Author: TardisCaptain

Posted in: Quotes, Star Trek

Daily Star Trek Quotes: February 21-27

Written by TardisCaptain
Um… what kind of smoke is that?

Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes twitter account for the week of February 21st through February 27th.

February 21
Happy Birthday to Martha Hackett https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Martha_Hackett #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #StarTrekVOY #WeAreStarfleet #IDIC

“We are alone here, at the mercy of any number of hostile aliens because of the incomprehensible decision of a Federation Captain.” Seska- State of Flux, Stardate: 48658.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #WeAreStarfleet #IDIC

February 22
Happy Birthday to Jeri Ryan. @JeriLRyan https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Jeri_Ryan #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #StarTrekPicard #WeAreStarfleet #IDIC

“Ranging is my job. It’s not saving the galaxy, it’s helping people who have no one else to help them. It’s helpless, and pointless, and exhausting, and the only thing worse would be giving up.” Seven- Stardust City Rag #StarTrek #StarTrekPicard #WeAreStarfleet #IDIC

February 23
Majel Barett-Roddenberry born on this date in 1932. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Majel_Barrett-Roddenberry #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #StarTrekTNG #StarTrekDS9, #StarTrekVOY, #StarTrekDiscovery #WeAreStarfleet #IDIC

(on kids) “We raise them, we care for them, we suffer for them we keep them from harm their whole lives. Now, eventually, it’s their turn to take care of us.” Lwaxana Troi- Half a Life, Stardate: 44805.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #WeAreStarfleet #IDIC

February 24
Happy Birthday to Tawny Newsom. @TrondyNewman https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Tawny_Newsome #StarTrek #StarTrekLowerDecks #WeAreStarfleet #IDIC

“A view like this makes you realize it doesn’t matter what deck you work on, we’re all in it together.” Mariner- I, Excretus, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekLowerDecks #WeAreStarfleet #IDIC

February 25
Happy Birthday to Anson Mount. @ansonmount https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Anson_Mount #StarTrek #StarTrekDiscovery #StarTrekShortTreks #StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds #WeAreStarfleet #IDIC

(to himself) “You’re a Starfleet captain. You believe in service, sacrifice, compassion… and love.” Pike- Through the Valley of Shadows, Stardate: 1048.66 #StarTrek #StarTrekDiscovery #WeAreStarfleet #IDIC

February 26
Happy Birthday to Chase Masterson. @ChaseMasterson https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Chase_Masterson #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #WeAreStarfleet #IDIC

“It’s never a bad time for flowers.” Leeta- Doctor Bashir, I Presume?, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #WeAreStarfleet #IDIC

February 27
“You know I’ve wrestled with the fine line between doing what I think is right and interfering with other species. So don’t tell me you know what I would’ve done when I don’t even know what I would’ve done.” Archer- Cogenitor, Date: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #WeAreStarfleet #IDIC

Posted in: My Creations, Role Playing Games, Star Trek

Homebrewed Stats for Starships Final

Written by TardisCaptain 1 Comment on Homebrewed Stats for Starships Final

And we have reached the last of the scans from my 1990’s Starship Homebrew book. I had found this book earlier while unpacking various boxes after a move. It was a book that I had assembled in a three-ringed binder contained copies of ships that could be used in the Star Trek Starship Tactical Combat Simulator by FASA. These were ships from the official Starship Recognition Manuals, Rulebooks, Sourcebooks, Adventure Modules and Magazine Articles. I discovered that I wanted even more starships for the book and I found them in various official and fan-made tech manuals and blueprints. Using the Starship Construction Manual and the stats from the source material I was able to convert several starships for use with the FASA game. These scans look rough, because they are the original dot matrix printouts with, literally, cut and pasted images combined on a photocopier. But I am sharing them here for all to enjoy.

Additional: Here is a photo of the original book that I was talking about.

Master Book of Ships

Past Entries:

Homebrewed Stats for Starships

Homebrewed Stats for Starships Part II

Homebrewed Stats for Starships Part III

Homebrewed Stats for Starships Part IV

Homebrewed Stats for Starships Part V

Homebrewed Stats for Starships Part VI

Homebrewed Stats for Starships Part VII

For the last batch of vessels, we have one Gorn ship, a couple of Tholian ships and some merchant vessels. Now onto the batch.

