Using Character Backstories to Build a Campaign (Just Like Matthew Mercer!) 

What would you do differently if you were mapping out this campaign? Thanks so much to WorldAnvil for sponsoring this video! Visit www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike and use the promo code SUPERGEEK to get 40% off any annual membership! www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike

I love the idea of Histix having a Frodo-like end to his arc. When he finally returns to the undershire, its the same, but he isn't, and he knows he can never call it home again. The next morning, he chases after his adventuring group and decides to remain with them. At least until he can find a new place to call home.

This video is so formative. I think I'm kind of overwhelmed of how much information I need to absorb, but this trilogy was incredible in different ways. Thanks a lot for them.

this is one of the most helpful "get into DMing" videos I've ever seen, on par with only Mat Coville's "Prep Can Be Literally Easy and Actually Fun"

I would love to play this campaign. I would potentially make the kings siblings twins or triplets with enough confusion about who was born first to muddy the succession, or make succession based on a test that every potential heir must take. Have the current king be a usurper because the only heir of his generation that passed the test died in an accident.

I’m loving these connected videos, not quite a series but enough through-line to look forward to the next

8:06 mike, your deadpan delivery of the star belly sneetches joke sent me screaming. Comedy gold

I like the concept of “plot point mobility”, essentially how fixed a plot point is to a particular location. The more mobile ones I would think to keep in my back pocket for if you realize that it’s accidentally been awhile since you included someone’s backstory into the plot, such as an NPC from their past visiting the city they’re about to go to/are in. This contrasts with less mobile items, like if you specify there’s a holy city (I.e. Vasselheim) and its temple needs a character’s insight in a problem, or their home town has been getting repeated waves of attacks by monsters, essentially plot points that point the players in a direction. The latter I would think to plan ahead for when in the narrative it would make sense to point them that direction, and have them go that path.

Adding in a twist idea: Maybe the dragon sent or even was the collection agent. While he may send force in minions his personal approach is to torment and beat his targets intellectually. Additionally maybe the dragon knew of the threat from the fire plane and caught the genie he thought was behind it. Only he got the wrong one. But in a random twist of luck the genie actually behind it does care about his brother enough that he is delaying his plans and to get him out of the danger this destructive syphoning of the material plane may cause. I feel like the wish offering evil genie could give some interesting temptations as non-combat attacks to both the Tiefling noble player (offering him so much of what he wanted without earning his worth) and the Duchess villain if you want her to be more powerful or to fracture a growing resolution between her and the players.

i think this is my favorite video of yours so far! this is such a clear example of how to start thinking about a campaign tied to the players! i love how these give examples of different levels of subplots at multiple levels and can include a main campaign or can be the main campaign! thank you for all your great tips on this video and all your others!

Mike coming in with the BURN NOTICE reference. I thought me and my mom were like the only people who'd ever heard of that show lol

This is one of the best videos I've seen in some time. A party of random characters playing in a published adventure that has nothing to do with them general rings hollow, so I was thinking for my next campaign to go more the Brennan Lee Mulligan route of having players roll characters to fit the story I had in mind. Clearly this can work (D20 is a prime example), but you taking the opposite approach is really something I haven't thought of before. Sure, there are plenty of player driven campaigns, but doing an entire campaign based just on back stories is something I never even considered. This was great.

This is honestly one of your best videos to date. Filled with great knowledge and tips for new and old DMs alike. Glad to see your content is still top quality, Mike.

