Category: Science Fiction

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Red Dwarf, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 19: Rocket Age

Written by TardisCaptain

Day 19 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge and I’m using a pulpy science fiction RPG that I had picked up in a charity bundle sale years ago. This game was published from Cubicle 7 called Rocket Age. It has Humans exploring the solar system with adventures on Venus, Mars, the moons of Saturn and Jupiter and more with a 1930’s attitude. It appears to be similar to the Doctor Who RPG that this same publisher released. Let’s dive in to see.

There is a one-page character sheet. The character creation rules are found on page 94 (after a TL/DR intro into the game universe) with a total of 257 pages for the core book. A summary is listed on page 95 and has four steps.

The first is what type of Sophont is your character. Well this is the games fancy term for race. My choices are Earthlings, Eurpoans, Ganymedians (both of these are from the moons), Ioites (a race that had their homeworld blown up by the Europans), eight different types of Martians (gee, I wondered what inspired this) and Venusians. I’m keeping it simple and sticking with Earthling. I’m told that I have 42 character points and the cost to be an Earthling is 1 of them. This also gives me the attribute modifiers and traits for Earthlings which I wrote down in my notes.

Step two is the occupation of the character. I looked at the choices and they are Citizen, Diplomat, Explorer, Merchant, Military, Miner/Scavenger, Native, Scientist, Law Enforcement, Europan Emissary, Deutsche Marskorps War Walker Pilot (Nazi cyborg mech drivers on Mars who left the service), Martian War-Priest, Rocket Pilot, Rocket Ranger and Venusian Harvitioi (wandering Venusian). Well the non-Earthling options are out. Again, keeping it simple, I selected Rocket Pilot which cost me 11 character points. I wrote down the attributes, skills and traits listed for this occupation in my notes.

On step three we now take the remaining character points (of which I have 30) and spend them on Attributes, Skills and Traits. Some of these have already been added from the first two steps above. The Attributes for a Rocket Age character is Awareness, Coordination, Ingenuity (aka Intelligence), Presence (aka Charisma), Resolve (aka Willpower) and Strength. These were the same in my Doctor Who RPG first edition entry. Also the same was the skills each character has. Athletics, Convince, Craft, Fighting, Knowledge, Marksman, Medicine, Science, Subterfuge, Survival, Technology and Transport. Traits are good and bad things about the character. The bad traits can give you back character points to spend elsewhere. I spent my points trying to make an Ace pilot.

What a guy.

The last step is the character’s story. What is their name and do they have a nickname. Pulling from one of my favorite shows, I’m going with Arnold “Ace” Rimmer. The image of the silver suited pilot from the Red Dwarf popped into my head. His friends are… well you know (or should know). The book also says that equipment is picked in this step. It just says, look at the equipment section and pick the reasonably logical items. It already stated that there was a ship connected to this character in one of the above steps so I’m marking that down as well. This looked like it was both vague and too much in some sections. So I’m going to skip it (other than I already wrote down the silver leather jacket and the ray gun). Here is the character sheet after I transferred my notes over.

Afterthoughts:

I repeat myself. Rule book first, lore second. Rule book first, lore second. When a gamer picks up an RPG book, they can (usually) tell from the cover what genre of game it covers (fantasy, sci-fi, horror, etc.) They want to know “How do I play it? How do I quickly explain it to my friends to try to get them to play it?” If you can’t do that near the front of the book, then most gamers are going to use a system they are already familiar with and adapt your lore for what they want. The lore did sound a little interesting from what I skimmed through, but I didn’t take a deep dive into it as I wanted to learn the system.

The bookmarks in this PDF were… weird. I finally had to go to the index and find the page number and tell my reader to go there. That’s when I realized I was skipping over 90 pages of fluff.

I had picked up this game because it was cheap in a bundle charity sale (I don’t recall which bundle service it was). But at the time I was thinking homebrew. Now…. I’m not certain. It’s pretty much fleshed out. The system is pretty simple (that I recall from playing the Doctor Who RPG). Roll 2d6 and add the attribute and any skill or trait modifiers to reach a target difficulty.

Had I known that I was going to make this character into Ace Rimmer, I might have adjusted some of the attributes and skills to make it more like him. But I didn’t want to go back and change anything. So don’t think this is my 100% interpretation of Ace Rimmer in Rocket Age.

