Tag: Humor

Posted in: Humor, Role Playing Games

RPGaDay2023 Day 17: Funniest game you’ve played

Written by TardisCaptain

Day 17 of the #RPGaDAY2023 is “Funniest Game You’ve Played”. I’m certain that we will see several other entries for this date for Toon or Paranoia. But unfortunately I’ve never played these games.

What I have played is a game that came out in 1989 called It Came From The Late, Late, Late Show. This was a roleplaying game is a humor based game where you play an actor (or someone pretending to be an actor) trying to help a low-budget film get made. The director had a script which was the plot of the session. It was all tongue-in-cheek.

A bunch of RPG buddies had the opportunity to play this game sometime in the early 90’s in a late night gaming session. What I recall is that we had our main character and their stunt double. If we were going into a combat situation, the stunt doubles could go in first. This kept the main character safe until the stunt double ran out of health and could no longer be used.

There was an option where the players could create their own skill/ability (I don’t recall what it was called) and one of my friends came up with the brilliant idea of “Parry with Other”. Basically if he rolled successfully, then he grabbed another person and parried with that person (giving them the damage). There was a chance that it could be an opponent, or a chance that it could be an ally. He used this skill a lot in our game so he never had to send his stunt double into battle. But in one battle, he successfully used the Parry with Other to avoid the attack from the last opponent, and succeeded in the roll of grabbing the bad guy. So the henchman attacked and then was thrust into his own sword attack.

But that wasn’t the funniest part for me in the entire game. We were playing in a bad cheesy kung-fu samurai vs ninjas action flick in ancient Japan. I was playing a failed rock-star wanting to start his acting career (so I sang during parts of the game). There was one scene where we had to sneak into this bar in the middle of the night for one reason or another and it was pitch black. One of the players decided to light a candle so they could see. The director then described the comical scene of how the light now illuminated an army of ninjas that had surrounded us in preparation to attack. The director went around the room and asked each player one-by-one what their character was doing. Various answers of drawing weapons or getting into a defensive stance were returned. When it was my turn, my response to the director was turning my head to the side and making a blowing sound as I blew out the candle.

My friend playing the director fell to the ground laughing maniacally. I was quite proud that my joke had taken him several minutes to recover. I loved making people laugh. I know that in another game, if I could make the DM give a laugh at humor injected into the scenario, he would give me experience points.

This is one of the reasons that I like to play these games with my friends, around a table while eating unhealthy snacks. We get to have fun with each other in a place where we are socializing.

Have you had a session that you would consider your funniest? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

Posted in: Humor, Reviews, Role Playing Games, Star Trek

First look at Star Trek Lower Decks STA products

Written by TardisCaptain 1 Comment on First look at Star Trek Lower Decks STA products

So the gang at Modphius just announced a Star Trek: Lower Decks campaign guide for Star Trek Adventures. You don’t know how excited this announcement has made me. There is an old running joke that Dungeons and Dragon campaigns start as Lord of the Rings, but turn into Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Why, because we have fun around a table for our roleplaying games. I can see this also happening with Star Trek Adventures. Even at the recent SaltCON there were several STA sessions inspired by Star Trek: Lower Decks. According to the email, this book should come out in Quarter 3 of 2023. Sigh, I hate waiting so long.

To tide us over, Modiphius has released two Lower Decks products on PDF. The Lower Decks Season 1 Player Characters (aka the crew pack) and the Lower Decks inspired adventure Lurkers. Now in past blog entries I’ve reviewed the Star Trek: Discovery crew packs. So I thought I’d do a quick review of these publications.

Like the other character guides, they are written as reports given by the superiors to the USS Cerritos officers. The book comes in at 17 pages, which is smaller than the Discovery character guides. We get eight main characters, several supporting characters and a write up for the USS Cerritos itself. No new races for the game (sad) but most of the races used were already covered. They could have given us stats for Excocomps, however that wasn’t the case. Hopefully that will be in the campaign guide.

