Category: Science Fiction

On Day 27 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m going to use another game that you can’t pick up on DriveThruRPG any more unless you had purchased it prior to September 2025. The Terminator Roleplaying Game by Nightfall Games. According to the Terminator Fandom Wiki, the publisher decided to end their rights by mutual agreement with StudioCanal. I didn’t know that until now and it may have explained why the game came up for sale when I had purchased it on DTRPG. The link I posted above goes to an Amazon listing for anyone looking for a copy.

I’ve always enjoyed the Terminator franchise and thought it would make for a good RPG campaign. I even remember reading articles with what-if scenarios like: “What if the series 800 model 101 infiltrator unit was accidentally sent back in time to 1886 instead of 1986?” I think that is what I like about science fiction stories and games. The “what-if” factor. In this game, it appears that you can play resistance fighters in the future war, or those who have been sent back to the 1980’s (or other times) to protect the timeline.

So the PDF I own has 232 pages in it. It was written by Andrew E.C. Gaska who also wrote the Planet of the Apes RPG, The Alien RPG and I even had a chance to meet at a past FanX: The Salt Lake Comic Convention. As I was reading the rules, I could see some of his fingerprints in the system based off the in-person conversation that we had at the con. The character sheet is one-page long and the character creation process starts on page 30. There are seven steps in total (with an optional eight step that I will not be using) to create a character. I’m going to make a member of the resistance who will be sent back to the 80’s to find and protect a target from being terminated.

Step one is to select a role. This could be considered a class or archetype. Not everyone in the resistance is a soldier (but everyone fights where they can). The options are Engineer, Grunt, Hacker, Historian, Medic, Pilot (ground or air), Scout and Strategist (aka generals). I made a Drow Hacker yesterday with Modern Necessities, so I’m going to go with Historian this time. I don’t think I’ve made one in any of my past challenge entries. Each role gets some initial stats, skills and a resistance ability. I wrote these down for my yet-to-be named character.

Next comes the stat generation. These attributes are Strength, Dexterity, Knowledge, Concentration, Charisma, Cool and Fate (which I was glad to see in the game). They range from 0 (poor) to 6 (incredible). Some of these stats already have a score thanks to the role selected above. I’ve been given 7 points to spend on the other stats. There is a max stat limit for the different roles and a chart is provided. For example, with his brains, this historian could have a score of 6 in KNOW, but only a 2 in STR. I didn’t know if I should make him general (1 point in each stat) or specialized? I think this is why I don’t like point buy systems. I decided to go with 1 in each category and added it to my notes.

Step three covers the Hope Points of the character. According to the book, this represents the faith that the character has in their own abilities and in humanity. There are three categories for hope points, Body, Brain and Bravado which are associated with a stat (example Brain has KNOW and CONC). I add the two associated stats together and then the category with the highest number gets 2 Hope points (in this guy’s case Brain, and the second gets 1 and the lowest gets zero. Since there was a tie between Body and Bravado, I was instructed to pick one. Now I’m confused. Besides the three points listed above from the values, it says that I have 3 more hope points to spend in any category (max 2) how I want? Am I reading this right? Slightly confusing. But I think I have the 3 more points to spend so I wrote them down on my notes.

Skills are the next step in the creation process. There are skills categorized by the stat would use them (e.g. melee weapons falls under STR). The range is 1 (skilled) to 4 (Specialist) with the max at creation time of 3 (Expert). Each Roll has a list of starting skills that begin at the rank of 2. I’m then given 36 points to spend on any skills with a chart of how much it costs to go to each rank. Ugh, again I dislike point buy. Yea they are good if you have something in mind or are homebrewing, but for just general character creation, I’m not a fan. First I picked some minimal skills that I thought a resistance member would have surviving in a robot apocalypse. I was able to get them spent and added to my notes.

Step five is the Traits that give the character some personality and possible hooks for the Director. I have zero points to spend on the traits, but if I take a negative trait, I’ll gain points. I’m getting a GURPS vibe here of all the negative things to get a bunch of points (something I dislike). I looked over the costs and descriptions and honestly nothing really pulled me in. Perhaps if this was random or required. I finally broke down and picked one good and one bad trait and moved on.

