Category: Horror

Conventions, Dungeons and Dragons, Horror, Pirates, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek, Star Wars

SaltCON-Spring 2026 After Action Report

Written by TardisCaptain March 18, 2026

August sez “Who said you could be gone fur-ever?”

And another wonderful SaltCON is in the bag. Let me take this opportunity to thank the gaming coordinators, the volunteers and the people I met for helping to make this an enjoyable weekend. I had some disappointments, but they were far and few between. I also had a roleplayer come up to me to say “Hey you want to see my convention backpack?” after he had read about the backpack that I use at conventions. It was interesting to compare the two of them. Last year, I really needed the emotional support after some real-life events. This year I was providing the emotional support to others (and I was glad to give out the hugs when needed). It reminded me of the quote from Saru on Star Trek: Discovery.

“Before we can care for others, we must care for ourselves.” Saru- New Eden, Stardate: 1027.32

I was able to pick up a lot this year. The convention theme for 2026 is pirates (last year was a cyberpunk theme) and there were several articles of clothing that combined gaming and pirates together. My zip-up Star Trek hoodie (that looked like a uniform) was starting to get a little threadbare, so I decided to replace it with a black SaltCON pirate hoodie that says “Dead men play no games.” I also picked up the regular con shirt for spring which was a pirate riding a fish guiding it with a D20. The SaltCON GameMaster’s Guild shirt that I got for free said “Release the Kraken” And speaking of free shirts, Evil Genius Games provided me with an Evil Gamemaster shirt for running one of their games. On the sleeve is a bonus rule that allows the GM to make a player re-roll a D20 two times during a game. I didn’t use this at the con, but a friend who also got the same shirt did.

Some of the gaming loot that I picked up at the con.

As is usually the case with SaltCON, they give you free games when you pick up your registration badge. The free games this year included an interesting card game called Tacta and a humorous looking game called Riot at the Round Table. I’ll have to subject the family to these and see how they play. At the Saturday morning swap meet someone brought in the Star Trek Super-Skill Pinball that was still sealed and was a low price. So I snagged it. I really wish that more people brought their RPG books to this Saturday morning event. At the regular game swap (which is 99% board games) I did find an unusual looking RPG called Arzium which appears to be a fantasy game. And one of my thank you gifts for running quite a few RPG sessions was the Werewolf The Apocalypse Core Rulebook. Both of these I’ll be using in the 2027 Character Creation Challenge.

There were a couple more giveaways that I had received at the convention. The first was the SaltCON RPG pin which showed a kraken wrapping itself around a pirate ship. There was also a pin I got for running the Evil Genius game for Nacho Haus that came from the Origins Game Fair. I don’t know what that represents. I reached out to my contacts at EGG and I’ll report back what I find out. Another free gift was a small 3D printed dice tower that fit nicely inside my leather dice tray. Usually dice towers are too unwieldy or big, but this one worked just right. This was given to a GMs at the con and was provided by Scorehaven which appears to be some sort of gaming meet up group. A local young artists had a booth at the con and from her I purchased a set of dice that glow under a ultraviolet light (I’ll blog more about that later) and a special coffin box for the Geek Wife who loved it. Plus we wanted to support those who created with their hands and not tried to use AI.

For the four games that I ran at SaltCON Spring 2026 I think I must have picked a bad time-slot for Basic Fantasy. Only one person had preregistered for the game and they backed out the morning of the con. But this only gives me a chance to polish up this self-written adventure for a future event. The next day I ran Everyday Heroes: Escape from New York (for the prizes seen above). This game had a full complement (five pre-gen characters) and we had fun. However I may have disappointed a player who was playing an RPG for the first time. She chose a character that was a manipulator instead of a fighter. However the first part of the game (that was all we could do in the four hour slot) didn’t get to the point where she could use her talents. I let them name their own characters at the table, so Lady Lockbreaker, if you are reading this, I should have let you manipulate the guards you were trying to approach. I had thought about it later and I realized then what you were trying to do. I hope your future RPG sessions go a little better. For any GMs running some of the Cinematic Adventures from Evil Genius Games, be prepared to shorten the material to get it into a convention gaming slot. Friday I ran Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition with the Thursday’s Child game written by Roger Taylor. This ran very well and challenged the characters in a Star Trek way. There were lots of compliments at the end of the session (that ran longer than we were expecting, but it was the last game at that table for the day). On Sunday I ran the Star Wars D6 RPG from West End Games. While there were a couple of first time players who wanted to see what the fuss was all about, there were also several players who loved the original game. They loved the theater of the mind and how I used an opening script to get them all into character. Thank you to my players who showed up and had fun.

I was really looking forward to the two Cowboy Bebop games, but they didn’t happen. One was with Lasers and Feelings and the other was the official RPG that I had backed on Kickstarter. The GM fell ill and wasn’t able to return for the two games. I know another player who had signed up for both who was disappointed as well. Another player volunteered to run Lasers and Feelings for us and we pushed our way through it as an improv game. Thanks to that player for stepping up and showing how the community supports each other. To the GM that was running the early Sunday morning Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st Edition game, I apologize for pulling out the night before. With how late my STA game ran, I didn’t think I was going to get there on time for the early morning session. I hope you found a replacement player and I thank you for bringing one of the classics to the con. I have a bit of a conundrum on the Tunnels and Trolls game. It wasn’t actually Tunnels and Trolls, it was a retro-clone called the Leopard Empress or something. Another player who also wanted to really try T&T had even brought his books from home. I think we got an idea how the system works with the clone, but I was also wondering if I would have signed up had it been advertised under the actual game name. I don’t know, am I thinking about this too hard? If I had advertised my Basic Fantasy game as BECMI and someone showed up expecting to play that, would they be giving me the side eye? The other game that I was able to play is called DC20, which turned out to be a beta version of the game that was backed by Kickstarter years ago. It made sense, but I could see where some of the betaness of the game came into play as the players had a few questions about things. We had fun. But the IT side of my brain kept saying “Beta version, wait for full release.” The most fun I had was with the Paranoia game. Because there was a long line to get into the con (and I had to stop to help a friend at the ER beforehand) I was a little late getting there. The GM was actually having the players create their own characters. Since I had missed the first of this process, I asked if I could just use the character I had recently created in the Character Creation Challenge, and the GM agreed. So bonus points for me to use a character that I had created manually. I want to say that the Paranoia game lives up to its reputation if you have a GM and players with the right mindset (and warped sense of humor). Good job. Overall I had fun in the games that I actually played and thanks again to the GMs for their efforts.

