From Paper To Palpable

Bringing D&D Characters to Life for DMs and Players

DM, are your players struggling to get into your setting or world? Do you have new players finding it hard commit to role playing their character?

It could be that their character needs a little more fleshing out, grounding them to the town, city or setting you have them playing in.

Players, are you working on a character that feels 720 but you’d like to run them in 4k? These tips are for you too.

Here’s 7 ways to ground characters to the world you’re running or playing in. 

1. Background (Personality)

And technically, all of my suggestions are background, just various aspects.

The first way to ground characters is found on most 5e characters sheets in Personality Traits, Ideas, Bonds and Flaws. This makes up their background and helps players develop their character’s persona so they might know how to act in or react to the world they’re playing in.

Background can be found on page 125 of the 2014 5e Players Handbook and page 145 of the The Sword Coasts Adventurers Guide. Session zeros are a great opportunity for players to build their characters out.

If you have players who are hesitant to do that much work on a character they think might not survive, let them know that choosing a background can give them enormous benefits to solving problems within the game, like when looking for a ship to go from point a to point be, if you have sailor as your background, you could say, “I know a guy” and that player can role play that story out.

In addition to the story and RP benefits, their are mechanical benefits as well such as gaining Skill Proficiencies, learning extra languages and gaining personal/meaningful equipment like a journal or special trinket. 

2. Family and Friends

When I first started playing rpgs I made a set of gnome brothers called The Bunglefutt Brothers and they were a lot of fun to play and wound up owning a bar. My highest level character, Kevin Landwaster had a brother Jonathan who eventually was turned into a vampire. I liked making relative because if my character was killed, I had a few other family members to choose from. 

A character that has family and friends creates a pool of support character to choose from in case they need money, a place to hide out or a place they can go for downtime. 

I know there are some who do not want to make friends or family of their character for fear their DM will take them hostage or something worse. DM’s never bring in someone’s family or friends unless they’ve worked it out with the player who runs that character.

3. Factions or Guilds

Factions are, in my opinion, an underused asset in both a character’s backstory and a DM’s toolbox. 

Ask your players of their character belongs to a thieves guide or maybe their part of the town guard union. Maybe they fought in a war like The War of the Lance from Dragonlance and belong to a veteran organization. 

You can use any established 5e faction like The Harpers of The Lord’s Alliance or Societies like they use in Pathfinder or you could make up your own. 

These factions are great for relationships but also for developing adventure hooks and giving characters access to weapons and supplies.

4. Hobbies 

Let’s say a player takes the background of gambler/criminal for a background, they could say their character plays in a high stakes poker game every once in a while or if you take the background of former athlete maybe they, like Harry Potter used to play on the Quidditch team. 

5. Places lived

Did the players character grow up in a family that moved around a lot? Allow them to choose 1 or 2 locations on your map where they used to live. This give that character a small advantage should you run an adventure in that city and give them a little bit of role play spotlight. 

6. Deities Worshipped

If the player’s character is a Paladin, Cleric or Monk, and they choose the background acolyte, what temple , monastery or order did they serve in? Do they serve a deity?

Whether the character serves a deity or simply nature, either provides opportunity for the player to ground their character in the world in which they are playing. 

How would they react if a part of their order were stirring up trouble or maybe their on a mission to rebuild the followers of their deity. 

7. School and Colleges

If your player has a wizard, sorcerer or warlock character, did they go to a certain school for magic? Did they train in a conclave or maybe they were an apprentice to a famous wizard. Maybe someone is a Druid or a Bard and went to school to learn the art of song or herbalism. 

This goes for anyone in the party who could have gone to a special school for martial arts or shield fighting or maybe just for general education.

Ever so often, those character could go back to lecture or share secrets they’ve discovered or maybe it’s time for a school reunion where shenanigans can take place. 

Final Thoughts

This can be a lot and not all players will want to put this kind of time and thought into their character’s backstory, and that’s ok. Offer them opportunities, as they adventure, to share a new piece of information about their backstory or give them an opportunity to add to it.

But, I’d love to hear from you, how do you help your player’s characters ground their character in your world, leave me a comment

Watch my video here, it has pretty pictures and stuff.