Tag: Character Creation Challenge

2025 Character Creation Challenge Day 2: The Sword of Cepheus 2nd Edition

Written by TardisCaptain January 2, 2025January 3, 2025

Here is my Day 2 entry in the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge and today I’ll be making a character for The Sword of Cepheus 2nd Edition by Stellagama Publishing. I had used one of their publications in a past challenge where I made a character for Cepheus Deluxe. I also have another game from this publisher scheduled for later in the challenge. SoC2e is based off of the Cepheus Engine (basically the engine that ran Classic Traveller, to complete a task roll 2d6 and add skills and other modifiers to beat a target number). This is another game where the authors did the right thing by explaining the game mechanic near the front of the book in a way that I can explain it to others. If I can understand it quickly, the more likely that I’m going to be able to convince some friends to try it or run it at a convention.

This is a game that I had backed on Kickstarter and recently reviewed the reward on my blog. Since I already talked about the physical descriptions in that blog post, I won’t be talking much about that here. This allows us to get right into the character creation (and probably a shorter blog post than yesterday).

The chapter for character generation starts on page 24 (after a quick breakdown of the system). The first step is to assign a set of numbers listed in the book to the six different characteristics. They are Strength (STR), Dexterity (DEX), Endurance (END), Intelligence (INT), Education (EDU) and Social Standing (SOC). Now Intelligence and Education sound about the same, but are quite different. Intelligence represents your reasoning, creativity and intellectual capabilities where as Education is your general knowledge and formal schooling. I like the fact that they tell us in advance that INT+EDU determines the max number of skills that a character can have (if I wanted to plan in advance). Now it does state that there is an optional rule to roll 2d6 six times and assign the characteristics you desire or using 42 points to spread across the characteristics, however since this is the first time I’m making a character for this system I’ll stick with the Rules As Written (RAW). Let’s stick with a basic swordslinger this time around. Harrik Stol was born in a port town and worked at the docks before signing on with his first vessel. He was captured by a band of pirates who needed to replenish their crew after several bad encounters. Harrik became a pirate to survive and discovered that he enjoyed it. (note: I just came up with this while typing early in the character creation process, it wasn’t a requirement in the process). After assigning my characteristic scores I noted the modifiers for the three characteristics that had them.

Step two deals with Background Skills. At the age of 14 Harrik will have already learned some skills already. I selected the Port Town which gave him Watercraft 1, Craft 1 and Athletics 1. I wrote these down.

In step three we grow from age 14 in a lifepath generation to the final ready to play character. This creates a background for the character with contacts, milestones and additional skills and characteristics. I think this is part of the “character creation game” that I’ve heard about in other Traveller systems. Now the rules state that the Referee will determine the number of career terms the characters will go through before starting the game. This makes sense as some Refs may want to start greener characters out and then let them earn their way up or give you some experienced characters and then throw the big guys at you. With no Ref I elected to roll a d4 to see the max number of terms, which resulted in two.

Uh… now we have a Step-by-step character generation checklist on page 29? Should this have been marked as a Career Term checklist? Just a bit confusing for a first time read through. Anywho, section A. Term 1: Select a career (searches for the careers). As listed above, I’m taking Pirate. I noted the career service skills and raised one of them to 1, the rest are 0 (which means that Harrik knows the basics about them if I understand this correctly). Now pick two skill levels from that career’s available skills table which has Service, Specialists or Advanced (which I can’t take because his EDU score isn’t high enough). Uh… are these selections level 1 or 0? The book doesn’t say. I appreciate that they tried to break this down in an outline, but it doesn’t flow very well from how I’m reading it. I seem to remember having this same issue when I was creating a character for Cepheus Deluxe. I’m going to go with 0. OK, Section A, Part 2 Sub-section ii says that a maximum of one skill level may be spent to improve any Characteristic by +1. iii says that no skill level may be higher than 2 in the first term. iii makes senses and if I understand ii I could have selected one of my skill points to go towards a characteristic. Can I use this to up my EDU or INT to get more skills? I’ve already got them written down so I’m not changing my characteristics in the first term. So I’ll run section iv which is the career events table. He was a landlubber so Harrik gains a skill (level?) or a language. I’m going to add one to streetwise. Part 3 has me add four years to the character’s age, so he’s now 18.

Section B covers the second and subsequent terms. As mentioned above I randomly rolled 2 of them. If I understood the Master Character Generation Table, in the second term I get 2 skill levels granted plus 1 for a service skill and in the third term I get just two skill levels to spend. So four skill levels to spend and one more skill added if I’m reading this correctly. OK I’m going to spend one skill level to bump up my SOC skill to 6 (and thus out of the negative modifier range). I spent the three other skill levels and I thought I already had all of the service skills at zero (that didn’t already have a level added to them). I’m confused. I’ll increase the age by 8 (4 years for each term) and roll on the career events table twice. The first event referred me to a Life Event (where is that table, oh on page 49). Life events are listed by Hinterland (the wilds), village or city. It doesn’t say which table I’m rolling on. Is a Port Town a city or a village? Odds it’s city and evens its village, 3, city it is. 10, something good happens, gain an extra benefit role (I believe this is when the character “musters out”). Second career event roll results in Wizards? You learn a little bit from a friendly Wizard. Gain Sorcery or Natural Philosophy. These are skills that I can add to the character sheet. A quick look at the skill descriptions for both I select Sorcery. Yea Pirate Harrik learned a few conjurers tricks to help him with is pirate career here and there, but not enough to declare himself a full blown wizard with the staff and pointy hat. A quick read of the beginning of the Skills chapter on page 17 makes me think this will be a level 0 skill (which means I avoid the unskilled penalty when trying to use the skill). I may have missed where these new skills start out, a 1 or a 0.

OK, if I did this correctly I look at the Master Character Generation Table, Harrik is now 26 has completed three terms (the initial and two more), has some skill levels added to the sheet has two traits (apparently something explained in step 4) five Mustering out benefit rolls (one came from the life event) and a total of 3 events. Let’s roll these benefits and see what happens, it’s a d6 on the Pirate table and I get the following: die rolls a 3 for 100 gold and +1 INT (good), roll of a 5 gives me an Ally and 400 gold (I think I’m getting the gold with the materials), third roll is a 2 gaining 50 gold and some armor, fourth roll is a 6 which results in 500 gold and a ship (probably not a big ship) and the last roll of a 1 gives me 20 gold and a weapon (a cutlass is what I’m guessing).

