Trying to make sure all the pieces are in place before going to SaltCon.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes Twitter account and the @STrekQuotes Mastodon account for the week of February 27th through March 5th.
February 27 “I had to be the best because only the best get to be here.” Sonya Gomez- Q Who, Stardate: 42761.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
February 28 “You sleep lightly, captain.” Vanna “Duty is a good teacher.” Kirk- The Cloud Minders, Stardate: 5818.4 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
March 1 “You only get one shot at the latinum stairway. If you miss it, you miss it.” Quark- Playing God, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Telling us why you’re going to fail before you make the attempt is never wise.” Dr. Crusher- The Ensigns of Command, Stardate: 43133.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“You made the logical choice.” Spock “Why doesn’t it feel that way?” Pike “For the same reason you made it: because you value life.” Spock- Memento Mori, Stardate: 3177.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“You realize, of course, if we give him the formula, we’re altering the future.” Dr. McCoy “Why? How do we know he didn’t invent the thing?” Scotty- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Stardate: 8390.0 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
March 4 “How come I always see you down here eating alone, Lieutenant?” Paris “I prefer to read rather than engage in… What do humans call it—short talk?” Tuvok- Ex Post Facto, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
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.
So another item that came up in January, but the review had to be pushed back to this month because of the Character Creation Challenge, was the arrival of a KickStarter reward. I’ve backed KickStarters before for RPG material (and I have a few that are scheduled to be delivered in 2023). In 2022 I backed an independent publisher who wanted to put out a series of bestiaries for OSR games. Specifically in the B/X flavor (which is a given since it’s in the title of the book). This was The BX Advanced Bestiary Vol. 1 by Third Kingdom Games.
From my KickStarter submission I received the hardbound book which is 133 pages long. The ISBN number is 2370011833927. The cover states that the contents are designed for use with the Old-School Essentials RPG but could be used with any OSR style system. The cover art and interior art are all black and white. The author, Todd Leback, was able to obtain artwork from eight different artists for all of the entries. There are also several house-rules that are made available for GMs to consider and an appendix with several items, optional player races (which are classes in this OSR).
This tome covers monsters from A-D (Ape, White to Dryad). The interesting thing is that each entry also contains variants of the different monsters. So the GM can keep the players on their toes. “What do you mean this boar has an iron hide?” The entry for the dragon is 18 pages long which covers information on ages, lairs, allies and types of attacks.
A sample of one of the dragon pages in the book
There are about 100 monsters contained within the pages of the BX Advanced Bestiary Vol. 1. I’ve been in contact with the author and he responded very quickly to any issues (one of the images was accidentally submitted as blurry due to low resolution, which he offered a replacement book with the imaged replaced). I am impressed with both the organization and the book itself. I’ve been told that there will be KickStarters for future volumes. I plan to back them as they are released since the support levels were very reasonable. This is the type of effort we should be supporting. Fans of the game producing materials for other fans to use.
What roleplaying game KickStarters have you backed? Tell me about them or ask any questions about this book on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord page.
With the Character Creation Challenge last month, I didn’t have the bandwidth to talk about the Star Trek eBook deals that Pocket Books offers. So here are the books for February 2023.
There are a lot of Star Trek: Picard books in this bundle. Probably because the third (and final) season of that series starts this month. If you haven’t seen the first episode yet, go watch it now. There are lots of good starship easter eggs and a very good music selection.
I’ve reviewed one of the books in this bundle. Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope. This is the first book in the series and one that I enjoyed reading.
These eBooks are available for 1.99 or 99 cents depending upon the series. Amazon is also doing a special where you earn points for each book you buy. This can lead to free books.
How it felt in downtown SLC during NBA All-Star weekend.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes Twitter account and the @STrekQuotes Mastodon account for the week of February 20th through February 26th.
