It must have been anywhere from 10 to 15 years ago when I first discovered it and I don't remember who made this product or if the publisher is still in business, but Central Casting was a wonderful book.
It was sort of a character history/background generator meant to be used with any fantasy RPG. I think they also had one for science fiction RPGs.
By the use of die rolls, you created an entire background/history for your first level character before he had even gone on his first adventure.
It had dozens upon dozens of tables to roll for everything from place/date of birth, family, friends, romances, education, social standing, military service, culture, gods worshipped, personality, to a multitude of other choices/aspects for the history/background of your character. That's just the tip of the iceberg, there were so many choices and tables.
It was modular and you could take or leave what you wanted or roll again. Almost every choice gave your character some benefit/favor or some drawback/flaw.
I think it was between 96 to 128 pages long and must have had close to a hundred or more different tables. It was wonderful. I loved it. I and my players spend a couple of hours rolling dice to create each of our characters.
By the time you were finished you felt that your character must have reached 9th level already and qualified for gaining his own stronglhold, while in truth you were still 1st level and had not even started adventuring yet!
Of course it could be abused by re-rolling too often and keeping only game-mechanic benefits while keeping only role-playing drawbacks and sometimes we certainly took advantage of it but that was part of the fun.
For those of us who enjoy the process of making a character as much as role-playing the character, Central Casting was a wet-dream.
Doesn anyone remember this product? Is there anything like it on the market now? I think that the The Book of Distinctions & Drawbacks from Cryptosnark Games is the closest I have found to it but that's a more character favor/flaw book than a character background/history generator like Central Casting was.
It was sort of a character history/background generator meant to be used with any fantasy RPG. I think they also had one for science fiction RPGs.
By the use of die rolls, you created an entire background/history for your first level character before he had even gone on his first adventure.
It had dozens upon dozens of tables to roll for everything from place/date of birth, family, friends, romances, education, social standing, military service, culture, gods worshipped, personality, to a multitude of other choices/aspects for the history/background of your character. That's just the tip of the iceberg, there were so many choices and tables.
It was modular and you could take or leave what you wanted or roll again. Almost every choice gave your character some benefit/favor or some drawback/flaw.
I think it was between 96 to 128 pages long and must have had close to a hundred or more different tables. It was wonderful. I loved it. I and my players spend a couple of hours rolling dice to create each of our characters.
By the time you were finished you felt that your character must have reached 9th level already and qualified for gaining his own stronglhold, while in truth you were still 1st level and had not even started adventuring yet!
Of course it could be abused by re-rolling too often and keeping only game-mechanic benefits while keeping only role-playing drawbacks and sometimes we certainly took advantage of it but that was part of the fun.
For those of us who enjoy the process of making a character as much as role-playing the character, Central Casting was a wet-dream.
Doesn anyone remember this product? Is there anything like it on the market now? I think that the The Book of Distinctions & Drawbacks from Cryptosnark Games is the closest I have found to it but that's a more character favor/flaw book than a character background/history generator like Central Casting was.