Alright, step 4 is found on page 55 and it covers the final steps for the character. There is Stamina (add END and Athletics skill) then Lifeblood (resistance to injury) which is END and Athletics skill x2, so 20. Now I can use the cash I earned from mustering out and buy any equipment. There is a pre-purchased equipment package, but I would have to have spent one mustering out benefit to receive it (yea, I’m not giving that up since I got some good rolls). I’ll find the costs later and make the purchase of what’s in the package. Now onto traits, I have two of them according to the master character generation table and I selected: Master Sailor (hey he’s the captain of a small pirate ship) and Signature Weapon (the cutlass he got when mustering out was given to him by his ally).

OH, there’s a character example written out on page 72. Let me take a quick look to see if I missed anything? Ah, if I’m reading this correctly, one of my cash benefits could have been sacrificed to gain the equipment package (I’ll knock one off). There is also chapters on non-human character generation, but I’m already done. I’ll transfer everything to the character sheet from my notes. I’m not certain what my rank is, not certain if I want to look it up now. There is a section for Hero Points which is an optional rule, but you start out with 2. Yea, I’m done. Let’s scan this character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

There are a lot of optional rules presented in this game. Be prepared to ask your Referee which rules they want to run. Some sounded interesting, others sounded complicated.

The system seems pretty sound, but the way the character creation is described could use a little bit more work to make it understandable for those who’ve never played a Traveller type game before. Part of the issue with smaller publishers is that there isn’t a lot of experienced players to immediately ask questions to. I’m sure I would have leaned a lot on my Ref during this process.

The character sheet has some of the skills out of alphabetical order. Sorcery is listed before Sneak, Athletics is listed before Archery. Healing is listed after Liaison.

I was getting a lot of AD&D 1st edition vibes with this book. Lots of good stuff present, interesting system, but things are lacking some explanations or just found in random order. If this was going to be my go-to fantasy RPG, I’m sure I’d get use to it pretty quickly, but I’d have to explain a lot to new players. I’m still happy that I made the purchase and that I backed the Kickstarter, but I’d have to make some cheat sheets if I was going to run this at a convention or on a campaign. I’d still like to try a game or two just to see how the system handles at the table.

Additional Notes:

I’m still playing catch up after getting delayed on the first day. But I’ve been able to get some new blogs added to the Character Creation Challenge FAQ page. I’ve also been getting some feedback from participants on social media and the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. A few participants have been posting their characters there. Thank you.

Coming Up Next:

Traveller (Mongoose Publishing)

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.

Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Star Trek

2025 Character Creation Challenge Day 1: Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition

Written by TardisCaptain January 1, 2025January 2, 2025

So 2025 started off with a loud clunk. I had a bunch of items prepped for the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge and when I went to type it up (I usually type these up directly to the blog itself as part of my process) and the hosting company for my blog had a technical issue on January 1st and I was unable to get into the site to edit it. I reached out to my provider and messages were sent up the chain, but with it being a holiday I knew it was going to take a while. I was hoping it would be a quick fix otherwise I’d probably have to type these up on a doc file and wait until I had full access again. I don’t know if you guys could see this site, but for me it wasn’t coming up at all. So my apologies if you couldn’t see anything on the 1st day of the year. On Thursday, January 2nd about mid-day everything was restored and I could start editing (and writing) again. And now without further ado, on with the show.

I always start the Character Creation Challenge with the game that I was most excited about in the previous year. Either I wanted to own it, play it, run it or write for it, and this case it was all four. If you know me you shouldn’t be surprised that this year I am starting off with Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition by Modiphius. I already talked about the physical characteristics of the book in the Review of Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition blog post that was published last year, so I’ll skip that portion here. The previous books in this line that I’ve used in past Character Creation Challenges include the Star Trek Adventures 1st edition core rulebook and the Klingon Empire core rulebook.

Each character in Star Trek Adventures 2nd edition has six Attributes that represent your mind and body: Control (think Dexterity and coordination and the ability to do exactly what you want to do), Daring (think Willpower, courage or sanity to do things when you don’t want to), Fitness (think Strength and Constitution for physical power and health), Insight (think Wisdom and empathy, the ability to work out the why questions), Presence (think Charisma and the ability to be stunning, good for leadership) and Reason (think Intelligence, use of logic, perception and fact remembering, the ability to work out the how questions). Each new character starts out with a rating of 7 in each attribute. All characters also have six Departments (previously called Disciplines in first edition) that represent the training your character has: Command (the skill at persuading others by different methods), Conn (the skill of operating and navigating surface or space vehicles such as rafts, automobiles, environmental suits or large starships), Engineering (the skill of of making, maintaining, fixing or reverse-engineering technology), Security (the skill of using, avoiding or understanding different forms of violence or hazards), Medicine (the skill of treating or understanding different life-forms) and Science (the skill of studying and understanding the universe rationally). Each new character starts with a rating of 1 (basic training) in each Department. (if you are homebrewing for Star Trek Adventures, there is an excellent chart on page 90 defining what each Department rating level represents in the real world, thank you for this)

Now, a MAJOR improvement from the first edition of STA is the use of flowcharts in the core rulebook for certain elements of the game. This makes things a lot easier to run and set things up at your table. The flowchart for the Lifepath Summary (aka character creation process) that I will be using can be found on page 98. Not only does it have everything listed step-by-step, it also gives you the page numbers for additional details. Very smart.

So step one is to select a species. Another change between the first and second edition is the inclusion of non-Starfleet/Federation species if the GM and Players wanted to run a Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian, Orion, Ferengi or Merchant/Civilian campaign. The species present in the core rulebook include the Andorians, the Aenar, the Bajorans, the Betazoids, the Cardassians, the Denobulans, the Ferengi, the Humans, the Klingons, the Orions, the Romulans, the Tellarites, the Trill and the Vulcans. There are also guidelines for characters of mixed species (like Spock or B’Elanna Torres) and augmented or cybernetically enhanced characters. By comparison, there were only eight species in the first edition book. The selection of your species adds +1 to three attributes (depending upon the species) a unique species ability (a new addition to the 2nd edition) and a species trait (something that all members of this species has). Now when I was printing out the character sheet for this challenge, I could have printed one for any of the major campaigns listed above. Since I didn’t know which character I would be making, I elected to print out a Federation/Starfleet character sheet since they had the most options. I made a Vulcan in the first edition entry to the challenge and a Klingon for the Klingon core rulebook entry, so let’s create a Trill character. I don’t think I’ve done one of those yet. So I add +1 to my Control, Presence and Reason as per the description. I also write down the details for the species ability of Patient. In the first edition, you had to use one of your ability slots to take a species ability, now it’s an automatic add-on in the second edition. While it isn’t part of this step, I selected the name of Keman Les from the list of possible names since I had the page right in front of me.

