The prompt of ‘Explore’ is being used for the Day 8 entry of the RPGaDAY 2025 Challenge. There were quite a few blog posts that came up about setting up a game for the players to explore distant lands or strange new worlds. But when I was thinking about this topic, I looked within. I like exploring some of the different roleplaying game systems that are out there. How are they different? What twist was added to a similar system like D20? Does the system make sense for the genre it’s used for?
So, how do I explore these different systems? Well, I’ve been approaching this in different ways.
First and foremost is to just sit and read the book. When I’m doing this, I find that physical books are better for the first read through. Then when I’m doing research or in a game, PDFs and their quick search features are very handy. Most RPG books are well written enough to explain the system without making me want to claw my eyes out. Then there are others that I just toss the book to the side and say ‘nope’. The two examples of bad books are The Strange and my big disappointment known as The Cowboy Bebop Roleplaying Game (sigh). There are badly organized books with good systems such as the first edition Star Trek Adventures core rulebook that made me want to re-write it. I am very grateful that the people behind this game took the fans feedback to heart and made vast improvements with the release of Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition. The system is nearly identical, but the presentation was much easier to read and understand. I give thanks to them for being willing to listen to the fans.
Another method of exploring new systems has been creating characters for the annual Character Creation Challenge. I’ve noticed that the better written books give you enough information about the system so that you can make good decisions while creating your character. Then it can do a deeper dive into the system farther into the book for clarity. I’ve mentioned before that a good RPG book will give me a quick one-minute pitch on how the game is played so I can try to talk friends into trying it at the table. Plus, if I can tell them how easy it is to make a character, the more likely they may take me up on that gaming offer.
And sometimes the best way to explore a new system is to just sit down and play it. At SaltCON, I try to sign up for at least one game that I’ve never played before just to learn the system. What has really been cool is that several designers have brought their own games to the convention for players to check out. I’ve had a lot of fun asking the designers questions after they have run their one-shots.
What methods have you used to explore a new gaming system? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.
All right, I’m sorry to my regular readers. I know that I owe you guys a LOT of catch up articles. Let’s just say that 2025 has been very sucky on a lot of different fronts. So I’m trying to catch up with this and other articles. I’m also going to attempt to participate in the 2025 #RPGaDAY challenge coming up in August. So the first of my catch up articles will be a look at the Monty Python’s Role-Playing Game Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme published by Exalted Funeral.
I had received this package back in January during the middle of the Character Creation Challenge, so I didn’t open it up then. Since those blog entries take up the bulk of my blog time, I elected to wait until later to do a review. Yea, that was a bad idea.
What I saw when I first opened up the shipping box.
This Kickstarter campaign actually started back in October of 2022. Those who had pledged for the physical items also received PDFs of the rules. This is how I was able to make a character for this game in the 2024 Character Creation Challenge. I discussed some of the items from the game in the challenge entry, so I’ll try to concentrate on the physical items that I received as part of the reward. I wasn’t able to get any of the big-ticket items, but I picked up the book, the special dice for the game. Since several stretch goals were met, the physical backers also received coconut dice rollers.
Yes, they make hoof noises when clapped together. I tested them.
You probably can’t see it very well in the photo above, but the game logo is on the inside of the coconut halves. I’ll have a chance to play this game at the upcoming SaltCON End-of-Summer, so I’ll bring both the dice and the dice rollers to use at the table. And speaking of dice… err… Certified Polyhedral Random Number Generators.
The top of the dice box for the game.
The text at the bottom of the box.
The contents inside the box.
The only item that seemed to have a printing error.
Yes, I had to get the dice for the game. No, I don’t have enough dice. While I’m not up to full dice goblin mode, I’m getting closer. I can’t wait to see how these are used in the game.
As for the hardback book itself, it’s beautiful. Brian Saliba and Craig Schaffer are the names posted on the front of the book. The cover art is by Keith Lowe. The ISBN is 979-8-88756-079-3 with a suggested price of $50.00. There are 450 pages with content on both inside covers. There are nine chapters and several appendices and an index. The hardbound book also contains a bookmark ribbon.
The first chapter is “An introduction to cocurricular reenacting” followed by “A brief historical remediation for those who didn’t apply themselves at school.” The third chapter provides the information on how the system works with the “How the programme programmes” and character creation is in the fourth chapter under “Participant Primer.” For the game masters, chapter five gives us “Head of Light Entertainment Handbook” with the “Heads of Light Entertainment Directory” following right after. A whos-who of characters from some different Monty Python films are included in chapter seven’s “Notable Historical Figures” with chapter eight providing “A field guide to creatures, historical, mythical and mundane.” The last chapter contains various “Quests” that the HoLE (aka GM) can use in a campaign. Since I’m going to be playing this RPG soon, I did not read any of these adventures. A character sheet is included (also available for download on the Exalted Funeral website. While I was looking at the book I noticed that they had provided different colored pages for the different chapters. This was also reflected on the edge of the pages for quick searches.
Hopefully the different colored pages show up in this photograph.
The text on the back of the book.
While I covered the character creation steps in the 2024 Character Creation Challenge entry, I didn’t really go into detail on the system. Each class… err… situation that the participant (aka character) is a part of has a series of traits. The player describes to the HoLE what their participant is doing and a trait is selected to roll against. Which of the many die is selected depends upon if the participant is being serious or silly. There are also accouterments that may give the participant bonuses to their roll. The HoLE will roll for the opposing NPC or situation. However if the player describes the action well (or silly) enough, then the HoLE may just declare “Intercourse the Dice” and award an automatic success. I’m not certain if I’m describing the basics very well. Perhaps I’ll be able to explain it better after SaltCON. But the feel that I’m getting is that this is has a lot of narrative feel, but keeps the soul of randomness going with the different types of dice.
The traits in the game are Animal Husbandry (aka Animal Handling), Argumentation (aka Debating, but I wanted an argument), Authority (aka Leadership), Bardistry (aka Performance), Chasity (avoiding temptation), Decorum (are you trained to be high class or are you just a peasant), Druidry (healing through nature), Glibness (the ability to use quick wits or not), Heartiness (aka Charisma), Lorefulness (aka Intelligence and Wisdom), Luck (self explanatory), Nimbleness (aka Dexterity), Purpose (aka Force of Will or Faith), Sorcery (There are some that call me… Tim), Strategy (aka Tactical knowledge), Subtlety (aka skills a thief would have), Valour (aka battle skills and bravery), and Wisdom in the Ways of Science (aka Thinking outside the box). Not all situations will have all traits. If the player attempts to use a trait that they don’t have, then they roll the lowest die (d4), but they can still try.
