Today, let's experiment with Central Casting.
What is Central Casting? Well. it's for those of you familiar with the table-top roleplaying games genre. And by that I'm talking about D&D and its ilk, not 'All races High School for the gifted' like you'd find in Barton Town. Anywho, Central Casting is a book designed for generating backgrounds for roleplaying characters. Here's a summary stolen from RPGnet.
Now, although I myself am a supporter of the gay/lesbian/transgender community, I will admit to having a lot of fun with the book in the past, rolling up character backgrounds, and trying to come up with stories from them. I vividly remember about a year or so ago I rolled up a bunch of fairly unrelated characters and showing them to my brother, who thought they were boring, until I showed him a rogue I'd rolled up, who had some... interesting events in his past, which inspired some plot ideas, which we linked up with the other characters, until we had some starting ideas for what I'm convinced could make an excellent fantasy novel were it placed in the hands of competent writers.
Unfortunately, it never went anywhere from there, but the point is, this can come up with some fairly inspiring results. It works like this: You move from table to table, rolling dice and writing down the results. For example, you'll be rolling up your character's childhood events, and it says your character has an encounter with religion. So you move to the 'encounter with religion' table, roll there until you're finished, then go back to childhood events.
I suppose it will make more sense in practice.
So why don't we get started, eh? Just let me find some dice, and then we'll hop to it.
*A few minutes later* Ah, there's the family dice bag!
Alright, first off, until we name him/her, the character will be reffered to as 'MC' which stands for 'My Character'. Since I don't have a gender planned in mind, I'll roll a d6 to determine gender.
Gender: 5. It's an odd number, so we'll go with female. (Even= Male)
101: Character Race: d20 roll... 11. MC is a human female.
102: Cultural Background: d10 roll... 7. MC is from a Civilized culture, thus, she has a CuMod of 4. A CuMod is a number you add to your roll when it tells you to.
103: Social Status: d100 + CuMod roll... 32 plus 4 is 36. MC is poor, so she has a SolMod (Works like the CuMod) of -1.
104: Birth Legitimacy: d20 + CuMod... 3 plus 4 is 7. MC is a legitimate baby. By the way, in order for her to be illegitimate, with her CuMod she'd have had to have rolled a total greater then 19.
105: Reasons for Illegitimacy: Skipped. MC is legitimate.
106: The Family: d20 + CuMod... 18 plus 4 is 22. MC has no known family and was left to fend for self. Her social status is changed to Destitute, thus giving her a SolMod of -3 now.
107: Siblings: Skipped. MC effectively has no family.
108: Birth Order: Skipped. MC effectively has no siblings.
109: Time of Birth: d12 roll... 8. MC was basically born sometime in August.
110: Place of Birth: d20 + LegitMod roll... 2. MC was born at her genetic family's home, wherever that was. Her BiMod is -5. By the way, had she been illegitimate, she would have gotten a LegitMod.
111: Exotic Birth Locations: Skipped. I was not instructed to roll on this table.
112: Unusual Births: d100 + BiMod... 88 minus 5 is 83. There were two unusual occurences around MC's birth.
113: Unusual Birth Circumstances: d100 roll... 13. Mother died in childbirth. For the second event, d100 roll... 23. All milk in the area soured at MC's birth. Ouch, no wonder she was abandoned.
114: Parents & NPCs: Skipped. MC effectively doesn't have parents to roll for.
215: Significant Events of Childhood & Adolescence: First we roll a d6 to determine how many events there were in MC's childhood. Since we can have up to three, it goes like this. A result of 1-2 is worth 1, a result of 3-4 is worth 2, and a result of 5-6 is worth 3. I roll and get a 6, so MC has three events in her childhood. Roll a d20 plus SolMod for the first event... 1 -5 is -4. Except... it only goes back to -2. I'm not used to negative numbers, forgive me. So I guess I'll reroll... 15 -5 is 10. A special specific age-related event occurs. A d12 roll determines the age at which this occurs... age 8.
