Tag: Role Playing Games

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 17: FTL Nomad

Written by TardisCaptain

On Day 17 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m using a game that I had originally intended to use last year. I had it on the list and I believe I even had the character sheet printed out. Then a friend had gifted me one of my holy grail of RPG collectables that I had been trying to get my hands on. A copy of Red Dwarf The Roleplaying Game. It was late January and I had already done most of my challenge entries. So I looked at the list and originally I was going to bump Mazes and Minotaurs, but that game had already been bumped several times. So I bumped FTL Nomad since I would be swapping one sci-fi game with another. When I schedule out my games, I try not to have two of the same genres next to each other.

So what is FTL Nomad by Stellagama Publishing? My initial thought is it’s a retro-clone(ish) game of the Traveller 2d6 system that contains some modern rule ideas such as advantage/disadvantage dice. The universe is set as a near future cyberpunkish interplanetary setting which can be expanded to interstellar. I’m sure there is more to it than that, but that was my first impression. Stellagama Publishing also put out several other titles that I’ve used in past challenges including The Sword of Cepheus 2nd Edition, Cepheus Deluxe and more.

The PDF of the rulebook has 277 pages and our character creation summary starts on page 14. The character sheet only has one page. Let’s dive into this system and see what we can come up with.

Step one is the character concept. Since I’m keeping this simple and easy, I’m going to make up a hot-shot human pilot. Yes there are aliens in this game, but I’m sticking with human. As a human (as detailed in step two) I get to distribute five points among the seven skills that are all currently at zero. As a starting character none of these can have a score more than three. The skills listed are Combat, Knowledge, Physical, Social, Stealth, Vehicles and Technology. Pretty self-explanatory.

Step three is to pick an Archetype (aka class or basic concept of the character). As mentioned above, I’m already picking Pilot. But the other options were Agent (spy, bounty hunter, troubleshooter, etc.), Diplomat, Engineer, Merchant, Mystic, Outlaw (pirates to con artists), Outsider (barbarian, exile, etc.), Roughneck (workers in space), Scholar (doctors, scientists and more), Scout or Soldier.

Since this character is human, on step four I get to pick a Talent or special ability. These were in three categories of combat, character or professional. I found one for Ace Pilot and wrote it down in my notes.

Next comes calculating the Stamina. This was a mathematical formula with any bonuses from the Physical skill (which I had at one). The next step (six) is calculating the Encumbrance that the character can carry. Another mathematical formula also involving the physical skill.

Now we are purchasing equipment for this currently unnamed character. Hey, I get to roll something. 2d6x1000 for the number of credits he has. Now I can go to the equipment list or go pick an equipment package that is based around the Archetype. I’m going to go with the later as to not take up too much time. I wrote it down on my notes and subtracted the cost for the package. Actually I am going to take a peak at the equipment to see if there is anything else I think he should have. I did add a few more items that I thought the character would need.

The last step is to finalize the character. Name- Marcos Tryladar. Appearance- Good looking with short black hair and brown eyes. Trying to see if he can meet the next piloting challenge and left home to find his fortune. Let’s see how this looks when I transfer my notes to the character sheet. There are some blank spots that should be easy to fill out with a GM such as languages. But there is one glaring thing I noticed. There’s a Hero Points section. Quick search of the PDF shows that they are tucked all the way down on page 31. Each player starts with two and can be used for re-rolls or to activate special talents or abilities. That would have been nice to know before I had filled out the sheet.

Afterthoughts:

I really like the fact that this book gave us the basic mechanics and a rundown of the attributes at the very front of the book. I’m really disliking the publishers who follow the online recipe formula where they give the TL/DR story of whatever before they get to the actual instructions we are looking for. Remember, a core rulebook is a source of information, make that information easy to find and people will be more likely to play your games.

Being a Sci-Fi fan, I could see myself playing FTL Nomad. I don’t know if I will because I don’t even know any one local who plays Traveller, let alone any games based off of the 2d6 system. I’d love to try it just to see how it plays at the table. It’s generic enough that I could see some some homebrew possibilities for it.

Additional Notes:

After the flub with the Six-Shooters & Wagons the other day, and with a very busy schedule coming up (more family responsibilities that come first), I’ve actually sat down and scheduled out the rest of the month. Before today I had been winging it to give it a little bit of spontaneity. Let’s see if this pre-planning will help the rest of the month go smoother.

Coming Up Next:

Dragonbane

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

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Humor, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 16: Paranoia “Perfect Edition”

Written by TardisCaptain

The computer is your friend. The computer wants you to be happy. Friend computer says the last Paranoia entry in the challenge was in 2022. So for Day 16 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m instructed by friend computer to use Paranoia “Perfect Edition” (aka The All New Shiny Edition) that was released by Mongoose Publishing in 2023.

For those of you not familiar with Paranoia, it is a role-playing game that is set in the future where humanity lives in a computer controlled Alpha Complex. No, this is about the future not about today. The central computer controls everything and is trying to keep you safe from conspiracies, communist plots, secret societies and enemies of the computer. Why do you keep asking if this is a game set in modern times? Your character is a troubleshooter for the computer trying to discover the hidden fiendish plot that is about to be sprung upon your paradise-utopian society. All while trying to hide the deep dark secret that you harbor from other troubleshooters. No, I’m tired of that question. The computer says we should move onto character creation.

Of the 146 page PDF that friend computer instructed me to purchase last year, the character creation can be found on page 20. It is broken up into four steps (A-D) with sub-steps in each one. Friend computer is organized very well.

