totetude-family-tree-one-kid-md

When I was a child, I knew three of my grandparents well. My paternal grandfather and namesake, however, I have no memory of ever meeting; he died before I was born, he was only ever a photograph on the wall.

I was thinking about that, and about how my experience of family was not adequately described by a simple traditional family tree (of the type shown to the left), prompted by an old episode of the original “Who Do You Think You Are?” that was recently repeated on Australian TV – and had a stroke of inspiration.
lifeline

The Life-Line

What you see to the right is a character background planning tool that I have created called a Life-Line. Let me walk you through what it contains.

There’s a scale on the left in years. Key ages are marked with lines running the width of the tool, ages at which key life events occur or transitions begin or end. These key ages delineate seven different stages of life in an individual.

These life stages are a reflection of both the biology and society of the individual. This example is appropriate to a modern-day character; characters from a century or more ago would have a different pattern, as would characters in a Fantasy campaign like D&D, or Elves, or whatever. That means that GMs will have to create their own using this as a template in order to reflect their own campaigns. Sorry, I can’t do it all for you.

To assist in doing so, let’s examine the seven life-stages that I have defined:

Child (0-5 years)

In childhood, the main task of the individual is to learn how to walk, talk, etc – the essentials of managing their body. There is zero chance of anyone this age becoming a parent.

School (5-16 years)

School years are when the individual receives their fundamental education. There is a very low chance of anyone in this age group becoming a parent.

Pre-Adult (16-21 years)

The pre-adult years are when the individual receives their advanced eduction, learning either a craft (apprenticeship), professional skills, or receiving further education. While the chances are low that an individual in this age group will become a parent, it is also not unheard of. My parents were both in this age group when I was born, for example – and my sister and middle brother, for good measure. But they were both young at the time. In most cultures, the age of adulthood falls somewhere in this range, often in graduated stages (whatever the “official” view is) – the age at which one is permitted to consume alcohol may be different from the age at which you can join the army, which may be different from the age that you are permitted to leave school, which may be different to the age at which you can legally marry, or vote, or own property.

Young Adult (21-35 years)

It is in this age group that the individual begins to establish themselves in their profession. This is also the peak age for parenthood, the age at which an individual is most likely to become a parent (if they aren’t already).

Mature (35-55 years)

This is usually the peak period in a professional life, and is often marked by a transition from doing something to managing, supervising, or training others who are doing that something. At the same time, there is a decreasing likelihood of parenthood, starting reasonably high and becoming almost unheard-of at the end. This is a mirror image of the parental likelihood progression within the school years and pre-adult period. This is also the age period in which the risk of mortality begins to increase.

Senior (55-70 years)

Until relatively recently – the last 20-30 years, say – this was the age at which the professional transition from middle management to senior management occurred. It is often marked by the individual beginning to lose touch with the ‘coming trends’ in their profession. Somewhere in this age range, retirement is likely to occur – the exact age at which this occurs varies from profession to profession and society to society. There is little-to-no chance of individuals in this age group becoming parents to their own offspring, but adoption and guardianship may still occur. Mortality rates rise markedly, and until very recently, the majority of individuals will pass away during this age period.

Venerable )70+ years)

Three-score-and-ten years marks the point at which the character’s age becomes significant, and age-related infirmities become part of almost every individual’s life. Even today, every year that passes without the individual dying makes them part of an increasingly-rare group. According to current statistics:

  • At 70, only 73,546 out of 100,000 men will be alive; for women, this rises to 82,818.
  • At 75, only 63,559 men out of 100,000 men will be alive; for women, 74,992 / 100,000.
  • At 80, 50,344 men / 100,000 and 62,542 / 100,000 women;
  • At 85, 34.014 men and 47,815 women;
  • At 90, 17,429 men and 28,751 women;
  • At 95, only 5,481 men and 11,557 women will survive.
  • At age 100, which is far as I have taken the life-line, only 884 out of 100,000 men and 2,610 out of 100,000 women survive.

