When writing a character’s backstory, it’s important to include a certain number of “knives”. Knives are essentially anything that the DM can use to raise the stakes of a situation for your character. Anything that can make a conflict personal, like a threatened loved one or the appearance of a sudden enemy. They’re called “knives” because the players lovingly forge them and present them to the DM so that the DM can use them to stab the player over and over again.
The more knives a player has, the easier it is for the DM to involve them in the story. So it’s important to have them! When breaking down a backstory, it kind of goes like this:
Every named person your character cares about, living or dead (i.e. sibling, spouse, childhood friend) +1 knife [EDIT: a large family can be bundled into one big knife]
Every phobia or trauma your character experiences/has experienced +1 knife
Every mystery in your character’s life (i.e. unknown parents, unexplained powers) +1 knife
Every enemy your character has +1 knife
Every ongoing obligation or loyalty your character has +1 knife
Additionally, every obligation your character has failed +1 knife
Every serious crime your character has committed (i.e. murder, arson) +1 knife
Every crime your character is falsely accused of +1 knife
Alternatively if your character is a serial killer or the leader of a thieves guild, those crimes can be bundled under a +1 BIG knife
Any discrimination experienced (i.e. fantasy racism) +1 knife
Every favored item/heirloom +1 knife
Every secret your character is keeping +1 knife
You kind of get the point. Any part of your backstory that could be used against you is considered a knife. A skilled DM will use these knives to get at your character and get you invested in the story. A really good DM can break your knives into smaller, sharper knives with which to stab you. They can bundle different characters’ knives together into one GIANT knife. Because we’re all secretly masochists when it comes to D&D, the more knives you hand out often means the more rewarding the story will be.
On the other hand, you don’t want to be a sad edgelord with too many knives. A buttload of knives just means that everyone in your party will inadvertently get stabbed by your knives, and eventually that gets annoying. Anything over 15 knives seems excessive. The DM will no doubt get more as time goes on, but you don’t want to start out with too many. You also don’t want to be the plain, boring character with only two knives. It means the DM has to work harder to give you a personal stake in the story you’re telling together. Also, knives are cool!! Get more knives!!!
I always try to incorporate at least 7 knives into my character’s backstory, and so far the return has been a stab-ity good time. Going back into previous characters, I’ve noticed that fewer knives present in my backstory has correlated with fewer direct consequences for my character in game. Of course, this isn’t a hard and fast rule, it’s just something that my friends and I have come up with to help with character creation. We like to challenge each other to make surprising and creative knives. If you think of any that should be included, let me know.
EDIT: I feel I should mention it’s important to vary up the type of knives you have. All 7 of your knives shouldn’t be family members, nor should they be crimes that you’ve done in the past. That’s a one-way ticket to repetitive gameplay. Part of the fun is making new and interesting knives that could lead to fun surprises in game.
I love this! I’ll be introducing this concept to the 2 (count em, TWO) groups of new players I’m DMing for now.
Not everything a DM tries works out as intended. Sometimes a story arc falls flat, or a little extra description causes the party to halt for a few hours to fiddle with a rock…. it happens.
I was in a Lovecraftian GURPS campaign set in UK in the 1980s that ground to a halt for a solid hour because one of the players was adamant that we calculate the exact cost of plane tickets for our team.
Truly, rules lawyers are an eldritch abomination.
lifehack if the players are obsessed with something give it to them. Often a small interesting answer will make them stop faster than a hundred boring ones.
once my players rifled through some dead goblins’ clothes and i didnt expect that (dumb, i know) so i put a “very smooth pebble” in a pocket and the players were so interested in it they almost started a fight over it
i was one of the players and we were valid
very early in my campaign – like, 2 or 3 sessions in – the party went to explore a shipwreck. among the loot in the wreck was a black marble statue of a goddess called Blibdoolpoolp. I found her name in a list of d&d deities and thought she sounded cool. her domain is crustaceans and madness, which fit with the overall tone of my bullshit campaign, so I threw her in for a bit of ~flavor~
the party got… attached.
they lugged that statue back with them when they left the shipwreck, even though they were being chased by a sea serpent. they brought it back to the inn where they were staying. in-character, they started seeking out all the information they could about this silly throwaway goddess.
out of character, they started flooding the group chat with lobster memes.
eventually – and I mean, like, several months later – I just gave in and let them have a whole adventure fighting a cult that worked for Blibdoolpoolp, defeating the cult, and letting them take over as Blibdoolpoolp’s primary worshippers. she’s their patron deity now and showers them with crustacean-themed blessings.
reblog to be showered by crustacean-themed blessings
“crustaceans” is an INCREDIBLE domain, what powers do you get as a cleric if you take the crustaceans domain
Immortality until you grow too big and are crushed to death by your own armor
Essential components of any fantasy rolepaying group:
The player who brings exactly the same swishy elf character to every table; 50% chance of wizard, 50% chance of bard, 100% chance of banging a dragon before the campaign is done.
The player who favours dwarves because they’re uncomfortable with speaking in character and dwarves aren’t expected to have personalities.
The player who thinks they’re cleverly subverting expectations by playing their halfling as a bloodthirsty, sexually promiscuous drug fiend, unaware that – thanks to players like them – literally 80% of all halfling player characters are like that.
