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
This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or click on my social media links with any comments.
Yay, we’ve made it to Day 7 of the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge and today we will be making a character for Everyday Heroes by Evil Genius Games. I’ve read on several reviews that this game is the spiritual successor to the D20 Modern, especially since Jeff Grubb had worked on both titles. I had picked up the PDFs on a recent Bundle sale (I can’t remember which provider currently) that not only included the core rulebook, but several setting books based off of different movies. These included Escape From New York, Highlander, Kong: Skull Island, Pacific Rim, Rambo, The Crow, Total Recall and Universal Solider. All inspiring movies that I never thought would have their own RPG books.
This is another generic rule set where you can use just about any world setup like the D20 Modern, GURPS, Basic Roleplaying and more. Before I would have made a character, the GM would have told us if we were playing in a modern military campaign, an espionage campaign, law enforcement/criminal underground campaign or a host of others. I’m going to pluck out of the air that this is a troubleshooting campaign. The characters are members of a team of troubleshooters who are privately hired by different individuals and organizations who are in need of help.
So hopefully this will be a fast build. The character creation information starts on page 20 and provides three approaches. The concept-first approach for when you already know what you want to play. The rules-first approach if you already know the game rules and you have a notion of what you want your character to do in combat. It warns that there is a lot of reading and searching for the various options. Perhaps I’d do this one if I was making a character for an actual session/campaign. The last option is the “Just Wing It” Approach for if you don’t know what you want. Just read some of the descriptive text for each class, background and profession and see what sparks the imagination. I’m feeling random today, let’s go with this one.
Now the book gives us six steps to make a hero. The first step is what is the concept of your character. While you are asked to answer several questions about your character. The Who, What, When/Where and Why/How of when they became a hero. I’m not certain I can answer these questions now, so I’ll com back to them. The Archetypes (the type of hero your character is) and the Class (the way you express your archetype) are available to choose from are listed. The Archetypes are Strong (uses physical powers to resolve issues), Agile (uses coordination to accomplish tasks), Tough (can outlast the problems that are thrown at them), Smart (big brains solving big problems), Wise (uses their wisdom and insight to find resolutions) and Charming (using leadership, charisma or manipulation to reach their goals). There is a table that lists the possible classes that match the different archetypes and and recommended ability scores. Looking over the list I’m drawn towards the Sleuth class under the Wise archetype.
The second step is to think about the background for your hero (there’s a lot of thinking at the start) which gives your hero an ability score increase (but we haven’t even rolled them yet?), skill and weapon proficiencies, equipment and a special feature. I had to go searching for the background chapter and read what was there and this is the upbringing of the character. There were some good ones, and some that made me scratch my head. But none of them really inspired me with the creation of my Sleuth. While there were guidelines for creating new backgrounds, that goes beyond the scope of this blog post. I plucked the Orphan since I needed to move on and wrote down the provided benefits the background provided.
Now we pick the profession for step 3. From what I’m reading this isn’t really the class, but it can match if available. This is the day job of the character. They are broken down by types (Academia, Customer Service, Journalism, etc.) and from there you pick a career (Librarian, Phone Support, Photojournalist, etc.). I looked for the one that was closest to private investigator. This career was listed under Investigative Services. I wrote down the benefits from the profession.
And finally we are generating the ability scores on step 4. Being a D20 game they have the standard STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS and CHA. Some of these have already received bonuses from the above steps. To determine them, the game lists three options. A standard set (boring, but good if you needed a quick set), Point Buy (ehhh… lets think about this one) or rolling 4d6 and use the three highest to generate six scores and assign them as desired. I think I’ll stick with rolling as I want to roll some dice.
Archetype and Class are listed as step 5, but I thought we had already chosen them (for this character he is Wise/Sleuth)? So, apparently I’m gaining all of the benefits listed under the Sleuth. I also listed the equipment and filled in the hit dice and defense bonus.
Oh, I guess I need a name before I scan the character sheet. Found a random name generator for private investigators (I’m not certain I like this site) but it did give me the suggestion of Alex Carter. So I’m going with that. Here is the sheet. I didn’t really scan the second page as the only thing I had written on it was the equipment. The third page Had a lot of spots for background information.
Afterthoughts:
After seeing the benefits of flow charts earlier in this challenge, I really wish there had been a flow chart available here. I think it would have spread the process up much faster. There were benefits listed in one section, then different benefits for class listed in another chapter.
The character sheet is three pages long (my preference is two max) but the third page mostly seemed to be background information.
I… could see myself playing this game. While I was thinking about some of my standard homebrew targets (aka, what would the stats be for a favorite character from a video game), I don’t know if I’d want to jump into the Everyday Heroes homebrew pool just yet. I think I’d want to play it a few times as I’ve got several other modern RPGs that I could play and homebrew for already.
Additional Notes:
Thank you to LexTenebris on Mastodon who responded to my question yesterday about the length and detail in my Character Creation Challenge. One of the things he said was “It comes down to how much time you have and how much the process is compelling you at any given time. If it’s fun, document all of it. Somebody else is likely to find it fun. If it’s not fun, well, document how it’s not fun because that’s going to be helpful to someone sometime.” And you know what, he is right. I’ll have to make decisions when I sit down to generate the next several characters.
Coming Up Next:
Dark Places & Demogorgons
This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or click on my social media links with any comments.
OK, for Day 6 of the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge I’m going to use the Basic Roleplaying 4th edition system by Chaosium that has a copyright of 2022. Now regular readers of my blog will know that I’ve talked about and used the Basic Fantasy RPG several times, but despite the similar names, these two systems are not the same. Basic Roleplaying is a generic system (like GURPS and others) where they give you the framework and the GM decided what universe place around it. I’ve heard of this for years as it was used for Call of Cthulu, RuneQuest, Ringworld (which I think I may have played once in the late 80s-early 90s), Elf Quest, Stormbringer and a few others. I had never owned a copy until it came up for a really good sale price one day on DriveThruRPG. I snatched it up thinking that I’d use it for this challenge. Then a few weeks later, Chaosium announced a newer edition called Basic Roleplaying Universal Game Engine. So that might have been why the first edition went on sale. So I’m not doing a mini-review of the latest edition, but I’m going to use it anyway.
Since this is a generic system that can be used for just about anything, I think I’m going to attempt to make a spy for an espionage game. Let’s see if the book can explain it to me cold.
