Tag: Dungeons and Dragons

Posted in: Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games

RPGaDAY2026 Day 4: Charm

Written by TardisCaptain

Day 4 Prompt: Charm
Week 1 Prompt: Intellect
Weekday Prompt: Full of Grace

Eagle eyed readers may notice that I didn’t change the prompt for the Day 4 entry in the RPGaDAY 2026 Challenge. The reason for this is that I’m writing these on the fly. When I saw the title “Charm”, the first thing that came into my head was the first-level Charm Person spell that always made me raise an eyebrow. First-level? It seemed like a powerful spell at this level, especially if it isn’t done right.

So I pulled out my books for Basic Fantasy, Castles and Crusades, Labyrinth Lord, Dungeon Crawl Classics and even the new Dungeons and Dragons 5.5 players handbook that I just recently obtained with a gift card. They were all variations on the same thing. The target thinks that the caster is a friend. As long as the caster or his party doesn’t attack them or do anything that wrongs them, then they can continue to be charmed with some options to make a save vs the spell effects. Perhaps the name of the spell is altered to avoid OGL license issues, but the process is similar.

I’ve never really cast this spell in all my years of gaming. I don’t recall ever seeing it cast. I asked one of my Geek Kids who has been in several D&D campaigns, and they hadn’t seen it used either. So it got me thinking, if this comes up in my current Castles and Crusades game, or at a one-shot at a convention, how would I handle this as a GM.

I think this is a perfect opportunity for role-playing instead of roll-playing. I’d rather have the table play more of the first than the later. I’d ask the caster how they are going to handle the charmed person. Take into account the current scenario involved (social, physical combat, bartering for goods and services?) and make adjustments to any saves vs affects from there.

Then there is the after affects. Once the spell has worn off or is resisted, how does the target(s) react? Will they know they’ve been charmed? Will they feel violated? Confused? Resentful? The response could make for an interesting roleplaying experience.

Every time there is a tactic that comes up in a magical universe like this, there is also defenses against them. Could shopkeepers, community leaders and other likely targets invest in rings, amulets or other worn items of defense against such spells? That would make for an interesting roleplaying event when a PC tries to be sneaky and suddenly finds out that the town sheriff doesn’t take too kindly to being targeted like this. And for every genuine magical item, hucksters could sell fake items that are promoted to assist with a charm resistance.

I wonder if that’s why this was a first-level spell. A good GM could see the opportunity to get some roleplaying going at the table?

What are your thoughts? Now that I’ve let my muse type this out, I think I’m glad I didn’t go with my initial idea of making a Wild West bordello with charming ladies. Still might, but not with this prompt.

Have you seen this spell in play at your table? How did it go? 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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games, Star Trek

#RPGaDAY2026 Day 1: Welcome to the Madness

Written by TardisCaptain

Day 1 Prompt: Discipline
Week 1 Prompt: Drive
Weekday Prompt: Works Hard

August 1st is here and it’s time for the RPGaDAY 2026 Challenge. I’ve been participating in this community event for a few years now (click here for my past entries) as I’ve found it challenging and rewarding. As you can see from above, there are some… unique prompts this year with a couple of side-prompts that were recommended by the organizers. I’ll try to see if I can work them into my blog posts, but honestly I’m not really feeling inspired by them. I even waited for a few entries to hit the interwebs to see if I missed anything and… I’m seeing subjects all over the place.

Now one of the suggestions strongly recommended by the organizers is, create 31 characters to use as NPCs in this challenge. That’s a little too close to the annual Character Creation Challenge that I run every January (New Year, New You). I really have to get myself pumped up and prepped for months to get through every January (and keep up with other responsibilities in my life). Especially since I’ve added two new ones recently. I’m also getting ready for SaltCON End-of-Summer coming up on the first weekend in September.

So I’m going to use an idea I keep wanting to use for the #CharacterCreationChallenge, but never get a chance to since I usually end up with some new games I want to create characters for. Gene Roddenberry said that the USS Enterprise was just as much a character in the show as Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. As much detail had to go into the ship as it does in the cast of the show. I’ve been wanting to make a Ship Creation Challenge in honor of this. Then as I thought more about it, safe houses (espionage), sailing vessels (pirates), castles and towers (fantasy) and other locations basically fit into this same category. Batman had his Bat Cave with it’s unique features. Sherlock Holmes had 221b Baker Street where he could be found playing his violin. Han Solo had the fastest hunk of junk known as the Millennium Falcon. A Starship is a unique location like these that added to the story. So my entries for 2026 will be unique locations that may or may not be mobile. Some entries may be brand new, others may be recollections of past games. I’ll try to get the prompts listed above in the entry, but that’s not always going to be a guarantee.

My loyal readers will recall my many blog entries about the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 campaign that my friend Jeff ran for several years. What they may not know is that he had ran another campaign before that one (early 2000’s) that I had the pleasure to participate in. I had introduced Tirik the Archer in an entry to the 2024 RPGaDAY challenge. What I didn’t mention then was how Jeff was having us roleplay (and plan) what would eventually be our strongholds in the game. I told him that I wanted to put together an Archery Academy. Jeff said sure, but he wanted plans before letting the construction start. I had an idea in my head and I had to get it down on paper. A paper that I just spent time going through my book of characters to see if I still had readily available. So, here is a quick re-sketch from memory.