The player who designs their character purely for novelty value – like, this time they’re a giant telepathic praying mantis, or whatever – yet inexplicably manages to have the deepest character arc out of anyone.
The player whose character’s stats honestly don’t matter because their real contribution to the party is being the only adult in the room.
More:
The perennial orc player who you’re pretty sure is using the game as a group therapy session to work through some sort of identity issue.
The player whose rogue’s complicated backstory and sinister secret
agenda never actually end up being relevant in play because they also
kept it a secret from the GM.
The player with a penchant for Lawful Goodish warrior types who thinks they’re the adult in the room, but really they just have a talent for making irresponsibly dangerous plans sound reasonable – even to themselves.
The player who insists on taking the most complicated race/class combo
the GM will allow, then later discovers that the reason they can’t hit
for shit is because they’re been rolling their attacks on a d12 all
night.
The player who rolls druids because they are a straight up furry.
Every time I see this the point “the player whose characters stats honestly don’t matter because their real contribution to the party is being the only adult in the room” hits me like a fucking brick. That’s it, that’s my every character, the one who isn’t allowed to do dumb things because that has been covered neatly by everyone else in the party!
Professionals have standards. Be polite. Be efficient. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
[caption: a screenshot of a conversation from what looks like 4chan, circa ~2011. it says: “small time my friend. small time.
a buddy of mine went off to college a few years back and ended up sharing an apartment style res with four other gamers. at first they were pretty cool guys, until i was invited to game with them. the entire lot of them were THAT guys, playing anthromorphic characters, being chaotic randum, one player had a custom made vampire race that was stupidly OP and only had a LA of +1. shit had to stop and i knew that it was my duty to stop it.
i played a LE human qizard who specialized in the creation of magical items, his character concept was that wealth was often equal to power and what better way to make cash on the up and up then by creating and selling gear catered to adventurers and the elites. another quirk of his was that he kept a grimoire on him in which he wrote the names of those he and the party had slain, if a name was unavailable he would write a brief description, approximate age, and location of death. whenever they’d stop in a major city he would copy the most recent additions to it and deliver it to the mortuaries. i actually made this book irl, and filled it out after every fight.
i went full out on this guy and regularly made the parties equipment for ¾ the cost it would have taken them to buy it, often giving discouts if it suited both our needs for them to have the better gear. my only stipulation was that my loot be kept on me, and not with the aprties funds.
by the end of the capaign i was several levels under the party but had a huge stockpile of gold saved up to buy an island somewhere and live the good life. we finish off an evil draco lich that was bent on world domination and are about to go our separate ways when the party barbarian stops my character and demands that i give them back the gold they paid for their equipent or he would kill and take it from me. i tried to reason with the rest of the party but they were all being greedy fuck****s. it was four vs 1 and i wasn’t allowed spells from outside the phb, so none of the fantastic bullshit of celerity could save me, and the barbarian would unquestionably beat me on initiative if it got to combat. resigned to my fate i did the only thing i could do, and spoke to them one last time.
“Lalilulelo,” our clerics armor suddenly burst into sunlight, the barbarians weapons animated and began to attack him, while his armor locked in place freezing him on the spot. the rogue was disintegrated on the spot as his gear spontaneously blasted him with magical rays.
within a round the party was dead or incapacitated, save for my character, who calmly approached the frozen barbarian as he was hacked apart by his own weapons, pulled out his book and flipped to one of the first entries. as i described this i pulled out my copy of the book turning it so that the rest of the table could see where their names had been scrawled on the day i had met them.
“there was never any doubt in this outcome. i knew your greed would overwhelm you and took the necessary measures to stop you when it did. perhaps if you had simply let me go things wouldn’t have gone just as planned.”
the table just kinda stared at me in silence. i didnt play a very talkative role in the campaign, and usually kpet what i did separate from the party pretty brief. they hadnt even known my alignment as my evil deeds were usually of the subtle sort, such as unfair contracts and manipulating the party into what i had planned. after the final fight i gathered the loot from the dracolich’s hoard, including the materials and instructions required to make a phylactery of my own. the campaign ended with my character getting the credit for saving the continent and being lauded as a hero, the others were quickly forgotten, as i claimed that they had fallen under the influence of the dracolich and been destroyed. the only legacy they left were their names scrawled in my book.“]
Found the creature- it’s called an Oblex and it appears in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes along with art of the kid’s player character! They’re apparently the result of Mindflayer experimentation on Oozes and they’re sick as fuck, you can read about them in <a href=“https://www.google.com/amp/comicbook.com/gaming/amp/2018/05/23/dungeons-and-dragons-make-a-wish-mordenkainens-tome-of-foes/”>this article! (X)</a>
sometimes a descriptor is just that, guys: a descriptor
oh, goat?
PLEASE give me context for that
so, our party was traveling in a mountainous area and the DM mentioned there was a goat a little ways away, just a little scenery building. the party immediately spent the next (real-life) 20 minutes insight checking the goat, detecting magic on the goat, questioning the goat, ect. eventually the sorcerer ended up killing and eating the goat. DM was very exasperated.
“I pick up the knife” is now a mini-meme among my party and obviously it just means “I did something impulsive and now it’s going to take two sessions to solve.”
“I pick up the knife” saga continues because listen we can sit around failing investigation checks all day or we could play d&d
Plot Designing 