Category: Dungeons and Dragons

Collecting, Dungeons and Dragons, Reviews, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

DriveThruRPG Print on Demand Review

Written by TardisCaptain May 31, 2022May 9, 2026

The Dungeons and Dragons Rules Cyclopedia and Star Frontiers Alpha Dawn print on demand books.

A package arrived for me the other day. It contained my hardcover print-on-demand copy of Star Frontiers Alpha Dawn from DriveThruRPG. This was the second POD that I had ordered from DriveThruRPG. Before the first Character Creation Challenge, I had ordered a POD of the Dungeons and Dragons Rule Cyclopedia hoping that I could use it in the challenge. It had arrived too late for that event, but it made me realize that I could use the POD options to obtain books that I’ve been wanting to add to my collection. While PDFs are good for reference and quick searching, I still like the feel of a book in my hands. Especially when I’m learning a new system or wanting to recall reading the books for the first time. While I had my own copies of the BECMI Red Box books, I’ve been wanting a copy of the Rules Cyclopedia. Star Frontiers was one of those games that my group of gaming friends wanted to play when it first came out, but for one reason or another, we never got the opportunity to do so. With the credits that I had been building up from DriveThruRPG (thank you) I thought I’d pick up a POD for me to enjoy.

Another thought hit me as I was opening the package, I should write a review of the POD copies that came from DTRPG. So I took some pictures and decided to write down my thoughts. This will be a review of the POD, not a review of the games themselves (which will be handled in a later blog post).

Ordering the books was pretty easy in both cases. Go to the entry on the website and see the options available. Just keep in mind that there is a charge for shipping as well. I don’t recall how long the Dungeons and Dragons book took to arrive (I had ordered at the tail end of the holiday season which is probably the worst time to try to get things by mail), but the Star Frontiers book arrived in ten days after ordering. Both books were printed in Tennessee. A USPS tracking number was provided in both cases.

Both books were packaged very well. The container the D&D book did get a little roughed up in transit, but the book itself was just fine. There was no damage to the container that the SF book arrived in.

Top views of the bindings for both books.

As you can see, the bindings for both books look pretty solid. The covers are not attached directly to the prints themselves which has allowed for repeated book opening. While I haven’t had a chance to go through the Star Frontiers book, I have had several sessions where I’ve sat down to read chapters in the Rule Cyclopedia and I cannot see any additional wear from these readings.

As you can see from the earlier picture, the covers are pretty sharp. The back image on the Star Frontiers book does slightly bleed onto the spine. The Rules Cyclopedia front and back cover appear to be the same as the original publication. As for Star Frontiers, it appears that “The Original” was added to the top of both covers. Another note on the Star Frontiers, book, they did not change the wording of the description on the back. So the hardbound book talks about how “the box set includes…”. Since they had slightly changed the cover, I’m surprised that they didn’t change the description. But it was an interesting read to see what the original box set stated.

A colored map in the Star Frontiers book.

The Grand Duchy of Karameikos map in the Rules Cyclopedia.

Considering these prints are from a scan of the original books, they came out sharp in the publication. The colors stood out just fine (as seen by the photos above). There were a few pages that contained blue text in the Star Frontiers book (which I believe was the same in the original book). The art printed out OK as well. Again, for a scan, these came out readable and usable. Nothing extra blurry or hard to read.

Now that I own Star Frontiers, I’ll be able to use it in the 2023 Character Creation Challenge. I don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance to play it, but I can at least read and understand one of the classic games that I saw advertised early in my RPG days. I’m also planning to pick up a few more POD books that I’d like to have dead tree versions of without having to pay expensive collector prices for.

Comic Books, Conventions, Dungeons and Dragons, Reviews, Role Playing Games, Star Trek, Star Wars, Website

A bunch of geeky stuff on May 7th

Written by TardisCaptain May 7, 2022

So there were a bunch of geeky things planned for today. I thought that some of the events would make for an interesting blog post. This will cover several topics from comics to conventions to role playing games.

