Welcome to Day 4 of the #CharacterCreationChallenge. Today I am creating a character for Fantasy Quest, the solo RPG that was presented in the 1982 book, Dicing with Dragons. I reviewed this book last year and discovered that it contained an RPG to help introduce readers to the concept of playing a roleplaying game. From what read, it sounds more like the solo Tunnels and Trolls adventures that were also popular during that time-frame.
I’m not going to go into the statistics of the book itself since that is basically covered by the review. The character creation instructions for Fantasy Quest start on page 16. The character sheet is only one page.
The first thing we are instructed to do is to pick a character name. For this guy I’m going to call him Alric Hinman. The three characteristics that make up Alric are up next. These include Combat, Strength and Fortune. Combat is the character’s attack and defense ability. Strength the physical power of the character but also includes his health. While the Wound Factor isn’t an attribute, there is a section on the sheet for it and it represents how much damage your character can do when a successful attack is made. It starts out as a 1d6 since Alric already has an ordinary sword. Fortune is a luck score basically. All three are determined by rolling 3d6 and adding them together. I did this.
Now we are instructed to equip the character. As mentioned above, Alric already has a sword. The rules state that he already has a normal shield, a backpack and some rations. I’m instructed to roll 3d6 for the number of gold pieces that the character starts out with. As for any other equipment, apparently it is found through the adventure.
So I think I’m done because the next section starts talking about combat. It’s pretty simple, the initiative is listed in the description of the encounter. If you are attacking, roll 3d6 and if you roll matches or beats the Combat Factor (CF) of your opponent, you hit him. You roll the damage of the weapon you are using which is subtracted from their Strength Factor (SF). When a combatant’s SF reaches zero, they are dead. Your character can eat a ration to regain two SF points. Your character can find equipment and magical items along the way. It’s pretty simplistic, but was written to go through the solo adventure “The Eye of the Dragon.” Now that I have a character, I’ll probably attempt this solo adventure after the challenge is done. Here is the scanned completed character sheet.
Afterthoughts:
The system and creation process was pretty simplistic. But I wasn’t expecting much as this was presented as an example of solo roleplaying. I’ll have to go through the adventure and blog about it later.
Additional Notes:
On the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server I had a reader ask if they could create a starship as a character. My answer was a resounding “Yes!!!” The Enterprise, the Millennium Falcon, the Serenity, the Galactica. They are all characters in the show. I had actually been toying with the idea of doing 31 ships from different RPGs. It would give me a chance to create another ship using the FASA Starship Construction rules. But I still have several different core systems to go through (and keep stumbling across new ones). So one year I’ll do that, but not this year.
Coming Up Next:
I finally get to create a character in Top Secret S.I.
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.
My Wednesdays are usually pretty busy. So when I was prepping for the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge, I made sure that my Wednesday’s entries were systems that seemed simple. I hope that I have chosen well for Day 3 with White Star: Galaxy Edition. A sci-fi based roleplaying game using swords and wizardry inspired rules. It appears to borrow from Star Wars, Cyberpunk, the Borg from Star Trek, Firefly, Flash Gordon, Aliens, Transformers, Guardians of the Galaxy and more.
White Star: Galaxy Edition is written by James M. Spahn and was published by Barrel Rider Games. There is no copyright date in the document itself, but it was added to DriveThruRPG in 2017. There are 336 pages in the book and the character sheet is four pages long. The character creation rules start on page 11. So I’ve grabbed some dice and let’s get to it.
Being an OSR inspired game, the standard D&D attributes are present and can be rolled in order with 3d6. But on page 12 there is a house rule that states you can roll Heroic Attributes by rolling 4d6, dropping the lowest die and placing the scores to the attributes that I wish to use. I’m electing to go this route. Even without the extra die, my rolls were much better than they were yesterday. Since I knew I wanted to play a Jedi… err… Star Knight, I placed my best attribute in Wisdom.
Instead of using Good, Neutral and Evil alignments, this game has a house rule that uses Star, Nebula and Void respectively. Your starting credits is 3d6x10, which is pretty standard in OSR games.
