Some of the games that I plan to use in the 2023 #CharacterCreationChallenge
As I’ve mentioned before, it is always a good idea to plan ahead for a 31-day challenge. I’ve already seen quiet a few people prepping on the RPG.net forums. They are deciding upon which system(s) they wish to use. Are they going to follow a theme or just create characters randomly? 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 also have something else in the works, but I’m not quite ready to announce it yet. Still trying to get some ducks lined up in a row.
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.
If you are posting on any of the social media websites, please use the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge so that other participants can find them. I love seeing what other RPG fans have come up with. I also know that there is one reader who wants to see if a game will pop up that he’s never heard of. I was able to accomplish this last year with my Technoir entry.
I’ve picked up some new physical books by online auctions, trade or special sales. I’ve also done a lot of purchasing from Kickstarter, DriveThruRPG, HumbleBundle and Bundle of Holding. I even donated to a Doctors Without Borders fundraiser, for which a lot of PDF copies of different games were provided. Some of these sounded very interesting.
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.
Well, this isn’t the blog post I thought I’d be writing when I woke up this morning. On my way to work this morning I was informed by friends that a longtime Star Trek and role playing friend, Roger Taylor, had been found dead in his apartment. He had been having heart issues lately and when he hadn’t responded to his ex-wife’s attempts to reach him, she went over to his place to find he had passed away.
I’ve mentioned Roger a couple of times in past blog posts, recently when we had worked together on homebrewing the Star Trek Adventures stats for an alien race called The Tarn. Roger had run several RPG sessions for various friends including a lot of Star Trek by Decipher. He had homebrewed several items for the Decipher Star Trek RPG, Star Trek Adventures, Serenity and several other games. I even discovered that one of his early adventures he wrote was ported over to the Far Trek system. When we were not joking around or talking about our Star Trek organization, we were talking about games.
I first met Roger when he was working at a security guard at an IT company I was working for around 2008. I could often sneak down to the security office while on a lunch break and talk with Roger about common interests. He loved the fleet of Star Trek, Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica ships that I had set up on my desk. I think we knew we were going to be friends when we realized how much we both had a warped sense of humor. When we were discussing the (then) proposal by Madonna to remake Casablanca with a modern twist, my not-so-innocent mind altered one of the famous lines from the black and white movie. “Of all the S&M bars in the world, she had to walk into mine.” Roger was laughing so hard that he practically forgot to breathe. He would bring up this line at random times just to get a chuckle out of me.
Roger joined Starfleet Command’s Seventh Fleet and with his Star Trek knowledge and organizational skills, quickly moved up the ranks. He started a chapter-in-training which eventually became the full chapter, USS Essex. As a US Navy vet, he had served on the real life USS Essex.
He also loved baking, a pet songbird called Charley, military history (another common interest), building models, playing video games and writing. A phrase I picked up from a common friend for a situation like this was “May his/her memory always be a blessing.” I will have many memories that I will look back on when thinking about Roger. I’ll roll some dice for you in your honor soon.
To Roger’s family, I’m deeply sorry at this time. Heidi, thank you for telling me that Roger cared for me and held a lot of respect for me. I choked up a little bit when I read that message. Roger’s family has set up a GoFundMe page to help with funeral expenses. If you can, please donate.
Two days ago (hey it’s been a busy week for me) my late birthday gift of the Utopia Planitia Starfleet Sourcebook for the Star Trek Adventures role-playing game finally arrived. While I quickly snapped a picture of the book and shot it out for my social media followers, I knew that I was going to have to write a blog post detailing my first look at this book.
As a Treknologist and a big fan of the FASA entry into the Star Trek RPG market (especially using the Starship Construction Manual to homebrew several starships for the game) I was really looking forward to this book. I’ve seen several starship adaptations and homebrews on the Continuing Mission fan website for the Modiphus game and I was interested in trying my hand as well.
Now confession time, when the book was ordered a few months ago, Modiphius sent me a PDF copy of the book. Knowing that I wanted to blog about the book combined with the fact that I love the feel of a physical dead-tree version in my hands, I waited to read this book. Even when a fellow player was asking me questions from items he read on the PDF. Oh the temptation was seriously there for me to start reading previously.
So the book from Modiphius came shrink wrapped. Let’s rip this protective plastic off and dive into the book. There are 253 pages in this hardbound book. The ISBN number (for those of you looking for the dead-tree version) is 978-1-80281-032-5. The project manager was Jim Johnson, writing by Michael Dismuke, Jim Johnson, John Kennedy, Thomas Marrone, Aaron M. Pollyea and Al Spader. The book was edited by Jim Johnson (boy he must have been busy) and Keith Garrett.
