Category: Spy-Fi

Prepping for the 2024 Character Creation Challenge

Written by TardisCaptain December 24, 2023January 11, 2024 2 Comments

Some of the games that I plan to use in the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge

For the three previous years of the Character Creation Challenge (in 2021, 2022 and 2023), I’ve prepped ahead of time to make the challenge a little bit easier. Especially since I try to use a wide variety of games in January 2024. I’ve already had some 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.

If you are posting on any of the social media websites, please use the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge so that other participants can find them. I love seeing what other RPG fans have come up with.

The photo above shows the physical books that I’ll be using. Some have been gifts, others were picked up at local gaming conventions or found at thrift stores. I also have a collection of games purchased from Kickstarter, DriveThruRPG, HumbleBundle and Bundle of Holding.

I’m once again using a spreadsheet with the date, day and game type to schedule my games. This way I won’t have two fantasy games next to each other. I can also plan a game that may take more time and energy on a day off. This is also a good idea for those dates I know are going to be busy, I can schedule the systems I’m more familiar with for these days.

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. And I will have all of the character sheets printed out before the challenge starts. I’ve found that this helps me get everything ready.

My entries will be blog posts on this website. Then I will post links on my various social media sites along with the three main roleplaing message forums at RPG.net, RPGpub and RPGgeek.

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.

You can also post your characters on my discord server in the #Character-Creation-Challenge channel. 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.

Role Playing Games, Spy-Fi

RPGaDay2023 Day 27: Game you’d like a new edition of

Written by TardisCaptain August 27, 2023August 25, 2023

Day 27 of the #RPGaDAY2023 Challenge and our topic is “Game you’d like to see a new edition of”. I had to think about this one. Various games such as Doctor Who Roleplaying Game, Dungeons and Dragons and others have new editions. Alien, Star Trek Adventures and Dune Adventures in the Imperium are new enough that they don’t need new editions, yet. The recent WotC OGL fiasco has inspired Basic Fantasy and White Lies to update their editions to remove OGL components.

Just as the unplayed games entry used inspiration from my collection, I decided to look that way again. As I look at my shelf full of books, one immediately jumps out.

In 2005, AEG released SpyCraft version 2.0. I even remember playing it at a friends house with one of the authors of the game. Later the license would transfer over to Crafty Games along with FantasyCraft. However it’s been a long time since 2005. I’m wondering if an RPG year is like a dog year? I know it’s that way for computers. A newer version with streamlined rules (SpyCraft 2.0 is a D20 system, but it’s a bit on the crunchy side) would probably sell like hotcakes. Plus I’m a sucker for picking up espionage roleplaying games.

What game would you like to see a new edition of? 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.

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

2023 Character Creation Challenge Day 19: The Agency

Written by TardisCaptain January 19, 2023April 25, 2023 1 Comment

I picked up The Agency: A Roleplaying Game of Sixties Spies and the Supernatural in the same Doctors Without Borders charity sale that I picked up When the Moon Hangs Low. I’ve always been interested in espionage games because I am a big fan of the Spy-Fi genre and I wanted to use this one for the Character Creation Challenge. The world setup for The Agency is that the players play the part of 1960’s British spies that are trying to protect the United Kingdom (and the world) from supernatural horrors. Think James Bond and The Avengers vs vampires and evil cultists. The Agency would recruit witnesses to help them fight this threat. This usually resulted in a wide variety of characters

There is a one page character sheet and the creation summary starts on page 25. The first step listed is to create a concept. Basically a background and occupation for the character using the spy series and movies from the 60’s and 70’s as inspiration. This character will be a photographer who shoots both wild animals and wild women. The next step is to pick a name that a 60’s/70’s espionage action hero would have. It gave a list of possible first and last names to choose from or you could choose your own. Pulling names from the list, this character will be named Simon Steele.