OK, step two is to select the Environment that Keman was born or raised at. There is a d20 chart here with different options, and since I want some randomness, I rolled a 13, Isolated Colony. This gives me the first opportunity to select a Value (which is a statement that describes the attitude, belief or conviction of the character, it is usually represented by a small quote (oh, I like that) and there is some in-game benefit when it’s used or challenged. In an isolated colony I think that everyone would be supportive of everyone else so I selected “We are all in this together now.” (originally spoken by Picard in the TNG episode “Loud as a Whisper“). I can bump up Reason or Insight by one point, and I selected Insight since it hasn’t been bumped up yet. Now I also get my first Departmental increase, 1 point for Engineering, Science or Medicine. I selected Engineering.

On to step three and I get to select the upbringing that Keman was raised in. This is his education and influence during his formative years. Another d20 roll on another chart gives me Science and Technology. Perhaps the reason the colony was isolated is due to the fact that his parents were researchers working remotely. I can accept or reject (rebelled) against this upbringing which both provides different character enhancements. I elected to go with acceptance. So Keman gets +2 to Control and +1 to Reason. Other additions include +1 to another Department (I selected Science on this one) a Focus (think a specialty to compliment the Department listed above) in which I selected Power Systems (If I am attempting a task dealing with Power Systems, I get a bonus to my rolls) and I gain a single Talent. A Talent is an additional benefit the character possesses which also gives some bonuses to task rolls. They come in General categories or categories defined by species, culture, enhancements (such as cybernetic) or department (command, engineering, etc.) I already have my species talent, so I’m going to pull from the General category at this time. Again thinking Isolated Colony I selected Extra Effort (and I wrote down the benefits on the sheet).

Alright, step four the career path. What is Keman doing in Starfleet (which I’ve decided he joined to expand his engineering expertise he learned at the isolated colony of Vaxian III. In the first edition or Klingon books, the career path was limited to Starfleet or the Klingon Defense Force. Here the random paths could include diplomatic or civilian options. But as mentioned above, I’m selecting Starfleet Officer in the operations (engineering) track. I write down the trait of Starfleet Officer, find an engineering quote for a value (“The right tool for the right job.” said by Scotty in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier), additions to his Attributes and Departments, three new Focuses (Transports & Replicators, Warp Field Dynamics and Computers) and a Talent (Maintenance Specialist).

Next is step five where we cover the Experience of the character. Of the three options there is Novice (young and usually just out of the Academy), Experienced (been in the service for a while) and Veteran (been doing this for a long time, wised and experienced). Kemen is Experienced and gets to choose a freely selected Value an Talent. For the Talent I selected Bold (Engineering) and from my master list of Star Trek quotes I picked “All you have to do is relax and use your imagination” said by Jadzia Dax in “The Way of the Warrior“.

There are two Career Events in step six which are randomly rolled. The first event was Mentored and the second was First Contact. With Mentored a highly-respected officer (I’ll name him/her later) took notice of the character’s career and Keman served as this person’s aide and learned from the benefit of the officer’s vast experience. He gets +1 to any attribute (I selected Fitness) and +1 to Conn (that’s good as it was a weak one) and a Focus (I selected Etiquette from the list). I like this because I probably wouldn’t have selected these on my own. For First Contact, Keman was involved with a first contact mission with another culture. This gains the character +1 to Presence +1 to any Department (I selected Medicine as it was his lowest) and a Focus (selecting Infiltration from the list, why, because they had to sneak in and study before revealing themselves to the local population).

And our last step is Finishing Touches. I get to pick one final Value (Quote selected is “Focus on the goal, not the task” said by Tanis in the episode “Cold Fire“). Increase two Attributes by 1 as long as I do not exceed the maximum rating of 12 (I selected Daring and Fitness). As for Departments, I hadn’t exceeded the maximum of 5 so I was instructed to add +1 to two departments (again not exceeding the maximum) so I selected Engineering and Command. I’m instructed to make sure I have a minimum of six Focuses from the previous steps (I do) and three Talents (also good). So I’m now instructed to select one more Talent. It doesn’t say if it has to be selected from a specific category so after looking over the list I selected Former Initiate (a Trill talent). There is a final check for the Attributes (added together they should add up to 56, which I had) and Departments (should all add together to 16, which I confirmed), the correct number of species ability, four values and six focuses (all checked). Now we choose the character’s name (see above) age (randomly selected 32 from the guidelines) and a rough description of the character’s personality and appearance (I’ll nail this down later when I find an image to use). Now one of the new features of the 2nd edition game comes into play, each character gets a Pastime. This is a hobby or interest of the character that makes them unique, but may or may not really come into play. This could be a game/sport, something creative or a subject the character is really interested in. Keman is interested in writing Holo-Comics after seeing some while on leave. As for selecting a Role with the team I would have obviously worked with the GM and other players, but I’m running with the assumption that Keman is the Chief Engineer (which comes with some benefits) on a smaller starship (USS Nova Scotia, NCC-72719, Nova Class) and I’m going to pluck the rank of Lieutenant Commander out of the air. I also wrote down the equipment listed on page 141. The flowchart on page 98 instructs me to record the derived ratings of Stress and bonus damage in this step, but none of that is present in the “more information” chapter in pages 132-141. A quick search in the book found on page 277 where it states that Stress is equal to the Fitness attribute and may be adjusted by other Talents. This blog article is already too long, otherwise I’d go into more detail on how Stress works in this game, but it’s basically your health. Looking at the other blank spots on this character sheet I see there is nothing for Resistance (something that would have been provided by a Talent or Equipment) and Determination (page 261) which describes this as something like luck or fate points and work alongside your Values or a Mission Directive. Each character starts with one determination at the start of a mission and may gain up to a maximum of three through roleplaying opportunities. With attacks, I copied the information from one of the characters in the Quickstart Guide as I was running short on time. Here is the character sheet that I scanned.

