What's your stance on tragic backstories, Veeky Forums...

What's your stance on tragic backstories, Veeky Forums? What makes a backstory truly tragic and not an attempt to be brooding and edgy? Are close deaths overdone? What are some of them that you have enjoyed hearing, just being told or being developed?

>and not an attempt to be brooding and edgy
Brooding and edgy doesn't exclude being tragic.

True, but bad tragic backstories are sometimes used as a cheap attempt to make a character "deep" by giving them a reason to act like a sulking teenager or an iredeemable edgelord
You know what i meant fucknuts

Speaking as a DM of... I want to say 13 years, now? Difference is context and execution.

I've seen good and bad backgrounds use some of the same events (usually a victim of fate, chance, a parent, life, etc.), with my acceptability of them varying on how they've fit into the narrative of the character, and then how they're handled in-game. I'll try my best to explain with two different sort of tragic elements.

>Player Character is an orphan, because abandonment
I mostly see this background with characters trying to be some sort of "I'm alone in this world, and I can only trust myself" mentality. Many have used this one singular element to define appearance, behavior, and interactions with other players. They're not playing, say, Olefeir the Blade for example. They're playing a victim who has a knife. This is the narrative aspect of why this is bad.

But in execution, Victim will be making attempts at roleplaying by actively being foreboding, describe their actions to a very redundant degree, and interaction with other players is strained at best. It would be like watching stereotype of hot topic kid circa 2007 LARP their DeviantArt OC. Bad execution isn't necessarily a role player who could use improvement, bad execution is trying to role play how unique and special the character you've made is.

But on the flip side, I have had players who have had that same background element, but used it as an element, rather than as the entirety of the background. The child who ran away from home and was found by an elderly woodsman in the forest, who took up the same practice. The child who was left at the door of a church, and grew to be one of the most devout and helpful healers of the faith. The child who was left behind by his parents and had to hone his performances to get by, becoming a talented and beloved local bard. In all of these, including Victim with a knife, they are abandoned and have to rapidly grow up. But unlike Victim, it's not the defining aspect.

...

It's just... a thing that happened. Real people have their own backgrounds and histories. People who make one singular tragedy the focal point of their life solely so they can be seen as a victim and garner sympathy? Not so fun to be with. But people who you spend time with, who you grow close to, who open up about the rough stuff in their past? That's a level of trust shown, that's a level of friendship. And which would you honestly want at your side when you kill the dragon? Someone who wants to milk a wound, or someone you trust?

I'm sure someone is gonna disagree with me on some level, but that's all good. Also I said I'd go with two examples, but I'm tired, so only one.

My last character had a tragic backstory. The difference between most players, however, is that she wasn't brooding, edgy, or a loner at all. She was actually very friendly and probably the nicest person on the team.

Instead, I had the tragic backstory have, what I believed, a more realistic effect on her. She had a low sense of self-confidence/worth, frequently putting herself in harm's way to keep the party from getting hurt. She was also shy and spoke with a stutter, and had frequent terrible nightmares.

She actually ended up being one of my favorite characters of all time, and had a lot of really cool moments over a fantastic campaign. I've actually really hoped to return to her some time.

Let's never forget the true purpose of tragic backstories: So that your character can start the game without any loose ends for the DM to use against you.

My character's parents died before he was born, a friend of mine started saying before he realized what he said and the table burst into laughter.

I had a villain with that backstory once. Popped out of some lady's corpse left on a battlefield, little explanation why she was there to begin with.

I allow tragic backstories. They make a character at least somewhat suitable for being an adventurer, unlike bright and happy backstories without any sad days.

I have to admit I'm a sucker for tragic backstories and special snowflakes. I try to tone it down but it slips through anyway, the more tearjerkery type the better, especially with any underdog race.
One time I played a farmboy who's home was raided by some kobold scavengers. My group though they knew where I was going with this but I explained the raid was repelled with no big drama, but swinging an axe around and killing a couple of runts was the biggest thrill of his life. He out to fight just because he wanted more of that tasty adrenaline. His father was furious he was leaving him alone to tend the farm, and he admitted he didn't know if they'd provide or not, but he did send bulk portions of his spoils back to papa.

>have you tried not plating dnd?

Thats not how the meme works fucker

Isn't every hero's backstory tragic? That's the whole thing that spurs them to heroics. Non-tragic backstories are the outliers if anything.