A character sketch is the next step. While I didn’t actually need to draw my character (thank the gods) I did have to come up with three things that people would notice when they encountered the character. This would include fashion, mannerisms and a prop. For his prop he either carried a camera with him or a viewing lens to “get the shot”. When he wasn’t trying to get the best photo, he was trying to get under the skirt of a willing model. Steele always wore tight fitting clothing fashionable for the London swinging scene with tweed coats and looked like Michael Caine.

Finally we are coming to the skills of the character. There are two sets of skills. Action (fight drive, athletics, etc.) and Ingenuity: (evade, technology, wit, etc.). For Steele, I selected Persuade at 5 (he had to encourage his targets to pose the right way for the photo shoot) and Track at 4 (he had to find the subjects he wanted to photograph both in the urban and jungle environment. For those skills I didn’t select, they are assumed to be ranked at 3 dice.

What are the heroic bonuses and flaws that the character has. This was explained in the rules as “something that would set the character apart both in a positive way and as a flawed human. There is a list provided in the game, but I wonder if the player came up with a good suggestion if the Director would allow it? For Steele, his bonus is resources. He was born into a rich family that allowed him to turn his hobby into a career. Lustful is the flaw that fit this character to a T.

The rules explains that all characters start with one Karma point. This can be spent to power a bonus. Present on the character sheet are three status boxes (Dazed, Disadvantaged and Down, this sounds like the character’s health). There is also a section for Motifs. The rules explain that this is a player resource instead of one used by the character. It can be used to heal or aid a fellow player. The motif is a recurring imagery or fictional element associated with the character. The rules kinda cut off here “What do they do when (line ends)” so I’m not quite sure what this is exactly. Hopefully it explains a little bit better later in the book. Looking down, it appears that if you can incorporate the motif into the roleplay, then you can give an automatic success to another player like they had used a karma point or heal themselves. Looking at the sample characters there was “change of costume”, “flashbacks” or “party lifestyle”. I’m still not certain what to put here so I borrowed “riches & excess” from one of the sample characters. Here is the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

I’m not much of a “fashonista” so thinking of the look of the character was different for me. Do I go too campy and stereotypical? I tried to keep it within the spirit of the game.

Lots of good introductions to the world. I would have loved to seen a section of how the dice are used in the game. I know there are threat pools and the like but are the players attempting to beat a number or the Director’s rolls? I finally found the answer on page 49. When presented with a challenge the player rolls 3-5 dice (depending upon the skill used) and any roll of 4-6 is counted as a success. The Director rolls threat dice (number depending upon the difficulty) and if the player has more successes than the Director, the player has accomplished the action. For the total number of successes, the player can describer what happened. I guess that gives them some narration in the game as well.

I would be interested in play testing the game. After the play test, I’d probably know more if I wanted to play in a campaign or homebrew for this system.

Additional Notes:

It felt like I was very busy today besides creating this character. I was also trying to decide what games I was going to schedule for the upcoming Salt-Con. In one way it was sad because the lone Dune: Adventures in the Imperium table was quickly filled up. However, it looks like I might get a chance to actually play the James Bond RPG. That would be kewl.

Coming Up Next:

Cyber Generation 2nd edition

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, No One Lives Forever, Role Playing Games, Spy-Fi

2023 Character Creation Challenge Day 10: The D6 System

Written by TardisCaptain January 10, 2023April 25, 2023

As a fan of Star Wars, I eagerly jumped into the West End Games D6 system for Star Wars The Roleplaying Game. As with most games based off of intellectual property, the contract ended and West End Games stopped selling their books. But they still had a perfectly good RPG system. So they released The D6 System which is the selection for my Day 10 entry into the Character Creation Challenge. I was able to pick up this book last year in an online auction.

The D6 System is a generic RPG that could be used for any setting or era. So I will be making another spy for UNITY named Paul Reynolds (code named: Cold Crown).