Additional Notes:

I kept wondering why I had the thoughts of a Mallard character who was a Mage for my Dragonbane entry in the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge. Then it dawned on me that I had shared this video online years ago and I had to find it again. At the time I was thinking of my D&D 3.5 magic user in the last big campaign I played in.

Coming Up Next:

vs Ghosts

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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 17: FTL Nomad

Written by TardisCaptain

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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Humor, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 16: Paranoia “Perfect Edition”

Written by TardisCaptain

The computer is your friend. The computer wants you to be happy. Friend computer says the last Paranoia entry in the challenge was in 2022. So for Day 16 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m instructed by friend computer to use Paranoia “Perfect Edition” (aka The All New Shiny Edition) that was released by Mongoose Publishing in 2023.

For those of you not familiar with Paranoia, it is a role-playing game that is set in the future where humanity lives in a computer controlled Alpha Complex. No, this is about the future not about today. The central computer controls everything and is trying to keep you safe from conspiracies, communist plots, secret societies and enemies of the computer. Why do you keep asking if this is a game set in modern times? Your character is a troubleshooter for the computer trying to discover the hidden fiendish plot that is about to be sprung upon your paradise-utopian society. All while trying to hide the deep dark secret that you harbor from other troubleshooters. No, I’m tired of that question. The computer says we should move onto character creation.

Of the 146 page PDF that friend computer instructed me to purchase last year, the character creation can be found on page 20. It is broken up into four steps (A-D) with sub-steps in each one. Friend computer is organized very well.

In Step A we are instructed by friend computer to create some PII (Personally Identifiable Information). This includes a punny name which is based upon the character’s clearance level (R for Red) and where they are from TOT section of the Alpha Complex and what clone this character is (starting is 1), so his name is Todd-R-TOT-1. Friend computer gave me a traitor star saying that if I have to explain the joke, it’s not very funny. Next I have to select the Service Group for Todd-R-TOT-1. After looking over the computer approved list, I selected PLC, which has the glorious purpose to create and distribute items including food. Button, button, who’s got the button. Each character has two buttons for Violence and Treason that is observable. I looked at the ideas that was presented in the book and selected two that I think would make friend computer happy, because I want him to be happy as well. Sub-step 4 are items that will be assigned by the GM at the start of the mission (Team Name and MBD).

Step B according to friend computer is to set the skills and stats for Todd-R-TOT-1. Gun Skills is an automatic +2 to hit the fleeing Commie Mutant Traitor. However on sub-step six, I run into a problem. I tried to tell friend computer that I was creating the character by myself, but friend computer states that we should stick to the rules. Because without rules, everything would descend into chaos. So one player (me) picks a skill (not guns) and assigns a +1 to it, the player clockwise to them takes a -1 in that same skill. This continues clockwise until all players have a single +1 and -1 skill listed. I picked a skill for Todd-R-TOT-1 and then since I was clockwise to myself, I picked a different skill to be a -1. I think friend computer is happy with me? I didn’t get any additional traitor stars or zapped with a laser. Next another player (uh, me again) picks a skill and makes it a +2 and the character that is clockwise gets a -2 in the same skill. This will continue up to +5/-5. I randomly rolled 2d4 to come up with the rest of the skills to simulate a group of players at the table. Once this was done, friend computer said to generate the four stats of the character (Brains, Chutzpah, Mechanics and Violence) look at the skills under each category and give it a +1 for each positive skill.

We are being naughty for Step C and we focus on the other character sheet. Not that we would do anything like that to our friend computer. But when he’s not looking, we pick a Secret Society from the list. Any of them sound dastardly, and since there are twelve of them, I secretly rolled a d12 and let fate decide Todd-R-TOT-1’s Secret Society which is [REDACTED]. Todd-R-TOT-1 also has a mutant power according to a table of 15 choices. No, I did not make a random roll and I did not write down [REDACTED]. The next two sub-steps apply the Service Group skill modifiers then the Secret Society skill modifiers.

Friend computer is wise because Step D is titled “Finish Up Already” and provides the final details to write down on the character sheets. This includes Moxie, XP, and gear. Everything that I’ve been instructed to write down is now on the sheets. But if I scan them, then friend computer can see my naughty side. Ah, friend computer says that the user agreement confirms that my naughty side will remain hidden and not fed into the AI learning module by a large corporation. I trust friend computer and scanned the character sheets.

Afterthoughts:

I loved how the four sections of the public character sheet had different ways of displaying the part numbers. Little details like that made me smile.

