Tag: Character Creation Challenge

2023 Character Creation Challenge Day 11: XD20 Second Edition

Written by TardisCaptain January 11, 2023April 25, 2023

One of the kickstarters that I backed last year was the 2nd Edition of X-Treme Dungeon Mastery by Tracy and Curtis Hickman and illustrated by Howard Tayler. While the book is an excellent guide for Dungeon Masters, it also contains it’s own roleplaying game called XD20 Second Edition. Yes, the first XDM book also had an RPG in it. So for day 11 of the Character Creation Challenge, I’m going to make a character for this system. Just as I had to make a disclaimer for Fantasy Craft, I need to drop one here. I’ve known Howard Tayler for years and had no problem backing his kickstarter since I knew that I’d get what was promised. But I’m going to do this mini-review based upon what I read while creating the character without considering my relationship with the artist.

This system is generic and can be used for any genre. So for the purposes of creating a character, I’m going to pretend that an XDM is going to run us through a fantasy campaign. I’m going to create Blix the Barbarian.

The core mechanic when confronted with a challenge is to roll a d20, add a stat bonus and if you meet or beat a target number, your character succeeds. There are additional items (I’m not going to give away the whole system) but it is very rules-light system. The character creation rules start on page 120 and you start with five stats. TAC (Toughness and Constitution), PSYCH (intelligence, wisdom and smartness), WAH (mystical power, luck and karma), HEALTH (self-explanatory) and LEVEL (a class level basically). Roll a D8 three times for each stat and note it (not on the sheet yet). There is some stat adjustment if the character has any type of mystic power, but Blix is a big ox with a sword, so we can skip this. So the first three stats are TAC 18, PSYCH 13 and WAH 10. Next we take the two lowest stats and add 14 to the total, this is our HEALTH score. Since this is a starting character, his LEVEL is 1.

Now for the next step, we are going to draft a story. What is something they’ll fight about (Blix was always picked on as a child and he hates it when adults pick on children), what is something they’ll run from (Snakes? Why’d it have to be snakes?) and what is something they’d die for (Blix wants to recover his dead father’s stolen sword).

Next we get to pack some stuff. It’s actually a little refreshing to see an interesting equipment section like this. You decided on three things. What is something sensible (why would I be carrying this? Because I need a gem that lights up when I give it a command, just don’t ask me where I got it), what is something precious (don’t want to loose that, it’s the armor my father had when he was an adventurer and it was made out of the same metal as the sword) and something random (Where did this sealed letter come from? There was a fancy looking guy on that last boat ride, I wonder if he dropped it?) Then your other equipment is what a prepared adventurer would have (Backpack, bedroll, rations, etc.). So I wrote a few things down and called it good. For once I was glad that there was no, “lets be different for difference sake” when it came to the equipment. For the illustration, I’m mentally thinking of something along the line of The Legend of Bill. Unfortunately I can’t draw as well as my daughter.

Afterthoughts:

I’ve seen some pretty complicated and crunchy systems in character creation and actual play. There is a reason that Pathfinder has the nickname of Mathfinder. I’m also worried about the GURPS character I’m going to be making later this month. But XD20 is very simplistic and gets the job done for what it’s designed to do, get a bunch of friends to throw some dice around the table while cracking Monty Python jokes and eating things that are not good for you. Character creation was quick and simple. I think the biggest concern would be making sure you are communicating with your game master and the other players in your group. This could easily be put together for a quick last minute game when half the players can’t make it to the table and you still want to play with those who showed up.

I may even try to run a game or two on this system. If I do, I’ll report it here.

Additional Notes:

I had one reader respond to me how much they had loved the D6 System that I used for yesterday’s Character Creation Challenge entry. I also have many good memories playing the Star Wars D6 Roleplaying Game from West End Games. I’ve even found my original character sheets from different SW sessions.

Coming Up Next:

Mutant Future

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, Role Playing Games

2023 Character Creation Challenge Day 9: Fantasy Craft

Written by TardisCaptain January 9, 2023April 25, 2023 1 Comment

So disclaimer. I know some of the play testers for Fantasy Craft. But other than telling me years ago that they liked this game, they haven’t attempted to influence me on this system. So this mini-review in the Character Creation Challenge is all my own.

Fantasy Craft was released by Crafty Games that also released Spycraft. So I suspect that some of this D20 system will follow those same steps. Let’s dive into this and see what we can find.

We start on page 6 with the character creation rules which actually starts out at step 0, the concept. What do you want to play? I flipped through the origins (races) and classes. They added quite a bit to both categories. I assume this was to make their game stand out from the other D20 3.x variants that were out at the time. The Explorer sounded interesting, but with this class I elected to make him a Hafling… err… Pech named Perrich Teagrove. If I was going to take one of the warrior type classes, I was tempted by the Saurian. There was also the option of a Rootwalker (think Ents from the Lord of the Rings films) but I don’t know what class I would have selected.