When I showed the original to Jeff his response was “Oh Cool!!!!” Later I remembered that I could have had a basement put in for probably more room. But by the time I had remembered this, Jeff stated that the workers had already started on the construction. After it was completed, apparently a dragon flying overhead was intrigued with the landmark and had mentioned it to his fellow dragons (according to the DM, we didn’t get a chance to roleplay that out).

So I guess the students would have to work hard to get into the academy and be diligent to graduate if they had the drive? Yea, I think I forced that one a little too much.

Oh, additionally I’m open to suggestions for future unique locations or vessels that are characters in their own right.

Did you have an RPG campaign that made it to the stronghold level? 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.

Posted in: Conventions, Dungeons and Dragons, Pirates, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek

SaltCON-Summer 2026 After Action Report

Written by TardisCaptain
Standard picture of loot from SaltCON.

So just a heads up, while there might be some negative things in this after-action report, none of them are due to the many volunteers at SaltCON. The many volunteers and coordinators at the event were beholden to the same issues that affected the con as a whole, and they did an excellent job under the circumstances.

Bottom line up front (BLUF): Attendance was down at this particular event due to the economy.

When I talked with several coordinators, they mentioned that they had seen the same pattern previously over the past seventeen years. When money gets tight, the attendance drops as people try to trim the budget. How this affected me and some of the other volunteer gamemasters is that some scheduled events didn’t “fire”. This is the metric that the convention uses to state that the game started on time with players. All three of my scheduled games did not “fire” which disappointed me. With the lower attendance, the players flocked to the games that had other attendees signed up so that they could get a full experience (kind of hard to play in a game with only 1-2 players). At first I wondered if I had picked the wrong games or time-slots, but I saw that other GMs had the same issues that I had. So while talking with the RPG coordinators, they encouraged me to continue to volunteer as they appreciated my efforts. So yes, I’ll be signing up to run some games at SaltCON-End of Summer in September. Hopefully the economy will not be as skitterish as it is now (crosses-fingers).

There, now that the elephant in the room is out of the way, I can tell you what I enjoyed this weekend. First, the hugs. Thank you to those who provided or accepted them. I had a chance to see a few friends that I see regularly and a few that I hadn’t seen in a while. A convention is also a chance to network with other geeky people. I had a chance to meet the organizer for ICON, a gaming convention that happens in eastern Idaho three times a year (once in Pocatello and twice in Idaho Falls). I’m giving some thought to possibly volunteering to GM some RPG one-shots at this event in the future. But there is more logistics that will have to be put into place before I can commit to it.

The game swap room was moved to a larger location which was very nice. Usually it’s stuck in a narrow room where the attendees are shoulder-to-shoulder as they try to look over the selections. I liked the additional room much more and I hope that we can keep this at the new location. I’d like to thank those who brought in roleplaying books. I was able to pick up the Creature Codex and the Tome of Beasts at a decent price. From the photo above you can also see that the free boardgame was something called Tiffin (which I honestly picked up because it was the smallest game to grab). As my thank you gift for GMing at the con, I picked up a $20 gift certificate to The Queen’s Realm. The convention t-shirt is blue with a pirate crab and a pirate parrot playing cards with the caption “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.” My geek wife liked mine so much that she asked me to pick her up one as well.

An interesting twist this year is that a collectable card event was happening in the same convention center on Saturday. I walked through it since it was free. But I didn’t pick up anything since it was mostly Pokemon and sports cards. A nice thing about having that part of the convention center open was the better food options were available within. I wonder if this event will happen again at the same time next summer?

Mini-posters the convention used to advertise my games.

As for the games that I played, Everyday Heroes was a time-travel adventure where we had to prevent Professor Moriarty from messing with time by preventing the Titanic from not being sunk. We were only able to get through one scenario since we had to create characters from scratch. But I was a pirate from the 1800’s which helped with the naval theme. Since one of my games didn’t ‘fire’, I ended up jumping into my first ever HeroQuest game, which was interesting. It was a cross between an RPG and a board game. The Savage Worlds one-shot was also fun. Apparently it was for a sci-fi setting that had just been released called the Han Cluster. It was ‘technology is magic’ based and was an interesting challenge. I had forgotten that I had already played Savage Worlds previously (and it was from the same GM). But it was good to be reminded about the system. Lorecraft 5e was very different. It was a homebrewed game that took Fifth Edition and added some additional items to it. Which explains why I wasn’t able to find anything for it online. But the GM/designer put a lot of work into it. The character sheet alone was a laminated folder with character and equipment card slots. You would write on any side with a dry-erase marker and included a booklet for additional abilities and equipment slots (see photos below since he let all players keep their characters for possible future gaming sessions). He had an interesting lazy-susan grid-playing field where he could put on our figures and terrain (all held with magnets). He could spin the playing field around to move characters or point things out. What I really appreciated with this GM was the way he handled two young RPGers (possibly 14 years old) at the table who attended all seven of his events that were all linked together. They were really getting into the system and their characters. When he cornered me after the session I played in he really wanted to ask me some feedback questions about his works. I let him know the encouraging things that I saw in the game. I didn’t really see any improvements he needed to make, but perhaps I could have noticed something if I had played in other sessions.

