Hello folks.

I made a video that is both the intro to my TTRPG channel and I discuss the disconnect between character backgrounds and premade adventures.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d-cnKxZSbE

Watched the video. Generally agree. But literally none of this has ever happened in my campaigns in the last 40-years, simply because it was pretty obvious to myself and the people I played with, (and the way modules were written in Ye Olde Days) that the GM's job is supposed to curate characters into the setting from the jump.

If you're just running pre-published games - why does it matter if you have no intention on having a deeper impact on the setting than whatever is being presented to you as "the adventure".

The GM's job is to get the players invested to the degree of their satisfaction that they hope will make the game as good.

But I think all sandbox GM's know this. It's a good video for acolyte GM's looking to get into sandboxing, so keep it running. I'm sure if you ask around here a lot of GM's in these parts could give you some good ideas for more videos.

A major reason why I made this video is because of some of the frustrations that the DM I'm gaming with has expressed to me regarding the other players in his group.  I figured that other DMs might be or have had similar experiences in the past and I wanted to provide possible solutions to this problem.

The group that I'm involved in went through the character creation process for D&D 5e and, while there is a part where you pick a background and can pick (or roll for) values and flaws, I just find that it just doesn't come up in our sessions and the other players don't bring up elements from their background. 

With my character, I actively went out of my way to introduce those background elements into the game, which involved making amends to the parents of a fledgling adventurer that my character bamboozled who later took a disabling injury from a troll from his "magic sword."  It involved taken them out of their hovel and providing room and board at the party's tavern and base of operations, the Troll Skull Manor. 

Another PC had amnesia and, during the adventure, she remembered that the last place she was in was with some friends in the forest eating magic mushrooms two years ago.  There was no initiative to discover what happened to her friends or where they currently were.

Regarding running pre-published games, the campaign doesn't necessarily have to stop once the material in the module is resolved.

I definitely would welcome some good ideas for more videos.

Depends on the module. Used to be these were overall meant to be dropped into a campaign or setting and tweaked to suit it as needed.

Later though there came out more modules that had their own internal setting. You could still plug them into anything. But it might take more tweaking.

And depending on the DM and players. Stringing together even unrelated modules can be half the fun. Others of course just dont like to. YMMV as ever.

Backgrounds are a tough one as theres varying opinion and use and even style. 5es backgrounds are not the backgrounds others might think of for example.

Personally I prefer to keep backgrounds fairly short. In par because from experience these tend to get forgotten as the players adventure. Its good for your opening intros. But 75% of the time does not come back into play or mention. That was a bit different in my own RPG way back and backgrounds taken for extra points were going to come back to haunt you sooner or later.

Different players also have their own ideas on background. Some could care less. Some write short novels. I just let everyone do their thing long as it doesnt interfere. Trying to force everyone into one lockestep is a study in failure.