Tag: Science Fiction

So this isn’t my first time trying to make a character in the True20 Adventure Roleplaying system. Last year in the 2022 Character Creation Challenge I made a character for the Blue Rose system which was based off of True20. There were some questions and serious concerns about the equipment allocation in that system. I’m wondering if I’ll find the same pitfalls in True20 or if it was just confined to BR? I was able to pick up several True20 books that were bundled together in an online auction.

While Blue Rose is a roleplaying game for “romantic fantasy”, True20 is a generic system (I’ve used a lot of generics this year). Since I don’t have a GM stating “we are doing this…” I’m going to create a character for a science fiction setting. Markkin is a Human bounty hunter trying to catch his prey in various outer rim star systems.

The True20 book is 224 pages long. The character sheet is a single page. The Hero Creation steps start on page 14. The first step is to choose your ability scores. True20 is based off of the D20 system so the abilities are Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. I have six points to allocate between the attributes. I can lower one attribute if I’d like, but I’m not really that big on the min/maxing. I’m always worried that I’m going to guess wrong. So I picked the scores I thought my space bounty hunter would need.

Our next step is to select a background. Because this is a generic system, it lists the various fantasy races (but nothing else). So I’m selecting Human since that is what I already had in mind. The rules say “you get these items, but no attribute adjustments”. So pretty standard. Since I was also pulling details from other books (and since it came with the bundle) I found a Bounty Hunter background in the True20 Companion and added those bonus feats.

Roles are the next item going through the pages. These are basically classes in regular D20 games. The options are Adept (a person with some sort of supernatural abilities), Expert (lots of skills), Warrior (bonk, bonk) or Mixed-Role (combine two rolls). Since Markkin may have to do some fighting to subdue his targets, I selected Warrior. I wrote down the basics for that class.

I went through the skills and feats (most had already been selected) choosing those that I thought a bounty hunter would need.

Next is a chapters that had nothing to do with my character (supernatural powers) and then equipment. OK, let’s see if what I saw in Blue Rose happens here as well? So we have a wealth score. If you have no bonuses in Charisma or a wealthy feat you are stuck at 5 (this is looking bad because I wanted to follow a concept instead of min/maxing). And if you purchase anything that exceeds your wealth score, the score goes down. Yea it’s the same baloney that I saw in Blue Rose. The system I saw while I was creating my D20 Modern character made sense. This does not. So I gave it the middle finger and just wrote down a few things that I thought a Sci-Fi bounty hunter would have to start out.

There is still a lot of blank spaces on this character sheet. I’m not going to bother to try to track them down if the book can’t provide them to me in an organized manner. Here is the character sheet from the scanner.

Afterthoughts:

Here is another book published after the year 2000 that doesn’t have an actual character creation checklist. Writers, it is in your player’s best interest if you have a good character creation checklist.

One of the other books I got in the bundle was the Damnation Decade and almost thought about using that to create a character. But at the time, I didn’t want to make something for a 1970’s Supernatural type of crossover.

While the True20 books didn’t make me feel like I was being confined in the game like Blue Rose did (boy did that game suffocate me hard), the wealth score mechanics really turns me away from wanting to run or play this system. If I did run a game, I’d trash the entire chapter and just use those that were found in D20 Modern. And that would probably push me to just using D20 Modern or another RPG system all together. Considering I’ve never seen anyone play True20 (and I’ve only seen one homebrew that attempted to add Star Trek to True20) I’ll probably keep my True20 books for an experiment or two, but I doubt I’ll do anything else with them.

Additional Notes:

I’ve got a few things to blog about next month. I’ve had to hold off because running the Character Creation Challenge (along with taking care of everything else in my life) has taken up a lot of time. I’m looking forward to talking about a Kickstarter reward and a few other topics.

