If you want to play a mage character, an interesting backstory involving being an apprentice is valid. Whether you want to be the former apprentice to an adventuring wizard, the one who has been junior adventuring for years (this can help justify dungeonering as a knowledge, and nearly any skill you think might be useful) or you could be the apprentice of some grand court mage or the sort, struggling to make a name for yourself outside your master's shadow (this can lead to a bookish wi zzz's ard whose still willing to put themselves in danger for glory) or you can play the former apprentice of a necromancer (or some other evil master) and you are trying to be a better person (this allows you to be a little darker, it even can lead to your character struggling with whether being good is worth the costs.) All have opportunity for depth. And which you should play depends on what kind of game you are playing, and what you would enjoy

Also mage is a loose term because there’s also the sorcerer class, who is more similar to the Avatar. They have power within themselves when they’re born, and learn to control the power.

As far as I’m aware, not many races give you intelligence boosts (which is for wizardry) except Dragonborn. Each race has their own unique traits, and it’s up to you which one you would best play as. A gruff dwarf who doesn’t like change. A graceful elf who is strangely detatchrd from the world.

Depends on which edition you are playing @creativedragonbaby
Gnomes have a great int boost in 5e. Making a wizard forest gnome able to have +2int and an extra cantrip (though, not one of the best ones). Though if you are playing 5e and your DM allows it, human variants are one of the best options for literally any class.
In 3.5 grey elves have a boost to intelligence, but at they have poor strength and constitution, which may bite you in the rear.

Warlocks are fun since they have a patron that you can play off and you can basically make it any sort of magical entity, wanna play a pirate? water fiend saved you and struck a bargin, wanna be some kind of fire bender, you fell into lava and a lava deity came to you, wanna be an emo? Bandits killed your family as an infant and a Tzeetchian elder being comes to gift you strength, its what ever and more interesting than lol i have powers

A Dwarf Terramancer. Shunned by his people for his love of and mastery of earthen magic.

Why would they shun him for control of earth? That's like... THE BEST

@dimebag what is the story though?

Our DM hasn't told us anything. He said we can make any character and he'll tailor the story to work around them.

I like some of @derpderp 's ideas though, especially that pirate one.

Derpderp on my phone
If you're going with the pirate couple things:
background should defo be sailor
Take the pact of the blade for lots of fun with barnacled weapons, claw sharpened swords and stuff
And also don't take the great Old ones patron, doesn't fit very well and isn't the best plot wise
Other wise it a great fun and a lot more personal than other classes and you can make your personal quest to be the greatest irate, slay the great kraken and captain the largest fleet
It sounds a bit niesh but I mean...imagine showing up to the port town and being able to barter with everyone because you know the lingo, or being able to call for aid from your crew, basically it's loads of fun and dm allowing you can become really attached or loath your patron

@derpderp sounds l Iike your basing this off 5e. And @dimebag never told us what edition.
Typically you will start off your adventure not as a pirate. Which is fine, it just begs the question, why did you leave pirating to become an adventurer? You will probably need to work with your DM a little. Hearing tell of a quest that would yield great profits only works if that works with your campaign. Being shipwrecked is an option, but it doesn't give you a good reason not just to get on the next pirate ship you see. You could have never wanted to be a pirate and now you finally have the opportunity not to be.

@thekaylapup I mean if your ship sank causing you to make a pact with an other worldly being id avoid sailing for a bit too, a characters backstory isnt their whole thing. And Im assuming 5e since dimebag seems like he may be trying for the first time, which usually means 5e, either way any character is possible in any system. Every character should discuss with their dm to weave them into the story

@derpderp I mean that's fair. Any same rational being probably would want to avoid sailing for a while. And 5e warlocks are op af if you play them well. Pack of the blade is fun, and has some thematic value, plus you can't really be disarmed (although you can't really be disarmed in 5e anyway)but pack of the tome is nearly infinitely better mechanically. Also, regardless of pact you should take the ability to add charisma to your cantrip. Take your other abilities based on what your dm is throwing at you. The ability to see flawlessly in the dark is super powerful unless your dm never uses darkness agaisnt you. Increased range only matters if your dm bothers to care about distance on the field (some dms are super anal about this, others don't even keep track).

@thekaylapup I like to think that character is more important than mechanics, making choices for your character based on power makes me a bit pissy just because you're not roleplaying a characters development, you're focusing your avatars power in a video game basically

I have always been one to develop the two hand in hand. The character needs to make sense with the mechanics, but it is often important to at least consider how powerful your character is. Especially when someone is new to the game, having a character that is powerful but whose mechanics are simple enough can make sure that you get a chance to matter amongst more experienced players.
Plus you can really under power yourself and not be at all viable for your campaign if you make choices purely to fit a concept. So ideally you want to develop your character along side the mechanics, so your character isn't just a puppet for the best possible mechanics, but also isn't worthless mechanically because they are too constrained by concept.

Im not saying screw your characters ability for their actual character, just make decisions that make sense for that character to train into, for example critical roles Vax character, who was a rogue. Multi classed into druid not because it made him stronger but because of his character, and still gave him magic to play with so although the decision was character based it came in handy. Basically power gaming is a no and character building is awesome

@derpderp I agree. I just also think the best way to do that is to build character and mechanics together. Atleast for me.
I also think having an OP character isn't a bad thing for a beginner so long as they aren't trying to power game. The newbie in my last group had this tiefling sorcerer/warlock who was hella OP, except that his character was a crazy old man who regularly couldn't remember what we were doing. But he wasn't a drag on the party because he was hella powerful. One minute he would be singing a song and the next he would make is con save and stop a dragon in its tracks. It was wild.
He eventually died because he was cursed by a mummy. And also he was literally too old to keep adventuring (he was aged by a host nearly to death), but he kept adventuring anyway to help save his home (except when he forgot that's what we were doing). But he would have died probably months before he did, and possibly would have brought more of the party down too, if he hadn't been OP.

Yeah as long as its not purposeful power gaming its fine, if you end up with a high roling sorcerer boom thats how it goes but if someone is like stopping every five minutes to check with the DM that they can do a back flip and throw a bag of holding at an enemy to prone them or some rubbish; basically dnd is a social game not a competition so I feel the character is more important than the mechanics, but obviously it is all about fun etc so as long as everyone at the table is having fun then boom...mission achiveed I guess, I've recently made a dnd group with new players and Im dming for the first time and Ive been very vocal about discussing the type of game everyone wants etc and I feel thats the most important thing

I hear you, I just feel like not pointing out how to make powerful characters to new players is doing them a disservice, as experienced players have already figured it out and really experienced players often can make under powered characters shine. If your group is made of experienced players, letting the newbie be OP is a really good way to help the new player contribute.