Step Three: Provide the Character History
The third step of the character creation process is to create a brief account of your character’s life experiences starting from birth to the time prior to the beginning of the game, referred to as your character’s history. You are free to make your character’s history any length you wish. Whether a multi-page narrative, a simple list, or any size in between, to be considered complete for purposes of the game, your character’s history must contain three elements.
· The first element, a significant person, must be at least one person that has affected your character’s life in a deeply emotional way, either positively or negatively. If your character has a family, a clan, or some other group of people that means a lot to him, you can list significant members individually or, alternatively, name the whole group. Further, you are not limited in scope to just to people. If your character has an emotional bond with an animal, a spirit, or a creature, you may list one or more of these as well. Examples of such people might include friends, enemies, family members, allies, mentors, lovers, rivals, adversaries, and teachers.
· The second element, a significant event, must be at least one thing that happened in the past that led your character to learn the skills he has learned, forged his personality, or somehow shaped the way he now lives his life. Was there an event that recently changed your character’s life or changed if forever in the past? Was your character’s village razed? Did a window of opportunity open the first time your character discovered he was “different’ from everyone else? Was there an alien invasion that drove your character to learn survival skills? Did the loss of a significant person in your character’s life drive your character to seek out the skills and tools to investigate the loss...or avenge it?
· The third element, a motivation, must be something for which your character would be willing to die and that motivates your character to take the great life or death risks required by a hero. Was it the result of significant event you just listed? Is it just for money or the Spirit of Adventure? Denial of mortality or aging? Raw power? What values or causes are important to your character? What or whom does your character love or hate? If your character has no motivations or has faced no adversity, what makes him a hero?
The character history serves two purposes. The first is to make your character someone you and the other players can relate to, rather than just a set of numbers and abilities. The second is to enable the Director to give your character a purpose for joining in the adventure and working with the other characters to accomplish heroic deeds.
Completing Step Three
To complete this step, you will need to list at least one example of each of the three required elements, followed by a brief descriptive phrase to clarify to the Director how the element fits in with your character’s concept and relates to your character. For example, if you list a specific person, you will need to describe the emotional connection your character shares with that person.
Step Three Example: Johnny Parkour
Ogun now needs to complete his character’s history. Because he is in a hurry to get playing, he chooses to focus on just defining the bare minimum requirements so he can jump right into the action. He looks to his character’s concept and asks a few questions to help him complete this step.
Looking at the descriptor, acrobatic, he wonders where his character would learn acrobatic skills. He decides that his character’s parents were circus performers who recognized his talents early and trained him in the arts of the high-wire and trapeze. He next looks at the role of “provoker” and wonders, “Why would anyone go out of their way to consistently provoke people into taking action?” He decides that living with his tightly-knit circus “family” gave him the support and confidence to embrace the joy of discovery that came from just trying things and making things happen, and that his character wants to share this feeling with those around him. This gives Ogun a good idea of where he wants to go with his character’s history, so he now turns his attention to listing the three history elements.
Ogun notices right away that meeting the first requirement, a significant person, will be very easy, and he can also describe where his character learned his acrobatic skills. He lists the following on his character sheet:
His trapeze-artist mother and high-wire walking father, and the entire circus family that loves him and raised him from when he was a baby.
Moving onto the next element, Ogun sees that his character’s skills and outlook clearly result from his background of living in the circus, however, this background doesn’t really suggest a single life-defining event. Asking himself, “If the circus life was so great, why would my character leave it to take on a dangerous adventure?”, Ogun decides that maybe someone from his circus “family” has disappeared and that will be the significant event that drove his character into the unlikely role of a hero. Rather than making his character’s history tragic and brooding, however, he chooses to make it mysterious and interesting, so he decides that it should be the kindly fortune teller who would entertain him for hours with exciting stories of mystic unexplained places and creatures of questionable existence around the world. He writes down the following as his significant event:
The mysterious disappearance of the fortune teller from his circus family
Considering both the significant people and the significant event, Ogun quickly realizes that a motivation is already built into the event he has listed and writes the following down on his character sheet:
Searching for the missing fortune teller to make his family complete again.
He writes these down on his character sheet and asks his Director what she thinks. She looks at the event and, realizing she can tie the missing fortune teller in with the story outline she has already prepared for the adventure, decides that it fits in perfectly with the game she has planned. She approves of the completed history, and Ogun moves on to the next step.
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