So on page 4 we find the character creation steps. The first real step is to distribute attribute dice between the character’s attributes. These are Coordination, Endurance, Reflexes, Strength, Knowledge, Perception, and Mechanical. When the GM is making their game, they could add or subtract any of these attributes (like magical or psychic, etc.). Since I don’t have a GM, I just kept the ones listed on the character creation template in the back of the book. The book recommends 21 dice to distribute. A die can be broken down into pips (Three +1s or a +1 and a +2) that can be part of the distribution. I wrote down my choices on the creation template. Next there was 7 dice of skills to select and allocate. I decided to take the skills that I thought a spy would need.

On our next step, we write down the character’s name and descriptions. I added these to the regular character sheet. Step 7 has us choosing advantages and disadvantages (which some GMs may see as optional). It is possible to gain or lose extra skill dice. I looked over the list and it was primarily disadvantages. After reading the options I decided that the character had Extraordinary Hearing (+2D) but Always Needed A Backup Plan (-2D) so it evened out. Next was any special abilities (which there wasn’t any since this was an espionage campaign). But I did use this time to note down the character’s fate points (1) and body points (20+ roll of my Endurance score, hey I get to roll something, which resulted in 33). There is a movement score on the sheet and notes about how to use that score in the GMs section, but I did not find out how to determine the character’s starting movement score.

And finally was the starting money and equipment. I determined that UNITY was providing everything he needed for his mission so I selected some standard spy equipment. Here is the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

Just as I was getting ready to start this blog entry, I realized I had printed out the the character creation template and not the actual sheet. Luckily I was able to find it quickly and print one out.

For a generic system, there is a lot of blank spots listed for the gamemaster to fill in. There are alternate names for the attributes. I guess if the GM thought it would sound better for their game. This almost seemed like it was a book for someone who wanted to generate their own D6 system. This would include making templates for the types of characters the GM would allow. That would have helped.

I do remember the D6 system well from my early playing days. I could easily see myself playing one of these D6 systems in a campaign. I might even homebrew for it, but it’s pretty low on the list of systems that I’d adapt stuff for.

Some… um… interesting art that was selected for use in this book.

Additional Notes:

I had a poster on one of the message boards comment on my Fantasy Craft character. He agreed that the system was too crunchy as well. He had attempted to make a Spycraft character in 2022 and scrapped it because of how complex it was.

Coming Up Next:

XD20 2nd Edition

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, No One Lives Forever, Role Playing Games, Spy-Fi

2023 Character Creation Challenge Day 4: Tiny Spies

Written by TardisCaptain January 4, 2023April 25, 2023

Last year during a sale on DriveThruRPG I picked up a copy of Tiny Dungeon 2nd Edition just in time for the 2022 Character Creation Challenge. So I used it and was pretty impressed with the system. Gallant Knight Games had released several “Tiny” RPG books covering different genres. When some of them went on sale last year, I picked them up as well allowing me to use another one for the 2023 challenge. So for day 4 I selected the espionage game, Tiny Spies.

The superspy creation rules start on page 16. The first to select the archetype of the character you are going to play. These are like character classes and consist of Agent (solo spy), Face (confidence man), Driver (vehicle expert), Hacker (tech expert) and Soldier (tough guy). Since I’m only creating one character instead of a team, I’m going to select Agent. This earns me 6 hit points and an additional trait (usually a character starts with three, but the agent is more well-rounded). Traits are specialties that your character is really good at. Being a superspy, I thought the character should have Agile Defense, Charismatic, Eidetic Memory and Perceptive. The next item to select is the weapons proficiency. Being someone who needs to blend in, I selected Light Ranged thinking he would be a marksman with a pistol that he could keep hidden under his jacket. There is a background trait that I need to select. This is the experience that the character learned before they became an agent. Out of the seven available, I selected Analyst. The character was good with putting two and two together which originally got him a job with a shipping company. This assisted him when he was recruited as an agent for UNITY. The last step was to select a Belief. This is a simple statement that is a core of your character. There were six examples listed and from those I selected “Someone Has To Do It.” I figured he had put some puzzle pieces together and realized that he had to help make sure that things didn’t get worse.

