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Greetings,

Listening to a Podcast several months ago, they referenced a Character Creation Method where players rolled up "history" for their characters in 5 year increments. These rolls would then spiderweb together into "paths". These background increments would then add modifiers to abilities and skills for your character.

Sadly, I do not recall the name of the RPG they were referencing. However, as I have been playing more RPGs lately, this idea jumped back into the forefront of my mind. Does someone know an RPG that uses this system or contains parts of this system for character creation? I would like to read through it and see it in action.


For example:

So, you start by rolling for secondary school years:
1- No schooling
2-4- Public High School
5- Private school

If you rolled Public High School, roll a d6-
1. Star Athlete- +1 physical ability, and start with athletics skill
2-3. Average Student- Can Choose up to 3 general skills up to level 3
4. Honor Society- Choose up to 2 general skills to level 3, and one general skill to level 5
5. Miscreant- You had a troubled school years. Gain 1 Point of Reputation, and 1 Criminal skill at level 3
6. Drop out- Something caused you to never finish school. -1 Int but +1 wis. Choose one of the following up to level 3: Streetwise, Culture: Criminal, one non-academic general skill

If you roll Miscreant, roll another 1d6 for the next 5 years:
1-2 Incarcerated- Gain Culture: prison at level 3, +1 str
3-4 Living on the streets- Gain Streetwise leve 3 Or +2 if you all ready have it
5 Wanted but never caught- Gain Wanted trait and Blend in trait
6 Blue-collar life- Gain non-academic skill +2 or level 3, toolkit for task

I think you see how this works.....


Have you seen it before and where?


IIRC: The RPG's they were talking about were a specific version of Traveller (Perhaps Mongoose?) and FASA Star Trek (2nd edition maybe?) but I am very hazy on that.......

Traveller definitely has a character history system like that.

It's an interesting system because it balances a desire for bonuses vs the risk of your character starting with disadvantages. It's easy to have a background that includes a bonus for saving a VIP, but just as easily you can end up with a missing limb or other injury.

IIRC you can even have a character die in creation, from too many bad events.

It's generally referred to as "Life Path" character creation and comes in a lot of flavors.

Forbidden Lands is the most current example I have on my shelf.

Basic character creation is what you would expect, but the game comes with with a little booklet that includes the life path progression.

You can select from the list or choose to roll at any point.

First choose/roll for race.
Then a formative event based on race.

Then choose/roll profession.
Roll for a talent.
Roll a formative event for the profession.

Than choose/roll life events with more or less life events based on "age" of the character. Each thing gives you some equipment or skills or talents etc... and you get some broad strokes of your characters history to flesh out their background.

The FFG Legend of the Five Rings RPG had a system sort of like this via the 20 Question Game.

You picked your clan, your family, what you were like when you were younger, so on and so forth. It isn't explicitly designed to create a life story, but after you've done the whole 20 Questions you've basically written a mini-character biography.

I think I've heard the Burning Wheel has a system like this but I haven't played it. The game even lets you make your character older to give them more life experience. The Mouse Guard RPG inherited a really simplified version of the system from what I can tell.

The video game ADOM has this. You can either have it randomly generate or you can answer questions, and it modifies your stats.

My experience with such systems is that people will either wind up with characters they aren't interested in, or that don't make sense for their archetype (with random rolls) or they cherry pick the results to super-star their character (selected answers).

This is best used with random events, to create a non-constructed character. Like, if you don't care if you're a warrior or wizard or thief or whatever, then the random rolls can give you inspiration towards your new character. But if you're trying to create Noble Glandorf, the prodigy of the White Tower, and you keep getting kicked out of school because the dice say you're a criminal and an idiot... That character probably doesn't work the way the player wanted.

Cyberpunk 2020 definitely did this. Not sure if Cyberpunk Red (the current version) keeps it. The Modiphius Infinity RPG does it as well.

I know the books of "Central Casting" had a Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Modern Day version that had a ton of back ground information.
Been out of print for years but I am sure you can find a PDF online somewhere.