February 20 “I always had a different vision than my father—the ability to see beyond pure logic. He considered it weak. But I have discovered it to be a source of extraordinary strength.” Spock- Unification II, Stardate: 45245.8 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“The mistake is thinking the Romulan Empire will stand by and allow such a betrayal to go unchallenged.” T’Rul- The Search, Part II Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
(in English) “This is a hazing thing, isn’t it? You guys are screwing around.” (in Aenar) “You guys really need to get out more.” (in Vulcan) “Seriously.” (in English) “I think I need a drink.” Uhura- Children of the Comet, Stardate: 2912.4 #StarTrek #StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
February 23 Remembering Majel Barett-Roddenberry who was born on this date in 1932. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Majel_Barrett-Roddenberry #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #StarTrekTNG #StarTrekDS9, #StarTrekVOY, #StarTrekDiscovery #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“I am a nurse first, Doctor McCoy, and a member of the crew of the Enterprise second.” Chapel- For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky, Stardate: 5476.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“I’m good at exploring strange new worlds, solving space mysteries, and kicking asses. Protocol is for people who need to be told what to do, which I don’t.” Mariner- Temporal Edict, Stardate: 57501.4 #StarTrek #StarTrekLowerDecks #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
February 25 Happy Birthday to Anson Mount. @ansonmount https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Anson_Mount #StarTrek #StarTrekDiscovery #StarTrekShortTreks #StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Wherever our mission takes us, we’ll try to have a little fun along the way, too, huh? Make a little noise? Ruffle a few feathers.” Pike- Brother, Stardate: 1025.19 #StarTrek #StarTrekDiscovery #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“You’re a fascinating woman, Leeta.” Dr. Zimmerman “For a dabo girl.” Leeta- Doctor Bashir, I Presume?, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
So in early January 2023, I read up on the new “draft” of the Open Gaming License (OGL) that Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast (WotC) was pushing out. I’m not a lawyer, but it didn’t pass the smell test for me. It felt like a lot of creative people who had put their time, money and effort into their own products were being screwed. Because I was just starting the 2023 Character Creation Challenge, I didn’t have time to write up a full blog post on the subject. So I tagged Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast in the following tweet.
Click on image to see the tweet.
I never got a response from either group. Knowing how most mega-corporations think, I wasn’t expecting to get one either. I’m just a single guy and most corporations are only thinking about money, how to get more money and ignoring any laws and common decency in a quest for money. So I figured that nothing would happened and I put my energy into the character creation challenge.
Oh boy, was I wrong. Shortly afterwards this issue exploded with the force of an atom bomb. Not only were other gamers upset, but so were the video makers and third-party publishers. This caused so much of a ruckus that it made it onto the various news sites and made Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast look bad. Especially with how horribly they handled the issue in their first attempt to respond.
The critical fumble continued by Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro until they finally backed off and announced that the 1.0a would remain in place and that the 5.1 System Reference Document (SRD) would be placed under the irrevocable Creative Commons. A move that shocked a lot of people (myself included), but it may have been too-little, too-late. A lot of third-party publishers that were giving free advertising to the Dungeons and Dragons game had elected to move to other licenses. Several designers are making changes to remove all SRD references so they would no longer be bound by the OGL. When these third-party publishers released a book, they had something on it that stated it was compatible with Dungeons and Dragons. The name of the WotC flagship game was being seen with each book. Now that reminder will be gone and other games will be promoted instead. Third-party publishers were also a source of talent that WotC could pull for future D&D products. I doubt these freelance writers would be interested in helping after the way they were treated.
Another reaction that the various third-party publishers had was to dump their 5e compatible products. I’m certain they were thinking that if the new OGL went into effect, they would be stuck with inventory they could no longer sell. Since I’m a bargain hunter, I was able to pick up a few books in both PDF and dead tree versions.
This all happened at the end of January before I had finished the Character Creation Challenge. And when the challenge was done, I took a few days off from the site to recover. The challenge is a marathon and can be a little exhausting. I also wanted some time to properly compose my thoughts about the WotC/OGL ordeal.
I wondered if I was really going to comment on this as mid-February hit. Then I walked into my Favorite Local Gaming Store (FLGS) and saw the very large display of Dungeons and Dragons 5e products. My instant reaction was “walk away, I’m still not happy with them.” Normally I’m looking over the books deciding if I want to pull the trigger on a purchase. There are still a few books that I don’t have in my collection. Instead I was looking to see if the Star Trek Adventures books that I wanted had arrived yet and to see what else was new on the shelves.
So since I felt that I needed to get these thoughts off my chest, I started putting together this blog post. As I was researching different aspects (trying to make sure I’m posting correct information) I discovered that the Bank of America has listed Hasbro/WotC stock as “under-performing” due to mishandling of brands and attempting to over-monetizing the Dungeons and Dragons and Magic the Gathering products.
Various WotC representatives are currently on a “restore the goodwill tour” (think of what BP had to go through after the Deepwater Horizon environmental disaster) and if I had a chance to ask them, I’d probably ask the following: “Since several college and white papers will be written about this monumental cock up, do you think they will spell the names of the decision makers right?” In all seriousness, I’d probably ask them what are the lessons learned from this experience and what would they do in the future if this came up again? What I hope to hear is how the OGL discussion would be handled in the open and with all stakeholders before sending out a “draft” with contracts attached. That the C-level executive managers have learned what this game is about (no it’s not just a money spigot) and that they understand that the customers who are purchasing the game are not going to play online. Yes that is an option, but it’s not where we get the camaraderie around the table in a social activity. Yes, the game will make them money, but don’t kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Hasbro and WotC still has a lot of making up to do with the gaming community.
