How do you make the "I'm an orphan" backstory interesting?

[Lord Raziere]

simple:
What kind of orphan are they?

Are they the "my village is dead" orphan who vows vengeance against whoever killed their parents?

or are they an abandoned orphan who never knew their parents?

did they get adopted? by whom?

circumstances of orphaning are just important as the orphaning itself. what we reversed the usual formula, and the orphan knew their parents but they were complete jerks who just abandoned the child and told the child to never look for them while calling the child useless, leaving them for dead in the wild?

[Sariel Vailo]

Well im very against orphan but i made my first and i had them watch as their parents were killed by hobgoblins after their village was overun for maglublat.religous leaders of the town this little aasimar became a paladin of vengence and hates all goblins and will kill them on sight.

[Lord Torath]

Someday I hope to see someone bring a PC with a Sun Wukong-type-abiogenesis-therefore-no-parents type deal to a game. I want to see PCs who hatched out of rocks, fell from the sky or spontaneously generated in a cookie jar in the orphanage.

"Neither of my parents showed up for my birth! I... I was raised by South American ocelots!"

[JAL_1138]

"Neither of my parents showed up for my birth! I... I was raised by South American ocelots!"

Reminds me of Rincewind's mother running away before he was born.

[Joe the Rat]

It's an element of backstory, and one that should shape the rest.

My wife and I played halfling siblings, orphaned and separated due to the caravan being at the wrong place during a turf-war between 9th+ level Fighters with competing holdings.

My character was very young, and was discovered in the wagon-wreckage by a troop of mercenaries. They raised me - my "family" was a bunch of professional soldiers/killers/problem-solvers, and I had to throw my (meager) weight around to thrive. He tended to see violence as the best solution, and was very touchy about his height.

His older sister, however, was full-on teenager, and was sick of her family and their poor standing (due to being far too fair and honest with outsiders), and took the wreck - and her entire family being (as far as she knew) dead as an opportunity to strike off on her own... only to get hoodwinked into serving a wizard, because she really wasn't that savvy. She solves problems through cunning and trickery (and magic), and thinks everyone is an idiot.


If all of the PCs are orphans, go thick and heavy with the Oliver Twist and Pirates of Penzance references.

[DRD1812]

You. I like you.

[Lacuna Caster]

Not really what I meant. I'm referring to the MMO-character who's spawned fully formed in adulthood and has no roots or significance in the world - whose backstory is just a thin basis for statistical advantages and nothing more - and not someone trying to present a character with a worldview and life history that could impact its personality and decisions.

No, I see what you mean. I'm not sure why orphanhood would be a particular advantage from that perspective, though- presumably being the natural son of a pampered aristocrat would give you more material benefits in life?

[georgie_leech]

No, I see what you mean. I'm not sure why orphanhood would be a particular advantage from that perspective, though- presumably being the natural son of a pampered aristocrat would give you more material benefits in life?

And also duties and obligations and expected behaviors and all sorts of things that may or may not be worth caring about. It's not so much about material advantage as not having anything tying you down.

[FreddyNoNose]

I have a similar running gag in games I've run over year, stemming back to my earliest DM days. We always had one player who wanted to roll a Barbarian and hit stuff for damage and his backstory was always "ALL MY FAMILY IS DEAD!" I've since carried this to my new groups as a way to NOT do backstory (as I mine the player's characters for story ideas, from their skill choices to their weapon preferences to their age and race).

In D&D 5e, for example, choosing Urchin or Hermit is KIND OF lazy in that it doesn't REQUIRE much thought into a backstory but still gives you some very important/useful skills. Not everyone is great at backstory and, ultimately, it's just backstory - it's not relevant to the game in front of you unless you or your GM MAKES it relevant somehow.

The easiest answer to this is the same as the answer for most creative processes - keep asking "Why?" until you don't have an answer.

ALL MY FAMILY IS DEAD.
"Why?"
ORCS KILLED THEM.
"Why?"
ORCS ARE EVIL.

This (ORCS ARE EVIL) becomes a defining point in the character - they see orcs as evil because a tribe/hunting party killed their family. The DM now has some meat to work with: what tribe, are there/what are the other tribes, where are these tribes located, where are they right now? Who leads them? Who/why did the Orcs actually attack?