There is another optional rules for “Serials” which helps generate a background for the character. Since I was in a dice rolling mood, I decided to try it out. For Homeworld I rolled Low-Gravity (resulting in +1 Dex but -1 Str). With Family I rolled a 5 so my family actively attempts to act against you (weird, but it may lead to an idea). For his Youth experience I rolled a 3 for Refuge (I can find food and water in urban environments on a certain d6 roll). Next was his First Adventure which was a 2 for Stowed away on a Starship (hey this gives him a remain silent option on a d6 roll). Next is an Adversary and I rolled a 2 for a Former Lover who is jilted and out to get revenge on the character (well that comes out of the blue for what I was thinking so far). If you have an Adversary, you’ve also got to have an Ally. On the Allies table I rolled a 6 which gave him Corporate Benefactor (Hmmm…..). The last item is a Critical Event and a 4 was rolled. This is “According to an Alien Mystic or Star Knight, you have a great destiny” which results in an automatic success in one savings throw each level. Now this fits the concept I’ve had so far. In the shades of Traveller, the character could have died had I rolled the wrong critical event.
The next chapter (I’m just following the flow of the book) is the Character Classes. There are standard sci-fi related options to choose from. As I mentioned above, I had already selected Star Knight. From the description, these are a kind of space cleric that has meditations instead of spells. At first level there is no meditations that I can select now (just like clerics in OSR). There are some limitations to weapons and outfits/armor, but wielding a Star Sword earns a +2 to all to-hit rolls and he receives one at first level with no cost. There are also some other optional classes that the GM may or may not allow depending upon the campaign.
I was finally able to scroll down to page 89 where the Skills were listed (and listed as optional). I’m going to be adding the skills to this character sheet. Each character gets three skills, one standard with the class and two selected by the character and they have a rank of 2. These are also adjusted by the attribute modifier. You would roll a d6 and if you roll under your skill, then you succeed. There are rules to increase or add to the skills through the campaign, but no skill can have a rating higher than 5. After reading the descriptions, I added the two optional skills to start with. All other remaining skills have a score of 1.
The next chapter covers Equipment. The first thing it breaks down is the money values. Credits, Sub-Credits (10 equals a Credit) and Chits (1,000 equals a credit). Some equipment items are listed, but not available unless acquired through the campaign. Since I thought I had to roll it above, I already know that I have 120 credits to spend. I picked up some light armor (using the ascending armor class system) and a laser pistol. Then I filled in the rest of what I thought this character would have needed to survive.
The next chapter went into “Playing the Game” so I’m assuming the character creation process is done. I made sure to fill in any blank spots. Since I didn’t have any Meditations yet I hadn’t filled in the last two pages (and thus didn’t need to scan them). Before I throw it in the scanner, I think I’ll name and give a brief background to this character.
Jenker Slix belonged to a family that had survived their original homeworld’s destruction. They eventually settled on a low-gravity world in the Rukkar system and tried to re-create their culture from there which included arranged marriages between clans. Much to the dismay of his future bride and his family, Jenker felt no connection to her and left Rukkar. Something was drawing him to the stars and he stowed away on a starship that belonged to Ortho Greengar, a corporate executive who was conducting business between worlds. When the starship was attacked by pirates, they didn’t know that Jenker was onboard. This gave him the advantage to rescue Ortho and some of his crew so that they could take back the ship. When Master Kli’nik of the Star Knights arrived in response to the distress call, he felt something in young Jenker and invited him to join the order as his apprentice.
Afterthoughts:
I really wish that the PDF had some good bookmarks. They are present, but they only go to the front cover, the first page and the back cover. That’s not really going to help guys. Another thing that would have helped would be a character creation checklist. I also had an urge to re-make the character sheet. The one provided wasn’t bad, but lacking in some areas (no space for money, do we need four sheets?)
I was actually surprised how the Serial optional rolls helped me develop a background for this character. I only knew that I wanted to make a Star Knight when I started. I’d like to see how this system plays out at the table. It may be interesting to run or play this particular roleplaying game.
Additional Notes:
So I was able to add three more links to blogs participating in the Character Creation Challenge. One of these, Grim Tokens, had an entry for a game called Transit RPG. The character you create is an AI controlled starship. Being a big Treknologist who loves starships, I was enthralled by this entry. I’ve added the game to my DriveThruRPG wishlist. I love being introduced to games that I didn’t know was out there.
On the TardisCaptain dot Com discord server I had someone respond to my Hackmaster Basic entry. They were not aware of the basic edition, but did confirm that the 4th edition was quite complex and crunchy. They mentioned that a player had spent 90 minutes just to roll up a character, only to have their stupidity kill the character off 45 minutes later. Some of these “There I was…” stories are great.
Coming Up Next:
Fantasy Quest (via Dicing with Dragons)
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.
Now something I have to caution here. The physical copy that I have is a promotional book from 2009. It has a red stamp on the inside stating “not for sale”. Someone was giving them away online (I don’t recall which social media service it was) and I was able to snag a copy. The DTRPG link above for Hackmaster Basic allows you to pick up a free copy of the rules from 2012. From what I’ve seen, the character sheet is different (I scanned mine in to use). So if you grab the book, don’t be alarmed if anything looks different from what I describe below.