I loved Mariner’s “Contraband Stash” but wondered about the claim that Tendi was the first Orion in Starfleet. I wonder how the focus of “catnip” will come into a session? (guess where that was listed at). I think this was a good purchase for me and I can’t wait to see the season two character guides to see what has been added.

I really wondered if I wanted to read through the adventure “Lurkers” as I wanted to play it. But I also wanted to see how a “Lower Decks” adventure was written up. When we had our Lower Decks inspired game at SaltCON, the gamemaster gave a lot of prep and setup for the game. We had players who had never seen the show, but still had fun. So I would recommend that the GM set the tone at the table explaining that this is a comedic episode and letting the players go a little wild. At SaltCON, we had a player end up with two Orion slave women that I don’t think was originally part of the scenario. But the way the NPCs came to be a part of the group (we hid them from the drunk commanding officer by stating they were new crew) added to the humor.

Without giving the plot to Lurkers away, I can see where the setup works. Bad bureaucracy leads to the scenario and the players have several choices to make along the way. There is an option for combat, but most of the adventure is thinking on your feet and not getting caught or left behind by the senior officers. One of the things that I like about Lower Decks is the various Star Trek Easter eggs that are scattered through-out an episode. Lurkers gives the GM an opportunity to through several of these in the adventure. So I would recommend that the GM be very brushed up on their Star Trek minutia trivia. Especially with debates among various Star Trek fandoms. There is even an opportunity to slip Lurkers into a regular Star Trek Adventures campaign, but the main characters use by the players should be of the Lower Deck variety. In a way, I’d really love to see a veteran group of STA players take the actual Lower Deck characters and play this scenario (and record it on YouTube for others to see).

One final note about Lurkers, it actually has a follow up mission briefing listed for GMs to use as part of a follow up. So you are getting more than just a single mission. I’d recommend picking this up.

Until then, I can’t wait to get the Lower Decks campaign guide. Ugh, 3rd Quarter 2023 is such a long ways away.

Are you looking forward to the upcoming Lower Decks STA products? Have you picked up the character guide or Lurkers? This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

Posted in: Humor, My Creations, Red Dwarf, Star Trek

Making Memes Part VIII

Written by TardisCaptain

Going through my past blog entries I realized that it’s been a while since I posted a batch of my homemade memes. Here are a few that I randomly pulled out of the “My Work” folder. If you are brave enough, you can see the past memes I’ve created here: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI and Part VII. All of the entries in this post were created with MS Paint.

I’ve posted this on some of my social media sites and it has made the rounds on the internet. The look on Dr. McCoy’s face while holding the communicator made me think of the caption.

The only real reason I watch the Superbowl is to see the commercials. Companies spent a lot of money to show us the “best of the best” advertising. Sometimes they work really well, and sometimes they have wasted a lot of money. After the crypto commercials last year with the weird QR codes, I was surprised to see a lot of commercials with QR codes this year. So it inspired me to make this meme.

If you haven’t seen Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, go watch it now. Oh, are you back already? Good. This scene from the first episode was turned into a series of memes where the TV displayed different shows that Captain Pike could have been watching because it was a classic. I had to drop a scene from the Red Dwarf episode “Gunmen of the Apocalypse”. I received lots of compliments on this entry including the use of the letterbox. Honestly, it was just the way the picture fit on the screen.

I actually just made this meme an hour before posting this blog entry. I saw the pun on one of the newsletters I subscribe to and knew I had to meme it. Luckily I’ve been making meme blanks and this one stood out to me.

What are some of your favorite memes? Do any of my past memes stand out to you? I have a Jokes and Memes channel on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. Not only am I posting my latest memes there, but others have been sharing as well.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Horror, Humor, Role Playing Games, Uncategorized

2023 Character Creation Challenge Day 31: They Came From Beyond The Grave!

Written by TardisCaptain

I wanted to wrap up the 2023 Character Creation Challenge with a game that has caught my interest. Onyx Path Publishing has released a series of games titled “They Came From…” that covers a variety of genres. The system that I’m going to be using today is based off of the cheesy 60’s and 70’s horror movies that I’m enjoy watching on Elvira, Svengoolie and Creature Features. I also wanted to promote this game because Onyx Path Publishing was one of the sponsoring backers for season 13 of Mystery Science Theater 3000 as seen on the Gizmoplex. A thank you from me.

