Several years ago, my first character, a human paladin and one that followed shortly afterwards, a human wizard were created in separate campaigns and under the 1st edition rules. The DM was my brother when I was a kid. Neither character had any kind of personality or background developed, as back in the early 80's these concepts were not introduced or encouraged by the DM. Over the years I have developed into a very big role player and strong character backgrounds.
Currently I am DMing a 5th edition campaign where we have an 11th level cleric and 11th level ranger going through Castle Greyhawk. The dungeon is starting to get tough (we are on the 3rd level of the War Tower) and much of this is due to the way 5th edition plays as a system. We have two people, myself, and one player. We are adding an 11th level barbarian to the group shortly (the other player will tackle this character).
To further increase the party size and for sentimental reasons, I would like to recreate my Paladin and Wizard from many years ago. I still have original character sheets and therefore had no problem stating the characters up using the 5th edition rules.
The problem is that neither character had any kind of personality or background and for the past several days I have been unsuccessful at coming up with any interesting ideas for either character. In fact all the games we played sort of meshed together because back then we did a few modules and otherwise fought giants because that was the choice of the DM's best friend and group leader.
The DM has since died and I have lost touch with the other players. What I can recall is this:
Paladin: My Paladin played second fiddle to a group of rangers (because that's all the other players would play). Eventually the group settled on the Paladin, the Ranger and a Monk. The main player hated dungeons so we only got to experience a little bit. I recall going through The Ghost Tower of Inverness, White Plume Mountain, The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth and Tomb of Horrors. Other than that, about the only thing that we did was fight giants because that's what the one player always wanted to do. One of the last things we did was go through a couple of dungeons the DM made, one of which we fought a dragon at the end. The details of the dungeon were rather poor and my memory even worse.
Wizard: Here we had the same players and the same motivation....go kill giants and heaven forbid do not go through a dungeon because the one player did not like them and the DM catered to him solely. So this is all I can really remember. The only personality I can recall is attempting to manipulate other characters to steal some Pegasus eggs, a task at which we failed. The wizard never really got any respect from the other players and characters because of the d4 hit die. At one point we encountered a group of ogres and the ranger decided there were to many of them for us to defeat. I got tired of being second fiddle and disrespected so I stated that I alone would defeat the ogres. After preparing the appropriate spells, the combat ensued and I succeeded in my goal while the other characters stood idly by expecting my demise.
This is about all I can recall after so many years. I am reconstructing the characters as mentioned above and would like some help in regards to personality and background development. The Game world is Greyhawk and I like to immerse my character's into the background of the game world. I not only need to come up with unique personalities but also pre-adventuring background plus fill in the level gaps ranging from level 1-11.
I'm looking for helpful ideas on which direction to develop these characters to make them as complete as possible and part of the World of Greyhawk. I am not interested in rolling up different characters as my motivations are mentioned above. The player I have is my real-life partner and supportive of these characters.
So what would you suggest?
The wizard is probably a better fit mechanics wise and let's your group experience/explore the "arcane mystery" side of the world.
Did it (he/she?) want the Pegasus egg to hatch and train - or use as material components for some spell? That gives a clue as to personality.
Started out as a natural follower rather than a leader.
It obviously has a bit of a chip on its shoulder due to being always told it wasn't good enough. Maybe it's a bit brash, has a thing to prove, was always fascinated by ancient underground ruins but never got to explore them due to the leader of its previous adventuring party. So maybe wants to go deeper now. Maybe fooled around with forbidden knowledge - because it was forbidden and it had a point to prove.
Sounds like you have the start of a PC personality.
As for your wizard, I'd use you fight with the ogres as a turning point and would set it's background a timid magic user that always have been push around and disrespected, until that one day. His comrade not acknowledging his victory and he decide to leave them, and, with his newly found confidence, move on to make a name for himself.
From there you could roleplay your wizard with a boalstering confidence, but that can still falter. He can even become a leader.