216: Special Events of Childhood: d20 roll... 4. Character has a close relationship with a sibling or a cousin if no siblings exist. Huh, I'm not sure how this'll work... but MC gains one L trait. (I'll explain that later!)
215: Significant Events of Childhood & Adolescence: d12 roll for age... 12. d20 + SolMod for event... 20 -5 is 15. So at age 12 an exotic event occurs. MC gains one R trait.
544: Exotic Events: d20 roll... 14. Return to the event table that sent MC here and roll 1d3 + 1 events. These events all happen within a few days of each other and are all related in some mysterious way. Bugger. 1d3 roll... 5. So I have 4 more events to roll for this. *Sigh*
215: Significant Events of Childhood & Adolescense: d20 roll... 11 -5 is 6. MC runs away from home, d10 roll... 5, to a distant land, and gains one R trait. d20 roll again... 5 -5 is 0, reroll without SolMod, I get a 1, MC's friends involve her in illegal activities. She gains one D trait.
534: Underworld Experience: Roll a d10... 8. So MC seeked to wield power in the criminal world. At age 12. Righty-o. Roll a d6... MC was involved in Piracy! Roll a d3... 2, so one special event... roll a d10... 5. The pirates discover a lost island with a mysterious temple. All the members of the crew are cursed by the magic of the temple. The curse takes effect once a month. Only by finding the temple again, and making sacrifices can the curse be lifted.
868: Curses: d20 roll... 12. MC is attacked by fits of madness or a mental disorder.
649B: Mental Affliction: 2d10 roll... 7 + 6 is 13. Hysterical injury. MC believes she suffers the effects of a serious injury.
870: Serious Wounds: d20 roll... 12. MC thinks she has a foot injruy which causes a constant limp.
215: Significant Events of Childhood & Adolescence: d20 roll... 15 -5 is 10. Age-specfic event, again.
216A: Special Events of Childhood: d20 roll... 10. A friend of the family, an old warrior, tells MC grand tales of adventure and daring do. She gains one L trait.
215: Significant Events of Childhood & Adolescence: Last roll of her childhood. d12... 9. She is 9 when the following event happens. d20 roll... 7 -5 is 2. A tragedy occurs. MC gains one R trait.
528: Tragedies: d20 roll... 12 -5 is 7. ...MC is orphaned?
546A: Inheritance: MC recieves nothing. The last will and testament condemns MC's lifestyle. Worst. Parents. Ever.
546B: Other Events: d20 roll... 15. A book found in the attic turns out to be a spell book and contains 1d20 (Roll... 7) spells of various levels of power.
215: Significant Events of Childhood & Adolescence: Roll a d3 for adolescens events... 1. Only 1 Significant event of Adolescence. Roll a d6 for age... 6. 12 + 6 is 18. Roll a d20 for event... 3 -5 is -2. All public assistance is terminated because the country is at war. This causes bloody riots in the poorer sectors of the towns and villages. MC's family is very much involved in the uprising against the ruling class. MC gains one R trait.
217: Significant Events of Adulthood: Roll 1d3 for events... 1. Since I get to pick MC's age at the time, she'll be... 20. Roll 2 d20's for event... 17 + 13 is 30, 30 - 5 is 25. Learn to use an unsual weapon alien to MC's culture.
318: Alignment & Attitude: For those folks playing along at home, MC has earned 2 L traits, 1 D trait, 0 N Traits, and 4 R Traits. These are used to semi-randomly determine a personality: L traits are Lightside or 'Good' traits, D traits are Darkside or 'Bad' traits, N traits are Neutral or 'Amoral' traits, and R traits are opportunities to roll on the random trait type chart thingy. You can also get E traits, or Exotic traits, which vary from insanity, allergies, to sexual disorders. So we'll roll four times on the random trait type chart thingy. d100 rolls... 09, 67, 82, and 08. Anything below 50 is discarded. So MC gets an extra L and an extra D trait.