But these statistics were far worse only a couple of decades ago. According to the UK Government, mortality rates by age have halved since 1963, only increasing beyond this rule of thumb in the 85+ age group – and even there, the rate is only about 55% of what it was. It seems logical that the improvement would continue to reduce with age – it might only be 75% of what it was for 95-year olds, and might be as much as 90% of what it was for 100-year olds.

The odds of the individual having any measure of professional practice at all reduces at a similar rate with age, in other words the percentage of those still working from amongst those who survive will be about the same as the death rate. At 70 years, 26.5% of men will have died, and of the remaining 73.5%, only 26.5% will still do any work.

This rough-and-ready estimating technique is brilliant because it naturally incorporates changes in social dynamics from one era to another. Let’s look at the 1963 comparison to show you what I mean: At 70, roughly 53% of men will have died, and of the remaining 47%, about 53% of them will still need to work in some capacity. If we assume that (war notwithstanding), the death rates at the start of the 20th century were half again of the 1963 rate: At 70, roughly 80% of men will have died (26.5 + 53), and of the remaining 20%, eight in ten of them will still be working in some way. It might be a different occupation (something unskilled); it might be simply caring for the grandchildren while the parents work (and note that I consider childcare and home duties for others, including partners and children to be work), as is a vegetable garden for the purpose of supplementing your own diet.

Why the Life-Line is a useful tool

The life-line has one significant advantage over any other such tool: You can make several of them and slide one up-and-down relative to another. Doesn’t sound like much, does it?

Let me phrase that another way: By lining up a parent’s age at the time a character was born, you can see exactly what stage of life the parent was at during each stage of the character’s life. You can include siblings, grandparents, even great-grandparents.

It transforms the basic data of Date Of Birth from a traditional family tree into a graphical format that you can manipulate to get exactly the character life-story that you want.
Click on the image to see the full-sized image in a new tab

A Demonstration

Here’s a demonstration for an only child. I’ve put the parents to each side of the subject, the father to the left and the mother to the right. Further out from each parent are their parents – so paternal grandparents on the extreme left, and maternal on the extreme right.

I’ve lined the parents up relative to the character to show their age at the time the character was born, and then moved the grandparents to show their ages at the time each parent was born.

I’ve indicated how old the character is at the moment with a red line and an arrow-head – 24 years of age.

And finally, I’ve torn the bottoms off the lifelines at the age of death of the relatives based on when I wanted the relationship to stop influencing the character, or when I wanted him to experience the trauma of losing a beloved relative. In practice, it’s probably better to simply fold undesired parts of the life-lines under the used strip, permitting you to change your mind and tweak this aspect of the character’s background until perfectly satisfied.

In this case, the character’s mother was about 23 years old when the character was born, and his father was a little older at about 29 years old. His mother died young, when he was about 19 and she was about 42 – this could be the result of illness or accident. In the modern era, the latter is more likely than the former; a century ago, the reverse was beginning to be true. The character’s father is still alive and is now in his early 50s. Note that the father’s life-line is intact because the character doesn’t know how long his father will live.

Next, let’s look at the Paternal grandparents. His grandmother was about 23 years of age when his father was born, and his grandfather a little younger at 19 years of age. At the time, those four years would probably have loomed very large in their relationship, and might well have caused some social stigma; not much was said when a man took a slightly-younger bride but the reverse tended to be frowned-upon. The paternal grandparents are both dead; Grandmother died at 61, when the character was only a few years into his schooling – eight or nine years old. Grandfather died at 71, only a year or two ago.

On the maternal line, the character’s grandfather was 47 when the character’s mother was born, and – scandalously – his grandmother 34, a difference of 13 years. If grandma was married at about 18, grandpa would have been 33 at the time; if the wedding was a decade later, he would have been 43 and approaching middle age when she was 28 and still quite definitely young. That sort of fits the profile of a man marrying his secretary or something along those lines; she might even be his second wife.

His maternal grandmother died at 65 years of age, when the character was at school, only 7 or 8 years of age, and about a year before his maternal grandmother passed away. He would probably only barely remember her. His maternal grandfather has only passed away in the last year, at the ripe old age of 95, and in fact he has lost both his grandfathers within the span of a year.
lifelines in use with dates

World Events

To complete the functionality of the Life-line, we need a strip of paper – the backs of unused life-lines would work – in which lines denote significant national events wherever the character or his ancestors were living at the time.