Afterthoughts:

There were only a couple of items that I had to look outside of the flowchart and the character creation chapters. An experienced GM could easily guide a new player through these hiccups very easily and speed up the character creation process. Otherwise it was a pretty easy experience (especially compared to the 1st edition) Yes there is a very good fan-made online character generator for Star Trek Adventures, and I’ve used it to quickly make characters for convention one-shots, but actually siting down and following the process helps me learn the game. Something that I think that others should do as well if you want to learn more about this system.

I apologize for the length of this blog entry. As I realized how big it was getting, I realized that I was just excited about this game. Not only does it work for a Star Trek setting with the exploration and cooperation working more than the combat, but it could be used for other popular franchises as well such as Babylon 5 or The Orville. As I’ve stated above, I will be homebrewing for this system. There is a vast library of Star Trek novels, comics and games that could be mined for Star Trek Adventures material. I’ve already done this once with the entry for the Tarn (which adjusting to 2nd edition will probably be done in another blog post).

Additional Notes:

Thank you for your patience in getting this blog entry out. While I will mark it down for January 1st, it still frustrated me that it got delayed until the 2nd. I still need to catch up on my other entries.

As you can see from the title photo above, I’ve changed the format slightly to include the challenge year and my blog URL. In the past I’ve had at least one (that I know of) image from a past Character Creation Challenge get pilfered and used in someone’s YouTube video (which they make money on) without asking for permission first.

I’ve also been adding to the list of participating sites on the Character Creation Challenge FAQ page. I’m still adding them as I find more on message boards and social media. If I’m missing yours, please let me know. Following the #CharacterCreationChallenge hashtag on BlueSky has helped me find new accounts to follow.

Coming Up Next:

Sword of Cepheus

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.

Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Spy-Fi, Star Trek, Star Wars

Prepping for the 2025 Character Creation Challenge

Written by TardisCaptain December 27, 2024December 28, 2025

Some of the games that I plan to use in the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge and one of my fuzzy overlords.

As you can see, I had a volunteer model helping me out with the photo of the physical books that I’ll be using in the 2025 Character Creation Challenge. This is August (no, I don’t use any pet names for passwords, and neither should you) and after I had arranged the books he suddenly wanted to get up and see what was going on. I didn’t even know he was there until I had turned around to get my camera for the photo. After inspecting all of the books, he settled down in front of the one he liked the most. But attempting to get him to look at the camera for the photo was another matter. There are other games that will be used that I own on PDF.

For the four previous years of the Character Creation Challenge (in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024), I’ve prepped ahead of time to make the challenge a little bit easier. Especially since I try to use a wide variety of games in January 2025. I’ve already had some people reach out to me using various methods to let me know of their participation. Please let me know, Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com if you plan to post your characters up on a blog. I’ll link to it from the Character Creation Challenge section of my website.

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

As in the past, I’ll try to walk through the character creation process as I understand them in the rules-as-written (RAW). This also gives me a chance to do a review of the process. I will then scan the character sheet for all to see. And I will have all of the character sheets printed out before the challenge starts. I’ve found that this helps me get everything ready.

I have had some people tell me that they are pre-making some of there characters before the challenge. And I’m not going to blow the referee whistle at them. As I’ve stated when this was started five-years ago, this is for fun. I know we all have real lives to worry about. And as much as we’d like to be able to focus on our hobbies and what makes us happy, we still have to function in this society. So I’m not going to dock you for setting up a buffer. All that I ask is that you post your entries in at least one location (the #Character-Creation-Challenge channel on the TardisCaptainDotCom discord, on a personal blog (tell me the URL), on one of the many RPG message boards, on social media with the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge). I love seeing what other RPG fans have come up with.

If you are reading this after January 1st and you still want to jump into the challenge, please do. A few participants last year either did a quick catch up or just made sure they ran a full 31 days. The choice is yours. This challenge is just for fun with our gaming systems.

Remember to have fun with this. That was one of the primary goals of the challenge.

You can also use this graphic to help promote the #CharacterCreationChallenge.

31 Day Character Creation Challenge — Feel free to share this image on social media to spread the word.

What games are you using for the challenge? Do you have any questions about the challenge that wasn’t covered on by the FAQ? 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.

Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games

2025 Character Creation Challenge

Written by TardisCaptain November 26, 2024November 18, 2025

For those of you who have reached out to me to make sure I’m OK, thank you. October and November were busier than I expected. I’m sorry that I made you guys worry, but yes there will be a 2025 Character Creation Challenge coming up this January. I’ve been itching to get back into my geek and RPG blogs. Especially since I’ve discovered how interactive the geek community has been on the BlueSky social media website. It was really reminding me of Twitter back in 2012-19 back when it was fun and a source of information. I’m seeing feeds as I want them (not four days later like other social media websites). When I ask questions, I get answers instead of ridicule. I’ve made a ton of new connections. I hope you all enjoy reading this blog.

I’ve been getting this website updated in preparation for the upcoming challenge. The 2024 entries and links of participating sites have been moved to their own section. This has the effect of making the main Character Creation Challenge page look pretty blank for participating forums and blogs. If you are participating again this year, shoot me a message and I’ll get you added. I’ll try to search out what I can, but I know I won’t get all of them. This event has been growing every year and now we have reached the fifth year. I can’t wait to see what creativity you all come up with.

For those of you learning about this for the first time, the Character Creation Challenge is for fans of various role playing games. You may have looked into a game or collected the books with the intention to play but never have. Or perhaps you have a favorite system that you always turn to for RPG sessions. Well the Character Creation Challenge is an event to create a new RPG character for each day in January (running parallel to the “new year, new you” theme) from what ever system(s) you choose. Once you have the character ready to play, post it on a website, blog, social media (use the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge) or online message boards. The forums at RPG.net was a popular forum where a lot of participants had posted their completed characters. Other active participating message boards included the RPG Pub and the RPG Geek forums (which had entries going for most of the year).

