Tag: Role Playing Games

2024 Character Creation Challenge Day 18: Vintage Space

Written by TardisCaptain January 18, 2024

On Day 18 of the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge I elected to use Vintage Space: Retro Disco Sci-Fi Roleplaying. I don’t recall where I read this from, but this game is a retro-clone/refit of the FASA Star Trek RPG with some serial numbers filed off. So I thought I’d check it out and see how it stacks up.

The PDF is 70 pages long and lacks any bookmarks. The character creation process is listed on page six of the index but is found on page 12 of the PDF. There is no character sheet. Because of this I almost dropped the game from my list. But I remembered that in my early years of participating in roleplaying games that I just used a sheet of paper to write my characters down on. So I’ll whip something up on the word processor and see how it turns out.

Generating the character’s attributes is the first step. They are Strength (STR), Endurance (END), Intelligence (INT), Dexterity (DEX), Charisma (CHA) Luck (LUC) and Psychic Potential (PSY). These were the same attributes found in the FASA Star Trek RPG. However instead of using percentage scores, you have attributes plus skill added together for a number to roll under. To generate the attribute scores, some generic guidelines are listed, but on the next page it has the same guidelines adjusted with racial adjustments. So it would make sense to decide which race the character will be first and then follow those guidelines.

The races are Humans, Satora (aka Vulcans), Korrin (aka Andorians), Inush (Tellerites but dog based instead of pigs), Neyokso (aka Caitians) and Takka (an octopus based race that seems to be original). Since there are six of them, I rolled a D6 to randomly select one, which was Satoran. I rolled up the attributes and wrote them down on the home-made character sheet.

Next is the Hit Points. This is equal to your END attribute. Simple enough, I wrote it down.

Now the character is going through the Starfleet…. err…. Star Corps Academy. There I choose a division (aka department) to join which will determine the course of study. Yea pointy ear boy is going to be a member of the science department. I wrote down the skills as instructed.

Now if the character was just starting off as a newly minted Ensign, the training would stop there. While this is tempting, I think I’ll make this guy a Lieutenant who is the Chief Science Officer on a smaller vessel. So he gets to add one rank to any one skill for Lt. (junior grade) and one rank for full Lieutenant.

The next section was a character creation example. It seems to have followed what I read previously except that each skill point meant that I pick a specialty that would match the skill. I went back up through the earlier pages and I didn’t see that mentioned in the rules. I found some listed specialties later in the book. Also in the example is the note that each character gets one passion skill (interests or hobbies). If you use a specialty your character has, you roll 2D20 and take the best roll.

Because this character is Vulc…. Satoran I looked over the Psionic Abilities. Especially since I had a very high roll when generating the PSY score. The racial description stated that Satoran characters have unrestricted access to psychic education and training, but the section on Psionic Abilities states that you lose the Passions skill and one rank of a skill that is gained at the academy. But is that only for Non-Satorans? Would I list all of the psionic skills or just pick a number of them? It states that there are specialties, but again, how many will this character get? Uh, I’ll just note that the character has them.

The book then goes into some of the system explanations (roll a D20 wanting a low roll for success on both skills and savings throws). I finally made it down to the equipment section. The items your character has is dependent upon a requisition clearance level that is rank based, but there is no chart for the clearance levels. Ugh. There are several items listed. I’ll just write down what a Chief of Science who is a Lieutenant would have. I named him Troxtor and took a screen shot of the document.

Afterthoughts:

I mentioned the AI images (you can’t really call it art) in my White Lies 2nd Edition entry. While those looked like paintings with some emotion, the AI images in this publication were very distracting and pulled me away from the text. Once again the eyes were off on quite a few images (pupils of different sizes and looking in different directions, etc.) No image matched the others in a theme. You couldn’t look at multiple images and say “yes these are from the same in-game universe”. At least the White Lies book had some consistency. I think the worse part is how plastic and soulless everything looked. Characters had no emotion, nothing to express more than “I’m just an action figure in a pose”. Even the ships were just jumbles dumped into a pot and poured out into a bowl.

I wonder if this was an early draft? There was some minor errors that an editor would have caught. While I was going through the creation process and reading some of the sections, I got the urge to re-write some sections to make it smoother.

I can see where the FASA Star Trek RPG inspired this system. It’s not a direct descendant of the game that has a cult following, but the DNA is present. I can see where references were pulled from other shows with the serial numbers filled off. I would often say “Oh, those are Klingons from Star Trek and those are Cylons from Battlestar Galactica.” The system itself looks like it could work at the table pretty easy. I wouldn’t mind getting a few friends together just to try it out. I could even lead to some homebrewing. But it needs something more, it needs something to give it the extra kick needed to say “I want to play this game.” Clean up the character creation steps is something that I would recommend for a start. If there is an update or re-write of the game, I’d even pay a few extra bucks just to have a publication with real art that gives flavor to the universe.

Additional Notes:

Wow, just wow. Yesterday when I was checking the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge on Mastodon, I came across a post by Lester Smith. He had posted on his blog about his involvement in the 2021 challenge and how it helped him to climb out of a bout of depression. Creating the characters got him back into writing and he has released several new roleplaying games including one called D6xD6 Dungeons. I decided to buy a copy to check it out. Then I started going through his blog. I eventually had to stop myself because I had items that I needed to get done. Mr. Smith had written the first edition of the Dark Conspiracy RPG and contributed to a lot of other works in the gaming industry. Now he is “retired” and just writes the stuff he wants to because he enjoys it. It sounds like a goal of mine. David Gerrold once said that he writes the books he wants to read. We’ll I’d like to get to the same level as Lester Smith and write the games that I’d love to play. I guess I was taken aback by hearing how the Character Creation Challenge had helped someone. It wonder if this is what Jimmy Doohan felt when he had helped save a fans life from suicide. Note, I’m not saying that Mr. Smith was at that level in his issues, but I got the same feelings that Mr. Doohan had when read this blog post.

I started this challenge to have fun and I invited others to participate in that fun. Having fun was the goal. But I should also remember that participating in the group activity called a roleplaying game can be very therapeutic as well. Even just the act of writing, drawing, painting, getting together, etc. for a game would be therapeutic. I guess I’m just awed.

