[Q&A] Jay R. Stilipec (Better Backstories)

[12-Jan-21 07:36 PM] AllThatJazmine#0676
Greetings and salutations, everyone! My name is Jay and I’ve been into video games and role-playing for more than 30 years. I got started with Star Wars the Roleplaying Game by West End Games, but eventually migrated to GURPS, Marvel Super Heroes and D&D. I beta-tested the 5e rules while I was serving in Afghanistan with the Navy. I’m served 20 years as a broadcast journalist and retired 5 years ago. Last year I ran a Kickstarter for my creation, Better Backstories! We were 820% funded with $25,000 coming from all over the world.

Better Backstories is a card-based, system independent, genre neutral brainstorming system for developing characters, plots and more! They work kinda like tarot cards, but with less study and guesswork. They can also be used in-game by GMs to provide attitudes and quirks for NPCS, random weather patterns, and even landscape suggestions if your party goes off the map. Check out this One-Minute Backstory I created just the other day.

[12-Jan-21 07:36 PM] AllThatJazmine#0676
Crap. too big. Just a second.

[12-Jan-21 07:37 PM] AllThatJazmine#0676
https://photos.app.goo.gl/j495gJC1ngo74A8M7

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https://photos.app.goo.gl/j495gJC1ngo74A8M7
New video by Jay Stilipec
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/WyQynX322_FYMf_zZ78ph-knzpnCMOg-K1SaAZ7LZthXozvYWCfsuh6HU6MKCNXJONXfuiyK8ByNNL3eaWfXnVLOXJAhT2Av00gB35e5-Pi9eL7sPez5L1M_SDuUNd0ZIWJSv-Ysugg=w600-h315-p-k-no

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[12-Jan-21 07:39 PM] AllThatJazmine#0676
done

[12-Jan-21 07:39 PM] saintnexan#6715
Thanks, @AllThatJazmine! The floor is open to questions!

[12-Jan-21 07:40 PM] saintnexan#6715
First of all, thank you for your service!

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[12-Jan-21 07:40 PM] AllThatJazmine#0676
Thanks for your support, Dan! The military is nothing without the family and friends back home.

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[12-Jan-21 07:41 PM] saintnexan#6715
So let’s see… Bear with me, as I don’t normally do Q&As for this sort of product and am not sure how best to proceed. 🙂

[12-Jan-21 07:41 PM] saintnexan#6715
How did you come up with this idea?

[12-Jan-21 07:42 PM] Lasa#7410
Can you go into a little detail about how it works as genre neutral?

[12-Jan-21 07:46 PM] AllThatJazmine#0676
I’ve always loved making characters. With Marvel Super Heroes, I sat at the back of class in High School and rolled up more than 600 super heroes with the Ultimate Powers Book. I currently have more than 220 D&D characters as well, few of which have ever been played and a few even migrated from earlier editions.

Mostly, I like making all of my characters unique. I loved the random charts that some games and books provided and I eventually found a series called ‘Central Casting’ by Task Force Games. These were incredibly detailed books that started with the day you were born, what happened during your birth, gave details about your parents and just went on from there. It was a lot of rolling and bouncing throughout the book to the right charts, but the backstories were crazy detailed.

Well, as I started going to conventions as a cosplayer, I was trying to come up with something I could do at a table of my own. I had friends who were artists, models, and game designers. I thought I could help people develop their characters, but realized that using the book would be too clunky. I thought I could combine the idea with tarot cards, and started to work up a prototype using perforated business card paper. I tweaked and tested them for two years before launching the Kickstarter.

[12-Jan-21 07:47 PM] AllThatJazmine#0676
The cards are genre neutral because the suggestions are vague enough to work in any setting. Sci-fi, Horror, Fantasy, Modern: they all work.

We do have some expansions that do get a little more genre-specific. Currently we have a fantasy booster and a sci-fi booster. Plans are in the work for even more.

[12-Jan-21 07:48 PM] saintnexan#6715
Nice!

[12-Jan-21 07:48 PM] saintnexan#6715
Is this your first RPG product, then?