Again, if you are looking for a good gaming convention, I can’t recommend SaltCON enough. There are a ton of board games, card games, roleplaying games and the Artemis Bridge Simulator ran by Starship Frontier was always full. The next two conventions at the Davis Conference Center in Layton, Utah are June 5-7 and September 4-6. I already have an idea for my next Star Trek Adventures game that I want to try out.

So was I putting to much thought into the Tunnels and Trolls concern? Did I do the new player in Escape from New York wrong by not letting her play to her character strengths? Do you have any questions about the convention weekend? This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

Character Creation Challenge, Horror, Role Playing Games

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 25: The Walking Dead Universe

Written by TardisCaptain January 25, 2026January 24, 2026

As we enter the last week of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m going to use another Free League game that I recently picked up. Day 25 is going to be The Walking Dead Universe which is my fourth of five games by this publisher in 2026. Now I had a chance to play The Walking Dead at a past SaltCON, but I really didn’t get a feel for the game for two reasons. The GM wasn’t on his top game (he had been up all night and was barely staying awake for the first game of the day) and 2/3rds of the players left in the middle of the game. If you are not familiar with The Walking Dead zombie apocalypse, it originally started out as a comic book. This book was adapted into a series of television franchises that was shown on AMC.

The PDF of the core rulebook has 180 pages. The character creation process starts on page 24 and there is a one-page character sheet. There are eleven steps in total for this process. The book states that we are building a character based upon the background and personality to become the foundation of it and their relationship with the other characters in the game. Well since I’m making this character solo, I’ll have to use the voices in my head to represent the other players. Hey, sometimes they have good ideas, and then there’s other times that they talk like I’m not even there.

So first is the Archetype (aka Class). This is what the character was doing before the outbreak that caused the zombie apocalypse. There are twelve of them that include Criminal, Doctor, Farmer, Homemaker, Kid, Law Enforcer, Nobody, Outcast, Politician, Preacher, Scientist and Soldier. I hadn’t given it any thought yet, but I think I’m going to go with Criminal because someone who had to stay one-step ahead of the law might be the person who stays one-step ahead of zombies and immoral humans. The book lists the key attributes, skill and talents. I’m also instructed to pick an Issue, Drive, Gear (random roll) and relationship to other characters. I wrote them down in my notes.

The next several steps are pretty quick because I had already selected them when I looked over the entry on the Criminal archetype. Pick a name (OK I hadn’t done this yet) which turned out to be Jay Dunn (thank you random name generator). Issue (picked from archetype suggestions) which is a flaw of the character and Drive (again from the suggestions) which is what keeps the character going in this world of the dead. No, not just outside the window, the world in the Walking Dead universe.

Next up is the Characteristics. These include the four Attributes that I can spread 13 points between them (min 2, max 4 or 5 for key attribute). These are Strength, Agility, Wits and Empathy and I wrote down my selection in my notes. Then there are the skills that are under each attribute (three each). I have 12 points that I can spend here with the lowest being 0 and the highest being 2 (to start the game) other then the main skill of the archetype (Strength in this case which can be up to 3). And then there are Talents which are special abilities that can help your character. They are listed in the Archetype and I need to pick one of the three listed. The last item in this step is the Health Points and each character has three. If the character loses all of them they are considered broken. The archetype also has you roll a d6 three times to get some random gear and gives options for the relationship with the other PCs (which I had already selected).

Next the game talks about Stress and Anchors. Each character gets two anchors which is someone that helps the character stay grounded. One is a PC and the other is an NPC. I’m going to leave these sections blank on the sheet only because I don’t have any other players or a GM to help me.

The last step listed on the list is to select a Haven. This is a temporary safe place (at least as safe as you can be among the walking dead). In the book it lists three possible starting Havens that have both positives and negatives. This could have been selected by the GM already (if they had something in mind for the scenario) or the players could talk it over. Since there are only three, I’m going to roll a d6 and it came up The Factory. According to the list on page 24, this was the last step. Let me transfer my notes to the character sheet and present it here.

Afterthoughts:

Because I like taking pictures of physical products instead of PDF books, the photo actually shows The Walking Dead Universe Starter Set that I had received as a thank you gift for GMing at SaltCON. But when I created the character, I used the PDF of the core rulebook that I had picked up from DriveThruRPG.

This appears to have the same RPG system as Twilight: 2000 I used earlier. Each number in the attribute (and skill) is the number of d6s you roll. Each six counts as a success which usually needs one to accomplish the task. If you don’t get any, you can push a roll (aka roll again) and take some stress. From what I recall, I didn’t like it when we were playing the one-shot because we hardly succeeded at anything. I don’t know, perhaps in a campaign and with an experienced GM, perhaps my thoughts on this may change. But currently I’m not really moved to run or homebrew for this system.