Then the DM can ask the player some questions (what did they look like, did they kill everyone or just your family, where were you when this happened, how old were you) and voila, character enrichment.

Maybe a parent killed an Orc's pet doggie and wanted to do something to return the favorite. Perhaps an irate member of the Orcmane Society Against Cruelty to Animals.

[kyoryu]

As others have pointed out, being an orphan isn't your backstory. It's part of your backstory.

Apart from that, it's not really backstory that makes characters interesting - it's what they want, what drives them, that makes them interesting.

[KillianHawkeye]

Apart from that, it's not really backstory that makes characters interesting - it's what they want, what drives them, that makes them interesting.

You're not entirely wrong, but I find that a good backstory normally informs a character's drives and wants. The childhood and early adult years are normally where most people form their basic personalities; once you reach maturity, new experiences have less an effect on who you are inside. People certainly can continue learning and expanding themselves, but at a certain point we usually view things from the lens of what we know and where we've been.

[daniel_ream]

You. I like you.

Some times it's best not to overcomplicate things.

Orphan or not, I could suffer a terrible industrial accident and still count on one hand the number of times a character's family history has ever come up in a D&D game.

[kyoryu]

You're not entirely wrong, but I find that a good backstory normally informs a character's drives and wants. The childhood and early adult years are normally where most people form their basic personalities; once you reach maturity, new experiences have less an effect on who you are inside. People certainly can continue learning and expanding themselves, but at a certain point we usually view things from the lens of what we know and where we've been.

Oh, absolutely! And understanding the backstory is super useful for figuring out those drives and wants.

[daniel_ream]

If all of the PCs are orphans, go thick and heavy with the Oliver Twist and Pirates of Penzance references.

The last three orcish hordes we encountered turned out to be entirely composed of orphans, and so we had to let them go.

[PersonMan]

For me, I use death of parents (or just leaving the family) as an excuse, more or less, to get the interesting part of the backstory started.

Right now I'm playing a character who, after displaying some magical talent in a battle that got her separated from (it's ambiguous whether or not her parents actually died) her family, was picked up by an elf who brought her to be trained in her estate.

The orphanhood is just a starter, there. The interesting bits are how, due to an utter lack of real parental figures, she's somewhat desperate for affection, seeks to replicate the social dynamic she grew up in (following the orders of an older woman mentor figure instead of having to make her own decisions) and has very clearly delineated comfort zones - everything she did a lot of, or was trained to do, she's confident in, but everything else she has trouble dealing with.

Describing this quickly, I'd say "make the short description 'I'm an orphan, so...' and not 'I'm an orphan.'". Going backwards or forwards with traits and quirks, that is, either making them and then 'justifying' them in the backstory, or looking at the backstory to see what kind of person it would spit out, can work well to flesh things out in this way.

[MintyNinja]

It seems the OP got a solid answer to the question they intended, but I'll add my example to the pile:

While playing Murder in Baldur's Gate, I used the setting's history and context to inform decisions about my character's orphanhood. Asheem Kahliel arrived in the city during the great Calimshan Refugee Crisis with his parents. In the shuffle, hustle, and bustle of the time, he lost both of them to starvation and sickness. He took to the city streets where he could and scraped out a living until his Sorcerous powers manifested. He spent his teen years growing in power and stealing enough to get by. All the while he's harboured a deep resentment for the Patriars (nobles and ruling class) of the city while also trying to appear as one of them. He donates regularly to an orphanage that helped him when he was young, and he's stayed on the right side of the Thieve's Guild. By the time the game starts (at about level 7 because of reasons), he has a comfortable living stealing and conning marks with his subtle magics. But he wants more from this city, and so he's hell bent on creating a revolution to topple the upper classes and put the people in power.

So what I have is not only a fully realized NPC should I choose not to play him, but also a character that has wants and goals based on his life thus far. He's not just out for himself, like is so easy with orphans, nor is he out for personal revenge. He's out to overthrow the government and try and make things right for the disenfranchised in the city. He's just a little... volatile, in his methods.

Spoiler: Spoilers for MiBG

Show

Our group is a bit wishy-washy and I change characters like shirts. This is the one I eventually settled on after a break for our GM. So while our group technically worked for Silvershield, I convinced them to murder Ravenguard and start working for Rilsa. It's been tough, and I'm still getting the hang of Sorcerers, and actually roleplaying Charisma, but it's felt pretty rewarding thus far.