CK-5-Class-XV-DreadnaughtDownload

The name of this vessel in the fan-made Gorn Guidebook is the “Gorn Space Control Dreadnaught”. I don’t know why I had changed the name to the CK-5. Probably because I was trying to mimic the naming convention seen in the Klingon Ship Recognition Manual and the Romulan Ship Recognition Manual.

Spinner-Class-III-Light-Patrol-CruiserDownload

The image came from The Worlds of the Federation resource book. The stats were guestimated by me at the time of creation. The 2nd edition of the Starship Construction Manual doesn’t provide any stats for Tholian equipment. I didn’t know that the 1st edition of the book had Tholian equipment until I got a hold of it several years later.

H-1-Gravta-Class-V-DestroyerDownload

A friend of mine had several fan-made technical manuals that he let me borrow in the 90’s. This Tholian ship came from one of them. I don’t recall the title of the book. Like the Spinner, I guestimated the stats for this vessel based off of the information in the publication. The name of the class came from the book.

1447-Starliner-Class-XII-LinerDownload

Stats for a passenger liner? Yes, I made these based off of the information on this vessel from the fan-made Starfleet Dyamics book. A liner could be caught in a pirate situation for both the starship tactical combat simulator or on the roleplaying side.

Cabot-Class-IV-TrawlerDownload

There were a ton of ships in the 1979 publication, “Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology“. Some of the illustrations by Rick Sternbach were even used as on-screen graphics in Next Generation episodes. There were a few different ships that I wanted to homebrew stats for. This was the first, and only one, that I did in the 90’s. I had planned to write up others, which may happen sooner or later.

So now that my past works have been uploaded for everyone to see, I’ll start working on new homebrewing ships, races, equipment, etc. Not just for FASA but for other gaming systems as well. I’ve been playing a Far Trek game online with some fellow Trekkies and I’m still enjoying Star Trek Adventures by Modiphius.

Posted in: Humor, My Creations, Star Trek

Making Memes Part V

Written by TardisCaptain

I’ve still been hard at work trying to spread my warped sense of humor. Here is another set of memes for you to enjoy. You can see the past memes I’ve created here: Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV.

Just the look on Kirk’s face inspired me to make this meme. I could see him saying this. I used MS Paint to create this .

Another “I saw this face and had to meme it” project. Again this was done in MS Paint.

And the last of “Inspired by that look” memes. Here Trip Tucker is doing his Thor “Is it though?” impersonation. Plus we need more Enterprise memes.

I’ve spent some time making blanks of popular memes so that I could easily create my own. Here is one that I created using the goosebumps meme blank.

Posted in: Quotes, Star Trek

Daily Star Trek Quotes: February 14-20

Written by TardisCaptain
When someone asks me if the commercials for the big game were any good.

Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes twitter account for the week of February 13th through February 20th.

February 14
Happy Birthday to Andrew Robinson. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Andrew_Robinson #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #WeAreStarfleet

“There’s an old saying on Cardassia: ‘Enemies make dangerous friends.’” Garak- The Search, Part II Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #WeAreStarfleet

Happy Birthday to Simon Pegg. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Simon_Pegg #StarTrek #WeAreStarfleet

“Are you from the future?” Scotty “Yeah. He is. I’m not.” Kirk “Well that’s brilliant. Do they still have sandwiches there?” Scotty- Star Trek (2009) #StarTrek #WeAreStarfleet

February 15
“The vultures are circling.” Paris “Vultures eat the dead, Mister Paris. We’re not dead yet.” Janeway- The Void, Stardate: 54553.4 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #WeAreStarfleet

February 16
Happy Birthday to LeVar Burton. @levarburton https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/LeVar_Burton #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #StarTrekVOY #WeAreStarfleet

“Just because something’s old doesn’t mean you throw it away.” LaForge- Relics, Stardate: 46125.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #WeAreStarfleet

February 17
Happy Birthday to Jerry O’Connell. @MrJerryOC https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Jerry_O%27Connell #StarTrek #StarTrekLowerDecks #WeAreStarfleet

“I’m the first officer of a Federation starship and your commander. And nobody crushes my team. (rips shirt off) Let’s do this!” Ransom- Temporal Effect, Stardate: 57501.4 #StarTrek #StarTrekLowerDecks #WeAreStarfleet

February 18
“Captain, I’m beginning to understand why you earth men enjoy gambling. No matter how carefully one computes the odds of success, there is still a certain… exhilaration in the risk.” Spock- Patterns of Force, Stardate: 2534.7 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #WeAreStarfleet

