My Wednesdays are usually pretty busy. So when I was prepping for the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge, I made sure that my Wednesday’s entries were systems that seemed simple. I hope that I have chosen well for Day 3 with White Star: Galaxy Edition. A sci-fi based roleplaying game using swords and wizardry inspired rules. It appears to borrow from Star Wars, Cyberpunk, the Borg from Star Trek, Firefly, Flash Gordon, Aliens, Transformers, Guardians of the Galaxy and more.
White Star: Galaxy Edition is written by James M. Spahn and was published by Barrel Rider Games. There is no copyright date in the document itself, but it was added to DriveThruRPG in 2017. There are 336 pages in the book and the character sheet is four pages long. The character creation rules start on page 11. So I’ve grabbed some dice and let’s get to it.
Being an OSR inspired game, the standard D&D attributes are present and can be rolled in order with 3d6. But on page 12 there is a house rule that states you can roll Heroic Attributes by rolling 4d6, dropping the lowest die and placing the scores to the attributes that I wish to use. I’m electing to go this route. Even without the extra die, my rolls were much better than they were yesterday. Since I knew I wanted to play a Jedi… err… Star Knight, I placed my best attribute in Wisdom.
Instead of using Good, Neutral and Evil alignments, this game has a house rule that uses Star, Nebula and Void respectively. Your starting credits is 3d6x10, which is pretty standard in OSR games.
There is another optional rules for “Serials” which helps generate a background for the character. Since I was in a dice rolling mood, I decided to try it out. For Homeworld I rolled Low-Gravity (resulting in +1 Dex but -1 Str). With Family I rolled a 5 so my family actively attempts to act against you (weird, but it may lead to an idea). For his Youth experience I rolled a 3 for Refuge (I can find food and water in urban environments on a certain d6 roll). Next was his First Adventure which was a 2 for Stowed away on a Starship (hey this gives him a remain silent option on a d6 roll). Next is an Adversary and I rolled a 2 for a Former Lover who is jilted and out to get revenge on the character (well that comes out of the blue for what I was thinking so far). If you have an Adversary, you’ve also got to have an Ally. On the Allies table I rolled a 6 which gave him Corporate Benefactor (Hmmm…..). The last item is a Critical Event and a 4 was rolled. This is “According to an Alien Mystic or Star Knight, you have a great destiny” which results in an automatic success in one savings throw each level. Now this fits the concept I’ve had so far. In the shades of Traveller, the character could have died had I rolled the wrong critical event.
The next chapter (I’m just following the flow of the book) is the Character Classes. There are standard sci-fi related options to choose from. As I mentioned above, I had already selected Star Knight. From the description, these are a kind of space cleric that has meditations instead of spells. At first level there is no meditations that I can select now (just like clerics in OSR). There are some limitations to weapons and outfits/armor, but wielding a Star Sword earns a +2 to all to-hit rolls and he receives one at first level with no cost. There are also some other optional classes that the GM may or may not allow depending upon the campaign.
I was finally able to scroll down to page 89 where the Skills were listed (and listed as optional). I’m going to be adding the skills to this character sheet. Each character gets three skills, one standard with the class and two selected by the character and they have a rank of 2. These are also adjusted by the attribute modifier. You would roll a d6 and if you roll under your skill, then you succeed. There are rules to increase or add to the skills through the campaign, but no skill can have a rating higher than 5. After reading the descriptions, I added the two optional skills to start with. All other remaining skills have a score of 1.
The next chapter covers Equipment. The first thing it breaks down is the money values. Credits, Sub-Credits (10 equals a Credit) and Chits (1,000 equals a credit). Some equipment items are listed, but not available unless acquired through the campaign. Since I thought I had to roll it above, I already know that I have 120 credits to spend. I picked up some light armor (using the ascending armor class system) and a laser pistol. Then I filled in the rest of what I thought this character would have needed to survive.
The next chapter went into “Playing the Game” so I’m assuming the character creation process is done. I made sure to fill in any blank spots. Since I didn’t have any Meditations yet I hadn’t filled in the last two pages (and thus didn’t need to scan them). Before I throw it in the scanner, I think I’ll name and give a brief background to this character.
Jenker Slix belonged to a family that had survived their original homeworld’s destruction. They eventually settled on a low-gravity world in the Rukkar system and tried to re-create their culture from there which included arranged marriages between clans. Much to the dismay of his future bride and his family, Jenker felt no connection to her and left Rukkar. Something was drawing him to the stars and he stowed away on a starship that belonged to Ortho Greengar, a corporate executive who was conducting business between worlds. When the starship was attacked by pirates, they didn’t know that Jenker was onboard. This gave him the advantage to rescue Ortho and some of his crew so that they could take back the ship. When Master Kli’nik of the Star Knights arrived in response to the distress call, he felt something in young Jenker and invited him to join the order as his apprentice.
Afterthoughts:
I really wish that the PDF had some good bookmarks. They are present, but they only go to the front cover, the first page and the back cover. That’s not really going to help guys. Another thing that would have helped would be a character creation checklist. I also had an urge to re-make the character sheet. The one provided wasn’t bad, but lacking in some areas (no space for money, do we need four sheets?)
I was actually surprised how the Serial optional rolls helped me develop a background for this character. I only knew that I wanted to make a Star Knight when I started. I’d like to see how this system plays out at the table. It may be interesting to run or play this particular roleplaying game.
Additional Notes:
So I was able to add three more links to blogs participating in the Character Creation Challenge. One of these, Grim Tokens, had an entry for a game called Transit RPG. The character you create is an AI controlled starship. Being a big Treknologist who loves starships, I was enthralled by this entry. I’ve added the game to my DriveThruRPG wishlist. I love being introduced to games that I didn’t know was out there.
On the TardisCaptain dot Com discord server I had someone respond to my Hackmaster Basic entry. They were not aware of the basic edition, but did confirm that the 4th edition was quite complex and crunchy. They mentioned that a player had spent 90 minutes just to roll up a character, only to have their stupidity kill the character off 45 minutes later. Some of these “There I was…” stories are great.
Coming Up Next:
Fantasy Quest (via Dicing with Dragons)
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