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.
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.
Opening the box containing my new STA 2nd edition toolkit
While my daughter purchased the Star Trek 2nd Edition Core Rulebook as a present for me (reviewed here), I purchased the STA Second Edition Game Toolkit for myself. I knew that I was preparing to run a second edition game for SaltCON End-of-Summer and I was hoping that it would arrive in time for me to use. While the shipping gods did not smile on me, Modiphius (in their infinite wisdom) had sent me the PDF of the toolkit so I was able to use parts of it for my one-shot. However since I had received the package, I thought I’d sit down and do a quick review of this supplement. Plus I wanted to note a few more things about the core rulebook that I realized that I had skipped. These additional notes will be after the review.
The Second Edition Game Toolkit has an ISBN number of 978-1-80281-325-8 with a Modiphius product number of MUH0142405. I had noted that the core rulebook was marked as a Phase II Core Rulebook and this trend continues with this product. It is marked “Phase II Game Toolkit”. Like the core rulebook, the toolkit was published in 2024 in Lithuania. We are already aware that Jim Johnson is the project manager and edited this product with Marieke Cross. Some of the writers listed included Michael Dismuke, Nathan Dowdell, Jim Johnson, Thomas Marrone, Aaron M Pollyea and the STA development team. The art director is Ariel Orea with interior art by Aurea Freniere, Thomas Marrone, Paolo Puggioni, Tobias Richter and Rodrigo Gonzalez Toledo. The cover art was provided by Carlos Cabrera.
The 1e Klingon Empire Gamemaster Toolkit (left) compared to the 2e STA Game Toolkit (right)
Previously I had purchased (and used) The Klingon Empire Gamemaster Toolkit (I don’t know why the name is slightly different). The Game Toolkit for the 2nd edition game is similar, but has some differences. Both publications contain a GM’s screen geared towards their respective editions. With the PDF version of this product (that I’m very grateful that Modiphius will provide customers with a PDF if you buy any of their dead-tree products) I was able to print out the GM screen inserts and slip them into my Stratagem “The Master’s Tome” 4-panel customizable GM screen for the con. There is a galactic map in both products, but on the back of the map in the 2nd edition kit is a poster with the cover to the core rule-book. Both products also contain double-sided reference sheets on sturdy card-stock. These are the type that you can drop in front of the players for easy reference to core rules, combat flowcharts and player options. There are eight of these in total.
Where the biggest difference between the Klingon and 2nd Edition toolkit comes into play is the booklet. In the Klingon kit there is a one-shot adventure that the GM can use to introduce the Klingon game to their players. On the 2nd Edition kit the 40 page booklet contains information that expands some of the rules and information from the core rulebook. This booklet is broken down into two chapters marked Players and GMs. For the players we get some new spaceframe rules that can be used to design (or in my case, homebrew ships from other Star Trek sources) starships for the game. We also get the spaceframes for the following classes: Freedom (as seen in Star Trek Beyond), Walker (Star Trek Discovery), Pioneer (Star Trek Picard), Crossfield (Discovery), Miranda (first seen in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan), Oberth (first seen in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock), Columbia (Star Trek Online), Constellation, Nebula (both first seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation), Akira (Star Trek: First Contact), Nova (Star Trek: Voyager), Defiant (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Luna (originally from the Star Trek: Titan novels), Sagan (also from Star Trek: Picard), Odyssey (also from Star Trek Online). Alien starships include the Vor’Cha (Klingon) and Mogai (Romulan). There are some additional mission profiles and talents are listed. There is also details on what happens when a vessel goes to Yellow or Red Alert. No it does not require changing the bulb.
The later half of the book has additional suggestions and details for the gamemaster. This includes items for running B-Plots, story threads and Chekhov’s Gun. For GMs that have used extended tasks in their games, there is some additional tidbits listed as well. I could almost see Jim Johnson holding onto these 40 pages needing to cut space from the core rulebook wondering how he was going to get this information to the players and GMs. This was a perfect opportunity and I think added value to this toolkit. The sections are color coded just as they are in the core rulebook.