Going through the book there is a ton of in-jokes from the various Monty Python episodes and movies. Primarily it is geared towards The Life of Brian and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But fans will notice other entries as well.
I am glad that I backed this Kickstarter campaign. I can’t wait to actually try it out at the table. It will probably be one of the first Kickstarter games that I’ve picked up that I’ll be able to play. So I will hopefully have more to say after SaltCON EoS is over.
Do you have any questions about Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme? Have you backed any Kickstarters lately? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.
I’m writing this the day after SaltCON-Summer 2025. Let’s just say I’m really happy that I was smart enough to take the Monday after the convention off. It gave me a chance to not only unwind from the very busy weekend, but get somethings done that I usually do on Saturday or Sunday to prep for my next week. I’m also very happy for the time I spent at the convention. Thank you to those who gave me hugs. I hope you realize how much this is helping me keep my spirits up. I also had one of my readers come up and tell me that he enjoyed my blog posts. Thank you. I know that recent posts have been rare, but I’m going to keep going. I do have plans to participate in the upcoming RPGaDAY 2025 activity this August. I also still owe you guys different reviews and first-looks at some of the KickStarter rewards that I’ve received.
As you can see from the loot photo above, I was able to pick up a few items. SaltCON has always had a good t-shirt design for each event. This year seems to be following the cyberpunk genre. I had some money to pick up both the current con shirt, but the spring shirt as well that I missed out on a few months ago. One of the nice things that SaltCON does is sell the older con shirts at a discount. When I picked up my badge, I was notified that I was one of the random winners of the game giveaway. Out of the two possible options, Chicken Time Warp sounded like fun. And since it was the size of a deck of cards, it wouldn’t take up too much room in my convention backpack. There was a dealer that had a sale on geeky pins, I picked up some that said “Dungeon Master”, “I’m not procrastinating, I’m doing side quests”, “Sarcasm +5” and “I don’t have any ducks in a row. I have squirrels and they are at a rave.” I also received a couple of thank you prizes for running games that included the RPG Attack from Space (medieval knights vs. invading aliens from outer space) and a mug that says “DnD Diplomacy, Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, FIREBALL.” I’ll be using the mug for my end-of-day sleepytime tea and I’ll be using Attack from Space as one of my entries in the 2026 Character Creation Challenge.
Posters made by the con to advertise my games.
I was scheduled to run three games at SaltCON-Summer 2025. I’m not sure if it was karma for dropping out of some games at the spring event, or if I simply waited too long to submit my events and got stuck with bad time slots—but unfortunately, no one showed up for my Basic Fantasy and Teenagers from Outerspace sessions. I did get a chance to run the TfOS game at The Queen’s Realm a few weeks ago (in preparation for the con) but I also put a lot of effort into the home-brewed Basic Fantasy adventure. So I may make another attempt with one or both games at a future convention.
The Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition game. Let’s just say that the players and I were laughing and having a very good time with the scenario. Probably one of the best one-shots that I’ve ran in quite some time. We even ended up with a “There I was…” type of story out of it. Long story short, the players were disguised on a planet with a pre-warp civilization. The Prime Directive was in full effect, but the players had found themselves in a dangerous situation where the villagers were chasing some of them. One player hid in a merchant’s shop and wanted to use his back door. The merchant, wanting to make a sale, said that he was willing to allow paying customers slip out the back door. The character had not thought to bring any of the local currency with them when they went into the village, so he accepted the offer to trade his hat, for one of the agrarian level hand tools. The moment he had made the exchange, I spent a level of threat and reminded him that the hat had been replicated with his advanced technology. While it was an imitation of the local headgear the natives wore, it wasn’t the same material. There was another PC in the store with him so he couldn’t just say he had lost it. This put the player in a panic and we ended up spending an extra amount of time over this one plot point and the hand-wringing it brought about. Was this a violation of the Prime Directive like Dr. McCoy leaving his communicator behind on Sigma Iotia II? When they rejoined the Commander leading the expedition, I did give him a chance to notice the missing headgear, which he did which lead to further awkward. When the game was over and I asked for feedback from the players, one of the first-time players said he was glad that I had used the threat in-game currency (which I had on several different times) to spice up the scenario. Some of these I only came up with on the fly during the course of play. Another first-time player stated he now needed to go out and pick up the core rulebook because of how much fun he had. Had there been a merchant at the con selling books for the games being run, they would have made a sale. Jim J, if you or any of your team are reading this, just know that the first time players picked up the system very easily and had a great time around the table playing your game.
Some of the characters I played this weekend.
For the first time ever, all of the games that I participated in as a player was completely new to me. Usually I just try to get one or two in so I can try out different systems. Two of the games were played with the actual designers who had attended to show off their works.
Shadowdark: This was an interesting game since we were playing zero-level characters in a funnel similar to the kind I experienced in Dungeon Crawl Classics. Every single one of my randomly pulled characters only had one hit point, so I went through a stack of them trying to get out. What made this D20 clone interesting is that none of the PC races had any type of infravision or dark vision. So if our light source went out, we were at a disadvantage. The timer would run in real time and to demonstrate this, an hourglass was placed on the table that would match one hour. This made for a very interesting scenario that I’m glad that I tried out. I wouldn’t turn down a Shadowdark session if an invite was extended and I’m interested in seeing the character creation rules.
Pirate Borg: Another game that I’ve been hearing a lot about and that I’m hoping I can pick up for a future Character Creation Challenge. Ran by the same GM who ran the Shadowdark game earlier. The character was higher than level 0, and thus a little bit more hardier. All of the players got into the pirate theme of the game (one even kept talking with a Jersey accent the entire time) which added to the enjoyment. One of the players ended up getting killed at the very last second of the game which showed me how weird this game could be. Again, I wouldn’t turn down a chance to play it again.