Art Con:

So first was something that I saw advertised on Facebook, and nowhere else. Art Con was going to be held on May 6-8 at the Salt Palace. This is the same location where FanX: The Salt Lake Comic Convention is held every year. Admission was free, but you had to sign up for tickets. It sounded like something that my geeky wife and my art inspired kids would be interested in attending. We would already be in the Salt Lake City area to help my college aged kid get her stuff out of the dorm, so we could swing by afterwards to check it out. Here are some photos I was able to sneak in while at the con.

At various conventions one of the attractions are the art shows and artist alley. You can see unique works of art (paintings mostly, but there have been other mediums). It is also an opportunity to meet various artists and see some inspiring ideas.

Art Con was advertised as a convention displaying art from Star Wars, Dungeons and Dragons, Harry Potter, DC & Marvel Comics, Star Trek and more. It sounded like it was going to be quite large. It was… quite disappointing. Instead of being in one of the convention halls, it was in two side rooms. You can see from the photo with the Darth Vader painting that the room was divided in half and you could walk past tables displaying reproductions of art for sale. Yes there were two artists there, but they were working on some actual paintings at the time and I didn’t feel comfortable going up and asking them questions or getting a photo. The photos above were of the largest pieces available at the con and none had been used in any actual publications that I was aware of. I was hoping to see something that had been in an art book or RPG manual. Yes there was a small print of a beholder, and a few other fantasy things, but nothing that I recognized. There was a lot of prints of various superheroes and anime characters on the toilet (that gag got old very fast). We were only in the room for an hour.

My college age art student actually got upset because some of the pencil drawings appeared to be from artists not at the event. Yes they were licensed to sell these IP items, but other than a large sale, there was nothing here. In the hallways outside the rooms, I saw a couple of cosplayers who looked disappointed. They got dressed up an there was nothing for them to express their cosplay. I think if this had been more of an actual convention instead of a yard sale, it would have been OK. As my oldest put it, if we had come down just for this, they would have been very upset. I’m wondering if they take this “event” from city to city as a traveling sales show? If they made it more like an “Artist Alley” where we could see many different styles of art from different artists that we could meet, I could see this being something we would want to attend more. As it was presented today, I doubt we’ll be back.

Free Comic Book Day:

We had skipped going to our local comic book stores for Free Comic Book Day to attend Art Con. Since that was a bust and we still had a ton of time left, the family decided to head to the Valley Fair Mall to see if we could hook up with some cosplay friends who were going to make an appearance at the Nerd Store. While we made it to the store, we had missed our friends. But I was able to pick up a free Doctor Who comic and a free issue of Red Sonja. My kids were able to pick up some comics as well. The store didn’t have any of the Star Trek or Star Wars comics that I was missing, so we checked out a few other stores before hitting the food court for lunch. One of the places was Hammond Toys and Hobbies. I had many memories picking up 1st edition and 2nd edition Dungeons and Dragons books there in the past. Unfortunately I didn’t see any RPG books now. It had been years since I had been in a Hammons.

Random RPG Book Club-May Delivery:

When we arrived home there was a package waiting for me. The May delivery of the Random RPG Book Club. Here is what was in the package.

As you can see there was another hardbound book that came in. At first I thought it was duplicate of what I had in my collection. But I had the Dungeons and Dragons v3.5 Monster Manual, but this book is the 3.0 version of the Monster Manual. So this does fill a hole in my collection. Perhaps I could write up a comparison between the two books in a future blog entry.

The second book is The Strange In Translation: The Strange Character Options. It is a sourcebook for a roleplaying game called The Strange from Monte Cook Games. I had never heard of this RPG before so I have no idea how the system works. From my initial view through the book, it looks like it is of pretty high quality and art. If I can find out more about this game, perhaps I’ll write up a review.

I did look up both books on ebay and they were well above the $8.00 a piece mark. So the club continues to deliver what it promised.

An unexpected tip of the hat:

Apparently my blog has been inspiring. Thank you.

So yes it has been a geeky day with ups and downs. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got pizza waiting and an episode of Svengoolie and Creature Features to watch.