The back of the Lorecraft 5e character folder.
The front facing the other players and GM.

Again, if you are looking for a good gaming convention, please check out SaltCON. There are a ton of board games, card games, roleplaying games and more. The next two conventions at the Davis Conference Center in Layton, Utah are September 4-6 and March 11-14. I thinking of making a homebrew game for the Spring 2027 event.

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.

Posted in: Conventions, Dungeons and Dragons, Horror, Pirates, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek, Star Wars

SaltCON-Spring 2026 After Action Report

Written by TardisCaptain
August sez “Who said you could be gone fur-ever?”

And another wonderful SaltCON is in the bag. Let me take this opportunity to thank the gaming coordinators, the volunteers and the people I met for helping to make this an enjoyable weekend. I had some disappointments, but they were far and few between. I also had a roleplayer come up to me to say “Hey you want to see my convention backpack?” after he had read about the backpack that I use at conventions. It was interesting to compare the two of them. Last year, I really needed the emotional support after some real-life events. This year I was providing the emotional support to others (and I was glad to give out the hugs when needed). It reminded me of the quote from Saru on Star Trek: Discovery.

“Before we can care for others, we must care for ourselves.” Saru- New Eden, Stardate: 1027.32

I was able to pick up a lot this year. The convention theme for 2026 is pirates (last year was a cyberpunk theme) and there were several articles of clothing that combined gaming and pirates together. My zip-up Star Trek hoodie (that looked like a uniform) was starting to get a little threadbare, so I decided to replace it with a black SaltCON pirate hoodie that says “Dead men play no games.” I also picked up the regular con shirt for spring which was a pirate riding a fish guiding it with a D20. The SaltCON GameMaster’s Guild shirt that I got for free said “Release the Kraken” And speaking of free shirts, Evil Genius Games provided me with an Evil Gamemaster shirt for running one of their games. On the sleeve is a bonus rule that allows the GM to make a player re-roll a D20 two times during a game. I didn’t use this at the con, but a friend who also got the same shirt did.

Some of the gaming loot that I picked up at the con.

As is usually the case with SaltCON, they give you free games when you pick up your registration badge. The free games this year included an interesting card game called Tacta and a humorous looking game called Riot at the Round Table. I’ll have to subject the family to these and see how they play. At the Saturday morning swap meet someone brought in the Star Trek Super-Skill Pinball that was still sealed and was a low price. So I snagged it. I really wish that more people brought their RPG books to this Saturday morning event. At the regular game swap (which is 99% board games) I did find an unusual looking RPG called Arzium which appears to be a fantasy game. And one of my thank you gifts for running quite a few RPG sessions was the Werewolf The Apocalypse Core Rulebook. Both of these I’ll be using in the 2027 Character Creation Challenge.

Smaller loot from the con.

There were a couple more giveaways that I had received at the convention. The first was the SaltCON RPG pin which showed a kraken wrapping itself around a pirate ship. There was also a pin I got for running the Evil Genius game for Nacho Haus that came from the Origins Game Fair. I don’t know what that represents. I reached out to my contacts at EGG and I’ll report back what I find out. Another free gift was a small 3D printed dice tower that fit nicely inside my leather dice tray. Usually dice towers are too unwieldy or big, but this one worked just right. This was given to a GMs at the con and was provided by Scorehaven which appears to be some sort of gaming meet up group. A local young artists had a booth at the con and from her I purchased a set of dice that glow under a ultraviolet light (I’ll blog more about that later) and a special coffin box for the Geek Wife who loved it. Plus we wanted to support those who created with their hands and not tried to use AI.

For the four games that I ran at SaltCON Spring 2026 I think I must have picked a bad time-slot for Basic Fantasy. Only one person had preregistered for the game and they backed out the morning of the con. But this only gives me a chance to polish up this self-written adventure for a future event. The next day I ran Everyday Heroes: Escape from New York (for the prizes seen above). This game had a full complement (five pre-gen characters) and we had fun. However I may have disappointed a player who was playing an RPG for the first time. She chose a character that was a manipulator instead of a fighter. However the first part of the game (that was all we could do in the four hour slot) didn’t get to the point where she could use her talents. I let them name their own characters at the table, so Lady Lockbreaker, if you are reading this, I should have let you manipulate the guards you were trying to approach. I had thought about it later and I realized then what you were trying to do. I hope your future RPG sessions go a little better. For any GMs running some of the Cinematic Adventures from Evil Genius Games, be prepared to shorten the material to get it into a convention gaming slot. Friday I ran Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition with the Thursday’s Child game written by Roger Taylor. This ran very well and challenged the characters in a Star Trek way. There were lots of compliments at the end of the session (that ran longer than we were expecting, but it was the last game at that table for the day). On Sunday I ran the Star Wars D6 RPG from West End Games. While there were a couple of first time players who wanted to see what the fuss was all about, there were also several players who loved the original game. They loved the theater of the mind and how I used an opening script to get them all into character. Thank you to my players who showed up and had fun.