The contents of the second edition kit spread out.
So something that is interesting in both the toolkit and the core rulebook is the examples that explain some of the rules. The writers used examples directly from the shows themselves. This gives a sense of familiarity to those that know the show. In my initial review I had noted the use of Star Trek Quotes in the sample values, well the writers had also used various quotes scattered throughout the book to add flavoring. I mentioned Star Trek Online above. Besides this cross-pollination with another Star Trek licensee, the core rulebook also mentioned some of the details from the IDW Star Trek Comics. I was glad to see this after the very well done IDW Year-Five Tie-In that Modiphius released several years ago. I’ve had a few readers ask me questions about combat and how the game compares to the FASA Star Trek RPG, which I’ve responded to in the respective mediums. And yes, I’ve been continuing to carry the second edition book around to read at my leisure.
I had mentioned in my Second Edition core book review that it was inspiring me to get a Star Trek Adventure campaign going (especially after the successful one-shot that I ran at SaltCON). Physically holding the Game Toolkit in my hand is only feeding that inspiration. I’m really glad that I had picked this up. I think that the booklet was a better use than another adventure.
Additional titles for the second edition game are in the works. So far my Tal Shiar spies have not reported back what they are. I may have to start reverting to Changelings if they can’t find anything out soon. But there is much more coming soon for this game.
Do you have any questions about the toolkit that I didn’t answer? Ask 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.
The hardbound Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition Core Rulebook in packaging.
I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Star Trek Day than reviewing the latest Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition Core Rulebook that I just received. My daughter bought it as a gift for both Father’s Day (when she ordered it) and for my birthday (when she hoped it would arrive, which was a few weeks late). While I did have the PDF the moment the book was first released at GenCon, I only looked through it briefly in prepping for the 2nd edition game that I was going to run at SaltCON End-of-Summer. As I mentioned before, when I do a deep dive into RPG rules, I really prefer the dead-tree version of the book over the PDF.
Due to finances, my daughter ordered the standard edition of the STA2e core rulebook. There were three special editions that were also released with bookmark ribbons and special uniform colors. I don’t know how many other differences the special editions have.
For the standard edition, there are 377 color pages inside. Both the front inside cover and the back inside cover contain information for the game. A galactic map on the front and several timelines on the back. The ISBN number (for those of you looking for the dead-tree version) is 978-1-80281-223-7 with an internal product code of MUH0142401 (I just notice that it says “Phase II Core Rulebook Standard Edition” next to the ISBN number. Star Trek Phase II was the original name of the revived TV series that was planned for the late 70’s that got turned into Star Trek: The Motion Picture after the success of Star Wars.) The 2d20 system designer is Nathan Dowell with the Project Manager being Jim Johnson. There are a lot of names next to the writers and artists credits as it takes a lot of people to put a book like this together. I hope they know their efforts are appreciated. There is one thing missing from my book that I noticed while I was using it this past week. The Klingon core book and a few others had ribbon bookmarks that made it easy to use. This standard edition did not have one and I could have used it.
There is a forward, ten chapters broken up into three sections, a character sheet (personnel file), starship character sheet (starship registry entry), a personal log and an index. An interesting tidbit is that the three sections mentioned above have color coded text in the footer with blue (for background information), red (for character creation, the RPG system explanation and social/persona/starship conflicts) and gold (for the game master).
