Roll Up a Life Path

[mmadsen]

Over in the Meta-Mechanics Worth Stealing thread, HellHound suggested a cool idea:

I've been thinking from a design perspective of how to make the Lifepath mechanic REALLY hook players into a new game.

My goal is to write up the history for the setting, and then when rolling your lifepath, you roll to see how you were involved in specific major events in the timeline. This way, even newbies will know SOMETHING about the game world just because they rolled up that they were involved in such and such a battle, or witnessed it, or their friend died there, etc.​

Naturally, we had to make up a few such life paths:

Roll, roll, roll. "Apparently my father died in the Clone Wars..."
Roll, roll, roll. "Nice! I inherited a magic ring from my uncle!"​

Anyone want to "roll up" a life path?

 

[mmadsen]

Roll, roll, roll. "I was born on a battlefield. Is that it?"

 

[adwyn]

I played in a Samurai themed game where the GM had developed an events by year life path system which usually tied the a PC into at least one of the major events of that year. Battles, earthquakes, religious festivals, weddings, and so on. The details were left to the players but it did tie the charactewrs into the intrigue heavy game.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Roll, roll, roll. "A man with six fingers killed my father over a sword."

 

[Henry]

How many times have people clamored for a reprint or re-creation of the Central Casting supplements by Paul Jacquays? I've lost count by now...

 

[mmadsen]

Roll, roll, roll. "A man with six fingers killed my father over a sword."

Roll, roll, roll. "I was born a peasant. I was captured by pirates at sea! And I became their captain! Woo!"

 

[Land Outcast]

Roll, Roll, Roll "I was born 1, became 3, and died 2 times... WTF?!"

 

[mmadsen]

I played in a Samurai themed game where the GM had developed an events by year life path system which usually tied the a PC into at least one of the major events of that year. Battles, earthquakes, religious festivals, weddings, and so on. The details were left to the players but it did tie the charactewrs into the intrigue heavy game.

Sounds excellent. The original idea goes back to Pendragon, which had players roll up their father's and grandfather's roles in the important events leading up to the start of the campaign.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I like the Traveller system where you rolled to generate your past history and experience, and you could end up dying before you finished character creation.

 

[Land Outcast]

Sounds excellent. The original idea goes back to Pendragon, which had players roll up their father's and grandfather's roles in the important events leading up to the start of the campaign.

Is that (or any other lifepath system) available somewhere online?