I was really looking forward to the two Cowboy Bebop games, but they didn’t happen. One was with Lasers and Feelings and the other was the official RPG that I had backed on Kickstarter. The GM fell ill and wasn’t able to return for the two games. I know another player who had signed up for both who was disappointed as well. Another player volunteered to run Lasers and Feelings for us and we pushed our way through it as an improv game. Thanks to that player for stepping up and showing how the community supports each other. To the GM that was running the early Sunday morning Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st Edition game, I apologize for pulling out the night before. With how late my STA game ran, I didn’t think I was going to get there on time for the early morning session. I hope you found a replacement player and I thank you for bringing one of the classics to the con. I have a bit of a conundrum on the Tunnels and Trolls game. It wasn’t actually Tunnels and Trolls, it was a retro-clone called the Leopard Empress or something. Another player who also wanted to really try T&T had even brought his books from home. I think we got an idea how the system works with the clone, but I was also wondering if I would have signed up had it been advertised under the actual game name. I don’t know, am I thinking about this too hard? If I had advertised my Basic Fantasy game as BECMI and someone showed up expecting to play that, would they be giving me the side eye? The other game that I was able to play is called DC20, which turned out to be a beta version of the game that was backed by Kickstarter years ago. It made sense, but I could see where some of the betaness of the game came into play as the players had a few questions about things. We had fun. But the IT side of my brain kept saying “Beta version, wait for full release.” The most fun I had was with the Paranoia game. Because there was a long line to get into the con (and I had to stop to help a friend at the ER beforehand) I was a little late getting there. The GM was actually having the players create their own characters. Since I had missed the first of this process, I asked if I could just use the character I had recently created in the Character Creation Challenge, and the GM agreed. So bonus points for me to use a character that I had created manually. I want to say that the Paranoia game lives up to its reputation if you have a GM and players with the right mindset (and warped sense of humor). Good job. Overall I had fun in the games that I actually played and thanks again to the GMs for their efforts.

Again, if you are looking for a good gaming convention, I can’t recommend SaltCON enough. There are a ton of board games, card games, roleplaying games and the Artemis Bridge Simulator ran by Starship Frontier was always full. The next two conventions at the Davis Conference Center in Layton, Utah are June 5-7 and September 4-6. I already have an idea for my next Star Trek Adventures game that I want to try out.

So was I putting to much thought into the Tunnels and Trolls concern? Did I do the new player in Escape from New York wrong by not letting her play to her character strengths? 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.

Posted in: Conventions, Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games, Star Trek, Star Wars

Prepping for SaltCON Spring 2026

Written by TardisCaptain
Some of the games that I’ll be running at SaltCON Spring 2026.

Wow, 2026 is flying by already. In less than a week I’ll be at SaltCON Spring at the Davis Convention Center in Layton to throw some dice and see some friends. This will run from March 12-15 and is the largest of the three SaltCON conventions held at this location.

I volunteered to run four different games this year. I’m also signed up to play in four games that I’ve never played before and I’ll be re-visiting a game that I haven’t played since my early days of gaming. I will also be packing my Convention Backpack that I have documented about in a previous blog post.

Once again, my Sunday game has filled up first. But this shouldn’t surprise me because it’s the classic Star Wars D6 RPG by West End Games. I’m certain that all of the players probably remember (or heard about) how well this game ran. I’ve also followed up with some games that I’m getting known for, Basic Fantasy 4th Edition (The Guildmaster’s Quest Part II) and Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition where I’ll be running a scenario written by my late friend, Roger Taylor that I converted over to 2e. I think that Roger would have loved 2nd edition. Another first for me is running the Everyday Heroes cinematic adventure, Escape from New York. What is especially interesting about this last game is that it will be a sanctioned play recognized by the publisher. I’ll get some swag for running the game and the players can get some points as well if they sign up online. The publisher had one of their convention coordinators reach out to me and ran me through a quick online session about a month ago.

I’ve signed up to play in six games. The one that I’ve played before is Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st Edition (role play like it’s 1979). In 2025 I did see a couple of pick up 2nd edition games start. If I hadn’t already been booked for another session, I might have joined them. The remaining games are all new to me. I am really appreciative of the opportunity to try new games. There are 5th Edition/Pathfinder games at all of the local gaming stores, I want to try other things. The first game is the new Paranoia All New Shiny Edition (aka “Perfect Edition”). I recently had the opportunity to make a character for this in the 2026 Character Creation Challenge. I’ve really wanted to try this game ever since I first heard about it back in the 90s. I’m not certain what version it is, but another game that I’ve signed up for is Tunnels and Trolls. Yea, speak about old-school. This was another game that I saw advertised over the gaming publications at the time. I’ll have more to report about this later. There is a sci-fi game out there called Lasers and Feelings which looks like it was inspired by Star Trek. This game has had several hacks published for it to cover other genres and this one will cover the Cowboy Bebop anime. And speaking of Cowboy Bebop, someone will be running the official RPG at the con and I’ve signed up for it. After backing the Kickstarter for this and being very disappointed (see my review) I’ll get a chance to play it at the table. Will this opportunity change my mind? We’ll see. My final game that I signed up for is called DC20, which is a 5e variant. I had seen it scheduled at SaltCON in the past, but the schedules never lined up for me to try it. So I’m taking another plunge to see what it’s like. This game will actually have the players make their character at the start of the game instead of using pre-generated characters.

I’m looking forward to geeking out and forgetting about how bad this year has been so far (again). If you are going, feel free to come up and say Hi. Seeing friends is exactly what I need right now. And a way to help myself is to help others. So let me know if you need a hug as well.

