In the past, I’ve encouraged players to spend time on their backstories, but now I ask them to simply come up with some character quirks that they can use to make their character come to life. Let me explain how I do it and why.

I think I’ve always struggled with detailed backstories. They ask too much of a player. It’s hard to project a whole detailed backstory into what’s happening at the moment. Same goes for long lifestyle questionnaires about characters – ‘what’s your character’s favourite drink colour?’. I never know what to do with them.

I should say that some people find that backstories work really well for them, and they enjoy working on them, and that’s awsome. But they’re not for me.

For me, your character is not a backstory, or even a character sheet, it’s what gets shown to other people round the table, through your actions and reactions at the table, usually over many sessions.

So, I like a very short backstory – a couple of sentences that just describe how my character plausibly got to the start of this adventure. Just enough that I can answer consistently if another character asks. I’ll fill in bits of my past as I think about them during the campaign.

What I do like though are quirks. These don’t have to be funny or extreme . If they are, they can wear out their welcome very quickly. Instead, there are two types I try to build into my characters: habitual quirks and motivating quirks.

Find some small habit that your character has. Maybe the barbarian is always cleaning her axe with boiled linseed oil. Or sharpening it with a whetstone. Maybe your fighter always puts their sword back in its sheath and closes it up with a snap. Maybe your wizard always picks up spell components from the ground. Maybe, the cleric keeps a diary. Maybe… well, you get the picture. An action that your character takes regularly, that crucially, other characters can see. and react to.

This serves a few purposes. You always have something to do when you can’t think of anything else to do. That’s not nothing! It keeps the atmosphere alive and the group in-character. I am always surprised how much this adds.

The magic is that, over time, a habitual quirk will take on more meaning. What starts off as ‘always fiddling with her glasses’ becomes ‘always fiddling with her glasses when scared’. And to complete the circle, once this has happened you can signal you’re scared by fiddling with your glasses. It really works.

Don’t worry if your quirk ia a bit boring. In the midst of action, doing something boring can be a dramatic choice. Think of Qui-Gon in the Phantom Menace turning off his light-saber and meditating during the fight with Maul.

The second type of quirk I like is one that gives you a reason to act – lets call these motivating quirks. It’s important that these quirk prompt you to do something. “Afraid of the dark” is a fine quirk, but it doesn’t motivate action directly. “Always lights a torch when entering a dark place” or “Will only enter dark place holding the hand of someone with darkvision” are much better. Let’s do another one: “Hates boats”. Not necessarily motivating. “Always tries to convince the party to avoid boat trips”, “Always closes eyes and rocks back and forth when on the water”. Motivating.

These are similar to the bonds and ideals in the 5e rules. But I find they’re way too general as written to be helpful for new roleplayers and new characters. “Everything I do is for the common people” is unmotivating. “I give any treasure I make to the village orphan and foundlings fund. If I get a chance to steal from a noble, I take it” would be much more motivating.

When I’m making a character, I like to give them a couple of habitual quirks and four or five motivating ones. After a few sessions of playing I usually know if these are working and whether I should drop or swap some out.

Try it, it might work for you.