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Hi guys, just had what I think is an ace idea for a campaign, alot of my players are no good at creating rich backgrounds, so I thought I could actually do it for them. Basically they make characters and start off in a village, that is about to be invaded by strange frost covered creatures that are renown throughout the land (this campaign is set in an ice covered land). The adventurers partners are all inside the main hut of the village, there is 5 families in total, each with one child.
The invasion fails horribly (will actually play this as an encounter against impossible odds) and all the adventurers are killed, along with their partners. The children however are spared, and taken away by the knights of the living ice. Many years pass, and the knights wish to train these children to become warriors. The children are now 18, descendants of their long last parents and families, who were earlier killed by the knights. They seek revenge against the living ice, and the heroic tier will mainly be based on them revolting against the evil Necromantic Warrior, and leader of the knights of the living ice, Gaeldor. They will train with the KOFTLI to become great champions, near kill Gaeldor at around level 5, and escape the tower he has imprisoned them in.
Once escaping, they will find a priest who says they must be cleansed of the taint they have recieved by spending so much time with the KOFTLI. And trains them all to become multiclassed clerics! (I will now allow clerics at the start of the campaign, or religion as a skill.) This gives them great survivability, also at some point during the revolt they will learn Grandmaster training from the KOFTLI.
When cleansed, they work to invade and infiltrate the Tower of Death (Name to be decided soon), and try to eliminate Gaeldor once and for all from the land.

So, opinions?

The problem is they all have the same background, the same class, etc. Once you put them into a situation where specialist classes are required, you are a bit stuffed.

The background also means that once they have done the main "revenge" quest, they don't really have a lot else to do.

By all means, give such a background to one of the characters, but not all of them.

Personally I would sit down with each player in turn and go through with them what kind of character they want to run, how they want to run it and the background for their character.

I find coming up with backgrounds really easy to do, but if you don't, write down a few different sets of "traits" to help them... IE:

Background:
Poor family
Rich family
Orphan

Family background:
Urban
Rural

Family trait:
Good/lawful
Evil/chaotic

Childhood:
Happy
Dangerous
Unhappy


etc... If the player is invested in the character and is interested in where they came from and how they are as they are, they will give more to the RP than just wanting to run around killing and looting everything - they will actually Role Play.

I wasn't intending to make them all the same class, they will play as they want class-wise, just not clerics. And I've drawn the map out for the world, there is 3 sectors, one for each tier, with Gaeldors Cohorts, the Knights of Living Pyre and the Knights of Living Earth. Thanks for the advice still.