What should I be on the look out for? Any recommendations for the games I’m going to be playing? 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.

Posted in: Dungeons and Dragons, Reviews, Role Playing Games

Bree-YARC Quickstart Guide a Kickstart Reward

Written by TardisCaptain
The cover to the quickstart guide.

So towards the end of 2025 I was notified about another Kickstarter campaign from Third Kingdom Games for the Bree-YARC Quckstart Guide. YARC stands for “Yet Another Retro Clone” and combines elements of BECMI and 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons together with some additional houserules. I’ve backed several Kickstarter campaigns from Third Kingdom Games in the past including the BX Advanced Bestiary Volume 1 and BX Advanced Bestiary Volume 2 (links to my reviews).

Some of you may be wondering why there was a kickstarter for a quickstart? The goal was to provide the internal art for the book and pay the artists for their work. Third Kingdom Games has made the pledge to not use AI generated graphics in their publications. And since that’s a subject very close to my heart, I had to back them. Besides the PDF, I received a print-on-demand from DriveThruRPG. I’ve reviewed some POD publications previously.

Now if Bree-YARC sounds familiar, I’d recommend reviewing the Rumor Table in the Dungeons and Dragons Adventure Module B2: The Keep on the Borderlands. Having read and broken down that module for many years, I recognized it immediately. A tip of the hat for the reference.

So the softcover book that I received in the mail has a full color cover and interior black and white art. Probably in a callback to the older RPG books that we use to collect. The ISBN number is 2370022620158 and the book has 50 pages. It was written by Todd Leback. The cover art is by Juan Ochoa with Perplexing Ruins and Dyson Logos providing some of the interior art. There are two sections for Players and GMs. Six short chapters for the players (The Basics, Character Classes, Gear and Gold, Magic, Adventuring and What Comes Next) and three for the GMs (Intro Adventure, Monsters and Treasure). One interesting note, the book measurements are slightly taller than other books. I took a photo of the Quickstart rules with the Basic Fantasy core rulebook which is standard sized.

Side-by-side comparison with a normal sized book both level at the bottom.

As a retro-clone, it might be easier to say what the differences are to the other publications that we are all well aware of. Bree-YARC uses Ancestry (aka race) as a Class just as it would back in the B/X days. In this quickstart there is only Humans, but they do have classes like Thief, Fighter, Cleric and Magic User. On DriveThruRPG, the publisher has been releasing PDFs of other Ancestries and Classes for free. These include the Dwarf, Goblin, Owlfolk and Tiefling. For the new Human classes they have Ranger, Bard, Berserker, Hexblade and Sorcerer. It is mentioned that more classes and ancestries will be presented in the Core Rulebook when it is released.

All characters have their 0-level HP that they roll before they obtain the 1st level HP+CON adjustment roll. Savings Throws use the older terminology (Wands, Breath Attack, etc.) but are calculated differently. There are skill checks that require meeting/beating a DC rating. Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic is the alignment system presented. XP bonuses are given for playing characters with lower ability scores instead of higher ability scores. Each class has their own special abilities and each character gets a Knack or special ability. It appears that this game is using Ascending Armor Class (thank you). There is Advantage/Disadvantage. Experience points for treasure is only earned when the party returns with it to a safe place. There are also opportunities to earn XP through exploring. Before a character moves up a level, they have to complete a certain amount of Downtime in a safe location. This could include item crafting, research, carousing, hiring, etc. And finally each character will have a Renown rating that represents their reputation in the game world. Whew.

The room descriptions in the intro adventure looked interesting. At a glance the GM knows what’s in the room with additional details described below the chart. This can include lighting, secrets, sounds, exits, etc. The monster stats are found in the adventure with the monster section mostly describing the stat description breakdown, morale conversion table, XP chart for creating monsters, etc. The treasure section describes the types of treasure and the value of a treasure horde.

The back cover.

Conclusion: When I first got the physical book, I wondered if I’d be happy backing this Kickstart campaign when I saw how thin it was. I had forgotten that it was just the quickstart book. But I wasn’t too worried because the support levels were very reasonable for a publication of this size. I really dislike the Kickstart campaigns where they want a bunch of money for an unverified product. The smaller prices usually entice me to pull the trigger. However, once I started reading this book for this review, it reminded me why I had backed their earlier Kickstart campaigns. I can tell that the effort put into the Bree-YARC Quickstart Guide had a lot of thought behind it. They were providing an interesting twist to the OSR game instead of a bunch of fluff. When the core rulebook comes out, I’ll be very tempted to purchase it (or back it if it’s a Kickstart campaign). Even if the core rulebook isn’t available by the time the 2027 Character Creation Challenge rolls around, I can still use this quickstart book to make a Human character. Usually RPG quickstarts don’t include character creation steps.

Do you have any questions about the Bree-YARC Quickstart Guide? 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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Doctor Who, Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek, Star Wars

2026 Character Creation Challenge After Action Report

Written by TardisCaptain

Note: If you made it through 31 days of the challenge, read to the bottom of the post.