In Step A we are instructed by friend computer to create some PII (Personally Identifiable Information). This includes a punny name which is based upon the character’s clearance level (R for Red) and where they are from TOT section of the Alpha Complex and what clone this character is (starting is 1), so his name is Todd-R-TOT-1. Friend computer gave me a traitor star saying that if I have to explain the joke, it’s not very funny. Next I have to select the Service Group for Todd-R-TOT-1. After looking over the computer approved list, I selected PLC, which has the glorious purpose to create and distribute items including food. Button, button, who’s got the button. Each character has two buttons for Violence and Treason that is observable. I looked at the ideas that was presented in the book and selected two that I think would make friend computer happy, because I want him to be happy as well. Sub-step 4 are items that will be assigned by the GM at the start of the mission (Team Name and MBD).

Step B according to friend computer is to set the skills and stats for Todd-R-TOT-1. Gun Skills is an automatic +2 to hit the fleeing Commie Mutant Traitor. However on sub-step six, I run into a problem. I tried to tell friend computer that I was creating the character by myself, but friend computer states that we should stick to the rules. Because without rules, everything would descend into chaos. So one player (me) picks a skill (not guns) and assigns a +1 to it, the player clockwise to them takes a -1 in that same skill. This continues clockwise until all players have a single +1 and -1 skill listed. I picked a skill for Todd-R-TOT-1 and then since I was clockwise to myself, I picked a different skill to be a -1. I think friend computer is happy with me? I didn’t get any additional traitor stars or zapped with a laser. Next another player (uh, me again) picks a skill and makes it a +2 and the character that is clockwise gets a -2 in the same skill. This will continue up to +5/-5. I randomly rolled 2d4 to come up with the rest of the skills to simulate a group of players at the table. Once this was done, friend computer said to generate the four stats of the character (Brains, Chutzpah, Mechanics and Violence) look at the skills under each category and give it a +1 for each positive skill.

We are being naughty for Step C and we focus on the other character sheet. Not that we would do anything like that to our friend computer. But when he’s not looking, we pick a Secret Society from the list. Any of them sound dastardly, and since there are twelve of them, I secretly rolled a d12 and let fate decide Todd-R-TOT-1’s Secret Society which is [REDACTED]. Todd-R-TOT-1 also has a mutant power according to a table of 15 choices. No, I did not make a random roll and I did not write down [REDACTED]. The next two sub-steps apply the Service Group skill modifiers then the Secret Society skill modifiers.

Friend computer is wise because Step D is titled “Finish Up Already” and provides the final details to write down on the character sheets. This includes Moxie, XP, and gear. Everything that I’ve been instructed to write down is now on the sheets. But if I scan them, then friend computer can see my naughty side. Ah, friend computer says that the user agreement confirms that my naughty side will remain hidden and not fed into the AI learning module by a large corporation. I trust friend computer and scanned the character sheets.

Afterthoughts:

I loved how the four sections of the public character sheet had different ways of displaying the part numbers. Little details like that made me smile.

After re-reading my 2022 entry for the 2nd edition of this game, I can see where I got frustrated. Here the only snag was trying to do this by myself. This sounds like a perfect pick-up game or a one-shot played at a convention. I’d love to play in one for this edition at a con (hint, hint).

Additional Notes:

In response to my blog entry for Worlds Without Number, Sharrow on RPGPub responded with this helpful information. “For what it’s worth, focus picks are from the foci list (foci being the plural). Also, your dude should have gotten three: One ‘Any’, one ‘warrior’, and one ‘expert’. ‘Warrior’ means any that the GM agrees should count for a warrior, and ‘Expert’ means any non-combat, pretty much. In my experience, Adventurers who are Expert/Warriors start very strong, but drop back compared to pure Warriors at fighting over time (the Warrior’s Killing Blow ability get really nasty, as it also applies to shock damage). I’m not sure how a pure Expert would compare, as Masterful Expertise doesn’t seem as strong as the Warrior’s two abilities.” So I did mess up on the character. Good to know.

To the person who ordered something from one of my DriveThruRPG sponsored links, thank you. The credits earned will be used to pick up games for future challenges.

Coming Up Next:

FTL Nomad

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

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 15: Worlds Without Number

Written by TardisCaptain

Day 15 of January is considered the middle of the challenge (since it’s the middle of the month). Today for the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m using Worlds Without Number. This is the fantasy version of Stars Without Number that I used in the 2025 challenge. Which interestingly enough, was also used in the middle of the month. For those of you who don’t know, this “worlds without…” series is based off of OSR systems. So those familiar with B/X, BECMI etc. will see things they are familiar with.

Out of the 400 page PDF, the summary of character creation can be found on page 6. Step one is rolling for the standard attributes (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA) using 3d6 and then assigning them where I want. I ended up with some pretty average rolls (9 through 14). Like SWN, I was informed that I could change one of the rolls to a 14 if I randomly rolled, of which I did. Step two is to add the attribute modifiers (my two 14s had +1, everything else nada).

Next comes the background of the character. This is what the character did before they became and adventurer. There is a chart I can pick from or (and you know what’s coming) I can roll a d20 to let fate decide. The die said Thug. Which isn’t exactly a Criminal (which was one of the options) but he could have been a ruffian, gang member or village bully. The last one I like for some reason. Probably because it would explain why he’s on the road after he was run out of town. The background starts off the character with a set of skills that I added to my notes (as per steps 3-5)

That leads us to step six, which is the class. There are four classes in this game, Expert (masters of non-combat skills), Mages and Warriors (both self explanatory) and Adventurers. The last one was listed for players who can’t quite decide or have a concept that mixes parts of the other classes. I think I’m going to go with this one. Partial warrior, partial expert as someone who was not quite a thief, but not quite a sword swinger. This gave me a chart to roll the character’s hit die, attack bonus and Focus picks. I was a little confused because I wondered if the Focus picks were the same as Foci (next step). Are focus picks like the class abilities? Gah, confusion abounds and I would have asked a GM at the time who was familiar with the game to make it clear.

