The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide: Prompts and Activities to Create the Most Interesting Story for Your Character

I honestly think this book (and its inevitable multiple genre-specific sequels) will be the required reading for all RPGs along with the players guides.For GMs, this gives you an excelent session zero and multiple ways of structuring in-game social RP moments. No longer will you ask for watches and rolling checks for the sake of it. Instead you can open up the fireside conversation section and have a character moment without putting anyone on the spot to hold up the drama.There are things that help players build the world and have character building sessions together outside of the regular game you might not have time for on game night.A less noted thing this gives you as a player is, as you randomly roll through some of the sections, you see things you don't like for your character. I find this gives you just as much insight and clarity on things you haven't thought about yet or are unsure of

As a very creative player I didn't think i would find this useful (I bought it as a gift for a less creative friend with a child who's starting to get involved in role play games). i took a moment to skim read through a few pages and there is a lot of really good, fun material in here. Like determining your alignment by picking what you'd do if you saw a cat up a tree and how to make a tinder style profile for your character to find the right party for you. A Very enjoyable read and honestly the ideal gift if you have a prolific gamer to buy for. I would certainly be happy to recieve this as a gift even though I wouldn't 'use' it to create a character backstory.

Tbh I thought that I could do this task on my own. This book proved it. I'm afraid that it just looks like a series of lists, not even rollable tables which would have been more fun. Save your money and get something else.I appreciate someone has gone to lengths to create this. I just don't see any functional use for it. It's the same as the other book for worldbuilding. Better to do it yourself. There's websites out there with better advice.Sorry, two stars (One extra for the authors efforts).

I didn't initially think this would be that useful and only got it to flick through for my first d and d game. Then I read it - it is full of original and brilliant character and world building ideas and really is a valuable character building tool. I've even used it for my video game characters in dragon age and Skyrim. It's even got me writing my own attempt at a story. Can't recommend this enough.

Bought it on a whim, turned out to be an amazing tabletop resource that i'll definitely use to help creating both d&d characters and characters for anything i roleplay in going foreward!