Coming Up Next:

Fantasy Hero

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

Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Spy-Fi

2024 Character Creation Challenge Day 17: White Lies 2nd Edition

Written by TardisCaptain January 17, 2024 1 Comment

Day 17 of the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge is here. And today we are using the White Lies 2nd Edition roleplaying game. Now if this sounds familiar, I used the White Lies 1st edition back in 2022 to create a character. It was based off of the D20 based White Box RPG that used the Open Gaming License (hence the name White Lies). After Wizards of the Coast had their disastrous OGL fiasco last January, the author wisely decided to remove all OGL items from this game and release a second edition. DwD Studios wasn’t the only publisher that decided to pull up stakes and head out to the land of Creative Commons licensees. This is also the reason we got a 4th edition of Basic Fantasy RPG.

The White Lies 2nd Edition PDF is 188 pages long. The character creation process starts on page 10. The character sheet is one page in length.

The ability assessment is the first step in creating an agent. In the 1st edition, the abilities were the familiar batch as seen in most D20 fantasy games. However with this 2nd edition the abilities have been re-tooled to resemble an espionage game with Toughness, Dexterity, Intellect, Discipline (self control) and Influence (physical appeal and charisma). I rolled a D20 five times and compare it to a chart. This gives a score from -2 to +5 and you assign one per ability. Since all of the scores rolled were nigher than a +2 added together (from the chart) I didn’t need to re-roll the abilities and I assigned them to the character sheet.

The next step is your Division Training. This is basically your class. After reading them over, I elected to go with the Elimination Division. I’m instructed to note all of the division qualification (aka skills) and details.

Step three is the outfitting. There are some items that each agent has automatically, pistol, operative kit with some stuff, etc. Then the division training also provides some additional items and another equipment kit of my choice. I then roll 3d6x100 for starting money to buy additional gear. In the Elimination Division I get two ammo upgrades for my weapons, but is that just clips of ammo or picking two of the improvements listed in the outfitting chapter? The pistol already had one ammo upgrade? I did a search in the PDF and I think it’s just spare clips.

The last step is the final assessment. Rank and merit is 1 and 0. Filled in stamina, defense, movement and initiative. Selected a second language. As for a name, we are going to pull up the handy dandy name generator and this guy is named: Jack Sterling. Here is the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

With the speed that was needed to get the product out, I can understand why the author went with AI generated graphics. The product was free to those who had purchased the 1st edition and it is PWYW afterwards. But some of the AI art still freaks me out for a second. I think its the eyes and some of the skin in the images. The guy in the center looks like he is losing his right eye. The eyes on the tiger on page 142 is like a cross-eyed lion. Some of the images looks like the skin is peeling off. But I did laugh at the “Typical Person” image that was used.

There are lots of good add-ons to this game both in the book and from the publisher’s social media (Me-We or Discord). I like the enemy organization charts to make up some opponents and master villains. I also liked the references to a possible campaign ideas using references like GI Joe, The A Team, RED, and more. There are quick write ups for everything from a mall cop (I also laughed at “some of them even have real guns”) to James Bond type superagents. Also included are details on aliens and supernatural creatures (needs zombies please) if the GM is so inclined to throw them at the agents.

The system was pretty straight forward and I could see the logical changes after dropping the OGL items. I liked how the new attribute names and how they were generated. It still seemed OSR with a new coat of paint. I really want to see how this plays at the table and I could easily see myself homebrewing for this system. I might even want to borrow the system (or some elements) for a core rulebook that I’ve got in mind to write up.

Additional Notes:

It has been a very cold and snowy day. I was wondering if I was going to get this character completed in time. Because of this, I haven’t had a chance to look for other sites/message boards that have been participating in the challenge. If I’m missing any from the link list, please let me know. Did I mention that I hate snow?

Coming Up Next:

Vintage Space

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

Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Westerns

2024 Character Creation Challenge Day 16: Boot Hill 3rd Edition

Written by TardisCaptain January 16, 2024January 16, 2024 1 Comment

For Day 16 of the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge I elected to use the Boot Hill Wild West Role-Playing Game 3rd Edition released by TSR in 1990. This was another series that I was very much aware of, but didn’t get a chance to play back in the 80s and 90s. I think a gaming buddy may have had this game (or an earlier version). I know that I had seen several articles in Dragon magazine. During that time you didn’t know much about games unless you saw them on the store shelves or in an advertisement in one of the gaming magazines.

Like The Spy Game, I had purchased Boot Hill from a special theme sale on DriveThruRPG in September. I don’t know why Boot Hill came up at the same time as the other modern military RPGs that were in the sale, but I snagged it anyway knowing that I would probably never see a physical copy.

The PDF is 132 pages long with the character creation process starting on page six. The character sheet is one page long. The character creation process uses D10s, but the play uses D20s and D6s.

A Boot Hill 3e character has five attributes. Strength, Coordination, Observation, Stature (aka fame), and Luck. The rules state that I roll 2D10 and add them together for the score of the first three attributes and only a D10 for the last two. Then there are modifiers to the attribute depending upon what you rolled (so you didn’t end up with any below average scores). The book also had two other methods available which could have generated higher scores, but I stuck with the first method.

Next comes the skills of the character. Each new character gets a number skills that I can choose. To determine this number, I add up all of my attributes and consult a chart. This character ended up with eight starting skills. Half of the skills must be “work skills” (the second category is “weapon skills”). After I selected the skills I thought this character should have, I rolled 2d10 and added the results down the line for each skill score.

The book explains how the handedness works in the game and instructs me to pick a hand (right). If I roll a 20 on a D20, the character will be ambidextrous. Nope, rolled an 8.

Now the book goes into the description of combat and other rules discussions. I still need to come up with some basic background information for the character and give him some equipment. I finally found the equipment section in “The Western Campaign” several chapters later. But that still didn’t have anything on equipping a new character. So I made a good-judgement decision and wrote them down. Here is the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

While the PDF did have some basic bookmarks (the start of each chapter) the PDF was a little annoying. It included a map printed in the portrait format so I couldn’t “Fit To Width” the document to read it. I had to “zoom” into the page so I could get it to the readable size.