Being a D20 variant, it hast the standard attributes, STR, DEX, etc. You have 36 points to spend with the costs presented on a table. A score of 8 is zero points and each score higher is a few more points above that. My final result with the racial modifiers was STR 11, DEX 16, CON 14, INT 15, WIS 12 and CHA 12.

The next step is to select the character’s origin, which I already had above, and write down the benefits that the race has. There was then a list of Human talents (makes sense, if you choose that race) and then a specialty like Acrobat, Fencer, Nomad, etc. They give you some bonuses as well. Are these also just Human? The rules don’t say nor do the descriptions, so I’m going to go with the assumption of yes and take Adventurer. I also went to step 4 and wrote down all of the details for my career of Explorer.

Step 5 was to select my skills, so I flipped over to the skills chapter and read the descriptions of where to spend my 8 points. Afterwards I went to step 6 to select my feat which was Pack Rat (keep 1 additional item). The next step was interests. This covered alignment, languages and studies. The alignment was left up to the GM. I’m going to just put down neutral. Teagrove is just interested in exploring. Speaking of interests, you gain your native language and culture count as interests. It doesn’t say if you get a “common” language. I’m going to assume yes. Then you get to choose two more interests which could be other languages or something you studied. I as an explorer, Teagrove studied ancient cities and map making. I think those fit this section.

Step 8 is where you fill in some of the other missing items on your character sheet. Not everything as this is a four page sheet. I’m not going to scan the last page as it covered spells. The last step dealt with the starting gear. There is something called lifestyle points, which honestly I didn’t understand after pouring through everything else. The silver piece is the common coin with a new character starting with 100 sp. (career level x100) And, a lot of stuff is expensive. So we are quite literally equipping on a shoe string budget. I bought some stuff to make my guy (hopefully) survive and called it good.

Afterthoughts:

Straight of the bat. Too much crunch in the rules and descriptions for me to think about running or homebrewing for. There was a LOT of extra descriptive items and text that may not have been needed. If I was running a fantasy game, I would not reach for this game first. I wouldn’t be opposed to playing a character in Fantasy Craft, but I would not run a game in this system. When I had a choice, I kept it simple for example the recent Basic Fantasy game I ran for my daughter and her friends.

I’ve got an idea to test the combat systems in different roleplaying games. But that will not be until after the Character Creation Challenge is done. But it is something I want to blog about.

Also some of the font sizes on the character sheet were just way too small. On a four-page sheet, they shouldn’t be this small. There were some interesting ideas in the book that I may steal, but in a glut of fantasy games out there, Fantasy Craft will not be near the front of the line. I would be interested in hearing other players experiences with this game.

Additional Notes:

I’m still looking for additional blogs or message boards where participants have been posting their #CharacterCreationChallenge entries. I’ve been pouring over a few corners of the internet I don’t often visit (or just visited for the first time) and I haven’t found anything new lately.

Coming Up Next:

The D6 System

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

2023 Character Creation Challenge Day 8: When The Moon Hangs Low

Written by TardisCaptain January 8, 2023April 25, 2023 1 Comment

Special Note: I’ve had a few readers contact me on various message boards and via email stating that they are unable to log into my wordpress site to make comments. This site is not hosted on wordpress.com and the host that I am using has a lot of security set up after previous issues. So to get the feedback that I would love to see, you can email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or use the TardisCaptain Dot Com discord server that my lovely wife set up and maintains for me. I’ve already had a few people hop on this server. It has allowed me to have some interaction while keeping my hosts security concerns in mind. I was able to get the some links set up on the sidebar. Sorry about any confusion that may have popped up. And now, onto today’s entry for the Character Creation Challenge.

One of the bad events of 2022 was the invasion of Ukraine. I wanted to help in some way but I wanted to make sure that my support was going to a legitimate organization. DriveThruRPG had a special fundraiser around this time for gamers who wanted to help. They posted several sales of RPG bundles with the proceeds going to Doctors Without Borders. So I picked up one of the bundles that was made available. I could have done almost the entire 31 days of the challenge from this bundle alone. However I had some other games that I really wanted to create characters for (cough, cough, Alien).

One of the games in the bundle that caught my eye is When The Moon Hangs Low by Isolation Games. This is a gothic action RPG set in a fantasy Victorian inspired world where characters are tragic monster hunters in the capital city of Harrowmire. For Day 8 of the Character Creation Challenge, I’m going to create one of these monster hunters.

The character creation rules start on page 13. The first step is to generate a name for your character. I’ve noticed some systems put this step at the first and some at the last. If you have a good idea of what your character will be, I like having this step at the start. This way I can refer to the character by name as I’m writing this up. There are some sample names provided, but I already had my heart set on William “Kitt” Smythe.

