Gimme some good backstories for my party, Veeky Forums

-Tiefling Bloodmage (Because "muh homebrew")
-Hill Dwarf Knowledge Cleric
-Drow Rogue
-Human GOO Warlock (He's decided soldier or thief background)
-Half-Elf Bard

Amnesia.
All of them.
They woke up together in the same bar and figured they were probably bound together by fate. Now they are on the hunt for a place where they can fit in. Initially they had of course tried to regain their memories somehow, but after a couple of years and no success they slowly came to an understanding that risking their friendships by gaining their old memories wasn't worth it. And so they are sticking together, calling each other by the silly and slightly insulting names that the half-elf came up with for them.
They even wear matching clothes, though the drow keeps pretending that she totally hates being part of the 5 super-friends.

maybe I should have expanded ontheir current input. They want to start in a city, with an event-based starting adventure. I showed them the play styles in the DMG, and they decided on problem solving. I'm not too sure if I'd roll with the amnesia thing, considering they're all new to this.

...

I've got a good one for the warlock - once upon a time, he stole a strange tentacle idol, and from this day on he's been having strange nightmares about fish gods and creatures with way too many eyes and teeth. Oh, it also gave him strange superpowers, but his life got way too creepy and weird for him to enjoy them. His motivation for adventuring is trying to get rid of idol somehow, because trying to sell it, throw it away or burn it doesn't quite work.

We know nothing about the characters.
It's unnatural for us to come up with backstories. You made the characters, you come up with reasons for why they chose to learn the things they know.

They are bunch of edgelords supreme, each of them having a serious issues with the local governor, who is paragon of LG, while this is all shades of Evil party.
In the end of their first campaign they all die, killed by their disfunctional alignments.

I did this. Sort of. They all woke up in a daze in the lobby of a road motel, and the guy at the front desk was dead.

And also a giant praying mantis.

I didn't make the characters, my players did and won't cooperate with me. They get off topic a lot.

>and won't cooperate with me.
What did he mean by this?

They used to be a band but only the Bard kept on going.
Now the Bard has brought them back together to reminisce about the past, but some prophecy spoken by the Warlock's patron spells out certain doom for the world unless the party gets their collective shit together and go save the world.

They're all very animated people, and have the attention spans of golfishes on crystal meth. I'm sayin, only Half-Elf, Warlock and Bloodmage are taking it seriously; but they never take the initiative to do it themselves.

EDIT:I forgot about the Half-Orc Paladin

What makes you think they would they care about back stories written by strangers, then?

I'm not gonna tell them, I'm just trying to collaborate with you guys for good ideas.

You can lead a horse to water, but can't make him drink. Sounds like your players simply aren't interested in back stories because they didn't come up with them on their own. You can pitch ideas to them but I don't think they are going to take them.

Pull a Dirk Gently. The players are initially living completely separate lives, but coincidence seems intent on pulling them together to solve a mystery.
then reveal that it was a time loop all along

This user has it right. You're fucked if you try to actually provide them with the sort of game they claim they wanted, too. Event-based problem solving, but half of them are ADHD fuckwits? Not going to fly, sorry...

Only in the setup field, they're adhd. They just need a little push: It's they're first time, after all.

I maintain my previous stance.

Now, without the spoiler, that was the angle I was going for. I wasn't sure how to pull them together.

And I sort of agree. I wanted to roll with a regular heroic dungeon-crawl. But they were persistent

The Warlock is part of a cult that has secured a mansion in which to summon a being from another world, under the guise of a masquerade ball. The Rogue sees an opportunity, and decides to infiltrate the ball and case the joint. The Bard has been hired on as an entertainer. Halfway through the ball, the Bloodmage bursts in, along with a rival cult who is attempting to stop the summoning. It goes poorly, and the being, driven insane by a failed summons, goes apeshit and kills most of the masquerade ball, except the PCs. The Cleric and Paladin sense a disturbance, and rush in to assist.

Oh my sweet god, you're a genius

Getting your players to stick with that story is going to be the hard part. Better just tell them 'this is what happened' and let them go from there wherever they want.

well, yeah.

Or you could slowly introduce the characters 1 by 1 as they enter the mansion, and not have anything outside of it occur. Just tell them "you're this and your job is to do this" and see what happens.

maybe...

Find themselves all on the same boat into the city is a classic.

Here are some others from the top of my head:

Get to the tavern and find the incompetent tavern keeper has booked them all into the same room.

All receive a mysterious letter inviting them to a dinner part of a great lord.

They're cellmates in a jail cell. Blood magic and Warlock is forbidden under city law. Bard got in a drunken incident. Rogue stole something. They're first quest is to escape and it's going to take everybody's talents if they are going to succeed..