647: Lightside Traits: Roll 2d20... 8 + 20 is 28. MC is Forgiving. Roll 2d20... 6 + 19 is 25. MC is Wise. Roll 2d20... 17 + 2 is 19. MC is Punctual.
648: Darkside Traits: Roll 2d20... 5 + 15 is 20. MC is Self-doubting. Roll 2d20... 20 + 13 is 33. MC is Unfriendly.
So we have a fairly decent, non-contradictory personality, and a background that, with some tweaking, should make sense. For those of you who were utterly confused about what was going on in all that die rolling, don't worry. I plan to write up MC's history in a proper writing format later. Just one last thing before we go... the book comes with various stat areas for the user to adjust for their system. Since this is more writing then roleplaying related, instead of rolling 3d6 or whatever, I'll just be rolling 1d6 to determine whether MC is low, average, or high in that specific area.
1-2: Low
3-4: Average
5-6: High
Strength: Low
Intelligence: Low
Magical Ability: High
Dexterity: Average
Constitution: High
Charisma: High
Beauty: Low
So she's a weakling, dumb, and unattractive, but can withstand a lot, is very charismatic, and has a natural talent for magic, although she may not be aware of the last part.
What is Central Casting? Well. it's for those of you familiar with the table-top roleplaying games genre. And by that I'm talking about D&D and its ilk, not 'All races High School for the gifted' like you'd find in Barton Town. Anywho, Central Casting is a book designed for generating backgrounds for roleplaying characters. Here's a summary stolen from RPGnet.
RPGnet Summary
"Unflatten your cardboard characters!" - back cover blurb
A background generator for characters in fantasy RPGs. Uses several types of dice for the tables, and has it's own system to help you convert the generated numbers to the game system you use. Includes such things as culture, social status, family, and events that happened to the character during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Some events also include points that can be used to determine alignment and personality traits (Lightside, Darkside, or Neutral).
The book works better as an idea generator for a character background than taking it as gospel, as some combinations are highly improbable and impractical. (It is possible to roll that a character to run away from home and eventually be arrested for involvement in organized crime... at the age of 2.)
This book caused some controversy because of the author's stated beliefs that homosexuality and bisexuality were considered "Sexual Disorders" and automatically gave Darkside personality points.
A background generator for characters in fantasy RPGs. Uses several types of dice for the tables, and has it's own system to help you convert the generated numbers to the game system you use. Includes such things as culture, social status, family, and events that happened to the character during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Some events also include points that can be used to determine alignment and personality traits (Lightside, Darkside, or Neutral).
The book works better as an idea generator for a character background than taking it as gospel, as some combinations are highly improbable and impractical. (It is possible to roll that a character to run away from home and eventually be arrested for involvement in organized crime... at the age of 2.)
This book caused some controversy because of the author's stated beliefs that homosexuality and bisexuality were considered "Sexual Disorders" and automatically gave Darkside personality points.
Now, although I myself am a supporter of the gay/lesbian/transgender community, I will admit to having a lot of fun with the book in the past, rolling up character backgrounds, and trying to come up with stories from them. I vividly remember about a year or so ago I rolled up a bunch of fairly unrelated characters and showing them to my brother, who thought they were boring, until I showed him a rogue I'd rolled up, who had some... interesting events in his past, which inspired some plot ideas, which we linked up with the other characters, until we had some starting ideas for what I'm convinced could make an excellent fantasy novel were it placed in the hands of competent writers.
Unfortunately, it never went anywhere from there, but the point is, this can come up with some fairly inspiring results. It works like this: You move from table to table, rolling dice and writing down the results. For example, you'll be rolling up your character's childhood events, and it says your character has an encounter with religion. So you move to the 'encounter with religion' table, roll there until you're finished, then go back to childhood events.
I suppose it will make more sense in practice.