Additional Notes:

I had one follower tell me that they were interested in D.A.M.N.I.T. just on the name alone. And then another said it reminded them of Warhammer 40K. I’m not familiar enough with the Sci-Fi version of that game to know how accurate that is. I just barely made my first Warhammer Fantasy RPG character earlier in this challenge.

Davwj on the RPGGeek message board responded to a question that I had asked on my Swords and Wizardry entry into the challenge. “Matt and Frog God Games parted ways (amicably it appears) back in 2022 (link to comment from Reddit). Matt now houses all his games under his original Mythmere Games label including Swords & Wizardry both on his own website plus on DriveThruRPG.” I thanked him for the information. I’m not sure why my search skills failed me on DriveThru.

Coming Up Next:

Modern Necessities

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.

Collecting, Conventions, Dungeons and Dragons, Horror, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek, Star Wars

SaltCON-Summer 2024 After Action Report

Written by TardisCaptain June 11, 2024June 19, 2024

Well I thought the picture of the loot at the top was not so fuzzy, but I’m not going to re-take it now. Hey, I survived another SaltCON both as a player and gamemaster. It was fun, lesson learning, idea forming, friend making and just a little stressful. But I wouldn’t know a convention that didn’t have those.

I did get some loot at this con, but for a while I was worried that I wasn’t going to find anything. The game swap only had one person bring in RPG books and I ended up buying three items from him. The hardbound book Codex of Erde (an earlier edition of the Codex of Aihrde from Troll Lord Games) and two boxed sets of Dungeon Crawl Classic modules called “The Heroes Arise” and “The Saga of the Dragon Cult”. The modules in each boxed set would form a campaign that could take characters from first to high levels. The boxed sets were in really good shape considering their age with only one book showing any damage. I also picked up five token trays that I planned to use for my Star Trek Adventures game. These had been created by a local artist. The convention organizers gave me a set of dice as a thank you for running my games (they were purple, they went to my geek wife) and I also picked up a convention t-shirt. I love how they have a different design each convention.

For the gaming sessions I played in, this is how it went.

Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition- We had to find a lost puppy owned by the local magistrate. Unfortunately this lost puppy was a three-headed hellhound and was burning up the town. And, as fate would have it, we were not the only party looking for the wayward pet.

The One Ring– Set in the times between the events in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, our party had been hired by a not-so-trustworty dwarf in an attempt to find a treasure left behind by his recently-deceased uncle. I really liked the system as it worked very well with the Middle Earth universe that we were familiar with. I may have to pick up this system.

Star Wars D6- I missed out going to this game due to real-world issues and I tried to track down the GM to explain why (apparently no one else had shown up for the 9am game either). But the good news is that I was able to track down an AC tech to fix the air-conditioning unit at my house.

Stellar Odyssey– A RPG created by a Utah author. I had been in some of his games at past conventions and since I suddenly had an opening in my schedule, I signed up. This was a Star Trek inspired game where you play the crew of an intrepid starship doing missions for a planetary union. The emphasis is on social combat (with initiatives and different methods you could use to convince others to see your way/perform an action/etc.) with actual combat limited to a single die roll. The system made sense and really encouraged roleplaying. The starship stats (and how they could be used to enhance your dice pool) also made sense. I may have to use this game in an upcoming Character Creation Challenge.

Ter’Ra’Mentia- This was only an hour long intro session and I was the only person present in the time-slot. This allowed me to ask a lot of different questions without feeling guilty that I was taking away from the other players. I’m also a ‘hands on’ person when it comes to learning a game, so this helped very much. While I don’t know if I’d be able to pick up this game, I now have a better understanding of it. It’s basically a 2d12 system+skill points to beat a target number.

The Walking Dead- This was a scenario set in Utah. Which meant that the players were (mostly) familiar with the area. While it did end early (four players in a family had to go) I did get a chance to try the system. It felt like a game where dread was always around because even with the dice pools, we hardly got any successes. We didn’t have all bad luck, but it didn’t feel like we were in a cinematic cake-walk either. I don’t know how I’d feel about this. The constant wear-down of not getting successes might get old in a campaign. I’d probably have to actually try a campaign to see how I felt.

This is how the games I ran turned out.

The Star Trek Adventures game that I was going to run only had one person show up. It was probably the time slot that I had selected on a Sunday that did this in. I would have run this on a Saturday, but originally a family commitment would have kept me out for the whole day. When plans changed and I only needed to leave for the evening, it was too late to change the date. With the single player I sat down and explained the game basics to him. It was his first convention and I think he was excited to just try something more than Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder.

Basic Fantasy went better than I expected. I got to use a new GMs tool to help draw out the map of the bandit’s lair that the party was trying to escape from (I’ll have a review blog post very soon on this). Most of the players were use to 5e so I had to explain some OSR styles (running away is an option, your character may die if you are not careful, etc.) Well they took this to heart and actually worked together very well to facilitate their escape. While looking up a rule really quick, I reminded myself of one of the basic guidelines for running a game. Keep the flow going and don’t be afraid to make judgment calls instead of slowing down play by looking up rules. I had one player tell me afterwards that he hadn’t been a fan of the D20 games, but would play more Basic Fantasy if offered because he had fun in my game.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, getting together is one of the highlights of playing RPGs. On the first day I bumped into a GM for Savage Worlds. He asked if I wanted to go through a quick demo, which I jumped at since it gave me the chance to check out a system I had never played. Turns out this guy runs an RPG video blog on YouTube called the Ace Roleplaying Games Club. He even named dropped my blog in his own SaltCON after-action report. Thanks Mason.