For step six we are doing the Figured Stats. These are stats that are calculated by other items noted above. Most have mathematical formulas. These include Hit Points (health of body), Willpower (mental strength), Movement (closing and rushing), Encumbrance and Initiative. Luckily after the descriptions there was a chart with all of the baselines and formulas for me to use when writing down my character notes.

And the last step (for me) is to come up with the Finishing Touches. Name (William Harden), background (was raised in an abandoned library so that is where he gained his knowledge and equipment (discussed with Director if the game is set in the future or if they traveled to the past naked). He’s naked to start.

There is a step eight, which is for the players who wanted to beg their Director to let them play a cyborg or fated (aka targeted by Terminators) character. Since I’m not using this according to the voices in my head, I skipped it. Here is the character sheet after I transferred my notes to it.

Afterthoughts:

They had the Terminator 2 font everywhere in this book. I think it was giving me flashbacks because that was one of the original fonts that we loaded onto our computers to make futuristic newsletters and flyers.

I like how they gave a one-word description of the different stat ranks. This would make it easy to homebrew stats for someone that I could have ported into the game.

This game uses a pool of d10s to determine success. One of the d10s has to be different from the others and it must role above the target number in order for the additional skill die to count. I kind of raised an eyebrow at this wondering how it would play at the table. Some of the target numbers were higher than 10, but you do add some modifiers to the roll if I read the system section correctly.

I know it sounds like I did a lot of complaining above. My issue is with the min/maxing of point buys. I wasn’t a fan of them in GURPS, and I’m not a fan of them in other games. I feel that it drags out the character creation process. Sure if you already have an idea in mind (which I didn’t) then it may help. While I hated making GURPS characters, I didn’t mind playing GURPS at the table. I wonder if I’d feel the same with this system? I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to try unless someone runs a one-shot at a con.

Additional Notes:

I’ve had some participants ask me if there will be a badge graphic for those who complete the 31 characters as we have done in years past. The answer is yes, my artists has been working on one and has sent me several prototypes for feedback.

I had a blogger reach out to me by emailing Carl (at) TardisCaptain dot com to let me know that they were posting their entries. I’ve added Skeleton Soldier Press Blog to the list on the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge page.

Coming Up Next:

The One Ring

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.

On Day 17 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m using a game that I had originally intended to use last year. I had it on the list and I believe I even had the character sheet printed out. Then a friend had gifted me one of my holy grail of RPG collectables that I had been trying to get my hands on. A copy of Red Dwarf The Roleplaying Game. It was late January and I had already done most of my challenge entries. So I looked at the list and originally I was going to bump Mazes and Minotaurs, but that game had already been bumped several times. So I bumped FTL Nomad since I would be swapping one sci-fi game with another. When I schedule out my games, I try not to have two of the same genres next to each other.

So what is FTL Nomad by Stellagama Publishing? My initial thought is it’s a retro-clone(ish) game of the Traveller 2d6 system that contains some modern rule ideas such as advantage/disadvantage dice. The universe is set as a near future cyberpunkish interplanetary setting which can be expanded to interstellar. I’m sure there is more to it than that, but that was my first impression. Stellagama Publishing also put out several other titles that I’ve used in past challenges including The Sword of Cepheus 2nd Edition, Cepheus Deluxe and more.

The PDF of the rulebook has 277 pages and our character creation summary starts on page 14. The character sheet only has one page. Let’s dive into this system and see what we can come up with.

Step one is the character concept. Since I’m keeping this simple and easy, I’m going to make up a hot-shot human pilot. Yes there are aliens in this game, but I’m sticking with human. As a human (as detailed in step two) I get to distribute five points among the seven skills that are all currently at zero. As a starting character none of these can have a score more than three. The skills listed are Combat, Knowledge, Physical, Social, Stealth, Vehicles and Technology. Pretty self-explanatory.

Step three is to pick an Archetype (aka class or basic concept of the character). As mentioned above, I’m already picking Pilot. But the other options were Agent (spy, bounty hunter, troubleshooter, etc.), Diplomat, Engineer, Merchant, Mystic, Outlaw (pirates to con artists), Outsider (barbarian, exile, etc.), Roughneck (workers in space), Scholar (doctors, scientists and more), Scout or Soldier.

Since this character is human, on step four I get to pick a Talent or special ability. These were in three categories of combat, character or professional. I found one for Ace Pilot and wrote it down in my notes.