As for myself, I’m still very hesitant about buying any WotC products at this time. The upcoming Dungeons and Dragons movie that is coming out soon is something that I might go to, depending on how things are handled from here on out. It’s already finished and I wouldn’t want to punish those involved in the production who had no say in Hasbro’s critical fumble. It’s not a 100% that I’m going to see it in theaters (as I was planning at the end of 2022) I’m not going to trash my current collection (I’ve already purchased them) but new items? Well, we will see.
Perhaps the silver lining in all of this are players and stores discovering that there are a ton of other roleplaying games out there that can be enjoyed and promoted. I may post more about this topic if inspiration strikes. But I’m going to concentrate on being a muse and doing some creating myself.
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.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes Twitter account and the @STrekQuotes Mastodon account for the week of February 13th through February 19th.
February 13 “One question that burned in every Human, that made us study the stars and dream of traveling to them. Are we alone?” Archer- Terra Prime, Date: January 22, 2155 #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Why is it no one ever believes me even when I’m telling the truth?” Garak- Improbable Cause, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“The notion of transwarp beaming is like trying to hit a bullet with a smaller bullet, whilst wearing a blindfold, riding a horse. Scotty- Star Trek (2009) #StarTrek #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
February 15 “Why pretend we’re going home at all? All we’re going to do is investigate every cubic millimeter of this Quadrant, aren’t we?” The Doctor- The Cloud, Stardate: 48546.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“He wants the impossible…!” Wesley “That’s the short definition of ‘captain’.” La Forge- The Ensigns of Command, Stardate: 43133.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Starfleet isn’t all about being fed fruit by erotic aliens with slightly different nose ridges. Sometimes, you gotta get your hands dirty.” Ransom- The Least Dangerous Game, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekLowerDecks #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
February 18 “Starfleet is not an organization that ignores its own regulations when they become inconvenient.” Picard- The Measure of a Man, Stardate: 42523.7 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
February 19 “What is loneliness?” Rayna “It is thirst. It is a flower dying in the desert.” Flint- Requiem for Methuselah, Stardate: 5843.7 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes Twitter account and the @STrekQuotes Mastodon account for the week of February 6th through February 12th.
February 6 “You deliberately stopped me, Jim! I could have saved her! Do you know what you just did?” Dr. McCoy “He knows, Doctor… He knows.” Spock- The City on the Edge of Forever, Stardate: 3134.0 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
February 7 “Uhhh… it’s still moving.” Riker “Gagh is always best when served live.” Klag- A Matter of Honor, Stardate: 42506.5 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Well, whatever happens, I try to keep in mind that things could be worse.” Neelix- Scientific Method, Stardate: 51244.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
February 9 (re: Tribbles) “All it’s capable of doing, really, is eating and breeding. The problem is they breed quite prodigiously.” Dr. Phlox- The Breach, Date: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
February 10 “But perhaps next time you are judged unfairly, it will not take so many bruises for you to protest.” Worf- Lower Decks, Stardate: 47566.7 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“The Prophets teach us patience.” Bareil- In the Hands of the Prophets, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
February 12 “Landru seeks tranquility. Peace for all. The universal good.” Landru- The Return of the Archons, Stardate: 3156.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
Note: If you made it through 31 days of the challenge, read to the bottom of the post.
I’m going to declare the 2023 Character Creation Challenge a magnificent success. Yes there were some days that I wondered if I was going to get through this. For the first time ever I had multiple games frustrate me so much that I just said “screw it, I’m done with this system”. But I was able to post for all 31 days (plus an extra day since I forgot that I was going to use a certain game).
I think my most favorite post was the one for Ork! Second Edition. Writing for another voice was fun and I had a blast. Fantasy Age made a little bit more sense than the 2022 entry for Modern Age. The reading of Mutant Future got the creative juices flowing and I hope to actually put thought into action sooner rather than later. When The Moon Hangs Low and BareBones Fantasy also caught my eye. After reading some of the information on the John Carter of Mars RPG, I went and purchased some of the novels to read on my Amazon Kindle.
A big thank you to those of you who encouraged me to keep going. Thank you to those who have joined my Discord server that I’m going to start using for more blog feedback. I’m very grateful to those of you who reached out to me to let me know of the blogs and other message boards that were participating in the #CharacterCreationChallenge. On social media I saw a lot of participation on Facebook, MeWe and Mastodon, but not as much on Twitter this year. I think that the platform may be having some additional issues. I’m not on Instagram so I couldn’t tell you if anything was being posted there. If I’m missing any blogs or sites that were participating, please let me know at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com and I’ll add them to the list.