Once again I’d like to thank the army of volunteers and coordinators for putting SaltCON-Summer together. While I was disappointed in the swap meet (I really wish more people would bring their RPG books looking for new homes) I could see how people were having fun over the weekend. Even the convention organizers. I got to meet up with some friends that I only seem to see at these conventions as well. That is an added bonus to attending the convention.

Also note to self, don’t forget to pack some antacid tablets in your convention backpack just in case the nacho cheese served at the convention center affects me again.

Have you been to any gaming conventions lately? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

Conventions, Dungeons and Dragons, Horror, Role Playing Games, Star Trek, Star Wars

Prepping for SaltCON Summer 2024

Written by TardisCaptain June 4, 2024

The two games that I am running at SaltCON-Summer 2024.

Soon I’ll be enjoying another gaming weekend at SaltCON-Summer 2024 at the Davis Convention Center. As you can see above, I signed up to run two more games again. You can read about my past adventures at SaltCON in my past blog entries. I will be packing my Convention Backpack that I have documented in a previous blog post.

For this convention, I’ll be running two adventures that I did not write. I wanted to try some of the adventures that others had put out. The first will be for Basic Fantasy 4th Edition. Just in case any of the people signing up for my game might be reading, I’ll reveal the adventure after the convention. The second game is going to be a Star Trek Adventures game. Which one, however, I couldn’t say. When I originally signed up, I elected to run a Star Trek Adventures Klingon Empire adventure. However, just after I had signed up, Modiphius had released the Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition Quickstart Rules. So I’m going to give the players who show up a choice. Klingon or 2nd Edition Quickstart. It will be interesting to see how this goes. I’ve read through the Quickstart rules and they sound better. I can’t wait for the 2nd Edition core rulebook to come out.

Here are the games that I’ve signed up to play at SaltCON-Summer 2024.

Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition- The adventure sounded interesting. It’s also being run by a friend of mine so I wanted to support him.

The One Ring– I’ve never played this system before so I thought I’d try it out. Plus I’ve always been a fan of the Lord of the Rings books.

Star Wars D6– A fan-continuation of the original West End Games D6 Star Wars roleplaying game. I haven’t played this system in years.

Ter’Ra’Mentia– This is the fantasy game written by some Utah authors. I met them at last year’s FanX when they were promoting their KickStarter. This will be a demo of the game.

The Walking Dead Universe RPG– The GM is running a scenario set in Utah. I’m very interested to see how this runs.

I know it doesn’t sound like many games. But SaltCON-Summer is only three days instead of the spring event which has four. But, I’m looking forward to sitting down with some friends (or soon-to-be new friends) and throwing some dice. I wonder if I’ll find any RPG bargains in the game swap? Look for the after-action report soon.

What should I be on the look out for? Any recommendations for the games I’m going to be playing? This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

Collecting, Conventions, Horror, James Bond, Red Dwarf, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek, Star Wars

SaltCON-Spring 2024 After Action Report

Written by TardisCaptain March 7, 2024June 10, 2024

I survived my time at SaltCON Spring 2024. I was starting to wonder if I was going to get through it. First I was nervous before the start (did I have everything ready for the games that I was running) and I had to take a few breaks to make sure I didn’t get overwhelmed. March definetly came in like a lion with a big snowstorm (with thunder) on Saturday. Luckily my Convention Backpack kept all of my items safe in the nasty weather. But I made it and I enjoyed myself. I even had someone come up to me and identify me from this blog. If you read my blog and meet me in real life, welcome. This gentleman even wanted to talk about the recent Character Creation Challenge.

So how did the games that I ran go? I think they did quite well. Both sets of players told me that they had fun, which was the goal. My Basic Fantasy game only had two players, so I had them use two characters each. They were able to find the lost son of a Dwarf nobleman before he was discovered in an area he wasn’t supposed to be in. And they did it differently than the previous time I ran this adventure so it was interesting to see a different approach to the problem the party was presented with. I’m going to have to re-draw the map before I try to submit it for possible publication within the Basic Fantasy community. As for the Star Trek Adventures Game, I had quite a few laughs as the Lower Deck style characters had to deal with the Top Core (aka Top Gear in space) antics. I encouraged the humorous nature at the table by tossing pieces of candy to the players that got into the spirit of things. I really want to polish up this scenario as well and “publish” it for others to use. Both games had minor hiccups (the draw-able map didn’t like the markers I had brought for the Basic Fantasy game and I had left some papers behind for the Star Trek game) but we got through them.

A new thing that SaltCON did this year was running a pin quest at the event. If you went to certain sections of the convention center, you could earn/buy/trade for a convention pin. Just before the Basic Fantasy game, one of the organizers handed me two SaltCON 2024 RPG pins which was a mimic hiding as a book (pictured above). I was instructed to keep one and to award the second to the player at the table I thought did best. As I had mentioned, there were only two players in that game and I thought they both did equally well having to balance two characters. And, in player fashion, they came up with solutions that I hadn’t planned for as a GM. Thank heavens for GM intuition and rolling with the punches. I even got to use the phrase “I’m allowing that because it meets the ‘Rule of Cool’ so go ahead.” When the game was over, I place the pin in the middle of the table and asked the players to decide who earned it. With how good they were, they both pointed to the other guy and said ‘you take it.’ So I made a GM ruling and had them both roll a D20 with the highest roll winning. I didn’t really get a chance to collect any of the other pins, but that was fine.

I also appreciated that the RPG coordinator made special posters advertising the different games. Since there were multiple Star Trek Adventures games, they were all on the same poster. But I really liked the poster they made for my Basic Fantasy game. When the end of the convention hit, I couldn’t find that poster (even thought I had seen it hanging on the wall in the convention center). I’m very grateful to the organizer who tracked it down for me.

