Have you ever had a character with a happy backstory?

[McDaygo]

Yes 2:

One was a Drow Cannibal (we homebrewed that there was a drug you cannadd to the brains that when eaten you can experience their memories) well I ate a cultist brain and had a really groovy trip so I went on an adventure to find more about this crazy tentacle god

The other I made a kineticist/Monk VMC that was the happy islander in a nomad tribe of barbarians. He left to raise his strength to help his people.

[Spencer Souris]

Oh yes, I have most of my characters with a happy or neutral backstory. Currently playing a fighter that all he did was run away from home because he wanted to adventure. And then later on he came back home to his family who were pretty cross with him but still loved him and supported him.
My character wrote to his family all the time, sending a portion of his gold to them to hope it helps out on their farm.

[EldonGuyre]

I had a wizard from a small farm in a peaceful area near a quaint village. What sort of call is there for a very talented wizard in a quiet, homey village?

His parents realized that staying at home would inhibit his chance to grow, and they convinced him to find his way in the world, with their blessings. He did visit his home once during the campaign, at over 10th (like 11th to 13th IIRC) level, and basically had a restful weekend.

[Volkard Abendroth]

Merellin wrote:

So many people have the sad backstory and dead family, So I wanted to ask if anyone here has gone the other way and had a happy backstory and living family?

I just started in a Return of the Runelords campaign and the only other campaign I've done with my group as a player, instead of GM, is Wrath of the Righteous.

I took the prodigy trait and wrote a backstory with my WotR character as may father. He's an aasimar paladin, the Herald of Iomedae, and married to Arueshalae.

I took the Heavenborn racial trait.

My current character is the daughter of the Herald of Iomedae and a risen succubus, raised in Heaven, and sent to Golarion to prove her own worth before returning to her parents side in Heaven.

We'll have to see how things work out as the story progresses.

[Squiggit]

Matthew Downie wrote:

Living family are also good plot hooks, but how good is roughly proportional to the tragedy in your lives.

I really couldn't disagree with this statement more. It seems so unnecessarily reductionist.

[Matthew Downie]

There's a reason why a startlingly high proportion of popular fictional were orphaned at an early age (e.g. Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Harry Potter, Tarzan, Luke Skywalker, most Disney protagonists) or otherwise come from a tragic background. It gets us on their side right from the start. Anything they achieve is all the more impressive because of where they started from.

You can make a sympathetic interesting character without a tragic background, but it's a lot more work.

[LordKailas]

Interestingly, I think the least tragic backstory I've had for a character was for my LE necromancer. My design approach for him was to treat him the same way I would a BBEG for a campaign. His life goal was to create a new race of creatures that were negative energy based. All of his undead and constructs were nothing more than experiments in an attempt to achieve his end goal.

He and his older sister had parents that were adventurers. His father was a rogue, his mother was a druid and his sister was a separatist cleric of Cayden Cailean (a reach cleric I made that predated this character). She went off adventuring because it was expected of her. He ended up becoming a separatist cleric of Zon-Kuthon not because he enjoyed giving or receiving pain, but because it was a means to an end. He started off LN, but over time his alignment shifted to LE as he became more and more willing to delve into dark magics and use questionable means to achieve his goals.

He probably caused many tragic backstories, but he didn't really have one himself.

[PossibleCabbage]

I feel like a lot of characters end up only children and/or orphans largely because people don't want to have to come up with their entire family, in addition to their own character. Like "who were your parents, what did they do, where are they now" might be good prompts for some people for figuring out their character, but for others it might be largely irrelevant. So the easiest thing to do is write them out of the story before they come up.

But even characters who have some really bad stuff in their backstory (every changeling has sexual violence, murder, cannibalism, and eventual ostracization when people figure out you're weird in there somewhere) can be pivoted to better stuff. Like so what if my character got kicked out of her Ustalavic village when they noticed the creepy girl who never sleeps grew claws? Undaunted she will head off to the big city and get a job in the stacks of the University of Lepistadt, where her darkvision, terminal insomnia, and lack of a social calendar are all beneficial.

[Heather 540]

I took a look at my characters that I've given a background too even a little. Three have happy backgrounds and loving families. One is an orphan raised in the woods by an awakened former animal companion. Then there are the twins. Their parents are alive, but their family fortune had been stolen by a corrupt baron and they were left destitute. So they decided to get it all back Robin Hood style.

[Cole Deschain]

Matthew Downie wrote:

There's a reason why a startlingly high proportion of popular fictional were orphaned at an early age (e.g. Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Harry Potter, Tarzan, Luke Skywalker, most Disney protagonists) or otherwise come from a tragic background. It gets us on their side right from the start. Anything they achieve is all the more impressive because of where they started from.

You can make a sympathetic interesting character without a tragic background, but it's a lot more work.