A guide to creating a character is listed on page 22-23 (with further details on the pages before and after). It has been broken down into several steps. Step 1 is the Name and Characteristics. It even says “Write your character’s name at the top of the page” on the first bullet point under step 1 with the second bullet point being “Write your own name on the character sheet”. I’d laugh but having run a Star Trek club where we’d have people work on merit sheets for rank advancements and a lot of times they would forget to put their name on the sheet. So points for being thorough. Our modern day spy is going to be named Jacob Green and he’s a bloke. Yes, the steps asks you to pick the gender now, but states that it doesn’t have an advantage system-wise. Our characteristics are Strength (STR), Constitution (CON), Power (POW), Dexterity (DEX) and Appearance (APP) that require a 3D6 roll. Do I assign them or do them in order? (searches the book) OK, I can choose them as an option. Before I start rolling the dice I look up what the POW characteristic is in this game as it may or may not affect my decisions. Ah it’s like the Willpower characteristic. I rolled the characteristics and assigned them. Now there are two more characteristics that require a 2D6+6 roll to determine the score. This is for Intelligence (INT) and Size (SIZ), which I’ve written down. Now I can redistribute 3 points between the characteristics with nothing above a 21, of which there is no chance as 16 was the highest roll. I elected to make a few changes.
Step 2, Magic and Powers. The book actually states on page 19 that you can skip this step if you are not in a world of magic, mutations or super powers. Works for me, onto step 3.
Age and Experience. The default age is 17+1D6 and Jacob turns out to be 20 years-old. So perhaps he’s been recruited while in college? There is an option for Education that guides me to page 27 (quickly reads). Ah I see this as the last characteristic. Grasp of general knowledge gained through a rounded education system and can be used in modern or futuristic settings. The book talks about how the attribute is generated if using a point based character creation system (which is an option) but not by throwing dice. I’m going to assume its the 2D6+6 (which rolled really well actually, but that’s good if Jacob wants to be a smart spy)
Step 4 tells us to generate some characteristic rolls based off of the values we’ve rolled above. For example CONx5 = Stamina. I did the math and wrote these down. Step 5 is more derived characteristics and more math this and math that for things like damage bonuses, hit points etc. I wrote things down.
Step 6 is interesting. It’s personality and type option. I’m instructed to roll a 1D4 and consult the chart. Jacob Outsmarts his opponents to gain an advantage. That actually fits what I’m thinking of. I’m wondering if some GMs would let their players pick if they already had something in mind?
Alright, step 7 is the skill point allocation with ranges from normal game (i.e. more like real life) to Superhuman Game (lots of stuff) Let’s go with the second lowest of Heroic with 325 points to professional skills with a max of 90%. There is a personal point pool (INTx10) that I can use for anything that doesn’t exceed the above limit. That’s a lot of points to spend. I’m instructed to go to page 33 and choose a profession, and yes I found a Spy farther down on page 42. So that gives me the wealth range and the list of suggested skills. But in going over the different steps and skill descriptions, I can’t find how much my initial cost for the skills are during the character creation process. I’m going to go with the assumption that 1 skill point equals 1% that I add to the base chance for that skill. Gah, it seems so simple of a thing to quickly explain. I think I did this correctly as there was a number of skills selected that would be appropriate for an espionage agent, but I had the feeling that I had missed something here. But I don’t have time so I move on.
Step 8 is marked as optional, but it’s the distinctive features. With the App score of 10, there is one distinctive feature. Randomly rolled resulted in facial hair. Um…. OK. From the list I selected no eyebrows.
With the last step we equip the character. It states that Jacob already has clothes, pocket money based off of wealth level (which was what?), a personal item with an emotional connection (Um… his Grandfather’s pocket watch… yea), any trade tools or equipment that matches the profession (makes sense), any weapon the character has 50% or more (glad I took that score on Light Pistol), a vehicle (yay spy car, or at least something good looking). Interestingly enough, there was no spot on the character sheet to write down equipment other than weapons. So I think I’m done and ready to scan the character sheet. I didn’t scan the second sheet as it primarily dealt with superpowers.
Afterthoughts:
There are a lot of pages that you have to jump to in order to follow the process. Had this been a physical book, I would have ended up using lots of bookmarks. It was a little annoying trying to click on the right bookmark within the PDF as not everything had a bookmark. I wonder if this is smoother in the latest edition of the rules?
The percentile system looks interesting. It reminded me of the FASA Star Trek RPG that also used percentiles for their resolution rolls. I think I’d be interested in trying out this game in a one-shot or at a convention before I knew if I wanted to put more effort into the game (i.e. long-term game or homebrews). It looks interesting to play, but like GURPs, but I hated making the character.
Additional Notes:
When I was printing up a bunch of the character sheets that I was going to use in the 2025 challenge, some of them came up slightly off kilter. This is one of those sheets that did that. Other sheets did not (quite strange). So I had a soft copy of the sheet up while I was also working on this and it looks like nothing really got cut off the bottom except for some border lines.
Am I putting too much detail into the steps? Since I’m trying to play catch-up, I think that I’ll be making this a shorter blog post. But when I sit down to type, my fingers keep typing what my brain tells them to. I also stop to look up tidbits and details to make sure I’m presenting them correctly. What do you guys think of the detail that I’m putting into these posts so far? Please let me know by social, email or Discord. Thank you.
Coming Up Next:
Everyday Heroes
This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or click on my social media links with any comments.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes Mastodon account and the @STrekQuotes Bluesky account for the week of January 6th through January 12th. Note: Because Twitter/X will use posts to train AI, we will no longer be posting on that platform. This is out of respect for the owners of Star Trek.
“So now all he has to live for is the slim chance that someday, somehow, he might be able to take over my uncle’s bar. Well, I’m not going to make the same mistake. I want to do something with my life. Something worthwhile.” Nog- Heart of Stone, Stardate: 48521.5 #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #Quote
January 7 “I examined the problem from all angles, and it was plainly hopeless. Logic informed me that under the circumstances, the only possible action would have to be one of desperation. Logical decision, logically arrived at.” Spock- The Galileo Seven, Stardate: 2822.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #Quote
“They’re lost, defeated. I will never be.” Ro Laren- Ensign Ro, Stardate: 45076.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #Quote
January 9 “Of all the captains who will sit in this chair, I can’t imagine any of them being more proud than I am right now.” Archer- Azati Prime, Date: January, 2154 #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #IDIC #Quote
January 10 “Looks like wine’s off the menu.” Holographic Chakotay “Unless you brought a phaser.” Seven “Never on the first date.” Holographic Chakotay- Human Error, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #Quote
January 11 “I am Worf, son of Mogh. I have come to challenge the lies that have been spoken of my father!” Worf- Sins of the Father, Stardate: 43685.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #Quote
“How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life, wouldn’t you say?” Kirk “As I indicated, Admiral, that thought had not occurred to me.” Saavik- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Stardate: 8130.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekFilm #IDIC #Quote
What are your favorite daily Star Trek quotes selected for this week? This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or click on my social media links with any comments.