The QR codes allowed you to sign up for the game or find out more about it.

As for the games that I played (or attempted to play), here is how they went.

Fallout The Roleplaying Game– Turns out I had the same GM as last year. She even recognized me from before. It was the same scenario, so I just ran my character as someone who would want to do what the others wanted to do (without spoiling anything). Luckily we got farther than we did last year so I was able to see some new material. I really liked how I just slipped back into the groove of this game.

James Bond 007– The same game master as before, but a whole new scenario. The GM recognized me as well and even handed me the same character that I had previously played. This and the way the system was set up made it easy to slip back into the game with no kinks. For a game from the 80’s with a little crunch, it ran pretty smooth.

Dreams and Machines– A new game that I was looking forward to since it’s the first in-house IP for Modiphius. I liked the world that the game was built around. The starter set components (characters were created by selecting a series of cards with stats on them) made it easy for a convention one-shot. The GM’s daughter made jokes about how the little girl in the starter set was going to die (spoiler: she didn’t). And I liked some of the changes to the 2d20 system (there were tokens for equipment assets that I was able to use in the middle of game play). But there were other changes that I really didn’t know if I liked or not. Momentum was split with spirit which also had to do with health. It was convoluted and is something that I hope doesn’t make it into the just announced Star Trek Adventures Second Edition (I’ll be blogging more about this announcement later). While I enjoyed myself at the table, I don’t know if I’ll actually be picking up this game.

Red Dwarf The Role Playing Game– All but one player knew about the Red Dwarf TV show, so we had just as much fun explaining things to her as we did playing. And she got really involved (she played a cat character). I got to play this universe’s version of Lister (a space bum). The GM had a waxdroid character prepared, but didn’t give it a name allowing the character to decide. So we were running around with a waxdroid of Winston Churchill who was always on the lookout for Space Nazis (not only did we find them, we kicked their fascists butts). I really liked how the system worked and while we struggled (hey were not exactly the cream of the crop in the space corp) it made sense. I really need to get my own copy of this game.

Star Wars Roleplaying– This was a little weird. Not only was I learning about a new system, but the GM was part of a group called RPG Sessions. This is a website that had online tools that could be used for this version of Star Wars and a few other games from the same publisher. While he explained the dice to us (there were a lot of new players to this game), we were primarily playing with these tablets. So instead of learning one thing, I was attempting to learn two. While the online tools helped, I felt that not rolling dice took away my enjoyment (and learning) of the game. However a special thing happened while we were on a mid-game break that I’ll talk about below.

The Witcher Roleplaying Game and Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition. I ended up dropping out of these games. I was able to cross my name off the sheet for The Witcher (and there were several people signed up as backups which made me better). There was some nasty weather going on and I wasn’t feeling all too well. I didn’t want to be fighting the storm at midnight to get home. I also needed sleep which caused me to not make it for the early morning Sunday D&D 5e game. To the GMs, I apologize for not being able to make it. I really wanted to check out The Witcher system since I had picked up the PDFs in a bundle sale last year. Hopefully at a future con I can play this game.

Old School Essentials– We only had three players (one very new to RPGs) but we got to fight a dragon that we tracked down. Lots of good roleplaying in this session. Unfortunately all three characters ended up as piles of ash by the end of the game.

The GM for GURPS Star Wars– accidentally left his Star Wars material at home (I know the feeling dude) so we ended up with a pickup game of Dungeon Fantasy. This is also a GURPS system. However (insert Ron Burgundy “Well that escalated quickly” meme) we ended up not getting very far. In fact, we ended up not getting out of the starting building without setting the building on fire (yea, it went south really fast). The party ended up getting kicked out of the town. So the game also didn’t last very long. But the GM, knowing of my past attempts at making a GURPS character, offered to sit down and show me how the publisher had streamlined Dungeon Fantasy. I was able to make a character with the bulk of needed items to play in about 20 minutes.

As for the loot pictured above, I was able to pick up the following items. I purchased the 2024 convention t-shirt (loved the design). There were no general RPG dealers in the dealers room (lots of self-publishers, but nobody if I wanted to pick up a new book from a regular publisher). At the game swap I was worried for the first two days because there was a TON of board games, but practically nothing in the way of RPG books. There were more DVDs than RPG books. But while I was in the Star Wars game that I mentioned above, someone came to the table and reported that they had seen the Star Wars starter set with dice for sale for a very good price. Especially when they discovered that the very expensive core rulebook was included in the box. Since we were on break, I had the guy take me directly down there where I was able to snatch it up (cha-ching, bargain found). On the last day of the con, I came across the core rulebook for The Strange. This is a Sci-Fi RPG that I had been sent a supplement for in the Random RPG book club. Now that I have the core rulebook, not only can I use it in a future Character Creation Challenge, but if I elect to trade/sell/give the books away, I can do so in a set. The last item I got was The Walking Dead Universe starter set. This was a gift from the game coordinator for doing a good job running my games at the con. I was not expecting this and it was very much appreciated.

While I didn’t play as a Captain in the Artemis Bridge Simulator, I was asked to play an walk-on part as an invading Borg Drone. I think it shocked some of the players to suddenly have a LARP like experience happen in the middle of a networked computer game. Thanks guys for letting me play this part (and I didn’t hurt myself too bad when I fell down after being shot with a phaser).

Conclusion:

I am very grateful to all of the volunteers who helped put this convention together. I’ve really been enjoying myself and meeting people from all over the US (and Canada) who travel to the con. I had a lot of fun despite my being overwhelmed in the middle. Not only am I thinking about possible games to run for SaltCON summer, I’ve also talked with another long-time GM who is expressing interest in running a few games.

