PJ Coffey

So, to be clear, this is not something where you roll randomly and you get, like, a backstory happen.

What this is, is it's a series of guided prompts, which has two aims.

One, it's to help your players...

go through their character that they have created in pretty much a system i did originally create it for level up advanced fifth edition but you know the life path system has a certain universal applicability um so it's going through and asking all those sort of questions and then where i think it adds value is it also asks for consent

from the player as to what you the gm can do to the character in a sort of like a level based way so like yeah obviously consent can be withdrawn at any time that's something you should always remember but i think it's quite important to have this option because i come from the era where we had issues like um if you created a character with a family then the gm would

peel them off to quote motivate you so as a result people created frictionless spheroids of characters like loners with no family who are always orphans because if you created parents then that was just an invitation for them to be horribly butchered by the big bad evil guy

Whereas quite recently I created a character like a dwarven fighter and they had a lovely scene where they went to go home, talk to their mum and just have one of those weekends where you go home, see your parents and chill out a bit.

And it was all very, very nice and touching.

So yeah, it's got that.

Probably the most useful things in it are drawing out the distinctions between oaths, vows, and pacts.

And also, as a bit of fun, you can do stuff like rumors or dark secrets, things that people believe about your character that aren't true, but they believe they are.

and things that are true about your character, but that you'd rather keep secret.

And then you can, if enough people in your group cooperate, you can then use that to sort of siege rumors and background, siege rumors and backstory between the various players.

And then when you're doing some sort of interlude scene, like you're having a short rest, say, or a long rest, you know, the sort of thing where you'd like sitting down, having a breather, cup of coffee, or that equivalent, gathered around the fictional water cooler,

then there's the opportunity to bring that sort of thing and that really enhances intra-group roleplay, as in the players are roleplaying between themselves rather than just roleplaying with the DM and then moving around in a Mother May I fashion.

So if none of that sounds appealing to you, that's fine.

It's not for you.

But if you have the case where your players produce zero background or they produce 10,000 to 20,000 words of background and expect you to read all that, then this could be for you.

It's on my blog, homeroomhacking.com, but you can also find it on DriveThruRPG, where I have produced lovely versions in A4, US letter size, and also digital braille.

Except that last one basically splits it, splits pages in half so players can write in them, they've got like a little box to write in, in response to things.