February 19
“I may have trouble telling the difference between a plasma conduit and a phase inducer but there’s more to bring a Bridge Officer than memorizing technical manuals.” Troi- Thine Own Self, Stardate: 47611.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #WeAreStarfleet

February 20
“I’m a physician, not an engineer!” Dr. Phlox- Doctor’s Orders, Date: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #WeAreStarfleet

Posted in: Collecting, Red Dwarf, Reviews, Science Fiction

Book Review: Total Immersion

Written by TardisCaptain

One of my favorite shows is the British Sci-Fi comedy Red Dwarf. What? You haven’t heard of Red Dwarf yet? OK, go watch this clip showing three of the main characters and then come back to this blog.

Done? Good let’s continue.

Long story short, Red Dwarf is a show about the last human left alive (Lister, the guy trying to teach the android Kryten how to lie) who is marooned in space on a mining vessel called the Red Dwarf. His companions are a life form that evolved from his cat (the snazzy looking guy who they called over), the hologram of Lister’s dead bunkmate called Arnold J Rimmer (he’s a smeghead) and an insane artificial intelligence that runs the ship called Holly. The crew is attempting to return to Earth after being lost in space for three-million years (there is a very good reason for this in the pilot episode called “The End).

Being one of my favorite shows and a collector of resource books, I had to pick up the two volume set called Total Immersion: The Comprehensive Unauthorized Red Dwarf Encyclopedia written by Paul C. Giachetti. These two book were published by Hasslein Books in 2014 and are very, very detailed. The title of the books is a reference to the Total Immersion artificial reality video game that the crew finds and uses in several episodes. Think a holodeck but you have to wear special VR goggles and equipment. Players get plugged into a virtual world for various roleplaying in realistic environments. Let’s just say the title is very appropriate for these two encyclopedias. The entries cover everything from the various TV series (including both American pilots), novels, resource books, roleplaying games, smegazines (magazines), official websites, DVD extras and more. I’m talking the level that would normally be seen in a fan Wikipedia. If a label was on a container in a scene, that information will be found in these books. Was there a difference between the close captioning and the script on the spelling of a name? It has been documented here. With the show being British there were some comments and jokes that I didn’t get at first. Total Immersion explained the reference to me and let me in on the joke. Everything is referenced to the source(s) that the entry came from. Here is an example.

This guide was at the bottom of every page that did not contain the art found in the book. This helped document where certain information came from. This also lead to my only snag in the book. Every once in a while an entry had a reference that wasn’t listed in the bottom guide. For example in the photo above one of the entries is listed as coming from “X-APR”. The “X” is for the miscellaneous category, but the code of “APR” is not defined. There isn’t even an APR in the other categories. This is something I could forgive because it was very rare. These two publications are the type of books that I would love to write. Detailed an interesting without being overly burdensome on a subject that I just can’t get enough of.

Another interesting feature of this two volume set is the artwork. The covers are based upon the panels seen on the side of the Red Dwarf vessel. Internally there is a bunch of black and white artwork drawn by Pat Carbajal. It wasn’t just the main characters and devices, there were some drawings of characters that only made small, but memorable, appearances. A lot of these were very detailed and impressive. Here is an example I randomly pulled from the books.

The back of the second book was an appendix which contained a categorized index. If you are looking for a list of inmates in “the tank”, you will find it here. Locations by address, yes that is here as well. Listed is all entries related to “Starbug”. While everything is listed alphabetically, it would have been helpful to give page numbers here. But I did find this to be a helpful section when trying to look up some of the details.

It is my fondest hope that there will be an updated volume to these books as we’ve been blessed with additional seasons of Red Dwarf. Until then, these books are a must for any fans of the Red Dwarf franchise and merchandise. To date, I have not found any other printed encyclopedias for the show. This two-volume set was written by fans, for fans.

Details:

Total Immersion Volume I (A-K), ISBN 978-0-578-15057-4, Trade Paperback with 327 pages.

Total Immersion Volume II (L-Z), ISBN 978-0-578-15058-1, Trade Paperback with 323 pages.

Posted in: Quotes, Star Trek

Daily Star Trek Quotes: February 7-13

Written by TardisCaptain
How it feels working on my computer on some days.

Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes twitter account for the week of February 7th through February 13th.

