So, for my Day 8 entry in the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge I’m going to use the 80’s inspired roleplaying game Dark Places & Demogorgons Ultimate Edition Survive This!!. Not only could I imagine that I would be seeing some “things” that are “strange” in a game, but it also trying to find a mysterious pirate ship with your buddies in an underground cavern system, be tormented by a mysterious clown holding a red balloon, trying to avoid a sudden horde of zombies or just a roving band of meddling kids and their talking dog.
I had picked up this game last year when it was on sale at DriveThruRPG. I had heard the title before, but never really looked into the book. When I discovered that it was the latest edition from the authors and that it was set in the 80’s, I had to pick it up. Especially since it was a D20 based game. In the front of the book is a guide for life in the 80’s and how it compares to today (using a VCR instead of streaming your television, etc.)
The information on creating a character starts on page 9. There really isn’t a step by step guide, so we’ll try to follow along as best as we can. Being a D20 based game, there are the same attributes that we are use to. STR, INT, WIS, DEX, CON and CHR but there is one more as well Survival (SUR). This last one represents the character’s in-game ability to re-roll a failed attempt on each dice roll. But it costs you one SUR point each time. And the second roll must be taken no matter what. One point of SUR can be regained between gaming sessions. If you are playing a one-shot, the book recommends that you only get five SUR points. But we are going to go on the assumption that this is a character for a campaign. As per the rules, we roll 4d6 and drop the lowest die and then assign the scores to where we want. I’m making a character from the 80’s. I may be making one based off of myself (I already read down through the classes), so I know what I’m going to do. I rolled the dice and assigned the scores. Overall this guy is pretty average.
Hit points were next, roll 2d6 and adjust for a CON modifier. Luckily if it came up less than 5, you could bump it up to 5. I rolled a 7. If you reach 0 HP, then you are considered Out of Action and are unconscious until healed. Then you actually roll for your savings throw scores. 4d4 + any CON modifier for six different saves, but it doesn’t say if I assign them or just take them in order. I’m going to do them in order which is: Courage (a challenge to the character’s morale), Critical (roll if you take more than 50% of damage from your max HP), Death (rolled when you are below 1 HP), Magic (when targeted by), Mental (willpower or mind defense opportunities) and Poison (no, not the Alice Cooper song). I rolled these and wrote them down.
There is an optional rule of Alignment (I’m picking Neutral) and two percentile rolls for a random background. Sure I’m game. Heh, definitely not me in the 80s. An unhealthy fear of cats and my parents were doomsday preppers that have an underground bunker.
Alright now we’ve come to the classes. Quickly they are Break Dancer, Extreme Athlete (think skater boi or something similar), Final Girl (the one that is always alive at the end of cheesy horror movies), Geek (guess which one I’m picking), Goth (with several sub-goth archetypes), Hood (wrong side of the tracks slacker), Horror Connoisseur, Jock, Karate Kid, Kid Scientist (misspelled “Scientest” in the class index on page 18), Metal Head, Most Excellent Dude/Dudette (I wonder if that comes with a time traveling phone booth?), Nerd (smarter than the Geeks), Party Animal (no, not Spuds MacKenzie), Performer (musician), Performer (acting), Preppy, Princess, Punk Rocker, Snoop (think Velma) and two optional classes of Mystic and Psion (both have powers).
Since I’m taking Geek (I had to with the Weird Al song lyric in the description), I read through the description (yea that’s me) and wrote down the class bonuses and starting gear. The Geek gets two knowledge skills at +2 (I picked them) and several other skills at +1 (I also picked them).
Once I got past all of the other class descriptions (and the spell lists for the magical ones) we come to the Skills. I wrote down the ones that I thought matched me and/or the random rolls made above.
Now we get dumped into the Equipment chapter. I had some starting gear and some cash from the class above. The start of the equipment chapter doesn’t say if you use your money to buy anything else. I only rolled $22 (if I did it right) so I guess I’m not buying anything. But knowing me I’d probably be buying the Dungeons and Dragons books that they had listed in the equipment list.
Since the next chapter has information on how to play the game, I think I’m done with the character creation process. I transferred everything over from my notes to the character sheet, came up with a name and description and threw it into the scanner.
Afterthoughts:
I was a little annoyed that the PDF released in 2024 did not have any bookmarks. Does it make the file too big? Is there another reason this isn’t happening for recent publications? It was a little annoying when trying to find the information in the file.
I did like that they used quotes from 80’s music lyrics to describe the character classes. It was another way to connect to the decade. And a chef’s kiss for the Weird Al Yankovic lyric.
In the section about characters, they had segments on character creation separated by segments about game mechanics. Not the worse way to lay this out, but definable could have used a flow chart or worksheet.
Besides the misspellings, I also noticed that they had Piloting: Basic in the skills list, but there was no skill description on Piloting. There is no driving skill so I’m assuming that was it.
There is no spot for gear on the character sheet. The number of skills also exceeded the spots available on the sheet as well. If I was to run a game for this, I’d probably come up with my own character sheets.
I was getting the homebrew itches while reading these pages. If it wasn’t for the fact that I have a lot of blog and homebrew ideas already rolling around my head, I might try to make some for this game. But I may be more inspired if I get a game or two under my belt. I’m wondering if I should make this one of my one-shots for a future SaltCON?
Additional Notes:
I found a few more blogs that I added to the main Character Creation Challenge page. Let me know if I’m missing yours.
Coming Up Next:
Fantasy Age 2nd Edition
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