Oohhhh
OK, so the first opening shows this wonderful two page spread showing the top views of several classes of Starfleet vessels. Some of these are from Star Trek Online and they are all very beautiful in color. I was very pleased to see this.
There are five chapters, an introduction and an index. The chapters cover Starfleet’s Legacy (chapter 1), Starfleet Operations (chapter 2), Design Bureau (chapter 3), Federation Spaceframes (chapter 4) and Gamemastering (chapter 5). I’m glad that the text is black on white paper (with blue highlights). I was one of many people who found the odd colored text on black in the Core Rulebook very disjointing. Also as a fan of Star Trek quotes, I love how they utilized several quotes throughout the book. The motif used in the book gives it a LCARS feel from the original series movies. That was an excellent choice.
The first chapter covers the history of Starfleet from the pre-Federation days to the 25th century. The little ‘pop-up’ stories were also scaled back and not as numerous that I’ve seen in other Modiphius books. While these are good for adding some background and history, I have found that too many are very distracting. Especially when I’m trying to do a quick search for a rule.
The second chapter is an interesting concept in a role-playing resource book. It covers life on a starship while serving in Starfleet. What are your day-to-day events? Key locations of a starship are detailed. How would the characters interact with the computer? What do characters do during downtime? What happens during an evacuation? There are even sections on replication and salvages.
The Design Bureau in Chapter three is probably where I’m going to spend a lot of time in the future. There are sections for starships, small craft, space stations and more. This includes various starships talents that are used in the game. I liked seeing a guide to the different types of beam weapons (what is a Free Electron Laser vs an Antiproton Beam?) and torpedoes (example: photon vs photonic). There is even information on the Mark I Emergency Medical Hologram.
Chapter four brings us 70 Federation Spaceframes for starships, stations and small craft. This covers designs from the 22nd to 25th century. Just as I poured through the Federation, Klingon and Romulan Ship Recognition Manuals from FASA and the Starships book by Decipher, I could see myself returning to this chapter many times in the future. I knew that I couldn’t spend too much time in this chapter (I was on a time deadline to complete this blog post) but I loved the graphical and data setup (especially with the logo used for the various eras). I’ll try to model my homebrews similar to this setup (without exactly copying it). I was a little shocked to see the Hermes-class scout as seen in the Star Fleet Technical Manual. Possibly because it was mentioned in the background radio traffic in Star Trek: The Motion Picture and seen as “Okudagrams” in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Wait, they also gave us the stats for the NASA Space Shuttle that was used from 1981 to 2011? OK that deserves a chef’s kiss. (fingers to lips) *smack*
I couldn’t get my flash to work on this image, but the pages are very beautiful.
And finally chapter seven brings us to some additional game master rules which are optional. This includes a jury rig role and building specialty shuttles while out on missions (it’s got to have the fins and dials). There are also several starship centric mission briefs that GMs can use.
More ships on the back inside cover.
So am I happy with this book? Oh yea. I think it will go a long way in helping me homebrew various starships for the game. As a Treknologist, I am very impressed with the graphics and level of detail so far. There are not rows and rows of equipment charts as there were in the FASA construction manual, but it’s also a different game. There are plenty of samples of starships from a wide variety of eras so if I needed some inspiration for something, I’m sure that I could find it. I think that both players and GMs will find a lot of valuable information between these covers.
Art by Rebecca Wu and shamelessly lifted from https://twitter.com/wuzidan. It was just too kewl not to use to represent the Tarn race.
So one of the things that I’ve been wanting to do with this blog is produce fan-made roleplaying game material for various systems. While the publisher of a game based off an intellectual property may be locked into the confines of the contract, fans can homebrew from any source. Sometimes even pulling elements from different sources to create a final product.
Today’s entry was a join effort between myself and longtime friend, Roger Taylor. We’ve both been fans of Star Trek and various roleplaying games. We have played campaigns using the Decipher Star Trek RPG rules. Several months ago Roger was sending me some of his hombrewed material for Star Trek Adventures by Modiphius for review. I mentioned that I was really interested in an enemy race that GMs could throw at their players called The Tarn. This reptilian race came from William R Forstchen’s 1999 Star Trek: The Next Generation novel, The Forgotten War. While the plot to the novel was simple, it did introduce the Tarn Empire. The way they were described in the book really enthralled me with their concepts of honor and social interaction. So Roger found his copy of the novel and dived back into it to see what interested me. He did most of the heavy lifting with the RPG numbers. I sent him all of the Memory-Beta (the fan Wiki for licensed Star Trek products) entries I had put together on the Tarn, which Roger then polished up for the PDF file listed below. I pulled various quotes from the book that was used for the suggested Tarn values.