I liked how the book explained the rules as you were making the character. Now that you have your skill score, this is how you use it at the table. It helped me learn the game as I was making the character. That is something I really appreciated in a character creation process. There have been some games where I’ve completed making the character, but I don’t know how the numbers/dice work together.

I’ve got a handful of western based RPGs in both physical and PDF form. I don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance to play a western RPG, but I could see myself playing BH3e and perhaps even homebrewing for it. For a game that was released in 1990, it was explained quite well. It had some shortcomings when it came to initial equipment, but a good GM would be able to handle that.

I liked how they had known character stats listed in the book for historical and fictional cowboys.

Additional Notes:

A reader pointed out on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server that my Conan character could have been a farmer that later became a pirate. The example they used was Wesley from The Princess Bride becoming the Dread Pirate Roberts later. I hadn’t thought about that possible story line.

Going through my visitors log, I found that someone had arrived from another message board talking about the Character Creation Challenge. I didn’t recognize the username on this message board so I don’t know if it was the same reader who’s been promoting the challenge on other message boards. To this person, thank you.

Coming Up Next:

White Lies 2nd 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.

Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games

2024 Character Creation Challenge Day 15: Conan: Adventures In An Age Undreamed Of

Written by TardisCaptain January 15, 2024 1 Comment

We are half way through the month and half way through the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge. Today I will be using Conan: Adventures In An Age Undreamed Of by Modiphius. This is part of their 2d20 system. I’ve created characters under this system for Star Trek Adventures Core Rulebook, Star Trek Adventures Klingon Core Rulebook, Dune Adventures in the Imperium, John Carter of Mars and earlier this month, Fallout. So it will be interesting to see how the character creation process stacks up. Conan came out before Star Trek Adventures. So we will see.

There isn’t any availability for this game other than the physical books through Ebay. Modiphius gave up the license after they decided that they had completed the line. I’ve heard that another company will be picking up the Conan line, but I don’t think it will be using the same system. Just before the Modiphius license expired last year, they had a massive sale for all of the PDF books at a very good price. So I had to pick it up to use in the Character Creation Challenge.

The PDF of the core rulebook has 440 pages and contains bookmarks. The character creation process starts in chapter 2 on page 13. The character sheet is three pages long with the last page reserved for spells.

There are ten steps in the process. The first step is to select a homeland. The RAW states to roll 2d20 and check the chart. A roll of 21 resulted in the character being from Brythunia (and it gives a page number for more information). This gives us the Talent of Cosmopolitan and the language of Brythunian. The Cosmopolitan talent allows you to talk with other characters who also posses this talent.

Step two is the attributes. These are Agility, Awareness, Brawn, Coordination, Intelligence, Personality and Willpower and range from 6-12 when the process is completed. All of these attributes start with a value of 7. Now I am instructed to roll a d20 twice to determine the character’s two attribute aspects. These resulted in “Wise and Friendly” and “Socially Adept”. These both came with two mandatory attribute increases and I can pick one of two optional attribute increases. I adjusted my notes after making my choices.

The Caste is step three in the process. This is the social class that the character came out of. The caste will give the character two talents, one skill and a story. From the chart I rolled a Farmer. I wrote down the skills, effects and social standing and moved onto step four, the story.

A story has the background elements of the character and is rolled on a chart for the caste determined in step three. I found the Farmer stories and rolled a four “Ample for Winter”. For some reason there was a second line for caste on the character sheet, but none for story. So I assumed this was a mistake and wrote my story information there. No skills or other adjustments were provided here that I could see.

Here in step five we get to roll (or choose) an Archetype. This sounds like a class. I looked over the descriptions and decided to let the dice roll. If I didn’t like it, the example stated that I could just pick one. The d20 clacks on the table resulting in 11, a Pirate. Pirates are kewl, but how would a Farmer become a Pirate? Yea, I’m making the choice that this guy will be a Mercenary. More of a land based guy since he was once a farmer. Not only are there several skills obtained, but the first equipment items that I wrote down.

Next on step six, Nature we roll for what the character does or act in a certain way. Sticking with the randomness of the dice I rolled a 13: Sneaky. I looked up what is gained from this. +1 to a single attribute (awareness) and some more skills and my first talent (at least the first that I can see, the example had two listed for them by now, but they were on a different path so??)

Education is step seven. The dice rolled a 15 “On Your Own Terms”. More mandatory and elective skills were adjusted or added. Another talent was selected (perhaps I was just impatient). No new equipment however.

The War Story is step eight. I’m suddenly having to stop myself from saying “There I was…” It was a previous experience of some sort that happened to your character before the campaign started. I know that Star Trek Adventures has something similar to this. While STA has two of these events, Conan characters only get one. And for this guy I rolled a 19 which is “Survived witchcraft or sorcery”. This gave me a +1 Expertise and Focus to Discipline and Sorcery. Interesting.

On step nine we have some finishing touches. I can add +2 to one attribute or +1 to two attributes. I selected the later and decided to bump up my two lowest scores. I can then add several scores of Expertise and Focus to any skills (including skills that the character doesn’t have yet). I made my choices and altered the character sheet. It also explained that while expertise and focus were raised together during the creation process, during game play these would be increased separately. I was starting to wonder about this. I am also instructed to pick one additional talent as long as I can meet the prerequisite. I should also select a second language. The starting character gets three fortune points (i.e. luck points). For personal belongings, I get to roll twice on a table.

Step ten is the remaining aspects of the character. These include Vigor, Resolve and starting gold. It talks about courage and armor soak. It states that his persistent soak for courage is the sum of all soak bonuses bestowed by talents? But I don’t see any. Yea, I’d be asking a GM to clarify the soak stuff so I’ll leave this blank for now. Name, Age, Personality and Appearance discussions are here as well. I was thankful for the name examples.

I think I’m done because the book goes into some alternate character creation options. I know that the weapons and animals don’t have stats, but I’m sure I could look them up. I didn’t scan the third page since Braga (name selected from the homeland list) has no spells.

Afterthoughts:

I liked the fact that this core rulebook got straight into the explanation of RPGs (standard in most books) and character creation process. Several of the other Modiphiuis books for different media franchises had contained a long explanation of the world. As a gamer, I just wanted the rules. This was very much appreciated.