The Day 5 entry for the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge is a little unusual. The game is Doctors and Daleks (D&D, get it?) by Cubicle 7. This is a Doctor Who RPG using “The worlds most popular roleplaying game system” (aka 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons) as it is put in the description on DriveThruRPG. I had picked up both D&D and Doctor Who RPG 2nd edition in a bundle sale, but I decided to limit the number of Doctor Who RPGs in the challenge to one this year.
Now I’ve created several other Doctor Who characters in past challenge entries. In the first challenge (five years ago), I created a character for the FASA Doctor Who RPG (that I still had my books for luckily) where I made a TimeLord called “The Baron”. Then later that month, I created a companion for him, a small-town police officer who was recruited by UNIT named Tim Bronson using the Doctor Who Roleplaying Game (1st edition) by Cubicle 7. As I quickly scroll through the descriptions of the different races, I wonder if I could make an alien companion for The Barron? Let’s see. I know there’s already a Sontaran that isn’t trying to gloriously advance the cause of the Sontaran Empire, but I’m drawn to this idea of The Baron having saved a Sontaran Warrior who had been taken over (psychically or something) and when he was freed, he discovered he had more free will than before. He was still efficient, but when around other Sontarans, he has to act more guff that normal.
But enough chit-chat, the chapter for character creation starts on page 20. A (sort of) character creation list has the following steps. Decide with your group what type of game they are going to play (A time lord is having an adventure with his own companions, not the Doctor or other canon characters as PCs). Decide on the core concept for your character (mostly done, see above), choose your species (Sontaran), choose your class (OK this will need more than a quick rundown), choose a background (what you were doing before you started your adventures), decide on the Time Machine your group has (The Barron has a TARDIS of his own) and some Finishing Touches.
There is a side-bar with some changes from 5th Edition D&D, everyone can understand the languages of others due to the TARDIS Translation Circuit. There are no alignments (so my car might drive off the side of the road) since the Doctor (or in this case The Barron) only travels with good morals. And Hit Points and Hit Die are replaced with Plot Points and Plot Die. Part of this reason is not all combat is physical. And finally there are different Tech Levels ranging from 1 (Primitive-Stone Age) to 12 (Beyond Comprehension) with our earth at TL5 (Space Faring) and the Time Lords at TL 10.
So when I finally got to the ability scores, it stated that I could generate them in any way that I desired, or I could choose from a set of scores already provided. Nah, I want to roll the dice today and I’m going to go with 4d6 drop the lowest die. I quickly look over the classes to see what their attribute minimums are. The classes are Charmer (fast talker), Empath (wise sage), Protector (guards their friends), Stalwart (dependable jack-of-all-trades), Thinker (brainbox), and the Trickster (uses cunning and guile). Yea, it’s going to be Protector so I made sure the ability scores reflected that.
After writing down a bunch of notes, I decided to start transferring what I already had (and locked down) over to the character sheet. While doing this, I realized I’ve never really played 5th edition much. When I have played it, it’s been at conventions where the characters are pre-generated by the DM.
I’ve moved to the Finishing Touches section as I’m trying to wrap this up. I had already picked a name of Vrogg (it sounded alien enough). But now the game asks 10 questions for your background. Where (and When) are you originally from? Vrogg was cloned on the glorious homeworld of Sontar. What is your family like? Family? A Sontaran warrior doesn’t have a family, but he does remember the others in his clone batch. Most of them have already given their lives for the Sontaran Empire. What was your childhood like? Vrogg was cloned at birth to full maturity. If he did have a childhood, it would have been glorious. What have you done in your past? He’s had the pleasure of serving in the Sontaran Battle Fleet for three years, serving in many countless battles. At least until that last one where he was separated from the fleet and rescued by The Barron. Owing him a life debt, he is serving with the Barron, until released. Who are your best friends? Friendship had no business in the Sontaran Battle Fleet. While he gets along with the other companions of The Barron, he has come to realize that they are people he has… met. What do you wish you could change? Vrogg would have wanted the outcome of his last battle before he was left behind to be different. Would this have resulted in his death, perhaps, but it would have been glorious. What are your best or worst memories? The sounds of the defeated Rutians crunching under his boot. What is your biggest secret? Vrogg doesn’t know if he will feel shame when he he comes back into contact with the Sontaran Battle Fleet. Until that time, he is attempting to serve out his life debt and will, as the Humans put it, “cross that bridge when he comes to it.” What is your biggest fear? Sontarans do not have fear. But he won’t walk on the recently mopped kitchen floor in The Barron’s TARDIS. Why are you traveling with The Doctor The Barron? The Barron rescued Vrogg when he was left behind, thus he owes a life debt to The Barron. There wasn’t really a lot when it came to equipment. Sure there is an equipment chapter, but not much detailing what a Sontaran warrior would have, so I wrote down some battle armor and decided to scan the first page of the character sheet.
Afterthoughts:
The book didn’t really go into the character creation system or a few other basics which was annoying. There were several times that the reader was referred to the SRD and I spent my time going back and forth between publications. I’m wondering if the writers thought that everyone would know 5th Edition D&D. While there were several pages describing some of the differences between Doctors and Daleks and D&D, there really wasn’t a step-by-step guide. I wonder if a Doctor Who fan picked up this book and then was a little confused? Remember, system first when writing your RPG manuals.
Both Doctors and Daleks and the regular Doctor Who RPG from Cubicle 7 assumes that someone will be playing the Doctor. Has this really been the case? When I played with friends using the FASA system back in the 80s-90s, we always had original characters. The Doctor was usually a guest character at the most while we ran around having our own adventures. I’m wondering if this is really the case with other Doctor Who RPG sessions? I checked with one of my 80’s buddies and she confirmed that they just made up their own.
So, would I play this as a Whovian? Possibly. I’m not in a lot of games right now, but I’d consider it if offered or saw it available at a convention. I was really impressed with the 1st edition Doctor Who RPG by Cubicle 7 and I can’t wait to look into the 2nd edition. I may want to play one of those before I play Doctors and Daleks. There’s already a big resource of homebrewed material for the 1st edition DWRPG, which gives that a slight edge.
Additional Notes:
I did get some additional feedback on my Traveller character I made the other day. Apparently I had done some things wrong as the math wasn’t mathing. I may have to go back and try to make a Traveller character again when I’m not under the pressure to catch up on the challenge. I wonder if I’m putting myself at a disadvantage of not giving some games the time to really get into the system itself. But another part of me asks “Can this game be picked up and played on short notice?” Some are definitely yes, some are definitely no and others are in-between.
