Second Rat Games: Background Noise

[der_kluge]

Background Noise is a system independent character background generator. It's not a d20, or OGL product, or even affiliated with any specific game engine.

Full Disclaimer: I was given a copy of this PDF by one of the authors.

Page count: 34 pages
Price: $6.95
Art: Color cover, b/w interior

If you're familiar with the Central Casting Heroes of Legend books then you've already got a good idea how this book works - which was at least partially inspired by the old Central Casting books. Like that book, this product focuses on Fantasy backgrounds only.

Basically, all you need is a set of percentile dice (and the occasional other dice) and you start with Table A. The book recommends that you print out the background form on pg. 34, and fill it in as you go. I found this to be a very workable solution. As you roll on each table, you proceed to the next. It's a rather painless process. Occasionally, an entry on the table will redirect you towards another "sub" table in the back. These tables cover odd events, or events specific to a certain class.

One of the quirky things with the Central casting book was that you could end up creating a really goofy character - a lizardman who grew up in the circus, for example. This product tends to avoid extremes. I rolled up a character who was the son of a lower class family. My father was a spinner. I had one brother. Curiously enough, I rolled twice on "childhood" events and both my brother and I inherited the same family curse. I did roll one goofy thing - I grew up in the tundra in a subtropical region. I'm still trying to figure that one out. Though, I guess it could be possible. Like Central Casting, I recommend that players and GMs take some of the tables with a grain of salt. You can even roll on the "events" tables as often as you like.

Because the product is system independent, there's no actual mechanics which affect the character - only fluff. Furthermore, one could more or less ignore rolling on the tables if one has a character background in mind, and instead focus on specific tables. Character was a slave? There's a slavery table. Character was imprisoned for a crime? There's a table of crimes. 39 tables in all, in fact.

Pros: Very easy to use. Has a lot of tables with some very interesting results. Lots of art; interior art is actually really good. System independent
Con: Would like to see this be d20 specific (I'm selfish that way). More tables would be nice. Cover art isn't very good.

Overall: This product is great. It does everything it intends to do and more. If you have no character background generation system for your game, you can not go wrong with this one. Even if you use it for a few tables here and there, you're going to get your moneys worth from it. And given that the Central Casting books are exceedingly hard to find, and usually over $100 when found on eBay, this one is a bargain!

Review: 5 stars. I was going to give this 4, because I wasn't just extremely blown away by it, but the more I thought about it, I decided to opt for a 5-star review since it's a very well done product, that works very well, and could work well with 4th edition or even 1st just as easily.

 

[Crothian]

As a d20 writer yourself what would you do to make this more d20 specific?

 

[theRogueRooster]

I did roll one goofy thing - I grew up in the tundra in a subtropical region. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Perhaps not so goofy. According to Wikipedia, there are two types of tundra: Arctic tundra and alpine tundra. Alpine tundra is based on altitude and can exist pretty much anywhere you have mountains high enough.

-tRR

 

[jmucchiello]

CC:HoL had conditions where you could gain or loss stats (in a system independent way). This book doesn't do that? So how does it deal being born cursed or blessed? Those were always the fun parts of CC:HoL.

 

[der_kluge]

As a d20 writer yourself what would you do to make this more d20 specific?

Just with a few mechanic tidbits. Like maybe you had a really high tolerance to poisons, and so something in your background gave you a +1 to save vs. poisons. I made a character using Central Casting years ago, and the GM gave me a +1 disease save. I don't think it ever came up in the game, but it was a nice little touch.

One could even go a step further and have the background literally define the ability scores of the character. But that would probably be hard to balance.

 

[der_kluge]

CC:HoL had conditions where you could gain or loss stats (in a system independent way). This book doesn't do that? So how does it deal being born cursed or blessed? Those were always the fun parts of CC:HoL.

Curses and blessings are mostly fluff. Some of the curses are like actual afflictions, like the character's skin changes to an unusual color, or he smells bad, or constantly has hiccups. Other curses are more like bad karma - character attracts weird events, or strangers don't trust him, or the character is exiled from his home country.

Blessings work the same way.