Coming Up With An Origin Story

I liked my last post. I thought it was full of some pretty good information. It even got a comment! I never get comments. It mentioned how it can actually be pretty hard to come up with the bullet points of your background, the actual events of your character's backstory that I took for granted that you'd be showing up with.

God Dammit, Dareon. Right as always.

Right after, someone new to roleplaying was asking me about that very subject too. So I thought I'd see if I had any advice for putting a backstory together and not just what to write. Forty Questions quizzes and personality tests can help you form a character's personality, but I realized absolutely nothing helps you put together a backstory.


We'll start with what Dareon said in his comment, because he's absolutely right. Every character  background needs the following things.

A. What they were doing before they started adventuring

B. How they obtained the skills they've got at the start of the game

C. Why they started adventuring


Please substitute "Adventuring" for Shadowrunning, superhero-ing, or whatever sort of action your game has. It's got something, so Item C is always going to be relevant in some way. Right now I want to point out that if you have some really simple answers to those three items, that's okay. Like I said last post, it's your prerogative, it's your character, and it's all about what you want to do. You need something for all three, but it can be as simple as this:


A. They were a farmer.

B. They joined the local militia.

C. Their village was ransacked by ogres.


Classic First Edition Dungeons and Dragons stuff right there. This is the kind of thing you see for a low level character, because plot points in your history are always going to be informed by what you're capable of. Nobody's going to believe you single-handedly killed a dragon if your character is level three at the start of the game. Non-leveled systems are always better for this kind of thing, and if you're making a character in a World of Darkness game or an edition of Shadowrun, you can probably ignore this part. In general, though, try to think of what your character is able to accomplish when you're including things they did accomplish.

Before we go over the individual items above, let's touch on setting. You do have to fit what you're writing to the setting, but I wanted to mention this is also a really good source of ideas. If you're really blank, reading or talking about the setting, and seeing what goes on in it can be a wealth of creativity. Plenty of my ideas have been inspired by something as simple as reading lore bits in Vampire: The Masquerade or thumbing through regional descriptions in Forgotten Realms.

But you do have to try and fit your story to the world. As you go forward, make sure everything that you write can actually happen in your world. Keep details straight, and make sure everything is explained well enough. Involving organizations can be an easy way to add flavor. If something happens that's "out of character" for a group, be sure to explain it. Being persecuted by the church of Lathander sounds like a stretch...but being persecuted by a corrupt chaplain who still works inside the church of Lathander doesn't.


But that's a bit too heady for us right now. Let's go over the basics. Item A is "What they were doing before they started adventuring". This can be as simple as a profession, or it can be a timeline of incidents. It all depends on what you want to include. If you're stumped for ideas, take what you know of your character(Class, Clan, Race, or even just personality) and ask what their life would be like if they were in various situations or professions. You can easily cast about like this until you find one you like. Better yet, one of those might spawn the idea for some sort of incident or relation to their skills. That's good.

It can also be a lot of fun to play against type here. A lot of people feel that class, or clan, or auspice or whatever sort of details exist in a game logically inform a character's backstory. Wizards learn in academies. Monks come from monasteries. Brujah listen to The Sex Pistols and wear leather. No. No, there's that "Logically" word again, and it's just as unwelcome here as it is anywhere else on my blog. A class is just a set of skills. A race, vampire clan, or werewolf tribe is just something you are. There's no need for it to fit "logically". Your backstory should make sense, but you're under no obligation to fill someone else's expectations.

I've long used Porthos here as an example of a Barbarian who doesn't fit a typical mold. Along with him I can point out that Batman could be a Rogue. Ellen Ripley could be a Ranger. The brothers from Boondock Saints would probably be Paladins. So if you take anything at all from today's discussion, let it be that you're under no obligation to be a stereotype.

Item B might be pretty easy if you're following along and already filled out A. They don't always connect, though. You could have filled Item A with details of their life, and their profession is just a footnote. That's perfectly fine. Marrying two different concepts here might also be the key to a really neat background. A former Marine or other type of soldier might pick up a wide number of professions after they come home, as a quick example. Plenty of former military go into health care, but some open up pizza shops. Some work in machine shops or garages. I promise you that, at least once, a former Marine has become a birthday clown.