The next step in making Smythe is creating his mark. This is something that the character experienced with the supernatural that affected them. It could be physical or mental. Something traumatic as this creates an ability that helps the character in the game. There is a list of marks in chapter 4 to select from. I had an idea for the character, but it didn’t 100% fit the concept. So I altered it slightly. Haunted usually means that you can talk and see ghosts. Well Smythe didn’t see a ghost, he saw a demon. The demon Torrazoth never gave his reasons for why he was running, but he needed to possess a body to hide in before other dark forces caught him. Smythe interrupted Torrazoth’s attempt to possess his younger brother. When he discovered that he could not beat the demon, he gave Torrazoth an option, take him instead. The demon agreed, but only if Smythe would help him hunt down the demons that were after him. Knowing that he could leave the countryside farm and hide in the city streets of Harrowmire, Smythe allowed the demon to take refuge within him. Torrazoth can speak to Smythe providing him with insight and sometimes even extra strength when needed. Smythe uses this ability to hunt demons, but knows that someday Torrazoth will fully take control. What will happen then, only the gods know, not that he could step inside a church to find out. I sub-titled this Mark “possessed”.

The next step is to generate the primary statistics and skills. I have a total of 20 character points to spend between the two. The primary statistics are Physique, Intellect and Presence. They seem pretty straight forward. The character starts with 1 point for free in all three. Then for every 2 CP spent, I can increase a primary statistic to a max of 5. I’m going to spend six points on Physique making it a total of 4 (Smythe grew up on a farm doing lots of chores), two points on Intellect for a total of 2 (he learned mostly from the school of hard knocks) and four points on Presence for a total of 3 (Smythe was well liked before he suddenly disappeared from his farming village). With the 8 character points left I’m going to choose the skills. They come in two levels, trained or mastered. When you roll a d6 from your pool, an untrained skill requires a roll of 5 or 6 to count as one of your successes. Trained skills succeed on a 4-6 and mastered skills succeed on 3-6. The GM determines the number of successes needed by how hard or easy the task will be. Untrained skills are free, trained are 1 CP and a mastered skill is worth 2 CP. Smythe was trained in Fight, Fortitude, Shoot, Reflexes, Craft, Drive, Animal Handling, and Willpower. There is also three knacks that I can select from my existing skills. These are skills that your character has a knack for (and increases your die pool for that skill). I selected Fight, Reflexes and Animal Handling.

The next step is to select three Edges from a list in chapter 6. These are unique abilities that separate the hero characters from the common NPCs. However if they are used too many times, it can contribute to your curse becoming more potent. Looking over the list, I believe that these edges come from the possession. So Smythe has Mantel of Darkness (which allows him to blend into the shadows), Shadow Step (step into one shadow and come out from another one within the line of sight) and Eldritch Bolt (shoot arcane energy at a target, Torrazoth only allows this as a last ditch effort).

The instructions tell me to create the derived statistics (Health, Wound Track and Resolve) and pick my equipment. All characters start with some basic items, with the rest selected by spending 200 Shillings. This included Smythe’s weapons and armor. I wrote down the statistics.

There are still a few sections not filled in on the character sheet. I assume that they would come into use when as a game progressed. I’ve scanned the character sheets and posted them below.

Afterthoughts:

This process was pretty much straight forward. The system also sounds pretty easy as well. I would love to see a session for this system. I also like how the character has a curse with the mark. It got some creative juices flowing when I was putting the character together. I would love to hear more about the world this game was set in. I could see it also being a little steampunkish if the GM wanted to go in that direction.

Additional Notes:

Thanks to the responses on the RPG.net Character Creation Challenge thread, we had a discussion about my attempt to make a scout for Cepheus Deluxe yesterday. One poster pulled out his copy of the game and confirmed for me that the aging rules didn’t make much sense to him either. Yet another posted commented about how the aging rules was a carry-over from the original Traveller game that should have been re-written or scrapped all together. He also explained that I should have rolled 2d6 and subtracted the number of terms the character had gone through and then compared it to the chart for the results. This poster stated they did not use these rules as a character with average stats would die at the age of 66 while living in a futuristic world with advanced medicine. I could see the point he was making.

In a way, it was a little bit of a relief to see that others were experiencing the same thing that I was. If instructions for anything are properly explained, I can easily follow along. I know that when I’m trying to write up some instructions in personal or work-related documentation, I always try to have someone unfamiliar with the steps give it a look-over to see if they can follow along. Last year’s Traveller entry into the CCC generated a lot of traffic to the site so I knew this is still a popular game. I was hoping to receive some constructive feedback on my attempt to create a character.

