roleplaying Archives - Tribality

Exploring the Urchin Background

Kevin Victor Rae — Tue, 05 May 2020 14:00:05 +0000

The Urchin 5e background offers a potential rags-to-riches story and any class can benefit from its skill proficiencies. It also comes with its own adventure hook: how did you get enough money to live modesty for ten days? Was it a gift? A lucky find? The loot from a final crime? That — and the pet mouse (which is awesome) — can help add some interesting depth to your character. Your impoverished life before the beginning of the campaign can […]

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Exploring the Soldier Background

Kevin Victor Rae — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 14:00:30 +0000

The soldier background in 5e offers a great opportunity to do some collaborative worldbuilding with your DM. After all, what is a soldier without an army? Here are some starting questions to help you build the organization before diving into your character’s background: Is this a formal or informal army? Meaning, are you a career soldier, or is it expected that you return to your previous life after your term of service? How does class play into rank? Can only […]

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Exploring the Sailor Background

Kevin Victor Rae — Tue, 21 Apr 2020 14:00:32 +0000

Hellooooo, sailor (background)! The sailor background for 5e is a fun option, offering two useful skills and a great feature to find safe passage on a ship whenever needed. Your mileage may vary based on your campaign setting, but if you’re looking for a nautical good time, check out Seas of Vodari (plug plug plug) — which has a ton of sailor background variants among all kinds of other awesome content! I have always loved stories centered around the ocean […]

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Exploring the Sage Background

Kevin Victor Rae — Tue, 14 Apr 2020 14:00:21 +0000

The Sage background in 5e is one of my favorites. It gives you access to a couple of knowledge skills and some extra languages, but what makes the sage background so exciting is the Researcher feature. You basically know where to get a piece of information on the chance that you can’t recall it. This has huge potential for storytelling. You could have an entire adventure based on trying to get some esoteric answer from a mysterious library! While this […]

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Exploring the Outlander Background

Kevin Victor Rae — Tue, 07 Apr 2020 14:00:04 +0000

The outlander background in 5e fills the role of the person who lived outside of civilization, who have been to the very extremes of the world and seen wonders that no city dweller could dream of. This archetype has room in it for multiple character concepts, from the tribal barbarian to the banished wizard, to a ranger who makes their living trapping and selling furs. This background is one that is more pliable than others – after all, who’s to […]

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Exploring the Noble Background

Kevin Victor Rae — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 14:10:36 +0000

In a standard Dungeons and Dragons world, society is stratified by class that is largely determined by blood. In medieval Europe, the nobility was a very tiny portion of the population, and they generally owned the lands that were worked by the peasant class. Sometimes they even owned the peasants. You get to do some fun world-building with this background, creating a Noble lineage to descend from and the social codes of conduct that regulate the nobility. For each background, […]

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Exploring the Hermit Background

Kevin Victor Rae — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 14:00:09 +0000

With some irony as we all become hermits of a sort, we will be looking at the hermit background this week. Hermits offer an opportunity to craft a very compelling personal quest – something that is so important to your character to accomplish that they had to leave their self-imposed isolation and become an adventurer to achieve it. The discovery offered by the hermit background can be just the plot hook your DM needs to draw the party into the […]

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Exploring the Guild Artisan Background

Kevin Victor Rae — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 14:00:31 +0000

The guild artisan background is one of the oddball backgrounds to me. Nothing about it really speaks to the character’s future life of adventure, but maybe that’s what makes it so interesting. It gives you a full career before choosing to go off and slay dragons and uncover fantastic loot. Let’s take a dive into potential backgrounds for each of the different classes in Dungeons & Dragons 5e. Check out past background articles here: Acolyte, Charlatan, Criminal, Entertainer, Folk Hero. […]

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Exploring the Folk Hero Background

Kevin Victor Rae — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 14:00:37 +0000

Stories are filled with heroes from humble origins, and each culture spins its own version of the story. In Dungeons & Dragons, the world is often filled with larger than life heroes battling epic villains, and the folk hero background allows you to at least start your adventuring career more humbly. Folk heroes are distinct in that what defines them is not magic power or skill with weapons, but a single, selfless act that earned them the admiration of the […]

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Exploring the Entertainer Background

Kevin Victor Rae — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 15:00:07 +0000

The Entertainer background gives players an opportunity to bring their love to roleplaying and acting deeper into the game, and have their character do the same. Any character with the entertainer background gets a touch more bard-y, opening up their social options and for many of the classes answering the question of “what was my character doing before the campaign began?” Key questions to answer for the entertainer background no matter what class you choose are: Who is the admirer […]

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