Prior to all of this, I had spent quite some time looking for images of a science-fiction reptilian warriors that was not the Gorn. There were a ton of fantasy reptilian warrior images, but very little from the sci-fi side of the coin that spoke to me. Finally, the Starfinder RPG was released by Paizo that introduced the Vesk. Eventually several fan produced images were produced and the one above by Rebecca Wu fitted my mental image of the Tarn race. If gamemasters pulled any Vesk image from the internet, it could be used to visually represent the race to players.
Besides Star Trek Adventures, I’d like to generate RPG stats for the other systems that are out there (FASA, LUG, Decipher and more). Also while talking with fellow Treknologists on the Star Trek Starship Tactical Combat System Online Database and Archive forums, an artist took the descriptions of a Tarn starship from the novel and generated an artistic representation of the vessel. I plan to generate game statistics for this vessel as well. Watch for future blog posts.
Many thanks to Roger for pushing through the novel (it could have used another pass by an editor) and had a few continuity holes that could have been caught) and for dealing with my excitement for this project. And thank you to Rebecca Wu for the wonderful image I pilfered off of the interwebs. I’m amazed by artists who bring these visions to life.
Gamemasters, let me know if you end up springing the Tarn on your players. How did the sessions go?
So last month I posted about the Star Trek: Discovery season one character pack published by Modiphus. I figured that they would be releasing a season two, but I didn’t know how soon. As it turns out, it was earlier than I expected. Just a few days ago Modiphius released the Star Trek: Discovery season two character pack. I had to pick it up the moment I realized it was available on DriveThruRPG. Note, it is only available in PDF version.
The season two book also comes in at 22 pages (the largest of all the character guides) and continues the special report by Kovich to Admiral Vance detailing the events of the second season. While the “report” covers some characters we’ve seen detailed in the season one guide, it also provides information on new characters we saw in season two.
Our first new character is Captain Pike. I did notice that the science rating matches what we saw in the episodes of Discovery. Next comes Commander Saru, a character that was detailed in the season one book. This character has different stats since this is the post-Vahar’ai Saru. Lt. Commander Paul Stamets, like Commander Saru, has some changes from the season one write up as he is now Human augmented with Tardigrade DNA. The stats for Michael Burnham had also changed between her Mutineer write up to her Science Officer information. We also have new stats for Ash Tyler, Sylvia Tilly and Philippa Georgiou. Next comes Lieutenant Spock, and yes he’s different than the Commander Spock found in the Star Trek: The Original Series character packs. But this would be expected as there are several years in the life of the character. We also get the first stats for Commander Jet Reno. The supporting characters are also new with Commander Una Chin-Riley (aka Number One), Lt. Commander Airiam, the Barzan Lt. Commander Nhan and the Saurian Lt. (j.g.) Linus.
A write up is provided for the Kelpian species, but it is the same as the first season book. The write up for the USS Discovery is listed as the 2257 configuration, but the information appears to the same as the 2256 configuration. These are the only two items that are the same, everything else is different. Originally when I saw the listing of characters, I was worried that it would be the same with some new artwork. But that is not the case. This will be new information for gamemasters and players so this would be a product worth purchasing.
Modiphius sent out an email announcing this product which is how I found out about the release. The other products they announced in the same email also sounded very interesting. This August, Modiphius will be releasing the Star Trek Discovery (2256-2258) Campaign guide. This will include several new races and spaceframes. The book I’m really looking forward to is titled, Utopia Planitia. This is a sourcebook for Starfleet and will be released sometime later in 2022.
Over the past week, Modiphius has released two new PDF products for their Star Trek Adventures RPG line. I picked up both of them on DriveThruRPG and decided to give them a review. As you may recall, I was very impressed with the IDW Star Trek Year Five Tie In that Modiphius released last October. And it is still my hope that there will be further official releases based off of the IDW Star Trek comics. Here is a BIG HINT of what I’d love to see next from Modiphius and IDW.
This book is written from the viewpoint of a Starfleet report in the 32nd century. In an effort to learn everything they can about the USS Discovery after it’s arrival, a report was made. At 22 pages this is the largest Player Characters supplement released by Modiphius. It contains artwork from the Star Trek Timelines game with a good layout that fits the 32nd century Starfleet. There is also a very good look at the dedication plaque for Discovery. As a Treknologist, this warmed my heart.