Always to to make it easy on my dm when it comes to giving them stuff to work with from my backstory. First I usually try to sound out what style campaign is is. Are we expected to stay in one general area? Or are we expected to travel and keep traveling until a unspecified goal is met? If so, I will try to arrange my character to be motivated to some degree by that, maybe with multiple plot hooks if possible. I also, of course, sound out the other players on what they are creating for the same reasons, to more easily draw themes or connections between us as a party. For example, I have a character I made who is joining the table for an ongoing campaign. This character should be expected to travel a great deal. For that, several things must be set in place. One, the character must have a strong reason they don’t want to stay where they were. Two, they need to have a reason to be where they join the party. And three, the need a reason to join the party and stay with it. So for one, I designed out a few things. One, their home life is one that leads them to have a great deal of burnout from being the parentified eldest child. Now that all siblings and younger first cousins are adults with their own lives, this leaves my character at loose ends not knowing what to do with themself. So that’s first of the reasons. Now I create more motivation to leave. Next I have animosity built up at home by my character figuring out a scandalous secret of their cousin who is not antagonistic towards them because of it. That tension makes the situation less tenable for them to remain home. And then I add the anger the character developed from an arrogant person they defeated in a public sparring match spreading false rumors about them, saying they cheated. This motivates them to further want to distance themselves. But that isn’t enough, so final push is that I have them make a friend who invites them to join their faction, a faction that lets them explore and travel, but most importantly, get away from the tension at home. And with that, my character can and does leave. But then how to get them to the party? Well that last point I had that motivated them to leave? That faction is why. My character is sent to that location to provide knowledge for the faction and reports. It isn’t a super important mission if something happens but it’s enough that they will be there to join the party. And last, I answer the final question by having a mutual friend between my character and the party go missing and need rescue. They join up and work together to succeed on that. But this then wraps around to the first question’s answer. Remember I said this character was a parentified eldest child? Well, what is a party but a found family who desperately needs some support and stability. My character is built to provide that. It’s something they need to overcome of course, but it’s enough for them to emotionally become attached to the party with some affection that will only grow their desire to look after and protect them and integrate with the party. Of course, then comes in an issue of how to get my character to ever return to their home that they left. Well that’s solved by two things. One, another party member is actually fond of their hometown and it’s the same hometown as my characters. The two have never met before but because this party member would gladly drop by their hometown, my character will indulge despite their own issues with the place. And now the second, more personal reason. That scandal? It’s my character discovering in illegitimate child of their cousin that was being hidden. Child is treated well but is a secret. Only my character and the cousin are aware of the child and my character is fond of the child and loves visiting them, sending them gifts and letters, and just generally unconditionally welcoming them and loving them as a family member, despite the tension with the cousin who is this child’s parent. So to visit this child, my character must return home to do so. And so they will return to that area if the party needs to. But my dm also asked me to provide hooks they can use to get my character to another part of the map that they want the party to travel to. I did this by creating another enemy so to speak, more complicated relationships there that have to do with grief, love, and a one sided feud between them and the grieving sibling of their late love (who is the feuding one). This will get my character over to the map if needed. I also provided a mentor character that can be placed anywhere on the map and a dear friend in a location close to the area of the map which can also draw my character that direction if needed. And that’s just it. I create the ties as needed and in multiple directions. But all are hooks that the dm can introduce as needed and can help with my character’s arc and also can be woven easily into the arc of other players too when they need to go to a location to meet said arc. My character is loose enough that I can find their arc no matter which direction it’s pulled in (as they are supposed to conquer their parentified mentality and past and let themselves be themselves and understand what that means) but also is solid enough that they have a goal that can be played out in an organic way and be something the table can invest in. Anyway, that’s my thoughts and process.

I wish I had done prep like this for my current campaign.

Enter the dungeon made a really good video on plot webs that falls under this topic. It’s worth checking out and I’d like to hear your take or see how you’d navigate a similar process.

The "this is an attempt to collect a debt" line shot me right back to working in a debt collection law office. I IMMEDIATELY want to add this into my campaign somewhere it's just too good!

Your ability to weave so many disparate plot threads into a campaign fundamentally themed around one concept (in this case, family) is really impressive to see.

I feel like in the event the DM really wanted Marcellus's backstory to intertwine with the main plot, you could write in a scenario where the duchess knows about the sword and wants to pawn it off. Also I really appreciate this video because now I have a better idea of how to build the Pokérole campaign that I've been preparing for a long while now. I've been building my region and while the foundation of it is nearly done, you've given me a really good idea to use player backstories to not only create a plot, but to further build the lore of the region.

This has been a fantastic series. I'm loving these characters, interested in the storyline, and I'm getting some fantastic dming, and, frankly, writing advice too.

this little mini series has been sooo helpful, thank you 🙏, im a new dm and i'm running a premade campaign, but i also want to connect all the players to the world and the quest

Really loved this trilogy, Mike - I shall be sending parts 1 and 2 to my players and this video was really useful in helping me think about how to incorporate disparate hooks for characters

I had a very different idea for Conrick Heartdancer and I think it sounds really fun - He's a hexblade warlock, and he has a "serious weapons fetish." Perhaps the patron within their sentient weapon is seeking a *partner*. They've existed for millennia and are growing lonely. The warlocks that wield the blade are mortal, temporary, and not really compatible with the entity anyways and they want something else, and it manifests in Conrick as a weapons... "fetish." He is compelled to handle and use every weapon he sees, to study it, to strike with it, because the entity is hoping that every weapon might secretly also be a sentient weapon. This is why Conrick is an arms dealer, why he sometimes makes bad deals just to possess a new weapon. I love this flaw, this nigh irresistible compulsion to beg, borrow, cheat, and steal his way into acquiring new weapons.

I just caught up on this trilogy and these must be your best videos. They're so good I just wish we had more, very informative and useful.

