When Free League Publishing ran the Kickstarter campaign for The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of The Lord of the Rings (Free League Publishing, 2022) there were several digital-only stretch goals offered. Now available on DriveThruRPG, I recently took in The One Ring Character Lifepaths (Free League Publishing, 2022). This rules supplement allows players to quickly add some backstory to their characters which can be interesting if not a bit trope-heavy..
Background in 3, 2, 1
How easy is it to create a background story hook for your player character using The One Ring Character Lifepaths? All it takes is three die rolls:
- Roll Success Die (d6) on Heroic Culture Table.
- Roll Success Die (d6) on backstory table for that culture.
- Roll Feat Die (d12) on the Major Events Table.
For example, I roll a Success Die [6] for “Rangers of the North.” Moving to the backstory table for Rangers of the North the Success Die [5] leads to “Protector of the Land” which gives me my Strength, Heart, and Will stats as well as a Favoured Skill and Distinctive Features. A final roll using the Feat Die [Sauron’s Eye or 1] is “…hounded by the Shadow” which is an interesting twist.
To be honest, the character background stories created by The One Ring Character Lifepaths are more like hooks given the depth of detail. The selection is also very trope-like. My randomly generated character background from above is “A Ranger of the North that is a Protector of the Land hounded by the shadow.” While seemingly generic, these few table can still create just over 400 distinct hooks. For a quick pick-up game using the solo rules from The One Ring Strider Mode (2022) the added depth of character is very likely enough to be useful to players who seek to learn or experiment with The One Ring RPG.
At one point I considered trying to use The One Ring Character Lifepaths to generate non-player characters (NPCs). I quickly vetoed that idea given the lack of depth provided; importantly Character Lifepaths does not offer enough skill backgrounds to fully create an NPC…but it could be used to create the basic background of one.
At the time of this post The One Ring Character Lifepaths is being offered on DriveThruRPG for $2.99. Not a horribly expensive investment for a quick character background hook generator for you campaigns (or one-shot solo adventures) using The One Ring Strider Mode or the full rules of The One Ring 2nd Edition.
Feature image “Rangers of the North III” courtesy woutart at deviantart.com
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