Which leads us to step seven, Foci. These are the side talents or specializations that the character has. If I’m reading this correctly, I get two Foci since this character is a partial-expert. I selected Alert and Die Hard (bonus HP). Step eight had to deal with non-humans (of which he is not) and step nine gives me one extra skill to pick, which I did of Sneak-0. I skipped steps ten and eleven since they had to do with mages.

Step twelve is to roll the Hit Points (Hit + Con bonus + Die Hard bonus listed above) and thirteen is to note down the Base Attack Bonus (listed in the class).

Picking an equipment package is step fourteen and rolling the starting silver pieces the character has (3d6x10). 140SP and I selected the Roguish Wanderer package. This lead to the next several steps that included marking down the hit bonus with the weapons, damage done by them and armor class.

Step eighteen is the savings throws of which there are Physical, Evasion, Mental and Luck. There was a simple mathematical formula using 16 – level – ability mods (depending upon the save). I could see how this made it easy to mark every time the character raised a level.

The last step is a name and a goal. I hadn’t thought of a name yet so Jarret is his name and his goal is to make a big score of money so he could live where every he wanted after getting out (or was that run out?) of the podunk village he was living in. Here are the two pages of the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

I don’t recall being this confused when I made the Stars Without Number character last year. But for some reason the focus skills/foci stuff threw me for a loop. I was told to pick a warrior and expert focus skill, but the foci didn’t have the same.

I’d like to try this game once at the table just to see how some of the system works (especially the 2d6 skills system mentioned in the book). After I’ve had that chance, then I’d want to decide if I wanted to write or run this type of a game. There are already a lot of good fantasy RPGs out there.

Additional Notes:

Originally I was going to do Six-Shooters & Wagons for today. But when I finally had a chance to sit down and try to organize everything (print out the character sheet, take photos, etc.) there wasn’t a lot there. I still have it on my “possible” list, but this is where the change of approach this year came up short.

Coming Up Next:

Paranoia “Perfect Edition”

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

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 14: Worlds Beyond

Written by TardisCaptain

For Day 14 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m using a game that I had seen advertised in Dragon Magazine back when I had a subscription to it. It was one of those side-bar advertisements that looked interesting, but I never had the money to order. Well, thanks to this day and age of the legal purchases of PDF games, I was able to pick up the 1989 RPG Worlds Beyond by Precis Intermedia.
This game appears to be a sandbox sci-fi system that encourages the Gamemaster to borrow from SF sources such as The Foundation books, the Alien movies, The Stainless Steel Rat, Ice Pirates, Battlestar Galactica, Forbidden Planet, Starship Troopers and much more. It appeared to be in the same vein as Star Frontiers and Traveller.

So instead of making a character, for Worlds Beyond, you make a Citizen and fill out a Citizen Profile Sheet. The steps to generate one of these starts on page 5, but are listed as steps A through L.

In step A, I’m instructed to generate statistics for the adventurer by rolling 4D6 and discarding the lowest roll and then assigning the results to a stat. There is also an option of rolling 4D10+90 to generate a total number of points that can then be allocated. I’m not a fan of allocating in general character generation, so I’ll stick with the first method. The nine attributes are Intelligence (INT), Leadership (LDSHP), Sensitivity (SENS), Dexterity (DEX), Agility (AGL), Physical (PHY), Health (HE), Size (SZ), and Appearance (APP). Leadership appears to be like Charisma, and Sensitivity conveys the character’s observation skills. There is a good Statistic Measurement Table on page 8 which gives descriptions for the different levels present in each statistic. Illiterate intelligence, or Nimble Agility, etc. This would be good for homebrewing. I rolled the stats for the character.

Step B is to select the race of the Citizen. There are four available races presented in the book. Human (mostly harmless), Dolf (think religious Ferengi that look like lizards), Sher’tazi (Arrogant tall grasshopper hermaphrodites with multiple arms and legs) and the Swarr (A prideful humanoid cat race that lives in clans). Each race has its own max level for the attributes and some attribute adjustments. I selected Swarr since I’ve always liked cats.

Step C is the occupation of my Swarr character. I looked over the description of the race and there was one clan that hired out as mercenaries, so I selected Merk. The other occupation were Adexec (business bureaucrats), C-Tek (Computer techs), En-Tek (Engineers), Med-Tek (Doctors and scientists), Monitor (spies, assassins and bounty hunters), Spacer (pilots and smugglers) and Startraders (merchants).

The physical statistics are step D. The hit points, healing rate, etc. I followed the mathematical formulas presented in the book and wrote them down. It wasn’t mentioned (at least in the character creation section) if I should round up or down on the formulas, so I guessed it was rounding up.

Step E has us determining the agility skills such as movement, lift, throw, etc. More mathematical formulas are presented based upon the characters agility, dexterity and more. Once these are calculated, I’m also instructed to times the PHY score by four to gain some additional points that I can allocate to any of the agility skills.