Not bad for a character creation process. No annoying pop ups with sides of information. I did have to re-read a few sections to make sure I understood what they were trying to say. If I did anything wrong, please let me know. But after the annoying character creation process of the last two nights, this was a blessed change.

This game sounds more combaty than Star Trek Adventures and Dune. I wonder how it would play at a table. Hopefully someone would run it at a convention. I don’t think I’ll ever get a chance to participate in a campaign for Conan. But I’d love to see how it runs at the table.

Additional Notes:

I had quite a reaction to my Ninjas & Superspies entry yesterday. On Mastodon, I had several readers tell me that they had the same level of frustration with the system including an attempt at making TMNT characters. One poster on the RPGPub message board told me that the stick figure drawing on the character made them laugh. They could see my frustration in that quick one-second drawing. I don’t know why this person’s laughing made me laugh out loud as well, but I did. And I needed a laugh.

Coming Up Next:

Boot Hill 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.

Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Spy-Fi

2024 Character Creation Challenge Day 14: Ninjas & Superspies

Written by TardisCaptain January 14, 2024

And welcome to Day 14 of the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge. Today we will be using Ninjas & Superspies Revised that was writen by Erick Wujick and published by Palladium Books in 1990. I picked up this book at a gaming swap meet at SaltCON-End of Summer for a decent price.

I saw several friends play a lot of the different Palladium games in the 90’s. I don’t know why I never got into those games. I’m sure they would have let me join the table if I had asked. I think it was a time that they were playing when I was working the graveyard shift. So let’s pretend that I’m not being hit by the dreaded scheduling curse and I can finally make a character for a game.

The physical book has 176 pages and is softbound. The ISBN number is 0-916211-31-2 with the original cover price of $14.95. The character creation steps start on page eight. The character sheet is one page long and can be found on page 173.

So I don’t have a concept for this character yet. No, he won’t be based on Jeremy Clarkson. The first step is to generate scores for the eight attributes. These are Intelligent Quotient (I.Q.), Mental Endurance (M.E.) which helps vs hypnotism, Mental Affinity (M.A.) which is charm and charisma, Physical Strength (P.S.), Physical Prowess (P.P.) which is dexterity, Physical Endurance (P.E.), Physical Beauty (P.B.) and Speed (Spd). I roll 3d6 to determine these scores. It doesn’t say I pick which score goes with which attribute so I’ll do them in order. One item of note, if I roll a 16, 17 or 18, I get to roll one more d6 and add the number. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any rolls in that range.

On step two we select the character’s O.C.C. aka Occupational Character Class. They are not listed here nor is there a referenced page number. Flipping through the book I found them on page 47. I like how these are broken down into five categories with several sub-categories each. Martial Artist, Espionage Agent, Free Agent, Gizmoteer and Mercenary. Of course I want to make an Espionage Agent, with Gadgeteer Agent being the final decision.

Step three, what martial arts forms and skills do I want to select for the character. According to the RAW the Gagetter Agent can choose any except for exclusive forms. I’m not a big martial arts aficionado so I stuck with Basic Hand-to-Hand. The O.C.C. gives a list of basic minimum skills. Then it lists the number of skills from different categories to choose from. There was quite a bit to write down, and I don’t know if I understand how the skill scores are generated. I had to do a lot of page hopping and I may have missed something.

Step four is listed as optional, but I’m going to use it because it involves dice rolling. It is the character’s background. I already know he’s going to be American (make it easy for me), but the rest I’m going to roll. So he’s 6’2″ and weighs 172 lbs. He is straight. No not the sexual orientation, straight as in he’s a “true believer” of his side. He was the third of five kids in his family. Apparently the GM rolls to see if the family is still alive or not. So I’ll skip that for now.

On step five we calculate the Hit Points, SDC (aka Structural Damage Capacity) and Chi. Wow, could they have made this any more complicated. You don’t just get a basic HP, you have to calculate your PE with your martial arts form with additional skills. He only has basic hand-to-hand. Nothing is listed in the Martial Arts Forms on page 83. Come on guys, this should be a simple step and not needing a masters degree. I really would have been leaning on an experienced GM here to help explain what this mess is. I think it’s the character’s P.E. score plus a D6 since he’s 1st level. Screw it, I’m going with that. SDC wasn’t any better. It’s the physical toughness of the body. Huh? Why separate these two? At least the score was determined by your OCC and not some unexplained mathematical formula. This character has a 10 SDC. And now the Chi, or living energy. (suddenly I’m hearing Yoda in my head) Perhaps this is something more on the martial arts side of the game that I have little interest in. It appears that since I didn’t take anything more than a basic hand-to-hand, the Chi score is the character’s Physical Endurance (PE) score.

Mercifully we are now to step six. Attribute bonuses (why this couldn’t have been next to the generate attributes step, I don’t know). Since this character had no attributes 16 or higher, he had no bonuses. That was quick.

Step seven is Buy Equipment. There is a starting cash listed in your OCC. Looking over at the equipment and weapons section, when I finally found it, was heavy on the martial arts side, not so heavy on the other equipment. I decided to skip it. Had this been an actual game I would have written something down, but I’m annoyed right now so this guy is going to have a weapon and some electronic doodads to help him do his job.

Step eight and we are selecting the alignment (good) and discipline (used if you are not using the basic alignments. Nope, not diving into that one, he’s just a good guy.

I think we are done because there are no more step listed (after going through pages 8 through 20 for the character creation process, not counting all of the page flipping to look up different items). I made another attempt to confirm what my skill scores would be (I was only provided with additions that was given to me in my skill programs) and there wasn’t even enough slots to write down all of these skills from my notes. So he’s good with electronics and gadgets but not much of a martial arts guy. Go figure.

Yea I guess I should pick a name. Quickly pulls up a random name generator. Luke Ward. Spy-guy. Here’s the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

I had to chuckle at the disclaimers at the start of the book. Don’t think because your character knows Kung-Fu that you do. Yea, I’ve seen plenty of Mall Ninjas in my day.

