All The Little Details (Supplements For Filling In Your Character's Backstory)

Making organic, well-rounded characters is no easy task. Even if you have your mechanical progression completely sorted out, you still have all of the ins and outs of their history, family connections, love life (or lack thereof), titles, alliances, dark secrets, and more to figure out. And for folks who didn't see the news, a brand new supplement of mine just dropped on this subject (100 Questions To Ask About Your Characters, in case you want to pick it up).

However, I wanted to take this week's Fluff installment, and gather a bunch of my supplements and resources in one place for folks who are still figuring out their characters, and trying to make sure they feel as real as possible!

Because it's not as easy as we sometimes make it appear.

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Filling In Your Background Details

I've been writing TTRPG supplements for quite a few years now, and a lot of the ones folks most readily think of are what I call my blue book supplements (as they were, by and large, assigned the same general blue cover image by my publisher). While a lot of these are meant for Game Masters to fill out the world, a lot of them are also useful for players who are looking to fill in parts of their characters' backstories.

For example, you might have come across:

- 100 Monastic Orders

- A Baker's Dozen of Noble Families

- 100 Knightly Orders

- 100 Secret Societies

- 100 Fantasy Guilds

And the honorary inclusions which aren't blue books, but still useful, 100 Random Mercenary Companies and 100 Fantasy Tattoos (And Their Meanings).

Seriously, go grab a copy if you haven't gotten it yet!

However, a while back, I started putting out supplements that were more geared toward players who were looking for ways to flesh out their characters, and to fill in all the details. These ice covers (the cover looks like cracking ice on a frozen river to me, so that's how I think of them) have been growing slowly but surely. And while these supplements are still useful for Game Masters (especially if they're looking to add some real depth to villains or important NPCs), they're written primarily with players in mind... particularly players who may not be authors or storytellers, and so they have a little trouble really sliding into a character's skin.

With the latest release included, the list currently consists of:

- 100 Questions To Ask About Your Characters

- 100 Dark Secrets

- 100 Fantasy Professions (That Aren't "Adventurer")

- 100 Character Goals and Motivations

And there are the two original supplements 100 Tips and Tricks For Being a Better Game Master and 100 Tips and Tricks For Being a Better Player, which are a little more meta than the others.

It's breezed past Copper, and is on its way to Silver... possibly even further!

Aside from just presenting this list of resources for folks this week (including the free article 10 Questions To Put On Your Character Creation Document, which you should also check out), I wanted to take a moment to ask folks what they'd like to see for future installments of either of these two series.

What blue book titles would you like to see added to the list? A baker's dozen of arcane colleges, perhaps? A sequel to any of the above books (or the half dozen I didn't mention, like 100 Cults to Encounter or 100 Fantasy Bands)? Or is there a list of character building questions or topics that you'd like to see added to the growing list of ice covers? Do you have any particular genres you'd like to see it focus on or expand into (such as books that cover sci fi topics, world building, or horror topics)?

Whatever you'd like to see in the future, leave it in the comments below, or reach out on social media to let myself and my publisher know! And if you get copies of any of these supplements (or you already picked some up when they first dropped) make sure you go back to Drive Thru RPG to leave a rating and a review to help us get found by other gamers looking for a little help with their heavy lifting.

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