Coming Up Next:

They Came From Beyond The Grave

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The 2016 publication of Metamorphosis Alpha is another game that I picked up in a charity bundle that benefited Doctors Without Borders. This is only the third game that I used (along with The Agency and When The Moon Hangs Low) for the 2023 Character Creation Challenge. There are another 25ish games in the bundle that I could have used this year. I’m certain that I’ll use a couple of them in future challenges.

If this game sounds familiar, it is the predecessor to TSR’s Gamma World. This edition of Metamorphosis Alpha was written by the original designer, James M. Ward and published by Signal Fire Studios.

So the PDF of the core rulebook has 160 pages. The character sheet has two pages. The Character Building steps start on page 19, but I would recommend reading the basic game play chapter (start on page 13 if you are already familiar with roleplaying.

The first thing that needs to be determined is the character’s stock. Are they a pure human, mutated human, mutated animal or mutated plant? The rules state you can choose or roll. Yea, I’m gonna roll. And this guy is going to be a mutated plant. I’m provided the movement stats for someone of this stock and instructed to take physical, mental and plant mutations.

The next step is to determine the traits of the character. Not only is this the talents and training a character may have, but the negative aspects they possess as well. There is a questionnaire provided when building a new character. It then tells you to place that trait in one of five categories. Amazing (which adds 3 to your dice pool when using that trait), Good (+2D), Competent (+1D), Weak (-1D) and Hopeless (-3D). It doesn’t provide a list of possible traits here, but there are some listed in chapter 4. Let me swing down there and find out what they are? I wish they had given us a basic chart to do a quick look and then let me decide which traits I wanted to do a full description read on. I picked out what my plant guy would have both good and bad traits in.

Now we pick our qualities. These are specific actions that you are good (aka a talent) and bad (aka a liability) at. I get 2D of talents and can take 2D of additional liabilities to get 2D more talents. I believe that these are the specialties that are listed under the traits if I’m reading the rules correctly (I had to do a lot of jumping around to make sure).

Finally we are to the mutations. A mutation is beneficial while a defect is not. You start out with 6D of mutations and can take 4D more if you also take 4D of defects. I picked out my mutations I thought would be specific for a walking talking tree.

Next comes equipment. A talking, walking tree with natural weapons starting with equipment? I’m going to go with he’s a primitive and doesn’t have any to start. However a kind woman who he helped gave him a special necklace that he keeps hidden on him. But he has no idea what it does, if it does anything at all. He doesn’t think about this, he only wants to protect the plants that can’t move or speak.

Technically the character is done according to the steps seen on page 19. However I don’t have a name for the character (I called him Spikeleaf) and there are a lot of blank spots on the sheet (initiative, dodge, radiation resistance, wound capacity and fatigue capacity. So I did a search in the PDF and found these items. However some of the descriptions didn’t fully give me the answers (what is my dodge starting at? Just the 2D? If I don’t have a specialty do I not get it?) Ugh, I’m done. Here is the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

I thought it was interesting that the character sheet had a place for the player’s name, but not a place for the character’s name. But I did like that they had the game basics listed on the second page of the character sheet.

The system itself sounds plausible and usable. With how some of the documentation was a little lacking I probably would have asked quite a few questions to an experienced GM. I also like the world that the game would be taking place in as it sounds interesting. I’m sad that the likely hood of actually playing this game is very little. I don’t know if I’d be able to do any homebrewing for this game until after I’ve played it.

Additional Notes:

I had one reader respond that they had experienced similar issues with the GURPS character creation system that I had. When I talked with a GM who loved running GURPS, he informed me that he used a special program to set up characters and make sure they had all of the many, many items added and set up. While I’m looking forward to the GURPS game at Salt Con, I’m glad that I don’t have to create a character for it.

I had another interesting experience yesterday. While at a massive Seventh Fleet event, one of the members told me that they were reading my blog posts. Wow, thank you. Sometimes when I write these posts out I wonder if anyone is really reading them. So to get some validation made me feel good. Thank you Evelyn.

Coming Up Next:

True 20

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.

