In Dungeons and Dragons, there are three elements to every character: Class, Race, and Background. Most players think about their Dwarf Druid or Tiefling Paladin, but do not spend as much time thinking about backgrounds. Here’s some good information about backgrounds.
Your background informs who you were before fate intervened and made you a hero. Your character’s background should help inform your character’s choices moving forward. Your Dungeon Master should also use your background to create story and shine a spotlit on your character.
In 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, your background represents the third pillar of your character. Your background is supposed to be as core to your identity as your race and class. While you may be a swashbuckling halfling rogue, you are also a sailor.
Every time you walk into a bar, you immediately pick out your fellow able bodied seamen, first class. You can swap a few tales of the sea, buy a few round of drinks, and pick up valuable intel about the local underworld. If you’re running from the local law enforcement, then your fellow sailor might have a good hidey-hole for those escaping press gangs.
Established Backgrounds
In its Basic Rules, Dungeons and Dragons offers a handful of pre-built, off-the-shelf character backgrounds. These are fun, evocative, but fairly standard backgrounds for your character.
Now each Background has a mechanical benefit. They give you a handful of skill and tool proficiencies, some sort of social power or ability, and usually a token or object. Because the Basic Rules are free, you can look up the mechanical benefits of these backgrounds.
Also, each set of backgrounds come with tables of personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws. These are purely flavor and are meant to inspire the player to add personality quirks. But you can always pick your own or not pick any at all.
Below is a list of some of the Backgrounds in the Basic Rules. Within the descriptors, the Dungeons and Dragons team ask questions of the player to evoke backstory. Your character’s backstory (background) is then used by your Dungeon Master to tie your character into the events of the game.
I have additional questions that I think are important to any background. The Basic Backgrounds include:
- Acolyte — You have spent years serving in a temple or shrine before becoming an adventurer. Which god or pantheon? What were your duties there? Who was your mentor? Who was your rival? What made you leave the sheltered confines to risk life and limb?
- Criminal — You have established contacts in the underworld. You either are a member of or know several members of the local Thieves Guild. Who showed you the ropes and protected you from knives between your ribs? Which crime boss’ lieutenant did you piss off on that one job? What was that job about again?
- Folk Hero — You rose to greatness, at least amongst the common people of your village or clan, because you stood up the corrupt Sheriff. Which Baron was he working for? Or maybe you lead the defense of the town when the orcs raided and all of the able-bodied men were out on their annual Boar Hunt. Why were you not invited?
- Noble — You are the heir, or 3rd daughter, of the local lord. What is their title and where do they sit in the kingdom’s hierarchy? What drove you away from the life of luxury into the life of an adventurer? Why did you bring your butler with you to this dungeon?
- Sage — What library, university, or monastery did you study at? What was your primary topic of learning? Have you lived for as long as you can remember? How old are you grandmother and why are you in this swamp and not playing with your grandkids?
- Soldier — In whose army did you “enlist” fresh off the farm? Was your Sergeant gruff but forgiving or a martinet? Did you have constant garrison duty or did you fight in a grand war? What was your highest rank before mustering out or did you manage to go AWOL after that last defeat?
Now this is just the list of backgrounds from the Basic Rules, The Player’s Handbook further expands on that list, as does Xanathar’s Guide and several of the adventures and setting books. The list is very long with a wide variety of suggestions.
Build-a-Background Workshop!
In a recent episode of Dragon Talk, Dungeons and Dragons’ official podcast, the co-host Greg Tito had a very interesting conversation with Jeremy Crawford. Jeremy was one of the lead designers of Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition and is basically in charge of the rules, the mechanical aspects of the game.
Towards of the end of his segment he explained something that blew me away: the default assumption is that every player would make their own custom background!
This caused me to look again at the beginning of the section on Backgrounds in the Basic Rules and Player’s Handbook. Sure enough, it is right there at the start. It tells you exactly how to build your own background, followed by the list of pre-generated ones.
I am sure I am not alone when I just skimmed over that part, jumping right to the list of backgrounds. If you use D&D Beyond to make your characters, that is even more likely because it immediately gives you the list of backgrounds available to you. There is no “Custom” present. Instead you have to go and specifically build your background, then go back to character creation.
The Basic Rules ask all of the right questions right there at the front of the section:
The most important question to ask about your background is what changed? Why did you stop doing whatever your background describes and start adventuring? Where did you get the money to purchase your starting gear, or, if you come from a wealthy background, why don’t you have more money? How did you learn the skills of your class? What sets you apart from ordinary people who share your background?
Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules, Backgrounds.
From there, your background is mechanically two skill proficiencies, up to two tool proficiencies, maybe an additional language, starting gear, and a feature. As Jeremy Crawford said in the interview, it doesn’t matter which skills, tools, languages and starting gear you get, you can mix-and-match.
Now with the Background Feature, my advice is to consult with your Dungeon Master. Jeremy did not talk much about this aspect of customizing your background. This should be a small, context-specific ability or power.
For example, a Sage has the following Background Feature: Researcher. This means that if you cannot recall some lore (failed a skill roll), you know who probably does know that information. Or you know which library that lore is stored in. It simply means that you never hit a dead-end on Religion, Nature, or Arcana checks.
As you are creating your own custom Background Feature, read through the existing Features. This should give you a sense of what mechanical weight is carried by the Feature. Be sure to talk with your Dungeon Master too as she will want to tie this into her story.
Custom Backgrounds
Next, I am going to go through the process of creating a few custom backgrounds. There will almost always be overlap between your custom background and a published one, because there are now so many published options.
