You Gotta Have Character
Written by Jason Walters -128 pg Trade Paperback, Perfect Bound
Disclosure: This is a comp copy. It may also be pertinent to know that I license the Hero System to publish my own electronic books.
First, writing a review for this book is a little intimidating. Ken Hite writes a lovely and humorously “well cited” two-page introduction that doubles as one of the best reviews I have read. Sadly, it’s in the book and not readily accessible. Thus my feeble attempt.
You Gotta Have Character is my favorite kind of book — one that examines personalities from history that are so funky-cool, messed up that you just have to find a way to work them into your game. This book has a character that you will want to use no matter what game system you use or genre you play. It can’t get any simpler than that.
Overview: There aren’t specific chapters in this book. Instead, within the 125 pages you will find twenty five larger than life but strangely real character write ups. A quick math check tells me that this is about 5 pages per character, though some hog a little more or less limelight depending on how convoluted their tale becomes. Since these are historical representations, a good deal of the write up is spent on background and personality rather than game stats. Gracing the sidebars are copious notes on how to use the characters in various genres, direct quotes from the person or their peers, and adventure seeds using the characters background.
Life-sized Characters
Josephine Baker: The Creole Goddess of the Paris stage who received over 1,500 marriage proposals.
Rodrigo Borgia: The Pope who served as an inspiration to Machiavelli when he wrote The Prince.
Lord Byron: His odd character traits are forever enshrined in the halls of literature as the Byronic hero.
Cabeza de Vaca: If ever there was someone who deserved the title “Adventurer” it would be this man.
Calamity Jane: There are so many sides to this story that I am stuck. A foul mouthed hellraiser one minute and yet she was one of the few who stayed in a town ravaged by smallpox so that she could tend to the sick.
Harold Davidson: The Prostitutes Padre earned a reputation for being Johnny-on-the-spot when he was needed by his flock of young, nubile streetwalkers.
Andrew Jackson Davis: Medium and occultist, what more needs to be said?
Eleanor of Aquitaine: The ever independent “Grandmother of Europe.”
Arthur “Weegee” Fellig: An odd fella with a penchant for photography and crime scenes. I was enthralled by this strange tale.
Robert Hooke: His work gives us the word “Bedlam.”
El Santo: The Captain America of “Mexican Wrestling.”
Liver-Eating Johnson: If I ever made a list of “people I never want to meet”, this man would rank up near the top. The inspiration for the old TV show Grizzly Adams.
Robert Johnson: The greatest jazz musician I never heard of.
Col. Alexander McClug: Poet, warrior, historian, and a lover of women who lived his life as a duelist.
Aimee Semple McPherson: A modern televangelist before the term was invented.
Miyamoto Mushashi: Really, do I need to elaborate?
Mungo Park: Deranged Scottish explorer of “the Dark Continent.”
William Poole: Better known as Bill the Butcher from Scorsese’s Gangs of New York. Yes, that scary man was a real live person. As an added bonus, there is a large section on gangsta talk from 1852, if you can decipher it.
Pytheas: Greek geographer, linguist, explorer, scientist, and merchant. Overachiever.
Jim Savage: Also known as the King of the Tulares. Apparently, he was aptly named as well for he went native among the Indians of gold rush California.
Tomas de Torquemada: Hard to top this one on the “wow, someone really did that stuff” list.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec: French painter addled by absinthe and malformation who changed the world of art.
That is about it for the great big list of really odd people. You Gotta Have Character does some fun stuff with many of the characters that goes a step beyond simple recounting of history and that is what makes this book such a useful resource. The simple history can be scoured from various sources at your local library or on the net but the side bars and side treks provided in this book supply enough fodder that each character can be used several different ways. That inspiration is gaming gold. 'Course, I may be a bit biased - as I said up front - reading about historical persons who are so strange and unbelievably real that their biographies read better as fiction than history is something I just dig on.
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