My physical copy is 192 pages long which includes the two page character sheet found in the back. There are quickstart rules with character creation on page 7 and chapter one has more detailed character creation rules on page 13. I’m going to pretend that we are playing a quick one-shot game and we are all rolling characters from the quickstart. I’ll then compare the later rules afterwards.
As with most games, you start making a new character by rolling your ability scores. For Hackmaster they are STRenght, INTelligence, WISdom, DEXterity, CONstitution, LooKS and CHArisma. I’m instructed to roll 3d6 plus a percentile down the row for each ability score. DEX was a good roll at 15/41% but WIS sucked at 6/11% (so not a Cleric) but the other scores were pretty average.I’ve written these down.
Next is the starting honor for the character. Take the ability scores above and turn them into decimals and add them all together. For example, I rolled and 11/51% for the STR ability score, this would be counted as 11.51. Once I’ve added them together, round it down to the nearest whole number and divide that result by 7. This resulted in an Honor score of 10.
Now I get to choose the character class. Yea, as you probably guessed, it will be a Thief. According to the quickstart rules, I get to add 2 to my DEX score.
For the race, I selected Human. Simple and easy. This lead me to the initial Hit Points. I get 10 for being Human and I add my CON score (not the percentage) plus a 1d6 (Woot rolled a 6) for my class for a total of 26.
There are proficiency and skills in this game. The quickstart rules instructed me to write down the base skills for the Thief and roll for some additional skills. The additional skills were Appraisal (gems) and Fast Talking. I wrote these down. For the skill mastery scores, I look up the related attribute (or lowest if there is more than one) and roll a d12 and add it. This is a percentage score when done. So for Sneaking I added 17 + 5 (that I rolled) for 22%. I filled in my skill mastery scores.
The next step is to roll for one quirk and one flaw from the provided charts. These are both percentages and I ended up with a Superstitious quirk and a flaw of Flatulence. Heh, it could be amusing. I’m not certain what superstition he would have. I’d have to think about it or let it come up while roleplaying.
In the quickrules, the equipment is determined by the class. I wrote these items down. Next comes the combat statistics. The book actually has us reference the regular character creation rules for this information. The quickrules didn’t make much sense, so I just looked at the regular character creation rules for this information. That still didn’t make much sense either, so I just bumbled my way through this.
For the final tweaks, they wanted me to note what I had rolled for HP (luckily I had that written down above) the luck points (that apparently only a thief gets) and the Threshold of Pain. This number is half of my HP rounded down (so 13). If I get hit for 13 or more points of damage in one blow, the Hackmaster can have me roll a trauma check to see if I succumb to pain. What ever that is.
The last item is to pick a name. I’m going to name this character Cid the Kid. Even though he’s not a kid, the nickname has thrown a few towns guards off of his trail in the past.
I did a quick flip though the character creation chapter. You can re-arrange your attributes if needed, but it may cost you later in the creation process. The different races have racial ability modifiers. You pick your skills through build points (which is lowered if you re-arranged your scores). There’s a little bit more crunch in this than I was expecting. Here is the character sheet.
Afterthoughts:
From the looks of the sample PDF at DriveThruRPG, there is not a quickstart character creation section in that version. So if you download the free PDF you’ll be using the regular character creation rules.
I liked that I could use the d12 in the character creation. That is a die that doesn’t get a lot of use in most systems. I disagreed with the use of the lesser attribute number when finding the skill mastery score. Perhaps an average of the two scores should have been used instead. It would involve more math, but would have made it more reasonable IMHO.
I can see why the quickstart rules were pulled from the 2012 version. I don’t know if they really helped since you still had to refer to the character creation chapter anyway. Now that I’ve completed the character, I wouldn’t mind seeing how a session goes in play. As for using or homebrewing for this game? Like FantasyCraft, I wouldn’t turn down an opportunity to play, but there are other games that I may reach for first if I was running a game.
Additional Notes:
A was able to add a ton of blog and message board links to the Character Creation Challenge page. I’ve also started noting who has participated in past challenges as well. Please give them a visit and read the good stuff that they have provided. For you Reddit /rpg visitors, I’ve created a thread there for others to post their characters as well. Just another option.