Please let me know if I’m missing your blog from the Character Creation Challenge listing. I’ve been trying to add them as I find them.
Coming Up Next:
Basic Roleplaying (Chaosium)
This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or click on my social media links with any comments.
Still playing catch up, but here is the Day 4 entry into the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge and we are going to use another recent Kickstarter reward. This would be the 10th printing of the Castles and Crusades that was called Reforged in the Kickstarter campaign. Long story short, this is the C&C game with the OGL material pulled out of it. A trend that was seen in other RPG books like Basic Fantasy 4th Edition. And while I have created a Castles and Crusades character in a past challenge, I thought I’d use it again because I wanted to show off the book once more and test to see if the character creation process was still the same. With each printing, Troll Lord Games keeps the rules the same, but presents them differently and polishes them up for clarification and ease. So let’s see if there is, or is not any differences from the earlier challenge entry.
For those of you who don’t know, C&C is a D20 clone that uses the same attributes found in the oldest fantasy RPG, but uses a skill system called the Siege Engine. Instead of going into the differences, let me point you towards a very excellent video by Magehammer that explains it using index cards. This skill system has made me really want to try C&C in a campaign setting to see how well it works. I’ve played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, and I know that skill system. But the Siege Engine seems to give players the option of “What do I want to do?” instead of “What does my character sheet say I can do?”
So the last time I made a C&C character, I rolled up a Knight, but didn’t make him a Halfling because I misinterpreted the rules (as per some feedback I received from it). As I was flipping through the book I decided that I’m going to make a Monk since I don’t think I’ve made one yet. And to make up for my previous mistake, I’m going to make him a Halfling Monk that wanders the countryside trying to protect those who cannot protect themselves. Yes, that isn’t listed as one of the “typical classes” for this race (as per page 95) but the mistake I made last time is that “typical” doesn’t mean “only”. And since I’m short on time, the Halfling Fantasy Name Generator inspired this character’s name to be Barakas Nimblebarrel. One of the primary attributes was selected by the class (the Monk uses CON and I selected STR as the second primary attribute)
The character creation process starts on page 12 (again, thank you for putting the system first in an RPG book) and while there really isn’t a checklist, it breaks down the process in two pages. Imagine the character (done see above). Roll attributes (the book states, roll 3d6 and assign as desired), done including the racial modifiers. Roll Hit Points (OK, I’m going to snag Optional Rule #1 since it’s listed right here and take the max HP at first level since that is how I like it) and the last step is Fleshing out the Character. This includes the starting money and buying equipment. When I compare these steps to the 7th printing, the appear to be the same. When I look at the class and race descriptions in the 7th printing I can see how the layout has been altered, but the information appears to be the same. However I did notice that the 10th printing has details for higher levels beyond 12th.
OK, I think I’ve got everything, the stats, the race and class information, the equipment. I’m sure that there is probably a thing or two that I might be missing from making Barakas table ready, but I need to wrap this up for the day. Here are the two character sheets.
Afterthoughts:
I wish the publisher did have a checklist for character creation. But I’m sure that if I was going to run this as a campaign (tempting) I’d probably put one together. I’ve offered to run a C&C game when one of my kids asked about a game, but I haven’t heard back if her friends could make it (the dreaded schedule curse).
I like how Dusk Vision (spelled Duskvision in the 7th printing) is laid out as compared to Darkvision in other OSR games. Dusk Vision will work outdoors, but not underground. Dwarves have Deep Vision, Elves have Twilight Vision (I wonder if it will let them see sparkly vampires?).
In this new version of C&C, Alignment has been changed to Disposition. I’m sure that if I read further into the rules (when I have time) I’d probably see more changes, but I suspect that they won’t disrupt your table.
Additional Notes:
While I’m still playing catch up, I’ve been on the look out for the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge on BlueSky and Mastodon. I’m seeing quite a few entries. I’ve been re-posting them as I come across them and I’ve started following a few accounts. Thank you for using the hashtag, it’s made it easier to follow the other participants.
Coming Up Next:
Doctors and Daleks
This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or click on my social media links with any comments.
For my Day 3 entry into the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge I am using the latest version of a classic science fiction roleplaying game, Traveller. This is the edition that was recently released by Mongoose Publishing (at least the copyright on my Starter Set is 2017). If you wanted a good comparison, this version of Traveller is like Wizards of the Coast releasing Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition. Yes there are older versions, such as the Classic Traveller, different editions like Traveller20 and retro clones, such as Cepheus Deluxe. All of which I’ve had the pleasure of using in past character creation challenges. But this version is the currently supported by Mongoose. To my knowledge, there is no special add-on to the name, like Traveller The New Era, or MegaTraveller, just Traveller.
So the Starter Set has three books, 1- Characters & Combat (image seen above), 2- Spacecraft & Worlds and 3- The Fall of Tinath (a starting adventure). There are also several character cards and sector maps provided. I’m not finding an ISBN, but that may have been on the actual box itself (which I don’t have). The only book that I’ll be looking at for this entry is the Characters & Combat. The Traveller Creation is detailed in the first chapter on page 7. It also talks about creating your character at the same time as your fellow players for group balance and cohesion. The character sheet is two pages long. Oh, there’s a character creation flow chart on page 10, I’ll run with that. I’m also thinking I need to decide what type of character I’m going to make before getting to deep into the process. I don’t think I’ve made a scientist character yet in any of my Traveller/clone entries. His name is Denton Wilkinson and he’s a member of the science team for some explorers. Let’s go with that.
As discussed in other systems based off of Classic Traveller, a character has six Characteristics. The physical characteristics of Strength (STR), Dexterity (DEX) and Endurance (END) and the mental characteristics of Intellect (INT), Education (EDU) and Social Standing (SOC). These are randomly rolled with two six-siders (2D is how they list it in the book) and adding the results together. I get to assign the roll results to the characteristics. I’ve written these down on my notes.
OK, now the flowchart takes me to Background Skills, choose EDU DM+3 for the total number of background stills that you get before starting your career. But I’m confused, the example text says it would be 0 to 6 depending upon the EDU score. But the description for a Dice Modifier (DM) on page 5 says the number after the DM is added or subtracted to the roll. A DM of plus three added to the Characteristic Score of 12 would be 15 if I’m reading this correctly. Not finding anything else that would clarify this for me, I took a picture of the Background Skills description and sent it to a Facebook page for Traveller fans. This was the closest I got to asking a Referee. The group members explained that I was reading it wrong, the EDU DM is a +2 because of the score of 12. Add that to the +3 for the background skills and he starts with five total. OK, that makes sense now. Which I had this access with some of my other games. On with the show, five starting Background Skills with the level 0. I wrote them down on my notes.