Anime, Character Creation Challenge, Dungeons and Dragons, Horror, Humor, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek, Top Secret, Westerns

2024 Character Creation Challenge After Action Report

Written by TardisCaptain February 4, 2024February 16, 2024 1 Comment

And we’ve reached the end of the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge. If you made it to 31 days, congratulations. Send me a note via email (carl (at) tardiscaptain.com) on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. My daughter is currently working on a new graphic for those that completed the challenge and I’d like to make sure that it gets sent to you upon completion.

I did make it to 31 characters, but I was delayed by a few days due to a family emergency. Thank you to everyone who reached out to me to ask. One poster mentioned that they had seen a lack of entries for the last two days. My mother and grandmother were involved in an automobile accident. The good news is that they are OK with no injuries and they are just fine (other than needing to replace a minivan). But it was a little scary for me when I found out.

I noticed that the Scooby Doo gang was used in a lot of different themes by participants (seeing Velma and Daphne in the Doctor Who RPG was a hoot). It was interesting to see them show up in different gaming systems. On the discord server there was a very good representation of characters from 80’s movies represented in the Power Rangers Roleplaying Game. It was kind of a trip down memory lane since I hadn’t seen some of these moves in a LONG time. There was also a participant who was making Star Trek characters for three different RPG systems for several entries. It was interesting to see the characters side-by-side. One of the most unexpected discoveries wasn’t a current participant, but someone who participated back in the first challenge in 2021. Apparently it got him out of some serious mental funk that he had been dealing with. It got him back into blogging and eventually back into writing RPGs (that he had done before). It was an emotional moment for me when I read his blog post.

Of the entries that I used for 2024, the games that stood out to me were Monty Python, Fallout, White Lies and Star Trek Alpha Quadrant. I really enjoyed making a character for Teenagers from Outerspace and I’ve been watching some classic comedy anime lately While Vintage Space didn’t fully scratch the FASA Star Trek itch that I was trying to recall, it did get some gears turning that may result in a future project. I also appreciated the publishers that responded when I posted characters for their games. They were able to answer some of my questions that I had raised in the blog posts. I tried to post those responses in the “Additional Notes” section of an entry a day or two later.

The disappointments were those games that were needlessly crunchy or overbearing. I had a few readers on Mastodon and a few of the message boards respond with similar experiences, which made me feel like I wasn’t such an idiot. I’m still digesting Cowboy Bebop and I have a few things I want to check out before I post my unboxing and final thoughts entry.

Here is my 2024 list of characters:

Day 1: Fallout Character: Ragnal Walker of Vault 47
Day 2: Hackmaster Basic Character: Cid the Kid
Day 3: White Star Galaxy Edition Character: Jenker Slix
Day 4: Fantasy Quest (Dicing w/ Dragons) Character: Alric Hinman
Day 5: Top Secret S.I. Character: Nick Tanner
Day 6: Tiny Wastelands Character Stewart Barlow
Day 7: The Dark Eye Character: Halmar
Day 8: Star Trek: Alpha Quadrant Character: Tropp
Day 9: Monty Python Character: Sir Richard Hammond
Day 10: Basic Fantasy 4th Edition Character: Durlan Torven
Day 11: Teenagers from Outerspace Character: Prince Zaxxod
Day 12: The Spy Game Character: James “Captain Slow” May
Day 13: Star Ace Character: Balkor
Day 14: Ninjas and Superspies Character: Luke Ward
Day 15: Conan Character: Braga
Day 16: Boot Hill Character: Noah ‘Lasso’ Johnson
Day 17: White Lies 2nd edition Character: Jack Sterling
Day 18: Vintage Space Character: Troxtor
Day 19: Fantasy Hero Character: Drokkin the Dwarf
Day 20: Shadowrun Anarchy Character: Spike
Day 21: Nights Black Agents Character: Kendal Barker
Day 22: Barbarians of Lemuria Character: Kruk
Day 23: Starfinder Character: Sarangari
Day 24: Crypts & Things Character: Azor
Day 25: Cyberpunk Red Character: Indigo
Day 26: Dungeons and Dragons Essentials Characters: Pelloth Graysoul
Day 27: Cowboy Bebop Character: Wayne Wolf
Day 28: Rolemaster Fantasy Character: Hobson Silversting
Day 29: Tiny Frontiers Character: YYZ-2112
Day 30: Pathfinder 2nd edition Character: Rogar of the Granitebender Clan
Day 31: Anarchy Character: Marcell Freeman

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

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.

Character Creation Challenge, Horror, Role Playing Games, Spy-Fi

2024 Character Creation Challenge Day 21: Night’s Black Agents

Written by TardisCaptain January 21, 2024January 22, 2024 2 Comments

Welcome to Day 21 of the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge and today we will be using a Horror/Espionage based roleplaying game called Night’s Black Agents. I had picked this up in the same DriveThruRPG sale that had Boot Hill and several other games that I had been wanting to get my hands on. I had also seen this game mentioned on some of the gaming blogs that I read so I thought I’d check it out at the discounted price that was offered. Yes I do buy a lot of games when they are on sale since I am a bargain hunter.

This game is using something called the Gumshoe system, that I’ve never used. I hope that the book explains the system enough for me to create a character. In the universe of this game, your character is a secret agent (or ex-secret agent) that discovers that vampires are real and are attempting to rule the world. Sounds interesting. The PDF is 236 pages long. The character creation steps start on page 9. The character sheet is only one page in length.

The rules state that the character creation process is broken down into four broad steps. Choose one or more backgrounds, choose your investigative abilities, choose general abilities and building your personality and dossier. A player has build points for the different sections.