So the character creation process started out good, then quickly descended into a quagmire of crunchiness. And not even the good kind. I wonder if I had seen the same thing when I first encountered the game and made a dodge roll then? When I was getting into what should have been basic calculations (like hit points), I was getting ready to throw the book away. While I may try to create a specific type of character in this game for an upcoming project, I doubt I’ll use this system or try to homebrew for it. I’m glad that I didn’t pay too much for the book.

Additional Notes:

There is one reader/participant out there who has been making Character Creation threads on various message boards out on the internet. I found another in my visitor’s history that I can see. If I can confirm it’s for the challenge, I add it to the links section on the Character Creation Challenge page. This latest one has been added. Thank you for attempting to get other RPGers involved. I see your efforts.

Coming Up Next:

Conan: Adventures In An Age Undreamed Of

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

Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

2024 Character Creation Challenge Day 13: Star Ace

Written by TardisCaptain January 13, 2024January 13, 2024

Here we are at Day 13 of the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge. Today I’ll be using Star Ace originally published by Pacesetter in 1984. Sometime in my gaming past, I had created a character for this game, but I never remember playing it. Perhaps we never got out of session zero where we were getting everything ready. In the post I linked above, I mentioned that the game wasn’t on DriveThruRPG or other sites that I could find. Buying a game that I would probably never play at Ebay prices didn’t make sense to me. A reader sent me a message after that post stating that the PDFs was available on the Paizo website at a reasonable price. So I snagged them. It only has the three books from the boxed set, but it would be enough for me to use in the challenge.

The three books are the Star Team Basic Training Manual, the Star Team Wilderness Briefing Manual and Deuces Wild, an introductory Star Ace adventure. The first two PDFs are kinda bookmarked. They only bookmarked the start of each chapter instead of the contents. But considering that these are scans of the original books, I guess that is more than what we could have received. The character creation process starts on page five of the Basic Training Manual. I’m instructed to use three ten-sided dice and I write my name next to Player on the character sheet.

Next we select a race for the character. I slipped down to the end of the chapter to read the descriptions. Crystal Clones (some sort of human/crystal hybrids) sounded interesting. The Humans (sounds boring). The Kleibor (Large humanoid polar bears with telepathy). Then there is the Traka (an agile cat like race). None of these really knock my socks off. So by a random roll (my decision) this character will be a Traka.

Next, I have to select three skills. Two of them have to match the Order I’ve selected. Uh, I haven’t selected an Order yet (goes and looks up what an Order even is). Hearts, Spades, Diamonds and Clubs (the card suites). OK, but what do they do? Ah, a few pages down finally describes them and they sound like the classes. Spades are the weapon specialists, Heart the techs, Clubs is the noetic skills (mental powers) and Diamond are decoy activities like deception and stealth (and for some reason called ducks). So Diamond it is. And I finally found the skills (I really wish the bookmarks were more precise) and wrote them down.

Now on step four we are finally generating the Basic Ability Scores. Roll 3d10, multiply the sum by 2 and add 20 for results between 26 and 80. Um… OK. I wrote down my results since in step five I assign them to one of the eight abilities. Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Personality, Perception, Willpower, Luck and Stamina. From these scores, other statistics and skill scores are generated (there is a lot of math in this creation process). This actually took us through several short steps.

Step nine is to find the base scores for each skill using the mathematical formula provided in each skill description. Then step ten states “Find the character’s actual scores by adding 15 to the base scores obtained in step 10.” Uh… I hope you mean step 9. Yea, I’m going with that (blasted lack of editing).

In step eleven we select a name (I wish they had given us examples) and a background. I plucked Balkor out of the air. As for his background, since the Star Aces are the Robbin Hoods of their time, yea he joined up because he wanted to steal stuff and give it to the less fortunate.

There is already some basic equipment (weapon, armor, starfighter) on the character sheet. But nothing else is listed in the character creation steps. Going back before the steps started I did see a note that stated that starting characters roll 2d10+10 for their starting chips (money). You also get a kit to a skill that you use. So I’m assuming I have a forging kit and a lockpick kit. None of the other equipment made any sense to my character. Ya know what, I’m tired of sloshing through this, I’m done. Here’s the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

Since the game is the year 3512, I noticed that the rules didn’t treat humans like they would have been in the 1980s. Longer life span, slightly larger size by a few inches, etc. Too many times I see a game treat humans as they are right now. In a hundred years we should have better ways to stay healthy and expand our life spans.

The character creation process seemed to be all over the place, which was typical from games published in the 80’s. Certain steps were referencing other sections that you hadn’t selected yet. For example, picking skills that would match your Order, but you hadn’t selected an order yet. It made me want to re-write the steps so that everything flowed in order. Another example, the skill descriptions were after the starship descriptions? Personality and Perception both have the abbreviation of PER? (I think Perception is PEN? that shows up in some of the formulas) Who edited this book?

Playing or homebrewing for this game. Likelihood is very low. I wouldn’t turn down a session to try it out (it looked like there was a lot of chart consulting to see what type of results came up from your rolls). If I was really going to play or run a generic sci-fi game, there are a lot more that have caught my eye like Frontier Space or one of the Traveller variants.

Additional Notes:

I’m very thankful that Paizo made this game available on their website, but that site needs a lot of help. There are a lot of links to sections that have nothing listed in them. And when you order PDF copies off of the site, it is like pulling teeth to get the downloads to come through. I’ve never had this happen with other publishers where I’ve purchased directly from them. Not only was I having issues with Star Ace, but when I picked up a charity bundle that contained a lot of books for Pathfinder and Starfinder, I wanted to pull my hair out. I had sent their customer service an email and they responded right away. But when I sent some feedback on the lack of quality on the website, I never received a response. Shrug, oh well.

The past few days have been extremely busy. I wish I had set up a buffer just in case real life issues came up. But I was able to get through it. I’ve already seen one person drop out. If you need to back off but still want to complete the challenge, you can. Some participants would make multiple characters for a familiar system on one day. What ever you need to do, do it. That includes taking care of yourself. This is a project for fun, not an assignment to be graded by a teacher.