Untold: This is a fantasy game that uses D12s. A LOT of D12s. It kind of reminded me of the 2d20 system where you have target numbers based off of skills and attributes, but you had to roll over the target number. Which wasn’t easy to do sometimes. I played a barbarian so I didn’t get a chance to try the unusual magic system, but it wasn’t Vancian. It was interesting to try the game and a lot of players got into their characters. This was one of the creator run sessions.
EverReach: This is a science fiction/cyberpunkish game with the designer of the game. The system was pretty easy to follow along as it only used D6s with the ability to swap out one of the D6s rolled (by the player or GM). We played an independent crew that was hired by a corporation to perform a smash and grab. As the players, we spent the bulk of the session planning out the heist and bouncing ideas off of each other. How were we going to get past the defenses and neutralize the third-party gang hired to protect the server we were after? How were we going to extract ourselves? Because we did a bunch of planning (something I had experienced in a past Spycraft game) there wasn’t a lot of rolling until the very end. So I got a little taste of it. But I’m going to be doing a deeper dig on this game as a review in a future blog post.
The Expanse: So I had only seen the pilot episode of this hard sci-fi TV series, but it turns out the game is based off of the books (it’s a rights thing). So there was still a lot of explaining to the newbies at the table like myself. There were different factions controlling different parts of the Sol System and there was no FTL in this universe. The main reason I wanted to play this game is to try the Age System that comes up in Fantasy Age and Modern Age. The dice roll mechanics was easy to get down, but there were pages and pages of stunts that each character could pull from when they ended up with special Stunt Points. So we were continuously looking through these pages to see what fit the situation we currently found ourselves in. In the end, we completed the mission in style due to these stunt points, but I’m going to have to go back and take a deeper dive into the Age books that I own to see if I’d want to do anything further with this system. Something I don’t know if I would have noticed without getting my hands dirty with it.
So in conclusion, I had a ton of fun (again) at SaltCON. Yes, the summer event is smaller than the spring one. But there were a couple of temping RPG pickups at the swap meet and game exchange. If there is a regular RPG book seller who’s looking for a market, this convention could easily make you a lot of sales especially if you had the books for the games being run at the con. As I was writing this blog post, one of the con-organizers posted on FaceBook that this had been the highest attended SaltCON-Summer ever. Once again, a big shout-out should go to the other attendees, volunteers and organizers for putting this together. As someone who has retired from the con-chair business, I know how much effort is put into these events. It was noticed and appreciated.
SaltCON-End of Summer is coming up on August 28-31 at the Davis Convention Center in Layton, Utah. Currently I’m planning to attend and run some RPG one-shots. Let me know if you plan to go so I can meet up with you.
Do you have any questions about the convention weekend? 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.
Holy crap I made it. I was able to get 31 characters made for the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge. The last character was officially done on March 14th, but I rolled up (well mostly) 31 characters using 31 different systems. Thank you for sticking with me and for cheering me on until I made it to the finish line. I had several of you reach out to me after reading my SitRep Report towards the beginning of February. A few more real life issues came and kicked me hard. After several vet visits, overnight stays and stressful financial burdens, one of our younger beloved cats unfortunately crossed the rainbow bridge. This had devastating mental and financial issues (vet bills) that the family is still working through. On top of that, the real world issues of government shutdowns and layoffs has been adding to my stress. I also wanted to make sure that my gamemaster commitments for SaltCON-Spring 2025 were fulfilled, which I gladly did so. Especially since I was receiving two admission passes for myself and my geek wife.
OK, enough real world bitching. What are my final thoughts on the 2025 challenge? (Why do I suddenly feel like Jerry Springer at the end of one of his shows?) While this was probably the most challenging of the five years I’ve been doing this, I’m still really glad that I did it. I’m even more glad that I stuck with it and made 31 characters. I think one of the bad things that happened after January 31st is that I let a lot of distractions (most legit) get in the way of me completing the last few characters. During January I’m in “go go go” mode. Taking a lot of time to make sure a daily post is made and uploaded. Once that urgency was gone, I had to focus on real life sacrificing play time. For those of you who can post significant daily content on your blogs, I salute you.
The entries that stood out to me in the 2025 challenge included Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition, Planet of the Apes and Red Dwarf The Roleplaying Game. All three of these books were beautiful, the character creation process was easily explained and I want to homebrew for all three of them. Look forward to more from me on these games.
The games that were disappointments in this challenge were actually quite limited. While there were a few that were frustrating, I wouldn’t really call them disappointments, with one exception. The Strange. It started out with so much high potential, then crashed hard. The feedback I had received from that blog post has already been documented in the “additional notes” sections of other entries, but it was from people who had similar experiences that I encountered with this RPG.
Speaking of feedback, I really want to thank the publishers/authors of the GI Joe RPG and Shadow Ops RPG for providing feedback to my blog posts. This tells me that they loved working on their projects and were grateful to their customers. I’m hopeful that my feedback will help improve future publications/editions of their works.
Also, the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server during this challenge. Even now we are still having some regular conversations on a variety of subjects. For those of you who have joined me there, thank you.
For all of those who are still reading my little corner of the internet, thank you. For all of those who reached out to me or came up to me in person to give me a hug, thank you. The friendships and camaraderie of the geek and gaming community has really been a rock that has helped stabilize my life right now. If you made it to 31 days, congratulations. Send me a note via email (carl (at) tardiscaptain.com) on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. I want to make sure you got the completion graphic for completing the challenge.
Also, if you purchased anything after clicking on the affiliate links to DriveThruRPG or Amazon, thank you. I’m not doing this blog to make money, but the kickback helps when making game purchases for future challenges.
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.
This was probably one of the most interesting and entertaining SaltCONs that I’ve attended. There were some games that I missed, but I still played in many others and the games that I ran were very well attended. I think what helped the most is the friends that I met up with at the convention. As most of my regular readers know, 2025 has been sucky to say the least (at least using words that don’t involve swearing). In fact one of the issues that has been affecting my household came to ahead when one of our furbabies (not the one pictured in the Prepping for the 2025 Character Creation Challenge post) passed beyond the rainbow bridge a few days after the con. That is what delayed this after-action report. We are happy that he is no longer in pain, but it has been one of the things on our minds for the past two months.