Not always
Sometimes people just want a little change in their life, or events in their life have caused them to be in a certain spot that they may or may not like to be in, but isn't necessarily tragic for it
Not all heroes are born, heroes are made as well

No, orphan backstories are that.
A good tragic backstory give the pc a definitive mindset and methodology to why they are doing what they do and how.
I had one who took his loss as a reason to do his damndest to make sure no one else had the same thing happen to others, another who used it as a spur to greater acts of what she deemed necessary to save her family.

My current character is a lone town guard who protects the townsfolk from monsters. In one of the attacks, he failed to save a little girl's parents from a monster attack that he did NOT see coming, and even though it's not actually his fault he feels responsible for it and can't forgive himself. Despite his paladin buddy telling him to leave her in the temple because their house is already small enough for both of them, he pseudo adopts her until she's old enough to be taken in with the clerics.
The reason he acts the way he acts (protective and responsible) is that he feels that the whole reason this one mistake happened was a direct outcome of him getting cocky with his abilities, and trains hard to never let it happen again.

How would you rate this?

I'm sure you can make a tragic backstory without having it being broody and edgy
For instance I have a PC who is a jester, he used to be very famous at the king royal parties but after a rather tastless joke about the queen habit of taking many lovers, he was arrested, but in jails and tortured for weeks.
He managed to escape but now he have nothing less, no more status (as he was from a rich family who rejected him after the incident) and he now have bounty hunter after his ass.
I think it's at the same time a bit funny and sad as he had a very good life before fucking everything up

Depends on how the character acts really. They could have a tragic backstory but puts on a facade of someone cheery to cover the pain or tries really hard so that their new teammates wouldn't suffer as they did.

That certainly feels relatable to me at least. I feel that its gonna bite you in the ass though unless you wrap up that opening eloquently. Ie strike a contract deal with some mercs of good repute or atleast not prone rapey bs, and have em protect the village while your gobe. Hell for fun you could even use your dosh you earn to build a small guild/school to teach the locals basics of defensive warfare. This way the mercs would be able to leave in time and future villagers would at least know how to defed their homes adequetly. Thats my 2 cents anyway.

Solid, provides a beli8evable reason to do what he does, it doesn't make for an edgelord, but someone devoted to being better for their failings.

I'll wrap up the backstory the moment I'm about to leave by sending a letter to the academy to send in someone as my replacement alongside my paladin buddy, and leave the girl with the town's clerics. By the time the campaign starts it'll be around 5 years since the event, so any development that came with it will have already happened by the time we start.

I'll definitely take the "money goes directly into the town's development" in account though, him keeping a town fund is definitely a thing he'd do

>What's your stance on tragic backstories, Veeky Forums?

I enjoy tragic backstories in which the shortcomings of the character and his bad decisions have resulted in the tragic event.
I resent 'tragic' backstories in which the big bad kills the wife/parents/child and the hero swears to have revenge.

My last character had a semi tragic backstory, but wasn't much of an edge lord aside from being extremely paranoid.
Essentially they had the "all my family are dead and it's all my fault" thing, at the hands of a vampire cult. But instead of wallowing in self pity he met a dwarf and desided to man the fuck up and seek his redemption by destroying said cult. How ever after training for years to become an adventurer when he returned to the cult they had already been destroyed. He would never get his redemption, never get any closure. So he's spent the rest of his life doing odd jobs and balancing being terrified of dieing (doesn't want to go to not! He'll) and also guilt ridden and suicidal (when drunk, which he was, a lot)

Thats what I did.
>PC makes shitty jokes
>often times during faced with a grim situation
>Other PC's get angry over his "insensibility"
>merely a coping mechanism since his brother dead during a bullshit war led by his former count and left to die to help the count retreat.

forgot to mention the crucial crux of this trait, brother lived and died telling, shitty jokes. No PC in universe knows this of course.

Like any backstory it has to explain why they are adventuring and not working a (relatively) safe, easy job somewhere.

Sounds pretty edgy, just less in the brooding depression way and more in the nihilistic with a wicked sense of humor way

>nihilistic with a wicked sense of humor way
But that would imply he does not value life which he does? I dont know this character was an experiment since I dont like tragic back story's and Chaotic Good charters.

And by shitty jokes I dont mean like, RnM style of "god ist real" but telling dad jokes and the like.

Mideval Europe IRL was a fucking tragic back story. People had a dozen kids and maybe three would survive to age twelve. Lose your whole family and village to some horrible plague and be treated as an outcast by surrounding villages because you might bring them plague too? Yeah. Now add in !notMideval Europe fantasy setting with hostile races, even more animals that will kill you, actual monsters, and fucking magic on top of diseases. There aren't enough clerics and benevolent gods in the world to even help a fraction of a kingdoms population. For a character to have a happy family backstory would be the aberration. For every character who came from a village with a resident cleric there would be a dozen who didn't. That said, it would be so common that edgelord behavior would be inexcusable. "My parents died, my older sister was sodomized to death by orcs, my younger brother was eaten by gnolls, and my uncle caught mycosis and turned into a giant poisonous mushroom then died of sorrow after he inadvertently released toxic spores which killed my aunt when she hugged him! I can only rely on mys-" *interrupted by chorus of non-party tavern patrons who are well adjusted and have even more complex and tragic backstories*

That sounds actually cute and sad.