All of the main characters are presented from Captain Gabriel Lorca to Cadet Sylvia Tilly (one of my favorite characters). A few major NPCs, such as Emperor Philippa Georgiou and L’Rell, and several supporting characters are also detailed within the book. For those who wish to play characters from the Kelpien race, the stats are available in this publication. The starship stats for the Crossfield-Class USS Discovery is also officially set for use in Star Trek Adventures with this release. A new starship talent for the Spore Drive has been detailed for game masters. At $4.99, the Discovery Season One Crew Pack is a bargain for anyone wishing to set a series in the Discovery era.
One final thought about these Player Character guides, I love these. With past games based on popular franchises, you attract a lot of new players who are fans of the series first. I’ve seen examples where someone wants to describe their character as “tougher than Worf” or “almost as smart as Spock when it comes to computers.” With these different player character guides, it helps the GM assist the new players with reaching their desired character goals.
This week, Modiphius released the Mission Briefs 005 Starbase Adventures book. On DriveThruRPG this publication is listed as a “pay what you want” with a suggested price of $0.00. So you can pick up the PDF (and those of the earlier Mission Brief releases) for free. For those of you not familiar with the Mission Brief format, it is a series of adventure seeds that GMs can drop into their campaign. For this book, the subject is Starfleet Officers serving on a Starbase or other similar facility. The details for each brief is contained on a single page and geared towards a specific officer (i.e. Medical Officer, Engineering Officer, etc.). It is written by Tony Pi who has several good articles on the STA fan website: Continuing Mission. This Mission Briefs is primarily set in the TNG era, but with a little work most of them could be adjusted to other eras. There are ten briefs in total with the book coming in at sixteen pages. While you are picking up the Discovery Crew Pack, slip the Mission Briefs into your cart as well.
Hopefully soon we will see Player Character guides for Star Trek: Lower Decks, Star Trek: Picard and other series that are available on Paramount+.
A few days ago the independent TTRPG designer @TitanomachyRPG, asked on Twitter “Biggest turn-off when checking out a new #TTRPG?” While I gave a response to the post, I kept thinking about the question. I felt that it needed more than a quick jumble of words that fit into 240 characters. When I see a role playing game on the shelf at my favorite gaming store or online at DriveThruRPG, what makes me think that I should or should not pick it up?
Not only did I think about it, I pulled a few books down to find both good and bad examples. I collect the books, both in physical and PDF style. I love seeing the different styles and systems. When I open a role playing game, I see opportunity. Opportunity for creativity, adventure and an escape from this crappy world we live in. However since I have limited time, limited shelf space and limited funds, sometimes I have to stop myself from purchases. So when contemplating a purchase what am I considering? What turn-offs will make me not want to purchase a game?
First, am I currently playing (or plan to soon play) the game in question? Unfortunately, I am not playing a lot of role playing games right now. This is something I hope to remedy soon. Also am I planning to homebrew for the system? Right now I’m trying to homebrew for the various Star Trek RPGs so I’ve been trying to pick up the various Star Trek Adventures books and other Trek-based systems when the funds allow it. Yes, the cost of the game will make or break a purchase decision. There are several games that I’d like to pick up, but the price is a little beyond my reach. I’m also a bargain hunter, so finding an opportunity to save will help greatly in pulling the trigger. A lot of times the Bundle of Holding, Humble Bundle or DriveThruRPG Deal of the Day have offered me inexpensive options to pick up some titles in PDF version. Sales can often be found at game stores, conventions and online for the dead tree versions. Every once in a while, I can luck out and find a game at a thrift store. That is how I found the Holmes version of Dungeons and Dragons at a very good price. Now this doesn’t mean that I won’t pay full price for a book, but the higher the price, the more I’m putting it off (or using a gift card for it).
So now that the 800 lb gorilla is out of the way, let’s get down to the other items that I consider when thinking of making a game purchase. I will say that probably one of the biggest is how the game is explained in the rules. A publisher is asking me to pick up their game and play it. As RPGs are social games, I would need to explain the game in a nutshell to potential players how the game is played. So if a game takes a page or two and explains the basics of the game, I’m more inclined to buy it. I remember being at the game store and flipping through the pages of Modern Age. Right near the front the explained how the game system worked in simple terms. I ended up buying the game. When I used the Doctor Who Roleplaying Game by Cubicle 7 in the 2021 Character Creation Challenge, I spotted this.