Next comes calculating the Stamina. This was a mathematical formula with any bonuses from the Physical skill (which I had at one). The next step (six) is calculating the Encumbrance that the character can carry. Another mathematical formula also involving the physical skill.

Now we are purchasing equipment for this currently unnamed character. Hey, I get to roll something. 2d6x1000 for the number of credits he has. Now I can go to the equipment list or go pick an equipment package that is based around the Archetype. I’m going to go with the later as to not take up too much time. I wrote it down on my notes and subtracted the cost for the package. Actually I am going to take a peak at the equipment to see if there is anything else I think he should have. I did add a few more items that I thought the character would need.

The last step is to finalize the character. Name- Marcos Tryladar. Appearance- Good looking with short black hair and brown eyes. Trying to see if he can meet the next piloting challenge and left home to find his fortune. Let’s see how this looks when I transfer my notes to the character sheet. There are some blank spots that should be easy to fill out with a GM such as languages. But there is one glaring thing I noticed. There’s a Hero Points section. Quick search of the PDF shows that they are tucked all the way down on page 31. Each player starts with two and can be used for re-rolls or to activate special talents or abilities. That would have been nice to know before I had filled out the sheet.

Afterthoughts:

I really like the fact that this book gave us the basic mechanics and a rundown of the attributes at the very front of the book. I’m really disliking the publishers who follow the online recipe formula where they give the TL/DR story of whatever before they get to the actual instructions we are looking for. Remember, a core rulebook is a source of information, make that information easy to find and people will be more likely to play your games.

Being a Sci-Fi fan, I could see myself playing FTL Nomad. I don’t know if I will because I don’t even know any one local who plays Traveller, let alone any games based off of the 2d6 system. I’d love to try it just to see how it plays at the table. It’s generic enough that I could see some some homebrew possibilities for it.

Additional Notes:

After the flub with the Six-Shooters & Wagons the other day, and with a very busy schedule coming up (more family responsibilities that come first), I’ve actually sat down and scheduled out the rest of the month. Before today I had been winging it to give it a little bit of spontaneity. Let’s see if this pre-planning will help the rest of the month go smoother.

Coming Up Next:

Dragonbane

This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or click on my social media links with any comments.

For Day 14 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m using a game that I had seen advertised in Dragon Magazine back when I had a subscription to it. It was one of those side-bar advertisements that looked interesting, but I never had the money to order. Well, thanks to this day and age of the legal purchases of PDF games, I was able to pick up the 1989 RPG Worlds Beyond by Precis Intermedia.
This game appears to be a sandbox sci-fi system that encourages the Gamemaster to borrow from SF sources such as The Foundation books, the Alien movies, The Stainless Steel Rat, Ice Pirates, Battlestar Galactica, Forbidden Planet, Starship Troopers and much more. It appeared to be in the same vein as Star Frontiers and Traveller.

So instead of making a character, for Worlds Beyond, you make a Citizen and fill out a Citizen Profile Sheet. The steps to generate one of these starts on page 5, but are listed as steps A through L.

In step A, I’m instructed to generate statistics for the adventurer by rolling 4D6 and discarding the lowest roll and then assigning the results to a stat. There is also an option of rolling 4D10+90 to generate a total number of points that can then be allocated. I’m not a fan of allocating in general character generation, so I’ll stick with the first method. The nine attributes are Intelligence (INT), Leadership (LDSHP), Sensitivity (SENS), Dexterity (DEX), Agility (AGL), Physical (PHY), Health (HE), Size (SZ), and Appearance (APP). Leadership appears to be like Charisma, and Sensitivity conveys the character’s observation skills. There is a good Statistic Measurement Table on page 8 which gives descriptions for the different levels present in each statistic. Illiterate intelligence, or Nimble Agility, etc. This would be good for homebrewing. I rolled the stats for the character.

Step B is to select the race of the Citizen. There are four available races presented in the book. Human (mostly harmless), Dolf (think religious Ferengi that look like lizards), Sher’tazi (Arrogant tall grasshopper hermaphrodites with multiple arms and legs) and the Swarr (A prideful humanoid cat race that lives in clans). Each race has its own max level for the attributes and some attribute adjustments. I selected Swarr since I’ve always liked cats.