[Hooligan]

Help me to understand why so many of you embrace this background archetype?

It is trite, lazy flimflam. Even worse it is dull....the epitome of boring, like shredded roleplaying iceberg lettuce. Many of the above examples bear out those points.

[Lord Raziere]

Help me to understand why so many of you embrace this background archetype?

It is trite, lazy flimflam. Even worse it is dull....the epitome of boring, like shredded roleplaying iceberg lettuce. Many of the above examples bear out those points.

Well one of the good things about it is that it makes a good "zero to hero" story- orphans generally start in a position near the bottom, so the only place they have to go is up, and when you finally get there you can wonder at the awesome: "this person went from being an orphan to being so powerful and awesome. so cool." and the great part is that you can do this without needing any stupid family reveals- just leave family an eternal mystery and focus on the fact that the character is a self-made person.

as long as you avoid the trite "VENGEANCE!" and "Suddenly it turns out your the prince!" tropes, it can be good. Its not about avoiding it entirely, its about taking it in a direction thats not so paint-by-numbers or formulaic.

[Tinkerer]

Help me to understand why so many of you embrace this background archetype?

It is trite, lazy flimflam. Even worse it is dull....the epitome of boring, like shredded roleplaying iceberg lettuce. Many of the above examples bear out those points.

As it's often said, cliches are cliches for a reason. Orphans generally lived a hard knock life. Orphans don't have familial ties weighing them down. Orphans are fairly common in a world where life can be brutal and short. You only have a half an hour to come up with a backstory and you want to focus on his time training with his mentor rather than his family. If your character is older than a pup there's the chance that your parents could've died of natural causes (still... technically an orphan?). There are a ton of reasons to play an orphan.

Any decent character can get away with a cliche in their background. Nearly every single comic character is an orphan. Being an orphan isn't a problem. Being an orphan combined with a half a dozen other cliches, or having "orphan" as your one word character description is.

[PersonMan]

Help me to understand why so many of you embrace this background archetype?

It is trite, lazy flimflam. Even worse it is dull....the epitome of boring, like shredded roleplaying iceberg lettuce. Many of the above examples bear out those points.

Anything's boring if executed poorly. "My parents died, and I grew up alone" isn't inspiring, but neither is "I lived happily at home until I left".

I think that making a backstory complex enough to be about more than just "I'm an orphan" or "An event happened" will keep you from having something uninteresting solely because of a single element you use. After all, in a well-rounded history, would you say it's all boring and pointless because they share one background detail with poorly written characters?

[Jay R]

Help me to understand why so many of you embrace this background archetype?

"Embrace" is a misleading word here. Some of my characters have been orphans because that's a common trope in adventure stories, because it fits the specific idea of the character, and/or because that is a character who can easily leave his former life behind, and go off adventuring. Many of my characters are not orphans, because it didn't fit the character idea.

"Archetype" is also misleading. I don't think of it as an archetype, or at least, no more than any common background element. I use it when it's appropriate. Of my last five fantasy PCs, Gwystyl left his clan on a quest, Pteppic works for his father, and Gustav's parents are alive, but a thousand miles from the DM's plot. Ornrandir grew up in an orphanage, but it was carefully written so that the DM could choose to introduce his unknown parents if desired. Only Gwydion was a true orphan. That was in part so that this bard would have no last name, and therefore a deep interest in epithets. He would always introduce himself with a new epithet based on the last adventure. "Gwydion Cluefinder", "Gwydion Chimera's Bane", "Gwydion Dragon-slayer", etc.

It is trite, lazy flimflam. Even worse it is dull....the epitome of boring, like shredded roleplaying iceberg lettuce. Many of the above examples bear out those points.

Like any other real-world aspect of life, the character of an orphan can be written poorly or well.

I doubt that there is any single literary judgment that applies equally to the characters of Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Billy Batson, Hit Girl**, Harry Potter, Lord Voldemort, Oedipus*, Frodo Baggins, Arya Stark**, Daenerys Stormborn, Taran of Caer Dallben, Eilonwy, Mowgli, King Arthur, Will Turner*, Inigo Montoya**, Jane Eyre, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Tom Sawyer, Aladdin*, Cinderella, Snow White, Tarzan, James Bond, and Richard Sharpe.