Sigh. Back to talking about the con and the fun that I had there. I arrived on Thursday and checked in. I had some time before running my first game and I started wandering around the convention center. I found one set of friends, but they were in the middle of a session. I found a second set of friends, but they were running the Artemis bridge simulator. After wandering through the dealers room and seeing all of the stuff I wasn’t able to buy because of lack of funds, I walked into a hallway and found a friend who was attending the convention for a first time. I sat down next to her and asked for a hug. She instantly grabbed me and said “I’ve known you for 35+ years I can give you a hug.” That was the start of making this conventions one of the best conventions I’ve attended in a while. Not only did she spend a lot of time with me making sure that I was OK, as we were wandering around together for most of the con a lot of other friends ran up to me and asked for hugs. I didn’t know if they had heard about my issues that I’ve blogged about, or they just wanted to see me. The small acts of friendship really helped me out. I tried to make sure all of you heard a “thank you” from me individually, but if I didn’t get to you, please know that you really boosted my spirits. Thank you.
Alright, shaking that off, despite the lack of funds this weekend, I did pick up some loot at the convention. For running a lot of one-shots the gaming coordinator allowed me to pick a book from the box of prizes. I elected to pick up the core rulebook for Tales from the Loop. Primarily so I could use it in the 2026 Character Creation Challenge. Yes, yes… I know, I still have two more characters to pump out to get to my 31 characters. I should be able to get those done very soon. The shirt was also a gift to the GMs from the coordinator and it was specifically for those who had volunteered a certain number of hours at the convention. I was tempted to get the regular convention t-shirt which also looked good, but funds were limited. The convention itself had handed out specialty D6s (this was the 10th anniversary of the convention) that had playing pieces to represent the 6 on the die. I was able to obtain several of these. Another GM had given us a special D6 for his game which advertised his group called RPG Sessions. SaltCON was also having another pin quest and I was gifted a cyberpunk beholder. You probably can’t see it very well in the photo posted above, but he’s all metallic and kewl looking. And finally, a friend saw the “My puns deal 3d8 psychic damage” sticker in the dealers room and had to pick it up for me. Not pictured was a rubber duck dressed up as a witch that someone dropped in front of me. I missed who did this so here is another random “Thank You”.
I’m very happy with the games that I ran for the convention and I had a ton of fun running them. In every single one, someone who hadn’t signed up for a session walked up to the table and asked if they could join. My Star Trek Adventures game was based off of a scenario provided in the Klingon Empire Gamemaster Toolkit and it quickly turned into a “Weekend at Bernie’s” situation. One of the characters had been physically taken over by an entity and didn’t have full control of their body. So the other characters had to drag them around why they flopped their arms in the direction they wanted to go. We were talking about that game over the course of the convention. I was really impressed with the intro adventure for the Doctor Who 2nd Edition RPG that I ran on Friday. Every one got into their characters very well and as I was running it, I thought to myself “I could be talked into running a campaign with this system.” On Saturday morning I ran the intro adventure for the new Planet of the Apes RPG that I had backed on Kickstarter (review coming when I get the physical product). This is the one that is an update to the old D6 system by West End Games that was used for Star Wars and Ghostbusters. This was the first time I had GMed for this system and I could tell it had been a long time since I had actually played. I can’t wait to get the physical book for this game. And finally on Sunday I ran a game that the games coordinator told me was getting lots of talk over the weekend. The Wendy’s Feast of Legends game. We had a full table by the end of the session and honestly, it didn’t run too bad for a joke advertisement game. I had to house-rule a few things just to keep the flow going, but I would have done that with any RPG. I did have to explain some of the in-jokes within the game since the food prices had risen since this game was released. Unfortunately, because of the no-outside food rule at the convention center, no one had any bonuses from bringing in Wendy’s food. The convention organizers had posters made of all the RPG games that were scheduled for the weekend (to try to draw in players from other sections) and here is the one they did for the Feast of Legends.
As for the games that I was able to participate in, this is how it went.
Basic Roleplaying, Cypher System, Curseborn: Ashcan Edition and Pendragon. If you were running these games at the con, I apologize for missing them. Due to some real life issues (one mentioned above) and pure exhaustion I had to miss your games. I really wanted to try them out and I tried to see if I could sign up for another open table spot, but the schedules just didn’t pan out. If they are run at future SaltCONs, I’ll try to see if I can sign up for a seat then. One of my goals is to at least try one or two new games each convention. I like checking out the variety of games that are out there just to see how I like them.
The Starfinder game was listed as a play test of the 2nd edition. But I don’t believe it was an official play test with the publisher. I had asked if there was a way to provide feedback and the GM was running something that they had gotten off of Facebook (if I understood him correctly). I’ve played in a short 1st edition campaign back in 2020, but I don’t recall much of it. I hadn’t been too impressed with it then but part of the issue may have been running on the sucky Fantasy Grounds VTT. The 2nd edition played at the table seemed OK, but there wasn’t anything to write home about. I played a Vesk tank with several big guns and lots of armor and it just seemed like we were in a dungeon, in space. I don’t know, I’m not getting the appeal of Starfinder.
TRON: Vasser’s Game. This was a homebrew of the Genesys system to run a TRON RPG. The GM had things laid out pretty well. Turns out this was the same gentleman that ran the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG at the 2024 SaltCON-Spring. The same tablets were used that had the character sheets but we got to roll the weird dice on the table this time. This allowed me to try to understand the system a little bit better, which I don’t think I did very well. This wasn’t the fault of the system or the GM, I just kept feeling like I was slowing down the pace of the game not understanding the symbols of the special dice. After the game I was thinking about this and if I had prepped myself with a dice cheat sheet I don’t think I would have felt guilty slowing things down. Both myself and the other players were very interested in a TRON based RPG as we kept making references to the movies. I also referenced the TRON 2.0 video game that I’ve enjoyed many times over.
A GM that I knew was running the Star Trek Adventures 1st Edition because he hadn’t picked up the 2nd edition book again. Which was actually good for me because he ran a comedy based adventure called “Blueberry Trill” which was weird. It was one of the mission briefings that he had found online that allowed him to improvise parts of the adventure. One of the things he did was run us through an extended task in the one-shot. This was something that I really hadn’t experienced in the times that I had played 1st edition. I think I’m glad that this part of the game was changed for the 2nd edition of the game. Oh, and if someone offers you a genetically modified blueberry designed to grow on the planet Trill, don’t take them up on it. Trust me.