Coming Up Next:

Fantasy Craft

This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Disco r d server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

2023 Character Creation Challenge Day 7: Cepheus Deluxe

Written by TardisCaptain January 7, 2023April 25, 2023 1 Comment

Last year in the Character Creation Challenge I had my first opportunity to create a character for the very popular Classic Traveller system. The post generated a lot of traffic and some feedback from fans of that system. During the rest of the year, I catch various sales on DriveThruRPG and one of those sales landed me the Cepheus Deluxe Enhanced Edition from Stelagama Publishing.

What is the difference between Cepheus and Traveller? Traveller is the original game and Cepheus is based off of the System Reference Document (SRD), so essentially a re-write of the rules for some clarification and house-rule additions. It’s kind of like how there is the original B/X Dungeons and Dragons and Basic Fantasy RPG. As I was doing some research on the differences, I came across Timothy S. Brannan’s excellent blog The Other Side where he had recently talked about this very subject.

So on page 9 of the rules it starts talking about the character creation process, but the actual steps start on page 12. Instead of rolling your characteristics, assign these scores to one of the six. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. The characteristics are still the same as they are in Traveller. Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence (now abbreviated as INT), Education and Social Standing. I wrote down my selection (and their dice modifiers) on character generation worksheet.

This is a game of skills. Before you started your career at the age of 18 you learned a single skill. I was instructed to select a homeworld and choose one of the skills available from that list. My guy would have grown up on a high-tech core world and learned about computers. This leads us to step three where the character goes through a career. I decided to make this character a scout (I didn’t see anything that was randomly rolled). I elected to increase my Education characteristic and add a skill rank in Survival. I rolled on the career event table and it instructed me to roll a life event. This resulted in a new romantic relationship which generated a contact. Hmm. Interesting. So no mustering out at the end of the first term so the character gains four years to the age of 22.

OK, second term. Two more skills increased and another life event rolled on the career event. My character ended up with cybersurgery getting cr5000 of commonplace cybernetics. I selected a cybernetic eye. Nothing I read stated that the career was done, so I added four more years and went to the third term. Added two more skills and on the career events I rolled up the discovery a new world which got me an extra skill (+1 END) and an extra benefit roll on mustering out. On to the fourth term. One more skills advanced. For the career event I rolled a rescue mission. I had to make a skill roll to see what happened. Failed to rescue, so I gained an enemy. Interesting. Next the 5th with 2 more skills and a career event roll. Another life event which resulted in the character studying and gaining +1 EDU. I’m supposed to roll an aging effect since I’m 34. But I don’t understand the table. It goes from 1 to -6, what am I rolling against?) It says see page 37, but that has nothing on it for aging. Ugh, not a good sign for this system. Do I go onto Term 6 at age 38? I guess I do. One more skills and a career roll. Deep space travel which resulted gaining a skill. Another aging effect in which I still don’t know what to do. Nothing said to stop so 7th and final term on the worksheet. The scout chart shows a bonus skill for science +1. Added a skill and rolled the career chart, exemplary service, gain a DM+1 on one benefit roll.

Ok muster out is where you leave your career and gain stuff before the adventure begins. I see the chart with the scout, but do I gain all of this? The Mustering Out benefits on page 30 were vague. Again I wonder if this book is meant to be used with another set of books? I don’t recall Traveller being this clunky in the character creation. I could have used a good GM helping me along with this character. I just wrote down what I had and put the final character sheet in the scanner.

Afterthoughts:

Was it fate? Today as I was writing up my character, Stellagama Publishing sent me a message that the hardbound POD of Cepheus Deluxe was now available on DriveThruRPG. Veeerrryyyy innnteresting.

I really liked that there was a character creation worksheet for Cepheus Deluxe. When I re-read my Classic Traveller entry in the 2022 Character Creation Challenge, I had commented that I would have created my own worksheet if I was planning to run some people through the character creation process. However the worksheet still had some mistakes on it (when referencing page number for example) which caused some confusion. When I tried to just look at the book, they had charts listed with little definition. For example on page 14 there was a Skills Package chart based upon the campaign style (good idea) but do I automatically get those skills? Or are the skill listed added to the skills list provided with each class? The charts with the class (as well as the master character generation table) mention adding to the characteristics, but it is not listed in the steps. I wonder if this document was written for players already familiar with the Traveller system? The worksheet needs a re-work. I know this character isn’t play ready, but I was frustrated by the time I got to this point.

The system itself sounds pretty straightforward. Roll 2d6 an add bonuses/skills to beat a target number. I’d love to play a session or two to see how this works at the table.

Additional Notes:

So far no feedback on the John Carter of Mars post I made on the Modiphus discord channel. However I did receive another email with a blog participating in the #CharacterCreationChallenge. I’ve added it to the links site on the CCC page.

