Backgrounds & Published Modules

[Aurica]

I recently return to D&D 5E after more than a decade of hiatus and have some questions for the experts here. Apologies in advance, if the question (s) end up or sounding a little trivial.

So I got hold of the PHB and is quite pleased with Chapter 4. Mainly from the perspective of an ex-DM that this could be an incredible tool that can be used to generate story-lines for that specific PC or integrate it with the campaign world to enrich player experience.

I have so far played as a player with two different DMs both using published content from WOTC (POTA, OOTA). For one of the campaigns, I did a brief write up on my character background. Nothing too specific and also not over the top so if the DM wishes to use it their campaign or incorporate it, they can.

But over the play sessions, I notice that our backgrounds don't surface up at all in both campaigns. There weren't any personal quest that our party had to do for each other. The backgrounds itself mostly served as a justification to why you had certain skills. The adventure seems to be more module oriented rather than on the PCs themselves. As a result, the campaign feels less personal, less focused on the players and more focus on the greater picture of the adventure itself. The PC's personal goals/ambitions are less relevant in the grander scheme of things..

Is this a common thing to expect from published modules/pre-written adventures?

[Knaight]

Yes. Modules tend to come in two types, with one being small modules with built in PCs that you select from, and the other being very generic affairs designed to have any number of distinct PCs. The latter type lends itself really poorly to PC specific elements, and is a pretty useless tool if your goal is to do character drama or similar.

[Thrudd]

Of course. How could a published module possibly include an adventure about your specific character, or any specific character? That is something the DM would need to come up with themselves.

[Malimar]

Yeah, no published module is likely to have much personalized about the characters themselves, for obvious reasons.

It occurs to me that D&D 5e, with its regulated system of Background and Bonds and so on, could actually lend itself more to this sort of personalized storytelling than most systems -- have the story go different ways if there's a PC with the hermit background vs the acolyte background or what-have-you. But afaik no published adventures have actually taken great advantage of that yet.

[RazorChain]

As has been said, published modules never take your character background into account. But a good GM will and he/she will weave it into the storyline.

This is one of the reasons I never use modules other than for inspiration. I build my campaigns around the characters.

[Aurica]

First of, thanks everyone for taking the time to respond to a newbie to the forum.

Yeah, no published module is likely to have much personalized about the characters themselves, for obvious reasons.

It occurs to me that D&D 5e, with its regulated system of Background and Bonds and so on, could actually lend itself more to this sort of personalized storytelling than most systems -- have the story go different ways if there's a PC with the hermit background vs the acolyte background or what-have-you. But afaik no published adventures have actually taken great advantage of that yet.

This is exactly how I feel! I mean the 5E Chap4 along with the DMG can provide so much tools and inspirations to work with to create adventures/stories that ties the character's background to greater scheme of things in the gameworld. It feels almost as if that you will need a DM that is willing to put in the time and effort to make this work. Otherwise, the background exist as a justification for those extra skills and a footnote on the PC's character record sheet.

Or at least, it feels kind of like that to me...

[BWR]

I run mostly old BECMI modules in my campaign but have rarely had any sort of trouble fitting them in with the larger narrative and personalize them to the PCs, and those modules are pretty darn generic and adventure-focused. Based on backgrounds or, far more common, previous adventures, I can usually fit a module in pretty well. What is it about 5e that makes this difficult?