The Patriot pre-gen was my first character idea for TPA; I fell in love with him at first thought. Daisy had always been designed to choose the agents that were best suited for the task. Agents couldn’t volunteer, train, or even will themselves into the TPA. They had to be chosen. The concept that this strong jawed, ex-government type not only wanted to volunteer but was actively throwing himself into danger was bit of a wet dream; he was perfect. The Patriot unlocked a number of writing bits for us, we began to understand the greater mythos of the world, and we had a great deal of fun deciding how he’d likely react to things. We began weaving these ideas into our adventures, planning bits for all of our character types (PUSH LITTLE CART!). Backstory can be mind blowing when used correctly and can be developed using a couple of simple rules.
Names and stories have been on my mind recently. With Jeff’s wedding last week it was a chance to catch up with some friends retell some old stories and be called by a couple of nicknames I haven’t heard in a while. Also as my wife is with child we get to dream up new stories for the names of a child that has yet to experience them. It’s a wonderful point in time where names are holding more meaning and the use of a different name changes the tone of the experience. Last Friday, at Jeff’s wedding, I couldn’t help but notice the officiant referring to him as Jeffery and butchering his bride’s maiden name (“it rhymes with maverick, damn it!”); fortunately not during the ceremony. It’s as if the man I was standing next to was no longer the person I’ve known for 10+ years but a new married man that I would need to be reintroduced to. The use of a particular name implies a history with that person, to use a nick name implies shared experiences; a first name a familiarity; a last name a degree of respect. Each with name has a new story to go with it.
Yesterday I wrote about my love for pre-builts, be it adventures, characters, or settings. Anything that I don’t have to generate earns some love from me. When I was writing the article however I couldn’t help but come up with a rebuttal against my own argument. After all when I started gaming it was extremely [...]
When we develop worlds what do we remember most? The sprawling landscapes, the epic adventure, or the great bartender in the tavern where the adventure started who retold his adventure from his younger days?
Diseases, magical or otherwise are a bit of an underused device in my gaming circles. Besides the albino vampire were-tiger most of us don’t become infected with anything. To me diseases don’t offer anything terribly interesting to the game, unless it provides some interesting boon to the character or stat bonus why should I be [...]
At Apathy Games we’re big fans of complex characters. What if we took a simple character and instead of making huge complicated mess for them instead made a messy complicated world?
In Sins of our Fathers I discussed the implications of our parents on our lives and specifically those on our characters. When the challenge to write, “Your mother is a whore” came it got me thinking about characters that come from the streets or from impoverished areas and how they might become adventurers.
Personally, I’m terrible at generating names. It’s a bit of a chore and I rarely remember the name after I’m done. While TheForge doesn’t help with remembering them it definitely makes coming up with names easy. “Many times, users are faced with an overwhelming flood of quantity over quality. TheForge eschews this, allowing you to [...]