For Steps F and G we are instructed to determine the maximum level for the character’s skills. We add the prime statistics for the character, then divide by four to get the average. This average is then multiplied by five to get 70% as the maximum skill scores. The associated skills start with a base from the INT score, so 13%. I have a 130 points to distribute to the associated skills. So, the skills that are not associated, do I get them at the formulas listed on the character sheet? I could have used an experienced GM here to ask. I think I got my skills in.

Combat skills are generated in Step H. There is also a max skill level on this as well which turned out to be 60%. The Merk is an expert in weapons and a master in the unarmed combat skill. I think I’m supposed to just choose the weapons (the rules were not very clear). I’ll pick some when I look at the equipment section later. I also calculated the Defense Factor.

Step I: Character age and life experience points. The older the character is, the more experienced they are. However the older characters start to lose statistics. To determine this, you can roll 4D10+30 or just pick an age 21 or older. This is where I’d probably talk with the GM to ask what type of campaign they were going to run. Since the voices in my head aren’t talking right now, I’m going to go with Inexperienced (age 21-40) and randomly pick 25. It was listed that the Swarr lifespan is 119 years. For every year past 21, I have 5% that I can add to any of the skills.

On Step J we pick three personality traits. These can be based upon descriptions found in the racial descriptions, or just chosen. I think I’d probably determine these during play. There is also a discussion on reputation, but not much on how it’s determined. Um, again determined during play since there is not much for a 25 year old character. Step K determines the character’s remaining luck. Add all of the prime statistics and that’s the luck base and then subtract half the character’s age from that number. This is a percentage number.

Now we are at the starting money and equipment for the last step (L) and I’m starting to lose a lot of steam. We roll a D4+2 to determine the number of digits in the bank account. Ok, that’s different. Next we roll a D10 five times and that’s the total in the bank. Really different, but my total is 41,554 credits. Then there is a list of starting equipment. So, do we get these already? I think so. I’m really reaching the end of my rope here.

Technically the character is done, but the book has a series of charts for the character origins. While they look interesting, I’m not going to go through them since I need to move on. Oh, a name? Yirr’baun was selected. I made sure everything was on the sheet from my notes and scanned the two pages.

Afterthoughts:

I can tell this is an older publication. There were signs that the editor should have gone through it once more before going to publication such as the “See character species profiles starting on page xx.” mistake. There was also a math issue when describing some of the skills from the attributes. The first one for INT, it was written that we use a x4 modifier to get the percentage score. But on the examples for the other attributes, they were all x3. So, which is it? Also there should have been a chapter describing the different skills. This still took quite some time to get the character done and I could tell I was losing steam at the end.

When describing the different occupations, I liked how the writer used examples from different movies and books. That is something that I’d probably do myself when writing a description.

The system is percentile with a roll the score or below. I understand this as FASA Star Trek was also percentile. When adding a little to this and a little to that on the skills I was also getting a flashback to creating a FASA Star Trek character. While I would probably enjoy this game, I doubt I’d ever get a chance to play or homebrew for it. I wonder how it would do if a second edition was ever released?

Additional Notes:

In response to my Tales from the Loop entry, I had a reader offer to run me through a one-shot. I’m seriously tempted by this just so I can learn more about the system.

Another response on the RPGGeek message board agreed with my Star Wars 2nd Edition comments about it being all over the place.

Coming Up Next:

Worlds Without Number

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

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 13: The Well

Written by TardisCaptain

For Day 13 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m using a game that I received in the Secret Satan (a play on Secret Santa) gift exchange that I had blogged about earlier. This is The Well Roleplaying Game by Shoeless Pete Games. I had never heard of it before I had opened the package and that’s what I loved. When asked what I wanted, I asked for some thing that I could use in the challenge. Past challenge entries that came this way included Mutant Crawl Classics, Teenagers from Outer Space and Fantasy Age 2nd Edition.

I had blogged about the system and the world that this game had been set in, so I’m going to jump right into character creation. Besides having a one-page character sheet, there was also a one-page creation checklist for your gravedigger (the character that you play in the game.

It’s not listed as first on the list, but at the top there is a section for the name of the character. I selected Barton the Bastard just because. There is a list of all the weapons and armor available and I’m instructed to select three of them. The weapons are broken down by 1-handed or 2-handed. I quickly read through the descriptions and picked Sword, Spear and Cuirass and Hauberk.

The Kit is the next item on the checklist and it’s the equipment the character has. Several items are already selected such as a bat, flint & steel, knife and torches. I’m allowed to pick five more items so Barton has bandages, booze, food for three days, 10 m of rope and a waterskin.

The book says history is next, but the checklist shows skills. I’m going to go with the Skills since it’s right there. I pick one for “you are better than most at…” (which I picked Awareness). There is also a section for Runes (the magic system in this game) but Barton isn’t smart enough to know how they are used.

Ok, now History. Before Barton was a gravedigger he was a… Vagabond. Besides being lower-class, I’m not certain what this gives the character. When you go up the well, what waits on your return? There is a list of possible options and I had difficulty choosing here. There were some I eliminated from consideration automatically, but I selected “a vicious rival” so that I could move on.

Contacts is next and I pick two of them. One Barton knows, the other he owes a favor to. The first is other Gravediggers who give him advice. He owes a favor to Criminals (perhaps this is where that vicious rival comes from?). On the Reputation, the checklist says “You have a reputation for…” and I selected Greed.

Next on the checklist comes the Self-Image. I’m instructed to pick three words that describes how Barton sees himself and his actions. I picked hard, observant and shifty. The last item was two Habits that Barton has. Well since I picked up booze in the kit, I’m going to say drinking and suspicion.