To the left of my computer I have a stack of physical RPG books that I’ve picked up in 2024. Brand new books included the Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition and some Kickstarter rewards. I had picked up some books from SaltCON, others were picked up from online purchases or found in thrift stores. On the PDF side of things, I’ve picked up a bunch of books from various charity bundles or just from the DriveThruRPG website. I’ll have a better idea which 31 games I’m going to use soon when I post my “Prepping for the 2025 Character Creation Challenge” post coming next month. I’m still crossing my fingers that one more kickstarter reward will arrive in time. Plus I don’t know if I’ll be gifted a game in the upcoming “Secret Satan” gift exchange that always happens on the RPG.net forums.

Some forever GMs use this as a challenge to create a character like they were actually going to just play. There are a few other themes posted on the main Character Creation Challenge page. Remember, this is for fun, so have fun with it.

It feels good to get an actual blog post up about Roleplaying Games. I know that I’ve been able to keep my Star Trek Quotes reports fresh, but I want to type, I want to pass on knowledge, I want to grow and explore. So look for more soon and thanks for being patient with me.

If you would like to participate, email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com, post on the TardisCaptain.com Discord Channel or find me on social media/message boards and let me know where you will be posting your challenge characters at. If you are posting them on a website, I’ll add the link to my Character Creation Challenge page.

Character Creation Challenge, Conventions, Fan Club, Friends, Role Playing Games, Star Trek

RPGaDAY2024 Day 17: An engaging RPG community

Written by TardisCaptain August 17, 2024August 17, 2024

Hmmm… an interesting topic for Day 17 of the RPGaDAY 2024 Challenge. An engaging RPG community. As humans, we are social creatures. We need to bond together with others that share similar interests. This is why we gather together in clubs, such as Starfleet Command’s Seventh Fleet for Star Trek fans, or organizations. I remember being in a RPG club back in the 80’s that was being run through a local gaming store. Later I remember there being the Gaming Clubhouse that was next to Comics Utah in Sugarhouse.

In our current days of the internet, I think that meeting up with gamers at local comic stores and conventions is still the best way to meet fellow RPG enthusiasts. Something about the face-to-face brings about a bond that isn’t quite there with online interactions. However I’m not an old-man yelling at a cloud and I have enjoyed meeting people online as well. Participating in challenges such as the RPGaDAY and the Character Creation Challenge has helped me find quite a few good blogs, message boards and social media connections.

If you are looking on social media, do a search for the hashtags that are associated with the gaming community such as: #TTRPG, #RolePlaying, #RPG, #RPGaDAY or #CharacterCreationChallenge. By following these on BlueSky and Mastodon I’ve been able to interact with quite a few other RPGers. On Facebook I always submit my entries to I’d Rather Be Killing Monsters, RPG Blog Hub and others. Sometimes there are groups for specific titles. Sorry I don’t have links for these, I don’t really access Facebook on my computer. Reddit has also become a goldmine for RPG connectivity. Like Facebook, there are also specialized communities for different RPG titles on there. And I’ve become very involved in the RPG scene on Discord. I love being able to follow Discord servers of RPG publishers and Bloggers/Youtubers. Yes, there are also a lot of good Youtube videos as well.

Some of the message boards that I’ve interacted with include the RPG.net Forums and RPG PUB. There are others that pop up during the Character Creation Challenge that I’ve linked to in January. There have also been some Star Trek RPG message boards that I wish were more active like Old School Trek.

Connecting with fellow bloggers has also helped. Some of these are (and not limited to) Barking Alien, Gaming with the Gnomies, The Other Side and more. If you search around there are a ton of blogs about a wide variety of subjects. If you are looking for a good one specifically about Star Trek Adventures, I’d recommend Continuing Mission.

So there is opportunity to find an engaging community both in real life and cyberspace. Do you have a community that you would like to recommend? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

Character Creation Challenge, Dungeons and Dragons, Reviews, Role Playing Games

Review of three RPG battle mats/tiles

Written by TardisCaptain June 19, 2024

Wiz Dice on the left, Role 4 Initiative in the middle and Chessex on the right.

As I was preparing for SaltCON-Summer 2024, I realized that I had not done my review of the three RPG battle mats/tiles that I currently own. So as I was preparing for the con, I had my daughter help me set these out and take some photos for a review. I’ve owned two of these maps for a few years and purchased the gaming tiles last year after I saw them in use at SaltCON-Spring 2023.

So the first battlemat that I had purchased was the Chessex double-sided 26.x23.5 battlemat. The DM for my Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 campaign that ran for several years used a larger version of this product. When my nephew had asked me to run an introduction to Dungeons and Dragons game, I realized that I didn’t have a mat to use. So I slipped into one of my local gaming shops and picked this one up. It has square grids on one side and hexagons on the other. Eagle-eyed readers may spot this map as the background to some of the photos I used for the various Character Creation Challenge entries. Besides the game with my nephew, I was able to use it in a few other games. The surface is a little rough, but I think this is both a good thing and a bad thing. The mat itself is thick and feels solid. However when I drew on it with dry-erase or wet-erase markers, it could sometimes leave the image behind. While I was experimenting with the map for this article, my daughter discovered that using the Mr. Clean MagicEraser would remove the older drawings without (as it seemed) to damage the map. While I could still see some of the older set-in markings, it is a lot clearer than it use to be. Because this map is rolled, I have to use heavy objects to hold the corners down.

Just a couple of years ago I had the opportunity to run a OSR game for my daughter and several of her friends who had been playing in a D&D 5e campaign. I had created the adventure myself (and later used it at SaltCON-Spring 2024) and realized that the map I had found on the internet, was too large to use on the Chessex mat that I already owned. So I found the Wiz Dice 48×36 gaming mat on Amazon. It is also a reversible map with hexagons on the other side. For the purpose of the one-shot, I was able to use the map with a dry-erase marker. However, after the event, I really wished that I hadn’t purchased this mat. First, it’s really thin and flimsy. While taking these photos for the article my daughter mentioned that it was like having a shower curtain on the table. While the Chessex surface felt rough, but durable, this map was wrinkly, sticky and felt like it was going to rip if I wasn’t careful. When I attempted to use it at SaltCON-Spring 2024, I discovered that the markers I had brought would not write on the map properly, so we ended up using graph paper instead. Like the Chessex, the MagicEraser product was handy in removing stubborn markings from the map. The other issue that I had with this map is the poor quality of the printing. As you can see in the photo below, there were parts where the grid had misprints in it or were missing. As a rolled mat, it also had to be weighed down at the corners.