Pre-education check is the next step. Denton is smart so he should be able to get into University. I also get a DM bonus for having a SOC of 9. I rolled an 8 which beats the target score of 7, so he’s in. I choose some additional skills (written down on my notes) and I get to increase my EDU by 1. Now did I graduate? Another roll results in an 8 that beats the target number (but I did not roll high enough to graduate with honors). I wrote down the benefits and skills that were earned. Rolling on the event during the pre-career education resulted in a Life Event roll (finds another chart) and that came up with Birth of Death (not Cake or Death? Oh, OK.) Denton’s father passed away while he was in college. As someone who had inspired him, he elected to go into field research like is father instead of going for some cushy corporate research position.
Now the flow chart says I start a new term. Specifically the first term that the character has in his career and it needs to be picked. Denton meets the minimum requirements for a Scholar-Field Researcher, so I don’t need to roll anything there, but he still needs to go through Basic Training. I write down these skills at level 0. Then the flow chart says I roll for survival (made it) and then roll for event, I rolled a 6 which gives me an advanced training if I rolled above a certain EDU rating, which I did. Woot, one skill goes up by 1 point. Next I roll to see if I advance and he did not. So I guess I’m still a Scholar level 1 (shrugs). OK, I add four more years to the character’s life and come back for the second term. Since this is not the first, there is no basic training, but I’m sticking with the career Denton has now. I’m going to pick from the Personal Development table and roll 1D, his Dex goes up by one. As with the initial career, I roll for survival (passed) and advancement (still no, hmmm… I guess he didn’t include the cover to his TPS reports). Now we loop around with four more years added and try again, this time I’m going for one of the Field Researcher skills, which earned me a Survival 0. Survival roll passed and advancement roll finally passed so he must have sucked up to the right boss. Onto the last term and we are picking from Advanced Education (earned Art 0) and Denton survived and advanced. He’s mustering out and if I’m reading this correctly gets two benefit rolls. They are some money, INT+1 and more money and a lab ship with 25% of the mortgage paid off on it. But now I have to roll on the outdated ships table in Book 2 (scrambles to pull that up). Wow, it’s 30-40 years old and has a ton of problems with it. I guess it’s held by duct tape and wires.
The last step on this flow chart is picking Skills Packages (which should be done with other players). I picked the Explorer Skills package and wrote down the skills. But now the flow chart is done and other than getting a ship, I have no equipment. (goes searching through book) I was really hoping that there would have been an Explorer’s pack or some sort of pre-generated go-to list of equipment to get done quickly, so I wrote a few things down that I thought my Field Researcher had and called it a day as it’s really late. Ugh, moving everything over from my notes to the character sheet and I see that the other characteristics haven’t been filled in yet (I don’t remember seeing them on any flow charts or lists). I’m ready for bed so I won’t bug the Facebook people tonight. I had downloaded the character sheet so they might be extras. Especially when Morale didn’t pull up on a quick search of the Character’s book PDF. I’m tired and done. Here is the character sheet, I only scanned one page since didn’t get any information for the second.
Afterthoughts:
I liked how they had two pages to explain everything that was on the character sheet (and what page it could be found on). But I had a different character sheet so it was slightly different.
I can see where there has been some improvement from the Classic Traveller and OSR clones (while there were still a few sections where I needed to ask questions). I could see myself playing this if the opportunity arises. I don’t know if I could home brew for it until after I’ve had a chance to play, and I don’t know how likely that is. But who knows. I think this would be my flavor of Traveller if I were to play a game.
Additional Notes:
More real life events have caused delays and it’s been bugging me. Nothing serious like a health wise or computer issue, but so far 2025 has decided to be a drag. I’m still playing catch up and I’m feeling like I’ve been letting others down as the person who came up with this challenge. So these additional notes may not be very big until I’m all caught up. I’ve already moved a few games around to see if I can get a few easy builds done.
Coming Up Next:
Castles and Crusades Reforged
This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or click on my social media links with any comments.
Here is my Day 2 entry in the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge and today I’ll be making a character for The Sword of Cepheus 2nd Edition by Stellagama Publishing. I had used one of their publications in a past challenge where I made a character for Cepheus Deluxe. I also have another game from this publisher scheduled for later in the challenge. SoC2e is based off of the Cepheus Engine (basically the engine that ran Classic Traveller, to complete a task roll 2d6 and add skills and other modifiers to beat a target number). This is another game where the authors did the right thing by explaining the game mechanic near the front of the book in a way that I can explain it to others. If I can understand it quickly, the more likely that I’m going to be able to convince some friends to try it or run it at a convention.
This is a game that I had backed on Kickstarter and recently reviewed the reward on my blog. Since I already talked about the physical descriptions in that blog post, I won’t be talking much about that here. This allows us to get right into the character creation (and probably a shorter blog post than yesterday).
The chapter for character generation starts on page 24 (after a quick breakdown of the system). The first step is to assign a set of numbers listed in the book to the six different characteristics. They are Strength (STR), Dexterity (DEX), Endurance (END), Intelligence (INT), Education (EDU) and Social Standing (SOC). Now Intelligence and Education sound about the same, but are quite different. Intelligence represents your reasoning, creativity and intellectual capabilities where as Education is your general knowledge and formal schooling. I like the fact that they tell us in advance that INT+EDU determines the max number of skills that a character can have (if I wanted to plan in advance). Now it does state that there is an optional rule to roll 2d6 six times and assign the characteristics you desire or using 42 points to spread across the characteristics, however since this is the first time I’m making a character for this system I’ll stick with the Rules As Written (RAW). Let’s stick with a basic swordslinger this time around. Harrik Stol was born in a port town and worked at the docks before signing on with his first vessel. He was captured by a band of pirates who needed to replenish their crew after several bad encounters. Harrik became a pirate to survive and discovered that he enjoyed it. (note: I just came up with this while typing early in the character creation process, it wasn’t a requirement in the process). After assigning my characteristic scores I noted the modifiers for the three characteristics that had them.
Step two deals with Background Skills. At the age of 14 Harrik will have already learned some skills already. I selected the Port Town which gave him Watercraft 1, Craft 1 and Athletics 1. I wrote these down.
