It's hard for me to comment greatly on the details of a system I have not read. I am though not at all averse to games that allow you to build a character history. Though of course that "generic" history has to be fit into the specifics of the campaign world. WOIN does this pretty well. You might be a wizards apprentice as your origin but which wizard and where still has to be decided in game.
It's similar with Beyond the Wall. However, BtW is more young adult oriented. It takes inspiration from the novels of Ursula LeGuin (Earthsea), Lloyd Alexander (Chronicles of Prydain), Tolkien (The Hobbit), and arguably the first few books of Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time), where it is often about relatively young heroes exploring beyond the bounds of their lifelong homes and grow into heroes. It's why playbooks are generally are akin to "Would-Be Knight," "Self-Taught Mage," "Young Woodsman," or "Untested Thief," etc. You may be level 1 in the game, but you are level 0 in life. As such, BtW generally assumes that your characters belong to the same village or town.
Your background questions are generally about your history in this town: who are your parents? how were you distinguished as a child? how did you learn your trade? Who was village adult who you were close with? But most of these answers are fairly generic and give the player and GM room to collaboratively create. It's really about basic things like, "Okay, Player 2. You get to create and place a location in the town. Since you rolled that your parents are blacksmiths, perhaps you should add a smithy." Your players will create the minimum and then you get to fill in the rest.
I didn't mean to imply it was too expensive. I was just saying I wasn't going at this very moment to check it out. I just sunk some cash into WOIN but I will definitely consider this game.
Yeah, WOIN looks pretty neat, but I have too many other systems to try first.
Yes this sort of stuff is metagame for me. I have only briefly looked at Dungeon World. I think I went to a seminar at Gen Con one time. So I thought Dungeon World allowed players to do that sort of stuff but I look at a lot of games so I might be off.
Although this is 'metagame' - and not appropriate for your tastes - it also isn't an issue for me because of how it blends player and player character engagement. The player must engage and roleplay their character in order to invoke their aspects. The player characters are pushing themselves when it pertains to who they are, their values, their history, and their nature. I just don't see metagame mechanics as a bogeyman when it actually engenders roleplay and player enagement.
It can be a challenge but for me I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. Whenever a PC is in his home waters, I almost always give him some NPC contacts. At character creation if it's important to the PC (and they know how I play) they will request certain types of contacts.
Sure but sometimes you don't necessarily know what would be appropriate for your character until during the midst of play itself. IMO, this is the benefit of Fate's mechanic here. You may call it metagame, but it ensures that the roleplay can continue without player-PC dissonance disruption. Not all metagaming breaks roleplaying immersion. It's the player character saying, "Hey, I was a bodyguard for the prince, so I know there is actually a secret entrance that leads from the outer garden shed to the palace kitchen."
All of those are valid reasons for that style of play. In fact when listing the advantages of that playstyle, your items are often given as advantages. It's just not what I'm looking for in a game. I find FATE a very interesting game in many ways. As written it's just not for me. In fact I believe WOIN has a lot of the same advantages and a system a bit easier to house rule away the parts I don't like.
Oh, I understand that this is not what you are looking for in a game, but as I said before, I like talking about Fate.
I am going to recommend the Black Hack again, which apparently will have a second edition this year. (I just found out about 2e from a recently finished Kickstarter.) It is D&D O/BX meets 5E. Stripped down basic classes: warrior, thief, conjuror, cleric. Advantage/disadvantage. Unified roll-under-ability checks: for saves, attacks, and skills. Super customizable. Cheap (~$2). Entire rules are ~20 pages.
