Author: Andy (he/they)

Built from Birth is a series on lifepath systems in tabletop RPGs through history. In each post I walk through the lifepath process for a given system and reflect on the experience. Content Warning: This post has mentions of ableism, sexual assault, drug addiction, and racist conceptions of culture. I don’t linger on them, but […]

Let’s walk through character creation, including family history, for a character in King Arthur: Pendragon.

Part of a series exploring lifepath systems in tabletop RPGs.

Last week I tried out Burning Wheel character creation to mixed success. The aspect that really appealed to me, though, were the lifepath mechanics. Inspired to learn more, I’ve decided to do some history. This post is the start of a series where I’ll be surveying RPG lifepath systems since the 70s, roughly in chronological […]

After years of knowing about Burning Wheel and vaguely wanting to try it, the time has finally come. This post details my first time through BW’s character creation rules in preparation for a short experimental campaign.

For a while, the internet had a lot of places for long-form public writing: forums, listservs, blogs. A lot of these conversations have moved to social media, centralized in corporate platforms and atomized through the replacement of communal spaces with algorithmic curation of individuals. Blogging still exists, but it’s not where the conversation lives.