The three blue chapters are a Star Trek primer (in universe, not real-world), information on Starfleet and details/dangers about space (this is a space exploration game). This consisted of about eighty pages and I took two evenings to sit down after work and dive through the bulk of this. If you know Star Trek, most of this will be pretty cut and dry. With my Melllvar level of knowledge there was one item that made me raise an eyebrow when page 25 noted that “the Romulans taught the Vulcans how controlling emotions might lead to a more fulfilling existence.” on Ni’Var. I don’t recall that from the Star Trek Discovery episode Unification III, but I didn’t have time to dig in deeper on this. I enjoyed the section about the Nyberrite Alliance and the various side nuggets that were pieces of a story about a subspace transmission. As I was reading through this section, I remember getting to the topic of lifecycle about stars and I wondered why I was learning about this instead of the actual rules themselves, so I skipped a few pages ahead. When I was running STA2e at the last SaltCON, I had one player who didn’t have a lot of knowledge of the show, but he knew enough to play the game. As the GM, I felt confident enough to drop tidbits to the players of in-universe knowledge that their characters would know and the players took it from there. As a GM, I’d recommend reading these sections, but you don’t have to memorize them. Most players will have a common knowledge of wormholes, warp drive, Klingons and Starfleet to get the gist of the game. Those that don’t can easily be coached by the GM and other players. Who knows, perhaps it would interest them into watching more of the show to help them with future game sessions. I will say I liked how it was organized (a massive improvement from the 1st edition, I went back and re-looked at it while reading the 2nd edition book and I started having bad flashbacks). I also appreciated how the different eras had suggestions like “Run this era if the group would like…” since the GM would know their players better than the writers would.
Page 85 is where the red section starts and we get into the meat and potatoes of the Star Trek Adventures 2nd edition system. These chapters consist of Reporting for Duty (character creation) which includes a lifepath summary on page 98. Your Home Among the Stars (starship creation), Technology and Weapons (equipment). Operations (game mechanics) and Conflicts (which covers social, combat and starship combat). As someone who loves Star Trek quotes (and uses them for the values in past STA characters) I did notice that the sample values on page 96 were pulled from various Star Trek episodes. This is where GMs and players are going to live when opening this book. Like the first three chapters, the presentation and organization has been vastly improved. A good example is the Attempting a Task step-by-step guide (with pages numbers for more details) on page 257. I’ve also posted another photo of a guide for starship creation below. Two really good changes from 1st edition is the addition of a Species Ability (freeing up one of the ability slots during character creation) and the addition of Pastimes. I think this took a strength from the FASA Star Trek RPG. In that game there was a skill called “Trivia” where the player could place skill points in something trivial that made the character unique. I recall one player selecting “Kurosawa Films”. While it may never come up in a gaming session, it did make the character unique. It also challenged me as a GM to try to include something that the skill could be used in. Another new item added to 2nd edition is that the character creation gives more options than just Starfleet. Now your character can be a civilian scientist, a diplomat, or even part of another space navy for the Klingons, Romulans or other races.
A very good example of a process that I hope other publishers will follow.
On page 315 we enter the gold section for the game master. Chapter 9 itself is called “Gamemastering” and talks about managing the rules and extended tasks and challenges. There is a narrative flowchart on page 316. Chapter 10 has an introductory adventure called “The Gorgon’s Gaze” and the last chapter gives various stats for NPCs, creatures and starships that the GM may find useful.
I didn’t really cover all of the rules in this blog post, but I will say that one rule change that I did like was the dropping of the challenge dice. When I ran the 2nd edition quickstart a few times, when there was a rare combat encounter, we didn’t even miss the challenge dice.
Another item that caught my attention. The description box for “Enlisting in Other Organizations” on page 13 was the exact same description box with the same title on page 42. I was wondering if this was intentional or a mistake?
Conclusion:
When I got the book, my daughter with the art degree immediately opened up the plastic and started looking at the art credits (she wants to work on something like this). She LOVED the fact that the artist name was next to every illustration (she was hunting for the art by Steve Stark for some reason). When she finished her flip-through I handed the book to my geek wife (and Captain of a local Star Trek fan club) who flipped to page 266 and 267 which contains the Treknobable and Medical-Babble and was immediately impressed.