After looking over the different backgrounds for the first step, I selected Bagman. This is basically a courier what handles the money and gets it from point A to point B. This guy was an American OTIF agent monitoring SWIFT transactions in Switzerland. I wrote down the Investigative Abilities and General Abilities that slated for the background.

Selecting the investigative abilities is the next step. These are abilities that do not fail. The amount of build points is determined by the number of players in the game. (Boy, they must believe that our gaming schedules can all coordinate) For the purpose of this build I’m going to pretend that we have four players involved for a total of 22 investigative build points. Oh, I’m already down 6 points to pay for my background package. I like that the rules explain that if you don’t use all of the build points now, you can use them in-game to add a skill that your character always had, but hadn’t been seen until now. The RAW advises that having a variety of 1-point skills are better than having a few specialties. I looked over the descriptions and wrote some down spending my remaining 16 points.

Third step is to select the general abilities. I have 70 points to spend on these (with some already coming from the background at a cost of 18 points, so 52 is the actual starting point). The general abilities do have a possibility of failure unlike the investigative abilities. The rules advise me to put many points into a few different abilities because you spend these points during the game. I also followed some of the other advice the book gave on these including a good athletics (to make the character harder to hit).

OK, last step. Building a personality and dossier. This is broken down into three smaller parts. Picking a sources of stability, the character’s drive and the character’s trust. This is also where we pick the name for the character (pulling up the random name generator and it gives us… Kendall Barker). Ken’s sources of stability are what keep him sane when the life of an espionage agent hunting vampires gets too stressful. If these sources get threatened or taken away, the character can’t refresh his stability. I can see this being part of the horror aspect of RPGs that I hardly get. These sources of stability should connect with the character’s drive or motivation for doing what they do. Since this isn’t a mechanical part of the game, sometimes I trip over this, especially when I’m under a time-limit like I am right now. Screw it, Ken’s partner was killed by vampires (which is how he found out about them) and he’s trying to find the particular vampire that caused the death. The symbol is his partner’s badge, the solace is the partner’s widowed wife and the solace is the motorboat that his partner once owned. OK, onto something called trust. You get something called trust points (5 of them) and you assign 3 points to an other agent (is this supposed to be another member of the party? Yea, I think it is). Another agent gets 0 points (i.e. you don’t trust them) and then the remaining get 1 point each. I can tell the other players who I chose or I can keep it a secret. I’m still not understanding this gaming currency. I think it adds to a dice pool, maybe? I’m really confused by the wording. I guess I’d have to see it in play to see if I really understand this. Since I really don’t have a group of friends around a table to experiment this with, I guess we’ll skip this part. And I think this is the end of the process. Write up a background on how Ken got into the espionage business. We know he got out when his partner was killed. So I’m done? I still don’t know the health score or some other items. I’m confused, but here is the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

I had to laugh that one of the abilities was “Bullshit Detector”. I know that I get a lot of use out of that in real life.

The investigative steps seemed a little straightforward, but I’d still have to see it in play before I really decided if I understood this gumshoe system. I wonder if this is just a settings book and not the actual core rules? I can’t find a gumshoe core rules on DriveThruRPG. I guess the original game was a crime drama if I’m understanding correctly. There is a ‘discovering of information’ portion of the game and then a ‘confronting/escaping the opposition’ portion. Is this a game that acts like an episode of CSI? I really wish there had been a “core mechanic is…” page where I could get a good idea. Until I understand more, I can’t say if I’d play or do more with this game.

Additional Notes:

I had a couple of readers reach out to me on Mastodon regarding my attempt to make a Fantasy Hero character. The phrase used was “Congratulations, you have now been exposed to the wonder that is Champions/Hero, or as I like to put it ‘the greatest programming language in all of RPGs.'” In the USENET days there were competitions to see who could design a single power to destroy the planet with the least number of points. Others would use the system to describe a toaster using only game power descriptors. They would do everything but play the game as an RPG. There were a lot of comparisons to GURPS (just as I had come to the same conclusion) and there were a lot of “You couldn’t pay me to play the Heroes system again” comments. I’m glad to know that I wasn’t the only one who had his eyes bleeding from the game.

Coming Up Next:

Barbarians of Lemuria

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.

Archer, Character Creation Challenge, Comic Books, Conventions, Doctor Who, Dune, Dungeons and Dragons, Horror, Movies, Music, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek, Star Wars, Video Game, Website

Moving from 2023 to 2024

Written by TardisCaptain December 31, 2023January 11, 2024

Stack of character sheets printed out for the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge

2023 was a weird year to say the least. I was able to see a ton of concerts including several that I wanted to check off of the bucket list. These included Duran Duran, Love and Rockets, The Cure, Garbage, and Depeche Mode. I was able to see a live show that featured some of the comedians from “Who’s Line Is it Anyway” (the show had a different name probably for copyright reasons). I’ll be getting the photos for these up in the photo albums.

For the first time in a long time, I had the opportunity to attend a gaming convention. SaltCON Spring, SaltCON Summer and SaltCON End-of-Summer. I know at the beginning of the year, I stated that I only wanted to participate at this event and not volunteer. Well, after much thought and discussion with others, I’ll be running two games next spring. One will be a one-shot for Basic Fantasy RPG that I already had written up and did some polishing on. The other is a Star Trek Adventures: Lower Decks inspired game where the crew will be meeting the cast of Top Core (a sci-fi parody of the BBC show, Top Gear).