After re-reading my 2022 entry for the 2nd edition of this game, I can see where I got frustrated. Here the only snag was trying to do this by myself. This sounds like a perfect pick-up game or a one-shot played at a convention. I’d love to play in one for this edition at a con (hint, hint).

Additional Notes:

In response to my blog entry for Worlds Without Number, Sharrow on RPGPub responded with this helpful information. “For what it’s worth, focus picks are from the foci list (foci being the plural). Also, your dude should have gotten three: One ‘Any’, one ‘warrior’, and one ‘expert’. ‘Warrior’ means any that the GM agrees should count for a warrior, and ‘Expert’ means any non-combat, pretty much. In my experience, Adventurers who are Expert/Warriors start very strong, but drop back compared to pure Warriors at fighting over time (the Warrior’s Killing Blow ability get really nasty, as it also applies to shock damage). I’m not sure how a pure Expert would compare, as Masterful Expertise doesn’t seem as strong as the Warrior’s two abilities.” So I did mess up on the character. Good to know.

To the person who ordered something from one of my DriveThruRPG sponsored links, thank you. The credits earned will be used to pick up games for future challenges.

Coming Up Next:

FTL Nomad

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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 14: Worlds Beyond

Written by TardisCaptain

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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Science Fiction

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 10: Tales from the Loop

Written by TardisCaptain

Day 10 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge and we are looking at Tales from The Loop: Roleplaying in the ’80s that never was. I was able to pick this book up as one of my thank you gifts from GMing at SaltCON. Three of the games that I’m using for this year’s challenge came from volunteering or connections at that convention. So, thank you to all of those involved and to the contacts that I’ve made.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Tales from the Loop, it’s based off a series of sci-fi paintings done by Swedish artist Simon Stalenhag. These paintings showed life in an alternate timeline 1980’s where robots and weird science was prevalent (usually with lots of kids watching them, hence this is a game about kids in this alternate timeline). These paintings were then put into a book, and eventually the RPG and even a TV series on Amazon. When I had a choice of which RPG book to take as a reward, the allure of gaming in the 80’s appealed to me. This is also one of the many Free League games that I’m using in this year’s challenge. Previously I had created a character for Twilight: 2000 4th Edition.

The hardbound RPG book is published by Free League that also publishes Alien, The One Ring and more. It has 191 pages and was written by Nils Hintze and uses something called the Zero Game Engine. I believe this is the same one that I’ve played when I had a chance to sit at an Alien one-shot at SaltCON. On page 49 it talks about the character creation process where the player makes a Kid. There are fifteen steps in total with the last two done with the group playing at the table.

Step one, selecting the Type of Kid you are playing. This is the class of the character. The options are Bookworm, Computer Geek, Hick, Jock, Popular Kid, Rocker, Troublemaker and Weirdo. Something tells me that I’m going to base most of this character on me in the 80’s. I wasn’t popular, or a jock (not without trying) or a hick. I wasn’t wild enough to be a rocker (but I loved the music). Of the remaining, I think that Computer Geek probably fit the younger me the most. Each Type has a set of key skills and I get to choose something for the following categories. Iconic Item, Problems, Drive, Pride, Relationships to Other Kids, Relationships to NPCs, Anchor and Name. There were examples listed for these categories that I could choose from or come up with something on my own. I wrote down my choices on my notes.

Selecting the age is step two. The book recommends between 10 and 15. I went with the age of 14. I’m also instructed to select my birth-date, so I selected a random one. A few sentences down I discovered that once the character turns 16, they are no longer a Kid within the game and are out.

Step three and we are at the Attributes. There are four of them that include Body, Tech, Heart and Mind and will have a score between 1-5. These represent the number of dice you roll when using the attribute. The number of points to spend per attribute is the character’s age. Every year on their birthday, they get one more point to allocate until they reach the “out-of-game” age of 16. I wonder why 16 is this cut-off age? I could see 17 or definitely 18, but 16? Oh well.

The next step is determining how many luck points the character has. Take the character’s age away from 15 for the total. So in this case he has 1 luck point. Apparently because the older kids are better with their attributes they don’t need the luck as much as the younger kids. When he turns 15, he will have zero luck points.