Step C is the occupation of my Swarr character. I looked over the description of the race and there was one clan that hired out as mercenaries, so I selected Merk. The other occupation were Adexec (business bureaucrats), C-Tek (Computer techs), En-Tek (Engineers), Med-Tek (Doctors and scientists), Monitor (spies, assassins and bounty hunters), Spacer (pilots and smugglers) and Startraders (merchants).

The physical statistics are step D. The hit points, healing rate, etc. I followed the mathematical formulas presented in the book and wrote them down. It wasn’t mentioned (at least in the character creation section) if I should round up or down on the formulas, so I guessed it was rounding up.

Step E has us determining the agility skills such as movement, lift, throw, etc. More mathematical formulas are presented based upon the characters agility, dexterity and more. Once these are calculated, I’m also instructed to times the PHY score by four to gain some additional points that I can allocate to any of the agility skills.

For Steps F and G we are instructed to determine the maximum level for the character’s skills. We add the prime statistics for the character, then divide by four to get the average. This average is then multiplied by five to get 70% as the maximum skill scores. The associated skills start with a base from the INT score, so 13%. I have a 130 points to distribute to the associated skills. So, the skills that are not associated, do I get them at the formulas listed on the character sheet? I could have used an experienced GM here to ask. I think I got my skills in.

Combat skills are generated in Step H. There is also a max skill level on this as well which turned out to be 60%. The Merk is an expert in weapons and a master in the unarmed combat skill. I think I’m supposed to just choose the weapons (the rules were not very clear). I’ll pick some when I look at the equipment section later. I also calculated the Defense Factor.

Step I: Character age and life experience points. The older the character is, the more experienced they are. However the older characters start to lose statistics. To determine this, you can roll 4D10+30 or just pick an age 21 or older. This is where I’d probably talk with the GM to ask what type of campaign they were going to run. Since the voices in my head aren’t talking right now, I’m going to go with Inexperienced (age 21-40) and randomly pick 25. It was listed that the Swarr lifespan is 119 years. For every year past 21, I have 5% that I can add to any of the skills.

On Step J we pick three personality traits. These can be based upon descriptions found in the racial descriptions, or just chosen. I think I’d probably determine these during play. There is also a discussion on reputation, but not much on how it’s determined. Um, again determined during play since there is not much for a 25 year old character. Step K determines the character’s remaining luck. Add all of the prime statistics and that’s the luck base and then subtract half the character’s age from that number. This is a percentage number.

Now we are at the starting money and equipment for the last step (L) and I’m starting to lose a lot of steam. We roll a D4+2 to determine the number of digits in the bank account. Ok, that’s different. Next we roll a D10 five times and that’s the total in the bank. Really different, but my total is 41,554 credits. Then there is a list of starting equipment. So, do we get these already? I think so. I’m really reaching the end of my rope here.

Technically the character is done, but the book has a series of charts for the character origins. While they look interesting, I’m not going to go through them since I need to move on. Oh, a name? Yirr’baun was selected. I made sure everything was on the sheet from my notes and scanned the two pages.

Afterthoughts:

I can tell this is an older publication. There were signs that the editor should have gone through it once more before going to publication such as the “See character species profiles starting on page xx.” mistake. There was also a math issue when describing some of the skills from the attributes. The first one for INT, it was written that we use a x4 modifier to get the percentage score. But on the examples for the other attributes, they were all x3. So, which is it? Also there should have been a chapter describing the different skills. This still took quite some time to get the character done and I could tell I was losing steam at the end.

When describing the different occupations, I liked how the writer used examples from different movies and books. That is something that I’d probably do myself when writing a description.

The system is percentile with a roll the score or below. I understand this as FASA Star Trek was also percentile. When adding a little to this and a little to that on the skills I was also getting a flashback to creating a FASA Star Trek character. While I would probably enjoy this game, I doubt I’d ever get a chance to play or homebrew for it. I wonder how it would do if a second edition was ever released?

Additional Notes:

In response to my Tales from the Loop entry, I had a reader offer to run me through a one-shot. I’m seriously tempted by this just so I can learn more about the system.

Another response on the RPGGeek message board agreed with my Star Wars 2nd Edition comments about it being all over the place.

Coming Up Next:

Worlds Without Number

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.