Now explore your character’s background. Several prompts are provided to jumpstart inspiration, but you or the GM can modify or change these questions to fit the character you’re looking to play. Think of the prompts as a jumping-off point if you don’t know where to start, but they should never inhibit your creativity.

The decisions you make about your background are purely narrative, but they can deeply impact the kind of character you’re playing and the story the GM might prepare for your adventures. Over the course of character creation, feel free to adjust some mechanical choices you’ve made in earlier steps, allowing them to better reflect this background as the shape of your character comes into clearer focus.

If you are planning to play in a campaign, once you finish the background questions, you can continue developing your character in whatever way works best for you. There are many character backstory tools you may wish to use—just remember to give the GM your backstory as well so that they can work any people, places, or ideas from it into the campaign they’re running. You may also choose not to do any more background work, instead finding out more about your character as you play. Whatever you find fun and allows you to play your character in a way that feels appealing and exciting is what you should lean into.