>argues character's humor isn't nihilistic
>says he cracks rick and morty style jokes
Ur a dummy

>can't read
>calls me dumb

re-read
> I dont mean like, RnM style of "god ist real"
>but telling dad jokes and the like.

Welp guess I was the retard all along

You say tragic, people living it say normal.

It's ok user, we all make mistakes.

also there is nothing wrong per se with being brooding and edgy

Exactly. Aside from the occasional concussed farmboy who heard one too many stories, why would anyone be a wandering adventurer? If they had roots, they probably wouldn't live a rootless life.

why wouldn't you want to have any lose ends in backstory that can be used against you? it's pretty fantastic when that happens, unless it's executed in a too predictable manner.

damn, i have to disagree with so many of Veeky Forums's common "wisdoms".

The Joker makes dad jokes about murder you know. Edge isn't so much the kind of jokes, but inappropriateness of the behavior.

Because dms are often terrible and try to set up dramatic moments in rhecmost awful ways possible. A common practice is to forcefully give the player the edge background by having the bveg murder their loved ones as gruesomely as possible, then teleporting behind them and whispering "nothin personnel" into their ear.

I disagree. a joke placed in the wrong situation would't be edgy unless the joke was in of it self edgy.

dad jokes ABOUT murder is different then a dad joke being told after news of a murder happend or something. And its not like this guy does it all the time also. But I do see your point.

Every mother should have at least half their progeny die within the same year they were born, even wealthy people. Half of the children should never reach adulthood.

Current character is a cleric with a tragic backstory (everyone dies of an extremely horrible disease) but since finding his god and becoming a cleric has a hopeful and cheery outlook on life

My luck? You could say that.

It was my bad luck to be born to a weak father who married me off to a drunken layabout who beat me. It was my bad luck, when I ran away from my husband, to be taken by a group of bandits. It was my bad luck that the only one among them who was kind to me, who taught me to hunt and to fight, inspired the jealousy of the others, who knifed him and forced me to run away again.

But I do not count myself unlucky, stranger, no more than any other woman of Calradia, this fetid backwater, this dungheap among the nations, populated by apes and jackals.

In classical tragedy, a tragic character is one who suffers for their own mistakes. A "tragic" character who just broods and isn't at fault for their tragedy is like a super hero that has every problem around him solved without his intervention.

Give this user a beer. It's always good to go back to the classics. Even better, since if the backstory is a classical tragedy, then the character's story includes growth and self improvement. Or an even further fall into destruction.

The true purpose of tragic backstories is actually not having to think too hard about shit that will never happen again.

There's really no reason in the average D&D adventure cycle why your adventurers aren't going to be like "okay fuck I want to go home and spend like a few years with my family now." The "adventurer" mindset IRL mostly exists in 22-year-old girls who want to get fucked by funny accents and exotic skin tones for a while and grow out of it by their 30s, and while that's plenty of time to fit a D&D campaign into there also isn't the massive emotional overload of going up against ancient horrors, murderous gods, fighting dragons, et cetera to contend with.

It's a conceit of the game that you don't really have a threshold for "alright, I'm good, I did some cool stuff, I'd like to spent four nights a week fucking my wife now thanks." But some players aren't in tune with that conceit, and sometimes it's easier to make sure there's a REASON you don't go back to your home and chill out, or start a new one and chill out, or just fucking retire at like 6th level and sell your magic garbage for a castle.

As some have stated, good execution trumps everything, including cliches. If the character is approachable, earnest and trying to deal with their flaws, and doesnt flaunt loss and injury like they blog about pronouns, it goes a long way to obscuring overused background tropes. Backgrounds should always be flavor and fluff, not substance and crunch.

This.
You can make the most herp derp snowflakey shit that would trigger all the Veeky Forums grogs, and still make them an excellent character with depth.
Hell, I did it myself already just to test it.

Guts?

I've never really had a problem with it; I don't cringe much just chuckle a bit and have fun.

Pretty sure you just disagreed with the previous user.

"Flavor and fluff, not substance and crunch" sounds to me like one of those people who thinks backstory is what happens between levels 1 and 3, and that a character-defining backstory isn't important.