Let’s say, for example, that this character is part of a Pulp Campaign set in 1933. Notable events might include the start of the great depression (1929), World War 1 (1914-1918), The Great San Francisco Earthquake (1906); The Typhoid Mary Epidemic & The first flight of the wright brothers (1903); The Spanish-American War (1898); The Light Bulb (1880); The telephone (1875); the trans-continental railroad link cuts coast-to-coast travel time from 3 months to 8 days (1869); and the US Civil War & Assassination of Lincoln (1861-1865). There are many more that could be chosen, of course.

The image to the right illustrates the result.

The character’s maternal grandmother was born in the year the South attempted to secede, triggering the Civil War. His maternal grandfather was more than 10 years old at that time, and as the war continued, was probably old enough to entertain childish notions of running off to war. He would certainly have remembered life in the era of slavery. Neither of his grandmothers would have seen the end of World War I.

The “great years” of the American Wild West, as romanticized in the 20th century, took place during the large gap in the dates. All his grandparents were of an age where the opportunities may have appealed. The character was not old enough to understand much of the first world war, but would have been shaped by the privations and hardships of the war effort – the meat-free days, flour-free days, and so on.

The most significant event in the character’s life would almost certainly be the Great Depression; he would have been greatly conscious of his professional opportunities vanishing from beneath his feet, and this – accompanied by the loss of his mother – are likely to have had strong formative influences over the person he has become.

His father almost certainly served during the First World War, and was the right sort of age to have been enlisted as a Sergeant – the slightly older man who knew how the world worked and could manage the men in a unit while the Officer, who had received specialized training in command, took care of the military side of things. His paternal Grandfather looks to have been old enough to resent not being permitted to join up and do his part in defeating the Kaiser.

It’s also worth noticing that his father’s parents are both younger than those of his mother, having had their child at a much younger age than this maternal grandparents. This becomes significant when compared with the Civil War period – both the maternal grandparents experienced the Civil War, while neither of his paternal grandparents did. This is likely to produce a generational divide in terms of social attitude between them.

When the character was a child, his parents were both young; his maternal grandfather was old; and his other grandparents were middle-aged. Now his father is middle-aged and is his only surviving direct relative.

It’s hard to go much further without localities and personalities. What’s clear is that the only really significant female presence in his life was his mother, while he would have had three quite disparate but strong (in their own ways) male influences. The character is probably masculine and might even be somewhat misogynistic as a result. It will take a very strong-willed woman to dominate him, and he is more likely to be attracted to a shy, demure type who will accede to his dominion.

The chart also offers a couple of unresolved questions. Is it coincidence that both his grandfathers died during the depression? Is it coincidence that his mother died just before the depression? Is it coincidence that both his grandmothers died during World War I? Did his father, in fact, serve during the Great War, and what impact has the experience had on him?

Sliding one of these charts just a year or two up or down can have a profound impact. If the character’s mother had died a year or two earlier, it would have occurred just as he was finishing his education, and could suggest that the character’s life choices upon entry to young adulthood were shaped by her absence. The relationship with his father would already be precarious because of World War I; with the added pressure of the Depression and the loss of his mother at a key point in his life, the character and his father might well have become estranged and the character have left home to make his own way in the world.

Getting A Life-line

There are two ways to get your hands on one of these planning tools for your own use. The first is to create your own, and if the culture in your campaign is at all different to that of the 20th and 21st century western world – i.e. the one that I have used – that’s what you will have to do, simply because the categories will either be different, or have boundaries at different key points, or both.

Or, if that isn’t the case, you can use the one that I included in the article earlier – simply right-click on the image and “Save as” or “open image in new tab” or whatever is your favored approach.

Or you could click on this link to open the graphic in a new tab.

Final Word

The events that our grandparents experienced shape them and their lives, and that in turn (plus the events that they experience) shapes our parents – and that shapes us. Applying this principle to the characters we create helps to make them richer and more complete as characters. The Life-line is a great tool for exploring the options available and shaping the character’s past to suit the personality that we want to create and the past that we want them to experience.


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