Archive for the ‘Building characters’ Category »

Livin’ the Good Life: More Ran...

Posted on Apr 09 2010 | No Comments
Livin’ the Good Life: More Random Background Events for PCs Image via Wikipedia Stumped for a background for your newest character? Why not try some randomly generated ones? Last week, we covered the steps for generating a random background event and the tables for bad things... Read More »

Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fort...

Posted on Apr 02 2010 | No Comments
Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune: Random Background Events for PCs Sometimes a good background is hard to find. Usually I have no trouble coming up with a full-fledged past for my characters, complete with NPCs, subtle plot hooks, and flaws ready-made for the GM to exploit. Usually, I hand... Read More »

Change Your Hat, Change Your Charact...

Posted on Mar 19 2010 | No Comments
Change Your Hat, Change Your Character I myself have 12 hats, and each one represents a different personality.  Why just be yourself? –Margaret Atwood I love props. I’m constantly making props for my games, from fake newspaper articles... Read More »

Evil Does Not Equal Stupid: 8 Tips f...

Posted on Feb 26 2010 | No Comments
Evil Does Not Equal Stupid: 8 Tips for Playing Evil Characters Whether as a PCs or an NPCs, evil characters tend to get the short end of the stick. All too often, they’re portrayed as short-sighted, reactionary, shallow, and … well, stupid. Frequently, all evil characters look and... Read More »

Unintentional Sexism in RPGs (Even W...

Posted on Oct 19 2009 | 2 Comments
Unintentional Sexism in RPGs (Even Women Do It!) We’ve all seen a lot written about women in roleplaying games. We’ve read about the kinds of games women prefer (roleplaying vs. combat-heavy). We’ve read about how the “boys-club mentality”... Read More »

Beyond ‘Fred’: Roman Nam...

Posted on Oct 05 2009 | 6 Comments
Beyond ‘Fred’: Roman Names for Characters Finding a good name is sometimes the hardest part of designing an NPC. You want something more exotic than “Fred the Fighter”, but “Frewxyque the Grand Thunder Duke” becomes too hard to say with a... Read More »

Building Better NPCs III: Character ...

Posted on Sep 25 2009 | 1 Comment
Building Better NPCs III: Character Webs What is a character web? A character web is a map — a specific kind of map that charts the relationships of NPCs to one another. It’s a great tool for figuring out how one NPC may respond to another — or... Read More »

Building Better NPCs II: 8 Steps to ...

Posted on Sep 23 2009 | No Comments
Building Better NPCs II: 8 Steps to Memorable NPCs You’ve got your NPCs classified. You’ve separated the extras and walk-ons from the bit players and major characters. But how exactly do you go about creating those unique characters? Here’s a step-by-step... Read More »

“I hit him with a BoAF*…...

Posted on Jul 29 2009 | 3 Comments
*Ball of Abysmal Flame One of my all-time favorite RPGs is Ars Magica. I love the fact that it doesn’t try to impose game balance limitations on mages. I also love the troupe-style play where everyone gets to play a magus/maga and something else. As a Storyguide, I love the fact that the group as a whole works together to create at least some of the NPCs... Read More »

City Creation: Government

Posted on Jun 04 2009 | No Comments
I’m going to skip over the “City’s Look” category for now; currently, Meadowbrook isn’t developed enough for me to have an idea of how it looks like yet. Which brings us down the list to “mayor”, “police chief”, etc. What do all these positions boil down to? Government: who governs the city, what they do,... Read More »


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