Always Fill In Background Details To Make Your Character MORE Involved Rather Than LESS

In a lot of games that use a Vancian magic system (the one most common to Dungeons and Dragons, and similar systems) there is often an interesting trick that allows prepared spellcasters (such as clerics who pray for specific spells, wizards who go through the rituals out of their spellbooks, etc.) can use to maintain their flexibility. What they do is allow you to essentially reserve a spell slot (or several of them, if you so choose), leaving it purposefully empty so that it can be filled with a spell at a later time. So if the party is traveling along, and they find an inhospitable environment, a poisonous fog, or some other condition that knowing just the right spell could fix, the caster can take a few minutes to memorize the appropriate spell, and then deploy it using that empty slot.

Now, there are discussions about just how effective this can be as a strategy in a mechanical sense. However, this logic of leaving wiggle room so that you can adapt to unforeseen circumstances is something I'd recommend more of us actually do with our characters when it comes to the details of their stories. Because even those of us who write several pages of background often leave plenty of white space that we can fill up at appropriate story moments to help keep things moving forward.

Let me explain...

Even with all these notes, there's a LOT you didn't cover.

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If There's Nothing There, You Can Fill It In!

To illustrate what I'm talking about, let's take a very low-stakes example. Say that your party is all meeting at the local tavern, and you ask your Game Master what the current specials on the menu are. And because your GM recently picked up a copy of my 100 Fantasy Foods, they tell you that salamander steaks are currently on offer. A unique meal due to the salamander's resilience to heat and fire, they tend to be raw and bloody, scorched with acid and flavored with citrus. That sounds interesting, so you decide that your dwarven wizard is going to order that.

However, you choose to take things a little further. Because you know that Hervarth was raised in a forge mountain, skilled at enchanting magic weapons and armor as part of his learning in the ways of spellcraft, you decide to add into his backstory that salamander meat was something he fell in love with during his study as an apprentice because it was always available around the mountain (since the beasts were drawn to the fiery hearts of the forge). Perhaps this is a sign that this particular tavern is relatively close to the mountain he trained at, or it's surprising for him that this meal is available so far afield, but either way it sets up a little detail, and gives your character something to be excited about, while paying off a minor detail the GM slipped into the session.

The power of imagination!

This is the sort of thing I mean about filling in the blank parts of your character's canvas. If there's a detail about their past that hasn't been established as canon yet (like their favorite food), then when an opportunity arises you can capitalize on that detail to fill in a previously unexplored part of their character, revealing it to the rest of the table in a way that adds to the scene.

However, you can do this for big details, as well as small ones.

For example, say you're playing a hard-as-nails rogue. You've been a bandit and a highwaymen, you were a gang enforcer, and there is no dirty job you won't do... but when a bunch of kids start eyeing the party, he pulls a small, bean-stuffed leather ball out of nowhere, and teaches them a game they can play with it. Soon they're laughing, kicking it back and forth in a little circle, using their elbows, feet, knees, and heads to keep it in the air as long as they can.

Why does the scarred, cold-hearted bruiser have a soft spot for kids? Maybe he had some of his own that he hasn't seen since their mother left. Or since they died; collateral for the life he led. Maybe he was an elder sibling, and he got into the life he's in now to get the money to take care of his baby brother and sister, so he knows how to entertain and bond with younglings. And if a quest hook comes up where the children are in danger, a quest hook with little to no monetary reward, that little background detail might be enough to drag the money-up-front mercenary into a fight for a good cause.

These background details you add to your character on the fly could be as a simple result of a roleplay opportunity, as mentioned above. They might be a result of an absurdly good skill check (perhaps the dark-eyed ranger knows so much about religion because their mother is a priestess, and the two of them haven't spoken since she rejected the cloth and the oath of her order). But the idea behind filling in your backstory is that it should always be done with the express purpose of adding to a scene, rather than taking your character out of it.

For example, if you hear that a monastery was attacked, you could add in that your brother was inducted into that order, and you have to find out if he's all right. You shouldn't decide that your character has a negative history with that monastic order, using this grudge as a reason not to get involved. If you hear there are bandits terrorizing a town, you should feel free to add in that you have history with one or more of the bandits in that gang, and you're going to at least stop them, and possibly settle a grudge or two along the way. You should not decide you have a heretofore-unmentioned bounty on your head in that region, so you can't go there and risk being recognized and arrested.

And so on, and so forth.

The goal should always be to keep the momentum of a scene going, not to put the brakes on. If the addition you're going to make is going to stop your character from getting involved, or give you an excuse not to go down a story path, or to remove you from a scene, that's not a good addition. Much like improv, you want to be able to say, "Yes, and," when you add something from your character to the scene.

