Tag: 20 Questions

Playing With Others

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Breaking Down the 20

The last three questions of the twenty question background are probably the hardest to answer because they’re usually answered in a state of ignorance. It’s difficult to say why a particular character is with the party when you don’t know who else is in the party, what their purpose is, and why they all hang out together despite being murderers and centaurs. These questions are holdovers from Conversation Cafe, but I find that they help encourage people to develop ties within the group and it alleviates some of those early trust issues that fantasy adventurers or paranoid investigators tend to have.

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Adding Some Depth

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Farm Boy

Breaking Down the 20

Very little of the twenty question background explicitly asks players to tell stories, these ones definitely do. No one cares that your character has a memory of baking bread or that they like to whittle. It does not matter one bit. What matters is why they do it. It is the only thing that matters. The best answers often have nothing to do with adventuring, fighting, or conjuring small rodents through magic. They describe a life before these things and outside of it. Boring answers reference a character’s main skill sets. Cartography isn’t a hobby for a scout, it’s part of their job.

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All About Enemies

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Gary from Pokemon

Breaking Down the 20

I just added a number of new players to both my D&D games, and was reminded that it’s high time to finish this series. Every D&D character that joins my game needs to answer twenty questions about their background and who they are. Answering the questions isn’t hard, but there are ways to answer them that encourage stories rather than shut things down. So I asked, they answered, and here we go. There are only eight questions left, and they break down into nifty sections.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from comic books, it’s that heroes are defined by their enemies. Batman has the Joker, Superman has Lex Luthor, and the Aquaman has his reputation and orange shirt. So today, villains. Or enemies, at least (after all, villainous characters would have heroes).

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You’ve Gotta Have Goals

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Inigo Montoya

Breaking down the 20

It’s time to break down a bit more of the 20 question background. I’ve spent a lot of time talking about goals. What goals are worth having, different kinds of goals in gaming, and the distinction of goals and dreams. This is a bit of all of that, but the role of goals in the life of a PC can’t be underestimated. We like to think of them as adventurers with good hearts and unclear goals, but goals can tell you a lot about who a person is by telling you what they want.

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Secrets in a Background

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Darth Vader in the Empire Strikes Back

Breaking Down the 20

I’ve written about the different kinds of secrets you  can have in a game, and how to use them. This is more about, as a player, how to integrate them into a background. Secrets can be an incredible way to tell a story about the character, and can help players surprise each other with hidden character elements.  Read more

Breaking Down the 20

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The Joker

Breaking Down the 20, apart from being an awesome name for a band, is something that people have been asking me to do. Last year I outlined the 20 questions I use to help players write character backgrounds. I also answered them when I started playing in an Essentials game, mostly because I didn’t want to write a post the week that I finished my Master’s degree because I was busy agonizing about my future and playing video games like it was a full-time job. One of these things has since ceased.

Anyway, people have been asking me to break down the 20 questions and talk about the answers. After all, there are answers and then there are answers. A description of a characters social background as “Middle class” or “Loner” answers the question, but doesn’t really convey a lot of information. So I’m going to go through each question and talk about the opportunities it creates.

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Celebration

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GroveoftheBurnwillows_FTVRealms_1280x960_WallpaperTemplate

Hey, I finished my thesis last night! Which means I am sleeping most of today. Probably. But I wasn’t going to leave you with nothing. Here’s a set of 20 questions that I answered for an Essentials game I’ll be playing in soon. I’m going to start going over each of the 20 questions in the next few months, looking at what they’re for and how you can use them to tell a story about your character. Check out the wiki for the Essentials game too, Vale Tales. Anyway, on to my 20 questions! Read more