Titans of Atlantis was not only the last game for me, but the last RPG to be run in the RPG room for the convention. It was a weird D12 system where you got to roll more D12s if the character was more skilled in certain areas. But there was still a low target number to try to roll under. I had a basic fighter that was only armed with a spear and a shield (all with fancy greek/roman inspired names). With how “skilled” he was at fighting, he sure didn’t connect on a lot of strikes. I ended up helping to push one of the big monsters into a magical portal with the other characters instead of trying to slay it since that seemed to be more effective. The game itself was pretty funny, but that was because the players were probably exhausted from the weekend and the constant low success rolls. This resulted in throwing caution to the wind on a lot of antics that were performed in the game. Was this done on purpose to prevent murder hoboing in the game? I’m not certain. While I was grateful to try out a new system, I don’t see this being a repeat system for me to try.
One last nugget to drop before I wrap this up. I had a game designer ask me if I’d be willing to review his RPG that he had just released. He agreed that I was free to write what I wanted in my review. A few days after the con I had a message from DriveThruRPG with a free copy of the game. I hope to get this review posted in a month after I’ve taken care of a few other blog obligations that I need to catch up on.
If you are looking for a good gaming convention, I’d recommend SaltCON. There are quite a few out-of-town people who show up for the spring event. But the Summer event on June 6-8 and the End-of-Summer on August 29-31 are also enjoyable as well. I’d love to see other publishers and blog readers there. I’m already trying to decide what games I’ll run in June as the call has gone out for submissions.
Do you have any questions about the convention weekend? 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.
The graphic I commissioned for those who have completed the challenge.
So, I’m sure a few of you are wondering what has happened. Here we are on February 7th and I haven’t finished posted my 31 characters for the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge. Let me just say three words. “Real Life Sucks.”
First, I’m not having serious health issues. I wanted to say that up front so no one would panic. I’m also not losing my job. But some of the job stress has contributed to the perfect-storm of suck that 2025 is handing me right now. The hosting company having two hiccups in January didn’t help. There were also other real life and family duties that required my attention. It has not only affected my challenge entries, but my other relaxation pursuits as well. I think this has only led to some of the stress I’ve been feeling. Make sure you guys are taking care of yourself mentally as well as physically.
I commissioned artist Aurora Stark (yes I’m a proud Papa) to design and draw up the graphic for those of you who have completed all 31 characters. I didn’t want to delay getting it to those who were able to complete the challenge on time. If I haven’t responded to your email/private message, feel free to virtually tap me on the shoulder again as I have two sizes of the graphic to send you.
Aurora Stark does concept art and visual development with her art degree from the University of Utah. They based this design on the old black-and-white art seen while studying my older role-playing game books. It’s a medieval flail with three D20’s spelling out 2025. If you would like to see some of their other artistic examples, or perhaps even inquire with them about commissions, feel free to visit their website at https://aurorastark.art/.
So what is next for me on this project? I will finish the remaining characters as I hate leaving something half-completed. Especially since a friend surprised me with an RPG publication that had recently been my ‘Holy Grail’ of books that I’ve been searching for. I will be making a character for this game and I may need some curries or gazpacho soup to complete it (major hint there folks). When I post them, they will be back-dated to the dates they would have been posted on originally. But, I will post the links on my various social media sites and message boards. Once that is done I will write up a proper post-mortem that I usually post at the end of the challenge. That will not be post-dated, but it will have links to all of my entries along with my thoughts on them.
I’ve also received some KickStarter rewards. I should have some first-look articles posted in the next few weeks. I can’t wait to talk about one that I’ve been waiting for more than a year for. So I do have some articles in the pipeline.
If you are still reading this post, thank you very much for sticking with me. If you participated in the challenge, thank you. If you completed it on time, I hope you take a moment to be proud of your accomplishment. I didn’t make it within the time allotted, but I will complete it to join you guys.
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.
If you are looking for my 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge after action report with completion graphic, it will be posted when I’m caught up from being put behind by real-life events. If you made it to 31 characters, email me or privately contact me on one of the message boards or social media and I’ll make sure you get the graphic. Thank you for participating.
Here is my entry for Day 31 of the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge and I’ll be using a game that I picked up at a thrift store. Iron Kingdoms Full Metal Fantasy Roleplaying Game. I had never heard of this game before I had found it. On the surface it appeared to be a store brand version of a steampunk Warhammer 40K RPG, but who ever owned this previously must have loved the rules. The book was so worn from use that I’m afraid that pages were going to start falling out if I’m not careful. There were also stick on tabs on various pages to easily pull up different rules. This was a table copy for this game and very well loved. So let’s see how it looks when I dive in for the first time trying to make a character.
This hardbound book was published by Privateer Press in 2012. It has 359 pages with an ISBN number of 978-1-933362-89-2. Iron Kingdoms was created by Brian Snoddy and Matthew D. Wilson. The fist 100 or so pages covers the history of the world that this game is set in. Basically it contains steam-powered machines, magic, various races, alchemy and lots of dangerous guns. The artwork shows a world filled with dirt, soot and ash.
The character creation chapter starts on page 102. It describes the primary and secondary stats for the character. The primary stat of Physique (PHY) describes the physical aspects of the character with the secondary stats of Speed (SPD) and Strength (STR). The second primary stat of Agility (AGL) covers the reflexes and nimbleness with the secondary stats of Poise (POI) aka hand-eye coordination and dexterity and Prowess (PRW) aka grace and balance. The last primary stat is Intellect (INT) which includes wits, deduction and speed of thought with the secondary skills of Arcane (ARC) aka magical power and Perception (PER). There are also several derived stats of Defense (DEF), Initiative, Armor (ARM), Willpower (WILL). There is also definitions of MAT (Melee Attack) and RAT (Ranged Attack), the Life Spiral (aka health), Abilities (things the character knows how to do which do not increase in level), Connections and Skills (things the character knows how to do that can increase in level).
The Character Creation steps are listed on page 107. They are 1- Pick a race, 2- Pick an archetype, 3-Select two starting careers, 4- Increase the stats and 5- Finishing touches.
The races available for the first step that are listed in the core book include Human, Dwarf, Gobber (aka Goblins), Iosan (they look like gold skinned elves), Nyss (they look like pale elves), Ogrun (aka Ogres) and Trollkin (aka Trolls). As much as I’d love to explore some of the unique races in this book, I’m trying to play catch up with the challenge so I’m going to go with a simple Human to see how a basic race is presented. The race determines the starting stats, which I wrote down. It also details what possible archetypes are available to that race, languages, height and weight and additional characteristics (which bumped up some of the stat values).