Coming Up Next:

When The Moon Hangs Low

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

Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

2023 Character Creation Challenge Day 6: John Carter of Mars

Written by TardisCaptain January 6, 2023April 25, 2023 1 Comment

So how I obtained the core rulebook for John Carter of Mars: Adventures on the Dying World of Barsoom was interesting. On the RPG.net forums there is a thread titled “Swap Your Unwanted RPGs (v3)” and someone was looking for the D20 version of the Judge Dread RPG. As much as I had fun creating a character for Judge Dread and thought that the JD world would be interesting to role-play in, the chances of actually playing was very low. So I reached out to the poster and several rounds of negotiation later, I sent him all of my Dread RPG books and he sent me three core books that will be used in the 2023 Character Creation Challenge. John Carter of Mars was one of them, the other two will be announced later (but you may have seen the covers on the 2023 Prepping for the Character Creation Challenge blog post).

John Carter of Mars is published by Modiphius Entertainment, the same company that released other games that I’ve used in past Character Creation Challenges. This includes Star Trek Adventures, Dune: Adventures in the Imperium and Star Trek Adventures: The Klingon Empire. So I’m a little familiar with the 2d20 system. The John Carter of Mars core rulebook was released after the Star Trek Adventures core rulebook, so I don’t know how the character creation instructions will come across. I don’t think I’ll have a problem reading the book from what I saw when I glanced through it. Other than that, I haven’t really dived into the rules until now saving my first impressions for this blog post. I’ve got a character sheet printed so let’s give this a shot.

The spine of the book is printed on the short side, which would normally be the top or bottom of another book. But they do give us an attached bookmark ribbon, so that will be helpful. The character creation rules start on page 11. The first step is to select a general concept. The book lists several suggestions that are inspired by the source material. I could create my own, but being unfamiliar with the bulk of the source material, I selected one of these. The idea of an Adventuring Scientist attempting to find lost technologies and create new discoveries sounded intriguing.

Next I am instructed to generate the six attributes. These are Cunning (used for attacks, insults or theft), Daring (used for movement, defensive actions and piloting), Empathy (used for healing and understanding), Might (strength basically), Passion (a form of charisma and leadership) and Reason (using your mind and senses to figure things out). In Star Trek Adventures, you have Attributes and Disciplines that are used together in the 2d20 system. With John Carter of Mars, you select two attributes to work together (For example: use the Cunning + Might attributes to break down a door). So this is slight different than what I’ve seen in Dune and STA. Each attribute starts with 4 points in each category.

Then I select a race. After reading the descriptions, I elected to go with a Red Martian. I added the attribute modifiers and the racial knowledge details. Next came the Archetype (think the character’s class) which was Scientist for my guy. Not only did I add the attributes and the knowledge, but I got to select my first Talent (a specialization, natural skill or some power in something) and I selected Wealth of Knowledge (grade 1)

For our next step, we selected a descriptor. This is a single word that describes the character. Each descriptor adds some points to an attribute. There are fifteen different options from Bold to Driven to Savage etc. Thinking about my scientist, he is Driven because he believes that a lost Martian technology could have saved his father’s life. So I selected Driven and added the attribute bonuses. The character already received one talent when selecting an Archetype, but now we can select five grades (levels?) of talents that would logically fit the character. According to the chapter on talents, I can select what is listed or design my own. I’m not comfortable enough to design my own (perhaps if I had an experienced GM helping me) but I’m confused by the grades. Do I select a single grade 5 talent, or can I mix and match to make a total of 5? Most of the talents were connected to combat. I didn’t really see this character as a “jump in with weapons slashing” type of guy. I’m sure that an experienced GM would have helped here (and when I post this character on the JCoM Discord page, I don’t doubt that someone will answer my questions).

Step seven covers the character’s starting Renown and Equipment. Since this character is from Barsoom, he would have some sort of reputation with society so he starts with 10. With the core equipment, this is something that the character will always have available to them. The equipment section was… interesting. Looking at the sample characters, I decided that this scientist has a dagger that he keeps hidden on him at all times. After being attacked unexpectedly one time, he decided not to be caught unprepared again.

Selecting a flaw is the next step. This makes sense since no one is perfect. The book describes flaws as “anti-talents”. The book really leaves this up to the character to decide. If I had a GM, I could have discussed options with them. But with the limited time that I have available, I looked at the sample characters again and found one that fit the concept I wanted to follow and altered it slightly. Curiosity killed the Banth. Lose 3 momentum when you fail to take an opportunity to explore a new scientific mystery, unknown location (which may hold a device you are looking for).

When I got to the last step, which is selecting a name and finalizing the concept and attributes (and seeing the sample characters listed) I started to wonder if I had missed adding some attribute scores along the way. The 2d20 characters tend to have a set total number when you add all of the attributes together. Looking back at step two, there were 2 attribute scores I could have randomly assigned. I added them and I think I now have a complete set. No, I only have a total of 32 where as all of the sample characters have a total of 36. I went back through the list on page 11 and even the walkthrough on page 29, but I was still missing something. So I just randomly assigned 4 points to my attributes. Experienced players, what did I miss? Anywho, I randomly created the name of Jakour Detha and wrote down his Stress and Afflictions numbers and placed the character sheets in the scanner.