As for myself, I wish I could have had the book a few days earlier as several attendees at SaltCON came up to me to ask about STA2e. I wished that I could have pulled the book out then to show them some of the kewl items contained within. I loved seeing the references to FASA and the other past Star Trek RPG publishers. But as I was reading the book throughout the week in preparation for this review, I suddenly had a good flashback. In my early D&D days, I never went anywhere without one of my game books. I wanted to study it, I wanted to understand it, I wanted to prepare, I wanted to write my own homebrews for the game. I realized that when I packed the STA2e core rulebook to take to work, to take to the park to read while my youngest roller-skated, etc. I noticed that I was keeping the book near me, like those older D&D books, because I wanted to absorb this system for use. I wasn’t really doing that with the first edition game, but I was now. I’m glad that my daughter got this for me as a gift. After the very-successful one-shot at SaltCON, I may have to start a campaign for my local Star Trek fan club. Thank you to Jim and all of the people who poured a lot of time into putting this book together. I think that you guys succeed in putting together a Star Trek episode simulator RPG. I think this will give fans a chance to “play” their own episodes, and perhaps make a few new Star Trek fans as well.
Have you had a chance to play or look at the Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition yet? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.
I’m writing this the day after SaltCON and I’m really happy that I went. I caught up with friends that I’ve been making at past conventions. Saw people that I hadn’t seen in a while and also got introduced to some new gamer friends. I even had a someone find out about my blog and another player tell me that they enjoyed reading my blog. I don’t know why, but when I get the unexpected notice from a reader in person, it really makes my day. I also wanted to say that my Convention Backpack is holding up wonderfully.
You may notice something missing from the loot photo posted above. There were no RPG books to be found this year. Usually something pops up in the game swap. But it 99.9% board games and a bunch of Lord of the Rings action figures. I was really disappointed. There also hasn’t been a dealer with regular RPG books in quite some time (if anyone is looking for a good untapped opportunity). I did pick up a convention t-shirt (which I thought looked great) and a couple of pins. Since it was my wife’s birthday, we went through the dealers area and she picked up a Halloween themed D20 (which came with the cauldron) from Dice Chaos, a small business. She also picked up a few geeky stickers from another local small business called Tip-Top Tabletop. There was also a candy dice vendor called Power Up Candy. I picked up one set for me and one for my daughter. I’ll have to let you know how they taste. They also had different sayings on the package as seen below.
I also had a chance to attend one of the panels that I wanted to catch. I missed out on the GMing panel and the horror in gaming panel (scheduling conflicts). But I was able to attend a panel about Sharing Your Gaming Experience Through Blogging, Podcasting. It tended to focus a little too much on the video blogging side. But there was some interesting things I learned from the discussion. There are plans to have panels at future SaltCONs. I’ve reached out to say that I would be interested in being a panelist.
The games that I had a chance to play.
Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition: Well it was unusual. The pre-generated characters were all over the map. I remember asking “Do you have just a basic fighter?” before I settled on a Dwarf Paladin (and ignored the extra stuff that wasn’t really explained). I raised an eyebrow at the Fairy Barbarian option (and I noticed that no one else picked that character as well). The cat did lead us on a quest and the team performed very well. We had some good role-playing from the group. However it didn’t really entice me to attempt a 5e game. Sure I’d play in a campaign if that’s what a bunch of friends would want to play, but it really didn’t grab me. It just seemed to have more player options in it than what was needed for a convention one-shot.
Savage Worlds: While I had a new friend give me a quick introduction to the system at SaltCON Summer, I hadn’t had a chance to actually play it at the table. One of my goals with each convention visit is to play a game that I haven’t had a chance to play yet. Savage Worlds was the game that checked off this box. We played in a horror/western setting (that I wasn’t familiar with, so I appreciate the GM and other players answering my newbie questions) where we had to solve a murder mystery. There were a TON of characters to choose from and I played the “Mysterious Stranger”. As it turned out, our final target was a succubus and we luckily had a traveling priest in our party that was able to bless our weapons in the final battle. The system seemed pretty simple and easy to use and I appreciated the GM asking for feedback when the game was done. But I don’t know how much I could homebrew for this system since it really relied a lot on the different cards that the publisher had put out. I’m glad that I played this game.