There is a very active Fallout 2d20 RPG community online. I was able to get some good feedback on my Day 1 entry for the system. They thought I did a pretty good job using just the rule book. I was told that the TN and Tag portions of the weapons on the character sheet is for the player reference. I would add “Small Guns + AGI” Since I could only tag one more skill as the character advances, I should re-evaluate my tagged skills. Apparently there are not a lot of vehicle rules in the RPG at this time (come to think about it, I don’t recall seeing a lot of vehicles in the video games either). Another suggestion given to me was taking several of the single points I spread across several skills and combine them into a specialty and to add the DR scores that my vault suit provides. I was grateful for the advice that I would have picked up during a session zero.
Coming Up Next:
White Star Galaxy 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.
War. War never changes. But it may use a different dice system to determine the outcome.
So let’s start this thing. Welcome to the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge. If you haven’t read up on the idea, click on the link above. Feel free to join the large online community that is participating in this event.
For the past several years, the first game that I create a character for in the challenge is a game that I’m really excited about. In 2022 I created one for Dune: Adventures in the Imperium and in 2023 I used Alien. I had my first chance to play Fallout The Roleplaying Game at SaltCON-End of Summer last year. I remember being very impressed. I’ve made a character for John Carter of Mars and I had played Dune and Star Trek Adventures, but there was always something that I felt that I was missing about the 2d20 system. I don’t know if it was the presentation or the GM, but it all clicked somehow. Since I was really excited about this game, my daughter purchased the book for me from a black Friday sale. Ding, here is my first day already taken care of when I started my list of what games I was going to use..
For those of you not familiar with Fallout, it is a series of video games about a post-apocalyptic world where survivors hid in underground bunkers (called Vaults). After several decades after the bombs drop they come out to a changed world. This has become a franchise with various games and merchandising (where the real money from the movie is made) and soon to be a TV series on Amazon Prime. I’ve attempted to play a few of the video games, with some success and some flat out flopping. But the game world is very well thought out. When I started gathering interest in this series, I started watching some fan-made videos that explain the world and history. They may prove useful to anyone wanting to run an RPG in this series.
The core book is hardbound with 429 pages in full color. The character creation starts in chapter three with the details on page 50. There is a two page character sheet.
Step one is to select the origin of the character. This is basically your race (such as Ghoul (humans suffering from prolonged exposure to radiation), Super Mutant (mutated human big and bulky) or Mister Handy (robot freed from programing) or starting group (such as Brotherhood of Steel (religious knights trying to recover technology), Survivor (humans that survived on the surface) or Vault Dweller (humans that survived in a vault)). Since the first video game I played (Fallout 3) had me starting as a Vault Dweller, I wanted to try another one. This comes with the trait, Vault Kid.
Next comes the attributes. They were pulled straight from the video games. S.P.E.C.I.A.L. or Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck. These all start with a score of 5 and I have 5 additional points to allocate. I can reduce a score if I wanted to but only to 4. I made my selections and wrote them down.
Skills is what I select in step 3. Like the attributes, these come from the video game (it was practically a computerized RPG). These skill include Athletics, Barter, Big Guns, Energy Weapons, Explosives, Lockpick, Medicine, Melee Weapons, Pilot, Repair, Science, Small Guns, Sneak, Speech, Survival, Throwing and Unarmed. In this 2d20 system, you tell the GM what you want to do, and they let you know what attribute and skill you add together for your target number. If it is an easy task, you may only need one (or even zero) successes. If it is a more difficult task, it may require three or four successes. I was instructed to pick three skills to be my “tagged” skills. These start with a base score of 2 with the rest starting at 0. I then add 9 plus my INT score to come up with a list of additional skill points that I can allocate. For this character it will be 14 in total. My three tagged skills are Small Guns, Sneak and Pilot. I then allocated my points.
Each character gets a perk. Something that gives him an advantage. There is a large list available to pick from (some with minimum requirements). Think of the Dungeons and Dragons v3.5 traits. By this time I was starting to think of a possible backstory for this currently unnamed character, so I looked for a perk that I thought would fit him and wrote it down.
For step five we get to discover our derived statistics. These include how much the character can carry, damage resistance, defense, initiative, health points and how much damage he can do in a melee fight. I wrote these down.
The last step is to choose the starting equipment. I’m very grateful that starting packs were made available (depending upon your position with your origin). You also got a trinket, which is a special item that you own. I could make one up, pick from the list or roll for a random one. Since I haven’t rolled any dice yet, let’s see what the dice gives me. A postcard with an address. Interesting. Next is the tagged skill items. The skills I had tagged above came with their own special equipment items. I wrote these down.
There were still a few blank areas on the character sheet. What is my luck points (I think it’s the same as my luck score when starting out). What is TN and tagging in the weapons description? I had to track down some equipment information and I think I found most of it (especially since there is a carrying capacity within the game). I think I’m mostly done with the numbers side of the character, but I know I would have asked a few questions if I was creating this character in a session zero.