Skills is next on the list to create the character. “You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills… Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.” OK, that’s just a quote from Napoleon Dynamite. But it was the first thing that popped into my head when I started reading next item. Each attribute has three skills (some were already listed when I selected the type) and can have a score between 0-5. If the skill can be helpful when I’m rolling the dice vs Trouble, I can add the number of dice listed in the score. I have ten points to allocate between skills. The key skills can have up to 3 points allocated, with other skills capped at a maximum of 1.

The next series of steps I’ve already completed when I selected the character’s type. The Iconic Item (step 6) is the computer. The Problem (step 7) is “The tough guys hit me.” The Drive (step 8) is “I love solving puzzles.” And the Pride (step 9) is “I think I can do anything.”

Steps 10 is about relationships that the character has. With the other characters in the party I selected “We are best friends.” Obviously this step would need to be talked about within the group of players (just in case someone wants to have their characters be siblings). The second one is relationships with NPCs. It had some examples in the book that I wrote down, but as I’m reading the later section on this, it really should be done with the GM who has set up the NPCs. But some of the examples included “The strange scientist, Diane Petersen, is my aunt, but that doesn’t mean I like her.” or “My friend Leeanne told me that strange creatures have moved into the Cooling Towers. She thinks they are aliens.”

On step 11 I get to decide who the character’s Anchor is. this is someone that you can go for support, comfort and care that’s not another kid. I picked one of the examples for simplicity and selected the character’s father. And apparently I’ve already completed step 12 earlier when I came up with the character’s name. I altered my name slightly since this is an alternate 80’s world. Kirk Stark. For the description (Step 13) I’ll probably describe my geeky 80’s self. The last step before the group decisions is “Pick the character’s favorite song.” Ah man, how do I pick just one song. I bounced between “Our House” by Madness, “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” by The Eurythmics before selecting “Mr. Roboto” by Styx.

The last two steps need the GM and other players to complete. So I won’t go too deep into them here but they consist of “Where is the Hideout for you and your friends?” and a series of questions that the GM will ask both the Kids and the group. These seem to be mostly background information on the character and team. Having reached this stage, I transferred my notes to the character sheet and scanned it below.

Afterthoughts:

I was getting a Stranger Things vibe while making the character. I could very easily see someone homebrewing this series using Tales from the Loop. They even talk about the characters playing RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons or Star Frontiers in the Tales of the Loop core rulebook.

I also liked the step of having a favorite song. I know that the radio and MTV provided a large portion of the soundtrack to my life while growing up. It made this kid seem more real as a character.

I almost forgot to finish the description of the RPG system. You set up a dice pool using attributes, skills and equipment. You roll that many dice trying to get at least one of them to come up with one six (for normal difficulty) or higher for tougher tasks. Like Star Trek Adventures, if you roll more successes than you need, you can “Buy Effects” which can the scene in the game. It looks interesting. I wonder if I’ll get a chance to play a one-shot at a convention in the future?

Additional Notes:

I had several readers from discord and message boards send me a wink since they got the special name of the character that I created for Rebel Scum. Glad to see you guys got it.

While re-reading my entry for Star Trek Adventures- Captain’s Log, I noticed that I had screwed up in other areas. I had an extra value in the description, but didn’t write it down on the sheet. So the sheet is good, but my notes are bad.

Coming Up Next:

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition

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

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 8: Rebel Scum 2nd Edition

Written by TardisCaptain

Day 8 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge and I’m going to use another roleplaying game that was gifted to me. For those of you who have read my past challenge entries, I had a last minute substitution last year adding the Red Dwarf The Roleplaying Game after my good friends gave it to me. So thank you again to Rich and Evelyn who gifted me a physical copy of Rebel Scum 2nd Edition The Antifacist Space Opera Roleplaying Game. As you can probably guess, it’s a Star Wars inspired game with the serial numbers filed off from 9th Level Games. It says “powered by polymorph” at the bottom that I’m not familiar with.

The physical book is an A5 sized publication with 79 pages and was published in 2025. The cover looks like an action figure on a card. A lot of the art on the inside look like action figures, trading cards or comic book covers. The character sheet itself is called an “action figure card back” and is one page. The player always rolls the dice (doing something or responding to something) and the die can explode a its highest number. The rules to create your rebel start on page 40.

First choose a class. Because this determines which card back character sheet that is used (and I had to print one out for the photo listed above) I had already selected The Robot. I could have also picked Renegade, Revolutionary, Rogue or Ronin (aka Jedi). It just hit me that all of these start with the letter R. Weird.