Oh, before I go. I’ve been working on some of the fan pages on this site. I’ve got more details for the FASA Star Trek RPG, the LUG Star Trek RPG and I’m working on fleshing out more of the website.

Dungeons and Dragons, Horror, Reviews, Role Playing Games

Random RPG Book Club- A Review

Written by TardisCaptain April 8, 2022May 5, 2022

So like most people, I’m on Facebook. And like most people, I roll my eyes at the “where did that come from” advertising that Facebook throws at me. I guess data mining our information brings in enough money that they can throw any old advertisement at us. So imagine my surprise earlier this year when I saw an advertisement for something I might actually be interested in, a Random RPG Book Club. I looked at the comments and it appeared that this club had been going on for several years. Plus there were no “Wow this sucks” comments so I did some deeper digging.

A Massachusetts bookseller named Chris Korczak has a website at https://www.RpgRpgRpg.com. Besides having several roleplaying books available for regular sale, Chris runs a Random RPG Book Club. For $16.00 (which will include the shipping cost) he will send you two books from a large collection of random books he has in his store. On both the website and in the advertisement there were pictures of stacks of hardbound RPG books. There is an option for a once-a-month or once-a-week subscription. I’ve been wanting to build up my RPG book collection and this sounded like an interesting, and not too expensive, way to add to it. So I signed up for the monthly subscription. Here are my thoughts after the first three months.

Shipping:

In all three months, the books were bubble wrapped and placed in a sturdy cardboard container. When the books were shipped, a USPS tracking number was sent to me and I was able to track the progress. The first month (February), took a little bit longer than usual. But I believe this was the postal system still recovering from the holidays. The other two months it only took 7-9 days for the books to arrive.

Communication:

As mentioned above, an email with a tracking number is sent out when the books have shipped. Just before this happens a receipt was also emailed out for the next month’s order. I did email Chris once after the March order arrived (there wasn’t an issue, it was a question in general) and he responded pretty quickly. With the last shipment that arrived in April, there was a note from Chris hoping that the selection of books will inspire an RPG encounter.

Selection:

I will be commenting on the selection of books and leaving the content of the books for later reviews.

I was very satisfied with my first month in the Random RPG Book Club. The package contained a hardbound book and a softbound module. Both books were for the D20 based Dungeons and Dragons version 3.5. The first was a hardbound book from Fantasy Flight Games, Legend & Lairs Mythic Races. I enjoyed looking through this book and could see a use for both fantasy and science fiction games. The second book was from Dark Portal Games (yea I had to Google the name of that company myself) which was pretty detailed. It was titled White Robes, Black Hearts: Enigma of the Arcanexus. I checked both books on Ebay and both books would have cost me well more than $8.00 a piece.

As mentioned above, the March selection arrived quicker than February’s. When it arrived, I noticed that the box was much lighter than the previous month. Inside was two softbound books that when stacked on top of each other matched up to the White Robes, Black Hearts module that came last month. The first was Wilderness & Wasteland Scarred Lands by Sword & Story Studios (aka White Wolf Publishing). This is a sourcebook with various encounters for some various broken lands for the 3.5 D20 system. It could prove useful in reading and campaigns. The second was a little bit more confusing. The Pathfinder Player Companion: Dungeoneer’s Handbook, which wasn’t much of a handbook. It seemed like a magazine because it talked about the next issue that was ‘coming next month’. I might be able to get a few tidbits out of this… er… magazine? I doubt I would have picked up this “handbook” if I would have had the chance. I did check both items on ebay and they were more than $8.00 each.

And recently the April package arrived with it’s random selection of books. When I first opened it up I was surprised to see a vampire book and a book of character sheets. Then upon closer inspection, it wasn’t character sheets, it was a single character sheet in an 18 page pamphlet. I’ve already ranted about a roleplaying game that had a six page character sheet, but this seemed to take things too far. Even in 2003 you could download free character sheets (or if you have a good Dungeon Master like I did) have the character sheet on a programed Excel worksheet. This product confused me. The Character Record Folio for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 was releasled by Green Ronin Publishing. When I checked ebay, it ranged between $5.00 and $19.00 dollars in availability and so far has been the most disappointing item from the Random RPG Book Club. The second softcover book was Vampire Hunter$ by Nightshift Games and instead of being a Dungeons and Dragons third-party supplement, it was a core rulebook. The concept sounded interesting and almost made up for the character sheet being included in the package. I’m certain that I’ll be able to use this for the 2023 Character Creation Challenge to learn the system. Ebay did have this book for more than $8.00.