So that was all that was on the character creation steps. I came up with the name of Daniel Drake. Drake was a suave looking gentleman but very determined to accomplish his mission. The equipment section describes to the GM how they could handle the allocation of gear and vehicles to the agents. Since Drake is a member of UNITY, he would obtain his gear from the Santa and the Toymaker Division. I did write down a few sample items to help fill out the character sheet. I’m going to declare this character done.

Afterthoughts:

Just as Tiny Dunegeons was simplistic and rules light, Tiny Spies is the same. The system sounds pretty upfront and easy to learn. I’d love to run or participate in a couple of one-shots to see how the system really works out. Especially the interesting chase rules.

I could see myself homebrewing for this game.

Additional Notes:

I would like to thank everyone who has been linking back to my website. It’s not required, but very much appreciated. I’ve noticed a lot of participants no only on the message boards but on social media as well.

Please let me know if I’m missing a website on the Character Creation Challenge section of the website. If you are thinking of starting now, you can do so.

Coming Up Next:

Swashbuckling Adventures

This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server.

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

2022 Character Creation Challenge after action report

Written by TardisCaptain February 2, 2022January 11, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Spy-Fi

2022 Character Creation Challenge Day 25: White Lies

Written by TardisCaptain January 25, 2022 1 Comment

DwD Studios has put out several games that I’ve featured in the Character Creation Challenge. Earlier this month I created a character for Covert Ops. Last year I used FrontierSpace on one of the dates. For this entry, I’m using their espionage game called White Lies. This game is based on the Swords & Wizadry Whitebox (an original D&D retroclone so in essence this is a d20 based system). At the time of publishing this blog entry, there was no cost to download a PDF of the game (or any of it’s supplements) from DriveThruRPG. I am tempted to get a PoD copy of this game as well.

White Lies is billed as a roleplaying game about doing bad things for good reasons. Let’s make a seedy underworld spy that works for Bureau 19 (the agency in the game). The attribute generation is the standard 3d6 going down the line. STR, INT, WIS, CON, DEX and CHA. An Intelligence score of 13 or higher earns a 5% bonus to all experience point awards. The same with Charisma or your classes prime attribute. I wonder if these bonuses would stack? While there is basic character creation at the start of the book, an advanced supplemental training is also available in the back of the book if Admins allow it. For action checks (not attack rolls) you roll a d6 and add any modifiers. A roll of 4 or above is a success for standard actions. The Admin may determine that some tasks require a higher target number.

After rolling the attributes, you can select your class. The minimum prime requirement for each class is 9. We can select from Confiscators (thieves), Eliminators, Infiltrators (con men), Investigators and Transporters. The additional supplements gives the options for Recon Scouts and Telepaths. With the high Dexterity score that I rolled, I’m going to select Transporter. I filled in the special skills and bonuses. This character also starts with a vehicle worth $50,000 (nice).

Speaking of equipment, agents automatically start with a semi-auto pistol, an operative kit, one other equipment kit of choice (I selected Technicians to fix the car if needed) and 3d6x100 starting cash. The basic for the AC is the lower number is better. But the RAW gives the Admin the option to use the ascending armor class. I’m sticking with the basic.

Add up armor class, select languages, write down movement (based on weight carried) and roll 1d6 for HP (add any CON modifier). Luckily I rolled a 6. I did look at the supplemental training in the back of the book and I selected Drive.

Ronald Denton wanted to be a race car driver every since he saw his first race. He learned all about cars while growing up. Unfortunately, no one wanted to hire a race car driver from the coldest wastelands of South Dakota. A friend hired him on to help with transporting cars from one side of the states to another. During one of these runs, Denton assisted an agent escaping through some treacherous roads. Impressed with his driving skills, the agent arranged for Bureau 19 to hire Denton and he hasn’t looked back since. He eagerly went through the training needed to become an agent.

