Some advice for new DM's trying world building - [Warning: Potential Westworld Spoilers]

Hi all!

I was having a discussion with a friend of mine who is trying to get into DMing by designing his own world that we can all try out. He was having some trouble with coming up with a good range and variety of side quests, beyond very basic kill x, find y types of quests.

He asked my advice and I suddenly came up with a good way of explaining how I do it.

If any of you haven't seen the TV show on HBO Westworld, its about a futuristic theme park where people can go and live out the fantasy of being in the Wild West, replete with anthropomorphic robots who you can interact with in any way you like (and I mean any way).

The show is great in explaining how they make the robots and the storylines associated with them realistic, and the following short clip explains how quite well (don't watch if you're halfway through the show - spoilers incoming):

https://youtu.be/cUQuOOamPDo?t=45s

In the clip, Dr Ford explains why he had to give the host (what they call the robots) a terrible backstory of suffering. Its because it made him more believable as a person. Because only humans suffer, right?

In the show, every single host has a horrible backstory. [Trigger Warnings] Whether their children were murdered or just died, or they are haunted by their crime filled past, or they were raped by an awful madman, these stories gave them life.

This is, sort of, the route I take with my D&D characters. Although I take the line that they don't ALL have to be terrible, every NPC must have a backstory to make the world a rich place to explore.

For example:

• The woman working in the tavern - her parents were murdered by raiders, forcing her to flee and work for a pittance in this town. Now she'd give all she had for someone to kill the man who killed her parents.

• The young child begging for scraps of food in the town square is an orphan. He never knew his parents, but would do anything to join a band of adventurers and become a hero himself.

• The Captain of the Guard grew up in a life of poverty, and was forced to do terrible things to survive. Now, as Captain, he is committed to stamping out crime wherever it may be.

By taking an approach that gives your NPCs rich backstories, not only will they be easier to roleplay, but the quests will come too. In the first example the quest is evident - track down and kill the man who killed her parents.

The second example may throw up a situation where the BBEG could be the child's father/mother, do you tell him? Or keep it a secret? Does he join their parents? Maybe you have to go and rescue him?

In the third example maybe you have been arrested by the Captain for thievery/being a murder hobo party. He wants you to pay for your crimes - either help him solve the crime of who has been killing prominent townspeople, or he'll have you executed.

I hope this helps and wasn't too obvious a point to make. I've played some games before where the NPCs have had no back story and the world just seems very 2D.

Thanks!