Character background

[Rhyus]

Hey all. I'm new here. I'm currently playing a Morrow Project game and I'm trying to find a way to flesh out my character's background. After all, he served in the Marines for 16 years (1997-2013) before he was frozen and went to sleep for 152 years. I want to get a background for him, but don't want to get too over the top for the character by just making one up or being too stingy with it and not making him the kind of special that was needed for the selection process. I was wondering if there was anything out there that could help with creating a background. I know Traveller had a random generation for history for each character. I know there were books out there in the past for fantasy games that you could flesh out your character in a big way. Is there anything out there for modern history generation and preferably military generation?

I did post this over on the Twilight 2000 forums in hopes that someone in that section might be able to help that might not visit these forums as well.

[ArmySGT.]

Sorry, I don't use anything like that. There are some good examples in your other thread like this one.

[ArmySGT.]

You could try google "Lifepath Generator".

[Gelrir]

It depends on the campaign you are in. Do most or all Morrow Project members have a college degree? Was he an officer; if so from the start, he probably entered the Corps after college. If so, did he attend Annapolis, or an ROTC program, etc.? Or

16 years in the USMC, if he graduated at age 22, would make him 38 when he joined the Morrow Project (or more, if he didn't join right away).

An officer leaving at 16 years of service sounds like he was not selected for promotion. This year the USMC announced:

“Effective immediately, Marine Corps policy is to select for continuation only those twice-passed majors and twice-passed captains [with more than 15 years of service] whose continued service is in the best interests of the Marine Corps based on the needs of the Marine Corps.”

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/article/20130813/CAREERS/308130027/

Was he in aviation, infantry, etc.? Once you know that, you could pick a few units and look up their history in the period of his enlistment.

Since we know the Project recruited him after lots of background checks, he's presumably "not anything" that would cause the Project to pass him by: famous, married, a criminal, politically undesirable ...

--
Michael B.

[stormlion1]

Ask a Vet his life story and use that. Suitably modified of course. Its what I've done for tons of NPC's.

[Gelrir]

Retirement pay kicks in after 20 years service; leaving at 16 years might indicate a person recruited by the Project without waiting for him or her to reach retirement age. "We really need Smith; perhaps we can convince him to ditch the Marines and come over to the Project. He'll be too old if we wait until he's been in the Corps for 20 years." After all, the "convincing evidence" for a world war (or whatever) is just as convincing for a serving member of the military, right?

--
Michael B.