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Back around late 2022, Cubicle 7 took the Journey sub-system from Adventures in Middle Earth, building upon and converting it to the more general 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons ruleset. But this would not be their only project for D&D, as earlier this year they came out with another sourcebook. Instead of focusing on a singular central sub-system, A Life Well Lived contains several, from a Lifepath method of character creation to group patrons and base building. Whereas Uncharted Journeys reflected the physical exploration of PCs, this product reflects the more social and introspective side of characters.
Although most well-known in Traveller and Cyberpunk, the concept of the Lifepath has appeared in many other RPGs. It’s a form of character creation where major mechanical decisions of the PC come about from life events before their first adventure. Sometimes it takes the form of randomly-generated results on tables, other times it can be a Choose Your Own Adventure style multiple choice flowchart. A Life Well Lived’s Lifepath is mostly random, with a few options (notably class) allowed to be chosen by the player.
The Lifepath system is a five-step process. The first, Lineage, determines the PC’s fantasy race. It can either be randomly rolled on a d100 table (humans and elves are the most common at 20% each, while dragonborn, half-elves, half-orcs, and tieflings the rarest at 4% each) or chosen by the player. The lineages are all from the core rules albeit their mechanics differ slightly. They have some and not all of their race’s abilities, notably the more biological-sounding options like darkvision or a dragonborn’s breath weapon. As opposed to culturally-implied features like weapon proficiencies. There are also no subraces, and races who’d ordinarily have it have some of them folded into the default lineage, like the Dwarf gaining the Hill Dwarf’s +1 hit point per level. The “lost” features are intended to be made up for via other results in the lifepath system. Additionally, lineage doesn’t affect one’s ability score bonuses; that too is in the later steps. But in the event where a lost feature would be important for a PC idea, the book says for the player to work with the GM who also has the right to balance things by making other changes in exchange.
Notably, the elf has new features that aren’t available in the core rules. An elf’s Keen Senses grants not just Perception proficiency, but also +5 to Passive Perception. They have a free cantrip like that of the High Elf, but can be drawn from either the Druid or Wizard spell lists. Humans use the features of a Variant Human, but without the free feat.
Lifepath is the next step and the longest, divided into seven steps representing important developments in the PC’s life. These range from what astrological sign they were born under to unique quirks they picked up. The Lifepath more or less acts as a combination of Background and standard Race, providing various proficiencies, starting gold, and some novel features. The astrological sign determines what +1 they gain to a certain ability score, while another +1 is determined by d6 tables for how they grew up in their early childhood environment. These options are evenly balanced among the six scores, so for instance you don’t have cases where growing up in a noble estate results in a bias towards mental abilities. Adolescent Experiences represent defining moments as the character grows up and gets a wider perspective on the world yet not yet at full adulthood, which culminates in giving them a skill proficiency. Life Lesson rounds out the third +1 ability bonus via a d12 table of a random life-changing decision. While the moments themselves are randomized, each decision has three options in how the PC resolves it, which determines what ability score bonus they get. For example, Blaze has their neighbor’s house catch on fire. Hauling what they can out of the house grants +1 Strength, consoling and keeping the neighbor safe grants +1 Wisdom, and working all night to douse the flames grants +1 Constitution.
Pivotal Moment represents the PC’s first brush with adventure and a life beyond predictable mundanity. These options are more fantastic and exciting, such as stumbling upon a planar incursion that warped the land near the PC’s home, or signing on to a merchant’s caravan where they find a ciphered journal left behind by an undercover spy. This step grants proficiency in a language, tool, or a single type of weapon along with a single piece of equipment, usually what would be a Trinket.
Occupation is partially random, where the prior Pivotal Moment grants the player one of three related jobs for their PC to choose. The job grants proficiency in a single skill and tool, a set of relevant tools as free equipment, and an Income Die that determines their Starting Funds. The Die ranges from 1d4 to 1d8, and is rolled against a fixed amount of gold pieces determined by class that is multiplied to determine how much money the PC has. Between this and Pivotal Moment, every skill and OGL tool from the core rules is covered here.