So I made a Classic Traveller character in the 2022 Character Creation Challenge. I recently had a chance to pick up the D20 based Traveller20 (sometimes called T20) in one of the online bundle sales. So let’s see how this stacks up using the D20 RPG system in the Traveller universe.

According to the rules, you will need the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Players Handbook. In my copy of the T20 PDF there is 435 pages. There are two pages in the character sheet and a single “Prior History Worksheet”. The character creation steps start on page 18. So let’s start.

Besides the standard D&D attributes, there are two additional attributes that are used in T20. Education and Social Standing. Another ability called Psionic Strength is listed on the character sheet, but this isn’t described until chapter 10 (page 186). All of these were common attributes in Classic Traveller as well. The rules state that you roll them as per the standard D20 rules. So I’m going with the 4D6 and drop the lowest.

I thought it was interesting that under races (step two) that they mentioned the various races in the D&D 3.5 PHB and how they could be used, but it wasn’t recommended. I’m going to select the wolf-like Vargr. They look like they would be neat species to play.

Next is to roll what type of homeworld the character came from. This looks interesting. First is the tech level (I rolled a 2, which was Low Technology) which had a Tech Level of 6 (rolled a 3 and added 3, but this TL gives me a -2 to my EDU score). Apparently this homeworld results in the class of Belter or Traveller from being a prohibited class. Shrugs. I rolled for the Starport and ended up with a type C (E was the worse, A the best). Next we need to determine the basic characteristics of the world. I hate just calling it the world (or homeworld) so I’m going to name it Onkin. I’m instructed to roll a 2d6 and got a Ni (Non-Industrial). I wrote down the skills and the one feat that my character gained from growing up on Onkin.

Step three is the class of the character. I selected Mercenary out of the list because it sounded like a good idea. I wrote down the feats, class skills and other details.

Final details, rolled up a height of 150 cm (4’9″). But the weight formula confused me. 46x(1d4) kg? I rolled a 4 so 46×4= 184 kg which is 405 lbs. I know that the Vargr are aliens, but do they have that much weight in a small frame? Um, OK, I think this is wrong. I know math isn’t my strong point but did I read that wrong? Shrugs, moving on.

An in the Traveller tradition, there is a prior history (the mini-game when creating the character). I wonder how they are going to do terms for mercenaries since they are not an organized military force like the Army or Navy? Hey I get to use the special prior history worksheet. Let’s see if it helps. First term, Commando Raid: survived and cash bonus. No rank advancement, commission or bonus XP. Now age 22. Second term, Commando Raid: survived, commissioned (went from Private to 2nd Lieutenant). No bonus XP or bonus cash. Now age 26. Third term, security forces: survived, promoted (now 1st Lieutenant), XP bonus (4,000) but no cash bonus. Did not roll high enough vs the DC9 to get a fourth term. So he musters out. I think I did the mustering out benefits right. It’s by term.

Now this character is at 6th level. Actually, I’m going to scrap all of this and just release him at a 1st level mercenary. I’m at the end of my day and I need to hit the sack. So I’m going to assume that he got some equipment and is out trying to make a name for himself. Speaking of name, the character’s name is Baaken. Yea some spots on the sheet aren’t filled in, but it’s D20 3.5 so you already know the drill. I’ll fill it in before he gets used in a game (if that happens).

Afterthoughts:

I really wish that the PDF core book had been bookmarked. I’ve really grown to use the bookmarks when creating characters. Also I was referred to charts and I had to hunt for it since it was provided on an earlier page.

I don’t know if I’m a fan of the mini-game. Rollplaying the character at 1st level would have been just as enjoyable.

Other than the excess on the character creation, I’d be willing to try a T20 game. Just because I’m a fan of the D20 system.

Additional Notes:

Under a week to go before the end of the challenge. Can you make it to the end?

Coming Up Next:

Star Crawl

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.

The friend who gave me a bunch of games in 2021 (he was clearing out his shelves) had included R. Talsorian Games Inc. Cyber Generation 2nd Edition along with quite a few others. Because I was using Cyberpunk v3 in 2022, I held off on using Cyber Generation until the 2023 Character Creation Challenge.