Next I pick a name. This robot shall be called Lifter THX1138. He was a worker droid who was originally assigned to work in a factory and was ordered by some bad guys to kill some civilians just for the hell of it. When he refused, they tried to dismantle him so he went on the run. And its role (the next step) is The Tank, which I think gets a D10. I’m not certain. These instructions are not written out very well.

Shining Star is the next item on the list. This appears to be the thing your character is best at. And it appears to already be on the action figure card back.

Each character stars with two Edges that are listed under the class. It looks like I just mark them on the sheet. They only gave a description for some of the edges later in the book. I really wish that they had been more complete. Sure, some sound self-explanatory, but that’s open to interpretation.

The only other thing listed in the creation list is the Bonds that the character makes with the other characters, but that’s only after the session has been completed. So, I think I’m done? Yea, I’m done. Here’s the sheet.

Afterthoughts:

I love Star Wars. I love roleplaying games that try to emulate the feel of different shows out there. I’ve seen games for fans of Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, Cowboy Bebop and others where the serial numbers have been filed off. But I wasn’t really impressed with this book. Sure there’s a lot of back ground is presented here. But a core RPG book needs to explain the system. It needs to answer the questions about how to play the game. It almost seemed like the system was just barely presented. I was impressed with the artwork and the filing of serial numbers in the universe. And I agree with Indiana Jones who said “Nazis? I hate these guys.” But this book didn’t inspire me to want to try to get some friends together and play like the above examples I just linked to. I’ve got plenty of other RPG options to use if I want to play in a galaxy far, far away.

Additional Notes:

On the RPGGeek message board I received a response to the White Lies 3rd Edition entry. Davwj commented “I also got a copy of this and like yourself am quite impressed. Love the new artwork, plus the new ‘Rookie Assignment’ section is another nice addition (including the very Traveller-ish possibility of permanently benching your agent before they’ve even started )” Thanks for the feedback.

Coming Up Next:

Star Trek Adventures- Captain’s Log

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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 7: Attack from Space

Written by TardisCaptain

And with this entry, the first week is in the bag. For Day 7 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m using a game that I picked up as a thank you gift at SaltCON. Attack from Space an RPG by Kris & Friends. The way he explains it, this game was inspired by the random drawings he use to doodle in his notebook while in school during the 80s. After a Kickstarter campaign, the designer made the game and had a ton of artists send in doodles for it. This is a game where aliens attack a medieval kingdom and the players have to bring their knights to the table. I was given both the standard and ditto edition. The standard has more artwork in it, the ditto edition is more focused on just the rules.

There are three attributes and three qualities that each knight has. The attributes are Slash, Thrust and Parry. These represent the powerful actions, fast actions or precise actions of the character. Blood, Valor and Weird are the three qualities which represent health, determination and mental resistance. Then the knight has skills and equipment. The basics of the game is that when the knight wants to do something, they roll the bones (D6s) equal to the number in the attribute score. Then they keep the single highest result, the higher the roll, the better the result.

So, creating a knight has six steps. 1- Choose a class, 2- Train your knight, 3- Define your qualities, 4- Equip your knight, 5- Visit the armory and 6- Tell your story.

Classes: There are four classes of knights. Arrow (shoots arrows), Axe (tank that smashes things), Saddle (speed and a lance) and Sword (all around effectiveness). Each class comes with a different set of skills plus upgrade options when they gain experience. I think I’m going to go with simple and use the sword class. I wrote down the skills listed in the book.

Training: I’m instructed to add 1 to each attribute. Then I have 4 more points to spread between them (no attribute higher than 4).

Qualities: Each quality starts with a score of 2 (other than Weird which is 0). I have 8 points to spread across these, but it was advised the first two would be more beneficial.

Equip: I’m instructed to select two equipment items from the list. There is also an option to randomly roll for them. Ya know what, yea let’s see what the SaltCON dice say. Heh, a Tinder Box and a Bone Fishhook and Line. Better than I was expecting. I could have ended up with a copy of Wizard Magazine or Mustache Wax.

Armory: Ok, so we pick a primary weapon, some armor and a back up weapon. I’m going with the Longsword for the primary. Chain for the armor and a throwing axe for the backup.

Story: Name your knight. I dub thee Sir Reginald the Fourth. Pick or randomly roll some heraldry (The roll resulted in a bear. Actually that sounds kewl). As for any type of backstory, he comes from a long line of knights and wants to father Sir Reginald the Fifth. Gaining notoriety will help him get the best lady of the court to fulfill this sacred duty. Yea, that’s the ticket.

