{"id":1091,"date":"2019-04-05T10:00:49","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T10:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/?p=1091"},"modified":"2021-11-16T00:39:04","modified_gmt":"2021-11-16T05:39:04","slug":"behold-products-the-ultimate-rpg-character-backstory-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/2019\/04\/behold-products-the-ultimate-rpg-character-backstory-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Behold, Products! The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

P.S. Sorry for the borked links earlier, I still haven’t mastered WordPress.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I recently had the pleasure to read and review James D\u2019Amato\u2019s Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide<\/a>, which is currently available online for purchase<\/a>! James contacted me for the interview, but in true Beau fashion I took forever to review it (sorry!). <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full disclosure: I was given a free review copy and I think James is pretty rad.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photos in this review are by Brie Beau Sheldon. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The book itself, The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide, by James D’Amato.
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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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.
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The biggest comment I\u2019d 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.
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I really appreciate James\u2019s thoughtfulness in providing subjects that range from death to relationships to magical objects and places – it feels like there\u2019d be something here for basically everybody! Special love for the \u201cDamn Merlinials\u201d 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.
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Overall, I think that it\u2019s 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.
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A note on pronouns: One thing that I didn\u2019t like in the book is that all of it uses he or she pronouns, even when it\u2019s quite clunky. This was also noted by all three of the other players I tested with. I do know, however, that James didn\u2019t 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\u2019s 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\u2019t push it through. That\u2019s basically the only major issue I ran into with this book though!
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I\u2019m 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\u2019ll need to get your own copy of the Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide by James D’Amato on Amazon<\/a> or at Barnes & Noble<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Beau\u2019s Characters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Name: Stellaran <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Class\/Race: Warlock\/Half-Orc
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49) Old Haunts<\/p>\n\n\n\n