Tag Archives: character development

Professor Jimbles Presents! How to make a backstory.

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I said it was coming, and here it is. The three steps I follow to make a workable and vaguely interesting backstory that will work for any game that doesn’t require extensive and detailed character histories. I’d pop in a little more detail if you were going to play in a social LARP or Sandbox (GM creates a world and unleashes the players upon it. Plot hooks, no railroad.) game.

Generally you make a character while considering the others in your party, and choose a class first (in the tactical games, at least.) so I suggest grab the rough outlines of your mechanics, and build the backstory around that.

I’m going to be using one of my new favourite characters. His personality and powers are best shown in a rules-light, “make up your own damned abilities” game, but he’s a great example of how my three steps turned a basic idea into someone that can entertainingly work with the others in the party. If more questions arise while writing, run with them.

Enter Karas, the Herald of Death.

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The Unusual Suspects – The Samurai

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Good evening all. Once again, my apologies for the rather long delay between updates. I’m still incredibly busy with work, but I’ve also been suffering from a bit of writer’s block… every time I’ve sat down to write something recently, I’ve ended up staring at the screen for an hour or so, then giving up and playing some Final Fantasy.

I’m also likely to be offline entirely for at least a few weeks through the coming month or so, due to some travel I have coming up for work. While I’ll be able to check email and so on, getting on the blog is going to be highly unlikely.

So, I’ve decided to do a quick update for The Unusual Suspects as a way of easing myself back into it and making sure I’ve at least got something done before I’m away for another month or so. I’ll try to get another update or two up before Saturday, which is when I fly out for the first bit of work.

This character is one that I didn’t actually create myself, but I did have quite a bit of input into his design. He was built by the GM for a Supers game that I was joining part way through. I’m afraid the writing for this one might be a little rough, but right now it’s about all I can manage.

So, without any further delay, let’s meet tonight’s guest…

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The Unusual Suspects – Varian Blackthorne

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Update: I’ve received the picture I ordered of Varian. I think it’s turned out really well, and I’ve added it to the post. For details on the artist, see the miscellaneous information section below.

Well ladies and gentlemen, I’m back. I’ve actually been back from down the coast for a while now, but have been run ragged by training my replacement at work, settling into my new role, and getting back into the gym. Throw in a bit of illness over the last few days, and I’m wrecked.

To top it all off, the work I’d done on finishing off the back story and so on for Norva Wintarius was lost when my computer crashed while I was writing it up. Combined with the fact that the friend I built that character for has now dropped out of my Skulls & Shackles game (meaning Norva got only one appearance as a PC), I’ve kind of lost interest in finishing her off for now. I still plan on going back and fixing it up at some point, because I really like the character concept, but it won’t be for a while.

Instead, I’m moving onto the second installment of The Unusual Suspects. This time around we’re going to take a look at my character from a weekly World of Darkness game I play in.

So, let’s meet tonight’s guest…

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