Conclusion:

The primary reason for participating in a random book club where you don’t know what is coming is the anticipation of what may be in the box. I’ve purchased the Star Trek themed mystery boxes before at conventions. The boxes that have 35-40 dollars worth of merchandise inside for $20. Sure, most of the items were things that I had or didn’t need, but there was usually an item or two that was really kewl. I even ended up with an autograph out of one. But my friends and I would open them up as a group and trade items between each other. The Random RPG Book Club is a similar concept. What will be in the May box? I’ll be sticking with the subscription for another month or two to find out. The photos in the advertisement gave me the impression that there would be a couple more hardbound books arriving. But as long as I don’t get any more character sheets then I should be satisfied.

I’ll keep this blog informed as well as reviewing some of the books that I’ve obtained.

Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games

Character sheets from past games: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition

Written by TardisCaptain March 20, 2022

So I’ve been going through my old character book again and I elected to post another character that was used for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st Edition. Let me just apologize right now for the weird name. Not Tebet, the “Knight of Mare” part. I really wonder what younger me was thinking when I created this name. Probably “This will be really kewl.”

This is the second of my two AD&D characters that was in the book. I had already posted an entry talking about Stealthblade during the #RPGaDAY challenge. I have also posted characters for Doctor Who, Cyberpunk and Vampire the Masquerade.

If I recall correctly, I believe this was one of the characters that I played in a RPG club run by a gaming store in my neighborhood. There were several games that happened, so I’m not certain if some of the memories are associated with this character, or another one. I recall that we were investigating a village that had a mysterious bell. When this bell rang, all of the adults in the village suddenly went blank and proceeded by any means available (which meant taking our horses if we didn’t hide them) and riding off to some location to work, only to return several hours later with no recollection of what they had done. I believe the party ended up burning down the bell tower to try to save the villagers. One of my fellow players had been hit with a cursed item, the boots of dancing. While he was sleeping we tried to pull the boots off since he could not. We only succeeded in getting one boot off. Which made for some interesting role playing scenarios with a one footed dancer.

Then again, I could be thinking of another character from one of the many games. Some of my character sheets still had notes, while others do not. I wonder what I would see if I could go back in time and observe myself during these games? It could be interesting, cringe worthy and a little scary.

With the attributes being this good, I think the DM was letting us roll 4d6 and dropping the lowest die.

Collecting, Dungeons and Dragons, Reviews

Cooking with Dungeons & Dragons

Written by TardisCaptain February 6, 2022August 10, 2025

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.

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.

Character Creation Challenge, Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games

2022 Character Creation Challenge Day 20: Dungeons and Dragons B/X Edition

Written by TardisCaptain January 20, 2022

So in the 2022 Character Creation Challenge, I’ve made characters for the Dungeons and Dragons-Holmes Basic edition. In the 2021 challenge I had created a character for the Dungeons and Dragons BECMI edition. Today I am creating a character for Dungeons and Dragons B/X edition. Back when I first started playing any role playing games, I don’t know if my first character was a Holmes Basic or a Dungeons and Dragons B/X edition. I just know it was one of those two because I didn’t get my own BECMI basic book until a few months later.

As with the Holmes entry, I’m going to create the character by the rules as written and let fate decide what we end up with. (makes clacking sounds with the dice). OK, the highest is Charisma at 15 (not a prime requisite for any class in this edition) and the next is Wisdom at 13. Everything was OK except for a Dex of 8 (yikes). Constitution and Charisma are the attributes that cannot be raised or lowered. No attribute can be lowered past 9, so I can’t make any adjustments to what I rolled. STR- 9, INT- 10, WIS- 13, DEX- 8, CON- 10, CHA-15. Sounds like this character will be a Cleric with some good looks but is slightly clumsy. Rolled a 4 for hit points (not bad for a d6) and this guy is going to have a Lawful alignment.