I think I transfer information to the sheet. The checklist states that the resilience is 10 and the asset points is 0. I noticed that there were several sections not filled in on the character sheet. Complications (which happens during game play) and Tasks in Progress. This last item I believe that the GM would let me know what to put here. I scanned both sheets so you could see them.

Afterthoughts:

Character creation was short and sweet, which I appreciated. I would have liked a little more information on what the history of the character provided (if anything). Like I said in my review, I wonder how this game plays at the table? I do like that the reason for humanity being in The Well and why the dead are rising back up is completely up to the GM. Some possible suggestions are given, but left vague.

Additional Notes:

While I had been re-posting their posts on BlueSky, I was unaware that Chant Evans had been posting his entries in the challenge on the Ex Stasis Games blog. I’ve added it to the links found at the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge page. If I’m missing any blog or message board, please let me know.

Coming Up Next:

Worlds Beyond

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

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Star Wars

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 12: Star Wars The Roleplaying Game 2nd Edition

Written by TardisCaptain

For my second dip into the Star Wars RPG pool, I’m using the Star Wars The Roleplaying Game 2nd Edition from West End Games. This is for Day 12 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge. Now I have played the 1st edition Star Wars RPG a lot back in the 80’s and 90’s. I even used the 1st edition in the 2021 Character Creation Challenge. Since I had a physical copy of 2nd edition, but never played it, I decided to use it here.

The Beginning Characters setup starts on page 7 of the hardbound book. The first item they recommend is talking with the GM and other players to make sure that you are creating a character fit for the campaign and party. They also recommend coming up with a character concept. I made a pilot for the 1st edition character, let’s make a bounty hunter in 2nd edition.

Next the book goes over the template (character sheet) starting with the name. Arcus Junn is a kewl name I plucked out of the air. The Template Type is next, but the book states that this is a couple of words that accurately describes who the character is. I’m not certain where this goes on the sheet. So I’ll come back to it. Player is where my name goes. I decided to go with Human on Junn’s species and he’s a male that is 28 years old. I randomly selected 6’0″ for his height and 200 lbs for his weight. I gave him blonde hair and brown eyes and decided that he would have a scar after a fight got him into the business. He is loyal to his friends, but obviously in this for the money.

There was also a spot for the objective of the character, I decided that his brother was killed by some bounty hunters, so he became a bounty hunter himself to see if he could track them down. The Quote is something that I really liked from the 1st edition and I’m glad to see that they continued it in this version. I selected “I get paid and I do the job.” Connection with other characters? I tried to ask them but the voices in my head didn’t respond. Usually they are much more talkative and I can’t get them to shut up. So I don’t know what the connection is.

Ah, we are finally to the Attributes. They are Dexterity, Knowledge, Mechanical, Perception, Strength and Technical. Now I’ve run into the first problem that I can see. I’m not told what to use here. In 1st edition I was instructed to find a template for the character type and use that. There are some in the back, but it’s an alien bounty hunter. Has the racial stats already been included in them? Searching the book I didn’t find anything else so I’m going to write down the info on the template I found on page 168. This also included the equipment listed.

I kept going through the details listed in the Basic Character and came up next to Skills. I’m instructed to spend 7D on the skills that I’d like Junn to have. I selected several skills that I thought a Bounty Hunter might find useful.

Next came information for Force-Sensitive characters, of which Junn is not. After that was Advanced Characters, which comes into play once we’ve earned some Character Points in play. So, I think I’m done? I recall the 1st edition being pretty simple. This was simple, but still confusing as it wasn’t spelled out very well. Here is the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

This was really my first deep dive into this edition. I’m really wondering if the writers thought “Yea, everyone will know the game from 1st edition and we’ll just give updates.”? It was a little frustrating not having actual steps and better guidelines. Come to think about it, I don’t recall anyone playing 2nd edition. When I participated in a one-shot last year, I believe it was just 1st edition.

While I have homebrewed and played 1st edition, I don’t really see myself doing any of that for 2nd edition. I’ll still pick SWRPG by WEG for my first choice to play in a galaxy far, far away. But it will probably be more of 1st edition with some cherry picking of 2nd if I see something that I like.

Additional Notes:

I had one participant in the 2026 Challenge tell me they were bowing out. Not because they couldn’t make 31 characters in 31 days. It was due to their RPG writing schedule. They had committed to writing several publications and the Character Creation Challenge and Dungeon 26 was taking up too much time. I applaud this because creating a product (that is for sale) should come first. If you would like to support this small-publisher, I’d recommend checking out her DriveThruRPG site here.

Coming Up Next:

The Well

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

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 11: Warhammer Fantasy 1st Edition

Written by TardisCaptain

Day 11 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge and I’m going to be using a game that was popular in the United Kingdom back in the day. Warhammer Fantasy Role Play 1st Edition which recently came up on sale at DriveThruRPG. Readers of my blog know that I had been scanning in and talking about older character sheets that I had recently re-discovered from a lost binder. One of those that I posted about was a WHFRPG character that I don’t recall ever playing. So at one point in my early gaming career, I did at least touch the system. It may have been a session zero to get the characters ready for a campaign that never happened. I remember seeing advertisements for WFRPG in different gaming magazines, but I never really looked at it since we all had Dungeons and Dragons to use. I had always associated Warhammer with the tabletop miniature games that were really popular. I did like the artwork that I saw in the advertisements.