It is certainly not true that the world in general has judged them all to be trite, lazy flimflam. Some of the greatest literature in the world, and some of the most popular stories, have been about orphans.

You cannot judge the depth, interest or value of some of my characters based on a single fact. You certainly can't claim that a five-page character description is lazy based only on part of one sentence in it. Dismissing all such stories or characters, or even all such PCs, as trite, lazy flimflam, is, well, trite, lazy flimflam.

*These grew up believing that they were orphans, only to meet a parent later in a plot-crucial way.
**These became orphans in childhood, in plot-critical ways.

[Âmesang]

For my current 5e character I decided to make her an orphaned half moon-elf/half Tytherian-human who was found in the springtime by the Harpers of Waterdeep and raised by them, even resulting in her having the surname "d'Arilean" — "Spring's Child." She grew up amidst Tytherian culture, including learning an up-ported Verraketh's shadow crown, but has a wanderlust to learn all she can about her moon elf heritage. What she doesn't know is that her father is still alive…

…however we're playing through a by-the-book version of Tales of the Yawning Portal, so her backstory means jack all. Still, I wanted to try something new that would give her a simple reason to go adventuring while still giving her ties to her hometown and faction and open up some roleplaying opportunities amongst the group, such as asking them about their parents …but it just didn't pan out.

[Honest Tiefling]

While I agree that being orphaned doesn't mean you can't have personal connections, I'd argue that personal connections from a backstory aren't all that necessary for a good DnD character. Firstly, there are some characters someone could forge strong emotional ties with, called 'The rest of the party'. Someone bereft of family or home deciding to become attached to their comrades in arms is probably a cliche, but not one I would say is inherently bad, especially not for tabletop games in general.

Failing that, from my own experience, its easier for a DM to RP a relationship of any kind if the relationship is both new and with an NPC they control. So a PC who wants to impress a guard captain because they feel a mentor-like relationship with that NPC is probably going to be easier for the DM in general. Very often, I've seen DMs ignore backstory NPCs like family because they are worried about doing it wrong. And making up years, if not decades of backstory and getting formative personalities exactly correct. But the DM is already running the NPC, so it could be easier for many DMs to work with that. Also, I would say that it is easier for other PCs to be integrated into this relationship, as they could be more critical of the guard captain, have a clash of personalities or even be in competition for the same relationship.

Also, for certain games, the personal connections aren't viable. If the DM starts off with a game focused on exploration, isolation or being flung into the far reaches of the planar cosmos...Those personal connections aren't becoming plot central any time soon. Given that most games have a timespan of at least a few months, if not years, it could be a while before the character can return home. Pining to return home could be done, but can also come across as mopey or rather inconsistent unless the player is good at it. It also may not be the tone the player wants, especially if the game is meant as a fun game exploring ruins, not a sad tale of people separated by circumstances.

I'm not saying the character should be a murder-hobo, but I think that personal connections in the backstory isn't a clear indicator of what will be interesting in the game.

[Anonymouswizard]

I've never had characters who were explicitly orphans. My current character isn't, his parents are alive and well, but I'm probably going to add something to the backstory about being estranged because he was sent away to study under a loremaster because he fell for the wrong boy. His reason for adventuring is because I wanted to riff on the 'mentor archetype', his master died in his sleep and now he's seeking out their other students to inform them.

The only orphan I came up with was a doctor who was serving on the interplanetary warship Thunderchild II, but it was a footnote (I think he was adopted? Can't remember) in his backstory which was more concerned with him becoming a pacifist (of the 'will not harm myself' variety). Sadly that game never got off the ground, because it was actually interesting. I'm much more likely to have an orphan in a science fiction setting (which I sadly almost never get to play in) and make them a child soldier or corporation kid. They have a family, but because of that they're already connected with an organisation.

I've also had characters who had recently solved their 'backstory problem', whether that was finding their parents or helping wipe out the goblins who had burnt down their village. Lets you have a bit of 'what do I do know' for a couple of sessions as you work out their personality. I personally just enjoy taking fantasy backstory clichés and playing around with them, it makes me chuckle. If I make a D&D character an orphan they'll be someone who pretends to have no connections, while simultaneously being able to find an old friend from the town they grew up in no matter what city they're in (by accident, normally in the market).