Just one example of misprints on the Wiz Dice mat

Had there been one issue, I probably would have been OK with the map. But with both the misprints and the flimsy/thin quality, I really wish that I had spent my money on a larger Chessex mat.

When I saw how handy these game tiles were at SaltCON, I had to order a set myself. I picked up the Dry-Erase Hexagon Game Tiles from Role 4 Initiative. While preparing for the latest SaltCON, I decided that I wanted to get all of the tiles out to make sure that they could handle the adventure map I was planning to use. The kewl thing is that you can start out with a small section, then add the sections as needed depending upon where the players elect to go. While these are double sided, they have hexagons on both sides. One side is solid hexagons with broken hexagons on the reverse side. There is a grid version of the tiles available from the same manufacturer that I’ll have to pick up sooner or later. Where the Chessex surface is rough and the Wiz Dice surface was sticky, these tiles were very slick. While it made marking the tiles easy, you could easily smudge a dry-erase marking if you were not careful. There are thirty-three 1/8″ thick tiles that are six inches across in the box. This makes the box a little heavy compared to a rolled up mat. But I was able to store my dry-erase markers in the extra space the box provided. When we were drawing the full map of the planned adventure, my daughter commented that it was like assembling a map puzzle. Here are some various photos.

The solid and broken hex sides of the tiles

We did a timed test with some markings and it erased with no problem after 30 minutes

All of the tiles assembled in a square like fashion with 28 inches across

Conclusion:

The rolled up mats are lighter than the tiles. But the tiles offer greater flexibility for the GM. The costs are about the same (Dice Wiz is lower compared to the same sized Chessex mat). If you are going to stick with a rolled up mat, buy the Chessex for the quality. But my overall advice is take the flexibility of the Role 4 Initiative tiles. They also marked and erased easier.

Have you used any of these three products? If so, what were your thoughts on them? Are there other mats/tiles that I should look into? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or click on my social media links with any comments.

Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games

2024 Character Creation Challenge feedback

Written by TardisCaptain February 16, 2024

As promised in the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge After Action Report, here are the badges for those who completed the 31 characters. My daughter provided them in a large and small format. The badge is different than the last two years and are provided below.

There was several participants who sent feedback to me on the challenge itself. I didn’t have permission to use their names, but I wanted to pass on their comments to encourage others. I think part of the reason that these have been successful in the past is the encouragement that we all give each other on message boards and social media.

I just wanted to say I really enjoyed the experience and it was a great way to start the new year. I hope to have the time to do it again next year. If you have any questions please contact me on my email or feel free to also contact me directly on Discord. Thank you again I had a blast!
Thank you to TardisCaptain for this opportunity to participate and to all those enjoying this!
Made it! Thanks again for putting this together. And glad to hear everyone is okay.
I really enjoyed the Challenge this year, already looking forward to next year’s!
Agreed, thanks for running this, had a great time participating with my Advanced Fighting Fantasy reskins of classic 80s fantasy films (some of which may appear in The Warlock Returns fanzine as full articles in the near future), and had a lot of fun reading all the varied and imaginative entries from everyone else. Good times!
D&D remains my bread and butter. But I was able to explore a few other RPGs this year. More planning for next year, methinks. (Hubris. Any bets on no more actual planning next year?)
I’m afraid I’ve got no insightful commentary. Folks can make of my musical taste what they will. Thanks to TardisCaptain , it was fun. Now to sit down and actually read the thread. Is it bad I’ve come up with a theme for next year already?
Honestly, I think I did better last year; both in terms of being more organized and more creative. Which isn’t to say there isn’t a couple of highlights here, but between scrapping several ideas and having a lot else on my mind this year, it’s maybe been a bit more hassle than I’d have liked. I did enjoy coming up with themes to the names of some groups.
So, it was fun, but also more work than expected. If I do this next year, maybe rather than full parties I’ll go with something that requires less prep and crunch – simpler systems, more spontaneous ideas for chargen. Or maybe I’ll do pregens for one-shots. We’ll see.
However, doing this exercise has made me want to start writing stuff again, it’s really blown away the dust and cobwebs. It’ll take me a while to get back into practice, but I do intend to write more on this blog in future. And I’m really looking forward to next year’s challenge.
Wow, making 31 characters for as many different games was quite a lot, even though I did choose mainly rules-light games. Seeing the great diversity in games and character concepts posted in this thread was very fun!
I had fun making these characters and using several games I have not touched for decades I look forward to this next year!
Thank you, TardisCaptain ! Once again it was a lot of fun. And it was very cool to see all the creative stuff people came up with. I had to stop myself from gumming up the thread with questions. Thanks!
And with that 2024 is a wrap! Looking forward to 2025. As usual I will plan to get a few characters ready in advance so I can try more complicated systems. If all goes like previous years I will fail horribly and scramble to do each day next year.
Thank you for organizing the event once again.
Character Creation Challenge comes to an end! It was a blast!

So there will be a Character Creation Challenge in January 2025. I’ve already got a few new games to use and I’m willing to take any requests (if I have them). I’m also thinking of different themes that I may want to use since I saw a lot of successful ones used this year.

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.

Anime, Character Creation Challenge, Dungeons and Dragons, Horror, Humor, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek, Top Secret, Westerns

2024 Character Creation Challenge After Action Report

Written by TardisCaptain February 4, 2024February 16, 2024 1 Comment

And we’ve reached the end of the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge. 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. My daughter is currently working on a new graphic for those that completed the challenge and I’d like to make sure that it gets sent to you upon completion.

I did make it to 31 characters, but I was delayed by a few days due to a family emergency. Thank you to everyone who reached out to me to ask. One poster mentioned that they had seen a lack of entries for the last two days. My mother and grandmother were involved in an automobile accident. The good news is that they are OK with no injuries and they are just fine (other than needing to replace a minivan). But it was a little scary for me when I found out.