From what I understand, this is a percentile based system. The summary for character creation starts on page 20. There are eleven steps in total. Each character has several characteristics (with the in-game abbreviation) which are Movement (M), Weapon Skill (WS), Ballistic Skill (BS), Strength (S), Toughness (T), Wounds (W), Initiative (I), Attacks (A), Dexterity (Dex), Leadership (Ld), Intelligence (Int), Cool (Cl), Will Power (WP and Fellowship (Fel). Will Power deals with mental and magical resistance, Cool is the ability to remain calm and Fellowship is the social skills and appearance of the character. The other Characteristics are the standard that we find in different RPGs.

The first step is to select the character’s race, gender and name. The four racial choices are Human, Elf, Dwarf and Halfling. I’m going to stick with Human for this male character and his name is going to be Teowulf. The second step is to generate the characteristics stats based off of a chart listed. Each race had a different column, some with simple responses, others with different used dice. I rolled the different dice listed under the “Man” column and wrote them down on the character sheet in the Starter Profile. I then wrote down the racial abilities for Teowulf. For age you had to determine if he was young or old. If ye was young, roll 6d6 and if he was old roll 6d10. He is young and is 20 years old.

The Alignment is next and I’m sticking with Neutral. Next comes Fate which for a Human is d3+1 so 2 is what I rolled. And fate must have been looking at this character since he didn’t have a high enough WS to be a Warrior, but he did have a high enough BS to be a Ranger. So Teowulf is a Ranger.

Next comes the Skills that Teowulf has. Being aged 20 he doesn’t get to add to the d4 to determine how many skills he has. Luckily I rolled a 3. There are no automatic skills for being a Human. But I do get to roll randomly on the Human/Ranger skill chart to see what skills he has. This came up with Sing (what?), Very Resilient and Ambidextrous. OK, the last two I can see how they would help, but I wasn’t expecting Teowulf to be skilled in singing. But I’ll run with it.

Now the Trappings are the equipment and money that Teowulf had acquired before he started the adventure. I looked at what was listed for Rangers and I wrote it down on the sheet. I rolled 13 gold crowns in his purse.

I don’t know why this was separate from the skills step, but next is to roll against the Human/Ranger Basic Career Chart. Another percentile roll resulted in Teowulf also being a Hunter. That makes sense. I checked the Hunter description and wrote down the additional characteristics, skills and trappings he now has.

Step eleven is The Free Advance. The book explains that since adventurers are a cut above the normal population, this extra stuff helps them as heroes in the story. I can add +1 to S, T or W or any other by +10%. Since I can see Teowulf being one of the possible front line fighters, I elected to up his Weapons Skill.

Technically this is where the summary ends. There were still quite a few blank spots left on the character sheet. I elected to look at the skills, weapons and fill in some spots that needed them (description stuff mostly) and called it good.

Afterthoughts:

I had to snigger when I saw there was a BS skill, but it didn’t mean what BS usually stands for. I don’t know if they were trying to go for a different look, but I think that using three letter abbreviations would have helped me keep track of the different characteristics.

While I had a little bit more of an understanding for the character sheet that I scanned from my book, I really don’t see myself playing this game. I don’t know anyone who plays WHFRPG and I have other fantasy systems to scratch that itch.

Additional Notes:

On the Modiphius Discord Server, Michael Dismuke (who runs the STA fan website Continuing Missions) liked my entry for Star Trek Adventures- Captain’s Log. He thanked me for showing of the system.

On Mastodon, @SaltyMonk@mastodon.online also responded to my my Captain’s Log character. He remembers making a similar mistake to the ones that I had made when he first make a CL character.

Coming Up Next:

Star Wars Roleplaying Game 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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Science Fiction

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 10: Tales from the Loop

Written by TardisCaptain

Day 10 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge and we are looking at Tales from The Loop: Roleplaying in the ’80s that never was. I was able to pick this book up as one of my thank you gifts from GMing at SaltCON. Three of the games that I’m using for this year’s challenge came from volunteering or connections at that convention. So, thank you to all of those involved and to the contacts that I’ve made.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Tales from the Loop, it’s based off a series of sci-fi paintings done by Swedish artist Simon Stalenhag. These paintings showed life in an alternate timeline 1980’s where robots and weird science was prevalent (usually with lots of kids watching them, hence this is a game about kids in this alternate timeline). These paintings were then put into a book, and eventually the RPG and even a TV series on Amazon. When I had a choice of which RPG book to take as a reward, the allure of gaming in the 80’s appealed to me. This is also one of the many Free League games that I’m using in this year’s challenge. Previously I had created a character for Twilight: 2000 4th Edition.

The hardbound RPG book is published by Free League that also publishes Alien, The One Ring and more. It has 191 pages and was written by Nils Hintze and uses something called the Zero Game Engine. I believe this is the same one that I’ve played when I had a chance to sit at an Alien one-shot at SaltCON. On page 49 it talks about the character creation process where the player makes a Kid. There are fifteen steps in total with the last two done with the group playing at the table.

Step one, selecting the Type of Kid you are playing. This is the class of the character. The options are Bookworm, Computer Geek, Hick, Jock, Popular Kid, Rocker, Troublemaker and Weirdo. Something tells me that I’m going to base most of this character on me in the 80’s. I wasn’t popular, or a jock (not without trying) or a hick. I wasn’t wild enough to be a rocker (but I loved the music). Of the remaining, I think that Computer Geek probably fit the younger me the most. Each Type has a set of key skills and I get to choose something for the following categories. Iconic Item, Problems, Drive, Pride, Relationships to Other Kids, Relationships to NPCs, Anchor and Name. There were examples listed for these categories that I could choose from or come up with something on my own. I wrote down my choices on my notes.

