New Frugal GM Product: Before the Adventure (Fill-in-the-Blank Character Backstory Generator)

OK, I'm kind of proud of this newest project I just finished and uploaded to DriveThruRPG, and not for the obvious reason.

I have had this idea kicking around in the back of my head for, no kidding, a good 10-15 years and it feels so good to.... just....get....it...out! If it completely bombs I am 110% AOK with that. There were three big RPG(ish) projects I've had eating away "back there" and this was one of them. One of the other ones was to make a big "KoDT" letter sign covered in Knights of the Dinner Table comics. Basically those big paper mache letters with decoupage comics all over. I wanted to gift them to Jolly Blackburn and finally did so a few years ago.

My last project is kind of huge and likely to never get done, so I won't share...why disappoint anyone else?

Any, the project I just finished is basically a fill-in-the-blank character backstory generator.  A lifetime or two ago when I was playing HackMaster 4th Edition and coincidentally using an earlier version of Adobe Acrobat to make forms I screwed things up by cut & pasting the same form fields a bunch of times. No, not a big deal in the scheme of things, but if you forget to edit the names of those fields (or possibly screw it up) you end up with multiple linked form fields. Frustrating when it's not intended....but what if you used this as a feature?

This PDF is basically a collection of 30 Character Backstories preceded with three pages of input fields (names, adjectives, nouns, locations, etc.). You blindly enter data into the form fields and then either roll a d30 or just choose a now-filled in character backstory. Thing is if you don't like a particular generation you can click on the form field that doesn't work for you and BAM!....all of the other backstories with that form field get updated as well. I also made sure there were plenty of bookmarks to make navigation easy. I thought about trying to add a "clear all" button, but I haven't had good luck getting those things to work like I want.*

I think the biggest reason it has taken me so long to scratch this itch is because the task was too daunting undertake. I can come up with the general backstories, and even most of the specific fill-in-the-blanks to insert, but any decent testing and validation? Too much work. 

Enter AI. Using Chat GPT I could easily edit the backstories, tweak literary crutches, make sure some fields weren't overused, etc. Just the testing alone....wow. Even with all the help this PDF took a couple work-days to get finished. There were some problems that I couldn't even see without computer-aided assistance. A perfect example was I found that I was really overusing a lead-in to a form field and I though "No need to re-print my word document, I'll just quickly edit the PDF" Easy-peasy and looks fine, BUT the edited text is somehow rendered gibberish in the PDF. Sure, what I see looks great, but depending on how the end-user opens the PDF.....well there might be some gibberish on the screen. Had that come back to me I'd be at a complete & utter loss as to why. 

Since I was already using AI I figured "in for a penny....." and went ahead and added a few related graphics, to include a full-color cover. I figure nobody realistically is going to print anything other than maybe a specific backstory, so why not?

FGM048: Before the Adventure is a Pay-What-You-Want PDF. If you do not pay anything for this product, know that I'm 110% ok with that! I hope you get some enjoyment out of it.

*Just a tip....when you download this PDF I highly recommend going into the file's properties in your computer's file browser (right-click or Alt+Enter in Windows 10/11) and clicking "Read Only" in the Attributes section. Trust me, it'll save you a lot of headache if/when you ever want to re-use the PDF without having to manually clear all the form fields.