Random Childhood Generator (for the d20 System)

If you to add a little more substance to player character backgrounds, add this to the character generation process in your d20 System games, immediately after the character's stats, and have the players roll 1d8s against the tables below. It gives players starting points for coming up with details, and it gives each character slightly different attributes at the beginning, beyond those outlined in the standard rules.

RANDOM CHARACTER CHILDHOOD GENERATOR

WHERE DID YOU SPEND YOUR CHILDHOOD? (Roll 1d8)
   1. In a traveling circus/carnival. (Gain 2 ranks in Acrobatics or Bluff or Sense Motive.)
   2. On the family farm, or on the family fishing boat. (Gain Endurance as a bonus feat )
   3. Traveling with your family as seasonal farmhands or temporary laborers. (Gain +1 Strength or +1 Constitution.)
   4. Helping around the family autoshop (Gain 2 ranks in Repair or Cautious as a bonus feat.)
   5. In a small town, with your loving middle-class parents. (Gain 2 ranks in a Craft or Perform skill of your choice
   6. With abusive, violent parents. (Gain Endurance or Stealthy as a bonus feat)
   7. With Con Artist parents. (Gain Trustworthy as a bonus feat).
   8. In a monastery or boarding school, as the child of teachers there. (Gain Educated or Studious as a bonus feat.)

HOW DID YOUR ADVENTURING CAREER START? (Roll 1d8)
   1-2. Ran away from home.
   3. Fell in with a bad crowd that came to a bad end.
   4-5. Your parents vanished mysteriously.
   6. You fell in love with someone your parents couldn't stand and eloped with him or her.
   7-8. You joined the army (or some other armed group that wields authority in many places), and the experiences you had made it so you feel like you can't go home again.

--

(The text is released under the Open Game License and may be reproduced in accordance with it. Copyright Steve Miller 2020)