I noticed that the Scooby Doo gang was used in a lot of different themes by participants (seeing Velma and Daphne in the Doctor Who RPG was a hoot). It was interesting to see them show up in different gaming systems. On the discord server there was a very good representation of characters from 80’s movies represented in the Power Rangers Roleplaying Game. It was kind of a trip down memory lane since I hadn’t seen some of these moves in a LONG time. There was also a participant who was making Star Trek characters for three different RPG systems for several entries. It was interesting to see the characters side-by-side. One of the most unexpected discoveries wasn’t a current participant, but someone who participated back in the first challenge in 2021. Apparently it got him out of some serious mental funk that he had been dealing with. It got him back into blogging and eventually back into writing RPGs (that he had done before). It was an emotional moment for me when I read his blog post.

Of the entries that I used for 2024, the games that stood out to me were Monty Python, Fallout, White Lies and Star Trek Alpha Quadrant. I really enjoyed making a character for Teenagers from Outerspace and I’ve been watching some classic comedy anime lately While Vintage Space didn’t fully scratch the FASA Star Trek itch that I was trying to recall, it did get some gears turning that may result in a future project. I also appreciated the publishers that responded when I posted characters for their games. They were able to answer some of my questions that I had raised in the blog posts. I tried to post those responses in the “Additional Notes” section of an entry a day or two later.

The disappointments were those games that were needlessly crunchy or overbearing. I had a few readers on Mastodon and a few of the message boards respond with similar experiences, which made me feel like I wasn’t such an idiot. I’m still digesting Cowboy Bebop and I have a few things I want to check out before I post my unboxing and final thoughts entry.

Here is my 2024 list of characters:

Day 1: Fallout Character: Ragnal Walker of Vault 47
Day 2: Hackmaster Basic Character: Cid the Kid
Day 3: White Star Galaxy Edition Character: Jenker Slix
Day 4: Fantasy Quest (Dicing w/ Dragons) Character: Alric Hinman
Day 5: Top Secret S.I. Character: Nick Tanner
Day 6: Tiny Wastelands Character Stewart Barlow
Day 7: The Dark Eye Character: Halmar
Day 8: Star Trek: Alpha Quadrant Character: Tropp
Day 9: Monty Python Character: Sir Richard Hammond
Day 10: Basic Fantasy 4th Edition Character: Durlan Torven
Day 11: Teenagers from Outerspace Character: Prince Zaxxod
Day 12: The Spy Game Character: James “Captain Slow” May
Day 13: Star Ace Character: Balkor
Day 14: Ninjas and Superspies Character: Luke Ward
Day 15: Conan Character: Braga
Day 16: Boot Hill Character: Noah ‘Lasso’ Johnson
Day 17: White Lies 2nd edition Character: Jack Sterling
Day 18: Vintage Space Character: Troxtor
Day 19: Fantasy Hero Character: Drokkin the Dwarf
Day 20: Shadowrun Anarchy Character: Spike
Day 21: Nights Black Agents Character: Kendal Barker
Day 22: Barbarians of Lemuria Character: Kruk
Day 23: Starfinder Character: Sarangari
Day 24: Crypts & Things Character: Azor
Day 25: Cyberpunk Red Character: Indigo
Day 26: Dungeons and Dragons Essentials Characters: Pelloth Graysoul
Day 27: Cowboy Bebop Character: Wayne Wolf
Day 28: Rolemaster Fantasy Character: Hobson Silversting
Day 29: Tiny Frontiers Character: YYZ-2112
Day 30: Pathfinder 2nd edition Character: Rogar of the Granitebender Clan
Day 31: Anarchy Character: Marcell Freeman

Also, if you purchased anything after clicking on the link 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.

Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

2024 Character Creation Challenge Day 31: Anarchy

Written by TardisCaptain February 2, 2024

NOTE: Real world issues delayed the last two characters getting posted online.

And here we are to the final day of the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge. It was very rough for me at the end as a family emergency came up and delayed my last two entries. Today I am using the Anarchy: The Role Playing Game by Dicegeeks. This game is using the Open D6 system which I was able to play (a lot) in the Star Wars Role Playing Game from West End Games.

I picked up this game after reading about it in a series of newsletters about creating your own role playing game. Being a fan of post-apocalyptic games and the D6 system, I elected to check it out and to use it in the challenge.

The PDF is 65 pages long with the character creation process starting on page 10. The character sheet is one page long. The PDF is only bookmarked in the table of contents. The setting for the game is the United States that has twenty cities destroyed by nuclear explosions. The concept for the game is that the players begin the game alone three-years after the nuclear war and the winters it has caused has ravaged the planet.

Step one is to determine what your character was doing before the war. There is a list to choose from or you can roll randomly. Since I wanted to throw some dice, I let fate decide. This character was a college graduate student working towards a higher degree. Age is 28 and he was at an Ivy League school (both of these were part of the random roll charts.

Step two is what changed over the past three years. A roll of 1 resulted in a close family member or friend died from disease. I would assume that there would be a lot of that in a nuclear winter Earth. The RAW states work with your GM to create the details of the recent change. Talking with the voices in my head we decided that the character’s wife is the person who died.

Step three is the character’s goals that, if achieved, will be rewarded. There is another chart to roll against and the D10 (there is a different die for each time something needs to be randomly selected). A roll of 5 lists “Found a democratic town as a safe haven for any weary souls.” I think that the first thing the character would want to do is find a location that a town could be safely set up.

Now we are to step four where we set up the attributes. I have 18D to spread between the attributes of Dexterity, Knowledge, Mechanical, Perception, Strength and Technical. No attribute can be less than 2D or higher than 4D. Since this guy was almost done with his masters degree, I gave him high knowledge but lower strength.

Step five is to select advantages and disadvantages. The RAW states that a minimum of two disadvantages must be taken. I can skip any advantages, but it doesn’t give me a limit (which seems wrong) so I’ll match the plusses and negatives listed next to the advantages/disadvantages. Unlike the earlier steps, there is no random chart with the advantages and disadvantages. For the first time I had to go searching for the descriptions of the advantages and disadvantages (having the bookmarks on the left of the PDF would have helped here).

The skills are selected in step six. The RAW states that we get 7D to distributed (and a D can be broken down in to +1, +1, +1 or +1, +2). I went over the character sheet and gave him a lot of +1s and +2s.

Step seven is to determine the health points. 20+a STR roll. I wrote down the 26 health points.

Personal info is the next step. I consulted a random name generator and stopped at Marcell Freeman. I wrote up a brief physical description and a short background based upon what had been rolled above.