So why don't we get started, eh? Just let me find some dice, and then we'll hop to it.
*A few minutes later* Ah, there's the family dice bag!
Alright, first off, until we name him/her, the character will be reffered to as 'MC' which stands for 'My Character'. Since I don't have a gender planned in mind, I'll roll a d6 to determine gender.
Gender: 5. It's an odd number, so we'll go with female. (Even= Male)
101: Character Race: d20 roll... 11. MC is a human female.
102: Cultural Background: d10 roll... 7. MC is from a Civilized culture, thus, she has a CuMod of 4. A CuMod is a number you add to your roll when it tells you to.
103: Social Status: d100 + CuMod roll... 32 plus 4 is 36. MC is poor, so she has a SolMod (Works like the CuMod) of -1.
104: Birth Legitimacy: d20 + CuMod... 3 plus 4 is 7. MC is a legitimate baby. By the way, in order for her to be illegitimate, with her CuMod she'd have had to have rolled a total greater then 19.
105: Reasons for Illegitimacy: Skipped. MC is legitimate.
106: The Family: d20 + CuMod... 18 plus 4 is 22. MC has no known family and was left to fend for self. Her social status is changed to Destitute, thus giving her a SolMod of -3 now.
107: Siblings: Skipped. MC effectively has no family.
108: Birth Order: Skipped. MC effectively has no siblings.
109: Time of Birth: d12 roll... 8. MC was basically born sometime in August.
110: Place of Birth: d20 + LegitMod roll... 2. MC was born at her genetic family's home, wherever that was. Her BiMod is -5. By the way, had she been illegitimate, she would have gotten a LegitMod.
111: Exotic Birth Locations: Skipped. I was not instructed to roll on this table.
112: Unusual Births: d100 + BiMod... 88 minus 5 is 83. There were two unusual occurences around MC's birth.
113: Unusual Birth Circumstances: d100 roll... 13. Mother died in childbirth. For the second event, d100 roll... 23. All milk in the area soured at MC's birth. Ouch, no wonder she was abandoned.
114: Parents & NPCs: Skipped. MC effectively doesn't have parents to roll for.
215: Significant Events of Childhood & Adolescence: First we roll a d6 to determine how many events there were in MC's childhood. Since we can have up to three, it goes like this. A result of 1-2 is worth 1, a result of 3-4 is worth 2, and a result of 5-6 is worth 3. I roll and get a 6, so MC has three events in her childhood. Roll a d20 plus SolMod for the first event... 1 -5 is -4. Except... it only goes back to -2. I'm not used to negative numbers, forgive me. So I guess I'll reroll... 15 -5 is 10. A special specific age-related event occurs. A d12 roll determines the age at which this occurs... age 8.
216: Special Events of Childhood: d20 roll... 4. Character has a close relationship with a sibling or a cousin if no siblings exist. Huh, I'm not sure how this'll work... but MC gains one L trait. (I'll explain that later!)
215: Significant Events of Childhood & Adolescence: d12 roll for age... 12. d20 + SolMod for event... 20 -5 is 15. So at age 12 an exotic event occurs. MC gains one R trait.
544: Exotic Events: d20 roll... 14. Return to the event table that sent MC here and roll 1d3 + 1 events. These events all happen within a few days of each other and are all related in some mysterious way. Bugger. 1d3 roll... 5. So I have 4 more events to roll for this. *Sigh*
215: Significant Events of Childhood & Adolescense: d20 roll... 11 -5 is 6. MC runs away from home, d10 roll... 5, to a distant land, and gains one R trait. d20 roll again... 5 -5 is 0, reroll without SolMod, I get a 1, MC's friends involve her in illegal activities. She gains one D trait.
534: Underworld Experience: Roll a d10... 8. So MC seeked to wield power in the criminal world. At age 12. Righty-o. Roll a d6... MC was involved in Piracy! Roll a d3... 2, so one special event... roll a d10... 5. The pirates discover a lost island with a mysterious temple. All the members of the crew are cursed by the magic of the temple. The curse takes effect once a month. Only by finding the temple again, and making sacrifices can the curse be lifted.