The 2026 #Character Creation Challenge has been completed. What a difference a year makes. 2025 sucked so bad that I didn’t complete my 31 characters until March. For 2026 I tried a different approach that was, somewhat, successful. I posted 31 characters in January and a bonus character on February 1st. Now I will admit, since I knew that I had some real-life responsibilities (a funeral and parental duties) in January, I did generate some characters in December. This gave me a little bit of a buffer at the start of the month. But in the latter half, I was making the character the day before it was scheduled to be posted. I think this helped my sanity (what little left there is) a lot.

Another thing I did differently this year was not scheduling out the whole month and printing up all the character sheets in advance. This gave me a little bit of flexibility, especially when one game I selected turned out to be a supplement and not a game. However by the middle of the month I had scheduled everything out. I’m not certain how I’m going to do this in the future. Another thing I did was combine some reviews with the character creation. This wasn’t too bad, but I think I’d like to keep these separate in the future.

The entries that really stood out for me in the 2026 challenge included White Lies 3rd Edition, Paranoia “Perfect Edition”, Dragonbane, The One Ring and the Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition with the 23rd Century Campaign Guide. When I was re-reading the entries to help me write this report, I remember feeling happy after I had made these characters. Plus a few of them I really want to run at SaltCON as a one-shot or homebrew for.

I really didn’t have any games that disappointed me this year other than Rebel Scum. Sure there were some weird ones like Time Lord or slightly incomplete like the Trader Captain’s and Merchant Princes. But I think Rebel Scum was the disappointment of the 2026 challenge. It needed to really be more a rule book first.

Of the other entries that I read on various message boards, blogs and social media, I noticed a lot of Star Trek characters. One participant was making Star Trek characters with other RPG systems (like the D6 Star Wars game). There was also a participant who created the classic Masters of the Universe characters using the Advanced Fighting Fantasy system. I also loved the Alpha Squad (a 1930’s A-Team) using the Outgunned Adventure system. There were also a lot of other good themes and new system. I wish I had room to mention them all.

Here is my list of 2026 Characters:

Day 1: FASA Star Trek- Trader Captain’s and Merchant Princes Character: Kraxx
Day 2: Rivers of London Character: Oliver Cook
Day 3: Time Lord Character: Carl Stark
Day 4: Twilight: 2000 4th Edition Character: Benton Ward (Stiletto)
Day 5: Dungeons and Dragons Rule Cyclopedia Character: Carthan
Day 6: White Lies 3rd Edition Character: Walter Cunningham
Day 7: Attack From Space Character: Sir Reginald the Fourth
Day 8: Rebel Scum Character: Lifter THX1138
Day 9: Star Trek Adventures-Captain’s Log Character: Valltex of the Kazon-Pikaar
Day 10: Tales from the Loop Character: Kirk Stark
Day 11: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st edition Character: Teowulf the Hunter
Day 12: Star Wars 2nd Edition Character: Arcus Junn
Day 13: The Well Character: Barton the Bastard
Day 14: Worlds Beyond Character: Yirr’baun
Day 15: Worlds Without Number Character: Jarret
Day 16: Paranoia “Perfect Edition” Character: Todd-R-TOT-1
Day 17: FTL Nomad Character: Marcos Tryladar
Day 18: Dragonbane Character: Drake Grandfeather
Day 19: Rocket Age Character: Arnold “Ace” Rimmer
Day 20: vs Ghosts Character: Professor Proton
Day 21: Underhaven Character: Thorronlir Whitbraid
Day 22: D.A.M.N.I.T. Character: Hezan Copperhood
Day 23: Swords & Wizardry Character: Ivasaar Perleth
Day 24: EverReach Character: Charles Craig
Day 25: The Walking Dead Universe Character: Jay Dunn
Day 26: Modern Necessities Character: Xathel “BL4NK” Dalla
Day 27: The Terminator Character: William Harden
Day 28: The One Ring Character: Reginard Grubb
Day 29: Other Dust Character: Trabb
Day 30: Doctor Who 2nd Edition Character: ALAN 1701D
Day 31: Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition with 23rd Century Campaign Guide Character: Kraxx
Day 32: Jack Photon’s Fan Made Star Trek RPG Character: Jayce Newton

Past Character Creation Challenges After-Action Reports:
2025
2024
2023
2022
2021

And if you completed the 31 characters in 31 days, here is the badge that you can display on your blog posts or social media. I’ve already had this badge show up on Welcome to the Eyrie, Paratime, Three Kobolds with a Trench Gun and on BlueSky. If I missed any, please let me know. This graphic is in a large and small format. I commissioned it from AuroraStark.art if you are ever looking for some production art for a project. Additions: The Other Side, Flubs and Boons and Ravaged Renaissance. Let me know if there are more.

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.

Get ready for the 2027 #CharacterCreationChallenge coming up next January. And thank you everyone who had fun. Even if you only made a few characters, I still enjoyed reading them.

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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 23: Swords and Wizardry

Written by TardisCaptain

Day 23 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge and I’m using an OSR clone called Swords and Wizardry from Frog God Games. Specifically this is the “Complete Rulebook” version. I had picked it up on DriveThruRPG back in 2020 and I’ve been keeping it ready when I needed an OSR game for the challenge. I’ve got quite a few OSR clones and I like comparing them against each other. So let’s see how the character creation process works for this system.