The archetypes listed for the second step are Gifted, Intellectual, Mighty and Skilled. Each archetype has a series of benefits that are awarded when selected. One is automatic, the other is selected from a list of available feats and advantages. I picked Mighty and Back Swing. I guess I’m leaning towards a fighter character (obviously I may have picked different if I was creating in a group for a party).
Step three is to pick not just one, but two careers. This would provide the character with a set of skills and abilities. Some careers have prerequisites such as race or archetypes. There are 28 different careers so I’m not going to list them all. They were all very dark steampunkish in nature. Some of these were very close in nature that trying to decide which two to select was a little hard. This is where having other party members might have helped. I knew that I wanted to have this character be some sort of fighter, but which one and what to pair with it? After going through them several times I think I settled on two of them. The Aristocrat (basically a member of high society within the Iron Kingdoms) and a Bounty Hunter. This character is turning out to be someone who was raised with a silver spoon but left that lifestyle (probably upsetting his family in the process) to forge his own path out in the world. Why not. I wrote down what was earned from the two careers on my notes.
Now the book leads us to step four, Increase Stats. On page 150 it states that I have 3 advancement points to the primary or secondary stats. So far I don’t know how the RPG system works, so I just picked three secondary stats and increased them. Now that these numbers are determined, I’m instructed to fill out the life spiral to match the stat numbers by blocking out the excess numbers not used.
Last step is step five, the finishing touches. This deals with party setup (um… OK) and purchasing additional equipment to go with the starting assets from the career choices (only gold crowns for the two I selected). The money is to be used for weapons and armor as there is a basic set of adventurers equipment that each character is assumed to have and doesn’t need to be noted on the character sheet. Even thought it wasn’t listed, I would assume that the character name and background would have been selected here as well. In the Bounty Hunting world he’s known as the Back Adder (yea, I’m being inspired here) those in more polite circles might know him as Sir Edvard Blaccadicus. I still had to do some filling in of the character sheet but there were still a lot of blank spaces. I’m done, here is the scan.
Afterthoughts:
Creation wasn’t too bad, but seemed to be lacking a few steps to make sure that all the “T’s” were crossed and “I’s” were dotted. They could have also used some additional “see page xx for more information” sections. While they did a good job of explaining the stats, I wish that I could have quickly found the “this is how the system works” section. With how the book was starting to come apart I didn’t want to do too many page flips. There were some missing sections on my character sheet. What is social stats? Feat points? I’m sure I could have spent some time digging through the book, but I was done by that point.
While this was an interesting experience, I don’t see myself playing this game. I don’t even know of anyone else who actually owns this game.
Additional Notes:
After I had posted my character for Mazes and Minotaurs on one of the RPG message boards, someone responded. They told me how much they liked the post and wanted to try the game out themselves, but then they asked why I gave a character in a Greek inspired universe a Roman name. I hadn’t even realized that I had done that. The only thing I could chalk this up to is how exhausted I’ve been lately. 2025 has not been a good year so far, so I won’t miss it when it’s gone.
If you’ve stuck with me through these challenging times, thank you. I really appreciate the readers of my blog. Especially those who have contacted me, interacted with me on social media or just joined the conversation on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. I’ll leave my final thoughts for the after-action report, but I wanted to make sure you all heard a thank you from me for being a light in this dark time.
One last note, I was talking with my wife about this while we were driving around. In the future I’m going to try to make the last character of the challenge from a system that is easy to use. This way I’m not looking at a daunting task to wrap up the month.
Coming Up Next:
The real After-Action Report for the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge
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.
If you are looking for my 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge after action report with completion graphic, it will be posted when I’m caught up from being put behind by real-life events. If you made it to 31 characters, email me or privately contact me on one of the message boards or social media and I’ll make sure you get the graphic. Thank you for participating.
I’ve been wanting to use Mazes and Minotaurs for an entry into the #CharacterCreationChallenge since it first started back in 2021. During the month of January, the month of the challenge, another game always seemed to fall in my lap that pushed out one of the games that I had planned. Every year I added it back to the list in my prep sessions and something would force me to replace it. Well this year, when the Red Dwarf RPG was handed to me, I elected not to replace Mazes and Minotaurs. The description of this game is a “what if” scenario of the first fantasy roleplaying game being influenced by Jason & the Argonauts and Homer’s Odyssey rather than The Lords of the Rings. The images are in black and white and the system seems to be very OSR inspired.
There are 51 pages in the Players Manual. The character creation process is listed on page 4. There are seven steps in total. 1- Select class, 2- Roll attributes, 3- Determine character specifics (name, gender & age), 4- Determine combat scores, 5- Determine other scores, 6- Wealth and equipment, 7- Flesh out character.
The classes that are available are broken down into three categories. Warriors, Specialists and Magicians. The warriors include Amazons (female warriors), Barbarians (savage warriors from the wild lands), Centaurs (the guys who horse around), Nobles (warriors from a ruling class) and Spearmen (elite warriors). For the Magicians we have the choice of Elementalists (earth, fire, air, water), Lyrists (bards that follow the god of music), Nymphys (female spirits of nature), Priests (servants of the gods) and Sorcerers (both illusionists and mind magic). The two classes in the specialists category are Hunters (aka Rangers) and Thieves. I haven’t made a magic user in a while, so I selected Sorcerer. The book states we start at level 1. From the class description I wrote down the basic hits (health), possessions, and other class attributes.
Next is the generating the basic attributes. for Mazes and Minotaurs the six attributes are Might (aka Strength), Skill (training the character has had), Wits (alertness and cleverness), Luck (self-explanatory), Will (resolve and self-discipline) and Grace (aka Charisma). These are generated by rolling 2d6+6 and then placing them in any order desired. Each class has two primary attributes and for the Sorcerer it is Will and Wits. So after I was done rolling I placed my two highest in those categories. Each attribute has a modifier depending upon the score. I noted these down as well. The book did state that if all of the attributes did not total 75+ or did not have at least two scores of 13+ then you could re-roll the character’s attributes until the threshold was met. You could also adjust attribute points by taking from one and giving it to another as long as you don’t exceed 18. I did this to give me a higher Luck modifier since it sounded like I may be needed.
