Player character backgrounds don’t do much if they stay in the player’s possession and you don’t see them.

That’s the way of many, many campaigns – certainly most of mine. The players come up with backgrounds for their characters, and they rarely see play.

The construction of many D&D campaigns relies on the main story being presented by the DM. The DM offers adventure opportunities to the characters based on the actions of the villains in the world; the adventures choose which ones to pursue. The number of choices offered depends on the style of the campaign – some campaigns are very linear, others are wide open. Most fall in-between.

If the DM makes sure he or she acquires a set of the adventurers’ backgrounds, then they can be used to provide additional story hooks, to a greater or lesser degree.

Consider these approaches:

• Using NPCs that, although not a part of the adventure, relate to one or more of the characters.
• In individual adventures, certain encounters relate to the background of one or more characters. Example of this can be found in the D&D Adventurers League adventures that have faction missions. The overall adventure is not changed, but some details relate better to the PCs.
• An individual adventure that is designed around the background of one or more characters.

In TV writing, you often get an A-plot and a B-plot. Is it possible to create a B-plot in a session or adventure around one of the adventurers?

Likewise, you occasionally get an episode that is centred around one character. Do you have any ideas for doing one like that?

There are times when I’ve run a campaign like a TV series. I’ve sketched out a 13-session run, each session being one adventure (or episode). Amongst those episodes, I assigned some to be character-centric rather than plot-centric. It’s interesting to see what the results are!