When working on backgrounds and personalities for your characters, please consider the following. If you wish to share these with the DM, you’re welcome to—otherwise, just use these as ways to flesh out your character and provide hooks for connecting to others in the party and with the campaign. This approach is inspired by the Setup stage in Fiasco, a rules light improv game for creating darkly funny collaborative stories in the vein of Fargo and No Country for Old Men.
Having a few of these as links to different characters will help build a natural party cohesion, interesting conversation and roleplay opportunities, and a more complex world of interactions. So if you choose 2-3 of these, try linking your character to different characters (rather than have them all tie you to the same character).
Relationships
Even before our party meets, your character has a previous connection to another character in the party. What is that connection? Did they grow up together? Were they rivals, best friends, business partners, lovers, or survivors of the same conflict? Perhaps they didn’t know each other, but share a similar background (as orphans, as members of the same previous or current profession, as students of the same master, as fellow sufferers of the same disease, or as believers in the same faith). Perhaps your character is secret fan of another character in the party and obsesses over them? Or maybe your characters are bound by fate or past crimes? Did they fight in a battle together — or on opposing sides? Does your character feel wronged or betrayed by another — or perhaps instead, feels indebted in some way? Is your character related by blood, adoption, or marriage to another character in the party? Is that relationship a known one — or is that something yet to be discovered or revealed? What relationship does your character have to the local population (in Three Sisters, the population consists of multiple waves of refugees going back at least 400 years)? What did your character’s family or caregiver do in the community? How does that influence how they see and connect with others?
Secret
Your character has a secret — something no one else knows about them, perhaps something that they have been charged with keeping safe — or something they dare not reveal because it could cost them or others their lives. Perhaps it’s a smaller secret — something that doesn’t change the world, but affects the way they see and navigate it. Are they concealing a weakness? a lost love? a fondness for something unexpected for someone from their economic background, adventure class, or race? Perhaps they never learned to read and have been faking it? Or maybe they are still afraid of the dark? Or are deeply superstitious about numbers or colors? Does someone else know their secret? If so, what power does that person or those persons have over your character because of that knowledge? What will your character do to prevent knowledge of their secret getting out? How does holding a secret in for so long affect their behavior and the way they treat others?
Need or Motivation
Your character wants something or deeply believes something — this need drives them to action (or sometimes halts them from acting when they normally should). What do they greatly desire? What motto or belief is at the center of their mode of living, fighting, learning, and/or loving? How might this need conflict or align with others in the party or community? How might your character’s need or core beliefs distinguish and isolate your character from others? Why did your character leave home or the company of others they had been living and/or traveling with? What keeps your character going when times get tough? What memory or memories does your character have that represent or capture or spur this motivation and need? How does this need or motivation influence other actions — your character’s choice of class, previous profession, skills and hobbies, weapons, learning, and companions?
object
Your character’s past, present, or future is somehow connected to a particular object — it may be something inherited, something found, something that was stolen from them which they desire to regain, something that they wish they could possess for themselves which is currently beyond their means to acquire. Perhaps something has been entrusted to their care, but they do not know who they are to deliver it to? Or maybe this is a memento from a past relationship or a talisman that might grant access to a place or person? Perhaps someone else in this group also desires this object? Or is this a cursed item, something the character cannot part with? Is the object connected with a crime or a famous person? Is the object dangerous? Is it something your character is afraid of?
location
Your character obsesses over a location — it might be a long lost home, a foreign country or land to which they have never been but have always wanted to see, a kingdom from which they’ve been exiled. Perhaps it is a lost city or a forgotten temple? Or it could be in another realm, a different dimension? Are there reasons why they have not been able to get there? What do they need to get there? What hurdles and obstacles must be surpassed? Perhaps your character and another character have both been to the same place? Or came from the same place? Maybe this is a place that your character does not want to go to — is deathly afraid of returning to, or is convinced will be his place of death?
final note
The above questions are just ways to start brainstorming how and what you think would work with your character as a means of making them come more alive — and to find good ways to connect to the others in the party. Feel free to use or to ignore.