I don't think they're shooting for depth, but maybe I'm wrong.

Because the only way to keep your character's family safe from the gm is to kill them off in the backstory.

Jokes aside ,personally, I feel like a tragic backstory should serve the same purpose any other backstory should serve. Which is provide a plot hook.

Your family whole was murdered? Maybe on of your siblings survived and now you are on a journey to reunite with them. Or maybe you're out for an Inigo Montoya style revenge revenge quest against the guy who killed them. Maybe you are looking to rebuild your home town after it was burned down, or reclaim your stolen birth right after your noble family was disgraced.

To me a good backstory is one the provides narrative context for why your fledgling adventurer decided to leave home and go tramping around into dangerous territory with a group of strangers and can provide it's own subplot for the larger campaign.

depends
Are they a person with a tragic back-story?

Or a tragic back-story with a tragic back-story, that tragic back-story's, the tragic back-story, tragic back-storly?

I mean that how you do something in practice > any amount of theorycraft or shit that is on paper.
I made a half angel, half dragon with a tragic past and was looking for his family's ancestral katana forged from a dragon's fang. I was trying to make something as ugh on paper as possible, but when I played the character, I roleplayed him as humble, loved a good dance, and valued friends and family before all else.

yeah basically

The purpose of having a tragic back story should be to explain a few things.

>Why do they take up adventuring?
>Why are they the class they have chosen?
>How will their past play into their future?

I played a Wizard with a fairly good upbringing. In his late teenage years, his hometown got raided by a notorious dragon. His parents died fending off the dragon, and he wasn't able to help because he was at a college by means of scholarship. He got a big chip on his shoulder, so he studied the art of the arcane with a desire for revenge. Being impatient with the time it was taking to learn, he spent a year secretly planning to take powerful scrolls from the restricted library. He then confronted the dragon and cheesed him to death with the scrolls. He then took up a new name and left his country to try life again.

Later in the campaign, he had to fight a dracolich of the very same dragon without any cheese, and he had to elude the college he stole from.

I named him 'William Slate', as in a clean slate, and kept his real name a secret between me and the DM.

Have enough of one IRL so I dislike using them in games. I want to play someone with more agency than I found myself with.

Also my last GM gave every important NPC one and it made things ridiculous. Every fucking backstory was full of rape, murder, and betrayal. It's like eating at one fast food restaurant every day for a month: you will eventually dislike it even if having it occasionally isn't horrible.

Every Character I make usually has parents and a family, though most of the time they won't come up. Their upbringing doesn't have to be luxurious, but never will it be damaging. I let the trauma happen to them in game.

I don't blame anyone with one, just make sure there's more to your character.

Battle contemporary composer due along
Checkers

Wrong. Edge is a washed-out word that is now used for things I don't like.

if it's nothing but "got fucked by fate" then it's a placeholder for not wanting to write an actual background story.
on the other side, i like the stories that expands on how the character's actions tie into the fuck-ups. a tragic background is very often related to one's own flaws and mistakes, which directly help to flesh out the character.

i had one guy have his character become an orphan because he brought a magical artifact into the household. he wanted to use it for defending himself against his abusive father, but ended up killing EVERYONE by accident.

>Orphaned
I let this one go. It isn't necessarily tragic, sometimes it's just easy.
>Nearly died
Okay, fair. This is a dangerous world. I bet everyone has a close call or two.
>Nearly died several times
I start raising an eyebrow at this, unless we are making non-first level characters.
>Everyone they know died
If I'm DMing, I take offence at this one. The existence and destruction of an entire village is a bit much to ask for one character. If it exists already, I'll offer it, but sometimes it just didn't happen recently.
>Dead loved one
I'm on the fence. If it's incidental, then I'm okay with it. If it's the character's reason for adventuring, that's dumb, especially if we are making level one characters.
>Tortured
Gay ass shit, unless we are making higher level characters, or you actually are making a character with physical/emotional disabilities.
>Did something horrible that they regret
I fully take and enjoy this one. Making a character claim their agency like this is a nice move.
>Mind Controlled to do the above
Gayer ass shit.
>Rape
Nothing you say after this point will make you not seem like a fucking creepy asshole for including it
>Doesn't care about much of anything anymore
Just stop. This isn't a character who can play a game.
>Can't trust anyone
Again, this is not a character that realistically will backpack around the country with a gang of similarly armed people. Try again. Unless you strike me as an oldfag, in which case I forgive your paranoia.
Mind, if the person does a good job, I'll take it, no question. Most people who write their backstories, do not do such good jobs.