And we’re done, I transfered everything over to the character sheet and scanned it here to give the post a little bit more flavor. I hope you enjoy it.

Afterthoughts:

I picked this game to use today because I thought it would be a quick and easy creation on one of my busy days. And it was. It sounds like a silly game that could last a session or two with the right group of people. I’ve already got my games scheduled for SaltCON-Spring, but who knows, this could be my silly game for one of the next two SaltCONs after that. Anyone want to come try it out?

Additional Notes:

I was able to add a bunch of message boards to the list of links. Thanks to Thorr-Kan for attempting to get other message boards involved.

I received some feedback on my Dungeons and Dragons Rules Cyclopedia entry. Apparently each character also has a wrestling skill that I forgot to add. Also if the free Wrath of the Immortals supplement is used, then the character can also get special abilities depending upon their deity.

Coming Up Next:

Rebel Scum

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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Doctor Who, Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek, Star Wars

Prepping for the 2026 Character Creation Challenge

Written by TardisCaptain
Some of the games that I plan to use in the 2026 #CharacterCreationChallenge.

Welcome to the end of the worst year that we’ve experienced since 2020. In some ways it was even worse than that dreaded year. Multiple deaths, an economy going bad and too many other things to mention here have cursed the past 365 days. I will eagerly shove 2025 out the door when the clock strikes midnight on New Years Eve. As mentioned before, January is almost upon us which means it’s time to create the characters. Over the past several months I’ve been prepping for what I hope will be a better year. Something that I really look forward to is participating in (and reading the other entries) for the #CharacterCreationChallenge. I like seeing the creativity of those in the RPG community. I like seeing what I come up with as I make these characters. I enjoy trying out (and reading about) different RPG systems that I don’t get a chance to play at the table. Thank you to everyone in the community who participate in this challenge.

From the image above, you can see some of the physical books that I plan to use for the 2026 challenge. Some I picked up at different SaltCONs for volunteering or picked up in the game swap room. A couple of others I received as rewards for backing the Kickstarter campaigns. A few were gifts (thank you again to those who gave me games, you know who you are). And then there were a few that I had owned for quite some time, but hadn’t used in building a character. I have a ton of games on PDF that I had picked up from DriveThruRPG or charity sites.

Because the upcoming January is already hectic I haven’t really nailed down what game will be on what date like I have in the past. The funeral for my mother-in-law is quickly coming up and I have other family commitments that are happier occasions. So I’m hoping my prepping will allow me to get all of the 31 characters done by January 31st. However, should real life dictate that I have to go into February, I’ll not stress out too much like I did last January.

As in the past, I’ll try to walk through the character creation process as I understand them in the rules-as-written (RAW). This also gives me a chance to do a review of the process. I will then scan the character sheet for all to see.

For the five previous years of the Character Creation Challenge (in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025) I’ve had quite a few people reach out to me using various methods to let me know of their participation. Please let me know, Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com if you plan to post your characters up on a blog. I’ll link to it from the Character Creation Challenge section of my website.

I have had some people tell me that they are pre-making some of there characters before the challenge. I’m not going to blow the referee whistle at them. As I’ve stated when this was started five-years ago, this is for fun. I know we all have real lives to worry about. And as much as we’d like to be able to focus on our hobbies and what makes us happy, we still have to function in this society. So I’m not going to dock you for setting up a buffer. All that I ask is that you post your entries in at least one location (the #Character-Creation-Challenge channel on the TardisCaptainDotCom discord, on a personal blog (tell me the URL), on one of the many RPG message boards, on social media with the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge). I love seeing what other RPG fans have come up with.

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.

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.

What games are you using for the challenge? Do you have any questions about the challenge that wasn’t covered on by the FAQ? 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.

Posted in: Collecting, Reviews, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Spy-Fi, Westerns

Modern Necessities a Kickstarter Reward

Written by TardisCaptain

Continuing my catch up process, here is my report on the Kickstarter rewards that I have received for backing the Modern Necessities campaign by The Scrying Dutchman (that is the name used in the credits of the book). This set of books takes the B/X style rules from the Old-School Essentials books by Nerotic Gnome and provides different options for modern style games. This includes current times (with the Modern Necessities Professional Edition book), western times (with the Single Action book) and futuristic times (with the Cutting Edge book) that were included as part of the stretch goals. These three books are not stand-alone games, so they would need to be used with Old-School Essentials or another B/X set of rules. The level I backed included the PDFs as well as POD versions from DriveThruRPG. So far, I’ve been pleased with my POD purchases from DTRPG. You can read about my comparisons on this blog post.

