by Gino Marinaro

Diaries, or journals, differ from backgrounds in a few key ways. First, a background is a history of a character before the character gets played. It’s their life up to the first game session. A journal is a recounting of game sessions. A background is largely made up from the imagination of you, the character’s player. A journal is derived from the game sessions and will include happenings, quotes and other material that could be credited to other players and the GM. A background will often cover broad events. A journal will cover specific events with more detail. Those would be the biggest differences.

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