Step nine is the starting equipment and we are back to the random charts. All beginning characters start out with some clothes. Then I’m instructed to roll a D10 for each chart of Gear, Tools and Vehicles. This resulted in a sleeping bag, a hacksaw with two blades and two quarts of motor oil (uh… why?).

Starting weapons and armor is step ten. More D10s results in an axe and some motorcycle elbow pads. More D10 rolls for starting food and water resulted in eleven cans of spam (singing: Spam in my mailbox at work) and three gallons of water.

Step twelve determines the starting vehicle for Freeman. We are doing a percentage roll here. Freeman has an SUV that has 10 MPG and GHT of 30. What is GHT? The character sheet has something marked GIT under vehicles? I looked down at the vehicles section and it had some additional items, but nothing on the GHT/GIT question.

Step thirteen is to randomly roll for a personal memento. A D10 roll resulted in a music box. Probably all he has left over from his dead wife.

Step fourteen is to determine the current age of the character. Add three to anything determined earlier (28) results in an age of 31. Adding a single Fate Point is step fifteen. And the steps end here. I looked over the sheet and I noticed that I didn’t have any armor points listed. I looked at the equipment section and wrote them down. Here is the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

So I’ve played this system before and I’d be willing to play it again. I liked some of the random charts, but I wish that there had been some costs involved for obtaining other items. It sounds like there may be a lot of bartering or GM decision making to be made. I doubt I’ll get a chance to play this game, which is too bad.

Additional Notes:

I had a few people ask me how I was going to get Jeremy Clarkson into one of the characters after making Sir Richard Hammond and James “Captain Slow” May characters. I kept waiting for inspiration to strike. When none came, I decided to make the school that Marcell Freeman was studying at Clarkson University. I’m sure they have a great automotive study program.

I received an email from one of the participants in the Character Creation Challenge. He had been posting on his own website for the entire 31 days. I thanked him for his participation and added his site to the links list. In the future, if you are participating let me know as soon as you can. This way I can add the link with the other participants. Congratulations to everyone who made it to the 31 days.

Coming Up Next:

2024 Character Creation Challenge After Action Report

This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or click on my social media links with any comments.

Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games

2024 Character Creation Challenge Day 30: Pathfinder 2nd Edition

Written by TardisCaptain January 30, 2024February 1, 2024

NOTE: Real world issues delayed the last two characters getting posted online.

Day 30 of the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge and I am using the Pathfinder 2nd Edition system by Paizo. I had picked this up on the same charity bundle that I had also picked up Starfinder with. And I had a devil of a time getting the files downloaded from Paizo’s website. But I was finally able to gain them.

I’ve had a chance to play Pathfinder 2nd Edition at my first SaltCON last spring. I was really impressed with how the GM presented the game (and the tools that he used for a one-shot). The characters were pre-made so this is my first attempt at making one. I wonder how it will compare with the earlier Starfinder entry?

The PDF I own contains 642 pages with the character creation chapter starting on page 19. The actual character creation list (with character sheet breakdown) starts on page 21. The character sheet is four pages long.

OK so step one is to create a concept. I’ve felt the need to play a dwarven cleric so I’m going with that. I named him Rogar of Clan Granitebender.

Step two is to start building ability scores. I rolled for these scores because it was an option and I wanted to throw some dice. But apparently you don’t just use these scores. Depending upon your ancestry (aka race), background (aka growing up), and class there aer some ability boosts (that add or subtract from the ability scores. It was an interesting concept at first. But I make the mistake of trying to write everything down on a notepad before transferring it over to the character sheet. With the real-life interruptions that happened, I had to back-track over a few things to make sure I got them right when I was transferring the information.

Steps three, four and five (as mentioned above) was the selection of ancestry, background and class. I tried to make sure I had all of the parts put together (a little from here, then add some from over there, etc.) Thank heavens for the PDF being properly bookmarked.

The next step is to determine the ability scores. Basically you are going over all of the items assembled from above and making sure they are in the right place with modifiers. Step six is a companion step where you record your class details.

Step eight, finally buying equipment. Prices were really different than they were in other D20 games. But I appreciated that there was the “Adventurer’s kit” available.

Step nine is to calculate the modifieres (again you are going over everything, which I think I did right)

Step ten is the finishing details. I pushed my way through this, I really wanted to be done after going over (and re-going over) a lot of details.

Apparently I didn’t get my spells, so I at least wrote down the name. I really wanted to be done with this character. Here are the sheets. Yes there is some missing information, but I need to finish this because of how far behind I am due to real-world issues.

Afterthoughts:

When I wasn’t getting interrupted by real-world events, I was starting to get caught up in the character creation. I was actually wanting to play this character. A physical book purchase may be in the future. Would I run a game? I don’t know with the ton of books that are out there (that a GM needs to know about), but I could very easily see myself playing Pathfinder 2nd Edition.

I hope that some of the steps presented in character creation for PF2e get integrated in the upcoming 2nd edition of Starfinder that they are working on now. One of the things that caught my attention on the character sheet is the breakdown of proficiency from Untrained (+0) to Legendary (8+Level). In the different sections of the character sheet, if you had one of these proficiencies, you just check the level. However while I was trying to fit in all of the details on the character sheet, I’m starting to think that I should just move to fillable sheets. Copy and past if I’m pulling from a PDF.

When I was finally done, I longed for the simplicity of OSR. But I still want to participate a PF2e campaign.

Additional Notes:

I’m very thankful for the readers who have interacted with me both on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server and on social media. On Mastodon a couple of readers have started a long discussion to my Rolemaster Fantasy entry. Comments included that the game was an artifact of it’s era with the volume turned up to 11 with crunch going beyond the competitors of the time. Another comment was “you wouldn’t get me playing Rolemaster or RuneQuest due to the crunch”. “I’m absolutely horrified when I look at the design and layout of some of the games that I use to think were wonderful because now they are nothing but a solid medium-density pile of mushy text which beyond being poorly edited are just badly laid out.” I think there is a big reason we see D20 variants everywhere but no clones of these games.

So if I know, or think, that a game might be too crunchy or badly presented why do I use them in the challenge? I want to at least dip my toe in the pool and see how it is. There have been a few games that have been a surprise on the good side. And there have been others that still make me shake my head and wonder how these books are popular.

Coming Up Next:

Anarchy

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.