Selecting the age is step two. The book recommends between 10 and 15. I went with the age of 14. I’m also instructed to select my birth-date, so I selected a random one. A few sentences down I discovered that once the character turns 16, they are no longer a Kid within the game and are out.

Step three and we are at the Attributes. There are four of them that include Body, Tech, Heart and Mind and will have a score between 1-5. These represent the number of dice you roll when using the attribute. The number of points to spend per attribute is the character’s age. Every year on their birthday, they get one more point to allocate until they reach the “out-of-game” age of 16. I wonder why 16 is this cut-off age? I could see 17 or definitely 18, but 16? Oh well.

The next step is determining how many luck points the character has. Take the character’s age away from 15 for the total. So in this case he has 1 luck point. Apparently because the older kids are better with their attributes they don’t need the luck as much as the younger kids. When he turns 15, he will have zero luck points.

Skills is next on the list to create the character. “You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills… Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.” OK, that’s just a quote from Napoleon Dynamite. But it was the first thing that popped into my head when I started reading next item. Each attribute has three skills (some were already listed when I selected the type) and can have a score between 0-5. If the skill can be helpful when I’m rolling the dice vs Trouble, I can add the number of dice listed in the score. I have ten points to allocate between skills. The key skills can have up to 3 points allocated, with other skills capped at a maximum of 1.

The next series of steps I’ve already completed when I selected the character’s type. The Iconic Item (step 6) is the computer. The Problem (step 7) is “The tough guys hit me.” The Drive (step 8) is “I love solving puzzles.” And the Pride (step 9) is “I think I can do anything.”

Steps 10 is about relationships that the character has. With the other characters in the party I selected “We are best friends.” Obviously this step would need to be talked about within the group of players (just in case someone wants to have their characters be siblings). The second one is relationships with NPCs. It had some examples in the book that I wrote down, but as I’m reading the later section on this, it really should be done with the GM who has set up the NPCs. But some of the examples included “The strange scientist, Diane Petersen, is my aunt, but that doesn’t mean I like her.” or “My friend Leeanne told me that strange creatures have moved into the Cooling Towers. She thinks they are aliens.”

On step 11 I get to decide who the character’s Anchor is. this is someone that you can go for support, comfort and care that’s not another kid. I picked one of the examples for simplicity and selected the character’s father. And apparently I’ve already completed step 12 earlier when I came up with the character’s name. I altered my name slightly since this is an alternate 80’s world. Kirk Stark. For the description (Step 13) I’ll probably describe my geeky 80’s self. The last step before the group decisions is “Pick the character’s favorite song.” Ah man, how do I pick just one song. I bounced between “Our House” by Madness, “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” by The Eurythmics before selecting “Mr. Roboto” by Styx.

The last two steps need the GM and other players to complete. So I won’t go too deep into them here but they consist of “Where is the Hideout for you and your friends?” and a series of questions that the GM will ask both the Kids and the group. These seem to be mostly background information on the character and team. Having reached this stage, I transferred my notes to the character sheet and scanned it below.

Afterthoughts:

I was getting a Stranger Things vibe while making the character. I could very easily see someone homebrewing this series using Tales from the Loop. They even talk about the characters playing RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons or Star Frontiers in the Tales of the Loop core rulebook.

I also liked the step of having a favorite song. I know that the radio and MTV provided a large portion of the soundtrack to my life while growing up. It made this kid seem more real as a character.

I almost forgot to finish the description of the RPG system. You set up a dice pool using attributes, skills and equipment. You roll that many dice trying to get at least one of them to come up with one six (for normal difficulty) or higher for tougher tasks. Like Star Trek Adventures, if you roll more successes than you need, you can “Buy Effects” which can the scene in the game. It looks interesting. I wonder if I’ll get a chance to play a one-shot at a convention in the future?

Additional Notes:

I had several readers from discord and message boards send me a wink since they got the special name of the character that I created for Rebel Scum. Glad to see you guys got it.

While re-reading my entry for Star Trek Adventures- Captain’s Log, I noticed that I had screwed up in other areas. I had an extra value in the description, but didn’t write it down on the sheet. So the sheet is good, but my notes are bad.

Coming Up Next:

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition

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

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

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 9: Star Trek Adventures Captain’s Log

Written by TardisCaptain

On day 9 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m going to use a Star Trek RPG that I haven’t looked at yet. Star Trek Adventures- Captain’s Log by Modiphius. This is a solo RPG book from the makers of Star Trek Adventures. This is actually my first time looking through the PDF, I can see why another STA fan I know liked it. Lots of random charts that could be used in different ways.

Since this book came out before STA2e, is it more like Star Trek Adventures 1st Edition? From what I’ve heard, it’s more slimmed down than STA1e. So let’s take a look at the character creation process that starts on page 91. I’m going to use the Lifepath method for this character.

So the same attributes and disciplines are present in Captain’s Log as they are in STA1e. Control, Daring, Fitness, Insight, Presence and Reason (I explain these a little bit more (using D&D terms) in my STA2e character creation) for the attributes. Command, Conn, Security, Engineering, Science and Medicine for the character’s disciplines. I’ve always liked these in the STA style games because we’ve seen Starfleet officers perform duties outside of their department when the needs arise. I get a starting score of 7 for each attribute and 1 for each discipline. Step one is to select the species for this character. There are die rolls to create a random character which I’m going to use. First, is the era, which came up TNG. Scrolling down to the TNG list, I rolled a Kazon. Wow, I wasn’t expecting that, but let’s roll with it and added the attribute adjustments for the character.