I do have a footnote before we continue, though. Be wary of anyone telling you that your background doesn't "Make sense" or accusing you of being a "munchkin" over your backstory. Usually, this is just people trying to use the L word against you without saying it. Accusing someone of having a "muchkin" background can often mean they just think it's boring and want their criticism to hold more weight than that. People lead weird, wild lives in the real world, and I've seen dozens of examples of people's real lives that would be called "unreasonable" as a character backstory. Fuck'em. On top of that, I could easily come up with a perfectly reasonable backstory for a monstrously overpowered character. I've done so many backgrounds, it wouldn't even be hard. A background has nothing to do with how "powerful" your character is. Don't let people pick at your decisions like that. In fact, don't let people pick at you for anything.

Ahem. Glad we had that talk. Item A does in fact inform Item B a lot, and it's okay if you want to just go with that. Remember what we said about interesting vs. "boring" bullet points last time and don't stress that your background doesn't sound "cool". They don't all have to be cool. Ripley has a boring backstory, and she's a great character.

Item C is also called an inciting incident, or The Call to Action. It's the event or situation that moves the hero forward and gets them adventuring. Your first impulse is probably gonna be tragedy. It's an easy inciting incident to write, to be sure. Before I give you alternatives, lemme just go over a few different types of tragedy that you can use. There's the obvious sympathetic tragedy. People who lost a loved one, got booted unfairly out of school, got put into a strange place against their will. Easy stuff. There's also tragedy that your character arguably deserves. This can be a super useful tool. If I want my character to be taken as a little shady, I can include jail time, or being run out of town for practicing strange experiments or magic. If I want to play someone who's repentant or a former villain, here's where his turning point goes. It can easily be a misfortune that turns him around.

But you totally don't need to involve a tragedy here. At its core, something needs to change in this person's life to make them move forward. It could be realizing they have a higher calling, feeling like they're wasting their life, or even some sort of social situation. All you need to do is tie an event to this concept and you're good to go. The fledgling paladin meets a homeless kid. The apprentice wizard meets a librarian who makes him fear that his own future is filled with dull nothingness if he doesn't go out and live, or a slave owner dies and his slaves are all unceremoniously dumped onto the street.

You're just trying to avoid an answer that sounds like a shrug goes alongside it. "One day he quit his job" isn't really a reason, it's just what happened. People don't always make decisions for big reasons, but you still need to put something here. Talk about the feelings that led up to their decision, if nothing else.  Virtually every movie has a Call to Action somewhere in it, and even non-fantasy movies can be a wealth of ideas.

You need a bit more than a movie character to go on. A character in a movie can be thrust into a situation, but once it's over, they just go back to doing whatever they were doing before that, a lot of the time. You need a reason your character wants to move forward. Still, you can use them as a decent tool: Watch a movie that's outside of the genre of your game, and think about how it would go if it were adapted to your game's genre.

There's also the idea that your character might want to accomplish a goal. Wanting to grow stronger is a little boring, but it's there. It's better to take that in a more specific direction. You could even take it in a direction that's not along their primary skill set: Wanting to become the world's best alchemist is one thing, but the same character with the same stats could want to become the world's best baker and still have a reason to adventure.

Villain origin stories are filled with goal-focused origins. Mr. Freeze wants to bring his wife back. D-Fens wants to give his daughter her present. Thanos wants Death to love him. Dr. Doom wants his country to thrive. Magneto wants mutants to thrive. If you're thinking you want to include a goal as motivation, I'd look to villains for examples. You don't have to be evil...they just tend to have goals.


Fuck me I hope this helped. It's incredibly hard to explain how to be creative to someone. I tried to put together a structure for you and give some common jumping-off points. If you take anything at all away from this post, let it be that your background is your creation. Learn when people are giving honest constructive criticism, and when they're just dumping on you. Take the first gracefully, and don't take any shit from people doing the second.