Afterthoughts:

I am really curious to see how this game would play at the table. I could see myself playing it and homebrewing it. The book was pretty well laid out. I wasn’t searching too hard for information. An index would have been nice at the back of the book, but the PDF is bookmarked. There were a few equipment items that had “cost” listed as the price. I’m not certain if this is instructions for the Admin to determine the cost or if it was in error. Nothing else stood out to me editorial wise.

Additional Notes:

Another blog has popped up and been added to the list at the Character Creation Challenge page. Yes new blogs can come up any time. If I’m missing any, please email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com.

We are in the last week of the challenge. The finish line is in sight.

Coming Up Next:

The Original Travel

Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Spy-Fi

2022 Character Creation Challenge Day 15: Covert Ops

Written by TardisCaptain January 15, 2022January 17, 2022 1 Comment

Day 15 of the Character Creation Challenge and I’ll be using the Covert Ops RPG from DwD Studios. This is part of their Barebones system.

For the previous entries of the various espionage RPGs, I’ve been creating characters based in the 1960’s. This character will be a spy in the modern times. Let’s see where the game takes us. I’m going to try to go as random as possible and play were the dice take me.

There are four abilities. Strength, Dexterity, Logic and Willpower which have a score from 1-100. Then there are ten skills which are Academic, Leader, Detective, Martial Artist, Medic, Pilot, Scout, Soldier, Technician and Thief. These have a level between 1 to 6. Characters also get Bones at the start of each session which can be used as a type of heroic luck (re-roll, automatic success, increased damage, etc.).

A chart is provided with different origins for your character. You can pick one or roll D100 to select randomly. I rolled a Medic. From the listing I got to choose one advantage and I selected +5 to my LOG score. For the abilities, I could select from some pre-rolled scores or roll 5D+30 four times and assign them. Wanting to roll dice, I let them fly. This resulted in 54, 49, 64 and 52. I spent a bone to re-roll the 49 and got a 61. Next for the skills you can select a primary skill or roll for a random. This skill is marked with +20. A secondary skill (also picked or randomly selected) is marked with a +10. Sticking with the dice I ended up with primary of scout and a secondary of martial artist. Now you can select or randomly roll one skill to gain a level in. I selected Soldier since I also wanted this character to be good with weapons. I also spent a second bone to get a level in another skill. So far this is turning out to be an interesting character.

The game wants you to select two descriptors for your character. One that is beneficial and one that is not. If you use these during role play, it can earn you development points (this game’s version of XP). While there are random charts for Master Villain descriptors, no additional suggestions are made for player characters. I really had a hard time coming up with two of them. I wished that I could have asked the GM if these could be developed while in play. Next came a Moral Code (an interesting way to do alignment)

For equipment each agent gets a basic weapon (I’m glad that I didn’t have to buy it like I did in other games) and an Operative Pack (very basic spy equipment). Then I had six allowance points to buy other gear (I can get six more by spending a bone if I want). Some equipment was pretty standardized, the other options were vague enough that allowed players to outfit their characters as desired if the GM allowed it and if they had the points for it. Here is the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

I like the percentage system in RPGs. I wonder how the system runs at the table. As I was creating this character, I could see where some homebrewing of characters from other sources could come into play. Now I just need a way to run/participate a game at a table or online.

Additional Notes:

This character was completed on Day 15, but with the technical issues on my website it wasn’t posted until January 17th. I posted a picture of the character sheet on social media. One of the unexpected benefits is that the DwD Studios twitter account responded to the post complementing the character. I love having the interaction with the creators/publisher.

Coming Up Next:

The Computer is your friend. Paranoia 2nd Edition

Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Spy-Fi

2022 Character Creation Challenge Day 10: Modern Age

Written by TardisCaptain January 10, 2022 1 Comment

I remember looking at the rulebook for Modern Age before buying it and I was impressed. Within a few minutes of looking at the book, I knew the basic concept of the system. It bugs me when I have to flip past 20-50 pages just to find the basic rules in a rulebook. Remember publishers, players want to find the details quickly and not have to go through a ton of fluff to find it. Yes the setting is important, but it shouldn’t overshadow the rules. So I’ve elected to use this system for my latest entry into the Character Creation Challenge.