In step three we grow from age 14 in a lifepath generation to the final ready to play character. This creates a background for the character with contacts, milestones and additional skills and characteristics. I think this is part of the “character creation game” that I’ve heard about in other Traveller systems. Now the rules state that the Referee will determine the number of career terms the characters will go through before starting the game. This makes sense as some Refs may want to start greener characters out and then let them earn their way up or give you some experienced characters and then throw the big guys at you. With no Ref I elected to roll a d4 to see the max number of terms, which resulted in two.
Uh… now we have a Step-by-step character generation checklist on page 29? Should this have been marked as a Career Term checklist? Just a bit confusing for a first time read through. Anywho, section A. Term 1: Select a career (searches for the careers). As listed above, I’m taking Pirate. I noted the career service skills and raised one of them to 1, the rest are 0 (which means that Harrik knows the basics about them if I understand this correctly). Now pick two skill levels from that career’s available skills table which has Service, Specialists or Advanced (which I can’t take because his EDU score isn’t high enough). Uh… are these selections level 1 or 0? The book doesn’t say. I appreciate that they tried to break this down in an outline, but it doesn’t flow very well from how I’m reading it. I seem to remember having this same issue when I was creating a character for Cepheus Deluxe. I’m going to go with 0. OK, Section A, Part 2 Sub-section ii says that a maximum of one skill level may be spent to improve any Characteristic by +1. iii says that no skill level may be higher than 2 in the first term. iii makes senses and if I understand ii I could have selected one of my skill points to go towards a characteristic. Can I use this to up my EDU or INT to get more skills? I’ve already got them written down so I’m not changing my characteristics in the first term. So I’ll run section iv which is the career events table. He was a landlubber so Harrik gains a skill (level?) or a language. I’m going to add one to streetwise. Part 3 has me add four years to the character’s age, so he’s now 18.
Section B covers the second and subsequent terms. As mentioned above I randomly rolled 2 of them. If I understood the Master Character Generation Table, in the second term I get 2 skill levels granted plus 1 for a service skill and in the third term I get just two skill levels to spend. So four skill levels to spend and one more skill added if I’m reading this correctly. OK I’m going to spend one skill level to bump up my SOC skill to 6 (and thus out of the negative modifier range). I spent the three other skill levels and I thought I already had all of the service skills at zero (that didn’t already have a level added to them). I’m confused. I’ll increase the age by 8 (4 years for each term) and roll on the career events table twice. The first event referred me to a Life Event (where is that table, oh on page 49). Life events are listed by Hinterland (the wilds), village or city. It doesn’t say which table I’m rolling on. Is a Port Town a city or a village? Odds it’s city and evens its village, 3, city it is. 10, something good happens, gain an extra benefit role (I believe this is when the character “musters out”). Second career event roll results in Wizards? You learn a little bit from a friendly Wizard. Gain Sorcery or Natural Philosophy. These are skills that I can add to the character sheet. A quick look at the skill descriptions for both I select Sorcery. Yea Pirate Harrik learned a few conjurers tricks to help him with is pirate career here and there, but not enough to declare himself a full blown wizard with the staff and pointy hat. A quick read of the beginning of the Skills chapter on page 17 makes me think this will be a level 0 skill (which means I avoid the unskilled penalty when trying to use the skill). I may have missed where these new skills start out, a 1 or a 0.
OK, if I did this correctly I look at the Master Character Generation Table, Harrik is now 26 has completed three terms (the initial and two more), has some skill levels added to the sheet has two traits (apparently something explained in step 4) five Mustering out benefit rolls (one came from the life event) and a total of 3 events. Let’s roll these benefits and see what happens, it’s a d6 on the Pirate table and I get the following: die rolls a 3 for 100 gold and +1 INT (good), roll of a 5 gives me an Ally and 400 gold (I think I’m getting the gold with the materials), third roll is a 2 gaining 50 gold and some armor, fourth roll is a 6 which results in 500 gold and a ship (probably not a big ship) and the last roll of a 1 gives me 20 gold and a weapon (a cutlass is what I’m guessing).
Alright, step 4 is found on page 55 and it covers the final steps for the character. There is Stamina (add END and Athletics skill) then Lifeblood (resistance to injury) which is END and Athletics skill x2, so 20. Now I can use the cash I earned from mustering out and buy any equipment. There is a pre-purchased equipment package, but I would have to have spent one mustering out benefit to receive it (yea, I’m not giving that up since I got some good rolls). I’ll find the costs later and make the purchase of what’s in the package. Now onto traits, I have two of them according to the master character generation table and I selected: Master Sailor (hey he’s the captain of a small pirate ship) and Signature Weapon (the cutlass he got when mustering out was given to him by his ally).
OH, there’s a character example written out on page 72. Let me take a quick look to see if I missed anything? Ah, if I’m reading this correctly, one of my cash benefits could have been sacrificed to gain the equipment package (I’ll knock one off). There is also chapters on non-human character generation, but I’m already done. I’ll transfer everything to the character sheet from my notes. I’m not certain what my rank is, not certain if I want to look it up now. There is a section for Hero Points which is an optional rule, but you start out with 2. Yea, I’m done. Let’s scan this character sheet.
Afterthoughts:
There are a lot of optional rules presented in this game. Be prepared to ask your Referee which rules they want to run. Some sounded interesting, others sounded complicated.
The system seems pretty sound, but the way the character creation is described could use a little bit more work to make it understandable for those who’ve never played a Traveller type game before. Part of the issue with smaller publishers is that there isn’t a lot of experienced players to immediately ask questions to. I’m sure I would have leaned a lot on my Ref during this process.
The character sheet has some of the skills out of alphabetical order. Sorcery is listed before Sneak, Athletics is listed before Archery. Healing is listed after Liaison.
I was getting a lot of AD&D 1st edition vibes with this book. Lots of good stuff present, interesting system, but things are lacking some explanations or just found in random order. If this was going to be my go-to fantasy RPG, I’m sure I’d get use to it pretty quickly, but I’d have to explain a lot to new players. I’m still happy that I made the purchase and that I backed the Kickstarter, but I’d have to make some cheat sheets if I was going to run this at a convention or on a campaign. I’d still like to try a game or two just to see how the system handles at the table.
Additional Notes:
I’m still playing catch up after getting delayed on the first day. But I’ve been able to get some new blogs added to the Character Creation Challenge FAQ page. I’ve also been getting some feedback from participants on social media and the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. A few participants have been posting their characters there. Thank you.
Coming Up Next:
Traveller (Mongoose Publishing)
This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or click on my social media links with any comments.