Fallout: A family member wanted to play this game with me so it was a special occasion. We had a blast playing it and once again I marveled in how easy the system fit the 2d20 system that Modiphius put out. I had actually played part of the scenario at a previous SaltCON, but I kept my mouth shut on the sections I already knew about for the rest of the table. We got farther than previously played so I did get to see some new stuff. While playing, I kept running what it would be like to run a Fallout campaign based in Utah. Or even changing it slightly so it was more than just the Fallout Universe.
On the games that I ran.
Basic Fantasy: I was really excited when I saw the number of people that signed up for this session. It was practically a full table. Then when the time rolled around, I glanced at the sign-up sheet at the registration table only to discover that two players had crossed out their names. One player who had signed up turned out to be a no-show. I had one player at the table and the last player called me on my cell phone asking if he could still get in if he was late? I told him yes, but we ended up starting about an hour later. Luckily, it was the last game for the table that day so I wasn’t worried about getting kicked out of the spot. But we ended the game really late that night (which caused me to miss one of my panels that was scheduled early the next morning). The two players took two characters each and I was able to run the one-shot. I had made second-level characters, but I should have taken more care in setting up the magic user. Even at second-level, they had a limited spell range. I should have taken more advantage of the add-on rules that the Basic Fantasy community had provided. But when I asked for feedback, the players told me that they had fun. I was able to use the Game Tiles and the GM’s Screen that I had just reviewed.
Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition: Only two players had signed up for the game, but a third player (someone who had GMed for me at past SaltCONs) showed up asking if he could play. No only did it help, but all three players were so good that they were able to swap between the six characters available. It was interesting seeing the Ensign at Communications and the CO, both played by the same player, talk with each other during an intense moment of the game. This turned out to be the best game for me for the whole con. I had run the scenario before and I think I ran it better this time around. I don’t think the players knew that it was primarily a bare-bones introduction to the game and I improvised some sections for it. They had a really detailed, and Trekkish, response to the final act. When I asked for feedback at the end of the game we practically had another hour of discussion. Two players had never tried the system and agreed that it was a “Star Trek episode simulator” system. One player, who played the security chief Andorian, thought it was interesting that for a game designed to avoid combat, it had a lot of combat stats on the character sheet. I had also used a fan-made “character tent” that had the basic stats for the characters on one side of the table tent. They said that they used that for more of the quick stat look up and only went to the character sheet when they needed to do some deep diving in the extra options and talents. I’ve been asked by members of my local Star Trek fan club if we could get an RPG session going, and running this is making me more inclined to do so. One of the players asked me if I had any leads on possible STA games in his county, which I was able to refer him to one of our sister Star Trek clubs that I knew had a campaign going.
Ork! 2nd Edition: I don’t know if it was the title, or the “Let’s Learn” format that I presented with it. But no one signed up for this game. I already had a basic knowledge of the game, but I spent an hour reading through some of the rules that I hadn’t done a deep dive on. I actually found it really interesting, and a fun read for a comedy game about Orks. The RPG coordinator told me that I wasn’t going to be dinged because I did my part in showing up after volunteering to run a game. Too bad, this game sounds like it would be a blast if everyone played it in the spirit of the system. I’m going to try another “Let’s Learn” with another system in March. I don’t know what it will be yet.
I wanted to thank my friend Jeff for letting me borrow his RPG figures for the Basic Fantasy Game. I had brought them to use for Ork! as well if needed. I also wanted to give my gratitude to the GMs, Volunteers and players at this convention. I know that all of you helped make SaltCON just as fun as previous conventions. Even my wife expressed an interest in coming to the March event. I think that it is also great that the convention is trying new things like setting up panels for attendees to enjoy. Keep up the good work.