I could show this to potential players and they would understand the concept quickly. The core concept was explained on a page or two with the extra details provided in the deeper parts of the book. This also helped me out when I was creating my first Doctor Who character in this system.
Speaking of character creation, one of the things that the Character Creation Challenge has taught me is that a book that clearly lays out the character creation system from start to finish is one that I’d be more inclined to pick up. Not just roll dice for your attributes, but step by step. This should include the equipment acquisition and a clear ending to the process. Too many times the character creation process would start, then suddenly go into the next chapter, then the next and then… well am I done? Give Step One and keep going until you give a clearly marked final step. As with the core rules, summarize then go into more details later.
Hopefully the RPG book will flow from beginning to end. When I’m flipping from one section back to another then to another just to understand how the rules work, it gets a little frustrating. So I’ll look for an index in the book. If there is one, that’s points in favor of a purchase. If the books in in PDF, is it bookmarked? Bookmark entries will also be points in favor of purchase.
We now have two methods of reading our games. Dead tree versions and soft copies (PDF primarily). While I’d prefer the dead tree version if I’m learning a game for the first time, but that doesn’t stop me from trying to learn from the PDF version. Publishers, please make sure that your books are readable in both formats. For example, here is one of the few things that I didn’t like about the Star Trek Adventures core rulebook.
I’m not a graphic designer. I don’t even play one on TV. But as a consumer, this was frustrating to me. The light fonts on a black background was very difficult to read. The over-use of the little side boxes also made it difficult to read. I’m trying to read the actual rules and these, for lack of a better term I’m going to call them pop up ads, side items would try to grab my attention. I already hate it when websites try to do this, but to see it in a book was just doubly frustrating. Yes the system was good, but as I was looking through the book, I kept wanting to re-write the chapters so it was just the rules. Luckily the publisher has received feedback on this because the PDF versions also come in a “printer friendly” option. While this doesn’t resolve the “pop up ad” items, it did make it easier on the eyes. Now Modiphius took this feedback and released the other books, like the Klingon Core Rulebook and Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, with a much better layout. It wasn’t so busy, it was easier to read. Thank you.
Speaking of graphic design, the art on the cover and in the book can add or subtract from the points towards purchase. Yes the old axiom is “Never judge a book by it’s cover”, but a good cover will help. I’ve had bad covers put me off on making the purchase. When looking at the interior art, I try to look at it more objectively now since I have a college aged kid studying this subject. I’ll ask her questions and show art examples to her to get her feedback. It’s really helped on some books. I was looking at one game that I picked up cheap on the DriveThruRPG Deal of the Day and some of the interior art, while good, didn’t fit the page it was on. You’re describing equipment, and you have the art of a character headshot that has nothing to do with the subject matter. It made me raise an eyebrow. For my final photo, I’m going to show a good cover and a not-so-good cover. The Operations Division Sourcebook for Star Trek Adventures and Technoir.
In my opinion, the cover for The Operations Division showed action and a clear image of what the book would be about. Starfleet officers in gold uniforms commonly worn by those in the Operations Division doing their jobs. The Technoir cover is, well noir-ish, but bland. It could have been a 1930’s detective cover or a futuristic style cover. Had I not been gifted the Technoir book, I don’t think I would have purchased it.
The last item that could move the needle towards or away from a purchase is the support the game has. Are there free “quickstart” versions of the game that will let me read some of the basic rules? (I have made purchases after reading the quickstarts) Is there an online community for the game? How does the vendor respond on social media? Can I grab some basic freebies from their website like character sheets, handouts, or other items?
Now stepping back into the personal realm, I do tend to gravitate towards games that are part of my general interests. Specific franchises such as Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who and other popular shows will catch my attention. As will specific genres such as espionage, westerns, pulp-era/gangsters, science fiction and post-apocalyptic. For fantasy, I’m sticking with Dungeons and Dragons or a good clone for that itch. Retro-versions of past games can also be picked up by my radar. What fails to grab me are horror (I’m really particular about my horror tastes, plus how can I be scared in an RPG), romance, and super-heroes. While I love hero movies and shows, I’m just not drawn to the super-hero RPGs at this time.
So in conclusion, publishers please make your game easy to understand so I can explain it to others. Make your publication readable and easy to use and investing in some good artwork will really help. Hopefully this insight into one of your consumers will help you with future sales.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some more RPG books I’d like to read through.
Note: If you made it through 31 days of the challenge, read to the bottom of the post.