Ragnal Walker was born in Vault 47 (I don’t know if that number has been used in the game yet, so subject to change) and was one of the standard kids that got into trouble while growing up. While he didn’t have the smarts to be a doctor or scientist, he was always getting into places he shouldn’t be. In order to keep him out of trouble, the leaders instructed that he be taught how to drive some of the vehicles available to the vault for use in the outside world. While the leaders mostly kept the hidden vault sealed, they knew that they needed to trade with one of the other vaults several miles away. This loose relationship helped keep both vaults running. On one return trip, the caravan was ambushed by a band of raiders. Walker was able to fight his way out of the attack and headed back to Vault 47 on foot. A day later he discovered that the same raiders had just come from the vault and had destroyed it after the raid. Walker had to make a decision, start a new life out on his own amongst the surface dwellers (whom he had little contact with) or try to make it to the other vault to see if they would take him in. His adventure starts.
Here is the character sheet. After I had scanned it, I realized that I hadn’t added my vault kid trait onto the second sheet. So I added that afterwards.
Afterthoughts:
Unlike some of the other Modiphius products, Fallout is avoiding the “pop up” syndrome where you get distracted by the side notes in the book. This made it very easy to read (and I found myself reading more than I needed for character creation). While the creation process wasn’t 100% smooth, it wasn’t a frustrating ball of mess that I’ve experienced in other games.
Do I want to play this game? Oh yea. Do I want to homebrew for this game? At the least I’d like to write up something about the state I live in since I’m familiar with the area. As mentioned above, I’ve played this at SaltCON and I’ve signed up for another session at the next convention in March.
Additional Notes:
I’ve already had a ton of people reach out to me regarding the 2024 Character Creation Challenge. Several of you were looking forward to this event. Thank you, it is nice to know that my efforts have been appreciated. I hope that you all remember that this is for fun, so have fun with it.
A lot of blogs were added to the links section at the Character Creation Challenge page. I’ve also stumbled across another fan run message board for Alternity that apparently has an active thread running since 2021. Another participant has elected to post his entries on the TardisCaptain discord server (under the Character Creation Challenge channel). You are not required to use it, but it is there if you don’t have any other options. And (of course) you can email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain dot com or tag me on one of the social media platforms that I use.
Coming Up Next:
Hackmaster Basic
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.
Stack of character sheets printed out for the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge
2023 was a weird year to say the least. I was able to see a ton of concerts including several that I wanted to check off of the bucket list. These included Duran Duran, Love and Rockets, The Cure, Garbage, and Depeche Mode. I was able to see a live show that featured some of the comedians from “Who’s Line Is it Anyway” (the show had a different name probably for copyright reasons). I’ll be getting the photos for these up in the photo albums.
For the first time in a long time, I had the opportunity to attend a gaming convention. SaltCON Spring, SaltCON Summer and SaltCON End-of-Summer. I know at the beginning of the year, I stated that I only wanted to participate at this event and not volunteer. Well, after much thought and discussion with others, I’ll be running two games next spring. One will be a one-shot for Basic Fantasy RPG that I already had written up and did some polishing on. The other is a Star Trek Adventures: Lower Decks inspired game where the crew will be meeting the cast of Top Core (a sci-fi parody of the BBC show, Top Gear).
I’m still watching a ton of movies at home thanks to the many streaming services that I have access to. In the theater I did enjoy Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. I also saw Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. I also enjoyed this movie and I hope that the ending would lead to another sequel. But I wouldn’t be disappointed if there wasn’t one. My youngest is a Five Nights at Freddy’s fan so we had to go see the movie in the theater. Not knowing much about the video game series, I thought the movie was OK and I wasn’t bored. In 2024 I’m looking forward to seeing Dune: Part Two, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.
Television wise I’ve been soaking up all of the various Star Trek franchises (Picard knocked it out of the park and I demand more Lower Decks). The Star Wars episodes have been good as well. I’m sad that Archer is ending, but I’d rather have it end on a high note. What We Do In The Shadows has also continued to entertain me. MST3K season 13 was a blast. I watch so much TV that I am unable to list them all here. On the weekends I’ve still been enjoying Svengoolie and Creature Features. I’m really looking forward to the new Doctor Who episodes after the great introduction from the 60th Anniversary specials and Christmas episode. The Fallout TV series has also caught my attention. I did cancel my Peacock account because there was nothing on it to watch (and I’d go months forgetting it was even there).
Reading wise I’m still going strong on the Star Trek and James Bond comics. While I’m also enjoying the Star Wars comics, I had to move from buying the physical books to a subscription to Marvel Unlimited due to the high cost of the individual issues. Too many Star Wars comics to continuing to buy them all.
