Inspiration Part One: In Praise of the TTRPG

Since Covid, Critical Role and the Stranger Things Demogorgon, TTRPGs have erupted onto the main stage. Celebrity endorsements abound; we love the D&D movie and Keanu as Johnny. For those of us who started gaming in the eighties (on paper, while firmly locked in our geeky closets), this is both chuckle-worthy and kind of validating.

Yeah, we always knew!

Likewise, we knew that TTRPGs had been enjoying a serious rise in popularity before all the furore, and – more importantly – just how good they’ve always been for creation. They do maths and problem solving and teamwork and lateral thinking, we know that, but any TTRPG background, be it your own or a set world, is a fantastic way to bring life to the characters in your head.

In terms of character creation, every system is different.

Basic D&D (‘fessing here that I’ve only ever played up to 3.5), offers you some equally basic feats and skills, a selection of abilities that allow you to frame your character in slightly more detail than how hard it is for them to wallop something and how many they points they lose before they fall over. I love D&D, always have, but its generated characters can be quite flat. Anything beyond the paperwork, you’ll have to add for yourself.

For a really good background, try the CyberPunk 2020 random lifepath generator. There are stacks of them online, but they’ll just do the whole thing for you, and I’d honestly recommend you go old school, back to pen and paper (ironic much?) It’s easily adaptable to any system, or any fiction, and a wonderful way to flesh out a character’s past, not only with skills, but with unexpected possibilities. Contacts, enemies and lovers can all gain backgrounds, gangs and grudges, meaning each one can spawn a scenario or side-quest. They add depth and timbre to character and campaign, offering plot threads that that’ll come in handy over and over again. Generated contacts can also gain narratives in their own right – those enemies and/or lovers can keep cropping back. If you cross-reference the lifepath with the much-beloved random encounter table, you can have hours of gaming fun.

A step beyond that brings us to White Wolf – Vampire, Werewolf, up as far as Kindred of the East (all second edition, showing my age). If you fold in the various ‘Jungian Archetype’ concepts of Nature and Demeanour, and have a look at the Merits and Flaws table, you can add a good ol’ sprinkling of needs, weaknesses and distinctive traits to extend your character still further. If you don’t have the old books, you can grab stuff from the Storyteller’s Vault, here.

D&D shows you what a character can do. CyberPunk shows you where they’ve been. WW shows you how they feel about it.

Whatever system you prefer, character creation is a really useful tool. It helps us past blocks, gives us chunks of a character’s history, and helps us understand how they would react in any given situation. Most of my literary characters have lifepaths (not Augusta, that would’ve been silly), and it helps me understand how they think.

One final word, about names. (I’m very fond of saying how Ecko (originally Oxy) had to have a new name when I started Ecko Rising for real) and how Children of Artifice’s Caph (initially called Julian, because of course he was) kept his shortened ‘Caphen’ family name as a nod to his ‘public school’ background). We know that names are critical for our characters (duh), but you can trigger (not like that) a whole N/PC just from picking the right name.

So, those lifepath contacts – name them. Look something up, give them a label. Call them ‘Gravel’ or ‘Lavish’ or ‘Dances-in Moonlight’ or ‘The Brothers of the Azure Skeleton’ or something with an apostrophe. Whatever you chose, it will immediately bring them to life.

If you like, you can pick something from here – hands-down the single best name generator I’ve ever found.

But whatever you do – enjoy it!

Reading: Bit of a slump at the minute. This does happen sometimes, guess I’m just waiting for the right thing to come bite me. Do offer some recommendations!

Watching: On the subject of Keanu, the John Wick movies, which are so CyberPunk it hurts. Quite apart from showing us Johnny’s precursor, he does 90 - 95% of his own stunts and each movie is just a series of increasingly bonkers set-piece fights. And major points for the late Lance Reddick, who’s amazing.

Also on the subject of Keanu: he shares a birthday with my son, who’s 19 today. How the fuck do kids grow up so fast??

Playing: Weirdly, our D&D Greyhawk/Sigil game is dealing with a monster called ‘The Iron Shadow’, a nasty thing that sucks out your passion and creativity and leaves you grey and empty. Anyone who’s read the ECKO series will recognise the ‘Kasyen’ concept (spoilers), and (at some point) I may write a thing about how no idea is ever truly original, what’s original is what you do with it.

(Take note, those YouTube bookbloggers who accused me of nicking a character name from The Hunger Games, which I’ve never actually read).

Plus: BALDUR’S GATE AT 4pm TODAY!!