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First Post
I'm about to start a new semi-regular Eberron campaign for my 12-year-old nephew and two of his friends. I'll be running the three published Eberron adventures for starters, and I want this to be a heroic campaign.
These kids tend to come up with background stories along the lines of: my family was killed by orcs and I'm out for revenge. They always create characters that are nothing more than a band of orphaned friendless sociopaths who are driven only by greed and no reason to cooperate, much less even talk to each other. And their usual character backgrounds become just another exercise in powergaming. Last week they picked their birthplaces based on what advantages (like additional class skills) those regions would give them.
I'd like to steer them away from this. But I don't want them to feel like I am handing them a character they have to play. I want to hand them pieces of information (possibly on note cards) they have to use as a starting point for their story. I'd like to give each of the players three or four pieces of general information (parents alive? what do they do? how many siblings? where are they from?) that they can use to work up a suitable background for their character that lends itself toward a heroic campaign.
So does anyone know of a random background generator online that would fill the bill? (BTW I tried the NPC background generator at the Wizards site but it wasn't quite what I am looking for.) Or does anyone know of a source for snippets of background info that I can use to generate a few broad pieces of information about these characters?
These kids tend to come up with background stories along the lines of: my family was killed by orcs and I'm out for revenge. They always create characters that are nothing more than a band of orphaned friendless sociopaths who are driven only by greed and no reason to cooperate, much less even talk to each other. And their usual character backgrounds become just another exercise in powergaming. Last week they picked their birthplaces based on what advantages (like additional class skills) those regions would give them.
I'd like to steer them away from this. But I don't want them to feel like I am handing them a character they have to play. I want to hand them pieces of information (possibly on note cards) they have to use as a starting point for their story. I'd like to give each of the players three or four pieces of general information (parents alive? what do they do? how many siblings? where are they from?) that they can use to work up a suitable background for their character that lends itself toward a heroic campaign.
So does anyone know of a random background generator online that would fill the bill? (BTW I tried the NPC background generator at the Wizards site but it wasn't quite what I am looking for.) Or does anyone know of a source for snippets of background info that I can use to generate a few broad pieces of information about these characters?