The primary book is Modern Necessities Professional Edition. The two add-on books would need this book first. The ISBN for this softbound book is 2-370021-833733 and has 170 pages. While the cover has some color on it, all of the artwork is black and white. The cover was drawn by Noeland Collins with interior art provided by Galen Pejeau, Jonathan Torres, Carlos Castilho, Adam Black, Earl Geier, Jeshields and The Wonkee. The last two were listed that way in the credits.

The chapters covered in this book are Gameplay (primarily the use of modern firearms and a couple of optional skills system that can be used in OSR style games). New Classes (such as Crook, Detective, Face, Heavy Gunner, Hired Killer, Martial Artist, Medic, Ninja, Psychonaut (drug powered users of magic or mental powers), Sapper, Scout, Secret Agent, Sniper, Soldier, Survivalist, Tech Expert, Treasure Hunter (think Laura Croft), Vigilante (think Punisher) and Wheelman. Racial Traits used in modern based games (Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Halfling, Half-Orc and Human). Chapter five covers all of the different weapons both modern and racial (such as the differences between a dwarven or elfin gun).

The next two chapters covers different types of armor and equipment. Magical items comes up in the next chapter (magically enhanced gun anyone?). Chapter nine tells us about the vehicles used within Modern Necessities.

Chapter ten takes us into a new section of the book, Technomancy. The use of magic with technology. I love the spell Crypto that converts physical monetary items into cryptocurrency. When you try to convert it back again, there’s a chance that the money/treasure returns at a lower value. In a similar vein, chapter 11 covers Psionics.

Chapters 12 and 13 provide information on NPCs and Hired Help. Kind of like a monster manual and lists of hirelings for modern times. There are some common types here (street punks, security guards, grey aliens, etc.) and some may be supernatural or alien in origin. I remember seeing a similar listing in the White Lies RPG and thinking how helpful it was. One of the opponents is obviously the Terminator with the serial numbers filed off.

The Extra Rules chapter is like a GMs section with information on how to make the game more cinematic. There are other rules that make the game unique if the GM wishes to add them. This is then followed by the Loot Tables in the next chapter. Different items that can be dropped by civilians, criminals, law enforcement, etc. The sixteenth chapter provides some different plot hooks with the last chapter presenting an introductory adventure for the GM to use.

Some of the examples of artwork used in Modern Necessities.

By contrast the two additional books, Cutting Edge and Single Action, have a smaller page count, 75 pages and 47 pages respectively. The ISBN for Cutting Edge is 2-370022-615949 and 2-370022-616014 for Single Action. Cutting Edge expands the Modern Necessities with information for cyberpunk and space opera games. This includes more technomancy spells, cybernetic implants, mechs, beam weapons and more. Some of the NPCs and Opponents include those inspired by Aliens, Predator, Blade Runner and more. Single Action allows the GM to run a western themed campaign with or without magic. Both books contain new character classes (six new for Cutting Edge and seven new for Single Action) and equipment.

Hey look, another familiar name.

Overall I got excited looking over these books. This is something that I could have homebrewed myself and seeing the ideas already in print give me energy as per my favorite Ray Bradbury quote. I inquired about a character sheet for Modern Necessities as I want to use this game in the upcoming Character Creation Challenge. The Scrying Dutchman responded that he was only planning to use the Old-School Essentials sheet, but he seemed open to the idea of generating a specific sheet for this game. While I love the art in the books, I was a little confused by one thing. It shows the different fantasy races in modern equipment and garb, but one race in particular was used in different pieces of art. The devil-looking Tieflings. Yet there were not gaming information for this race in Modern Necessities or the Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy Player’s Tomb. I’m sure it wouldn’t be that difficult to port the races over, especially after the players see the artwork showing goblin, tiefling and draconian characters in the book. After reading the Skill Throw System and the 2d6 Skill System, I wonder how these would play at the table. Overall I’m very happy backing this project because I started thinking about how I could use the information in a game. I don’t know if I could pull this off as a one-shot for SaltCON or try to put together a campaign. I guess it would have to depend upon finding players to sit at the table and when I get the last stretch goal reward of Bunker on the Borderlands which has an adventure in it. But these books made me want to write and homebrew for roleplaying games.