February 7
“Let me help. A hundred years or so from now, I believe, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He’ll recommend those three words even over I love you.” Kirk- The City on the Edge of Forever, Stardate: 3134.0 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #WeAreStarfleet

February 8
Happy Birthday to Ethan Phillips. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ethan_Phillips #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #StarTrekVOY #StarTrekENT #WeAreStarfleet

“You are rigid and inflexible. But maybe if you learn to bend a little, you might have better luck with your class.” Neelix- Learning Curve #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #WeAreStarfleet

February 9
“Sir, I protest. I am not a merry man.” Worf- QPid, Stardate: 44741.9 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #WeAreStarfleet

February 10
“Murder is contrary to the laws of man and God.” M-5 Computer- The Ultimate Computer, Stardate: 4729.4 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #WeAreStarfleet

February 11
Happy Birthday to Philip Anglim. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Philip_Anglim #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #WeAreStarfleet

“The truth is not always easy to recognize.” Bareil- The Collaborator, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #WeAreStarfleet

February 12
“What is their fixation with our ears?” Soval “I believe they’re envious.” T’Pol- Cease Fire, Date: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #WeAreStarfleet

February 13
“Age and wisdom have their graces, too.” Picard- Too Short a Season, Stardate: 41309.5 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #WeAreStarfleet

Posted in: Collecting, Dungeons and Dragons, Reviews

Cooking with Dungeons & Dragons

Written by TardisCaptain

This is one of the posts that would have happened last month if I didn’t have a 31 day challenge going on. They say that there is an official (and sometimes unofficial) cookbook for everything. Late last year I picked up Heroes’ Feast, the official Dungeons and Dragons cookbook. This 212 page hardbound book was published by Ten Speed Press in 2020. ISBN: 978-1-9848-5890-0 with a cover price of $35.00US. The book was written by Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson and Michael Witwer.

My college age kid wanted to see this book after she had heard about it. It sounded interesting so I picked it up. I do some minor cooking on the side (nothing too deep, mostly crockpot experiments of recipes that I find online) but nothing that I’d write home about. My wife has some secret recipes that she has which I am very grateful for. Her meatloaf is to die for and often requested in the house. For me, if the recipe is too complicated, I tend to find something easier. While I’m still reading the book, I’ve flipped through several of the recipes. We decided upon the first recipe that we were going to try came from Mithral Hall, Potato Leek Soup. We already had a family recipe for this and we wanted to see how it compared.

Bubble, bubble toil and trouble…

For something like this, I wisely stayed out of the way. And I’m glad that I did. While I’m not going to post the recipe here, I will say that they had a special ingredient, bacon. The family loved the soup with this special ingredient. We’ve added bacon to the family recipe and it has been added to the rotation. This Dwarven recipe was listed as one of the Heroes’ Feast entries that was specially marked.

In the book is divided into several sections with specific recipes for each. Human Cuisine (with 19 recipes), Elven Cuisine (with 13 recipes), Dwarven Cuisine (with 12 recipes), Hafling Cuisine (with 11 recipes), Uncommon Cuisine (with 11 recipes from different races) and finally Elixirs & Ales (with 13 drinks, some of them alcoholic). There are also menus from several famous inns and taverns from different Dungeons & Dragons game worlds. Included in the book are tips on cooking and prepping for meals around gaming sessions. I was also impressed with the art and photos that the book contained. Some of the images looked like something you would see on a restaurant website, but they looked really good.

A few of the recipes that I am interested trying are Hand Pies, Otik’s Skillet-Fried Spiced Potatoes, Tavern “Steak”, Greenspear Bundles in Bacon, Meal’s End, Bangers and Smash, Black Pudding, Arkhan the Cruel’s Flame-Roasted Halfling Chili, “Orc” Bacon and Barovian Butterscotch Pudding.

Even if you are not big on cooking, I’d still recommend this book for some of the back story behind some of the locations and recipes. Heroes’ Feast will be sitting on my shelf next to the other Dungeons and Dragons books that I have collected. As for my daughter, she stated that she felt like Ratatouille after she had completed the recipe so she was very happy.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games

More feedback from the Character Creation Challenge

Written by TardisCaptain

So the graphic above is the one put together by my art-school college kid. I’ve been sending it out to the people who responded that they have completed the 31 day character creation challenge. If you completed it, shoot me an email and I’ll add you to the list and send you the graphic. It can be posted on your blog, message boards or social media. I still loved that she put this together for me as a gift to those who completed the challenge.

