Behold, Products! The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide

P.S. Sorry for the borked links earlier, I still haven’t mastered WordPress.

I recently had the pleasure to read and review James D’Amato’s Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide, which is currently available online for purchase! James contacted me for the interview, but in true Beau fashion I took forever to review it (sorry!).

Full disclosure: I was given a free review copy and I think James is pretty rad.

Photos in this review are by Brie Beau Sheldon.

I approached the review in a weird fashion, to try to get a full perspective. The book itself is basically a tool to help you build the background of your character for RPG play. Some elements of it seem to trend towards games with levels, but I think this could be used for most roleplaying. It uses die rolls for randomizers at times, but also a lot of it is pick lists and freewriting to flesh out the character.

The way I approached this was to have three separate sessions of exercises (there are so many included in the book)! with three different people, and each of them had their own individual characters, while I kept the same character through the whole test. Each of the character had varying levels of previous information – mine, for example, was made up on the spot! I also spent a fair amount of time looking at the book

The book itself has a fun orange, black, and greenish color scheme and is relatively well organized. I will note there are a few spaces where the text contrast is not as comfortable for me to read, but aside from that, the book is pretty clear to follow and read.

The biggest comment I’d have about this book? The questions were often wonderfully open. I am not good with constraints on my creativity – I like a lot of free space to wonder along. There is guidance for a lot of the questions, plus the random rolls, but enough of the questions allowed me to explore where I wanted to go.

I really appreciate James’s thoughtfulness in providing subjects that range from death to relationships to magical objects and places – it feels like there’d be something here for basically everybody! Special love for the “Damn Merlinials” exercise, too. The exercises vary in complexity, with some including random rolls resulting in skipping forward sections, and others just simple fill-in-the-blanks, and some even have a combination of methods to answer all of the questions.

Overall, I think that it’s really useful tool for someone who wants to create deep, complex characters with a lot of history, flavor, and support for their perspectives and beliefs.

A note on pronouns: One thing that I didn’t like in the book is that all of it uses he or she pronouns, even when it’s quite clunky. This was also noted by all three of the other players I tested with. I do know, however, that James didn’t want this in the book and he even consulted with me on how to address it, and I wrote a statement to his publisher. I appreciate James’s intent a lot and wish his publisher had followed it. I bring this up because I know I have many nonbinary readers and the use of binary pronouns from one of our own can feel a little jarring, and I want you to know that James had the best intentions, but couldn’t push it through. That’s basically the only major issue I ran into with this book though!

I’m including the full text of the responses to the prompts I played through, but they only include the answers to the questions – for those you’ll need to get your own copy of the Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide by James D’Amato on Amazon or at Barnes & Noble!

Beau’s Characters

Name: Stellaran

Class/Race: Warlock/Half-Orc

49) Old Haunts

• The hand of the statue in the entryway is never rusted or covered in patina, always polished from the hands of everyone who crosses through the door where they grasp it for good luck.
• All of the curtains have been opened, flooding the house with an unsettling amount of light, highlighting the dust that floats across the rooms and never settles.
• Food! The kitchen remains unchanged, a half step into the basement, and still bursting with food of all types.
• It alerts people I am trying to avoid to my presence, and it costs me a favor. I have to be friendly to servants who run the kitchen, and they’ll also share word of my presence to many who would want to know.
• I know someone who possesses secret knowledge and they have fallen on hard times, and think I am dead.
• They are my mentor who helped me make my pact and now are too infirm to fulfill their obligations.
• They are ashen-skinned, looking as though they have less life within them.
• My former home is dangerous because I used to be involved with a powerful group that doesn’t like deserters.

57) A Taste of Death

• Yes, by being more hedonistic. It turns out, if there’s no afterlife to worry about, you don’t worry about it.
• They were expecting something – anything! But there was nothing but a void.
• It was, the void was empty, dark, but felt like no light was even needed. And it was brief – in a moment, they were back.
• No, they haven’t. They kept it quiet because they know that others need some kind of hope.
• They fear that the next time will be different and there will be something inside the void, waiting for them.
• The only reason to do good is to do good and help people, and there’s no real reason to do bad.
• No, so long as the void remained empty. They would want to stay there. It’s peaceful.
• If it was time, and if the void was empty.

These prompts are really useful to establish surrounding story for characters. I wish the pronouns were neutral because it would make it easier – it feels obtrusive and messy. Getting past that, it’s fun to explore your character’s background, & I could see using this to set up play.

-Beau

23) On The Line

• 5: Before I mastered my craft
• 4: Test my abilities
• 6: Got away unscathed
• 6: I should have tried it sooner
• I gathered my mentor’s books and tried to reach out into the darkness. It reached back.

42) Five Things You Can’t Throw Away

• Given as a Gift
  • It is a silk vest that I was given by my father. He was a magic user too, but I’ve never felt it suited me.

I liked the opportunity to dig into first experiences of danger, and whether you pursued it or it pursued you. I also think the objects characters keep are super important, and exploring them like this is a valuable way to find out more about the character.