Speaking of setting, Modern Age is a system that can be used for any type of setting from pirates on the sea to the industrial revolution to current times to near-future. The system is also used for The Expanse RPG so you can go into some science fiction settings as well. There is a “World of Lazarus” setting included with the rules, but what caught my eye was the Agents of ACRONYM in the Modern Age Companion book. Creating another spy? Yes please.

So let’s make Raymond Ray, freelance intelligence agent that started out as a member of the CIA before retiring from the agency in the 1960’s. He held a brief position with UNITY’s North American branch before deciding that he could help more people by being an independent. While the goals of UNITY and the CIA were noble, they tended to focus on the big things (and they still consider him an asset to use). Ray noticed that smaller governments, organizations and even individuals needed assistance in the modern world just about to enter the new decade.

Modern Age characters start out with nine abilities with scales ranging from -1 to +4 with 1 being the average for PCs. These are Accuracy, Communication, Constitution, Dexterity, Fighting, Intelligence, Perception, Strength and Willpower. I’ve noticed that I haven’t been defining a lot of abilities in my character creations/reviews. So if there is an ability that isn’t very obvious and I fail to define it, please let me know. In Modern Age, you can add the total of a 3d6 roll and compare the results to a chart and take them in order, or you can arrange them how you see fit or you can buy abilities (all attributes are 0 and you have 12 points to spread throughout with no attribute higher than 4 or lower than 0). Because I like rolling the dice I’m going to randomly roll then assign them to attributes. As the character creation process continues my character will earn Ability Focuses. Specialized items under an ability (example Accuracy could have a focus of thrown weapons) will gain +2 bonuses to rolls when using the focus.

The next step is determining Ray’s background. I rolled Middle Class-Suburban. While there are different backgrounds, they all give the same bonus. +1 to an ability score, select two focuses and two talents (which haven’t been explained yet) and roll on a benefits table. I selected Investigator for Ray’s profession. He was studying to become a detective when the CIA recruited him out of college. This profession brought about another round of items filled out on the character sheet. After this was the character’s Drive, or what motivates them to act. Some of these in the basic book are good. The companion book only had info on making custom drives. So I’ll select Survivor. Ray survived his time in the CIA and UNITY and knows that things may get worse if he doesn’t prepare better.

Next came sections on resources, health (already determined from the steps above), defense (10+Dex) and speed. I lost track of the process from here as things started going in different directions. So I buckled down and wrapped up the character by selecting some equipment I thought a freelance intelligence agent would have. I think I got everything, but there are still a few blank spots on the character sheet (beyond the background or description). A quick look at the index didn’t help (ugh). I think I’m done, so here is the sheet.

Afterthoughts:

While I’m glad that I have the books in PDF format (and I used multiple books for this character), I really wish that I had them in a dead tree version. I find that flipping pages and setting bookmarks is a lot easier when trying to learn a new game or create a character for the first time.

For the most part, the process moved smoothly. A little better explanation of talents before you had to start choosing them would have helped. Living on the Edge in the character creation process was not listed in the actual talents, but Living on the Fringe was. So? The Same?

I think this book deserves more of a deeper dive than just cracking it open and trying to put a character together. I’m sure there is some good stuff in here, but a little jumbled up. Not as bad as some other games, but enough that I got frustrated with the character creation process. If I was participating a game (and I really want to try this system) I’d probably see about writing up a character creation guide with a little bit more focus for new players. This is a sandbox game (which is good) but it really needs the GM to confirm a few details before creating a character.

Additional Notes:

I had the owner of the Subplot Kudzu blog contact me via Facebook to let me know that they were participating in the #CharacterCreationChallenge. Thank you, I’ve added the blog to the list of participants. On the RPG.net forum thread, someone mentioned that we’ve already surpassed the page count from the 2021 challenge.