So the 2022 Character Creation Challenge is now in the books and this was a bit different from the 2021 challenge. I don’t know if I was more enthusiastic about the games in 2021 or if it was something else. Not knowing if there was going to be a 2nd challenge, I used a lot of games that I really wanted to run/play. For 2022 there were more games of “well it’s there, let’s take a look at it” which may have been the wrong attitude. But I’m glad that I used those games. While there are some that I’ll never play and may even trade the games away, I can still say that I’ve dipped my toe into the water. I was worried that my lack of enthusiasm for that game may affect the creation process. There was a few times I told myself “smeg it, I’m done”. I still want to do a variety of games, but I’m wondering if I should just limit it to the games I would actually want to play? I’ve got some time to think about this.
I tried to use the time that would have been allotted to me in a session zero time frame to create a character for the challenge. For some games that I am not familiar with I would probably need a lot more time to learn the system. For games that I am familiar with, I would need time to think about a character concept that would go with a party. During the 31 day challenge I also made a Far Trek character for an online game. That was done in free time and it took a few days because I had to confirm what positions were still available. Unfortunately the Engineering spot had already been taken up otherwise I would have requested the use of the character I made in 2021.
My biggest suggestions for game writers, a checklist or worksheet is a big help. Give a start and an end to the character creation process that includes the allocation of equipment. There were some really funky and weird equipment guidelines in some of the games. Some kewl and some made me scratch my head and wonder what they were smoking. Also explain your system before character creation starts. I mean explain it simply and save the extra details for later in the book. If you are going to have a player pick a value or belief for the character, give more than 2-3 examples. Even if they don’t get used they may inspire other ideas.
I would like to say that I’m very surprised by a couple of things. A thank you has to go out to the companies that still have character sheets available online for games that they haven’t touched in years. I was also surprised that some of the dead games were still available on DriveThruRPG. Especially the Farscape RPG since it is based on an intellectual property.
Last year I only printed out the character sheets just before I needed to use them. This year I had this drive to have all sheets printed out and ready to go before the challenge started. I was really glad I did this. When I discovered that one game (sideways glance at Fantasy Imperium) had a six-page character sheet and that I had scheduled it for a weekday, I moved that game to a day I had off. I’ve played with character sheets in excel, fillable character sheets and even sheets provided in a virtual table top. But I have fond memories of writing things down on a printed out sheet and loved doing that as part of this challenge. When I found my three-ringed binder full of old characters that I had played, I had a blast remembering the past games.
Yes there will be a 2023 Character Creation Challenge. Details won’t be posted for quite some time however as I’ve got to decompress.
The reaction to this year’s challenge is one of the many things that blew me away. The 2022 Character Creation thread on the RPG.net forums was named a Staff Pick by the moderators. This year’s thread has made it up to (at the time of this posting) 128 pages. This was three times larger than the 2021 thread of 42 pages. I loved reading all of the different blogs that participated. If I don’t have your blog on the Character Creation Page, please send me the URL. On social media I could not keep up with all of the entries using the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge. This was particularly true on twitter, that place was gangbusters. I tried to like and re-tweet as much as I could but some days that got to be too much. If I missed your post, don’t feel bad. Ten days into the challenge I realized that I should have kept a tally of how many entries there were for each system, but in 20/20 hindsight I’m glad I didn’t. That could have taken up a ton of time. Perhaps I’d do this if I wasn’t actually creating characters, but I really want to roll dice since I haven’t been able to get together with friends on a regular basis. There was a number of entries also posted on Facebook and MeWe. It wouldn’t surprise me if similar threads were popping up on other social media sites and message boards. If you hear of any that I don’t follow, please let me know.
Speaking of reactions, I added a new plugin for my site this year that tracked the number of visitors. It showed the sites that you guys would read. The top five games that brought in the most visitors was Dungeons & Dragons: Holmes Basic, Classic Traveller, Espionage! and Dungeons & Dragons: B/X edition. I still need to find a way to enable followers to comment on blog posts without having to worry about spambots infiltrating everything.
A lot of participants were posting their list of games before the challenge started. While I had a spreadsheet created to help me with my entries, I’m glad that I didn’t post it. I swapped out a couple of games when two new games came into my possession. The two I rotated out was Rocket Age and The Frontier, which should be on my 2023 challenge list.
While I’m not trying to think of the 2023 challenge yet, I’m really hoping that I can find a copy of Star Frontiers for it. I’m also having doubts that I’ll ever find my Top Secret S/I collection. I may have to break down and see if I can acquire the rules again.
Also, if you purchased anything after clicking on the link to DriveThruRPG, thank you. I’m not doing this blog to make money, but the kickback helps when making game purchases for future challenges.
