If you are looking for my 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge after action report with completion graphic, it will be posted when I’m caught up from being put behind by real-life events. If you made it to 31 characters, email me or privately contact me on one of the message boards or social media and I’ll make sure you get the graphic. Thank you for participating.
The original game that I had scheduled for my Day 29 entry in the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge was the Sci-Fi game Faster Than Light: Nomad when I had put my list of games together. However, just the other day I attended the Seventh Fleet Admiral’s Banquet where a couple of readers of my blog were in attendance. They greatly shocked me by handing me a gift with Red Dwarf The Roleplaying Game inside. Thank you Rich and Evelyn. I had stated many times in past blog entries that this game had been my ‘holy grail’ of RPGs that I had been trying to find. Sure there were copies on Amazon or Ebay, but they were always outside of my comfortable price range for a game that I’ve only played at a past SaltCON. So the shocked look on my face when I opened up this present was probably priceless. And I really didn’t want to wait a year to make a character since I had a physical book in my hand. So, sorry Faster Than Light: Nomad, I’ll try to fit you into the 2026 challenge.
If you haven’t guessed by now, I am a fan of the BBC sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf. A BIG fan of Red Dwarf. I love how it makes me laugh, I love how the show isn’t too serious. There is a line from the MST3K that says “If you are wondering how he eats and breathes and other science facts. Just repeat to yourself ‘It’s just a show, I should really just relax.'” Red Dwarf is very much like this line. In one of the seasons the space vessel they use, Starbug, and it’s the size of a small vessel. Then in another season the vessel has grown about twice the size. And this is where this RPG comes in. On the back of the RPG book it states “Create your own alternate Red Dwarf dimension and scour the universe in search of adventure, romance and the edible pot noodle.” So you can make any character you want, drop them on your own mining vessel Red Dwarf and have your own comedic adventures. You could have your own last human, a waxdroid, a Dog or a host of other possibilities.
So, enough fan gushing. The roleplaying game? If you read my SaltCON after action report I stated that I thought the system worked really well for a game based off of this series. On page 3 of the book is a quick start guide that covers both character creation and a rules overview. Thank you. Once again I can point to this page and show it to friends and say “this is how you play, do you want to sit at the table and have some laughs?” Basically to complete a task you roll 2D6 and try to get a number under a target number. This number can be determined by adding the character’s attribute and a skill number (and other possibly modifiers). So the better you are with one of your attributes (Agility, Perception, Dexterity, Intelligence, Strength and Willpower) and skills (such a Pilot, Repair, Seduction, Swim, Medicine, or Cool) the more likely that your character will succeed in the task. The GM is referred to as the AI based off of Holly from the show.
As mentioned above on page 3 it lists the Character Creation Overview. And in a case of synchronicity, chapter three of the book covers more details on Character Creation. The first step is to pick a Character Type. This is basically picking what race and style you want to play. The choices for the races are Human (see Lister), Holograms (see Rimmer), Cats aka Felis Sapeins (see The Cat), Dogs, 4000 Series Mechanoids (see Kryten), Hudzen 10 Series Mechanoids, Kinitawowi, Pleasure GELFs (Genetically Engineered Life Forms), Wax Droids, Simulants, Rabbits, Rats & Mice and Iguanas. As you can probably tell, there are a variety of evolved animals to choose from that have been mentioned in the show. One of my kids wanted me to make a Cat character, which was tempting, but I think I’m going to stick with human as I want to make myself into a Red Dwarf character. Each character type also has a special ability and drawback which I wrote down in my notes.
The second step is to distribute 20 points into your character’s abilities. Each race/type has a max number for each ability. Luckily for humans it’s all sixes. I selected the numbers that I wanted to use. From these stats I have some derivative stats of Initiative (who goes first in certain situations), Save (resiliency after taking damage) and Shrug (avoid any damage if it’s under this number).
The third step is to take 30 points and allocate them to different skills. So I looked at the skills that I wanted a younger version of me to have in this alternate Red Dwarf universe and I selected them. No this isn’t the first time I’ve made a character based off of myself in the challenge, but I think this will probably be the most realistic one out of the two.
Our fourth step is to select the Assets (a benefit the character possesses), Liabilities (something that hampers the character) and Behavior Tags (habits the character does that may or may not annoy others). Each Asset has a point value and you buy these points by selecting the Liabilities and Behavior Tags. The first thing I did was look at the Assets to see how many points I may need. Then I selected the appropriate number of Liabilities and Behavior Tags to equal that number of points. In the personality section is the “fill in the blanks”. There were a lot of them that wasn’t equipment so I may have filled in the steps five (fill out vitals) and six (create history and relationships).
OK, time to gear up for the last step. I’m directed to page 55 and there is no cost that I can see. I think, and I may be wrong because this isn’t a serious game, that I just pick some items the character would have. Actually, I’m going to roll with that and put the character sheet in the scanner.
Afterthoughts:
I really liked how they had sprinkled in humor throughout the book. You’d be reading a description about how humans are able to deal with all kinds of psychological trauma that included being able to survive Yanni concert videos.
I have played this at SaltCON, I have many plans for this book in the future.
Additional Notes:
Yea, I know, I’m behind on these. Thank you for going back and reading them. 2025 can die in a fire.
Coming Up Next:
Mazes and Minotaurs
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