Staring with 120 GP to select equipment. Because of the character’s negative Dex adjustment, I elected to buy plate armor. Yea I had to sacrifice a few other things that I could have picked up at the beginning (Holy Water), but if the character survives by not getting hit, he’ll be able to pick up more equipment later.

Brother Alexander was a young novice at the Church of Karameikos in the town of Dravin. He became quite popular amongst his fellow priests and the congregation in general. After a year of service, the head of the church in Dravin informed him that he had been called to travel the roads of the Grand Duchy. He was to spread the word, assist church members and rid the land of evil that was threatening the faithful. Despite his friends warnings, Alexander accepted the calling. After several weeks of weapons training, he was given a suit of plate armor, a shield and some equipment and was instructed to find others that could assist in his quest.

Afterthoughts:

Oh man, I had so many memories opening up this book again. It always puts a smile on my face when I see the artwork and text. There were so many possibilities when we were playing the game. If a rule didn’t fit, we made adjustments and kept on playing. That was the way it needed to be.

Not once, or twice, but three times they have you a summary of how to create a character. Plus they showed you a sample character sheet that was already filled out. Game designers, this is how you do it. I think it took me longer to look up religions in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos and come up with a backstory than it did to create the character.

Additional Notes:

There haven’t been any new blogs discovered that are participating in the #CharacterCreationChallenge. I am still re-tweeting any twitter posts that use the official hashtag. I’m also liking Facebook posts as I find them. Facebook’s hashtag search isn’t as good as Twitters.

Coming Up Next:

Prime Directive 1st Edition

Character Creation Challenge, Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games

2022 Character Creation Challenge Day 3: Dungeons and Dragons-Holmes Basic

Written by TardisCaptain January 3, 2022

As I mentioned in my Day 1 entry in the 2021 Character Creation Challenge, I never owned the blue covered Basic Dungeons and Dragons rulebook by Eric Holmes when I first started playing D&D. A friend had a copy, another had the Basic/Expert version of the rules and I owned the first Basic set from BECMI. We all compared notes and basically picked what we liked the best for our games. That all changed on December 18, 2004 when I found a copy at a local thrift store. How do I know? When I opened this book for today’s challenge, I found the receipt for the purchase. After tax, I only paid 52 cents for this book that was in very good shape. It even still had the chits attached for those players who did not have dice (this was early in the gaming industry and not a lot of people had the different shaped dice). I actually remember the trip well. I had no cash on me at the time so I had to use a card to pay for the book. Not wanting to run my card for half a buck, I looked all over the store to see if I could find anything else to buy. I even tried to look for some article of clothing for my wife. But with no luck, I tried to buy the book with my card and prayed that the store wouldn’t state that there had to be a minimum purchase. Luckily for me they were just fine running a card for such a small amount. Whew.

For this character, I’m going to use the oldest dice I own and let them decide what type of character this is. Just a straight 3d6 down the line. The dice rolled the following: Str- 16, Int- 10, Wis- 12, Con- 8, Dex-11, Cha- 6. He’s not to good looking and not of the best of health, but he’s pretty strong. So fighting man it is. No ability score can be lowered below nine, so I can’t take away anything from Intelligence to put towards Strength, but I can lower Wisdom by 3 to raise Str by 1. So Wisdom now equals 9 and Strength equals 17. Had Intelligence been higher, I might have considered an Elf character, but I’m happy with a strong, but slightly ugly fighting man (not fighter in this rule book). There were bonuses for high Dexterity and Constitution in the RAW, but nothing for a high Strength.

I ended up with 4 hit points. So Cylath will have to be careful until he gains additional levels. Next it stated I should roll for my gold and pick my equipment. 3d6x10 later I’ve started out with 110 GP. I outfitted Cylath with pretty standard equipment that a fighting man would need. I really wanted a horse but I didn’t have enough money to get one. For an alignment, It had the nine standard. I elected to go with just Neutral. I found the section on Savings Throws and wrote them down.