I’m still watching a ton of movies at home thanks to the many streaming services that I have access to. In the theater I did enjoy Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. I also saw Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. I also enjoyed this movie and I hope that the ending would lead to another sequel. But I wouldn’t be disappointed if there wasn’t one. My youngest is a Five Nights at Freddy’s fan so we had to go see the movie in the theater. Not knowing much about the video game series, I thought the movie was OK and I wasn’t bored. In 2024 I’m looking forward to seeing Dune: Part Two, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

Television wise I’ve been soaking up all of the various Star Trek franchises (Picard knocked it out of the park and I demand more Lower Decks). The Star Wars episodes have been good as well. I’m sad that Archer is ending, but I’d rather have it end on a high note. What We Do In The Shadows has also continued to entertain me. MST3K season 13 was a blast. I watch so much TV that I am unable to list them all here. On the weekends I’ve still been enjoying Svengoolie and Creature Features. I’m really looking forward to the new Doctor Who episodes after the great introduction from the 60th Anniversary specials and Christmas episode. The Fallout TV series has also caught my attention. I did cancel my Peacock account because there was nothing on it to watch (and I’d go months forgetting it was even there).

Reading wise I’m still going strong on the Star Trek and James Bond comics. While I’m also enjoying the Star Wars comics, I had to move from buying the physical books to a subscription to Marvel Unlimited due to the high cost of the individual issues. Too many Star Wars comics to continuing to buy them all.

I may have made a mistake with my video games. I set up both a Steam account and a GOG account. So I’ve been getting deals on lots of classic games that I use to play. I’ve been trying to play a few others as well such as Fallout New Vegas and a couple of other hidden gems that were tossed my way. But when it comes to time crunch issues, the video games get put off to the side pretty fast. I need to make sure that I’m spending some enjoyment time playing these games.

I want to get some writing done in 2024. I’ve talked about it, but I need to sit down and do it. Hopefully the Basic Fantasy scenario will be good enough to submit to the BFRPG community for consideration. While I also have some fan projects in mind, I’d actually like to have a few publications that I could legitimately sell online.

Keep an eye on this blog for what happens in 2024. Now off to the USS Ticonderoga New Years Eve party. Tomorrow I dive into the deep end of the pool with the Character Creation Challenge.

What did you enjoy about 2023? What geeky things do you want to do in 2024? Tell me about it. 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.

Horror, Role Playing Games

RPGaDay2023 Day 28: Scariest game you’ve played

Written by TardisCaptain August 28, 2023August 25, 2023

The Scariest Game You’ve Played is the topic for Day 28 of the #RPGaDAY2023 Challenge. I had to think about this one for a moment. I really don’t get into the horror roleplaying games. When you are sitting around the table, or at a virtual table, how do you get scared? You are primarily in a safe controlled environment. Especially if you know you are going to be in a horror based game, you are expecting to experience something horrible like zombies or some unspeakable horror.

But I do recall one moment where I was “scared”, not only for one session but for multiple sessions. I’ve previously talked about a recent Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 campaign that had my favorite character (and his demise) and towards the end of that campaign the DM, Jeff Sullivan, pulled it off.

Here is how Jeff did it. He placed us in a demon controlled pocket dimension where the rules of wizard and clerical magic didn’t apply (aka His realm). The ability to rest to recover hit points wasn’t available due to the nature of the dimension. My magic-user character and our cleric couldn’t replenish our spells in the normal manner. And we would be in this dimension for a long time.

Let’s just say it worked. Not only was my character agitated, I was agitated as well and wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. This made me as a player on edge and slightly (more) paranoid that usual. All it took was getting the character out of a comfort zone.

Could this be done in a game like Chill or Call of Cthulhu? I don’t know. I’m expecting horror then. I think the best way to present it is to run a game with a generic rule set where you don’t tell the players that they are going to be experiencing a zombie outbreak or an interdimentional invasion. Then you might actually get some horror elements in there to scare some players.

What do you guys think? Is it possible to scare someone in an RPG where they know that a homicidal maniac or weird beast might pop out of the shadows? What experiences have you had with horror based games? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

Doctor Who, Horror, Role Playing Games

RPGaDay2023 Day 25: Unplayed RPG you own

Written by TardisCaptain August 25, 2023August 25, 2023 1 Comment

What Unplayed RPG do you own is the topic for Day 25 of the #RPGaDAY2023 Challenge. Are you kidding me? I’ve got a good collection of dead-tree books and a LOT of PDF copies of different games. OK, I think I’m going to pick one of each (physical book and PDF copy) that I wish I could play. However, I’m not going to talk about some of the games that I’ve already talked about previously.

Dead-Tree Version:

So I walked over to one of my bookshelves and the first book that jumped out and attacked me was the Doctor Who Roleplaying Game by Cubicle 7. I only own the 1st edition of the game, so I haven’t had a chance to check out the 2nd edition yet. Not only am I a huge Doctor Who fan (duh, look at the URL for this blog) but I loved how this game was presented. They made it very simple to try to explain the system to friends in an attempt to get them to play. (see photo below)

Not only was the basic rule easy to present, but so was the character creation process as I discovered in a past Character Creation Challenge. I liked how the attributes was explained (this score equals this type of human for each attribute). It made me really want to see how the system ran.

PDF Version:

Isolation Games put out an RPG called When The Moon Hangs Low. This is a gothic action RPG set in a fantasy Victorian inspired world where characters are tragic monster hunters in the capital city of Harrowmire. Each character has some connection (or deep secret) to the monsters they hunt. Think Supernatural in a Victorian Age. I had picked up this game in a charity bundle on DriveThruRPG to support Doctors Without Borders just after the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine. The system sounds interesting and the Character Creation process was pretty simple. The company even has their own discord server for players to check out and ask questions.

Again there were a ton of options I could have selected from, but these two jumped out at me when I was looking over the collection.

Do you have an unplayed RPG that you own? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.