Should I attempt to attend TimpCon in November? It’s two counties away (where as SaltCON is 15 minutes from my house). I’d love to hear the experience from people who have attended in the past. Attending other conventions would be great, but I doubt I’ll have a chance to make it to one of the big gaming cons back east.
Have you been to any gaming conventions lately? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.
I’ve been doing more than just participating in the #RPGaDAY2024 challenge this month. I’ve been prepping for the SaltCON End-of-Summer gaming convention that happens at the end of every August. One of the first things that is different is that I’m planning to attend a couple of panels this time around. I don’t recall if there were panels at the past SaltCONs that I’ve attended. But I’ve signed up to listen to “Game Mastering Tips from One Shots to Multi-Year Campaigns” and “Sharing Your Gaming Experience Through Blogging & Podcasting” (hmm… I wonder why this last one sounds interesting). There is also a panel about horror gaming but the system wouldn’t let me “snag a ticket” for it because it conflicted with a game that will be ending up just as the panel starts. So hopefully I’ll be able to check that out as well as horror gaming confuses me a little bit. I don’t know how I’d get scared sitting comfortably at a table with friends?
This time around I’m not going to the convention alone. I signed up to run some extra games so that I could get an extra ticket to the event. So a member of my family will be joining me this weekend for some of the games. You can read about my past adventures at SaltCON in my past blog entries. I will be packing my Convention Backpack that I have documented in a previous blog post.
I’ve signed up to run three games for the end-of-summer event. I had a lot of good responses to my last Basic Fantasy one-shot, so I’ve lined up another one on Friday. According to the scheduling system almost all of the slots are gone. On Saturday I’ll be running a Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition one-shot. The players will be members of the USS Challenger crew. And finally on Sunday I’m running an experiment. I go to these conventions to try out new games. That doesn’t mean that I can’t try running something new as well. So, I’m going to run a “Lets Learn” session where I bring a game that both the GM and players can try out for the first time. For this convention I’ve selected the comedy RPG Ork! 2nd Edition. The players will see if their un-named Orks can survive the gunk pit and sent on a mission against the squishy mans. There are still slots open for these last two games.
Of the games that I’ve signed up to play they include Savage Worlds Deadlands. The GM is the person who gave me a quick demo at the SaltCON Summer and I’m interested to see how it works out at the table. There is also a D&D 5th edition game that has a cat in it, so the person coming with me wanted to play in that game. They also wanted to play Fallout with me so we will be at that table on Saturday.
I know it doesn’t sound like many games. But SaltCON End-of-Summer is only three days instead of the spring event which has four. But, I’m looking forward to sitting down with some friends (or soon-to-be new friends) and throwing some dice. I wonder if I’ll find any RPG bargains in the game swap? Look for the after-action report soon.
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.
Reaching Day 19 of the RPGaDAY 2024 Challenge and our topic is Sensational Session. This one is a little vague. Yesterday we had “Memorable moment of Play” which is just about the same thing. So I’m going to talk about what I think would make for a sensational session.
In my humble opinion, a sensational session is where everyone (GM included) has something to do that contributes to the game in a timely manner. I’ve played in a WEG Star Wars game that had so many players in it, my character could take his turn and then I could take a 15-20 minute nap before needing to do something again. I’ve played in a Cyberpunk game where the hacker had a mission to complete, so the rest of us left to get some food. These are not good sessions.
Now that I’ve been typing up this blog post, I think the RPG that has succeeded in giving everyone the opportunity to play no matter the scenario is Star Trek Adventures. They had the concept of a “Secondary Character” that you can create before hand or create on the fly. If you are playing the Conn officer on a Starfleet vessel and there is an away team going to the planet on a rescue mission, instead of the player being bored, they could create a secondary character that is a member of the security team.
