Backgrounds:
Before, I posited that Backgrounds Matter, and I'm inclined to think that they still do--perhaps even more than before.
In our campaign, my Bard is a (not immediate) relative of the local dwarven ruling family. Our Ranger is a champion of his tribe. Our Cleric has a vendetta against a goblin, and our Monk is searching for some kind of cosmic balance.
My Bard and the Ranger both have definitive, vested interests in how things play out for our locales. When the local dwarven ruler is being overthrown by a popular rebellion, my character had to choose to support his family or join the dissenters (an easy choice for a loyal dwarf, but one that made for some difficult encounters and fun roleplaying). When the local tribes are threatened by a powerful magic-user, the Ranger used the party as both allies in the fight and a tool to try to convince other settlements to help his own. Both of us had a great time adventuring over the last few levels and had concrete reasons to do so.
On the other hand, our Cleric's ties are less solid. While still having some distant tie to the dwarven rulers (the same as any subject of the dominion), his greatest loyalty is theoretically to his deity and cause. I suspect that with most players this would be sufficient, though our Cleric is being played as a somewhat less religious sort, with the search for adventure and gold, combined with a fealty to the dwarven settlement and a citizenship in the human world, driving the character.
It's our Monk (whose player has played a Rogue for the last several campaigns she's been in) who is the least vested. Unlike the other three characters in the party, she hails from a monastery further south along the Sword Coast and set out for Icewind Dale (where the rest are from) in order to "restore balance." This vague directive came directly from her deity Silvanus--very cool!--but she has yet to "hear" anything else from him, and has not yet sussed out how best to "restore balance." In fact, almost everything the party does could, in some way, be construed to further that goal. As such, she's been feeling a bit adrift. (This listlessness is further fueled by her lack of personal attachment to anyone or anything in the region--why exactly should she stay with the party, anyway?).
I recognize the Monk's deity problem because I experience the same issue in the campaign I'm running as DM; there the Wizard is an acolyte of Oghma and started the campaign off with a divine vision...that just kind of petered out. There was very little fanfare even when she did complete her divinely inspired mission, and since then I've been at a loss as to how much Oghma should interfere. I was somewhat able to solve the issue by encouraging the party to hire a group of Oghmans to set up shop in their favorite town by building a Mage Guildhall. While not ideal, at least it gets the player's background back in the mix!
Unfortunately, I'm not sure how our DM will solve this issue for the Monk; she's not likely to encounter fellow monastics in the tundras of Icewind Dale!
Conclusion:
Backgrounds do matter--more than ever. Integrating a background to the campaign is a joint effort of the DM and the player and it is crucial for the player's enjoyment that he/she put some energy into it and give the DM an idea of what he/she'd enjoy. Similarly, DMs need to periodically offer ways for characters' backgrounds to have bearing on the story being told--preferably in the way of a choice (as when my Bard had to choose between loyalty and popularity, or when the Ranger had to choose between doing what he thought was right, and doing what he was told.) The choices can be foregone conclusions but should at least appear to offer real choice.
"Apprentice" Levels:
The first few levels in 5e are supposed to go by quickly: characters have few resources, few hit points, and a very low experience threshold to reach. In short, it is my opinion that these levels should be surmounted quickly, with perhaps one or two key encounters per level. It's not that I don't think these levels are important, but rather that the party is so quickly out of resources at these levels that it's key to offer opportunities that are carefully tailored to resolve in a single encounter (rather than drag out over several related but draining encounters). Ideally, these encounters provide opportunities for the characters to try out their identities--to develop a personality, to orient toward a goal, to discern a sub-class, etc.
For example, in the campaign I've been running, back in the early parts of Hoard of the Dragon Queen, the Paladin had to stand up to an enemy champion who was most assuredly stronger than he was in mortal combat. The decision to do so gave the character direction, nobility, and an in-game goal to revenge himself on the enemy champion (since rather than kill the Paladin, he left him bleeding/dying and "shamed"). As a side note, Hoard does offer a few of these opportunities for early character development, but as an overall module I don't think it gets characters high enough fast enough for the exploits it requires of its characters.
In the campaign I'm a player in--so far--I feel like we've side-stepped a lot of these encounters. As apprentice level adventurers, given a sandbox of choices, we tended to choose the routes to success that were least deadly or most safe. While this did keep all of us alive, I think it also prolonged our initial level progression: rather than facing true danger and thereby earning true experience, we kept circumventing it and avoiding it. As a result, it took (I feel) more sessions to level up to 3 and 4 than it otherwise would have.
Mysteries, "Railroading," and Unveiling the Plot:
The idea of adventure as mystery, as puzzle, or as secret can be pretty compelling. I think some of the best campaigns I've run have revolved around the party trying to put a bunch of disparate clues together to figure out what's really going on.
Having said that, some of the least exciting campaigns I ran were the ones where so much information is hidden, so much is going on behind-the-scenes, or so much is left un-said, that the players have no reason to invest their characters in the adventure, the world, or the quest, and the characters themselves have no clear path to advance the story.
The more sandbox-y an adventure, the more prone it is to this kind of directionlessness. Some players, I know, love this kind of open world adventuring--it's why open-world RPG video games have become so popular--but I think this is deceptive: even in open-world RPGs, there are clearly delineated quests, and the better the game, the more clearly those missions are introduced or spelled out. The player(s) may not have to pursue the quest/mission, but it must be clear what the mission is (even if it's not clear what the mission "does" or who it is for).
One lesson I've learned from being a lowbie in this new campaign is that being left out of the loop sucks. It is important to make the PCs--even at low levels--simultaneously feel knowledgeable and curious. It's a tough balance, but a worthy one.
Conclusion:
When possible, design the first few levels with short, roleplaying-heavy, non-deadly encounters in order to give PCs a quick way to introduce their characters. These should be punctuated by a few nearly unavoidable encounters which allow for player choice within the encounters in order to reveal their characters' goals, personalities, and directions.
Given the constraints of our particular sandbox, I'm quite happy with how our DM handled it, and I look forward to attempting to improve on these lower level experiences the next time I'm in the hotseat of DMing for a low level party.