Cylath was the first son of one of the town guards in his small village. When he became the age of 20, his father could see that Cylath was not into the life of a farming village. The father revealed that he had once been an adventurer before settling down and felt that Cylath should set out to find his fortune and see where fate would take him. If he couldn’t make it as an adventurer, there would always be a place for him back at the village. If he could make it and find riches, he could return and help the family. Cylath jumped at the chance to get out of the sleepy village that held no interest for him. His father provided some of his old adventuring equipment and set his son off into the world.

Now I want to find some friends and go on a dungeon crawl. Here is a scan of the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

The rule book actually referred the reader to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition Player’s Handbook for the higher levels. I can also see where a lot of items were changed for the B/X version of the game. I think that’s part of the reason I’ve enjoyed the #CharacterCreationChallenge. It reminds me of the differences when you see the rules as written (RAW).

There was no official character sheet for the Holmes-Basic edition. I even checked with a Holmes centric Facebook group. (Note to self: Holmes-Basic and Blueholme are not the same book) Luckily the internet came through and I found a character sheet for Holmes-Basic here.

Additional Notes:

I found two more blogs of participants that have been posting characters and added them to the Character Creation Challenge page. The It’s Mister Wilson entries because of his reviews. Besides posting a character, he also talked about what he liked about a game and what he would consider changing.

Coming Up Next:

The Men In Black Role Playing Game by West End Games

Character Creation Challenge, Collecting, Dune, Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Spy-Fi, Star Trek, Star Wars

Prepping for the 2022 Character Creation Challenge

Written by TardisCaptain December 28, 2021March 29, 2022

Some of the games that I plan to use in the 2022 #CharacterCreationChallenge

When participating in a month long challenge, like the Character Creation Challenge, it is always a good idea to put a little prep work in ahead of time. I took some of the preparation and after action lessons from the 2021 challenge and I am putting them into use here.

I’ve once again took advantage of one of my online spreadsheets and created a schedule for the month of January. I’ve tried to place the games that I’m not very familiar with on my days off so I can dedicate more time to them. I’ve heard from some participants stating that they would also be doing prep work before the challenge starts.

Speaking of participants, I’ve had several people email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com stating that they would be partaking of the challenge. Good for you. A lot of people have also been posting on the Character Creation Challenge post at RPG.net stating that they would be releasing their entries there. Several blogs will also be posting entries and others will just post them on social media. If you use social media, please use the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge so that others can find them and enjoy them.

If you are reading this after January 1st and you still want to jump into the challenge, please do. A few participants last year either did a quick catch up or just made sure they ran a full 31 days. The choice is yours. This challenge is just for fun with our gaming systems.

I’ve re-read some of my past entries and entries from other participants. In fact, while I was researching one of my games that I selected for the start of the challenge, I found a blog that had participated in 2021. The World of Philosopherzeus had several good entries that were also written like game reviews. I’m going to have to look more into the Low Fantasy Gaming system that the blog recommended. If you participated in 2021 and I did not link your blog to the Character Creation Challenge page, please email me and I’ll add it. If you are participating in 2022, also shoot me the link so I can promote it.

The image above is some of the physical books that I plan to use for the 2022 challenge. Several of them were purchases that I’ve made over the past year or gifts from friends who were looking to unload books. I made sure they had a good home to go to. I’ve also got several games in PDF format that I’ve purchased from DriveThruRPG or on one of the various bundle sales that are out there. One of the PDFs that I’m looking forward to trying out is the original Traveller little black book editions. Another PDF game is the Wendy’s Feast of Legends marketing game that was put out a few years ago. A participant used it in the 2021 challenge and I smacked my head not thinking about it then. So I’ve added it to the list for 2022.