Missionary
You have been tasked, or maybe even volunteered, to be a missionary for your temple. You have been chosen to set up a new shrine and gain new converts. However doing so is never easy as you will be far away from established hierarchies and the support they provide to existing temples.
What made you volunteer? Or are you being sent away by someone up the hierarchy who sees you as trouble or a threat? Why doesn’t the area you are going to already have a shrine to your god or pantheon?
By taking this Background you gain the following benefits
- Skill Proficiencies: Survival and Performance
- Languages: Two of your choice
- Tool Proficiencies: Mason Tools, Herbalism Kit, or Land Vehicles
- Equipment: A Holy Symbol, tools based upon which proficiency you choose, a vial of holy water, a prayerbook, incense, and 10 gp.
Feature: Gather a Crowd
As a missionary, you have been trained to not only talk with complete strangers, but to draw the attention of many at once. You can gather a crowd of people to pay attention to you and listen to what you have to say. If you can draw the attention of ten or more to you, you can use Charisma (Performance) to convince or deceive them in lieu of either Persuasion or Performance.
I wanted to take the Acolyte Background and put a twist on it. As a missionary you have a couple of key tasks: building a church and convincing people to start worshipping there. While an Acolyte gets Insight and Religion, I wanted to emphasize the street-corner preaching and finding tribes of “heathens” in the jungle.
Survival is the obvious choice for the latter type of missionary, I thought persuasion would be too on the nose for the former type. Evangelism is as much theatre as it is persuasion. Sometimes its about theological debates, but it starts with your emotions before it goes for your intellect.
I picked persuasion because I thought it an interesting choice for what is probably a non-bard character. Also, if you’re using your skills for tasks other than conversion (e.g. drawing the attention of the guards), you are probably making a deception check. Thus I created a Background Feature that allows you to substitute performance for the other two, but only if you’re able to draw a small crowd.
Languages are important, because you’ll want to speak whatever the natives speak at your destination. The tool proficiencies emphasize that you will either be building something (mason tools) or you’ll need help surviving in the jungle (herbalism kit) or you’ll need to drive a wagon to your destination (land vehicles).
Deep Guide
You have spent your formative years traveling in or exploring underground caverns, the Underdark, or similar complexes. You know your way around any natural cavern system. You can tell whether a pathway is leading up or down, what the slight change in temperature or humidity means. You have befriended other outposts and tribes of creatures living underground.
If you are a surface dweller, what drew you into the deeps? If you grew up underground, why did you find yourself spending more and more time in the untamed wilds, beyond the reach of your civilization? Or maybe you and your clan were cut off underground and living in the dripping darkness is all you knew?
By taking this Background you gain the following benefits
- Skill Proficiencies: Survival and Stealth
- Languages: Undercommon and one of your choice
- Tool Proficiencies: Herbalism Kit, or Artisan Tools
- Equipment: A set of travelling clothes, a Hunting Trap, a Climbing Kit, and Fishing Gear, and 10 gp.
Feature: Sanctuary
You know or can find friendly settlements, outposts, or even just hermits in the Underdark. These places of respite are known to you. You can identify whether or not one is within a day’s journey of your present location. Even the most standoffish of clans will greet you, offer you assistance, and give you and your traveling companions a place to rest.
I have long been fascinated with the idea of a dwarven ranger or druid, two classes I associate more with elves. But dwarves have their own underground ecosystems through which they need guides and for which are needed protectors.
With this background, I thought of being a dwarf, gnome, or maybe even a human who likes spelunking having lived or grown up deep underground. The two most important skills are survival and stealth in that environment. Undercommon is a necessary language. Artisan tools are necessary for making your own haven. The Background Feature was adapted from the Acolyte and Uthgardt Tribe Member backgrounds.
Messenger
You have always been fleet of foot and good with horses. You were placed in the service of the local Lord or Lady to take messages around the city or county. Or you were trained to carry dispatches between the local garrisons of your Majesty’s Army.
While you are trained to be discrete, what information have you learned that forced you to leave your post? Were you carrying vital intelligence, unbeknownst to you, that put a target on your back? Or did you just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and suddenly you’re now an adventurer?
By taking this Background you gain the following benefits
- Skill Proficiencies: Athletics and Animal Handling
- Languages: two of our choice
- Tool Proficiencies: Land Vehicles (chariot) and Water Vehicles (Keelboat)
- Equipment: A set of travelling clothes, a riding horse, bit and bridle, riding saddle, saddlebags, and 10 gp.
Feature: Ride All Night
Sometimes you are required to get somewhere as fast as you can. You are able to ride your horse or sail your small boat all night without either you or your mount gaining any movement based exhaustion penalties. You also do not suffer disadvantage when making animal handling or vehicle driving checks because of disadvantage. You can ignore these penalties for only 8 hours. You can only use this feature once before taking a long rest.
This is a background that works well whether your character is from an urban or rural environment. While powerful enough clerics or wizards can send messages over long distances, sometimes hand-written messages are better. The messenger learning too much or becoming a target is common enough trope.
Without an endurance skill, Athletics is the stand-in for your ability to just keep running. Riding and controlling your mount is part of Animal Handling in 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. Tools assumes you know how to drive a personal land vehicle or a one-person sailboat.
Finally the Background Feature gives you a limited ability to ignore certain aspect of exhaustion rules. While potentially powerful, it is really limited to speed and riding or driving checks. Also, it is limited in time to 8 hours.