Here are the Names/Handles of those who have completed the challenge and requested the graphic.

Automeris
Brian C
Capellan
Craig O
Hunter
MarchHarrier
Mr_Sandman
RadioKen
Slack_C
Subplot Kudzu
SunlessNick
Thorr-Kan
Three Kobolds

Here are some of the comments I’ve received recently regarding this challenge.

“Thanks, also for your posts (I didn’t even know about Espionage, and thought I’d know the big entries in the genre) and for kicking this of!”

“Thanks so much for inspiring this. I’ve had kind of a wretched January and the challenge was a real bright spot for me.”

“I had great fun across the month – although I’m glad to have finished! But yes please to the badge!”

“I also read your blog post on the Traveller character you created and it sounds as if you pretty much got it in one. The character death is interesting but it was a vital part of the creation as it stopped players maxing out on terms to get the skills with no risk. I thought it rather cleverly balanced.”

“Thank you for the inspiration!”

“I made it to 31!”

“I’d like to once again thank you for organizing this. I had a blast doing and look forward to next year’s Challenge!”

“I made it to 31, although some of them were pretty nothing-y (I might start in October for next time).”

“Ooh, ooh, I made it through all 31 days of the 31-day challenge! What did your daughter make?”

“I did indeed get 31 characters posted, and I look forward to seeing the badge. Thanks for organizing the challenge, and thanks to your daughter for her contribution!”

“I did the thing, and a badge would be lovely. Thanks!”

“It was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to it next year.”

“I managed to post a character a day for the whole month.”

So once again thank you to everyone who participated. I’ll be posting more gaming stuff (and non-gaming stuff) very soon to the blog.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Dune, Role Playing Games, Spy-Fi, Star Trek

2022 Character Creation Challenge after action report

Written by TardisCaptain

Note: If you made it through 31 days of the challenge, read to the bottom of the post.

So the 2022 Character Creation Challenge is now in the books and this was a bit different from the 2021 challenge. I don’t know if I was more enthusiastic about the games in 2021 or if it was something else. Not knowing if there was going to be a 2nd challenge, I used a lot of games that I really wanted to run/play. For 2022 there were more games of “well it’s there, let’s take a look at it” which may have been the wrong attitude. But I’m glad that I used those games. While there are some that I’ll never play and may even trade the games away, I can still say that I’ve dipped my toe into the water. I was worried that my lack of enthusiasm for that game may affect the creation process. There was a few times I told myself “smeg it, I’m done”. I still want to do a variety of games, but I’m wondering if I should just limit it to the games I would actually want to play? I’ve got some time to think about this.

I tried to use the time that would have been allotted to me in a session zero time frame to create a character for the challenge. For some games that I am not familiar with I would probably need a lot more time to learn the system. For games that I am familiar with, I would need time to think about a character concept that would go with a party. During the 31 day challenge I also made a Far Trek character for an online game. That was done in free time and it took a few days because I had to confirm what positions were still available. Unfortunately the Engineering spot had already been taken up otherwise I would have requested the use of the character I made in 2021.

My biggest suggestions for game writers, a checklist or worksheet is a big help. Give a start and an end to the character creation process that includes the allocation of equipment. There were some really funky and weird equipment guidelines in some of the games. Some kewl and some made me scratch my head and wonder what they were smoking. Also explain your system before character creation starts. I mean explain it simply and save the extra details for later in the book. If you are going to have a player pick a value or belief for the character, give more than 2-3 examples. Even if they don’t get used they may inspire other ideas.

I would like to say that I’m very surprised by a couple of things. A thank you has to go out to the companies that still have character sheets available online for games that they haven’t touched in years. I was also surprised that some of the dead games were still available on DriveThruRPG. Especially the Farscape RPG since it is based on an intellectual property.

Last year I only printed out the character sheets just before I needed to use them. This year I had this drive to have all sheets printed out and ready to go before the challenge started. I was really glad I did this. When I discovered that one game (sideways glance at Fantasy Imperium) had a six-page character sheet and that I had scheduled it for a weekday, I moved that game to a day I had off. I’ve played with character sheets in excel, fillable character sheets and even sheets provided in a virtual table top. But I have fond memories of writing things down on a printed out sheet and loved doing that as part of this challenge. When I found my three-ringed binder full of old characters that I had played, I had a blast remembering the past games.