Sure, there might be sessions that are geared more towards one or two players, but remember that there are other players at the table that have taken just as much time and effort to be present for the gaming session. With how limited our gaming time seems to be, lets make sure that everyone gets something sensational out of them.
Feedback from a reader: Phil Hatfield on MeWe responded to my Quick to Learn post noting that he thought MiniSix was an easy to use game systems. It looks like it is free on DriveThruRPG so I’m going to check it out. He also stated that the FATE system was very simple. This is one I keep hearing about, but never had a chance to try.
Do you have any thoughts on what makes for a sensational session? 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.
For Day 12 of the RPGaDAY 2024 Challenge and the subject is an RPG with a well supported campaign. This makes sense since yesterday’s topic was RPG one-shots.
Now I haven’t ran any published campaigns. I’ve created a few for Star Trek and other RPGs. However I’ve been tempted to run a few. At the last SaltCON I picked up two boxed sets that were different campaigns. But the answer that I’m going to post today is the Shackleton Expanse that Modiphius released for the Star Trek Adventures RPG. The game designers set this up so it could be run as a Federation campaign, or a Klingon campaign or a mixture of both. I thought that was an excellent idea since they had both the standard core rulebook and the Klingon core rulebook available.
Additional feedback received from readers: From the MeWe social media site I had readers talk about some of my posts. Phil Hatfield mentioned that the RPG he had played the most could have been FASA Star Trek, Twilight 2000 or WEG Star Wars. He had also listed Twilight 2000, the Hollow Earth Expedition and Star Trek Adventures as a game with really good artwork. Phil Hatfield responded to the Easiest To Play entry with the FATE System and Star Wars WEG. Phil also mentioned that for One-Shots the he had run some good ones for Star Wars and Chill. I think I got all of them from MeWe comments. If I missed one, sorry about that. But thank you for reading my blog.
Can you recommend a good campaign guide for an RPG? 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.
For Day 11 of the RPGaDAY 2024 Challenge we’ve been tasked to talk about RPGs with well supported one-shots. Since I’ve been volunteering to GM games at SaltCON, I’ve become more and more interested in one-shots that I can run an a four-hour block.
I’ve created a few one-shots that I used to introduce my daughter’s 5E playing friends to OSR. I also had to do a mashup of Top Gear meets a Star Trek: Lower Decks style crew. I need to get these polished up and published for other GMs to use. Yes bad Carl, not doing as much writing as you need to do.
Of the one-shots that I’ve pulled for usage, I’d have to say that the Adventure Anthologies put out by the Basic Fantasy RPG community has helped a lot. If you reach out to this community on their message board, discord or facebook page, they will respond quickly to any questions.
The Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition Quickstart also has a good one-shot that I’ve used to get new players into the game. I’ve been able to run it for members of my Star Trek club, but I haven’t had a chance to run it at a con yet. Yet being the keyword.
I plan to run a one-shot for Ork! 2nd Edition at the next SaltCON. So I should have more to report on that soon.
What one-shots have you ran? Any suggestions for running one? 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.
First some feedback from my Day 5 post about RPG Writing. LexTenebris on Mastodon responded to me stating that I may be off-base in my line of thinking and that people would buy RPG books purely for the reference on the source material. He referenced some of the GURPS supplements based on licensed products. He also made an interesting comment of “There are a ton of properties that I think are interesting and would like to see someone else’s approach to translating them into a world book. Sometimes it’s purely interest, sometimes it’s because I want to see how someone else deals with a setting in the context of mechanics or a particular issue within that setting.” It spawned an entire conversation with several RPGers on Mastodon,
On my entry for Day 6 on RPGs that are easy to use, Creative Wronging on BlueSky mentioned that the Cypher System is rather easy to use once you understand their stats system. Then he recommended some OSR systems like Mausritter, Cairn or the Odd-Likes. I’ll have to check these out.
Thank you to all of my readers and a big thank you for the feedback/response. It tells me that someone is listening to my scream into the internet void. And now on with the show.