Coming Up Next:

Farscape Role Playing Game

Character Creation Challenge, No One Lives Forever, Role Playing Games, Spy-Fi

2022 Character Creation Challenge Day 7: Espionage!

Written by TardisCaptain January 7, 2022

Today’s entry is Espionage!: The Secret Agent Role Playing Game (1st edition). This was published in 1983 by Hero Games and is based off of the Champions super-hero RPG. While I’ve had a chance to play a few super-hero based RPGs, Champions had never been one of them. So this will be a new experience for me. I had picked up this game when I won an online auction that contained several different RPGs from the 80’s. Some of the other games will be used in future 2022 Character Creation Challenge entries.

In the 2021 #CharacterCreationChallenge I created characters for several different espionage based RPGs like Top Secret, James Bond, Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes, Spycraft 2nd edition, and Top Secret: New World Order. I had tied all of those characters together in two methods. They were all inspired by characters seen in The World’s End movie and they were replacement agents for a depleted group known as UNITY from the video game series, No One Lives Forever. While I was thinking about making more new agents for UNITY, a read through of the character creation process dissuaded that idea. So I’m going to make a CIA agent since that is what the game is built around.

Devron Marcus was a college student trying to earn a degree in business management so he could follow in his father’s footsteps. Just before Marcus was planning to graduate, his father was killed in Europe in an armed robbery. During his personal investigation, Marcus uncovered evidence that his father had been targeted by East Germany’s Secret Police (the Stasi). A CIA agent, working on the case, took Marcus under his wing and assisted him in confirming the plot and allowing the CIA to respond. This lead to Marcus being recruited by the CIA after graduation. Officially Marcus works as a business salesman working in European markets for the company his father use to work for. Unofficially, he carries out assignments for the CIA.

The primary characteristics for an Espionage! character is Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Body Pips (think hit points), Intelligence, Ego, Presence and Comeliness. While the average person starts with 8 in all scores, the average character (being a little bit more heroic) starts with 10. Each new character starts with 50 Character Points to spend on stats and packages. You can gain additional points by lowering some stats or taking disadvantages. Different attributes had different costs (there’s a lot of math so far in this game) so I selected the stats that I felt a college graduate the age of 25 would have. From these you can generate Figured Characteristics which are Physical Defense, Energy Defense, Speed, Recovery, Endurance Pips and Stun Pips. Thanks to the power of math I come up with the base scores, which I can then improve with any Character Points if I so elect.

I added the skills/advantages/disadvantages from the two CIA packages that I took. I then used the remaining Character Points to add some additional skills that I thought that Agent Marcus should have. There is a section for equipment in the book, but no spots on the character sheet for it. So I skipped that part thinking it would happen in play.

So the breakdown of the system is roll 3d6 and try to get a number lower than a certain amount for a success. Getting that target number to roll under could be a little complicated depending upon the skill/stat level and other factors. It could be interesting to see in play. I wonder if there are any YouTube videos of the Espionage in an RPG session to watch? There are several other espionage RPGs I’d probably play first before this one, but I could have my mind changed. Here is the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

There was only one package in this edition to create characters, and that was for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). I wonder if the 2nd edition of the game had more packages for characters to choose from if you wanted to play MI-6 or an independent agency (like UNITY). Hopefully someday I’ll get a chance to find out. I could tell this was a first edition of a game, it was a little hard to read in some sections. While I know I played at least one session of Fantasy Hero by the same company, I don’t recall any big desire to purchase or play releases from Hero Games.

There is some player notes in the back of the book that advised against turning the game into a shooting fest. I was actually glad to see this. In other spy-fi games I’ve been worried that the game would turn into a merc/shooting-fest. I’d be more interested in actual espionage action instead of run-and-gun style action when playing an espionage style game. Yes some shooting can happen, but if it happens too many times, you’re not much of a “secret” agent are you?

Additional Notes:

The number of new blogs found seem to be coming up in twos. I’ve added the latest two finds to the Character Creation Challenge page. I appreciate those that have linked back to my site. Thank you.

Coming Up Next:

Star Trek Adventures- Klingon