The Best Background For Roleplaying in Starfield

A true roleplaying-centric build transcends combat, delving into interactions that seamlessly weave your character into Starfield’s world. These are the best backgrounds for roleplaying in Starfield!

How To Choose Your Background

To choose a background in Starfield, start the game, and once at the main menu, select “New” to start a new game. Go through the guided tutorial, and you’ll soon be able to fully create your character, making a biometric ID, Body, Face, and then selecting a Background and three optional Traits.

See our Full Character Creation Guide.

The Best Backgrounds For Roleplaying

1. Homesteader

“The discovery of the Settled System’s many oxygen-rich planets and moons meant humans could live just about anywhere…if they had the know how. You did, and utilized it to great effect.”

One of the best choices for a roleplaying build is the Homesteader. This background gives players a truly deep understanding of one of the most common elements and themes in the game’s world: Settling the stars.

For most of those living outside of the big cities in the Settled Systems, homesteading is the primary way of life. This background encapsulates and embodies this theme to the max, both mechanically and especially from a roleplaying perspective, as it has some of the most robust and extensive dialogue options available. Allowing players to have unique experiences with remote civilian outposts on backwater planets that help cement a player in the universe of Starfield.

Regarding mechanics, at level 1, we are given one rank in the Geology, Surveying, and Weight Lifting skills.

Geology will allow us to get more common and uncommon inorganic resources from surface objects, this is an essential skill for this build as a Homesteader, you are going to really be leaning into the outpost building and crafting vein of the game, and resources are what allow you to build aforementioned things.

Surveying will add an optional zoom function to the scanner and increase its distance to 20 meters, allowing us to scan the plethora of resources easily we will get from Geology. This skill is also essential to making us a lot of money in this build, as surveying planets for Constellation Mission Board quests will be a prime source of income, in addition to selling Gas Giant survey data to Vlad upon the satellite station known as the Eye.

Weight Lifting will increase our carrying capacity by 10 kilos and will be a quintessential skill to this homesteader build as mentioned above, resources make this character go around, so being able to carry a lot of resources is critical. These skills combine to give a comprehensive and synergistic build to roleplay as one of the most common and important types of humans in the Settled Systems.

2. Professor

“You always enjoyed learning, but nothing could compare to the joy of teaching others. As humankind spread throughout the stars, there was never a lack of knowledge to obtain, and you gladly assisted.”

Another strong option is the Professor background, especially with how well it fits in with the main quest faction Constellation and synergizes with most of your companion characters. This background also provides unique dialogue options and encapsulates its theme mechanically by getting us off to one of the strongest starts to a crafting/research based approach to the game possible by granting us one rank in three Science-based skills, Astrodynamics, Geology, and Research Methods.

Astrodynamics will boost our grav jump range by 15%, allowing us to explore the universe and its mysteries to more remote planets/systems.

Geology, as we know from the previous entry, will allow us to find more common and uncommon inorganic resources, which will be the fuel to fund our research and crafting capabilities.

Lastly and most importantly, Research Methods reduces our required amount of resources to craft items and complete research by 10%, which synergizes wonderfully with the first two skills, allowing us to get to a remote planet with rarer materials, the ability to find more of those materials, and then making the most bang for our buck with those said materials.

This is what makes the Professor a real roleplaying powerhouse as it jumps starts the research and crafting aspect of the game immediately, giving players seeking that experience an immersive and engaging experience right at the start of the game rather than having to wait or build into it later on as many of the combat focused builds have to settle for.

3. Long Hauler

“Let those other hotheaded pilots obsess over laser weapons and maneuverability. You’re a space trucker, pure and simple. Pack the cargo, get it there fast, get paid, repeat. Life is simple and good.”

Another fantastic background for roleplaying is the Long Hauler background. This is an extremely thematic background that is reflected decently well in its mechanical build it provides us right at level 1 with one rank in the Weight Lifting, Piloting, and Ballistic Weapon Systems skills.

Weight Lifting, as mentioned earlier, is a very good skill in Starfield in general, but especially so for a Long Hauler who needs to shuttle massive amounts of items and material across the sea of black.

The Piloting skill will allow us to have access to high-tier ships and thrusters right at the start, making us a maneuverable and skilled pilot for navigating around the star yards and various locations we will be traveling to and from on our delivery runs for the Trade Authority and other Mission Board quests to make an honest days wage in the cosmos.

Lastly, Ballistic Weapons Systems increases the damage done by Ballistic ship weapons by 10% and reduces their cost by 20% while in targeting mode. Thus giving us some stronger bite while defending our precious cargo during our runs. This is an incredibly useful skill to have right off the hop as it will help us survive and thrive where most haulers would typically be defenseless or forced to run in a firefight.

The dialogue options provide some of the most down to earth blue collar feels this side of the Milkyway and makes the grandiose and often times larger than life main quest and faction warfare melt into your rearview mirror as you grav jump away to your next drop-off blasting your favorite set of tunes.

The Final Word

In the boundless expanse of Starfield, the best backgrounds for roleplaying aren’t mere choices; they’re portals into unique narratives. Whether tilling the celestial soil as a Homesteader, unraveling cosmic mysteries as a Professor, or cruising the interstellar highways as a Long Hauler, each background immerses you in a distinctive facet of the universe. As you embark on your roleplaying adventure, let the chosen background be the brush that paints your character’s tale across the cosmic canvas of Starfield, making your journey truly extraordinary. For more news, tips, tricks, guides, and builds, be sure to check out our website. We hope you found this article useful, let us know what you think.

More Guides For ESO