Step three is selecting the name, gender and age. I pulled up a Random Roman Name Generator and picked one from the lists provided. Flavius Antius Tiribius. Since the class wasn’t limited by gender, I kept him as a male. As for the starting age, well page 5 said to roll 2d6+20, but the class description said that the sorcerer uses 2d6+25. Since I had seen the later first, I had already rolled an age and written it down. I’ll stick with that since it’s more specific.
Generating combat scores is step four. These are generated from the basic attributes that were generated above. These include Melee, Missile, Initiative and the character’s Defense Class and Effective Defense Class (aka the Defense class plus and armor worn by the character). This section also told me that the Hits listed in the class were adjusted by any modifiers from the Might attribute.
In step five we are generating the Savings Rolls (athletic prowess (swimming, climbing, etc.), danger evasion (dodging), mystic fortitude (save vs hostile magic) and physical vigor (save vs poison). There are also Personal Charisma scores and scores for special class abilities (that I already wrote down previously) Like the combat scores these were generated from the basic attribute modifiers.
Wealth and Equipment for step six. From the class description I already rolled the character’s starting number of silver pieces (standard coinage in this game). There are also gold pieces as well, but the silver is traded more in the realm. The class description also gave me some starting equipment, so I just filled in what else I thought the character would need. Had this been a normal campaign, I’d be asking the GM for advice (aka traveling adventure vs in-city adventure). While I did see some armor restrictions for the class I selected, I didn’t see any weapon restrictions so I gave my sorcerer a sling to help out from a distance.
The last step was fleshing out the character. Religious backgrounds (the gods were every where in the Roman culture), physical appearance, demeanor, family etc. If this was for a campaign, I’d sit and get this all sorted out, but I’m running up against a deadline so I’ll call it good. The book did say that that M&M Companion had additional items for this step including background skills. I looked at the chapter on magic and it doesn’t appear that I pick any spells, I just use my power points to cast a limited number of options. Here is the character sheet.
Afterthoughts:
I can see where they carried the “This was the alternate universe version of D&D” gag in the book. Talking about the updates to the modernized version, the past conversations between fans, etc. The system looks pretty simple enough and I wouldn’t mind trying it at the table just to see how it runs. But the possibility of that is very low.
Additional Notes:
While looking up the Random Roman Name Generator I realized that I had already used this site before when I made my character For Gold & Glory. So perhaps they are members of the same party?
Coming Up Next:
Iron Kingdoms
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.
If you are looking for my 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge after action report with completion graphic, it will be posted when I’m caught up from being put behind by real-life events. If you made it to 31 characters, email me or privately contact me on one of the message boards or social media and I’ll make sure you get the graphic. Thank you for participating.
The original game that I had scheduled for my Day 29 entry in the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge was the Sci-Fi game Faster Than Light: Nomad when I had put my list of games together. However, just the other day I attended the Seventh Fleet Admiral’s Banquet where a couple of readers of my blog were in attendance. They greatly shocked me by handing me a gift with Red Dwarf The Roleplaying Game inside. Thank you Rich and Evelyn. I had stated many times in past blog entries that this game had been my ‘holy grail’ of RPGs that I had been trying to find. Sure there were copies on Amazon or Ebay, but they were always outside of my comfortable price range for a game that I’ve only played at a past SaltCON. So the shocked look on my face when I opened up this present was probably priceless. And I really didn’t want to wait a year to make a character since I had a physical book in my hand. So, sorry Faster Than Light: Nomad, I’ll try to fit you into the 2026 challenge.
If you haven’t guessed by now, I am a fan of the BBC sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf. A BIG fan of Red Dwarf. I love how it makes me laugh, I love how the show isn’t too serious. There is a line from the MST3K that says “If you are wondering how he eats and breathes and other science facts. Just repeat to yourself ‘It’s just a show, I should really just relax.'” Red Dwarf is very much like this line. In one of the seasons the space vessel they use, Starbug, and it’s the size of a small vessel. Then in another season the vessel has grown about twice the size. And this is where this RPG comes in. On the back of the RPG book it states “Create your own alternate Red Dwarf dimension and scour the universe in search of adventure, romance and the edible pot noodle.” So you can make any character you want, drop them on your own mining vessel Red Dwarf and have your own comedic adventures. You could have your own last human, a waxdroid, a Dog or a host of other possibilities.
So, enough fan gushing. The roleplaying game? If you read my SaltCON after action report I stated that I thought the system worked really well for a game based off of this series. On page 3 of the book is a quick start guide that covers both character creation and a rules overview. Thank you. Once again I can point to this page and show it to friends and say “this is how you play, do you want to sit at the table and have some laughs?” Basically to complete a task you roll 2D6 and try to get a number under a target number. This number can be determined by adding the character’s attribute and a skill number (and other possibly modifiers). So the better you are with one of your attributes (Agility, Perception, Dexterity, Intelligence, Strength and Willpower) and skills (such a Pilot, Repair, Seduction, Swim, Medicine, or Cool) the more likely that your character will succeed in the task. The GM is referred to as the AI based off of Holly from the show.
As mentioned above on page 3 it lists the Character Creation Overview. And in a case of synchronicity, chapter three of the book covers more details on Character Creation. The first step is to pick a Character Type. This is basically picking what race and style you want to play. The choices for the races are Human (see Lister), Holograms (see Rimmer), Cats aka Felis Sapeins (see The Cat), Dogs, 4000 Series Mechanoids (see Kryten), Hudzen 10 Series Mechanoids, Kinitawowi, Pleasure GELFs (Genetically Engineered Life Forms), Wax Droids, Simulants, Rabbits, Rats & Mice and Iguanas. As you can probably tell, there are a variety of evolved animals to choose from that have been mentioned in the show. One of my kids wanted me to make a Cat character, which was tempting, but I think I’m going to stick with human as I want to make myself into a Red Dwarf character. Each character type also has a special ability and drawback which I wrote down in my notes.
The second step is to distribute 20 points into your character’s abilities. Each race/type has a max number for each ability. Luckily for humans it’s all sixes. I selected the numbers that I wanted to use. From these stats I have some derivative stats of Initiative (who goes first in certain situations), Save (resiliency after taking damage) and Shrug (avoid any damage if it’s under this number).