There is a single page character sheet. The character creation process starts on page 13 (spoiler hint, there is a full summary on page 85) and is handled in a narrative fashion instead of providing bullet points. You are guided by a character called Morgan Blackhand who is talking to you through a series of electronic communiques trying to keep your young character safe from the Dead Boys and Zombie Girls. The first thing Morgan needs to know is which yogang you belong to. A list of 18 different groups, all with different abilities and specialties. Basically these are the character classes. Looking through all of them, some sounded very interesting, but the one I selected for my character (who I decided is going to be age 16) is an ArcoRunner. If you’ve ever watched the youtube videos of urban explorers sneaking into abandoned buildings and locations, that is what the ArcoRunner is. The rules had me select my name (Side Wire), age and sex. I also filled in my description, the YoGang skill (Tunneling) and I selected the equipment that a member of this YoGang would have.

The next step that Morgan instructs you to do is to run to a safe-house. He provides a hardcopy map and tells you to get going. The Referee is instructed with some basics on how to run the scenario. It appears to be like a funnel that we’ve seen in Dungeon Crawl Classics. If the first character doesn’t make it, the Referee is instructed to have the player start another character that will already be at the safe-house when the other players get there. I read through the instructions for the Referee and I can see how this would set up the tone of the game, but the rules for combat and spotting were pretty simplistic. Probably to get the players in the mood of the dark dystopian world that this is set in.

At the safe-house, Morgan then gives them an assessment to determine their stats. These are INT (Intelligence), REF (Reflexes), COOL (Cool, resistance to stress and presence), TECH (Technical Ability), LUCK (Luck), ATT (Attractiveness), MOVE (Movement), EMP (Empathy, aka Charisma) and BODY (Body Type, aka Strength, Endurance and Constitution). The player is provided with 50 points to allocate between the different stats. Each stat must have a minimum of 2 with 5 being considered an average stat and 8 being really good. I dumped a bunch of points in INT since that was the favored of my YoGang, used very little for ATT and EMP and then averaged out the rest. That was easy.

You have 40 points to spend on various skills. 1 minimum and 8 max. This includes the YoGang skill. I allocated what I thought would be useful for my character.

The next ref opportunity is to run a scenario in the safe-house where all of the players get to know each other. There are a couple of NPCs that can also be used by the ref if needed.

By now I had found the actual character creation summary on page 85. Considering how late it was, I dropped the narrative creation process and just finished out the character. Each character gets $1,000 to shop for equipment at the mall. The rules do state that you get the clothing mentioned in your YoGang description plus the special equipment you already selected. Anything else needs to be purchased.

The last step is to randomly roll for the character’s cyberevolved type. All characters were hit with the carbon plague. This is a type of nanotechnology that is set loose on the population and changes them (those that survived the changes) when they hit the age of 20. Since the PCs are under this age, they may not know what they are going to get. The Referee should be role-playing the emergence of the evolution the characters will go through. Since this is not known to my character, I’m going to leave this section blank on the sheet. Which is posted below.

Afterthoughts:

I loved when slang was used in the text, there was a sidebar (called hypertext) explaining what the slang meant.

I’ve made characters with the narrative style before. I can understand that this can be used to get the player into the feel of the game or even teach them the rules of the game. But I also wish a regular character creation checklist was provided. Later, I realized that this checklist is on the character sheet itself. That made things handy. And even later on page 85 there was a character creation summary. By the time I had found this, I had already read through several chapters.

Additional Notes:

Yes I’m still finding new blogs that are participating in the Character Creation Challenge. The list of links on the challenge page has been updated.

I’ve also been introduced to a game that I may have to put on the list for the 2024 challenge. A game called Straight to VHS. Someone used this as one of their entries on one of the message boards.

Coming Up Next:

Strike! Tactical Combat and Heedless Adventure

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.