Great series, Mike! More ideas for adventures, hooks and NPC´s keep popping into my head! xD

Awesome video series, I'm actually kinda sad now that this isn't a real campaign. If this was the summary of an actual play series, I'd be hooked!

Excellent ad pivot :D Great video like always, but the ad pivot made me smile and that's usually pretty hard

Instead of making the brothers rivals, I think I would make it to where the wind brother was being carried by a second figure from another story line. The genies brother wants to find him and go home, and wants to make as many mortals suffer as possible for trading the jinn for so long

I've been doing this for my first campaign and having the story be tailor made is just something else

I’m in the process of creating a new campaign for my group, but none of them are particularly interested in providing backstories for their characters. I would love to be handed a few pages of narrative inspiration to work with like this.

Given that this is highly driven by the back stories of the characters, what would you do if one of the characters dies or leaves before their arc is complete? Pivot completely to an arc based on an incoming character, Retain some beats from the old arc, or try to merge the arcs where possible.

This is my favorite video you've done. I'm gearing up to start introducing backstories in one campaign and have been thinking about how to highlight other characters during another character's backstory in another.

Very good video, I will probably use it as an inspiration for my next campaign

My big question for you is how do you handle potential player deaths in a campaign style like this, where you weave so much of the PCs and their backstory into the overarching plot? What if a player expresses they aren't enjoying their character and wants to swap them? I've certainly had games like that where a player wasn't all that attached to their character and either didn't care to get resurrected when they died, or worked with me on a way to write their character out in a satisfying conclusion. Would you handle these plotlines in a setting where resurrection magic works every time vs a setting where it was inconsistent and required lots of jumping through hoops and ladders to work? How much of a backstory would you expect from someone whose new character joins halfway through the campaign, and how much import would you give them? Would they also get a fully fleshed out plotline like this, would you make it a bit more bite sized? I for one always love doing what you're talking about in this video, and I'm curious as to how you'd approach certain issues that I've had come up before. Great content all around, excited to see your channel grow more!

This was an excellent little series!

I think one point to consider, what if the character dies. (And the worst main character is the one with obvious plot armor... Either no one dies or all can die)

This is a good channel. This is a fun series. I like Mike.

just checkt...and just subscribed .... XD actualy thought i was but actualy wasnt. keep it up. I love it all !

I think the Duchess would be more fun if the fake-ass knight was wooing her (for her money ofc), and she fell for him, and now she's pissed. It could be fun to throw in a romantic subplot - maybe there's some actual love/hate tension between the two? Or, if ever the PC gets close to someone, the Duchess will be super jealous and cockblock him by any means necessary - even kidnapping/attempting to murder her rival?

Keep up the great work 👍😘

I am a big fan of Warlock patrons who are up to sketchy stuff but not ridiculously over the top evil. Maybe your patron just wants to collect new spells so they have agents scouring the globe looking for intel. If a few librarians get killed or tombs get plundered that’s just the price that needs to be paid, but the patron has no plan to wipe out an entire continent. As a DM I would definitely not give a patron a goal like that without first talking it over with my player, mainly because they might not want to be such a central focus of the campaign that such a plot would inevitably require.

Talks about Dugrey, shows Sterling. Whoopsies

a ways tht I would love to connect all the player characters stories together is I would say the dragon lair is actually close to the Gnome underground city maybe even under it near the lava. the half drow knew about the dragon liar location but didnt know about the gnome city. and if they connected the cots sooner and try to go to the city or found the turtle cave they will find it destroyed ... maybe melted because the dragon was mad ! and now the city is ruled under a mad dragon ! the sword might connect 4 elemental armies ... or four elemental genies ! either way now the players if the connect those dots can gain an ally with the fire genie inside the bottle to be more reliable or be excited . (a good way to give a boon to the two warlocks because we know that poor class need a push XD T_T) the teifling story is trickeir . it cann work nicely with the fiend army idea . but in the same time . tiefling are rather common in the city of brass either because devils hang around there more often or what . rather than connecting all stories in the same time player might find it too conveniant . tying two or three stories at a time work nicely too

Lionel could also got the duchess pregnant And that’s why she want Lionel back alive

I am not a big fan of backstory-based design. As a player, it makes me feel trapped by a prewritten narrative and a past I can't get away from, like I'm in a fishbowl. I don't love tagging along on someone else's backstory business either. As a DM I tend to make broadly interesting scenarios with appeal for any adventurer and draw the characters into it whoever they are, rather than make worlds revolve around the PCs personally. Plus, if you do prep a game around a particular player's personal narrative, guess who will miss the next two sessions?