Afterthoughts:

Outside of having seen a few films based off of the source material, I’m not extremely familiar with the world that Edgar Rice Burroughs created. Due to my families fandom of Dune and Star Trek, I was very familiar with the universes they came from. With Star Trek, I probably could have helped answer any trivial minutia that may have come up during the writing process (an offer that is open to them). But with JCoM, I would dive deeply into the background material if an opportunity to play in a campaign came up. On a quick challenge, I didn’t have a lot of time to go into the background information, but I knowing it is there is a plus for this book.

With the “What do you know”, “What you don’t know” and “What you can do” categories, I’d highly recommend using the back of the character sheet to list all of these down. The space provided on the standard character sheet lacks the room to hold them all.

When I first had to create a character for Star Trek Adventures, I had to use a fan-created character creation guide to make sure I had everything correct. I wonder if fans had to make one for the John Carter game as I clearly missed something. It was just a little frustrating.

So would I want to play this game? Well I think I could answer that after trying a session or two. I know that Dune and Star Trek Adventures sessions will be available at the upcoming SaltCon. If I find a John Carter game, I may see if I can try to get into it.

Additional Notes:

I was able to tinker with the scanner settings and scanned at a higher resolution (300 vs 200). I think the scans came out a little bit better when I posted them in the blog.

Still looking for more participants who are taking the #CharacterCreationChallenge. If you know of any, please let me know. Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com I am still getting the “What is this?” question as people are seeing my social media posts.

Coming Up Next:

Cepheus Deluxe

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

Character Creation Challenge, Dungeons and Dragons, Pirates

2023 Character Creation Challenge Day 5: Swashbuckling Adventures

Written by TardisCaptain January 5, 2023April 25, 2023

I picked up Swashbuckling Adventures from an online auction last year. I was very familiar with the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 system and I loved the pirate genre. When I was prepping for the Character Creation Challenge last month, I noticed that there was no separate character sheet for Swashbuckling Adventures like there was for games like Prime Directive D20, Star Wars D20 or Judge Dread D20, so I ended up using a D&D 3.5 sheet. Like the Prime Directive and Judge Dread, it referred to the D&D 3.5 Players Handbook for basic concepts, but added on with campaign specific classes and items of their own.

So while the character creation rules are on page 6 of the 3.5 Player’s Handbook, the campaign book for Swashbuckling Adventures talks about Nationalities on page 5 with new character classes starting on page 13. In Swashbuckling Adventures all of the characters will be human, but what region are you from? From the descriptions the regions are heavily inspired by European countries all the way down to the Middle-East on a planet called Theah. The region you select determines some languages and class skills.

I looked at the new character classes listed in Swashbuckling Adventures. The Highwayman sounded interesting. So did the Inquisitor. But if I’m playing a game called Swashbuckling Adventures, I’m playing a Pirate class. The abilities that the pirate favored the most was strength, Dexterity and Constitution.

So I rolled the 4d6, dropped the lowest die and selected where each score would go to each of the standard attributes in 3.5. I ended up with the following for this character. STR 15, DEX 15, CON 14, INT 11, WIS 13, CHA 8. For the country/region that my character came from, I selected Avalon (think the British Isles).

As a pirate, the hit dice is d10 (I rolled a 4 and added +2 from my CON for 6). They also start with 3d4x10 for starting money (called Guilders instead of gold pieces). My character started with 200 G. I selected my skills and feats (primarily from the Swashbuckling Adventures book) and gathered my equipment. This character is ready.

Dirk Clarkson was originally going to be a sailor in the navy when his captain announced that they were going privateer. Clarkson discovered that he loved the Pirate life so much that when his vessel was sunk, he hooked up with a gang of pirates instead of returning to Avalon. He now looks to earn his share of the booty on the next adventure.

Afterthoughts:

If you’ve played any Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, then you know the score. It was interesting reading about the different kingdoms in the campaign setting book. They had some items very detailed while leaving others available for the GM to fill in as they saw fit. If an opportunity came up to play in this setting, I would jump at it.

Additional Notes:

The publisher for Low Fantasy Gaming responded to one of my social media posts with their game. It was kewl to see the interaction. When I posted the Tiny Spies character yesterday I received a request to do Tiny Wastelands. While I own that game, I don’t have it in the 2023 schedule. I’ll have to add it to the 2024 lineup.

I’m using a new scanner this year. So far, I haven’t been impressed with the scan quality. I’ll have to see if I can improve the scan for future posts.