Do you have any questions about Modern Necessities or the two companion books? Have you backed any Kickstarters 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.

Posted in: Reviews, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

Planet of the Apes RPG Kickstarter Reward

Written by TardisCaptain
What I saw when I opened up my box with my POTA RPG rewards.

And in my quest to catch up on the articles that I owe all of you, here is my first look at the Planet of the Apes Roleplaying Game Kickstarter rewards. This box arrived in late August. With how busy things had been between conventions and real life baloney, this is the first time I’ve had a chance to sit down and go through it all.

Because I was a backer of the Kickstart campaign, I had received a PDF of the core rulebook early. This allowed me to use the system in the 2025 Character Creation Challenge. Thanks to the release of the Quickstart Rules, I was able to run a scenario at a past SaltCON. The players had a blast with the scenario. I talked a lot about the system in the Character Creation Challenge entry, but if you are familiar with the D6 Star Wars or Ghostbusters game, you’ll see this game as a spiritual successor and easy to pick up. The new system is called D6MV (Magnetic Variant). I had to make sure it was really a D6 system and not the disaster that came with the Cowboy Bebop Kickstarter. I’ll never make that mistake again when backing an RPG on Kickstarter.

With the level of backing that I had done in the 2024 campaign, I received the following items. A hard-bound core rulebook (See below). An 8×11 art print of the cover on really nice paper. A pad of POTA RPG character sheets. A double sided blueprint poster (the starship fan in me loved this one). A metallic Simian coin (one of the bonus rewards) and an Ape Management patch. Incoming photos below.

The character sheet pad, blue print poster (folded) and Ape Management patch.
The Ape Management patch for size comparison and Simian coin dated with the year 3955.
The front of the blueprints showing the Liberty-Class capsule with game stats.
The back of the poster showing the ANSA Project Liberty details.
The artwork showing the cover of the core rulebook with the patch.

For how much I paid at this backing level (Gama Level), I am really pleased with how much I received from the campaign. I really wish that I would have had the money to get the two other supplements covering the ANSA astronauts and an adventure guide Into the Forbidden Zone. Eventually I’ll pick these up.

As for the hardbound book itself, it was written by Andrew E.C. Gaska and E.L. Thomas. Cover art by Bill Sienkiecz with additional art by Andrew Probert, Chris Moeller, Barron Storey, Erik Gist, Dan Dussault and Colo. The book has a copyright of 2024 with an ISBN of 978-1-962413-03-9 and was released by Magnetic Press Play and West End Games. It is full color with 308 pages and also contains two ribbon bookmarks. One additional comment on the features of the book, it has rounded corners on the open side. At first I thought the book had been damaged until I noticed that all four corners of the hardbound cover were this way. I actually like it.

An interesting, but welcome, design choice.

So now that I have the actual book in my hand (and can experience that new book smell) I’m even more excited about this game. I’ve always loved the classic Planet of the Apes series and I’m very happy that they decided to focus this game on these entries into the franchise. There are several Planet of the Apes comics by Malibu Graphics that I had collected back in the 90’s and I’m starting to wonder if I could homebrew those adventures for this game?

Within the pages of the book I really enjoyed the use of different quotes to add flavor. Some came from the movies themselves, while others appear to be original work (or from other sources I may not be familiar with). While looking at the common situational skill modifiers on page 36, I noticed that the error I had noted in the PDF version of the book (and reported to the publisher) was corrected. I don’t know if they caught it themselves or if I wasn’t the only person who reported it. One of the original aspects of the D6 Star Wars game that thrilled me was the character’s personal quote. It set the tone for the character. I found it interesting that the mute tribal humans also had quotes, in the forms of actions. There are a lot of good charts in this game for creating characters. I may have to steal some of these for NPC traits and quirks creation.

There is a solo adventure in the front of the book. I’ll have to try this out later. There is an introduction adventure in the back of the book, but it’s the same one that was contained in the Quickstart set. I was a little disappointed in this as I run these intro adventures at SaltCON and I was hoping that there would be a new adventure for me to run.

So overall, I’m really happy backing this Kickstarter campaign. I picked up these books because I could see myself playing or even running a campaign. Thanks to the people who put this together. Now has anyone seen my missing astro-nauts?

Do you have any questions about the Planet of the Apes RPG or this Kickstarter campaign? Have you backed any Kickstarters 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.

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