Character flesh out

[Rhyus]

Hey all. I'm new here. It has been a long time since I played Twilight 2000. 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 know there is a Morrow Project section on here, but some people that might be able to help might not visit that section of the forums, so I thought I would post it here as well as in there.

[Targan]

For my last campaign I used a modified Lifepath system inspired by the Cyberpunk 2020 rules to help flesh out characters during the generation process.

[Rhyus]

Well, that might be good for Twilight, since it happens during the character's life and his family and friends lives, but with Morrow Project, you are put to sleep and don't wake up for 150+ years or so. So, all those friends and family and enemies that took place before, just wont make any difference to my character now.

I'm looking for someone a little like the Traveller, but a little more in-depth. Something more along the lines like I went on a black ops mission...or I went into combat and got injured...or I saved someone's life and got an award for doing so, etc. I know my character would have done the Second Desert Storm and would also have been involved in the fighting in Afghanistan. But, I want to be able to roll randomly for things that might have happened while in those fights. Not sure if there is anything out there like that that I can use or change a little to make work for my needs.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I don't recall anything like that being done except for those things Targan already mentioned, I think you're going to have to build your own table.
However with the ideas you have, I reckon you're already halfway to creating a lifepath table before the "freeze".
If you did want to create one, I'd say start with all the things you've mentioned here and then have a look at such things as the following for places to pillage for ideas: -

Random generators at Abulafia (refresh the page to generate a new page)
For "the Laundry" occult RPG
http://www.random-generator.com/inde...enerator_Suite
Character questions to help form background
http://www.random-generator.com/inde...cter_Questions
The Character Questions generator has general sort of things, things like "What is the highest you've ever climbed?" and "What did you want to be as a kid?"
But it also has a few stranger/out-there types of questions such as "Who wants to know your secret?" and "Why didn't you take the last exit ramp?"

Modern character generator at Chaotic Shiny
Character parts are what you'd expect but it's the inclusion of things such as favourite virtue/sin, lucky number, annoyed by, sucker for, favourite season categories that add a little more to the character
http://chaoticshiny.com/modernchargen.php

The Generator Page has a fairly detailed character background generator that's not limited to a specific genre
http://generating.strolen.com/gen/charback.html
Main page http://generating.strolen.com/

[kato13]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I don't recall anything like that being done except for those things Targan already mentioned, I think you're going to have to build your own table.
However with the ideas you have, I reckon you're already halfway to creating a lifepath table before the "freeze".
If you did want to create one, I'd say start with all the things you've mentioned here and then have a look at such things as the following for places to pillage for ideas: -

Random generators at Abulafia (refresh the page to generate a new page)
For "the Laundry" occult RPG
http://www.random-generator.com/inde...enerator_Suite
Character questions to help form background
http://www.random-generator.com/inde...cter_Questions
The Character Questions generator has general sort of things, things like "What is the highest you've ever climbed?" and "What did you want to be as a kid?"
But it also has a few stranger/out-there types of questions such as "Who wants to know your secret?" and "Why didn't you take the last exit ramp?"

Modern character generator at Chaotic Shiny
Character parts are what you'd expect but it's the inclusion of things such as favourite virtue/sin, lucky number, annoyed by, sucker for, favourite season categories that add a little more to the character
http://chaoticshiny.com/modernchargen.php

The Generator Page has a fairly detailed character background generator that's not limited to a specific genre
http://generating.strolen.com/gen/charback.html
Main page http://generating.strolen.com/

A nice addition to any GMs bag of tricks. Thanks.

[Rhyus]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

The Generator Page has a fairly detailed character background generator that's not limited to a specific genre
http://generating.strolen.com/gen/charback.html

This one would have some promise if it would allow you to select certain things, like occupation or things like that.

[Rhyus]

Maybe what I'm looking more for would be battles he was in, and promotions or demotions he would have gotten...medals he might have received or wounds he would have gotten in combat. I'm just trying to get the 15 years of experience he had during his stint in the Marines. I don't care about who his lover would have been, or who he made an enemy of, or his siblings or kids, I'd just like to go year by year of his military experience and find out if anything significant happened to him, just like they did with the old Traveller character generator.

[Cdnwolf]

Do a Google search for someone killed in Afghanistan or Iraq and read their hometown newspaper for background on what sort of person they were especially if they won a medal for their actions.

This is one from a local person killed in Afghanistan...

http://www.redfridays.ca/memorial/mwilson_eulogy.html

[Targan]

I agree with Stainless. It seems like you have a solid idea of the kind of information you'd like to be able to generate to flesh out a PC's military career, if you like the way Traveller handles that process why not use a similar format and create your own tables?

[Rhyus]

Ok, so, I found a very old supplement called "Central Casting - Heroes Now!". It was printed back in 1991. They make two others, one for fantasy and one for future. It has many rolling charts in it, around 64 different ones. Some are for military, some for superheroes, some for villains, some for underworld and so on and so forth. Many things that has to deal with our time. I had the fantasy one a long time ago, but misplaced it. Now I found this other one and it will do the job, for the most part. I'll have to go and look for the units that served in both areas and use those as my character's unit(s). But, I think it should do the job. Just rather have fill in a few boxes and click a button and the rest is randomly generated, but, can't have everything you want.