Originally Posted by Gray Ghost
Originally Posted by colinl8
Originally Posted by biomag
their stories have far too much background happening before you even touch them

Is this a fair criticism? IRL everyone you meet except babies has heaps of background before you meet them, and how much background they share develops as you get to know them. Hell, I worked with a dude for a couple months before learning he was minor nobility, but it was such a non-thing for him you wouldn't know it without being told.

That the backgrounds are too thematically similar is a criticism I understand, even if I don't share it, but I think "far too much background" pre-story might be a bit much

I think what biomag means by that is that some of them have a lot of EPIC stuff in their backgrounds. Like, you can have lived a full life and not banged and then attempted to usurp a goddess. Or been a storied, mighty monster slayer that's supposed to be way more powerful than you currently are now. Like, the half-orc paladin hireling they showed. Their background is simple and reasonable and more what a lot of people would have wanted from more of the companions.

That.

Being minor nobility or even more is nothing unusual in 5e - so you won't see me complain about that. I actually would expect it to be the case with some of the companions. But like Gray Ghost points out its not their heritage, but whole history tying into it. Please ask some DMs and players around you who happy they would be if you pitched them Larian's origins as Level 1 characters. I understand TT and video games are different beasts, but still.

I'm not saying characters can't have unique backgrounds, but these are simply too much. Too much happened off screen before the player even gets involved and Gale is by far and wide the worst offender I've ever seen. Here it feels like his main story was actually a game of its own that happened before you could even pick him as a character.