Also, if you purchased anything after clicking on the link to DriveThruRPG, thank you. I’m not doing this blog to make money, but the kickback helps when making game purchases for future challenges.
I noticed a lot of participants used Dune: Adventures in the Imperium and Aliens as their “I’m excited about this game” posts. We had more participants using themes this year. One in particular that stood out was a GM who was making future bad-guys to use against his players. I was very excited that Tim Hardin, the artist who drew the map I used in a recent Basic Fantasy game, participated and posted some very good character images for his entries.
So did you complete the challenge and make 31 characters? If so, please email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com. My art school kid in college loved hearing about the characters I was making on a daily basis and the challenge in general. She created a badge for those who completed the challenge. It is a variant of the 2022 badge, but the fact that she was able to alter this between college homework assignments makes me happy. Here it is if you want to download it to display.
There will be a 2024 Character Creation Challenge. Keep an eye out around November for the warnings that it is coming up. I’m starting to use the supplements to some of my games to make characters so I suspect that I’ll be using one of the FASA Star Trek race supplements (Not certain if its going to be Klingon, Romulan or Orion). There are also a couple of other games that have similar supplements that I’m going to be using. Plus I backed the KickStarter campaigns for the Monty Python RPG and Cowboy Bebop RPG, so they will certainly be used in 2024.
So once again, if you had fun, if you learned something new, if you participated, thank you. I really appreciated the people who took my idea and ran with it and made it something of their own.
Tally ho
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 after I was a week into the 2023 Character Creation Challenge, I realized that I had made a promise on this blog to use the Vampire Hunter$ RPG system that I had received through my Random RPG Book Club membership. I was really locked into what I had on the list and didn’t really have any sacrificial lambs that I could knock out. I also didn’t want to wait until the 2024 challenge, so you guys get a bonus character this year.
Vampire Hunter$ is published by Nightshift Games (listed as Team Frog on DriveThruRPG). The book that I have was published in 1999. The book itself is 141 pages with the character creation process starting on page 18. The character sheet is two pages long. The basic concept of the game is that you are hired on with a new local franchise for a vampire (and other monster) hunter corporation called Vampire Hunter$ Inc. The game uses 2d6 as a base dice pool. For every talent you can gain various additional d6 to roll in certain challenges. Doubles are added and re-rolled and if you beat a target number, you succeed in the task.
I’m going to create Jock Barkley. An ex-Army vet who by day is a handyman, and by night is a monster hunter after being approached by a fellow Army buddy who wanted to start a new franchise. Jock originally didn’t believe in vampires until they went on their first hunt. Now he can’t wait to get back out there and slay some suckers.
To create a character, we set up the character’s talents, knacks, faults and hits. The talents are major skills of the character. You have 10d to place in any number of talents with no talent starting higher than 3d. I selected the skills I thought that my character would have picked up while in the military.
The next list is knacks (there really isn’t a checklist). Knacks are early talents (or perhaps natural talents). Before you can get a new talent after character creation, you have to take it as a knack. A knack only gives you a +1 bonus to your roll (as compared to a d6 for a talent). I can (and did) select five knacks for my new character using the same skills list as seen a few pages earlier.
Now our characters have at least one fault. A fault is something that affects the character in a negative way. If I wanted, I could select one or two faults with each fault worth 2d in talents. The list isn’t really that long and actually suggests that you come up with some faults on your own. Since I’m on limited time, I’m going to pick enemy. On Jock’s first hunt, he helped slay a vampire only to discover that the vampire had a mate. One that wasn’t very happy with Jock.
Hits is exactly how it sounds. It’s how much damage your character can take. To determine Jock’s hits I roll 2d6 and add 10 (hey I get to roll some dice). I ended up with 17. I could have taken a die or two from the talent pool, but I had already spent them before doing so.
The final step is to “round out the corners”. Character name (done), background (done), description (written down), and equipment. It just says “ask the GM”. So I just consulted the equipment list and picked out a few items I thought an Army vet would have access to. Here is the character sheet.
Afterthoughts:
If I was going to run this as a campaign, I’d probably put together a character creation guide to help my players. It also bugged me that there were no back of the book index or (in some cases) page numbers. You also get five knacks, but the character sheet only has room for four (oops).
The system sounds pretty simplistic. I could see this being a quick pick up game using some of the sample characters listed in the book. Only after then would I know if I’d want to homebrew for this game. Vampire Hunter$ could be something for fans of the Supernatural TV series or the 1998 movie John Carpenter’s Vampires.
Additional Notes:
Not a lot of additional notes today as I’m saving my final thoughts for the after action report.
Coming Up Next:
Character Creation Challenge After Action Report
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.