Coming Up Next:

John Carter of Mars

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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, Role Playing Games

2023 Character Creation Challenge Day 3: Low Fantasy Gaming

Written by TardisCaptain January 3, 2023April 25, 2023 1 Comment

In late 2021 when I was checking the blogs that had participated in the 1st Character Creation Challenge, I came across a blog that I didn’t have on my list yet. One of the games he had used was Low Fantasy Gaming. His descriptions intrigued me enough that when DriveThruRPG had a sale on the game, I snatched it up. I wanted to use it for a future challenge.

Low Fantasy Gaming is an RPG system that borrows from various D&D clones with a little hint of Dungeon Crawl Classics. Spell casters and magic items are rare. Clerics are called Cultists and the Artificer is a class you can choose from. Yes, even rules for black powder weapons. Mega-monsters are also very rare as well. While Halflings, Dwarves and Elves are available as possible races, the bulk of the population in the game are human. Half-Orcs are called Half-Skorn.

Creating a character starts with the steps listed on page 9. There is an alternate option to create 3-4 random level zero characters, but I’m going to stick with a single 1st level character. The attributes presented in Low Fantasy Gaming are Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Perception, Willpower (mental toughness) and Charisma. Each character starts with one automatic 15 to use on an attribute. The remaining attributes are determined by rolling 4d6 and using the highest three. Once the six rolls have been made, the player selects which attribute gets which score. Using this method, I ended up with some pretty good scores with nothing over 15, so I could be just about anything. I’m sticking with human in the spirit of the game, so no racial adjustments and looking over the classes I selected Ranger. The final attribute scores are STR 14, DEX 15, CON 14, INT 13, WIL 12, PER 15 and CHA 9. There is also a luck score which is 10 + half the level rounded up. So starting the character gets 11. Lucks are used for both savings throws and luck checks (such as a second chance when your skill roll fails). Each time the character successfully uses luck, it gets reduced by one point and can be regained through rest. At first level, hit points are automatically at max for their class which is a philosophy I have used recently in a Basic Fantasy session. So my ranger has 9 HP to start.

The ranger starts out with three skills, Animal Lore, Wilderness Lore, Stealth. He can also choose three from a list of skills the class might use. I selected Apothecary (I figured he would know about the herbs used to treat illness while in the wilderness), Athletics (climbing trees) and Detection (spotting things while hunting). With my +1 INT modifier, I can select an additional language besides common so I selected Elvish. The rules also state at 1st level my ranger gets a beast companion between adventures (I didn’t choose something because I would have asked the GM to roleplay something out on this) and a special ability called Rangecraft. This provided a variety of one time effects that he could encounter while out in the wilderness or in combat.

The next item on the character creation list is to write up a background or randomly roll a party bond. The list was provided for quick and easy party cohesion. The rules recommended rolling a D20 twice and selecting and select the one that fits or sounds like fun. I’m up for rolling more dice. The first roll was to have the party members be bodyguards for some type of lord. The second was to have the party be the survivors of a mercenary company that was destroyed by bitter rivals. I liked the second one so I wrote that down.

3D6 x 10 for starting gold (had I been a fighter, it would have been 5D6 X 10) resulted in 120GP. I liked that the rules had gear rarity rules. I may use them in other fantasy style games. After looking at the gear packs listed in the equipment section, I selected the one for the ranger. Nothing too fancy with the weapons, a long sword, dagger and longbow. Since he needs to be stealthy in the wilderness he wears studded leather. I believe this character is ready.

Golarth was hired by the Hand of Dovar Mercenary Group as a scout. While returning from a scouting mission they discovered that the rival band, the Silver Blades, had attacked the camp. Golarth and his companions had managed to just barely escape downriver on a small boat. The party is now trying to make their fortune in the world while staying one step ahead of the Silver Blades.

Afterthoughts:

I could see this game being used to roleplay the Castlevania animated series that came out recently. I’ve also thought about a campaign where magic is rare and this might be the system for it. At a minimum, there are a lot of concept from this ruleset that I may steal for other games.

Additional Notes:

I had another participant send me an email with a link to their blog with their #CharacterCreationChallenge entries. I’ve added it to the Character Creation Challenge site. As more are discovered, I will continue to add them to the list.

Follow up to Star Frontiers from yesterday. When I had posted the character in a Star Frontiers fan discord server the other members provided me with some feedback. I had completed all of the steps (my weapons would have been provided by the company that hired me to be a troubleshooter) but I did misread one item. When selecting my starting skills, one of the skills must be from my chosen PSA and the other can be any skill. So the character I made yesterday would have been altered slightly before I used him in a game.

Coming Up Next:

Tiny Spies

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Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

2023 Character Creation Challenge Day 2: Star Frontiers

Written by TardisCaptain January 2, 2023April 25, 2023 1 Comment

So when I posted my entry for Top Secret in the 2021 Character Creation Challenge, I talked about how my gaming buddies had copies of Star Frontiers and Top Secret, but for some reason, we never played either of them. So, just like with the post for Top Secret, I’m going to pretend it’s the 80’s and one of my friends has said “Let’s make characters for a Star Frontiers game that I’m going to run.”