868: Curses: d20 roll... 12. MC is attacked by fits of madness or a mental disorder.
649B: Mental Affliction: 2d10 roll... 7 + 6 is 13. Hysterical injury. MC believes she suffers the effects of a serious injury.
870: Serious Wounds: d20 roll... 12. MC thinks she has a foot injruy which causes a constant limp.
215: Significant Events of Childhood & Adolescence: d20 roll... 15 -5 is 10. Age-specfic event, again.
216A: Special Events of Childhood: d20 roll... 10. A friend of the family, an old warrior, tells MC grand tales of adventure and daring do. She gains one L trait.
215: Significant Events of Childhood & Adolescence: Last roll of her childhood. d12... 9. She is 9 when the following event happens. d20 roll... 7 -5 is 2. A tragedy occurs. MC gains one R trait.
528: Tragedies: d20 roll... 12 -5 is 7. ...MC is orphaned?
546A: Inheritance: MC recieves nothing. The last will and testament condemns MC's lifestyle. Worst. Parents. Ever.
546B: Other Events: d20 roll... 15. A book found in the attic turns out to be a spell book and contains 1d20 (Roll... 7) spells of various levels of power.
215: Significant Events of Childhood & Adolescence: Roll a d3 for adolescens events... 1. Only 1 Significant event of Adolescence. Roll a d6 for age... 6. 12 + 6 is 18. Roll a d20 for event... 3 -5 is -2. All public assistance is terminated because the country is at war. This causes bloody riots in the poorer sectors of the towns and villages. MC's family is very much involved in the uprising against the ruling class. MC gains one R trait.
217: Significant Events of Adulthood: Roll 1d3 for events... 1. Since I get to pick MC's age at the time, she'll be... 20. Roll 2 d20's for event... 17 + 13 is 30, 30 - 5 is 25. Learn to use an unsual weapon alien to MC's culture.
318: Alignment & Attitude: For those folks playing along at home, MC has earned 2 L traits, 1 D trait, 0 N Traits, and 4 R Traits. These are used to semi-randomly determine a personality: L traits are Lightside or 'Good' traits, D traits are Darkside or 'Bad' traits, N traits are Neutral or 'Amoral' traits, and R traits are opportunities to roll on the random trait type chart thingy. You can also get E traits, or Exotic traits, which vary from insanity, allergies, to sexual disorders. So we'll roll four times on the random trait type chart thingy. d100 rolls... 09, 67, 82, and 08. Anything below 50 is discarded. So MC gets an extra L and an extra D trait.
647: Lightside Traits: Roll 2d20... 8 + 20 is 28. MC is Forgiving. Roll 2d20... 6 + 19 is 25. MC is Wise. Roll 2d20... 17 + 2 is 19. MC is Punctual.
648: Darkside Traits: Roll 2d20... 5 + 15 is 20. MC is Self-doubting. Roll 2d20... 20 + 13 is 33. MC is Unfriendly.
So we have a fairly decent, non-contradictory personality, and a background that, with some tweaking, should make sense. For those of you who were utterly confused about what was going on in all that die rolling, don't worry. I plan to write up MC's history in a proper writing format later. Just one last thing before we go... the book comes with various stat areas for the user to adjust for their system. Since this is more writing then roleplaying related, instead of rolling 3d6 or whatever, I'll just be rolling 1d6 to determine whether MC is low, average, or high in that specific area.
1-2: Low
3-4: Average
5-6: High
Strength: Low
Intelligence: Low
Magical Ability: High
Dexterity: Average
Constitution: High
Charisma: High
Beauty: Low
So she's a weakling, dumb, and unattractive, but can withstand a lot, is very charismatic, and has a natural talent for magic, although she may not be aware of the last part.
<3
