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beleek's review
I was really excited to get this book in. I love creating additional content surrounding my DnD characters, and I love books like Xanathar's Guide to Everything, or using online surveys/questionnaires to flesh out more detail. This book falls very short of all of that however and is ragingly mediocre. I would not recommend this book.
paqtesm's review
5.0
This is a great tool to flesh out characters and NPCs. Highly recommend for writers and those who play D&D or other RPG games.
b1llz1lla's review
4.0
This is a fantastic book for RPG players who want to add more character to their characters. Interesting exercises, thought-provoking lists, and even some dice-rolling opportunities make this volume indispensable -- for RPG players and for Dungeon Masters as well.
Game masters may want to pick one or two exercises as assignments for their players to think about or to write up; it gives the players new ways to think about their characters, and can easily add a nearly endless supply of plot hooks for GMs to keep the players busy.
Not only is this book of use to gamers, but fantasy writers will find the exercises invaluable to beef up their characterizations.
Game masters may want to pick one or two exercises as assignments for their players to think about or to write up; it gives the players new ways to think about their characters, and can easily add a nearly endless supply of plot hooks for GMs to keep the players busy.
Not only is this book of use to gamers, but fantasy writers will find the exercises invaluable to beef up their characterizations.
ethancf's review
4.0
I'm planning on retiring one of my D&D characters in the nearish future for narrative reasons so I've been chomping at the bit to roll up his replacement. We'd just gotten this in at work so I brought it home and flipped through to give me some ideas or refine some more that I already had. There's a lot of great starting points in here so flipping through and cherry picking things works great, there's also a lot of options you might roll that aren't great themselves but give you enough of a kickstarter to think of one that better suits your character. I think this would be a great addition to a DM toolbox; make copies of some pages and hand them out to first-time players to help encourage them to not accidentally make a cliche.
angelatolsma's review
3.0
This is a good book if you like role-playing and want to add more to your characters story. It turns out it's not really how I like to play. I also greatly disliked the use of pronouns within the pages, would have been much better if it had not been genderized.
This all said I did take notes and will be back to snag things from this book when I'm building new characters.
This all said I did take notes and will be back to snag things from this book when I'm building new characters.
jinlile's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Another great addition for any table top player. Helps flesh out characters through prompts and questions. The book is sectioned through character levels. The amout of questions and activities can see daunting but with the use of dice one can generate a question set.
ksbrennan's review against another edition
4.0
"My ideal party is an eclectic group of surrogate family members who insist that they work alone while welcoming me into their lives."
I had fun working through some of the exercises while developing my latest characters. While the exercises were fun throughout, I found that the ones I found the most useful were in the earlier part of the book. Some of the exercises I thought were particularly compelling were:
- Across a Crowded Tavern, which asks you to manifest how your core character statistic is present and shows itself in your day-to-day life
- Well Worn, which helps you add depth to some of the standard inventory items
- Mountains and Molehills, which is a helpful reminder about how to build off your party to influence your own character and inspire meaningful role play
Probably a book I'll pick up and flip through for anything that catches my eye while I'm going through the character creation process, pulling a few relevant exercises.
I also really appreciate D'Amato's dedication to varying pronouns throughout the book.
I had fun working through some of the exercises while developing my latest characters. While the exercises were fun throughout, I found that the ones I found the most useful were in the earlier part of the book. Some of the exercises I thought were particularly compelling were:
- Across a Crowded Tavern, which asks you to manifest how your core character statistic is present and shows itself in your day-to-day life
- Well Worn, which helps you add depth to some of the standard inventory items
- Mountains and Molehills, which is a helpful reminder about how to build off your party to influence your own character and inspire meaningful role play
Probably a book I'll pick up and flip through for anything that catches my eye while I'm going through the character creation process, pulling a few relevant exercises.
I also really appreciate D'Amato's dedication to varying pronouns throughout the book.
angelatolsma's review against another edition
3.0
This is a good book if you like role-playing and want to add more to your characters story. It turns out it's not really how I like to play. I also greatly disliked the use of pronouns within the pages, would have been much better if it had not been genderized.
This all said I did take notes and will be back to snag things from this book when I'm building new characters.
This all said I did take notes and will be back to snag things from this book when I'm building new characters.