Another interesting tidbit recently came up that the 2021 challenge helped me with. I’ve been wanting to play Star Trek Adventures for quite some time (a lot of local groups are still unable to get together). On one of the STA facebook groups a GM announced a game with a day warning that it would start. I sent him the link from my 2021 STA entry and asked if I could play. The GM accepted it because it was actually rolled up and not created with one of the quick generation websites. So I’ve had at least one session with the game and we hope to wrap up the adventure in a follow up game.

Remember to have fun with this. That was one of the primary goals of the challenge.

You can also use this graphic to help promote the #CharacterCreationChallenge.

31 Day Character Creation Challenge — Feel free to share this image on social media to spread the word.

Dungeons and Dragons, Horror, Role Playing Games

More power of gaming

Written by TardisCaptain December 18, 2021December 22, 2023

I love the feel and weight of a RPG book in my hands.

I’ve been a participant on the RPG.net forums for quite some time now. It is a very good place where you can go and talk about almost any role playing game (alive or dead) or any other geeky subjects. Last year I participated in a Secret Satan (a play on words for Secret Santa) where I received a copy of Mutant Crawl Classics and several general books about RPG playing.

This year I signed up to participate again and my Secret Satan gift arrived. It was Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft for 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. I flipped through it briefly before sitting down to write this post and I’m already starting to get ideas for a homebrewed campaign. I’ve never had a chance to play in a Ravenloft campaign yet, but I know a group of friends who have been playing for quite some time.

My contribution to the gift exchange has been sent and the elves at Amazon have reported that it was delivered. I haven’t received any confirmation from my victim that they have received it. In this day an age of porch pirates (!@#$%^&) I hope it was picked up by it’s intended recipient.

I love how this online community has been a great place for gamers. I’m looking forward to participating in this program again next season. Thank you for my copy of Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft.

Update: A second book arrived the next day from the Secret Satan. The Curse of Strahd is what I found in the box. I’ve attached the photo below. Thank you again Secret Satan.

Dungeons and Dragons, James Bond, No One Lives Forever, Role Playing Games, Spy-Fi

The secret is out… on secret tunnels

Written by TardisCaptain December 11, 2021

I’m sure that no one will talk about this project outside of work.

So I love watching YouTube videos. Primarily because they can cover a wide variety of interesting subjects that you won’t usually find in regular educational (or semi-educational) channels. I’ve been able to find interesting looks at how common people lived and ate not only in medieval times, but in the 1920’s and 30’s (which make for interesting game fodder for gangster type role playing games). We all have a general idea how Mob leaders and the royalty lived by the various movies and glamorous stories. But informative videos talking about the other side of the coin for various eras can help when adding atmosphere to different RPGs in different eras.

YouTube has an interesting algorithm on suggesting other possible videos that may be of interest. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t (I won’t go into details but I wish that the YT apps on my TV had a way to give a “not interested” without having to go to the video itself).

One recent suggestion from YouTube was “Digging a Secret Tunnel” by a British content provider using the handle “colinfurze”. Apparently he’s been digging a secret tunnel that connects his house to his workshop and then to a backyard underground bunker for the past three years. Note: The video linked above is part six of the series, but it was the first one I had watched and inspired me to create this blog post. Also a warning, Colin comes across a little like a used car salesman in his enthusiasm. But don’t let that bug you, the video was quite interesting despite his almost game show host like quality.

The first reason that I clicked on the video was because I was one of the many young boys growing up who had the idea of making a secret tunnel in his basement as a means to covertly get out of the house. Luckily my parents never found out about me trying to cut through the walls in our home. And I didn’t get very far because the house was very well built. Colin’s video showed the amount of preparation and effort that was being put into the tunnel project. It was being built under his house, driveway and workshop before it made it to the bunker. You don’t want the ground sinking underneath those items. So it had to be re-enforced to hold the weight above them. They had to get the large amount of dirt and rocks hauled out through a 5×5 hatch that was built into the workshop. Colin claimed in the video that he is making the tunnel without the knowledge of his neighbors. Reading the comments was interesting (avoid the spambots) with posts from mining engineers and other interested parties.

