Hence the number one rule: cool stuff should be done in the game, not your backstory.

Ohhh, that’s a good one. I’m stealing that!

Nice day for fishin‘, ain‘t it?

Trait: overworked back When you stand for long periods or don’t think before folding to pick up stuff or sleep, you are disadvantaged for 10 minutes

I thought it was im the rule book that players should do so. If i have an epic backstory im playing and ancient old fart that has not battled in centuries and is not used to it anymore

The one solution is to end the back story bad ‘so anyway, he’s learning how to walk again after… That.’ or ‘crawled into a bottle afterwards, and you’ll have a hell of a time fishing her out. In the meantime, she can still manage a cantrip from time to time. Most days.’ Especially if you’re going for a ‘last job’ or ‘old gunslinger’ vibe.

Works really well if your early build is super specialized, and, like ‘they still remember how to do that part just on reflex’

And that’s the campaign where you start at level 12, lol

Or just start the campaign at a higher level.

That was obvious. Why would a dragon need a sword to kill a maiden?

And to explain why D&D characters miss half the time, you can just say he was unnecessarily ‘correcting’ for water refraction still.

I’ve become increasingly convinced that people don’t want to play low level characters. Level 1 characters are neophyte adventurers. Their backstory shouldn’t include significant a mounts of adventure, combat, or heroics, because it introduces a significant amount of ludo-narrative dissonance into the campaign.

Unless there’s a reason they’ve been de-leveled.