-Beau

78) Pocket Dimension

• Otherworldly and surreal
• Something to hold wisdom
  • A globe that is of the stars around the planet rather than the planet itself, which changes with the season.
• A place to practice your skills
  • A space filled with dummies of varying shapes and sizes, allowing me to practice casting spells with the greatest care – to harm or to avoid harm.
• Something to hide secrets
  • I whisper and bind them in a cage of shadows that is overfull with them, nearly straining at the welds, but will never burst.

33) Magic Mirror

• A dreamless sleep.
• I am truly powerful, though it is hard to see the magic I do at times.
• A barren wasteland that was once what I called home.
• That I could have my power without my pact.
• If only someone knew how I have cut corners, not done my best, not given my all – it would be my greatest shame, to be revealed as lazy and irresponsible.

These exercises let me really reach out into the weirder ways my character might experience things, and ways they felt about themselves and the world. That was pretty cool! I appreciated that the open-ended questions granted so much space to play.

-Beau

Dillon’s Characters

Aasimar warlock- Asterix Waybound

49) Old Haunts

• The sky is always that perfect shade of blue and the clouds never change.
• The architecture style has changed. I can’t find my around anymore.
• I can still find information. A mentor and an old friend can fill me in on what’s being happening.
• The price of this is: I have to reveal something about my past to my companion. My mentor will insist on them understanding what is going on.
• It alerts my presence to those I’d rather avoid. Those that I left behind will learn of me being here.

NPC-  Devil deal broker. She provides me with links, contacts and deals when I need them.

• Has political authority
• Has fallen on hard times
• Thinks I’m dead
• She has a festering acid burn.

Danger- My former life is dangerous because I have unsettled debts.

57) Taste of Death

Elven Cleric- Mortum Calahoon

• They treat life differently. Life is a treasure to be extended as long as possible.
• They expected revelations and enlightenment.
• That’s exactly what they found.
• They will not shut up about it.
• Them and others not dying but just ceasing to be.
• All people should have the right to choose their death.
• They would want to travel between life and death as much as they can. There’s always more to understand.
• When life has nothing new to show them.

The questions were open but evocative. Beau and I went in entirely different routes with our characters. I liked the hooks that added in extra characters because that’s something players can be nervous to do. I enjoyed the process and found it useful!

-Dillon Conlan

John’s Characters

Character Name: Locksley

Neutral Good Human Fighter

23) On The Line

• 3: Before I could call myself an adult.
• 5: To save someone important.
• 4: I lost a limb.
• 3: If only I had been stronger then.
• The moment Locksley lost his hand. He was putting himself between his friend and a highwayman, and the stick he found turned out not to be as solid as the robber’s cutlass was.

42) Five Things You Can’t Throw Away

• Found in a Dungeon
  • I’ve been hanging onto, ironically, the hand of a statue. It’s crudely carved, probably by the goblins who were living there. I’ve been considering having it enchanted as a prosthetic.

Really neat. These got me thinking about things I wouldn’t ordinarily think of with a D&D type character. The sort of thing like, when do you start risking your life as a character? Some RPGs ask this question, but not all of them. It was neat to start with that answer already in mind. Also, the thought process about what the character is holding onto and what he cares about beyond the adventures. The ability to be fascinated by the craftsmanship of their foes says something about a character.

-John Sheldon

Thomas’s Characters

Character Name: Burgen Firstnether

Class/Race: Muscle Knight / Old Dwarve

78) Pocket Dimension

• Utilitarian and Spare

• Something that Hides Secrets:
  • The Whisper Horn; the whisper horn when whispered into pulls thoughts out of the mind and soul which convert it to a drinkable fluid which when the spigot is turned on the horn can be emptied into very small glass vials.
• Something to Hold Wisdom:
  • My Grandfather’s Bones; when tossed they land and provide answers based on a lifetime’s experiences. Their patterns can be interpreted.
• Someplace to Practice my Skills:
  • Every Path is Constantly Changing; the place constantly shifts and changes requiring mundane walks done a thousand times before, to cause you to think well and fast, and react faster.

33) Magic Mirror

1. The Snowglobe; a glass sphere with the last snowfall to ever touch the mountains peaks within it. If shaken it would bring snow back to the mountains.
2. I was the most protective knight in the Oldest Lord’s personal guard.
3. After my death, my bones were washed and then smashed by the Oldest Lord.
4. That I could spend a life time pursuing the tools needed to secure the Oldest Lords safety against invaders.
5. As I was a needy child, my father spent time with me which took him away from his duties at the gates, which allowed thieves to come and rob the Brewhouse of its rarest grains. Fulfilling my needs have come at a great cost to my countrymen and culture.

Sometimes it is difficult to provide yourself appropriate prompts and just get writing. What specific details should I note out that will be enough to be able to run with a character in a game to my fullest ability? Having prompts that provided me plenty of room for world building, but touched on specific notes of a characters history and personality was super useful for getting a good idea of how I would play them. I can reference these shorter notes much easier to get into “the role”.

– Thomas Novosel