I may have made a mistake with my video games. I set up both a Steam account and a GOG account. So I’ve been getting deals on lots of classic games that I use to play. I’ve been trying to play a few others as well such as Fallout New Vegas and a couple of other hidden gems that were tossed my way. But when it comes to time crunch issues, the video games get put off to the side pretty fast. I need to make sure that I’m spending some enjoyment time playing these games.
I want to get some writing done in 2024. I’ve talked about it, but I need to sit down and do it. Hopefully the Basic Fantasy scenario will be good enough to submit to the BFRPG community for consideration. While I also have some fan projects in mind, I’d actually like to have a few publications that I could legitimately sell online.
Keep an eye on this blog for what happens in 2024. Now off to the USS Ticonderoga New Years Eve party. Tomorrow I dive into the deep end of the pool with the Character Creation Challenge.
What did you enjoy about 2023? What geeky things do you want to do in 2024? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or click on my social media links with any comments.
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.
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.
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.
Feel free to share this image on social media to spread the word.
OK, first an apology. Recent health issues have prevented me from posting as much as I would have liked on this site. I’m not going to go into details because I know that everyone has been dealing with health and real-world issues. But I will say that I’ve been following my doctor’s orders and I’m getting better. Many thanks to those who have already reached out to me. I really appreciate it.
Now down to business. I have noticed the traffic hitting the Character Creation Challenge page. I am hoping that it is from participants wondering if I’ll be coordinating a 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge. I am very happy to say the answer is YES!!!!!!
I’ve already moved my 2023 entries and links to their own page, clearing the way for the 2024 links and entries. So if it looks a little blank, send me links to your blog or site if you are planning to participate. Feel free to let me know of other sites and message boards. Last year I was introduced to a couple of message boards that had participants posting entries. The links for the 2021 and 2022 challenges also have their own pages. You can find the official RPG.net forum for the 2024 Challenge here.
For those of you learning about this for the first time, the Character Creation Challenge is for fans of various role playing games. You may have looked into a game or collected the books with the intention to play but never have. Or perhaps you have a favorite system that you always turn to for RPG sessions. Well the Character Creation Challenge is an event to create a new RPG character for each day in January (running parallel to the “new year, new you” theme) from what ever system(s) you choose. Once you have the character ready to play, post it on a website, blog, social media (use the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge) or online message boards. The forums at RPG.net was a popular forum where a lot of participants had posted their completed characters.
In 2023, I’ve had the chance to attend three different gaming conventions. In the dealers room and at the swap meet I’ve been able to pick up a few cheap RPG books. I am also hopeful that a few RPG Kickstarter goodies will be delivered in time so I can use them in the challenge. And I’ve also been able to pick up quite a few PDF games at DriveThruRPG. So I’ve got a good selection to choose from. Plus I may revisit some favorites just because I want to. That is the beauty of the challenge. You can select the theme you want. I’ve heard of some GMs using this opportunity to create NPCs for their games. Some forever GMs use this as a challenge to create a character like they were actually going to just play. There are a few other themes posted on the main Character Creation Challenge page. Remember, this is for fun, so have fun with it.
If you would like to participate, email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com, post on the TardisCaptain.com Discord Channel or find me on social media/message boards and let me know where you will be posting your challenge characters at. If you are posting them on a website, I’ll add the link to my Character Creation Challenge page.
So in early January 2023, I read up on the new “draft” of the Open Gaming License (OGL) that Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast (WotC) was pushing out. I’m not a lawyer, but it didn’t pass the smell test for me. It felt like a lot of creative people who had put their time, money and effort into their own products were being screwed. Because I was just starting the 2023 Character Creation Challenge, I didn’t have time to write up a full blog post on the subject. So I tagged Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast in the following tweet.
Click on image to see the tweet.
I never got a response from either group. Knowing how most mega-corporations think, I wasn’t expecting to get one either. I’m just a single guy and most corporations are only thinking about money, how to get more money and ignoring any laws and common decency in a quest for money. So I figured that nothing would happened and I put my energy into the character creation challenge.
Oh boy, was I wrong. Shortly afterwards this issue exploded with the force of an atom bomb. Not only were other gamers upset, but so were the video makers and third-party publishers. This caused so much of a ruckus that it made it onto the various news sites and made Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast look bad. Especially with how horribly they handled the issue in their first attempt to respond.