The topic for Day 7 of the RPGaDAY 2024 Challenge is “RPG with Good Form”. OK, so I had to actually look up what Good Form meant. Especially since the first thing that an online search brought up was some song that I had never heard of by an artist I never follow. So a Good Form is a “proper way of behaving.” I wonder if Mr. Chapman was wondering what systems are good? Or perhaps what RPG books flowed when reading them or looking up information? Ya know what, I’m going to go with that last one. And instead of pointing out a particular game, I’m going to stick with general items that have stood out to me when reading various RPG books.
First, I love a properly set up PDF book. If it is searchable, has links, etc. Then it can help quite a bit when quickly looking up information for a game. As I’ve mentioned before, when learning a new game I love using the dead tree version. But when homebrewing, planning a campaign, writing an article, etc., I really appreciate how the PDF options help out a lot.
A book that didn’t have good form was the first edition of the Star Trek Adventures core rulebook. I had mentioned previously how early attempts at reading the book made me want to re-write it. Well the team covering Star Trek Adventures took this to heart when releasing the second edition core rulebook and they have made a massive improvement to the form of the book and made it easier to read and use. They even included step-by-step charts for various portions of the game that have helped a lot. Here is an example, but I’m saving most of my comments about the second edition core book when I get the physical copy to review.
Let me just say “Thank you” for a chart like this.
Good charts and giving us details on how a process should work within a system is something I very much appreciate. Having created a lot of characters using the rules-as-written for the Character Creation Challenge, I’ve noticed a few times that I was wondering if had made it to the end of the creation process. Even something as simple as “Step one: do this, Step two: do this…” Referencing page numbers allows for the reader to quickly find the additional details as needed.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve purchased core books just because the publisher knew to put the basic system for the RPG in a quick easy-to-understand section early in the book. Quick to find, quick to show to friends, quick to help get them excited to try it out.
For core rulebooks (and I’m shocked that I have to say this) please don’t forget to include a character sheet. The bigger publishers remember this, but for some reasons the smaller publishers have overlooked this. If it’s not in your book, at least include it on your website with some other freebies to get me excited about buying the game.
The last thing that I’ll mention before I wrap up this blog post is something that I’m shocked a lot more publishers don’t do. Please include an index at the back of the book. Again when we are at the table or trying to find something for research, it’s gratifying to just open up the index and say “Oh, what I want is on page xx.”
When I sat down I didn’t think I was going to have a lot to say about today’s topic. But when I started typing, the creativity started flowing. I’ve been seeing this as well reading other entries on blog posts and social media under the hashtag #RPGaDAY2024.
Have you experienced an RPG with Good Form? 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.
Well this is going to be a disappointing entry for me. For Day 2 of RPGaDAY 2024 challenge the topic is “most recent game played”. If things had gone the way I had hoped, I would be talking about the session zero of the new Castles and Crusades game that I had been invited to. The Castle Keeper wanted to start us on a weekly long term campaign. It would have been my first game on The Foundry VTT and my first C&C game. I’ve been wanting to play in a C&C campaign after creating a character for it in a past Character Creation Challenge. But real life popped up with the dreaded scheduling curse. Too many players had dropped out due to real life issues and there wasn’t enough players to justify a game. So, hopefully a C&C campaign will start up soon.
But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been active with my RPGs. Yes I’ve been playing and GMing at SaltCON, but that wasn’t the latest. My local Star Trek fan club had a Star Trek Game Night at a local gaming store in June. I finally had a chance to run the Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition Quickstart game. I had run a few STA games previously, but I wouldn’t call myself an expert. I did alter the scenario slightly and I noticed that the group got more out of the alteration that I did than the other listed events. I think I need to get more experience with running STA as I saw where some of my GM rust was still present. Now that I have the new 2nd Edition in PDF (physical book and it’s review coming soon), I’ll have to give it some serious thought.
What was your latest RPG game? Were you a player or a GM? 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.
