Character Stories

A key part of player participation is the story made for a character. A character with a crafted story is a player vested in it’s success. Players make up the story, helping them to envision them and bring them to life; these can be a few sentences to short stories. : This is a required part of character building and get no reward.; Some aspects drill deeply into roleplaying and are specifically rewarded. A character story can allow the player to make one which deviates from the rules, allowing a piecemeal approach to fulfill any concept of race, background, vocation, locale, and path. Extensive story is rewarded using character crafting reward tokens (). Each added story element the player creates adds more tokens, which can enhance rules options for creating characters.

  1. General – Family, place or birth/place raised, etc. This must include vaguely how the character got their general background and the type of life that lead to acquiring vocational or basic life skills.
  2. A story of growing up – What was the character like as a child? Their environment? Was there defining moment where they “grew up” and their world view changed?
  3. A story of exemplifying beliefs – Tell a story about how they were tested and kept to or developed their general alignment or code of conduct. What are the things that motivate them (will always cause them to act), and what are the things they avoid?
  4. A story explaining how they got their Background/Upbringing.
  5. A story of what made the character become an Adventurer.
  6. A story of how the character came to be in the group – What circumstances lead to the character being introduced to the group? This should cover just the immediate circumstances.
  7. All major powers should have a explanatory story… why did they acquire it, how did they develop it, how are they known to use it?
  8. All instances of characters “seeking their path” should have a story. Mentors, inspirations, locations, experiences and how it shaped the character.

D20 Story Rewards

“Seeking a Path“: This is assumption of a specific class (for each class), the choice of a class path (ex: magic school, circle, berserker, etc. – usually at second or third level), and class features (ex: channel divinity).

Background Perspectives: The background perspectives (Personality, Ideal, Bond Flaw, etc.) provide a opportunity to give your character some outlooks and motivations. You can choose or randomly generate the values for these. If you tell the story behind the suite of perspectives it is worth 2 character crafting reward tokens ().

  1. x 1 = The character starts play with single measure of Lore.
  2. x 2 = The character starts play with a measure of Inspiration.
  3. x 4+ = Players may randomly generate their ability scores instead of Point Buying them, per normal character creation rules, OR gain an additional +1 on a single ability at the time of character creation if Point Buying is used.
  4. x 7+ = Detailed Upbringing: The character starts play with 2 measures of Lore. Additionally, they start play with maximum HP for their first HD (if some other effect grants this, they gain +1 HP and max. HP) and +1 Essence. The character gains 2 measures of Bound to the Pattern. Some or all of these may be exchanged for additional knowledge or power (spell, use, feat, etc.) agreed upon by the GM.
  5. Alternate Upbringing: This badge can be used if a player writes a character’s background stories in such a way that the character does not fit into (or gain the benefits of) any setting-normal culture/racial upbringing. Physiological traits such as dark vision are possessed by the character, but they gain no other racial aspects. Instead, the may use the Alternate [Human] Traits or a specific racial upbringing profile (though the story must explain how they were raised to adulthood in that racial/cultural mode). In humans this ignores all regional aspects, and takes the place of the normal ability score adjustment.

ICore Story List

“Seeking a Path”: