Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes Twitter account and the @STrekQuotes Mastodon account for the week of December 26th through January 1st.
December 26 “Why can’t you do that? Why can’t you turn a disadvantage into an advantage?” Troi- Loud as a Whisper, Stardate: 42477.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Listen Paul, everything’s gonna be alright. We’re gonna focus on one moment at a time okay, and we’re gonna do all of this slowly and carefully, because I need you out of there alive so I can kill you.” Dr. Culber- Far From Home #StarTrek #StarTrekDiscovery #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Now, from a planet out in space. There comes a lad not commonplace. A-seeking out his first embrace. He’s saving it for you. Oh, Charlie’s our new darling. Our darling, our darling. Charlie’s our new darling. We know not what he’ll do.” Uhura- Charlie X #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS
December 29 “Vic’s matrix is a little different than your standard photokinetic hologram. He can turn himself off and if he doesn’t want to appear he doesn’t appear.” O’Brien “You mean he has free will?” Nog “I’m an engineer, not a philosopher!” O’Brien- It’s Only a Paper Moon #StarTrekDS9
December 30 “My compassion guides my judgement” Archer- Dear Doctor, Date: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
December 31 “Well, it looks like a great party. You mind if we join you?” LaForge- The Next Phase, Stardate: 45892.4 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
January 1 “Aside from a hangover, you’re going to be fine.” The Doctor- The 37’s, Stardate: 48975.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
Some of the games that I plan to use in the 2023 #CharacterCreationChallenge
As I’ve mentioned before, it is always a good idea to plan ahead for a 31-day challenge. I’ve already seen quiet a few people prepping on the RPG.net forums. They are deciding upon which system(s) they wish to use. Are they going to follow a theme or just create characters randomly? 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. I also have something else in the works, but I’m not quite ready to announce it yet. Still trying to get some ducks lined up in a row.
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.
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. I also know that there is one reader who wants to see if a game will pop up that he’s never heard of. I was able to accomplish this last year with my Technoir entry.
I’ve picked up some new physical books by online auctions, trade or special sales. I’ve also done a lot of purchasing from Kickstarter, DriveThruRPG, HumbleBundle and Bundle of Holding. I even donated to a Doctors Without Borders fundraiser, for which a lot of PDF copies of different games were provided. Some of these sounded very interesting.
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.
Feel free to share this image on social media to spread the word.
Well, this isn’t the blog post I thought I’d be writing when I woke up this morning. On my way to work this morning I was informed by friends that a longtime Star Trek and role playing friend, Roger Taylor, had been found dead in his apartment. He had been having heart issues lately and when he hadn’t responded to his ex-wife’s attempts to reach him, she went over to his place to find he had passed away.
I’ve mentioned Roger a couple of times in past blog posts, recently when we had worked together on homebrewing the Star Trek Adventures stats for an alien race called The Tarn. Roger had run several RPG sessions for various friends including a lot of Star Trek by Decipher. He had homebrewed several items for the Decipher Star Trek RPG, Star Trek Adventures, Serenity and several other games. I even discovered that one of his early adventures he wrote was ported over to the Far Trek system. When we were not joking around or talking about our Star Trek organization, we were talking about games.
I first met Roger when he was working at a security guard at an IT company I was working for around 2008. I could often sneak down to the security office while on a lunch break and talk with Roger about common interests. He loved the fleet of Star Trek, Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica ships that I had set up on my desk. I think we knew we were going to be friends when we realized how much we both had a warped sense of humor. When we were discussing the (then) proposal by Madonna to remake Casablanca with a modern twist, my not-so-innocent mind altered one of the famous lines from the black and white movie. “Of all the S&M bars in the world, she had to walk into mine.” Roger was laughing so hard that he practically forgot to breathe. He would bring up this line at random times just to get a chuckle out of me.
Roger joined Starfleet Command’s Seventh Fleet and with his Star Trek knowledge and organizational skills, quickly moved up the ranks. He started a chapter-in-training which eventually became the full chapter, USS Essex. As a US Navy vet, he had served on the real life USS Essex.
He also loved baking, a pet songbird called Charley, military history (another common interest), building models, playing video games and writing. A phrase I picked up from a common friend for a situation like this was “May his/her memory always be a blessing.” I will have many memories that I will look back on when thinking about Roger. I’ll roll some dice for you in your honor soon.
To Roger’s family, I’m deeply sorry at this time. Heidi, thank you for telling me that Roger cared for me and held a lot of respect for me. I choked up a little bit when I read that message. Roger’s family has set up a GoFundMe page to help with funeral expenses. If you can, please donate.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes Twitter account and the @STrekQuotes Mastodon account for the week of December 19th through December 25th.
December 19 “Insufficient facts always invite danger.” Spock- Space Seed, Stardate: 3141.9 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“We’re not gods, or prophets… We’re people. We make mistakes.” Ezri Dax- Strange Bedfellows, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“How many?” Rios “Uh, 218 warbirds.” Raffi “Ah. 218. That’s not so bad.” Rios “True. You only have to worry about the first 109.” Raffi- Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekPicard #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
December 22 “Perhaps you are experiencing a paradoxical state-dependent associative phenomenon.” Tuvok “Déjà vu.” Janeway- Favorite Son, Stardate: 50732.4 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“When I picked you for this job, I was counting on you to give up.” Dr. T’Ana “Well maybe the old Tendi was a pushover, but a lot has changed since slightly earlier today!” Tendi- Mugato, Gumato, Stardate: 58036.4 #StarTrek #StarTrekLowerDecks #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
December 24 “The most dangerous animal is a mother protecting her young.” Picard- The Dauphin, Stardate: 42568.8 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
December 25 “In the Nexus, it’s always Christmas.” Shax- We’ll Allways Have Tom Paris, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekLowerDecks #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
So last month I made a blog post about Introducing OSR to 5E players. After I had released the post to the wilds of message boards and social media, I received a ton of very good feedback. Thank you. Some of the additional games that were suggested included Dungeon Crawl Classics, Beyond the Wall, Worlds Without Number and others. There are a few other games that I may have to check out just to read the rules.
As you can see from the photo above, I elected to go with the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game. I had the books in my possession, I really liked what I was reading. I had the option to allow certain supplements if I wanted (I’m going to allow cantrips and other add-ons) and the players could easily get a PDF of the rules from the Basic Fantasy RPG website.
Just as there were several suggestions for the rule-set, there were also several suggestions for which adventure to run. I was pouring through my library (both dead tree and PDF) to see which one stood out to me the most. In the end, I was lead by inspiration. I just happened to be looking at one of the many online freebie maps (I won’t say which one just yet just in case one of the victims… err… players might be reading this blog post.) and a lightbulb went off when I opened up one. One thing lead to another and I ended up with a little adventure in my head. I pulled out my OneNote and started writing things down. Since this only a one-shot adventure, I made it flexible with a clear goal in mind. Kind of like the type of adventure you could end up in if you went to a gaming convention.
I’m going to hold an online session zero next week. There I’m planning to set some expectations for the game. Allow the players to roll up their characters (which may be the first case of culture shock for them) and introduce myself to them. We have an in-person date set for when we will get together to actually roll some dice.
Thanks again for all of the suggestions and feedback. I plan to have a follow up post to let everyone know how it goes.
With all of the holiday shopping going on, you may have missed the announcement for the discounted Star Trek eBooks from Pocket Books. Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered with this blog post.
I think this is the first time I’ve seen a Kelvin Timeline book available on one of these sales. I’m looking forward to reading this novel and see how it compares to the movies.
All of these eBooks are available for 99 cents each. Amazon is also doing a special where you earn points for each book you buy. This can lead to free books.
When you realize you are out of the Whamageddon challenge.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes Twitter account and the @STrekQuotes Mastodon account for the week of December 12th through December 18th.
December 12 “Your brother can quote Rules of Acquisition, too. I believe his favorite is 211: Employees are the rungs on the ladder of success. Don’t hesitate to step on them.” Grimp- Bar Association, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Do you deny you were demoted for these charges, Captain? Don’t wait for the translation. Answer me now!” Chang- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Stardate: 9521.6 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Although you share the same genetic structure, the events of your life have created a unique individual.” Data- Star Trek Nemesis, Stardate: 56844.9 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
December 14 “You’re fortunate to be alive. A Klingon who betrays his captain would be immediately executed.” Marab- Affliction, Date: November 27, 2154 #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“The Ferengi call it the five stages of acquisition: infatuation, justification, appropriation, obsession, and resale.” Kim- Alice, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
December 16 “To be honest I’m glad to see this kind of change in you, Will. State your opinion and stand by it.” Erik Pressman- The Pegasus, Stardate: 47457.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
December 17 “We’re all sorry for the other guy when he loses his job to a machine. When it comes to your job, that’s different. And it always will be different.” Dr. McCoy- The Ultimate Computer, Stardate: 4729.4 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
December 18 “Ugly giant bags of mostly water.” Crystal lifeform- Home Soil, Stardate: 41463.9 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
Two days ago (hey it’s been a busy week for me) my late birthday gift of the Utopia Planitia Starfleet Sourcebook for the Star Trek Adventures role-playing game finally arrived. While I quickly snapped a picture of the book and shot it out for my social media followers, I knew that I was going to have to write a blog post detailing my first look at this book.
As a Treknologist and a big fan of the FASA entry into the Star Trek RPG market (especially using the Starship Construction Manual to homebrew several starships for the game) I was really looking forward to this book. I’ve seen several starship adaptations and homebrews on the Continuing Mission fan website for the Modiphus game and I was interested in trying my hand as well.
Now confession time, when the book was ordered a few months ago, Modiphius sent me a PDF copy of the book. Knowing that I wanted to blog about the book combined with the fact that I love the feel of a physical dead-tree version in my hands, I waited to read this book. Even when a fellow player was asking me questions from items he read on the PDF. Oh the temptation was seriously there for me to start reading previously.
So the book from Modiphius came shrink wrapped. Let’s rip this protective plastic off and dive into the book. There are 253 pages in this hardbound book. The ISBN number (for those of you looking for the dead-tree version) is 978-1-80281-032-5. The project manager was Jim Johnson, writing by Michael Dismuke, Jim Johnson, John Kennedy, Thomas Marrone, Aaron M. Pollyea and Al Spader. The book was edited by Jim Johnson (boy he must have been busy) and Keith Garrett.
Oohhhh
OK, so the first opening shows this wonderful two page spread showing the top views of several classes of Starfleet vessels. Some of these are from Star Trek Online and they are all very beautiful in color. I was very pleased to see this.
There are five chapters, an introduction and an index. The chapters cover Starfleet’s Legacy (chapter 1), Starfleet Operations (chapter 2), Design Bureau (chapter 3), Federation Spaceframes (chapter 4) and Gamemastering (chapter 5). I’m glad that the text is black on white paper (with blue highlights). I was one of many people who found the odd colored text on black in the Core Rulebook very disjointing. Also as a fan of Star Trek quotes, I love how they utilized several quotes throughout the book. The motif used in the book gives it a LCARS feel from the original series movies. That was an excellent choice.
The first chapter covers the history of Starfleet from the pre-Federation days to the 25th century. The little ‘pop-up’ stories were also scaled back and not as numerous that I’ve seen in other Modiphius books. While these are good for adding some background and history, I have found that too many are very distracting. Especially when I’m trying to do a quick search for a rule.
The second chapter is an interesting concept in a role-playing resource book. It covers life on a starship while serving in Starfleet. What are your day-to-day events? Key locations of a starship are detailed. How would the characters interact with the computer? What do characters do during downtime? What happens during an evacuation? There are even sections on replication and salvages.
The Design Bureau in Chapter three is probably where I’m going to spend a lot of time in the future. There are sections for starships, small craft, space stations and more. This includes various starships talents that are used in the game. I liked seeing a guide to the different types of beam weapons (what is a Free Electron Laser vs an Antiproton Beam?) and torpedoes (example: photon vs photonic). There is even information on the Mark I Emergency Medical Hologram.
Chapter four brings us 70 Federation Spaceframes for starships, stations and small craft. This covers designs from the 22nd to 25th century. Just as I poured through the Federation, Klingon and Romulan Ship Recognition Manuals from FASA and the Starships book by Decipher, I could see myself returning to this chapter many times in the future. I knew that I couldn’t spend too much time in this chapter (I was on a time deadline to complete this blog post) but I loved the graphical and data setup (especially with the logo used for the various eras). I’ll try to model my homebrews similar to this setup (without exactly copying it). I was a little shocked to see the Hermes-class scout as seen in the Star Fleet Technical Manual. Possibly because it was mentioned in the background radio traffic in Star Trek: The Motion Picture and seen as “Okudagrams” in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Wait, they also gave us the stats for the NASA Space Shuttle that was used from 1981 to 2011? OK that deserves a chef’s kiss. (fingers to lips) *smack*
I couldn’t get my flash to work on this image, but the pages are very beautiful.
And finally chapter seven brings us to some additional game master rules which are optional. This includes a jury rig role and building specialty shuttles while out on missions (it’s got to have the fins and dials). There are also several starship centric mission briefs that GMs can use.
More ships on the back inside cover.
So am I happy with this book? Oh yea. I think it will go a long way in helping me homebrew various starships for the game. As a Treknologist, I am very impressed with the graphics and level of detail so far. There are not rows and rows of equipment charts as there were in the FASA construction manual, but it’s also a different game. There are plenty of samples of starships from a wide variety of eras so if I needed some inspiration for something, I’m sure that I could find it. I think that both players and GMs will find a lot of valuable information between these covers.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes twitter account for the week of December 5th through December 11th.
December 5 “Two people aren’t even enough for a Denobulan marriage… a proper one, anyway.” Dr. Phlox- Doctor’s Orders, Date: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Why am I here? What was I meant to be? V’ger hopes to touch its creator to find its answers.” Spock “Is this all that I am? Is there nothing more?” Kirk- Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Stardate: 7410.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
December 8 “Irony is often a source of humour.” Tuvok- Workforce, Stardate: 54584.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Our Gods are dead. Ancient Klingon warriors slew them a millennia ago. They were more trouble than they were worth.” Worf- Homefront, Stardate: 49170.65 #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Many of the young people want to know more about the offland. They’re attracted to stories of a faster pace of life.” Anij “Most of my people who live that faster life would sell their souls to slow it down.” Picard- Star Trek: Insurrection #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC
December 4th is National Dice Day. So to celebrate, here is my collection of clickity-clackity shiny math rocks. Some are the originals from the 80’s boxed sets, others are cheap dollar store purchases and even others are made by a family business. Or I wonder if the Game Master will notice that I’m rolling all 20’s in my special Jason Fox Lucky Dice?
Which dice deserve to be placed in the Dice Dunce Chair? Which dice should I reach for first when it’s time to participate in a role-playing game?
I can’t wait to actually throw some dice soon. Send me pictures of your dice to Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com