For additional, related examples and advice, consider checking out Find A Reason For Your Character To Get Involved. And if you're a Game Master who wants to build off of the supplement I plugged earlier, then I'd recommend grabbing your very own copy of the Inn & Tavern Bundle to get a slew of useful resources that just might end up adding to your characters' backstories, as well as fleshing out your setting!

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Players, Make Sure Your Characters Actually Want To Be Here

I've been talking to the DMs a lot in my Monday posts of late, so I figured it was time to take a moment to address the players out there. Because there's a big trap that almost all of us fall into in our gaming careers, and it can ruin the game for the rest of the folks at the table... especially if more than one of you fell into it without even knowing it.

In short, a lot of us make characters who practically have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the adventure... and we should all take a moment to stop that.

Bandits, huh? Doesn't sound like my problem.

Apathetic Characters Make For Frustrated Storytellers

I mentioned this back in 5 Tips To Get The Most Out of Your Next LARP, and it was the tip that got the most love. As such, I figured it was worth repeating, and elaborating on, for the folks in back.

Do not make a recalcitrant character. Do not make an apathetic character. Do not make a character who is looking for absolutely any reason to abandon the party and go do their own thing. This is a cooperative game, and it works best if everyone has a character they want to play, and that character wants to be part of this story.

Have sword, will travel.

It's true that part of this relies on the DM working with you to make sure your character fits into the game. However, you are responsible for the final form your character takes, the drives they possess, and the actions they end up taking. Which is why it's important to think about not just what would make them fun to play, and what their personal objectives and goals are, but about how they interact with the wider world.

Lastly, it's important for you to come up with reasons for them to get involved.

You Have To Want To Be Involved (Even If The PC Doesn't)

Despite the title of this post, and everything I just said, I will admit that sometimes you want to play the reluctant badass character. The old campaigner who laid their sword aside, the wizard who's just too busy to bother with all this adventuring nonsense, or the monk who's trying to learn deeper meanings of the world instead of brawling with bugbears.


I get it. This is literally one of my favorite archetypes as a player. However, what I will tell you from experience is that if you are going to bring this character to the game, then it is up to you as the player to come up with a reason they are getting involved in the plot rather than putting that burden on the DM.

A blind old woman rolled the bones? Good enough for me!

Take the example of the retired hardass. Sure, he's got the skills, but he hung up his sword when he came back from the war, and he wants to be just a simple farmer now. However, if you want to be involved in the game, you need to provide a reason that Aethor takes that wall hanger down from over the fireplace and hits the campaign trail again.

It could literally be anything you want it to be! For instance...

- He Cares About Another Party Member: Maybe the wizard is his nephew, or the bard is an old friend that he knows gets into trouble when he's not around. Whatever the reason, he's not letting them risk their lives without him to watch their back. He still doesn't care about the bandit lord, or the goblin horde, because those things aren't his prerogative, but he's fully invested.

- It's The Right Thing To Do: Paladins aren't the only ones with a strong code of ethics. If the town is looking for people to make a stand, whether it's against a necromancer defiling graves to build an undead army, or gnolls raiding a settlement and taking people as slaves, somebody has to put a stop to that. Rule 303; you've got the means and skills, so you've got the responsibility to do something about it.

- He Owes Someone a Favor: This is particularly true for scenarios that I mentioned in Did Your Character Have A Former Life? Maybe they don't want to leave the farm, the forge, or the tavern behind, but they've got a debt to pay. It might be an old friend they would have helped for the asking, or a grim, John Wick-style blood debt, but whatever it is should get them out the door and on the adventure path to clear their ledger.

- Someone Ordered Him To: This is, perhaps, the easiest form of motivation in the history of a storytelling; you go to do the thing because it's your job, and your problem. Whether you're the local priest, a militia sergeant, a town guard, a sheriff's deputy, or a hedge knight charged with patrolling the highways, whatever is going wrong is something you've been ordered to fix. And because you like your job, you go do the thing.

Those are just some of the most common instances I could suggest. However, the important thing to remember is that you need to be the one that provides this hook for your PC to get in on the action. This may require you to talk with the DM and hash out some quick ideas, but generally speaking anytime you're saving the person behind the screen the work of roping you in it's something they're going to appreciate.

You Are In Control of Your Character

One of the most frustrating things you can hear as a DM is the phrase, "My character wouldn't be interested in that." Any time you feel the urge to say this, stop, take a step back, and look at the situation from a different angle. Find a reason, even if it means you have to alter your character just a bit in order to smooth the way forward.

They took children, you said? I'm in.

