingly more open questions:
Something like:
You see a thief pick the pocket of a young mother. Do you:
a) Confront the thief there and then?
i) Blast them with magic
ii) Cast a charm spell on them
iii) Use you powers of persuasion
b) Follow the thief and when they are alone
Come up with a series of 'encounters' for them to say how they deal with them. After the first couple you needn't even offer a, b or c (or do so at all - but I would suggest doing so just to show the sorts of answers you're after - lead her into it. If she has a strong idea immediately that she want to do D even better!)
In this way she will start to think about how her character behaves in certain situations - but in a free form way which doesn't rely on dice rolls or rules understanding.
You could even let these form part of the developing back story. Maybe the child was injured when she used the spell (and she heal the child, or not) or the sorcerer then went on to be friends with the woman.
Maybe the thief's friends came to pay her a visit afterward - how does she deal with this? Maybe she's on the run from them? Maybe the local town watch was in the pay of the crime boss and she's on the run from the law falsely accused of something?
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These 'memories' will let her play the character - but I'd say its something your wife needs to decide - with your questions and situations to guide her/start her off.
All this just occurred to me as I was going along but its basically just a way of sparking ideas.
X happens - how did you deal with it? Y happens how do you deal with it? Hopefully once you get started something should just flow along - see where this takes you.