The PDF has 268 pages (with several extra pages of printable quip cards). The character sheet is only a single page. I believe that the character creation process starts with Chapter Three on page 49. There really isn’t a checklist (takes a few points away from Gryffindor) so I guess we are winging it through the chapters. I hope they are put together well as I dislike knowing when the character creation process has ended.

Our first step is to come up with a concept for the character. Not knowing if the adventures are going to be set in the 1970’s or earlier, I think I’ll create a curious professor type character that has found a mysterious book with missing pages and he’s wants to find them. So the missing pages will be the long term aspiration. I’m also instructed to pick two short term aspirations. So let’s make them… actually I can’t think of anything now and the few examples are not very helpful. So I’d probably beg the Director (GM) to let me come up with them during play as inspiration strikes.

The next step is to pick a path. These were life experiences before the adventure. These are broken down into three things. An archetype (think class or profession), origin and dark agenda (dun, dun, dunnnnnnn). Well I’ve already selected professor since all of the archetypes were described in chapter two before the character creation started. I selected the four professor skills on my sheet (not added dots, like designating a class skill on a D&D 3.5 character sheet) out of the 10 listed in the earlier pages (a lot of jumping back and forth slows things down). The origin is the background of the character. I can select four un-selected skills that came from this origin and mark them with an “O”. Nothing in the examples really spoke to me. I just selected four skills at random and put down “some guy” hoping that something will come to me later. I really could have used other players to bounce ideas off of. As for the Dark Path, the book says this drives your character. The examples were not very helpful. He’s not going to be a cult leader. Fame and fortune might work, might. Forbidden love? No. Protective Parent? Search for a Cure? They don’t fit. I know it sounds like I’m down on this game, I’m not, I’m just not inspired to write up a whole backstory just yet. I just want to fill out the character sheet and see if anything sparks while that is happening. I’ll put down the fame one now and probably change it later if the creative juices actually start flowing. I marked the skills. Now I have three dots in each category to place in those skills.

Onto step three. Spend six more dots on any skill on the sheet (not just the ones selected above).

Wow, we are finally to the step where we select our attributes. There are nine in total. Might, Dexterity and Stamina make up the physical attributes. The mental attributes are Intellect, Cunning and Resolve. The last three that make up the social attributes are Presence, Manipulation and Composure. I pick one of the three groups above to be the primary focus. There is already one dot in each of these attributes and each group gets a series of dots depending if it is my first, second or third choice. Now I get to choose the favored approach. These are Force, Finesse and Resilience. These all associate with a set of attributes from across the three types. The favored approach get one dot for each attribute. I selected resilience, why? Don’t know, it just sounded good. There was an optional step to take a freebie dot and place it anywhere that wasn’t already at the max of five. My pretend Director said yes to this and I put the dot in the weakest attribute of Might.

Step five is to select a trademark? No, not something I’d file with the US Patent and Trademark Office. It’s described as a signature move (that could be tied with a skill or attribute) that can be used once per story where it provides two additional dice to the pool and gives you something called “Directional Control” if you succeed (hold on, I’ve got to flip down another 40 pages to see what this is). OK, the player gets to alter the story in a logical manner (example: the murder’s ax can suddenly become lodged in a tree trunk). I guess this could be the “we suddenly found a vital clue or gain an advantage we didn’t have before” aspect to the scene. Scrolls back up to the character creation portion. So if I’m reading this correctly, it could be a catch phrase or move. I’m going to go with “I read this in a book once” and connect it to the science and enigmas skills.

Step six is to determine relationships and connections. Apparently this involves coordinating with the other players in the party and determine how your characters feel/know/understand each other. As there is no other party members being rolled up in this challenge entry, I’ll skip this step. I have a lot of voices in my head, but not all of them want to make characters right now.

