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View Full Version : Player backstory - cool set up, help me tie it in



Monstrrr
2019-09-23, 09:29 PM
One of my players has a backstory that's a pretty great set up for some drama bombs, but I'm not sure the best way to bring it in.

He is playing a dragonborn, and he is life bonded to another player character's dragonborn. He's about a decade older than she is, and she doesn't know he was bonded before. Long story short, he has offspring from this first bonding that he doesn't know lives.

The daughter would be about 16 now.
That player's character is currently away from the party, on a small bonding trip with his newly summoned/god-given mount.

What are some good ways to tie in this hammer drop?

MoiMagnus
2019-09-24, 07:18 AM
(Small reminder that when a DM use a character backstory, he/she have to be cautious so that the player does not regret having crafted this backstory, or regret having communicated this backstory to him/her)

A question you would have to answer is "how was Ramoth raised?". Because if she was raised in poverty and seek her father as the only things she still has in her life, or is she was adopted by rich and powerful lords and seek her father because she is in a rebellious phase against her adoptive father, you won't get the same result.

I personally like the second one, because that's probably not what your player expected, and that let the possibility for Ramoth to "come back home" rather than having to keep her around for the whole campaign. [Moreover, you can have a nice plot about her adoptive father sending peoples to have her coming back home, maybe even thinking that the group actually kidnapped her?]

Another question you have to answer is: Will Ramoth consider Trixies like a "new mom"? Or will she feel betrayed by her father to have taken a new partner? Or will she try to find way to test Trixies to decide if she is worth her father's love?

kyoryu
2019-09-24, 10:52 AM
Why not ask the player? When they created the backstory, they obviously had some degree of an idea of how this would factor in.

I’m not saying they should write All The Things, but a few broad brush strokes would help ensure that what you did was something that would make them happy that they wrote the backstory.