Yes there will be a 2023 Character Creation Challenge. Details won’t be posted for quite some time however as I’ve got to decompress.

The reaction to this year’s challenge is one of the many things that blew me away. The 2022 Character Creation thread on the RPG.net forums was named a Staff Pick by the moderators. This year’s thread has made it up to (at the time of this posting) 128 pages. This was three times larger than the 2021 thread of 42 pages. I loved reading all of the different blogs that participated. If I don’t have your blog on the Character Creation Page, please send me the URL. On social media I could not keep up with all of the entries using the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge. This was particularly true on twitter, that place was gangbusters. I tried to like and re-tweet as much as I could but some days that got to be too much. If I missed your post, don’t feel bad. Ten days into the challenge I realized that I should have kept a tally of how many entries there were for each system, but in 20/20 hindsight I’m glad I didn’t. That could have taken up a ton of time. Perhaps I’d do this if I wasn’t actually creating characters, but I really want to roll dice since I haven’t been able to get together with friends on a regular basis. There was a number of entries also posted on Facebook and MeWe. It wouldn’t surprise me if similar threads were popping up on other social media sites and message boards. If you hear of any that I don’t follow, please let me know.

Speaking of reactions, I added a new plugin for my site this year that tracked the number of visitors. It showed the sites that you guys would read. The top five games that brought in the most visitors was Dungeons & Dragons: Holmes Basic, Classic Traveller, Espionage! and Dungeons & Dragons: B/X edition. I still need to find a way to enable followers to comment on blog posts without having to worry about spambots infiltrating everything.

The 2022 games that made the most impression on me are Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, Star Trek Adventures-The Klingon Empire, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Boldly Go!, White Lies! and Covert Ops. I want to take deeper looks at Tiny Dungeon 2nd edition, Amazing Adventures 5E, Modern Age, Castle & Crusades and Classic Traveller. While I may never get a chance to play them, I do have a greater appreciation for Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Paranoia 2nd Edition. The low points of this challenge were Fantasy Imperium and Blue Rose.

A lot of participants were posting their list of games before the challenge started. While I had a spreadsheet created to help me with my entries, I’m glad that I didn’t post it. I swapped out a couple of games when two new games came into my possession. The two I rotated out was Rocket Age and The Frontier, which should be on my 2023 challenge list.

Here is my final 2022 Character Creation Challenge list.
Day 1: Dune Adventures in the Imperium Character: Tarkin Dal of the House Nimoi
Day 2: Wendy’s Feast of Legends Character: Garthos of the Order of the Spicy Chicken Sandwich
Day 3: Dungeons & Dragons-Holmes Basic Character: Dylath
Day 4: Men in Black The Roleplaying Game Character: Agent C
Day 5: BASH! Sci-Fi Edition Character: TaChar
Day 6: Star Wars Saga Edition Character: Keet Apaal
Day 7: Espionage! Character: Devron Marcus
Day 8: Star Trek Adventures-The Klingon Empire Character: Nurot son of H’unos
Day 9: Pirates and Plunder Character: Jason “Jake” McCabe
Day 10: Modern Age Character: Raymond Ray
Day 11: Farscape Roleplaying Game Character: Drellith
Day 12: Castles and Crusades Character: Godfrey of Cloverdale
Day 13: The Judge Dredd Roleplaying Game Character: Judge Stark
Day 14: Boldly Go! Character: Tigrox Carvor of the SFS Valiant
Day 15: Covert Ops Character: William Greene
Day 16: Paranoia 2nd Edition Character: Car-R-PET-1
Day 17: Fantasy Imperium Character: William Moore
Day 18: Cyberpunk v3 Character: Freejack
Day 19: Amazing Adventures 5E Character: Derick Fieldstone
Day 20: Dungeons & Dragons B/X edition Character: Brother Alexander
Day 21: Prime Directive 1st edition Character: Kovil
Day 22: Werewolf The Apocalypse Character: Hans Brulker
Day 23: MERC Character: Mark Powell
Day 24: Dungeon Crawl Classics Character: Multiple
Day 25: White Lies! Character: Ronald Denton
Day 26: Classic Traveller Character: Tyrell Balto
Day 27: Blue Rose Character: Valk Starn
Day 28: Bubblegum Crisis Character: Taxun
Day 29: Technoir Character: Arron “Trench” Chambers
Day 30: Dark Conspiracy Character: Dale Laslow
Day 31: Tiny Dungeon 2nd edition Character: Rek Son of Talk

While I’m not trying to think of the 2023 challenge yet, I’m really hoping that I can find a copy of Star Frontiers for it. I’m also having doubts that I’ll ever find my Top Secret S/I collection. I may have to break down and see if I can acquire the rules again.