Now we are at the final touches. Assign three tropes (what are those?) and three quips (what?) Scrolling back up to the earlier description of the archetype I see that it has various trademarks listed. I can select two of them so I picked “Let me guide you” (lend skills to another) and “Don’t be fooled” (snap a companion out of a mental condition). I can also select another trope from anywhere else which was “My lucky dime” (a good luck charm that I can use as a bonus. As for the quips, the are some sort of catchphrase that can be found on the “deck of cards” in the back of the book. There is a quip deck for each archetype. Since I can’t really shuffle and draw randomly, I’ll just select them. It wasn’t exactly clear what the quips do, so I just picked some.

I like the fact that in the final touches it talks about tweaks. Once you’ve played a session or two you can work with the Director to change a few things to fit the campaign and/or party. I have a feeling that I’d probably need something like this.

So I did pick out a name in the middle of the process. This professor is called Bruce Walters (hey it fit). There were a lot couple of blank spaces still left on the character sheet, but I’m going to scan the sheet now.

Afterthoughts:

There is a chapter at the beginning of the book with a lot of movies and TV shows that are inspirational for a game such as It Came From Beyond The Grave! Some I’ve seen, some I need to check out.

I don’t know if I like the “come up with your whole backstory” process when making a character. Sometimes the inspiration for these things come while playing the game itself. Trying to come up with them in a vacuum doesn’t work sometimes.

The humor in this game sounds good. With a group of like-minded friends (with warped senses of humor) who love the cheesy horror genre, this could be a good game to play. From what I read of the system, it makes sense. I just wish the delivery was a little bit better when it came to character creation and explanations of game terms. I did a lot of jumping around in this book. I’m going to have to pick up a PDF of some of the other “It Came From…” books to see how they compare to this one. I’m not certain which books came first.

Additional Notes:

We did it!!!!! 31 characters in 31 days. I am working with my daughter who came up with last years completion logo to make another one. She hasn’t completed it yet because college studies have taken priority. But if you made it, email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com and I’ll make sure to get it to you. I still see the 2022 logo on display on a few websites.

Coming Up Next:

A bonus character (day 32?) and a challenge summary

This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Humor, Role Playing Games

2023 Character Creation Challenge Day 11: XD20 Second Edition

Written by TardisCaptain

One of the kickstarters that I backed last year was the 2nd Edition of X-Treme Dungeon Mastery by Tracy and Curtis Hickman and illustrated by Howard Tayler. While the book is an excellent guide for Dungeon Masters, it also contains it’s own roleplaying game called XD20 Second Edition. Yes, the first XDM book also had an RPG in it. So for day 11 of the Character Creation Challenge, I’m going to make a character for this system. Just as I had to make a disclaimer for Fantasy Craft, I need to drop one here. I’ve known Howard Tayler for years and had no problem backing his kickstarter since I knew that I’d get what was promised. But I’m going to do this mini-review based upon what I read while creating the character without considering my relationship with the artist.

This system is generic and can be used for any genre. So for the purposes of creating a character, I’m going to pretend that an XDM is going to run us through a fantasy campaign. I’m going to create Blix the Barbarian.

The core mechanic when confronted with a challenge is to roll a d20, add a stat bonus and if you meet or beat a target number, your character succeeds. There are additional items (I’m not going to give away the whole system) but it is very rules-light system. The character creation rules start on page 120 and you start with five stats. TAC (Toughness and Constitution), PSYCH (intelligence, wisdom and smartness), WAH (mystical power, luck and karma), HEALTH (self-explanatory) and LEVEL (a class level basically). Roll a D8 three times for each stat and note it (not on the sheet yet). There is some stat adjustment if the character has any type of mystic power, but Blix is a big ox with a sword, so we can skip this. So the first three stats are TAC 18, PSYCH 13 and WAH 10. Next we take the two lowest stats and add 14 to the total, this is our HEALTH score. Since this is a starting character, his LEVEL is 1.

Now for the next step, we are going to draft a story. What is something they’ll fight about (Blix was always picked on as a child and he hates it when adults pick on children), what is something they’ll run from (Snakes? Why’d it have to be snakes?) and what is something they’d die for (Blix wants to recover his dead father’s stolen sword).