The second thing that caught my attention wasn’t with the tunnel itself, but my thoughts that came up while watching the video. How many times have we seen a villain’s secret tunnel in an espionage movie? The image I used at the top of this blog came from the spy-fi video game “No One Lives Forever” and I remember seeing this scene thinking “who built this?” and “How did they keep it a secret?” As a gamer, I also thought about the various dungeons that our Dungeons and Dragons characters have crawled through. Quite a few times they were 10×10 tunnels underground occupied by various Orcs, Gelatinous Cubes and other dangerous creatures. While someone may have drawn the straight line on grid paper, in the game world someone would have had to dig it out, build supports and haul away the rock. Why was this built this way?

I eventually had a bunch of thoughts in my head that I knew I had to put it down as a blog post. I watched a really good video about creating a dungeon for D&D which went briefly into the whys and hows (and I learned quite a bit from the video). But it didn’t really get to the nitty gritty for me.

So why would a tunnel (secret or not) be built with the cost and effort involved? I think it comes down to several reasons. The first one that comes to mind is wealth. The tunnels are built as part of a mine trying to extract various ores and precious gems. While these may not be secret at the start (unless the digger wanted to keep others from getting to his prize) they could easily become forgotten. Just finding out which mine a highly prized gem used in an ancient crown came from could be the start of a quest all on it’s own. These mines could have been built by dwarves or other subterranean races. Mines were featured quite a bit in several westerns. Every once in a while the news reports about another soul lost while trying to explore a closed up mine or a murder victim being thrown down a mine shaft.

Another reason that a tunnel could be built is for transportation. Going over a mountain or across the English Channel represents a physical barrier. If you could tunnel under that barrier, you can make transportation much easier. Again, most of these would be known (at the start). However there have been smuggling tunnels built to avoid border patrols. The movie “The Great Escape” detailed the efforts of prisoners attempting to tunnel their way to freedom from a Nazi POW camp. This movie would also be inspirational about how to hide the tunnel and dispose of the debris needing to be dispersed all while trying to keep the tunnel from collapsing on them. When I visited the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in 2019, I learned about the railways and water tunnels and how they were built. They were built in a time before OSHA and safety guidelines. So corporations could hire workers to quickly dig, and if a worker was injured, they would hire the next guy to step up and replace them. This allowed them to build these tunnels quickly at the cost of human lives.

Housing and storage is another reason to build tunnels. I recall watching documentaries about World War II and how residents of some towns escaped into tunnels under the city to escape bombing raids. Repurposing tunnels from another use has allowed underground survival dwellings to be built. In Utah, the LDS Church stores massive amounts of genealogical records in an underground vault in the Wasatch mountains. In Norway, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault preserves over a million seed samples underground in a former coal mine. Both locations could make for interesting modern day missions in an RPG. On the fantasy side, how many times have we heard about massive underground cities used by the Dwarves and the Drow. Tunnels would connect them all to each other and to the surface.

The last reason may sound weird, but I think is valid. Tunnels could be built for a sense of vanity. A cult, probably using cultists or slaves to dig, could build secret tunnels in order to hide their temples of worship. The image that I used above is a tunnel under a Swiss Alp chalet as seen in the video game No One Lives Forever. In the second video game of this series a very interesting quote came up. “Why do you think we have our headquarters in underground caverns? It’d be a lot cheaper and more convenient to lease an office building, but then you get potential clients who don’t think you’re evil enough for the really high profile operations.” If you look at movies like the various James Bond entries, the Flint and the Matt Helm movies all the way up to the Austin Powers series, they all made the secret underground lair look cool.

So Game Masters, think about the tunnels that you use in your games. Sure they are easy to draw on graph paper, but how did they get there? What was the cost to build these tunnels? How did they become secret? A king killing the slaves that built the secret tunnels may become the avenging undead monsters encountered by the players. A missing handyman may lead to the clue that the agents are needing to find the bad guy’s underground lair. Those lines on the map may look cool, but they hide much more than the treasure the adventurers are trying to find. They hide a possible story.

(looking at the wall on the side of my office) “I wonder if the wife would notice if I put in a secret tunnel?”