Take Shadrick Vars, known to most as the Gray Man. He's a bad man to fool with, and it's said he won't so much as lift a finger unless there's a coin in it for him. Hardly the sort of character you'd expect to show up to help hunt down a set of kidnappers; especially if the bounty for them is hardly worth a day's work. But if you're the player at the controls, it's your job to ask why he's opted to take on this mostly altruistic task. Even (or especially) if it's out of character for him to do so.

Is it because Shadrick was taken from his parents at a young age, sold to a cartel boss and trained as an enforcer, and he wants to put that part of him to rest by helping this child? Does he know the family, perhaps suspecting they might actually be distant kin of his? Does he have a strict, "No spouses, no kids," rule, and he means to make an example of those who offend his sensibilities on his home turf? All of these are possible, and it wouldn't require changing the fundamental nature of the character. Each one of these reasons gets him out on the adventure, though, and give the character a compelling reason to see this arc through to the end.

The key thing is to take the initiative. Don't sit around waiting for the DM to give you personal attention to get you to come along, or for the rest of the table to ask pretty please; find a reason to set your character to the task, and get involved. Once you do that, the momentum builds, and everything gets a whole lot easier.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. Hopefully you enjoyed, and if you've used run these kinds of games before, leave us a comment to let us know what worked for you!

For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Alternative Adventures: 6 Adventures That Aren't Your Average Dungeon Crawl

Being a DM isn't easy. You have to craft the towns, assign the bad guys, remember all the DCs, recall where the traps are, and a dozen other things over and above managing the roving pack of murderous kleptomaniacs that make up the average party. With all those details fighting for your attention, it's easy to get stuck in the same rut time and time again when it comes to the challenges your party is actually facing.

Put another way, what's the challenge this time? Is it a combat slog, or a dungeon crawl?

Maybe this time it's a combat slog IN a dungeon crawl!

As a player who is also a DM, I know how hard it can be to come up with adventures that feel unique. Even if your story is original, the pieces that make it up can cause it to feel a little bland, and a bit samey. So consider, if you will, using some of the following scenarios I wrote for Kobold Press if you want to spice up your game, and throw your players for a bit of a loop.

Also, if you're looking for a specific campaign to run, you might want to check out the first installment from TPK's Critical Hits series, False Valor! It's by yours truly, so give it a look.

#1: The Heist

What's the DC on this thing, again?

Most adventurers are out for loot, but most of the time we pretend that's just a side benefit. We're really here to fight tyranny, or save the town, or slay the dragon. Not so with the Heist. You're here expressly to steal something, and you can't just kick in the front door to take it. You need to assemble a team, come up with a plan, and go after the treasure Ocean's 11 style.

#2: The Hunt

We have confirmation on the target. Take him down!

It's one thing to go toe-to-toe with the Bloodcut Gang, but it's a separate challenge entirely if they escaped from confinement a week ago and you have to hunt them down before you can draw steel. Whether your party are bounty hunters who have to bring them back alive, or just a group empowered by the law (or perhaps an extralegal organization), you have to find the target, trail them, and only once you've found them can you kill, capture, or otherwise decide what to do with the object of your quest.

#3: The Infiltration

So... how long have you been guarding the Baron?

The Hangmen are one of the most dangerous criminal organizations in the country, and their leader has never been seen without his iconic black hood. No matter how many of the gang are killed, though, the leader remains at large, recruiting more people to fill the ranks. So if you want to eliminate him, you need double agents to get close to him. That's where the party comes in.

#4: The Mystery

This note should give us some insight to the killer... "should" being the operative word.

Sometimes things happen that are inexplicable. A man was murdered, and the killers are still at large. A great treasure has gone missing, and they need to know how it was stolen. A man's wife vanished into thin air, and he needs to know where she went. You may not have to throw a single punch, but the mystery can engage characters of all classes, and from all walks of life.

#5 The Escape

No one gets out of Black Gate, boy. Not alive, anyway.

Sometimes the party is put in a place they don't want to be. Whether it's the dungeons beneath the Red Citadel, or in the caved-in warrens of the Rat Tunnels, they need to get out. That means they have to band together, and pool their resources, if they expect to escape the walls, and the inevitable pursuit that will come afterward.

#6: The Diplomatic Mission

Must not insult the ambassador... must not insult the ambassador...

Most parties have used Diplomacy at some point, but rarely is that their entire mission. War is expensive, though, and most organizations would rather operate in peace than waste valuable resources. So if the party can negotiate a truce, their services will be in high demand. And make them targets for assassination.

Hopefully folks enjoy these 6 pieces of DM advice! That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday post. If you'd like to support Improved Initiative, head over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page today, and pledge $1 a month. This buys you my undying loyalty, and gets you some sweet swag in the bargain. Lastly, if you haven't followed me on Facebook, Tumblr, or Twitter yet, now would be a great time to do just that!