Next we get to pack some stuff. It’s actually a little refreshing to see an interesting equipment section like this. You decided on three things. What is something sensible (why would I be carrying this? Because I need a gem that lights up when I give it a command, just don’t ask me where I got it), what is something precious (don’t want to loose that, it’s the armor my father had when he was an adventurer and it was made out of the same metal as the sword) and something random (Where did this sealed letter come from? There was a fancy looking guy on that last boat ride, I wonder if he dropped it?) Then your other equipment is what a prepared adventurer would have (Backpack, bedroll, rations, etc.). So I wrote a few things down and called it good. For once I was glad that there was no, “lets be different for difference sake” when it came to the equipment. For the illustration, I’m mentally thinking of something along the line of The Legend of Bill. Unfortunately I can’t draw as well as my daughter.

Afterthoughts:

I’ve seen some pretty complicated and crunchy systems in character creation and actual play. There is a reason that Pathfinder has the nickname of Mathfinder. I’m also worried about the GURPS character I’m going to be making later this month. But XD20 is very simplistic and gets the job done for what it’s designed to do, get a bunch of friends to throw some dice around the table while cracking Monty Python jokes and eating things that are not good for you. Character creation was quick and simple. I think the biggest concern would be making sure you are communicating with your game master and the other players in your group. This could easily be put together for a quick last minute game when half the players can’t make it to the table and you still want to play with those who showed up.

I may even try to run a game or two on this system. If I do, I’ll report it here.

Additional Notes:

I had one reader respond to me how much they had loved the D6 System that I used for yesterday’s Character Creation Challenge entry. I also have many good memories playing the Star Wars D6 Roleplaying Game from West End Games. I’ve even found my original character sheets from different SW sessions.

Coming Up Next:

Mutant Future

This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

Posted in: Fan Club, Friends, Humor, Role Playing Games, Star Trek

Rest in peace Roger Taylor

Written by TardisCaptain
Roger Taylor (1970-2022)

Well, this isn’t the blog post I thought I’d be writing when I woke up this morning. On my way to work this morning I was informed by friends that a longtime Star Trek and role playing friend, Roger Taylor, had been found dead in his apartment. He had been having heart issues lately and when he hadn’t responded to his ex-wife’s attempts to reach him, she went over to his place to find he had passed away.

I’ve mentioned Roger a couple of times in past blog posts, recently when we had worked together on homebrewing the Star Trek Adventures stats for an alien race called The Tarn. Roger had run several RPG sessions for various friends including a lot of Star Trek by Decipher. He had homebrewed several items for the Decipher Star Trek RPG, Star Trek Adventures, Serenity and several other games. I even discovered that one of his early adventures he wrote was ported over to the Far Trek system. When we were not joking around or talking about our Star Trek organization, we were talking about games.

I first met Roger when he was working at a security guard at an IT company I was working for around 2008. I could often sneak down to the security office while on a lunch break and talk with Roger about common interests. He loved the fleet of Star Trek, Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica ships that I had set up on my desk. I think we knew we were going to be friends when we realized how much we both had a warped sense of humor. When we were discussing the (then) proposal by Madonna to remake Casablanca with a modern twist, my not-so-innocent mind altered one of the famous lines from the black and white movie. “Of all the S&M bars in the world, she had to walk into mine.” Roger was laughing so hard that he practically forgot to breathe. He would bring up this line at random times just to get a chuckle out of me.

Roger joined Starfleet Command’s Seventh Fleet and with his Star Trek knowledge and organizational skills, quickly moved up the ranks. He started a chapter-in-training which eventually became the full chapter, USS Essex. As a US Navy vet, he had served on the real life USS Essex.

He also loved baking, a pet songbird called Charley, military history (another common interest), building models, playing video games and writing. A phrase I picked up from a common friend for a situation like this was “May his/her memory always be a blessing.” I will have many memories that I will look back on when thinking about Roger. I’ll roll some dice for you in your honor soon.

To Roger’s family, I’m deeply sorry at this time. Heidi, thank you for telling me that Roger cared for me and held a lot of respect for me. I choked up a little bit when I read that message. Roger’s family has set up a GoFundMe page to help with funeral expenses. If you can, please donate.