There are a 144 pages in the PDF that I own. The character sheet is one-page long which looks kinda kewl. The character creation starts on page 7 with the generating of the attribute scores. I’m instructed to roll 3d6 in order. It is mentioned that the Referee may allow the player to move the scores around if this is a long term game or if you have something in mind. I’m going to let the dice decide what this character is. And with a high Intelligence (15) I’m making a magic user.

The next step is to pick a race for the character. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my last two characters for Underhaven and D.A.M.N.I.T. were Dwarves. So I’m going to select an Elf. No attribute adjustments in S&W, but there are some advantages that I wrote down in my notes.

Next comes the character’s alignment. The choices are Chaos, Law or Neutrality. I think this guy is going to be Lawful. Why, because he’s not a bad guy that’s why.

Rolling 3d6x10 for the starting gold to buy equipment is next resulted in 120 GP. I picked up the standard fair that I thought this yet-to-be-named character would need. No armor made the AC easy to calculate, and since it had both descending and ascending AC options, I chose ascending.

We’ve come to the end of the chapter on character creation, but I know I need to pick his spells. Apparently he only memorizes the spells allowed per day (one at 1st level), but can have up to eight spells in his spellbook. But I have to roll under the “Understand Spells” score from my 15 INT. And since I don’t have a name yet, the Elf Random Name Generator came up with Ivasaar Perleth.

Afterthoughts:

There wasn’t really a checklist for the character creation. It was just “now pick this from these descriptions” and move to the next chapter. I was use to this older format having played BECMI a while ago, so it didn’t bother me. But I could see how it would be confusing to players not familiar with OSR styles.

What I didn’t like was the 0.2gp costs listed on some of the equipment. Just tell me what it is in silver pieces, etc.

Some interesting tidbits in this OSR clone. I wouldn’t turn down a game, but as for running one, I’ve already got some others in mind.

Additional Notes:

I want to thank all of the participants and commenters on the #CharacterCreationChallenge channel on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. I’ve loved seeing your entries and interacting with you.

I don’t know why this game wasn’t showing up on DriveThruRPG. My copy was still in my library, but the book itself wasn’t showing up under the vendor’s page.

Coming Up Next:

EverReach

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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 5: Dungeons and Dragons Rules Cyclopedia

Written by TardisCaptain

And here we are on Day 5 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge and today we will be making a character for the Dungeons and Dragons Rules Cyclopedia. Now I can probably hear a few of you saying: “But Carl, didn’t you already use BECMI for your very first Character Creation Challenge entry back in 2021?” Yes… but the first players handbook in that set walked a new player through the character creation process and rules by going through a solo “pick your own way” adventure. While the character creation is basically the same (no pun intended), there are some extra rules that are available in the Rules Cyclopedia. I had picked up this book quite a while ago via DriveThruRPG PoD (click link for review) and I thought that it would be good to use this system with the extra items.

There is a different character sheet provided with this version. The one seen in the red cover Basic Player’s Manual was… well basic with lots of wasted real-estate. This character record sheet has more sections for some of the different rules. The steps for creating a character are found on page 6. They are 1- Roll ability scores, 2- Choose a class, 3- Adjust the ability scores, 4- Roll up hit points, 5- Roll for starting money, 6- Purchase equipment, 7- Generate other numbers, 8- Note adjustments for ability scores, 9- Select alignment, 10- Name, personality and background, 11- Determine the height and weight of the character and 12- Earn experience. I’m not certain what that last one is. If it’s not listed in the next couple of pages, I’ll also be flipping back a few pages to the weapon and non-weapon skills.

This is roll 3d6 in a row system according to RAW. I rolled the six standard D&D ability scores with the special D6s I picked up from SaltCON last year. And it looks like this new character is going to be a not-so good looking Human cleric with the following stats. Str- 10, Int- 11, Wis- 17, Dex- 9, Con- 12 and Cha- 7. I briefly considered forcing this character into a demi-human class, but that’s just to high of a Wisdom score to let go. I looked at the adjust ability scores information and you can trade two points from an ability score to your prime requisite by one. You can’t pull these numbers from Constitution, Charisma or Dexterity. Well I don’t want Charisma to get any worse. I also can’t lower any ability score past 9 so this character’s Strength will not be going down. I could drop the Intelligence to a 9 and not suffer any negative effects, but it could affect any skills that I select that are Intelligence based. So I’m going to not adjust anything at this time.

All right, the important Hit Points of the character. The Cleric rolls a 1d6, so sticking with my SaltCON dice I rolled a 5. Unfortunately, the character’s Constitution score isn’t high enough to earn a HP bonus.

Starting money for this Cleric is determined by rolling 3d6 and multiplying it by 10. I rolled a 14 (I could have used that during the ability score generation), so 140 gold pieces to start. The RAW states that the character already has normal clothes. I picked up the standard fare that most starting characters have including the standard holy symbol. With the higher GP count, I did splurge for some chainmail and a shield.

Next I calculated up the AC and found the character’s saving’s throw information. With the high Wisdom score, I can add the bonus to the savings throws vs magic. There was an option for THAC0, but I stuck with the regular attack roll table. I’ve never really been a fan of THAC0. And to be honest, I’m more of a fan of the Ascending AC (if your opponent’s AC is 13, you need to roll a 13 or higher to hit it). This book has the Descending AC.