So 2025 started off with a loud clunk. I had a bunch of items prepped for the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge and when I went to type it up (I usually type these up directly to the blog itself as part of my process) and the hosting company for my blog had a technical issue on January 1st and I was unable to get into the site to edit it. I reached out to my provider and messages were sent up the chain, but with it being a holiday I knew it was going to take a while. I was hoping it would be a quick fix otherwise I’d probably have to type these up on a doc file and wait until I had full access again. I don’t know if you guys could see this site, but for me it wasn’t coming up at all. So my apologies if you couldn’t see anything on the 1st day of the year. On Thursday, January 2nd about mid-day everything was restored and I could start editing (and writing) again. And now without further ado, on with the show.
I always start the Character Creation Challenge with the game that I was most excited about in the previous year. Either I wanted to own it, play it, run it or write for it, and this case it was all four. If you know me you shouldn’t be surprised that this year I am starting off with Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition by Modiphius. I already talked about the physical characteristics of the book in the Review of Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition blog post that was published last year, so I’ll skip that portion here. The previous books in this line that I’ve used in past Character Creation Challenges include the Star Trek Adventures 1st edition core rulebook and the Klingon Empire core rulebook.
Each character in Star Trek Adventures 2nd edition has six Attributes that represent your mind and body: Control (think Dexterity and coordination and the ability to do exactly what you want to do), Daring (think Willpower, courage or sanity to do things when you don’t want to), Fitness (think Strength and Constitution for physical power and health), Insight (think Wisdom and empathy, the ability to work out the why questions), Presence (think Charisma and the ability to be stunning, good for leadership) and Reason (think Intelligence, use of logic, perception and fact remembering, the ability to work out the how questions). Each new character starts out with a rating of 7 in each attribute. All characters also have six Departments (previously called Disciplines in first edition) that represent the training your character has: Command (the skill at persuading others by different methods), Conn (the skill of operating and navigating surface or space vehicles such as rafts, automobiles, environmental suits or large starships), Engineering (the skill of of making, maintaining, fixing or reverse-engineering technology), Security (the skill of using, avoiding or understanding different forms of violence or hazards), Medicine (the skill of treating or understanding different life-forms) and Science (the skill of studying and understanding the universe rationally). Each new character starts with a rating of 1 (basic training) in each Department. (if you are homebrewing for Star Trek Adventures, there is an excellent chart on page 90 defining what each Department rating level represents in the real world, thank you for this)
Now, a MAJOR improvement from the first edition of STA is the use of flowcharts in the core rulebook for certain elements of the game. This makes things a lot easier to run and set things up at your table. The flowchart for the Lifepath Summary (aka character creation process) that I will be using can be found on page 98. Not only does it have everything listed step-by-step, it also gives you the page numbers for additional details. Very smart.
So step one is to select a species. Another change between the first and second edition is the inclusion of non-Starfleet/Federation species if the GM and Players wanted to run a Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian, Orion, Ferengi or Merchant/Civilian campaign. The species present in the core rulebook include the Andorians, the Aenar, the Bajorans, the Betazoids, the Cardassians, the Denobulans, the Ferengi, the Humans, the Klingons, the Orions, the Romulans, the Tellarites, the Trill and the Vulcans. There are also guidelines for characters of mixed species (like Spock or B’Elanna Torres) and augmented or cybernetically enhanced characters. By comparison, there were only eight species in the first edition book. The selection of your species adds +1 to three attributes (depending upon the species) a unique species ability (a new addition to the 2nd edition) and a species trait (something that all members of this species has). Now when I was printing out the character sheet for this challenge, I could have printed one for any of the major campaigns listed above. Since I didn’t know which character I would be making, I elected to print out a Federation/Starfleet character sheet since they had the most options. I made a Vulcan in the first edition entry to the challenge and a Klingon for the Klingon core rulebook entry, so let’s create a Trill character. I don’t think I’ve done one of those yet. So I add +1 to my Control, Presence and Reason as per the description. I also write down the details for the species ability of Patient. In the first edition, you had to use one of your ability slots to take a species ability, now it’s an automatic add-on in the second edition. While it isn’t part of this step, I selected the name of Keman Les from the list of possible names since I had the page right in front of me.
OK, step two is to select the Environment that Keman was born or raised at. There is a d20 chart here with different options, and since I want some randomness, I rolled a 13, Isolated Colony. This gives me the first opportunity to select a Value (which is a statement that describes the attitude, belief or conviction of the character, it is usually represented by a small quote (oh, I like that) and there is some in-game benefit when it’s used or challenged. In an isolated colony I think that everyone would be supportive of everyone else so I selected “We are all in this together now.” (originally spoken by Picard in the TNG episode “Loud as a Whisper“). I can bump up Reason or Insight by one point, and I selected Insight since it hasn’t been bumped up yet. Now I also get my first Departmental increase, 1 point for Engineering, Science or Medicine. I selected Engineering.
On to step three and I get to select the upbringing that Keman was raised in. This is his education and influence during his formative years. Another d20 roll on another chart gives me Science and Technology. Perhaps the reason the colony was isolated is due to the fact that his parents were researchers working remotely. I can accept or reject (rebelled) against this upbringing which both provides different character enhancements. I elected to go with acceptance. So Keman gets +2 to Control and +1 to Reason. Other additions include +1 to another Department (I selected Science on this one) a Focus (think a specialty to compliment the Department listed above) in which I selected Power Systems (If I am attempting a task dealing with Power Systems, I get a bonus to my rolls) and I gain a single Talent. A Talent is an additional benefit the character possesses which also gives some bonuses to task rolls. They come in General categories or categories defined by species, culture, enhancements (such as cybernetic) or department (command, engineering, etc.) I already have my species talent, so I’m going to pull from the General category at this time. Again thinking Isolated Colony I selected Extra Effort (and I wrote down the benefits on the sheet).
Alright, step four the career path. What is Keman doing in Starfleet (which I’ve decided he joined to expand his engineering expertise he learned at the isolated colony of Vaxian III. In the first edition or Klingon books, the career path was limited to Starfleet or the Klingon Defense Force. Here the random paths could include diplomatic or civilian options. But as mentioned above, I’m selecting Starfleet Officer in the operations (engineering) track. I write down the trait of Starfleet Officer, find an engineering quote for a value (“The right tool for the right job.” said by Scotty in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier), additions to his Attributes and Departments, three new Focuses (Transports & Replicators, Warp Field Dynamics and Computers) and a Talent (Maintenance Specialist).
Next is step five where we cover the Experience of the character. Of the three options there is Novice (young and usually just out of the Academy), Experienced (been in the service for a while) and Veteran (been doing this for a long time, wised and experienced). Kemen is Experienced and gets to choose a freely selected Value an Talent. For the Talent I selected Bold (Engineering) and from my master list of Star Trek quotes I picked “All you have to do is relax and use your imagination” said by Jadzia Dax in “The Way of the Warrior“.