So did you complete the challenge and make 31 characters? If so, please email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com. My art school kid in college loved hearing about the characters I was making on a daily basis and the challenge in general. She created a badge for those who completed the challenge. If you buzz me, I’ll send you the badge to display.
So I’ve put together a regular Starfleet character in Star Trek Adventures for the 2021 Character Creation Challenge. However the Klingon Empire core rulebook looked so kewl, I had to create a character for the 2022 challenge. When I created the 2021 character (which I was able to use in a game later) I had to use a cheat sheet along with the core rulebook. Since the rules in the Klingon book seem to be better organized, I’m going to just use the book for this character. I’m also not going to describe the system as much since I did that last year. So let’s create (runs random Klingon name generator) Nurot son of H’unos.
Since this game uses values which are usually a quote, I pulled out my massive list of Star Trek quotes to assist me. If I get a chance to roll a dice to decide something, I’m letting fate take control. I’ve noticed that a lot of characters lately haven’t had a lot of dice rolling involved. So my Environment was a Starship or Space Station. Pulling up the power of internet search, I found a name for a ship. The IKV notqa’ is a large Klingon cruiser that his parents were serving on when he was born. For Caste I rolled Warrior which he accepted. Training I rolled an Enlisted Warrior. So far this is going where I’m hoping it will. In his career, I selected Young Warrior. The two career events are: Serious Injury (He was injured on a hunting trip and got a nasty scar from it which resulted in an implant as part of his arm) and Conquest (assisted in the conquest of the Jugul homeworld, a previously undiscovered planet on the edge of Klingon space.)
I know there is an option to create a Klingon House, but unfortunately I’m under a time crunch today, so I’ll explore these rules at a later time. Here is the character sheet for the young Nurot who someday hopes to make it up to command his own ship.
Afterthoughts:
I love the fact that they included two ribbon bookmarks with this book. The book is about 10-20% bigger than the STA core rulebook so it needs it. Also having dark text printed on a light background is much easier to read. And yes I didn’t need to use a cheat sheet to create a character for the Klingon Defense Force.
Additional Notes:
No new blogs found today. But I’ve been retweeting any new character that I’ve found on twitter with the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge. On the RPG.net forums, one person stated they had to bow out because of real world issues. No honor lost in that because real life comes first and they can always jump back in if things improve. Keep the new characters coming.
For my birthday in 2021 I received an Amazon gift card. While there was a lot of stuff I could have picked up with the gift card, I really wanted it to be something special. This was a birthday gift and that should be something that will be remembered, not something plain like a pair of socks. Luckily, Dune Adventures in the Imperium had just been released and I was able to find a physical copy of the book to buy. I’ve discovered that when learning a new system, I prefer to have a dead-tree version of the rules in my hand.
Dune is one of those franchises that I learned to appreciate from my Father. It was one of the many sci-fi loves that he had passed onto me. I was also very excited for the (then) upcoming Dune movie to finally be released in the theaters. However I was a little nervous about the RPG being released by Modiphius. While I’ve been enjoying the Star Trek Adventures RPG, I would always get the urge to re-write the core rulebook to make information easier to find and to read (colored text on a black background was a bad idea). Luckily the lessons learned from the STA fiasco were applied to the Dune core rulebook and I’ve found it much better to read and understand while giving a ton of detail about the universe the franchise is based in. After looking through the core rulebook, I knew that Dune Adventures in the Imperium was going to be my first entry for the 2022 Character Creation Challenge.
Before you create your character in the Dune RPG, you first create the Noble House that you and all of your fellow party members are associated with. This makes a ton of sense since the game is usually about various types of political intrigue and they should all be on the same side. For the purposes of this entry, I’m going to create a house on my own pretending that it was done in a group.
In the game a noble house is one of four types ranging from Nascent House (just starting House Minor with few enemies and serving a House Major) to Great House (largest and well known, but lots of enemies and lots of House Minors serving it). The larger the house, the more Threat that the Gamemaster receives for game purposes. In most 2d20 games from Modiphius, Threats are used by GMs like Momentum is used by players. In Dune, just as there is Threat that can affect player characters, there is also Threat that can affect the house as part of the political intrigue part of the game. The type also determines how much land the house actually controls. I’ve decided that House Nimoi would at least control an entire planet (Eridani), which meant it would have House Major status. It would have more Domains (see below) but would also have more enemies (2 Threats per player). As a House Major, Nimoi would have 1 primary and 2 secondary starting domains. Domains are what the house produces or is famous for. I selected Science (expertise) Researchers as the primary. The house is known for educating and finding the best researchers in the known universe. For the first secondary I selected Industrial (produce) Refined Alloys. I felt that this went along with the research angle. Once a new alloy was discovered, then House Nimoi would want to profit by producing it’s new alloy. The last secondary domain would be Political (machinery) Expensive Trinkets. These special items are used as diplomatic gifts with various noble houses to keep House Nimoi in the political spectrum. A gift of one of these trinkets would be considered a great honor.