Conversely...

"My parents died when I was a wee tyke" is done to death and flat-out dull precisely because so many characters fall back on it.

[Melkiador]

Classic Superman has a happy backstory though. It just has a tragic element.

[Gilfalas]

Melkiador wrote:

Dragonchess Player wrote:

2) reduces the "leverage" a GM has on the character. Some GMs just love threatening/abusing family, friends, and love interests of characters - either because of the melodrama or because they want to "force" the PC into certain actions/choices.

I’m not really sure why players run from that. It’s just another opportunity for your character to stand out. Better to let your tragedy play out in game than have it be just some bit of backstory that no one but you knows or cares about.

Because some GM's never know when to STOP doing it and it gets tiring to have your family tortured and wiped out in every game you play with that GM for 'drama' when in reality they are just not that creative and cannot come up with anything new.

Characters are protected by levels and magic items and powers. Family are speed bumps waiting to get wiped out by a strong evil wind and it is extremely hard for players to protect them. In fact the stronger the PC, then the stronger the enemies and the easier it is for them to kill your 'assumed' normal family.

[Vernon Caldwell]

Lots of adventurers go down that path because they are the 4th/5th/6th child. There is nothing for them at home.

This kind of orthogonal to the OP, but means that lot's of PCs will have normal childhoods.

[Cydeth]

Several, but the one who comes to mind... her mother had the tragic backstory. Her mother's parents were the last nobles of their lines, then tragic accidents took them, leaving her mother an orphan, who was adopted by a human family (she was an elf). They weren't in the direct line of succession, and mother-dearest joined a Suneite temple, and ended up with child. She was very confused when she bore a half-succubus... but the girl grew up pretty well-adjusted and happy, and went out into the world to see what she could learn.

On the other hand, my happy-go-lucky fey-ri rogue/wizard did shockingly well in Red Hand of Doom. She not only invited a spy into the party, but also managed to turn them from the bad guys completely unintentionally!

[Coidzor]

My first PF character. (If you're a Golarion purist, you probably don't want to read about him. At least, don't say I didn't warn you.)

Spoiler:

He was a Half-Orc Paladin of Cayden Cailean who came from a family of Half-Orc Paladins and other warriors who espoused the virtues of derring do and heroing and who had been doing so for generations.

Other than the mighty thews and rippling muscles that ran in the family, they all had prodigiously strong, cleft chins, though, regardless of sex or ratio of orcishness to humanishness.

His parents and siblings were all alive. Had a few dead aunts and uncles, and no one had seen grandma or grandpa in two decades since they decided to retire to Mendev, but, well, the Paladin life isn't exactly without its risks.

Learned the art of brewing from an uncle who had settled down to meet a nice lady and raise a family when he had to go into retirement after losing an arm in a fight with a manticore.

Some heavy influences from Full Metal Alchemist's Major Alex Louis Armstrong, the Quest for Glory series of video games, and Girl Genius's Othar Tryggvassen.

My second PF character

Spoiler:

He was a 3rd son or a 3rd son of a 3rd son of a family of Old Money that had managed to make enough of its own fortune Merchant Princing it up that they became a branch family. There may or may not have been war profiteering during the build-up to the Chelish Civil War or the war itself.

But his family was all alive, parents at least seemed to genuinely be in love with one another from all of the extraneous children they'd made together, etc.

His father may or may not have had anything at all to do with the Council of Thieves. We never did find out because we only got a few sessions into the Council of Thieves AP.

Admittedly, part of the reason for the large family was because
I didn't really want to have to work all that hard to come up with introducing backup characters, since we'd heard rumblings about there being some encounter early on in Council of Thieves that can butcher low level parties or even TPK them. I think it was Shadows or something?

But, yeah, I worked with the GM and basically made a whole cast of cousins and siblings in different classes that I wanted to try out that existed in a sort of limbo state.

The rest of my PF characters had more bittersweet or neutralish backstories. No huge tragedies, though, I don't really go for that kind of drama.

I ultimately decided that my old man Lizardfolk Shaman for Way of the Wicked didn't actually have all of his kids die of tragedy when his tribe was destroyed so much as he was just ridiculously long-lived and since all of his grandkids were adults and seemed to have gotten the hang of the whole living as adults and raising families thing, he could finally go answer the call of Asmodeus without having to worry about them not knowing how to trim their own claws.

I suppose it might be worth mentioning that Brazzak, my old lizardman, was probably the only one to have a family predominantly comprised of what could be thought of as "normal people," for lizardfolk instead of coming from families where PC levels were expected.

[blahpers]

Coidzor wrote:

My first PF character. (If you're a Golarion purist, you probably don't want to read about him. At least, don't say I didn't warn you.)

** spoiler omitted **

You misspelled FOR GENERATIONS!!!!.