There are two Career Events in step six which are randomly rolled. The first event was Mentored and the second was First Contact. With Mentored a highly-respected officer (I’ll name him/her later) took notice of the character’s career and Keman served as this person’s aide and learned from the benefit of the officer’s vast experience. He gets +1 to any attribute (I selected Fitness) and +1 to Conn (that’s good as it was a weak one) and a Focus (I selected Etiquette from the list). I like this because I probably wouldn’t have selected these on my own. For First Contact, Keman was involved with a first contact mission with another culture. This gains the character +1 to Presence +1 to any Department (I selected Medicine as it was his lowest) and a Focus (selecting Infiltration from the list, why, because they had to sneak in and study before revealing themselves to the local population).
And our last step is Finishing Touches. I get to pick one final Value (Quote selected is “Focus on the goal, not the task” said by Tanis in the episode “Cold Fire“). Increase two Attributes by 1 as long as I do not exceed the maximum rating of 12 (I selected Daring and Fitness). As for Departments, I hadn’t exceeded the maximum of 5 so I was instructed to add +1 to two departments (again not exceeding the maximum) so I selected Engineering and Command. I’m instructed to make sure I have a minimum of six Focuses from the previous steps (I do) and three Talents (also good). So I’m now instructed to select one more Talent. It doesn’t say if it has to be selected from a specific category so after looking over the list I selected Former Initiate (a Trill talent). There is a final check for the Attributes (added together they should add up to 56, which I had) and Departments (should all add together to 16, which I confirmed), the correct number of species ability, four values and six focuses (all checked). Now we choose the character’s name (see above) age (randomly selected 32 from the guidelines) and a rough description of the character’s personality and appearance (I’ll nail this down later when I find an image to use). Now one of the new features of the 2nd edition game comes into play, each character gets a Pastime. This is a hobby or interest of the character that makes them unique, but may or may not really come into play. This could be a game/sport, something creative or a subject the character is really interested in. Keman is interested in writing Holo-Comics after seeing some while on leave. As for selecting a Role with the team I would have obviously worked with the GM and other players, but I’m running with the assumption that Keman is the Chief Engineer (which comes with some benefits) on a smaller starship (USS Nova Scotia, NCC-72719, Nova Class) and I’m going to pluck the rank of Lieutenant Commander out of the air. I also wrote down the equipment listed on page 141. The flowchart on page 98 instructs me to record the derived ratings of Stress and bonus damage in this step, but none of that is present in the “more information” chapter in pages 132-141. A quick search in the book found on page 277 where it states that Stress is equal to the Fitness attribute and may be adjusted by other Talents. This blog article is already too long, otherwise I’d go into more detail on how Stress works in this game, but it’s basically your health. Looking at the other blank spots on this character sheet I see there is nothing for Resistance (something that would have been provided by a Talent or Equipment) and Determination (page 261) which describes this as something like luck or fate points and work alongside your Values or a Mission Directive. Each character starts with one determination at the start of a mission and may gain up to a maximum of three through roleplaying opportunities. With attacks, I copied the information from one of the characters in the Quickstart Guide as I was running short on time. Here is the character sheet that I scanned.
Afterthoughts:
There were only a couple of items that I had to look outside of the flowchart and the character creation chapters. An experienced GM could easily guide a new player through these hiccups very easily and speed up the character creation process. Otherwise it was a pretty easy experience (especially compared to the 1st edition) Yes there is a very good fan-made online character generator for Star Trek Adventures, and I’ve used it to quickly make characters for convention one-shots, but actually siting down and following the process helps me learn the game. Something that I think that others should do as well if you want to learn more about this system.
I apologize for the length of this blog entry. As I realized how big it was getting, I realized that I was just excited about this game. Not only does it work for a Star Trek setting with the exploration and cooperation working more than the combat, but it could be used for other popular franchises as well such as Babylon 5 or The Orville. As I’ve stated above, I will be homebrewing for this system. There is a vast library of Star Trek novels, comics and games that could be mined for Star Trek Adventures material. I’ve already done this once with the entry for the Tarn (which adjusting to 2nd edition will probably be done in another blog post).
Additional Notes:
Thank you for your patience in getting this blog entry out. While I will mark it down for January 1st, it still frustrated me that it got delayed until the 2nd. I still need to catch up on my other entries.
As you can see from the title photo above, I’ve changed the format slightly to include the challenge year and my blog URL. In the past I’ve had at least one (that I know of) image from a past Character Creation Challenge get pilfered and used in someone’s YouTube video (which they make money on) without asking for permission first.
I’ve also been adding to the list of participating sites on the Character Creation Challenge FAQ page. I’m still adding them as I find more on message boards and social media. If I’m missing yours, please let me know. Following the #CharacterCreationChallenge hashtag on BlueSky has helped me find new accounts to follow.
Coming Up Next:
Sword of Cepheus
This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or click on my social media links with any comments.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes Mastodon account and the @STrekQuotes Bluesky account for the week of December 30th through January 5th. Note: Because Twitter/X will use posts to train AI, we will no longer be posting on that platform. This is out of respect for the owners of Star Trek.
December 30 “Captain, you almost make me believe in luck.” Spock “Why, Mister Spock, you almost make me believe in miracles.” Kirk- A Taste of Armageddon, Stardate: 3192.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #Quote
December 31 “Last year, when 2000 arrived? Everyone was convinced it was the dawn of a new era. But when the world didn’t end and the flying saucers didn’t land and the Y2K bug didn’t turn off a single light bulb, you’d think everybody would have realized it was a number on a calendar.” O’Donnell- 11:59, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #Quote
January 1 “We have a tradition called a ‘toast.’ It is a drink to salute one’s friends and good fortune.” Picard- First Contact, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #Quote
January 2 “I’m Supervisor one nine four, code name Gary Seven. I need a complete report.” Gary Seven “Report?” Roberta Lincoln “Yes, report. Everything you have done for the past three Earth days.” Gary Seven- Assignment: Earth, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #Quote
“We’re aware that every choice we make has a consequence.” Sisko- Emissary, Stardate: 46379.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #Quote
January 4 “I said before that my duties entail the occasional emergency. Emergencies, it seems, come in all shapes and sizes.” Dr. Phlox- Dear Doctor, Date: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #Quote
January 5 “Your knowledge of Klingon curses is impressive. But, as a Romulan might say, only a veruul would use such language in public.” Riker- The Defector, Stardate: 43462.5 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #Quote
What are your favorite daily Star Trek quotes selected for this week? This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or click on my social media links with any comments.