The critical fumble continued by Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro until they finally backed off and announced that the 1.0a would remain in place and that the 5.1 System Reference Document (SRD) would be placed under the irrevocable Creative Commons. A move that shocked a lot of people (myself included), but it may have been too-little, too-late. A lot of third-party publishers that were giving free advertising to the Dungeons and Dragons game had elected to move to other licenses. Several designers are making changes to remove all SRD references so they would no longer be bound by the OGL. When these third-party publishers released a book, they had something on it that stated it was compatible with Dungeons and Dragons. The name of the WotC flagship game was being seen with each book. Now that reminder will be gone and other games will be promoted instead. Third-party publishers were also a source of talent that WotC could pull for future D&D products. I doubt these freelance writers would be interested in helping after the way they were treated.
Another reaction that the various third-party publishers had was to dump their 5e compatible products. I’m certain they were thinking that if the new OGL went into effect, they would be stuck with inventory they could no longer sell. Since I’m a bargain hunter, I was able to pick up a few books in both PDF and dead tree versions.
This all happened at the end of January before I had finished the Character Creation Challenge. And when the challenge was done, I took a few days off from the site to recover. The challenge is a marathon and can be a little exhausting. I also wanted some time to properly compose my thoughts about the WotC/OGL ordeal.
I wondered if I was really going to comment on this as mid-February hit. Then I walked into my Favorite Local Gaming Store (FLGS) and saw the very large display of Dungeons and Dragons 5e products. My instant reaction was “walk away, I’m still not happy with them.” Normally I’m looking over the books deciding if I want to pull the trigger on a purchase. There are still a few books that I don’t have in my collection. Instead I was looking to see if the Star Trek Adventures books that I wanted had arrived yet and to see what else was new on the shelves.
So since I felt that I needed to get these thoughts off my chest, I started putting together this blog post. As I was researching different aspects (trying to make sure I’m posting correct information) I discovered that the Bank of America has listed Hasbro/WotC stock as “under-performing” due to mishandling of brands and attempting to over-monetizing the Dungeons and Dragons and Magic the Gathering products.
Various WotC representatives are currently on a “restore the goodwill tour” (think of what BP had to go through after the Deepwater Horizon environmental disaster) and if I had a chance to ask them, I’d probably ask the following: “Since several college and white papers will be written about this monumental cock up, do you think they will spell the names of the decision makers right?” In all seriousness, I’d probably ask them what are the lessons learned from this experience and what would they do in the future if this came up again? What I hope to hear is how the OGL discussion would be handled in the open and with all stakeholders before sending out a “draft” with contracts attached. That the C-level executive managers have learned what this game is about (no it’s not just a money spigot) and that they understand that the customers who are purchasing the game are not going to play online. Yes that is an option, but it’s not where we get the camaraderie around the table in a social activity. Yes, the game will make them money, but don’t kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Hasbro and WotC still has a lot of making up to do with the gaming community.
As for myself, I’m still very hesitant about buying any WotC products at this time. The upcoming Dungeons and Dragons movie that is coming out soon is something that I might go to, depending on how things are handled from here on out. It’s already finished and I wouldn’t want to punish those involved in the production who had no say in Hasbro’s critical fumble. It’s not a 100% that I’m going to see it in theaters (as I was planning at the end of 2022) I’m not going to trash my current collection (I’ve already purchased them) but new items? Well, we will see.
Perhaps the silver lining in all of this are players and stores discovering that there are a ton of other roleplaying games out there that can be enjoyed and promoted. I may post more about this topic if inspiration strikes. But I’m going to concentrate on being a muse and doing some creating myself.
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.
Note: If you made it through 31 days of the challenge, read to the bottom of the post.
I’m going to declare the 2023 Character Creation Challenge a magnificent success. Yes there were some days that I wondered if I was going to get through this. For the first time ever I had multiple games frustrate me so much that I just said “screw it, I’m done with this system”. But I was able to post for all 31 days (plus an extra day since I forgot that I was going to use a certain game).
I think my most favorite post was the one for Ork! Second Edition. Writing for another voice was fun and I had a blast. Fantasy Age made a little bit more sense than the 2022 entry for Modern Age. The reading of Mutant Future got the creative juices flowing and I hope to actually put thought into action sooner rather than later. When The Moon Hangs Low and BareBones Fantasy also caught my eye. After reading some of the information on the John Carter of Mars RPG, I went and purchased some of the novels to read on my Amazon Kindle.
A big thank you to those of you who encouraged me to keep going. Thank you to those who have joined my Discord server that I’m going to start using for more blog feedback. I’m very grateful to those of you who reached out to me to let me know of the blogs and other message boards that were participating in the #CharacterCreationChallenge. On social media I saw a lot of participation on Facebook, MeWe and Mastodon, but not as much on Twitter this year. I think that the platform may be having some additional issues. I’m not on Instagram so I couldn’t tell you if anything was being posted there. If I’m missing any blogs or sites that were participating, please let me know at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com and I’ll add them to the list.