Rest easy Roger, you’ve earned it.

Posted in: Humor, My Creations, Star Trek

Making Memes Part VII

Written by TardisCaptain

Time for another post showing my warped sense of humor. After last month’s post I ended up creating a bunch of Star Trek memes using some odd images that I had found. If you are brave enough, you can see the past memes I’ve created here: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V and Part VI. All of the entries in this post were created with MS Paint.

Just the look on Tom Paris’ face told me that I had to use it in a meme. I heard the phrase used somewhere on the internet and thought it would be perfect for this image.

An image of Picard drinking tea? Of course I had to use it to make a Star Trek version of the Kermit drinking tea and stating “But that’s none of my business.” After a few clicks, it was ready to go.

I had made this before First Contact Day with the intention of posting it afterwards. Unfortunately, April 6th was so busy for me that I ended up not being able to post it. So here it is, ready for the next year.

When I saw this image I knew that I had to turn it into a reaction meme. It just screamed “what the hell did I just read?”

Posted in: Humor, My Creations, Star Trek

Making Memes Part VI

Written by TardisCaptain

What’s that you say? You want more memes? Here is another set of memes for you to enjoy. You can see the past memes I’ve created here: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V.

I used an online meme maker for this one. I don’t recall where I found the image, I just thought it fit the phrase as most RPGs result in a lot of collateral damage.

Watching Kirk move away made me think of this phrase. I created this meme with MS Paint.

I almost didn’t share this one because the white text didn’t stand out very well. This was another reaction to the “Share this image with money and you will get some” series of memes that were plaguing social media.

Dayton Ward is a science fiction author that I’ve met several times at different conventions. When this picture was posted from one of his convention it reminded me of the “I love you, random citizen” meme that came from the Megamind movie. I posted this meme on Mr. Ward’s facebook page several years ago. It was created with MS Paint.

Posted in: Humor, My Creations, Star Trek

Making Memes Part V

Written by TardisCaptain

I’ve still been hard at work trying to spread my warped sense of humor. Here is another set of memes for you to enjoy. You can see the past memes I’ve created here: Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV.

Just the look on Kirk’s face inspired me to make this meme. I could see him saying this. I used MS Paint to create this .

Another “I saw this face and had to meme it” project. Again this was done in MS Paint.

And the last of “Inspired by that look” memes. Here Trip Tucker is doing his Thor “Is it though?” impersonation. Plus we need more Enterprise memes.

I’ve spent some time making blanks of popular memes so that I could easily create my own. Here is one that I created using the goosebumps meme blank.

Posted in: Humor, My Creations, Star Trek

Making Memes Part IV

Written by TardisCaptain

Since this is a relaxing day (Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone) I thought I’d drop a quick post with more memes that I’ve created in the past. You can see the past memes I’ve created here: Part I, Part II and Part III.

After seeing the image of the chicken at the table, I knew that I’d have to make a variation of the Screaming Lady vs Cat meme. I believe that I created this using MS Paint.

When Pokemon Go became really popular, it scared me a little. I was amazed at how big it became in a short time. I remember reading about people renting dogs just to have the excuse of “I was walking my dog” while out playing the game. I know that warnings had to be sent out stating “no you can’t play Pokemon Go in high security areas even if the good Pokemon are out there.” So when I saw this image from Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, The Game, I had to make a meme out of it. Full disclosure: Had there been a Star Trek version of Pokemon Go, I probably would have played the hell out of it.

A few years ago I was going through several college courses to earn my Bachelor’s degree. The release schedule for a new role playing game was always coming out at the wrong time. If I wasn’t careful, I could become easily distracted. Especially if the course subject was really boring.

The family watched The Princess Bride as one of our feel good movies today. It reminded me of the time I altered the quote from the movie to make it sound like something Worf would have said if he was cast in the movie.

I hope this batch of memes brought a smile to your face. I’ll be posting more soon, but probably not until after January which will be consumed by the 2022 Character Creation Challenge.

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