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.

Characters grow like branches of a tree. They start out as a singular thought are planted, cared for, and grow fast.

Whether we like to admit it or not our parents played a large role in forming us into the people who we are today. Sons look to their fathers and daughters to their mothers. So why is it that we almost consistently put no thought into our family when designing our characters

You have this huge idea for a campaign. You’ve spent countless hours jotting down notes and fleshing out NPCs and now you’ve begun play. Your players love it and stories and characters flow forth mightily. You are filling countless notebooks with ideas and stories!

Now how do you keep track of this mess of paper? What if you want to share some notes with another gamemaster to get their feedback? How could your players contribute to the notes that you’ve created? Better yet, how could they contribute to the world you’ve been building?

Create a wiki.