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.
I noticed a lot of participants used Dune: Adventures in the Imperium and Aliens as their “I’m excited about this game” posts. We had more participants using themes this year. One in particular that stood out was a GM who was making future bad-guys to use against his players. I was very excited that Tim Hardin, the artist who drew the map I used in a recent Basic Fantasy game, participated and posted some very good character images for his entries.
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. It is a variant of the 2022 badge, but the fact that she was able to alter this between college homework assignments makes me happy. Here it is if you want to download it to display.
There will be a 2024 Character Creation Challenge. Keep an eye out around November for the warnings that it is coming up. I’m starting to use the supplements to some of my games to make characters so I suspect that I’ll be using one of the FASA Star Trek race supplements (Not certain if its going to be Klingon, Romulan or Orion). There are also a couple of other games that have similar supplements that I’m going to be using. Plus I backed the KickStarter campaigns for the Monty Python RPG and Cowboy Bebop RPG, so they will certainly be used in 2024.
So once again, if you had fun, if you learned something new, if you participated, thank you. I really appreciated the people who took my idea and ran with it and made it something of their own.
Tally ho
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.
So after I was a week into the 2023 Character Creation Challenge, I realized that I had made a promise on this blog to use the Vampire Hunter$ RPG system that I had received through my Random RPG Book Club membership. I was really locked into what I had on the list and didn’t really have any sacrificial lambs that I could knock out. I also didn’t want to wait until the 2024 challenge, so you guys get a bonus character this year.
Vampire Hunter$ is published by Nightshift Games (listed as Team Frog on DriveThruRPG). The book that I have was published in 1999. The book itself is 141 pages with the character creation process starting on page 18. The character sheet is two pages long. The basic concept of the game is that you are hired on with a new local franchise for a vampire (and other monster) hunter corporation called Vampire Hunter$ Inc. The game uses 2d6 as a base dice pool. For every talent you can gain various additional d6 to roll in certain challenges. Doubles are added and re-rolled and if you beat a target number, you succeed in the task.
I’m going to create Jock Barkley. An ex-Army vet who by day is a handyman, and by night is a monster hunter after being approached by a fellow Army buddy who wanted to start a new franchise. Jock originally didn’t believe in vampires until they went on their first hunt. Now he can’t wait to get back out there and slay some suckers.
To create a character, we set up the character’s talents, knacks, faults and hits. The talents are major skills of the character. You have 10d to place in any number of talents with no talent starting higher than 3d. I selected the skills I thought that my character would have picked up while in the military.
The next list is knacks (there really isn’t a checklist). Knacks are early talents (or perhaps natural talents). Before you can get a new talent after character creation, you have to take it as a knack. A knack only gives you a +1 bonus to your roll (as compared to a d6 for a talent). I can (and did) select five knacks for my new character using the same skills list as seen a few pages earlier.
Now our characters have at least one fault. A fault is something that affects the character in a negative way. If I wanted, I could select one or two faults with each fault worth 2d in talents. The list isn’t really that long and actually suggests that you come up with some faults on your own. Since I’m on limited time, I’m going to pick enemy. On Jock’s first hunt, he helped slay a vampire only to discover that the vampire had a mate. One that wasn’t very happy with Jock.
Hits is exactly how it sounds. It’s how much damage your character can take. To determine Jock’s hits I roll 2d6 and add 10 (hey I get to roll some dice). I ended up with 17. I could have taken a die or two from the talent pool, but I had already spent them before doing so.
The final step is to “round out the corners”. Character name (done), background (done), description (written down), and equipment. It just says “ask the GM”. So I just consulted the equipment list and picked out a few items I thought an Army vet would have access to. Here is the character sheet.
Afterthoughts:
If I was going to run this as a campaign, I’d probably put together a character creation guide to help my players. It also bugged me that there were no back of the book index or (in some cases) page numbers. You also get five knacks, but the character sheet only has room for four (oops).
The system sounds pretty simplistic. I could see this being a quick pick up game using some of the sample characters listed in the book. Only after then would I know if I’d want to homebrew for this game. Vampire Hunter$ could be something for fans of the Supernatural TV series or the 1998 movie John Carpenter’s Vampires.
Additional Notes:
Not a lot of additional notes today as I’m saving my final thoughts for the after action report.
Coming Up Next:
Character Creation Challenge After Action Report
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.
