The BIGGEST D&D Character Mistakes 

Don't start out with "I am Lwaxana Troi, daughter of the Fifth House, holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx, heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed." Start with "My name is Jeff."

On the backstory bit. You're absolutely correct. A long expansive backstory is just absurd and nobody wants to read that, or incorporate the entire thing in. As a player, I generally try to do 2-3 paragraphs about my character. This allows me to introduce them, provide some context as to why they are the way they are, give the DM some NPCs to bring in, and give my character a clear goal that they're trying to work toward. But, I take care to leave the backstory fairly open ended so that the DM can bring things into the story, and so that (as you said) I can figure things out about them as the game goes on.

When is Wizards of the Coast going to man up and release “Douchebag” as a new character class

I really like your take on coming in with a bullet list of traits going into a game. My current campaign I was given a day's notice to create a guest character, making a fun-loving irresponsible aasimar gladiator. She ended up being my permanent character and it's been incredible to see how she's evolved over the course of the story. For all my other concepts, I try to flesh out their childhood a bit to consider what feeds into their grown up selves, and detail a major event that puts them on the path leading into the campaign story

I've made and played a range of characters across my D&D career. Some good... some pretty terrible... some that didn't really get off the ground, for various reasons. Regarding insanity, I decided to make an insane Warlock who insisted he was actually the world's greatest Paladin. His backstory was that he was just an average farmer, but one evening he was contacted in his dreams by a maiden, who claimed to be a deity that was held against her will in a pocket dimension, and she begged and pleaded for him to find a way to release her. Thus, he declared that he would be her champion from that moment forth! What I shared only with the DM is that the "maiden deity" was actually a Great Old One who fed on the sanity and willpower of mortal creatures, and were Lyomar to find a way to open a portal to their dimension, it would allow the Great Old One to slip into the mortal realm and feast on everything. Unfortunately, the game was cut short after only a few sessions, as our DM just disappeared. Not actually sure what happened to him, but he just stopped coming online and responding to all of us. As for one of my favourite characters I've played, while I didn't do it quite as meticulously as you (making a physical list of traits, etc), I had them start out with next-to-no personality, and built it from there through interactions with the party and what happened in the story. Mylo was a lab experiment. He was found in a stasis tube in a wrecked lab... the only piece of equipment to survive after the lab was destroyed. (I used a Simic Hybrid race as a base, and was meant to basically be a clone-like creature that was grown in the lab, and mutated across the campaign... ie, when he gained his SH traits as he leveled up) The lab had been attacked and destroyed prior to Mylo being given any form of mental stimulation or interactions with people. As such, after Naya (the player character who found him about an in-game month before the campaign started) released him, she found he was basically a toddler in an an adult body. He couldn't speak, didn't understand words, etc. He mostly communicated in gestures and grunts... which I chose to do simply because I wasn't very good at roleplaying at that time, so it let me interact without having to go into full-blown conversation with them. Over time, as the party gathered, they taught him to talk, read, write, and deal with social cues, etc. Regarding his class, he was a Wizard, but played like a Sorcerer at first (he'd still have to mentally prepare spells and such before using them, but couldn't use spells that required consumed or costly material components, couldn't do spells as rituals, couldn't learn spells except naturally on level up, etc). This changed later as he was taught to read and write. A couple of the sillier traits that became part of his character is that he he would become hyperactive over chocolate (not helped by the DM's homebrewed cantrip "Create Chocolate", allowing the caster to pull a small chocolate bar of various flavours from their pocket)... and he became "aggressively helpful" whenever he ate cheese. He would become more forceful in his words and actions, insist on helping out regardless of how much someone refused the offer, etc. Towards the end of the campaign, he made friends with a young Cloud Dragon (whom he called Drake), and after getting badly beaten up one time, and in the same battle nearly losing his dear friend Rena after the leader of the gang of thugs threatened to kill her after she was unconscious, he decided he no longer wanted to be a burden and have everyone always have to protect him, so he got them to train him with physical weapons, as well as starting to focus on teleportation magic. Mylo was one of my longest played characters (the campaign finished a bit short of 2 years in total, and Mylo and Rena were staples the whole way through, even though the other players changed characters once or twice). I've been very tempted to bring him back if we ever have a high-level one-shot or game again.

Look ma I'm on TV 1:00! Completely agree on long backstories really pidgeonholing characters... This is ESPECIALLY important in PBtA games where the narrative flexibility is the point!

I've DMed 1st and 2nd ed for well over forty years- played a bit as well. During a DM break, years ago, I played in a campaign set in the Realms. My PC was Sir Glindon The Red, a Paladin with the Votary kit. He was so much fun to play- gleefully burning down a Temple of Cyric...with all the worshippers still inside.....

If you can't fit your PCs backstory into two to four paragraphs then the dm will dislike it. The easiest idea it to look at the backgrounds in the PHB.

Yes I'm perfect! Or rather, I just started with playing myself and then I try to make characters somehow different than my previous characters. And myself. In ways that could easily affect my acting as well as decision making.

The backstory should have enough in it to give you and your DM enough of a foundation to build on, without pigeon holeing either of you; or making it weird that you did this amazing thing, but are still level one. The one thing that needs the most fleshing out is the inciting incident. Why are they here? What made them start this journey?

Low key love the fable music in the background of this

such a classic amateur player move to play someone who has some crazy trait to "make them interesting" then not play into it at all bc it was way too bold of a choice for first time RP

Yeah, I can't tell you how many times I've seen beginner players trying to play 2 characters as their first character, either by insanity or some form of possession. And I always tell them the same thing. Don't... You want you character to play off of the other PCs not themselves and playing 2 characters is always too demanding for a new player. But the truth is it's mostly just a bad idea.

Ringmar

Don't know about you Austin but I am as perfect as prefect can be. 🤣Those voices in my head are real. Those voices in my head are real. Those voices.....

Lord of the ringmars.

Finally! I found a D&D YTer that love F1!!!! lol

OMG! 1st D&D toons! 1988. I learn about the game. Minotaur Fighter with a double side double headed axe named Torack. Oh good memories. 100% best rich douchebag noble player I have been in 30+ years of gaming. Thanks for entertaining us!

I hate backstories. I hate them as a player. I hate them as a GM. I hate seeing other players talk about their backstory in some esoteric way as if I'm supposed to know what they're referencing. I hate when players make a backstory that didn't take into account anything about the pitch of the game I'm running. Backstories just suck. Stop writing them. Your "backstory" should be what happens at the table.

I detest players that want to play schizophrenic or psychopathic PCs, both as a player and as a GM. I classify that as "special snowflake syndrome," and it's eye roll-inducing behavior.