Coming Up Next:

Ninjas and Superspies

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

Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Spy-Fi

2024 Character Creation Challenge Day 12: The Spy Game

Written by TardisCaptain January 12, 2024January 13, 2024 1 Comment

For Day 12 of the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge I am using The Spy Game RPG. I had seen this book at my local gaming store. It is an espionage game using 5th edition ruleset from the world’s most famous roleplaying game rules. I just hadn’t been able to pull the trigger on the price for the book (perhaps I would have if there was a game that I could have joined at the time). It sat on my wishlist waiting to see if the price would drop, and it did. In 2023 DriveThruRPG had a series of themed sales in September with one of them being espionage games. So now I have a PDF of the game that I wanted to use for the challenge.

The PDF is 271 pages long with the character creation process starting on page 10. The character sheet is two pages long.

After using the name “Sir Richard Hammond” for my Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme entry I received a lot of humorous feedback. While The Spy Game can be a serious RPG, I was inspired to name this character Agent James May (Code Named: Captain Slow) a special transport driver for UNITY. After creating a concept we get into the steps of creating the character.

Step one is to choose your class. I had seen a Transporter/Driver type class in other espionage roleplaying games, but I couldn’t find it as a class in The Spy Game. It turns out the Transporter is a Technician Archetype that I can select when Mr. May reaches second level. So I selected the Technician class. It still fits since the real-world James May would over-explain the technical details on the show. I wrote down the class details on the character sheet.

Step two is picking a background, or what Mr. May was doing before he became an espionage agent. Academic was tempting until I saw Motorist. I wrote down the character features that this background provided. This also included the four background traits which appear to be quotes that would describe your character.

Now we are finally to rolling the ability scores. These are the standard found in 5E. They can be generated by rolling or purchase. I’ve never been a fond of purchasing ability scores, so let’s see what the dice give us. It gives several rolling options, but I’m going to go with Heroic. Roll 2d6+6 and assign to the abilities that I want it to go to. When you select your background, it adds to the ability scores.

Step four was the finishing details. Starting hit points (max for class plus CON bonus), armor class, etc. I searched for all of these and added them to the sheet. The RAW states that each agent has their own standard equipment which includes weapons, armor and tools. Then if anything extra is needed, there is a mission budget. Apparently I get two gadgets, but I don’t see which ones to pick from. If I could, I’d add the gadgets to my vehicle. So I think I’m done, here is the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

I’ve only played Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition a few times at conventions. I’ve never really been in a campaign, so there were a few times I had to look things up which slowed down the creation process. It would have been good to have a GM to answer questions. I even pulled out the D&D 5e Players Handbook out just to make sure I was understanding a few things. But I think I got it.

I liked the use of quotes to define the different background traits. I need to track down other characters to see if they have the same thing.

Overall things made sense. I’d like to see how a gaming session is run. I could see myself playing and homebrewing for this game.

Additional Notes:

This is the second character sheet where the logo for the game is on the second sheet. I’m not certain about the logic behind this decision. Not enough room on the first page? Were they figuring that the second sheet would be looked at more? It made me scratch my head.

On my entry for Basic Fantasy 4th Edition I had noted that a participant had placed my username in the Dungeon Master entry. I was reminded that this same entry also appeared on the RPGGeek message board as well. Several participants have posted on multiple message boards and social media sites.

Another blog was found and added to the links section of the Character Creation Challenge site. I was able to find this one as well from the history of sites that linked to mine. There was also one for Palladium, but I couldn’t find anything on their message board so I don’t know if it was a generic reference or a reference to the challenge.

Coming Up Next:

Star Ace

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

Anime, Character Creation Challenge, Humor, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

2024 Character Creation Challenge Day 11: Teenagers from Outer Space

Written by TardisCaptain January 11, 2024January 11, 2024

When I received both a physical and PDF copy of Teenagers from Outer Space from my RPG.net “Secret Satan” (a play on words for Secret Santa) I promised that I would use this game in the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge. And to keep that promise, I’ll be using it for my Day 11 entry. Looking through the book, it had reminded me that I hadn’t seen any comedic anime in a while so for the next several days I had been watching Project A-KO on one of the streaming services.

This core rule book was published by AnimechaniX (a division of R. Talsorian Games Inc.) that also published several other anime RPGs including Bubblegum Crisis. It is 127 pages long (Including the character sheet in the back) with the character creation rules starting on page 22. The PDF contains links to the different chapters. Thank you for having that set up as it helps out a lot.

OK first is the character going to be Human or some sort of Alien? Well duh, this is Teenagers from Outer Space so this character is going I want this character to be an alien. The types of aliens are Near-Human (perhaps just some cat ears and a tail or something minor), Not-Very Near Human (more weird stuff is on your body, but still looks kinda Human) and Real Weirdie (You got big wings or you’re just a blob). Human or not, what is your character about? So this guy is going to be an Icaanian Alien Prince who has been sent to school on Earth while his royal parents take care of business back home on Icann Prime. Are they OK, fighting to save the kingdom or already dead? He doesn’t know because his handlers are keeping him in the dark on purpose. Since he is unaware, he’s just trying to survive math and see if he can get an invite to the party on Saturday. I’m going to go with Near-Human with with green hair covering some small horns and silver eyes.

Alright, our second step is to come up with the statistics for the character. The stats used in this game is Smarts (i.e. Intelligence), Bod (Strength & Dex basically), Relationship with Parents (called RWP on the character sheet), Luck (self-explanatory), Driving (piloting anything from a car to a flying saucer), Looks (i.e. physical Charisma), Cool (i.e. mental Charisma) and Bonk (i.e. a mental or health stat like hit points). You can’t really die (this is a comedy game after all) but you’ll be shaken up and looking foolish for a turn or two if you Bonk stat drops below zero. I’m instructed to take a D6 and roll it for each stat in order. Heh, the book states if you attempt to re-roll a bad stat die that it may void the warranty of the game and may result in the self-destruction of the game book. I did not re-roll any stat generating rolls since I didn’t want to destroy my gift. Luckily the RAW states that I can then move stats around as I desire as long as no stat goes above a six or below a one. I rolled really good (three sixes) of which I kept two of them in place (Bonk and Luck) and move other points around. I wanted RWP to be low to match the concept of the character and I wanted better looks than what was rolled.