Also, if you purchased anything after clicking on the link to DriveThruRPG, thank you. I’m not doing this blog to make money, but the kickback helps when making game purchases for future challenges.

So did you complete the challenge and make 31 characters? If so, please email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com. My art school kid in college loved hearing about the characters I was making on a daily basis and the challenge in general. She created a badge for those who completed the challenge. If you buzz me, I’ll send you the badge to display.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games

2022 Character Creation Challenge Day 31: Tiny Dungeon

Written by TardisCaptain

So Tiny Dungeon 2nd Edition was not originally on my list of games for the 2022 Character Creation Challenge. In fact, 48 hours ago I didn’t even own a copy of the game. However there was a sale going on at DriveThruRPG and I picked up the rulebook for a very good price. I was originally thinking that I’d use it for the 2023 challenge, but as I glanced through the rules, I realized I’d rather do it now. The original entry for day 31 was a game that could easily wait until next year (another PDF buy) so I made the call and here we are.

The basic for the system is that all tasks are determined by rolling 2d6. If you have an advantage, you can roll 3d6 (highest you can roll) and if you have a disadvantage you only roll 1d6 (which is the lowest you can roll). If you roll a 5 or 6 on any die, you succeed in the task. This is a minimalist rule set.

Tiny Dungeon 2e uses Heritage instead of races (they had races in the 1st edition) and your first step is to select one. The choices are Human, Fey (called Elves by Humans), Dwarf (called Dwarves by Humans, grin), Goblin, Salimar (Salamander people), Treefolk (think Treebeard from Lord of the Rings), Karhu (Bear people) and Lizard Folk (I wonder why these guys didn’t get their own name?). Goblin sounds tempting, but not as tempting as a Karhu. When you select your heritage you get the traits that the heritage comes with.

The next step is to select three unique Traits from a list. A trait is basically a skill or special ability that your character has. Looking this over I selected three that I thought would be appropriate for the character. The weapon group that my character would be proficient with was already determined by his heritage so I moved onto the Family Trade. This is something that you grew up learning (perhaps your dad was a cook, etc.). This character’s family was one that participated in fishing for the local sleuth (tribe). The last step is to select a Belief. This sounds like the Values that Star Trek Adventure characters have. This can be good, bad or neutral and basically defines the character. Since this character was almost captured by slavers, his belief is “Slavery is wrong.”

When it comes to equipping your character the rules keep it simple. If you selected a specific weapons proficiency, you get one weapon of that type. You also receive the clothing and armor standard for your type of character. Armor serves no mechanical function in this game (if I was running an adventure, I might change that). Each character also starts with 10 gold and an Adventurer’s Kit. There is an optional inventory system based on slots (like the slots you would see in Diablo II) and an optional system for wear and tear on your equipment called Depletion. I filled in a few basic items on the sheet dealing with descriptions and I think this character is done.

Rek Son of Talk was born and raised in the Karhu lands of Whitewater. While on a fishing expedition down one of the rivers he was captured by a tribe of Gnolls. He was the only survivor from the attack. They were leading him away to be sold off to the Rockfang gladiatorial arenas when he was rescued by a band of adventurers. Being too far from home and wanting to re-pay his rescuers, he joined the party on their quest.

Afterthoughts:

After creating the character I did see that there was an optional armor rule that allowed for damage reduction. I’m really curious now how this game plays at the table. There were a lot of optional rules to make it a little more advanced than the basic minimalist game without adding too much to the system.

There is a science fiction version of Tiny Dungeons called Tiny Frontiers and a post-apocalyptic version called Tiny Wastelands. I really want to obtain these variants see how it compares. I could see myself playing and homebrewing for this system.

Additional Notes:

And with that, I’ve completed 31 characters in 31 days. Instead of going too deep in my thoughts of this year’s challenge, I’ll save that for the after action report. If you made it to 31 days, please let me know at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com.

Coming Up Next:

2022 Character Creation Challenge after action report

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