Now there are two books in this hardback POD version. The basic game and the expanded game. As a new player, we would have started our characters in the basic game rules on page 4. I’ll jump over to the expanded rules after the character is made to see what else may be needed.

OK, we are using the percentile dice for this game. Each ability score will range from 1 to 100 with the higher number being better. The attributes appear to be linked in bases. So we have Strength/Stamina, Dexterity/Reaction Speed, Intuition/Logic (basically alertness and problem solving) and Personality/Leadership (yea, it’s charisma). There is also a listing for Initiative which is more of a modifier than an attribute. I roll percentiles and consult a chart to see where each base is from 30-70 and you roll in order. Before writing the results down, I wanted to select my race as there are modifiers. The four races in the core book are Humans (I have no idea who these guys are), Dralasites (short blob lifeforms that can stretch and have mechanical voiceboxes), Vrusk (Many legged insect looking lifeforms) and Yazirians (apes with leather wings between the arms and legs). They all sound cool, but I’m going to let the dice decide (my choice, this wasn’t in the rules). A random D4 latter resulted in this character being a Vrusk. With my adjusted stats I now have STR/STA 50, DEX/RS 45, INT/LOG 45 and PER/LDR 50. I divide the RS score by 10 and round up to get the initiative modifier, which is 5.

Next I select a name. K’likki sounds Vruskish (I only saw one Vrusk name in the start of the book) and that is where the basic rules end on character creation. However I see that on the next few pages are some other items that are listed on the character sheet such as movement information. So I add them to the sheet as well. The rest of the basic rules covers some equipment descriptions (employers provides), how to run combat and an intro adventure. I’m going to jump over to the expanded rules and take a glance at the character creation steps there.

OK, on page 4 of the expanded rules there is a more detailed list of steps. The first few in generating the ability scores and using the racial modifiers are the same. If this character had been human, I could have added 5 points to a single ability score (not base). I also had the option to move points around if I so desired. I’m going to keep my scores as I have them written down. I’m instructed to write down any racial abilities that my race has (Vrusk are Ambidextrous and a comprehension score of 15 percent, which appears to be a special skill). K’likki will be a male. And I get to roll for credits. d100+250 results in 277, but the rules states that I can buy the standard equipment pack for 250. I was going to find the equipment section, but the book (after showing good details on the races) showed the skills section. A starting character chooses their Primary Skill Area (Military, Technological and Biosocial). I’m not certain which one to take with the attributes that I have. As a starting character, I choose a PSA and then select two skills from that group. So I’m going to keep it simple and just choose military with Beam Weapons and Melee Weapons. Perhaps K’likki was the member of a security squad for his company that became disgraced and that is the reason he is out on his own adventuring. Also trying to find a way to clear his name. I think the character is done? From the rules-as-written I can see where the character creation system kind of sputtered out. I would have asked questions to an experienced GM when creating my character to make sure I had everything fleshed out. From what I understand by reading blogs from Star Frontier fans, the later books in the game helped smooth out some of these rough edges. I don’t have access to them for the challenge. I’m wondering if someone re-wrote the character creation steps to make sure everything was in one spot. Here is what I have for the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

I liked the idea of using a Basic game to learn the ropes and an Expanded game for regular play. I think in the Expanded character creation steps it should have included information on how to obtain my character’s standard starting skills. I finally found the equipment section, but there was no way I could pick up anything with 27 credits (after buying my starting adventures pack).

I am a big fan of the d100 type system. I would love to see how the game actually plays at the table. Oh how I wish I could have lived in that alternate 1980’s. I don’t know if I’ll find someone running this game at the upcoming SaltCon, but perhaps I could find a game on Roll20 that would accept a newbie.

Additional Notes:

I was able to pick up this book in 2022 with the credit I earned from you guys clicking on my DriveThruRPG links and buying games. So thank you for helping me get a POD for this book. I wrote a review of the POD books that I have picked up from DTRPG. The next set of credits that I earn will go towards a game that I will use in the 2024 Character Creation Challenge.

So I’ve been able to update the large list of blogs and message boards participating in the 2023 Character Creation Challenge. This includes the first (to my knowledge) non-English website. If I don’t have your site listed yet, please email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com and I’ll add it. There are some new sites and some sites I recognize instantly. For those of you who have participated in all three years, thank you. For those of you who are new, welcome to the challenge.

Oh, if you are just finding out about the Character Creation Challenge now, you can still jump in. In the past a few participants hadn’t started until day 10 and they were able to catch up. Remember, this is just for fun.

Follow up to yesterday’s character from Alien. I mentioned that he looked like Ivan Draggo in combat fatigues and a reader on the RPG.net forums sent me this. Once I was able to pull it up, I thought it was perfect.

Coming Up Next:

Low Fantasy Gaming

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