The third step is to take 30 points and allocate them to different skills. So I looked at the skills that I wanted a younger version of me to have in this alternate Red Dwarf universe and I selected them. No this isn’t the first time I’ve made a character based off of myself in the challenge, but I think this will probably be the most realistic one out of the two.
Our fourth step is to select the Assets (a benefit the character possesses), Liabilities (something that hampers the character) and Behavior Tags (habits the character does that may or may not annoy others). Each Asset has a point value and you buy these points by selecting the Liabilities and Behavior Tags. The first thing I did was look at the Assets to see how many points I may need. Then I selected the appropriate number of Liabilities and Behavior Tags to equal that number of points. In the personality section is the “fill in the blanks”. There were a lot of them that wasn’t equipment so I may have filled in the steps five (fill out vitals) and six (create history and relationships).
OK, time to gear up for the last step. I’m directed to page 55 and there is no cost that I can see. I think, and I may be wrong because this isn’t a serious game, that I just pick some items the character would have. Actually, I’m going to roll with that and put the character sheet in the scanner.
Afterthoughts:
I really liked how they had sprinkled in humor throughout the book. You’d be reading a description about how humans are able to deal with all kinds of psychological trauma that included being able to survive Yanni concert videos.
I have played this at SaltCON, I have many plans for this book in the future.
Additional Notes:
Yea, I know, I’m behind on these. Thank you for going back and reading them. 2025 can die in a fire.
Coming Up Next:
Mazes and Minotaurs
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.
If you are looking for my 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge after action report with completion graphic, it will be posted when I’m caught up from being put behind by real-life events. If you made it to 31 characters, email me or privately contact me on one of the message boards or social media and I’ll make sure you get the graphic. Thank you for participating.
We are in the home stretch for the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge and today we will be using one of my KickStarter rewards with the Planet of the Apes Role Playing Game. I backed at a level where I’ll be getting the physical book when they get it published. But until then, Magnetic Press Play provided a special PDF to the backers so they could see the game now. The PDF of the core rulebook isn’t even available on DriveThruRPG yet. Now I have made some characters previously for games inspired by the Planet of the Apes franchise. In 2021 I made a character for Apes Victorious that I thought was well done so much that I had to do a re-watch of the Planet of the Apes movies. Then earlier in this challenge I made a character for Terra Primate which was… OK.
So, two things I need to say about this game. It’s based off of the PotA movies and TV series from the 60’s and 70’s. Second, the RPG system is a modification of the West End Games D6 system that was used in Star Wars and Ghostbusters. This is called the D6MV (Magnetic Variant). One of the classic attributes, Technical, was removed with the skills moved to Knowledge and Mechanical and a new attribute of Willpower (spirit and mind power) was added. So the current attributes are DEXterity, KNOwledge, MEChanical, PERception, STRength and the aforementioned WILlpower. The skills were also limited to just six per attribute. Also when you roll a pool of D6’s one of them of a different color would be known as the “Irradiated Wild Die” which can provide additional bonuses or boons and can even explode if you roll a 6. So this game felt like I was returning home with how many sessions I played of the D6 Star Wars system.
The first several chapters in the book give a good rundown on how to play the game, a taste of the PotA world (not too much to be overwhelming, but just enough to wet the appetite), and information on the templates used in character creation. The actual steps to create a character are listed on page 106. Step One- choose one of the previously mentioned templates. The book highly recommends that the players make an ape character for the first games. There are information on the various humans and mutant characters that could also be created with additional supplements on the way. After reading through them, I wanted to make one of the Chimpanzees. Specifically an Ape Scientist named Flint. This provided some information on the character such as a Memento (a special piece of equipment that provides a bonus), regular starting equipment and the attributes.
The second step is to select the Character Persona which includes a Quirk, Remarkable Ability and Motive. There is a D66 quirks table on pages 108-9 where you can randomly roll for one. The one that came up is Paranoid. Hmmm…. perhaps Flint had discovered something that would be shocking and is worried that the Orangutans will find out that he knows. By taking a Quirk, I can also select a Remarkable Ability from the next list. I selected Lucky which would allow me to re-roll a 1 on an Irradiated Wild Die. It was probably by luck that Flint found out this deep secret. The Motive is a driving force for the character and is also randomly rolled by a D66. This came up as Selfish. I… don’t know how to fold that into the character yet, but perhaps it would come up in play.
Our third step is to select Flint’s skills. Each new character has 7D to distribute among the different skills with a max of 2D in any one skill. After I picked these the next step was to calculate the SRP defenses. This is the Surprised Defense, Readied Defense and Psyche Defense. These are generated by a mathematical formula based on other stats. I wrote them down on the sheet.
Step five is the fine details. It references the quirk and motives. This is also where the character’s appearance is written down with a random D6 resulting in Bulky. Interesting. Step six is the “time to get connected” step where the backstory of how the different characters in the party connected with each other. As I have no other characters to connect, I tried to ask the voices in my head and several of them talked about how it was time to go to bed. So I’ll skip this part. I think I’m done so I’ll scan the character sheet.
Afterthoughts:
While reading through the PDF during some down time I found a major printing error. So much so that I had to make a screen shot and send it to the publisher. I hope they can correct it in time before the physical publishing goes into effect.
Reading the book, I really wanted to play and run this game. In fact, I am. I’m going to be running the quick start adventure at SaltCON spring in a few weeks.
Additional Notes:
I had one reader respond to my entry of For Gold & Glory where I talked about meeting the minimum requirements for the Illusionist. Apparently the character would have had to meet both requirements listed. Another reader wanted to hear more about a possible Rome inspired campaign, which I’ll admit is pretty tempting. And yet another reader (sorry there were quite a few of you and I’m trying to churn these last posts out as quickly as possible) liked how FG&G used the alternate skill rules that were introduced in AD&D 2nd Edition.
And one last feedback note that I received on The Strange (since I don’t want to seem like I’m beating up on them). I had even more “yea I also had major issues with character creation from this publisher” in a Old Gods of Appalachia game (using the same Cypher System) where it took them 2.5 gaming sessions to make their characters. Yikes!!!!
Coming Up Next:
You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to say this. Red Dwarf The Roleplaying Game
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.