Next (it is listed Advanced Teenagers) is to pick a number of Knacks. These are basically special items that are connected to your stats but you are really good at. Roll a D6 and that tells you how many Knack points you have. I rolled a 3, so I could select three at one point each, one at three points or 2 knacks with one and two points respectively. I could come up with one of my own with the GMs approval or look over the list of suggestions. I’m going to go with Sweet Talk Guardian (he has a couple of chaperones from his parents keeping an eye on him) with one point and Dance with two points (he has to make himself look good at he party).

As an alien, he gets a Strange Alien Power (Humans have their own special table to roll against to gain some kewl stuff). There are five charts with six random powers. I can pick from three different charts and roll to see what the character receives (if any, nothing is an option). The roll results are Teleport, Monster Out (the character can transform into a 50-foot silly-looking rubber monster at will with Super Strength) and Talk to Aliens (the character can talk to anyone, animal or inanimate objects or living people). Weird, but that’s where the dice rolled. I’d probably talk with the GM to see if the Monster Out could be an involuntary thing after a certain event had happened just to make it interesting (say Bonk gets down to a score of 1). Teleport could be a defensive mechanism and Talk to Aliens could be part of his future roll as a leader and ambassador for his people.

The next step is titled “Last Minute Wrap-Ups”. They include selecting three basic traits that define the character (habits, preferences or world view). There was a suggested list, but I could come up with some of my own if so desired. For some reason when my eyes fell upon “Talk to Trees” it clicked. Perhaps there is no Trees on Icann Prime so he is fascinated by their wit and wisdom. How the trees will respond to him could vary from tree to tree, but I thought it would be silly. He is also Trusting and Forgetful. Why those two? Why not. The character gets a weekly allowance/stipend/source of income. To determine this I roll 2D6x5 which resulted in $45. Starting money comes out to rolling one more D6 and using that result to times your weekly stipend (in this case $180). On the character sheet you can see actual TFOS currency that could be cut out and used.

Also in this section is the items your character owns. You automatically get a vehicle of some sort (since most teenagers want mobility the moment they can) but it’s a piece of junk. You can use your starting money to pimp it out, but you still have other things to buy as well. I added a good stereo to the junky saucer (I figured the tunes may distract from the neon green paint job) and picked up a few items.

So Prince Zaxxod of Icann Prime has two chaperones/body guards (they have to take shifts) who try to keep him out of trouble, but he keeps trying to ditch them as third-wheels when he wants to go out on a date or go to a party. Little does he know that rebels from his home planet would love nothing more than to get a hold of him to use as ransom/bait/who knows back on the home world. Prince Zaxxod has not been told about the troubles on his home world (his father believes it would interfere with his studies) and has instructed the two body guards to keep him oblivious. Here is the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

Since this is a game based off of Anime, I like how they used several pages of Anime art to set up a possible story-line. And speaking of references, they used several examples from Star Trek, X-Files, ET, Alien and more through out the book. I thought this helped as well.

There are conversion guidelines to connect this to the other R. Talsorian anime systems. I like how they used the term “Bubblegum 90210” as a possible example.

The system looks pretty simplistic. Roll a D6, add a stat/equipment/trait bonus and try to beat a difficulty number between 1 and 10. (LOL, out-think Mr. Spock is a difficulty 20) I could see this being a silly game to play in a one-shot or at a gaming convention.

Additional Notes:

After the success of finding a message board participating in the challenge in my visitor’s history, I took a second look and found two more participants. Another message board, started by a reader who has posted on several message boards, thank you. An another WordPress blog. I’ve added both to the links section of Character Creation Challenge page.

If you are looking for a new game to use in the challenge, or even play. Troll Lord Games has the Amazing Adventures 5E core rulebook in PDF for 50 cents. I don’t think you can even get a cup of coffee for 50 cents any more. They had put several of their 5E products for sale at this same price. I was able to pick up a few books at a massive discount. I don’t know how long this sale will be going on for so I’d recommend grabbing them as soon as possible. I used this game in the 202x Character Creation Challenge and I’ve been eyeing it for a possible one-shot.

Coming Up Next:

The Spy Game

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

Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games

2024 Character Creation Challenge Day 10: Basic Fantasy 4th Edition

Written by TardisCaptain January 10, 2024January 10, 2024 1 Comment

For Day 10 of the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge I elected to put together a character for Basic Fantasy Role-Plaing Game 4th Edition. Now this game is available for free download on the BasicFantasy.org website. You can also pick up a physical copy (like I did) just for cost from two different sources. You can pick this up at Amazon or DriveThruRPG. I have the hardbound version, but it is also available with the softcover.

So if I already created a Basic Fantasy character in 2021, why am I making a character again? For two reasons. The fourth edition of Basic Fantasy was released after the WotC OGL fiasco inspired them to remove all SRD material and the OGL licensing information in the book. For my second reason, I volunteered to run a Basic Fantasy game at the upcoming SaltCON gaming convention in March. This character will be one of the pre-made characters provided for the players to choose from.

I won’t go into the statistics of the book since I covered that in my initial review. The character sheet is one that I downloaded from the Basic Fantasy project website and is a single page. There are quite a few other character sheets available. The character creation process starts on page three.

Our first step is to roll up our ability scores. These are the standard attributes that fans of the D&D d20 based systems will familiar with. Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution and Charisma. The RAW states roll 3d6 and place them in order. I did this.

The next step is to select your class and race (if you meet the minimum requirements for either). With my INT of 17 this guy is going to be an Elvin Magic User. After writing down his special abilities I rolled his hit points (woot rolled a high number) and wrote that down. I also filled in his savings throws, movement and other statistics.

Next comes purchasing the equipment. This game uses the standard 3d6x10 for starting gold. I rolled up 110 GP and purchased what I thought an Elven Wizard would own. For the name, I selected Durlan Torven (found from an online random name generator). Durlan was instructed by his father to gain some experience in the world before he returned to the High Kingdoms to assume his place in the family business. Here is the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

Basically (no pun intended) if you’ve played 3rd edition Basic Fantasy, moving to 4th edition shouldn’t be any difficult at all. Other than minor tweaks everything is the same. I forgot that the character sheet that I like to use still has page numbers from the 3rd edition. I should point that out to the original contributor.

I’m glad that I made this character now. It got me in the groove for creating the other characters for the upcoming convention session.