Quirks represent the final stage of the randomized Lifepath system, being a d20 table of some feature or personality trait. These quirks break with convention in that not all provide explicit mechanical effects, and those that do give things you can’t get by default in the core rules. For example, Contortionist grants advantage on checks to escape a grapple, Fearless lets the PC spend an action to remove the Frightened condition on themselves, and Etiquette lets a PC effortlessly blend in and socialize with a specific group of people such as criminals, nobles, or scholars.
Class more or less follows the core rules with two important exceptions. One’s class grants +1 to the ability score (or one of two ability scores) most important to the class, while there’s no option for default class equipment; instead a PC uses their Starting Funds to buy their gear. After that, there’s some various Finishing Touches fleshing out the character, such as the Call to Adventure determining the reason they abandoned a (relatively) safe life, or Skeletons in the Closet showing a secret they hide from others. These particular results are all open-ended rather than specific, being more of a jumping-off point like “you have a destiny you must fulfill” or “the event from your Early Childhood is how you prefer to tell the story; the truth is far uglier.”
You might have noticed that there’s a net +4 to ability scores using the Lifepath system: +1 from an astrological sign, +1 for early childhood, +1 for a life-changing decision, and +1 for class. So it is very much possible for a starting PC to get as high as a 22 in a score this way, but as only one of the increases is non-randomized this isn’t guaranteed to happen. In fact, the book suggests two alternate methods of ability score generation if other ways aren’t to one’s liking. The standard array is 14, 14, 12, 12, 10, and 8, while rolling to determine ability scores is 2d6+6.
Goals is the final section of this chapter. They’re determined at character generation, but are developed by the player rather than randomized and can change over the course of the campaign. Short-term Goals represent causes the PC can accomplish within 2-3 sessions, the end of a minor quest, or at the end of a story beat. Completing them grants the party an experience award based on their level, or a Narrative Reward which is a more nebulous benefit such as being able to change one’s subclass or some other vital aspect of the character; or gaining a new Contact in the form of an Ally or Rival, a new mechanic covered later in this book. A long-term goal is the PC’s raison d’etre for adventuring, and may be a motivation or ideal to hold onto over the course of one’s life rather than something that can be plausibly accomplished. A PC who takes actions for forwarding this goal gains Inspiration or a Narrative Reward. If a PC manages to accomplish this goal, the GM should reward them with a significant boon. The book says that the player and GM should work out the details, but should be something along the lines of receiving a free feat, leveling up, or gaining a magic item.
Party Goals are the last type, but they receive the least attention. Basically they’re things the group wants to accomplish together and aren’t tied to any one particular PC. Usually they’re in line with the plot hooks the GM comes up with, and if Milestone Leveling is used then they should be the yardstick for determining advancement for leveling up.
Thoughts So Far: In terms of serving as a replacement for race, background, and starting equipment, the Lifepath system isn't significantly unbalanced to the point that PCs made for it will be notably stronger or weaker. One notable change with Lifepath is that tool proficiencies become a given rather than a possibility via Occupations, and 7 out of the 10 Pivotal Moments have tools as options for proficiency alongside languages and weapons. As 5th Edition by default doesn’t include intricate crafting and business subsystems, this won’t have much of a direct impact on character power, but it does make PCs better-versed on mundane trades than the standard rules. However, tools are very important for the other sub-systems in this book, so while technically isolated all of the rulesets in A Life Well Lived are meant to build off of each other.
Theoretically speaking, characters made for it have a slight advantage via the net +4 ability score increase and a possibly useful Quirk. However, the randomization of results can push characters away from playing exactly what they’d want. If you end up with +2 to Strength and no bonus to Intelligence, you’re most likely not going to play a wizard. My greatest criticism is the lineages. Given that many campaigns nowadays use non-core sources, there should have been discussions for how to incorporate non-standard options such as warforged and genasi, or made race-specific benefits part of the broader randomized system. Something like having it so that half-orcs can get the high elf’s bonus cantrip or a halfling getting the half-orc’s triple damage on a melee crit.
Join us next time as we see what PCs do between adventures in Chapter 2: Campcraft and Chapter 3: Downtime!
