Day 14 Main Prompt: Compelling Characters

I find that life path systems can help create compelling characters. I am thinking of the kind we see in Traveller, Cyberpunk 2020, or Twilight 2000 & Dark Conspiracy. These systems give us a frame work to build backstories and motivations for our characters. While this can be a fun and fulfilling experience it isn’t always the right approach. 

In some games the emphasis is on emergent play in the world and the campaign is about the world as opposed to the characters, in those games you might not even want to bother naming your character until they survive a level! I enjoy playing these types of games as well, a great example that has become popular in recent years is a funnel for Dungeon Crawl Classics.  

Let’s go back to the games where a life path is more appropriate and take a look at what it offers. These systems are often a series of charts you roll on and it is up to the player, possibly in conjunction with the Referee, to fill in the details. Why did the Traveller character learn that particular skill? Who is the Cyberpunk 2020 character’s older sister and why is their relationship what it is? Sometimes you can develop the story as you go, Traveller, Twilight 2000 and Dark Conspiracy are good for this, and sometimes it is almost best to make the rolls first, characters can weave in and out of the Cyberpunk 2020 character’s life during the process. I still like to flesh things out as I go through each step, worse case scenario you might have to go back and slightly adjust the fiction you created during an earlier step. Better yet just make it work, real life can be messy, no reason your Cyberpunk’s life can’t be as well.  

Do you have a favorite life path system?

Day 14 Alternate Prompt: Awakening and my d10 roll is a 1, describe a monster

The procedure was a success. Muldune felt great! His endurance, strength and speed were much greater than before. He was also aware of a clarity that he didn’t have before. He could see that they were scared of him and why not? They were like insects to him. How could he not have seen that before? All those years wasted serving his country instead of himself. Patriotism was something to keep the weak in line, he would have to harness that when he assumed his rightful place, running the whole show. First step was to gain access to the database and scrub the records of this program and any notes they had on him. Next, eliminate those that could testify against him. 

Hmm, that seemed like a lot of work, he wasn’t against working hard but why not do it all in one fell swoop? All he had to do was scrub the computer records and set off a backpack nuke on the base, that will set the stage for his ascension as they come to him to track down the perpetrators. Now he just needed a scape goat…  

That’s all for today, until tomorrow be excellent to each other!

August is #RPGaDay2024 and I am going to posting daily responses to the prompts. You can find more information about #RPGaDAY2024 here: https://www.autocratik.com/2024/07/announcing-rpgaday2024-for-august.html

There are two sets of prompts this year and since I have room to do so on the blog I will answer both. In episode S2E6 of my podcast titled RPGaDAY2024 Panel Discussion I assemble an esteemed panel and we go through the main prompts for the entire month’s so I will try to give different answers here on the blog but may end up repeating myself occasionally.  

On their podcast Mirke the Meek suggested using the alternate prompts to create a setting and that is a great idea so I’m going to steal that. The setting I am going to craft for this month will be a modern, conspiracy style setting. Nominally I think we’ll set it in the 1970’s to avoid the problems cell phones and the internet can cause if player characters have access to them.

Here are the main prompts:

And here are a set of alternative prompts suggested by Skala Wyzwania, look at the day on the left, pick the theme, then roll d10.