Talking with a friend last week, I had to explain that 4th Edition of Basic Fantasy was not the same as 4th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Don’t let the 4th edition trip you up in this case.

Additional Notes:

A participant in the Character Creation Challenge had posted on the RPG.net forums a D&D B/X character that they had created. Since they didn’t want to have any blank lines they placed “TardisCaptain” down as the Dungeon Master. I laughed and responded that I better get out my campaign notes.

While looking at the traffic hitting my website, I noticed that there was some coming in from the Steven Jackson Games forums. I went to the site and discovered that one of the participants had started a thread there. While there hasn’t been a lot of posts, I’ve added it to the links on the Character Creation Challenge page. If you know of a website or message board that is participating in the challenge, please let me know. You can email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or by reaching out to me on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server or on one of the social media services that I use.

Coming Up Next:

Teenagers from Outerspace

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

Character Creation Challenge, Humor, Role Playing Games

2024 Character Creation Challenge Day 9: Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme

Written by TardisCaptain January 9, 2024July 22, 2025 1 Comment

It’s… Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactement Programme. (Liberty Bell march starts playing) and it’s my Day 9 entry in the 2024 #CharacterCreationChallenge.

I’ve been a fan of Monty Python every since I saw my first episode on our local PBS station. There isn’t a gaming session that didn’t make it out with at least one Monty Python quote (much to the chagrin of my Dungeon Master). So when I discovered that there was going to be a Kickstarter for a Monty Python ~~Role Playing Game~~ Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactement Programme, I had to make a pledge. And no, Mediaeval is not spelled incorrectly. Yea, I had to look that up.

In the past I’ve posted about some of my Kickstarter rewards, such as the one for Mystery Science Theater 3000, The B/X Advanced Bestiary and the XDM 2nd Edition book. I haven’t written about the Monty Python RPG and the RPG for Cowboy Bebop because the physical books haven’t arrived yet. But I promise that I’ll give you first looks when I can. Until then, they have sent me the PDFs for both books. Today I am making a Participant Character for this comedy game. This is for students of history who will use the programme for a memorable learning experience. Most of the items in this game came from the Monty Python movies: The Life of Brian and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But there are references to other works from the comedy troupe.

The PDF is 360 pages long with the Character Creation process listed on page 84. The character sheet is one page. And now for something completely different.

Oh and I should mention, the GM is called the Head of Light Entertainment aka The HoLE. It is possible that the HoLE could get sacked while in session.

Your participant is a member of a Situation. This is also called job, role, career or calling. Basically it’s the character’s class, but the game doesn’t call it that. Probably because when you choose your Situation, you also choose if you are Upper Class, Middle Class or Lower Class which is how some NPCs might react to your character (not all class types available for all situations). The possible Situations to choose from are Churl (peasant), Cleric, Enchanter (aka the Wizard), Eremite (A hermit like the one seen in various Monty Python episodes), Knave (aka the Thief), Knight, Monarch (Well I didn’t vote for you.), Monk/Nun (Pie Jesu Domine, Dona eis requiem. [WHACK!!]), Noble (not Donna from Doctor Who) and Troubadour (aka the Bard). Do I want to be a king? Do I want to be a knight? I wanna hit things. Knight it is.

So look at the “Creating a Knight” section and it says that he is definitely upper class. So I circle that. On my character sheet is a very colorful section for Traits. A Knight has the Valour trait, which is doing various manly deeds of strength and arms. This could be serious or silly. If it is more on the serious side, you roll a larger die when attempting to complete a task or a test. These dice range from D4 to D30 (there are a lot of standard and no-so-standard dice for this game). Now for each Trait, you get an Accoutrement. This is a device that your character owns (and may have some minimum requirements for). I roll a 1d10 and it came up with Shield which gives me +1 to Strategy. I also get to roll the type of shield and it came up Buckler. Next Trait for the Knight is Chastity, which helps my character avoid temptation (oh boy, avoid the Castle Anthrax). The Accoutrement for this Trait rolled up an elaborate codpiece (why am I suddenly thinking of first season Black Adder?) which gives the character +1 Decorum. A Knight also has a Manservant as a retainer (it takes one of my colorful slots) which will be the character’s squire. The remaining two slots are selected from a list available, which I chose Heartiness and Strategy. My character’s indifference is Subtlety (i.e. he can’t do this trait).

I wrote down the character’s Spiffing Serious Ability, which is Slay. If I use it during a game, I roll a D30 and consult a chart. This could have good or bad results. And if I’m reading the steps correctly, we are done making this character. There is a section on the sheet for money (of the different types of currency) and Merits/Demerits (system currency earned in the game). Let’s give our Knight a name, which is Sir Richard Hammond (wink). Here is the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

I liked that some of the links within the PDF didn’t go where you thought they would go. Very sneaky and on tap with the brand of humor. There was a ton of in-jokes and easter egg references. But you don’t need to know them all to understand the game.

While making this, I was thinking that it could be useful for that other famous British fantasy comedy, Blackadder (well not the fourth season that takes place during World War I). But I was getting the same vibes.

I know I didn’t really go into the system too much for this blog entry, I think I’m saving that for the physical book review. But what I read, it did make sense. There were a lot of flowery words used in the book, but this was part of the Monty Python charm. I really think that the writers were able to capture the spirit of the comedy troupe. They even had warnings about forcing the humor. If played well, the humor would naturally come into the game.

There is a lot of unusual dice used for Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactement Programme. Luckily I had some dice for the Dungeon Crawl Classics which had all but one of the need die. I wonder where I can find a D18?

(in bad French accent) Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time.

Additional Notes:

There were quite a few readers who did not know that Star Trek: Alpha Quadrant existed. This is not surprising since it is a fan made game that was released about the same time as Star Trek Adventures. It probably got brushed to the side with the first official Star Trek licensed RPG in 15ish years.

I discovered another message board with a Character Creation Challenge thread. I’ve added the link to the list of participating sites. The thread itself isn’t very large, but the other threads have been interesting to read. I’ve signed up to post on The Piazza, but at the time of publication, I hadn’t been authorized yet.

Coming Up Next:

Basic Fantasy Roleplaying Game 4th 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.