Next there is a section in the rules to describe the homeworld (choose stuff, nothing random) and Banners and Arms (again choose stuff). So Eridani is Earth like with a variety of continent types and oceans. The banner would be the brazier with a flame and the colors would be Red and Gold. Each house has a trait that members of the house can use as part of their characters. The traits in the Dune RPG are primarily descriptive and can be used for both houses and characters. Luckily there were quite a few character and house write-ups in the back of the book which allowed me to gather an idea of what what could be used. For House Nimoi I selected “Scientific Accuracy” as the house trait. The houses listed in the back had multiple house traits, but the rules did not state how many traits a house starts with. So for the time being I’ll stick with the one. For the Roles of the house, I just filled in some names thinking that the stats would have been generated later.
Enemies of the house is the first section with die rolls. As a Major House, House Nimoi has one Major House and one Minor House that serves the primary enemy and opponents. Instead of rolling twice, I’m going to just name both of them and roll for the primary. House Tevon serves House Malak. For House Malak I rolled a 12 on a d20 for Hatred which means that the house lothes House Nimoi. For reason I rolled a 4 resulting in some past Slight against House Malak. Finally the house stats are done. Now onto the Character
Dune has two character creation options for the game. Planned creation (make the character in full) or Creation in Play (make a few stats and fill in the rest via roleplaying). If I was actually playing in a Dune campaign, I’d be tempted to do the Creation in Play. However I’ll be doing a Planned Creation.
In the 2d20 Star Trek Adventures you have attributes of Control, Fitness, Insight, Presence and Reason. For Dune, Modiphius changed this up to Duty, Faith, Justice, Power and Truth (called Drives). As this is only my second Modiphius 2d20 game, I believe that all of their books under different titles are altered in such a way as to fit the universe that they are for. The Skills are listed as Battle, Communicate, Discipline, Move and Understand. You get a focus(es) for Skills (think specialization) and Statements for your Drives (again something that stands out).
Darkin Tal is the younger Swordmaster for House Nimoi, training under the master Swordmaster: Areth Bishiop. For his Archetype I selected Battlemaster-Warrior. After going through the character creation steps he ended up with the Drives of Duty 7 (My house is my life), Faith 4, Justice 6 (I must shield those in my care), Power 8 (Objects are rarely immovable) and Truth 5. Skill ended up being Battle 7 (Long blades, Short blades, Dirty fighting), Communicate 5, Discipline 6 (Self-control), Move 5 and Understanding 5. I think this is a pretty balanced character. For my three assets I selected a pulse-sword, a semi-shield and an Old-Friendship. I liked how assets could be intangible things as well. After going through the creation process, there are still blank spots on the sheet. Advancement points would need to be earned, but I had to look up faction and determination. Each character starts with one determination and can earn more during play. Factions are specialty groups like the Bene Gesserit or the Spacing Guild. So basically the character is done. Here is both the House and Character Sheet.
Afterthoughts:
Since the game was recently released I did not have any additional supplements to pull character information from. However I did have the core rulebook errata with me. The setup for the rules and character creation was a vast improvement from Star Trek Adventures, but still had a few stumbling blocks. I would have loved to have an experienced GM to answer questions about setting up talents and drives. For some of the talents I had to look at the examples in the back of the book. The overall building process was much easier than it was in Star Trek Adventures. I’d really like to see how this game stacks up in actual play.
I also liked that Dune had a character advancement system and it made sense. If you had difficulty in a task, you earned points towards advancement. I had some friends state their displeasure in a character advancement system in STA. Characters in the show grow on screen, they should do the same in the game.
Additional Notes:
There has already been a TON of characters posted on the RPG.net message board or found with the social media hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge. I was entering in so many links to the Character Creation Page that I almost rand out of time to get my first character done. Again if you have a link and I haven’t posted it yet, please email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com and thank you for participating. I hope you are having fun with this.
Also the thread on the RPG.net forum has been named a 100 Staff Pick. So the thread is getting a lot of attention.
