Vignette character creation works!

[Hygric]

Evening all,

New FS GM here, and I am loving it. Just wanted to post how we did our character creation for my group for our new campaign in-case it inspires any other GM's out there.

When I saw the lifepath system of char-gen I knew immediately that I wanted to spend a whole session devoted to making characters. Specifically I wanted all the PC's to grow up together (instant reason for a party of heroes). So I had my players sit down and we went through char-gen collectively 1 step at a time. Some decisions needed to be made by the group that bound the group in the choices they could make (specifically that they are affiliated with house Al-Malik and they come from a space habitat in orbit of Criticorum).

I ran a small group scene at each stage of char-gen (Upbringing, Apprenticeship, Early Career) to get the players into their character mind-sets and make the life-path choices more organic for them. The extra stages part of char-gen was also finished off with one last vignette scene to set the campaign on its way.

This has lead to characters with a lot of depth and history as a group. Such as the Charioteer that brained an assassin as an 8 year old with a thrown vase and has as a result developed his throwing skill. Or the Ur-Ubon Sanctuary Aeon priest that was originally a "pet" purchased for the scion on the house to keep him amused.

Of course then everything went to hell when the Noble heir of the house (PC) was due to be married to a Decados noble-woman when his younger brother (who had been breaking his toys when he was 8) staged a bloody coup killing most of the old family retainers, his parents and then marrying the Decados noble-woman to cement his play for power.

Fun times are just started...

[Angelman]

This is a brilliant idea. I have done things like this in one or two campaigns before, and it really adds depth and context to the characters and the epic they're going through. Good work, Hygric!

[Holz]

Sounds like a great role play character creation!

Consider your idea stolen! =P

[Bogie]

This is awesome! Brilliant idea for character creation!

[Hygric]

3 sessions in now and one minor problem has become apparent. Integrating a new player requires a little bit of mental gymnastics to make it fit in to the party back-story. Fortunately nobles all seem to be related to each other somehow, so that makes it a bit easier!