For the Alignment, I’m going with Lawful. There are only three of them in this system. As for a name (reaches up into the reaches of my mind), lets go with Brother Carthan of the Good Guy Church. Hey, I don’t know what world this guy is playing in so we’ll go nondescript until the DM tells me what gods they use. After an (insert bad guys here) raid on his farmstead left him an orphan, the Good Guy Church took him in. He is trying to repay the church by going on various quests for them out in the field with his friends the other player characters. Grin. The chart for determining the character height and weight is just a generic chart. Nothing to roll, so I picked something I thought would fit a traveling Cleric. As for the “Earning Experience” section, it just describes going up in level and what happens when you reach “name level” (aka Level 9).

So that’s the end of the standard character creation process, but as I have mentioned above, I wanted to include some optional rules found on page 75 “Other Character Abilities”. This includes Weapon Mastery and General Skills. At first level Brother Carthan gets two weapon mastery slots as a Cleric. Had he been a Fighter he would have started with four. At certain class levels, the number of slots increases that I can spend to learn new weapons, or increase a current weapons mastery that the character has. Anything without a slot is considered “unskilled” and only does half damage if a successful attack is made. And these can’t be generic in nature (e.g. Normal Sword mastery doesn’t cover Bastard Sword). There are some weapons that come in as Basic (the first level of mastery) such as throwing rocks. I selected War Hammer and Sling since that is what I had purchased earlier. If I decided to increase a mastery of a weapon that I’m already skilled in, eventually it would lead to attack roll/damage bonuses, AC bonuses, the ability to attack more than one target and even place an opponent(s) in Despair (which may cause them to flee or surrender depending upon their intelligence). It is not limited to just Fighters, but they get more slots than the other classes.

At creation, each character gets four General Skills. A higher intelligence can add more. There is a list of suggested skills and what ability they fall under. More can be added by the DM if needed. When a character needs to use a skill, they roll a D20 and try to match or roll under their ability score. The DM can give bonuses or penalties depending upon the situation. Later, when Brother Carthan gains more levels, additional skill slots can be acquired and spent on the same skills (making them better) or adding new skills all together. I selected Bravery, Ceremony, Danger Sense and Detect Deception. I then transferred everything over from my notes to the character sheet. Since Clerics don’t get spells until 2nd level, I did not scan the Spell Book Sheet.

Afterthoughts:

I hadn’t noticed this until now, but the page numbers are smack dab in the middle of the footer surrounded by a leafy graphic. It was easy to hide the page number in it.

When reading the rules for weapons mastery and skills, there were rules for unskilled use of weapons, but not for skills. What happens if my character tried to start a fire without flint and steel? This is something that the DM would have to make a decision on. Later, while I was reading some of the skill descriptions, they had guidelines for unskilled use, but not on all descriptions. I really want to compare some of the different OSR skill rules against each other at some time.

I can see how Weapons Mastery may lead to some roleplaying opportunities. You found a magic weapon, but you are not a master of it’s type, you need to search out a trainer who can teach your character.

I was getting some flashbacks while creating this. But I can also see why I’ve moved onto other OSR systems like Basic Fantasy.

Additional Notes:

I’ve had a few participants in the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge tell me that they are making characters, but not posting them online. I’d like to encourage these participants to post them on social media, discord or one of the message boards. Let’s share them for others to see. I’m already finding out about games that I’ve never heard of. In 2020 there was a game released called Visigoths vs Mall Goths which involves time travel to a 1990’s mall which sounds like crazy fun.

Coming Up Next:

White Lies 3rd Edition

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

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Doctor Who, Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek, Star Wars

Prepping for the 2026 Character Creation Challenge

Written by TardisCaptain
Some of the games that I plan to use in the 2026 #CharacterCreationChallenge.

Welcome to the end of the worst year that we’ve experienced since 2020. In some ways it was even worse than that dreaded year. Multiple deaths, an economy going bad and too many other things to mention here have cursed the past 365 days. I will eagerly shove 2025 out the door when the clock strikes midnight on New Years Eve. As mentioned before, January is almost upon us which means it’s time to create the characters. Over the past several months I’ve been prepping for what I hope will be a better year. Something that I really look forward to is participating in (and reading the other entries) for the #CharacterCreationChallenge. I like seeing the creativity of those in the RPG community. I like seeing what I come up with as I make these characters. I enjoy trying out (and reading about) different RPG systems that I don’t get a chance to play at the table. Thank you to everyone in the community who participate in this challenge.

From the image above, you can see some of the physical books that I plan to use for the 2026 challenge. Some I picked up at different SaltCONs for volunteering or picked up in the game swap room. A couple of others I received as rewards for backing the Kickstarter campaigns. A few were gifts (thank you again to those who gave me games, you know who you are). And then there were a few that I had owned for quite some time, but hadn’t used in building a character. I have a ton of games on PDF that I had picked up from DriveThruRPG or charity sites.

Because the upcoming January is already hectic I haven’t really nailed down what game will be on what date like I have in the past. The funeral for my mother-in-law is quickly coming up and I have other family commitments that are happier occasions. So I’m hoping my prepping will allow me to get all of the 31 characters done by January 31st. However, should real life dictate that I have to go into February, I’ll not stress out too much like I did last January.

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.

For the five previous years of the Character Creation Challenge (in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025) I’ve had quite a few 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 have had some people tell me that they are pre-making some of there characters before the challenge. 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.

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