Next step is the Environment, or where the character was raised. I rolled an Isolated Colony. Perhaps this Kazon isn’t like the others? This gave the character his first value which I picked “If I need it, I can do it.” I also picked the attribute and discipline increase from the suggestions for the setting. Also part of this step is the condition which ranged from utopian to total war. Another random roll resulted in Asceticism and Introspection or a simple life not by lack but by choice. What type of Kazon colony was this? Probably one of the factions that fled instead of trying to fight the stronger ones. They must have found a place overlooked by the other factions and tried to keep things simple as to not attract attention to themselves. This also resulted in another value for the character “Keep is simple”, another attribute and discipline increase.

Now we are onto Step Three, the early outlook of the character. How they were raised and educated before they became the person on the character sheet. The random roll for Upbringing resulted in Diplomacy and Politics. Perhaps this character’s parents were the leaders of the faction that founded the isolated colony. Did he accept it or rebel against it? Odds = yes, evens = no. Yes, it is with the roll of a 7. I added the increase to the character’s attributes and disciplines to my notes and selected his first Focus (specialty skill). I picked one that I thought a Kazon might need in a cutthroat political environment. Aspirations is the next sub-step in Step Three. What drives the character. Wait, I read this wrong. I pick one of three options, so I don’t use aspirations since I already used Upbringing (that’s what I get for thinking this was just an off-shoot of STA1e). I’ve already rolled so I’m not going back to change anything. Just to make sure I didn’t screw up, I went back and looked again at Step Two. After the re-read it looks like I did that right. Gah, I’ve got to make sure I’m clear on the steps before proceeding.

Step Four is the Education of the character. Checking to see if I have one path or multiple paths here. There are multiple paths here but there is a random table on which I rolled Diplomatic Training (this is a weird Kazon) which only has two tracks. Diplomatic Corps or Honorary Status, of which I rolled the later. It says that the character had an illustrious career (in doing what?) and was named a diplomat. The parents ran the colony administration as a family business of which the character participated in. When they passed on, the oldest sibling took over the colony, but didn’t want the character around for one reason or another (perhaps this is a plot point for something in the future) so he was sent off to be a representative to another colony. Yea, that’s the ticket. I added the Value of “I’ll take on the burden so my colony doesn’t.” I also added the Attributes, Disciplines and Focuses.

The Career Length is Step Five. There is another random table that I’ll stick with since the randomness has been interesting so far. Is this character a Novice, Experienced or a Veteran, and the d20 says Experienced. Several years in the political game apparently. This results in a Value of which I picked “Planning can help you with the unexpected.”

Step Six gives us two Career Events that has happened to the character. These pivotal moments will give us some additional stats for the sheet. The first randomly rolled event was Lauded by Another Culture. He earned some praise from a non-allied culture and are now considered a friend to them. Talaxians, the are Talaxians in the same neighborhood of space as the Kazon, so he did something that impressed them? What was it? Heck if I know. I think I’ll leave that for a possible flashback scenario. But he now knows some Talaxian traders very well who will help him out. I added the increase to the Attribute and Discipline and gained the focus of Talaxian Culture (as per the book). The second random event was Special Commendation. Again, weird for a Kazon. Sticking with the aliens of the region, a Trabe attack on a Kazon Maje from another sect resulted in the ship being severely damaged and the Character’s survival skills helped save the Maje’s life. However the Trabe despise the Character now. Added again to the three items listed above with the focus being more generic.

The last step includes the Finishing Touches. We get to add one more Value of which I picked “Never trust the Trabe.” I also get to increase two Attributes and two Disciplines by 1. Checking to make sure I had everything the book instructs me to make sure my Attributes all added together come up to 56. And somehow I had one extra, so I’ll just knock one down. Added together all of the Disciplines should total 16, and again I had one extra (where did I screw up at?) so I knocked one down. I was correct on the four Values, but I was short by two focuses (again I don’t know where I screwed up at) so I went back and added the missing two at random. Next came the Assignment and it listed a bunch of Starfleet positions. I don’t know if the civilian positions were overlooked or what, so I just put down Diplomat/Spy. There is no rank for civilians.

I think I’m also supposed to put together the stats for a starship. But considering the lack of time I have right now, I’ll skip this part and come back to it. Especially since he’s not on a Starfleet ship. I dubbed this character Valltex of the Kazon-Pikaar and transferred my notes to the character sheet. While I was adding things, I noticed there was a spot for equipment, so I just jotted down some simple items.

Afterthoughts:

I had actually picked up the PDF on DriveThruRPG with the credits that I had earned there so I could use it in a challenge, but I’ve always had another ST game to use. Well this year I decided that I wasn’t going to wait and for the first time I’ve looked at this book. Why? Well I’m not big on solo roleplaying. Table top gaming has always been a social activity for me. Getting together with friends, eating bad food and telling jokes as we threw the dice. Eventually I’m going to get the dead-tree version of this book, and I was thinking that I was going to use it then. But something told me to make one now, and perhaps it’s because I need to buckle up and try a few different solo games. If I do for Captain’s Log, I’ll make a real Starfleet character.

With my Star Trek RPG focus being on STA2e, I don’t know if I’d do any homebrewing for Captain’s Log. Perhaps I’ll change my mind after I’ve had a chance to go through a solo session or two. I did see how there were some differences from STA1e and building blocks to STA2e.

Additional Notes:

By following the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge on Mastodon, I was able to find another blog participating in the challenge. I’ve added Esoteric Renaissance to the list. If I’m missing anyone, please send me the URL.

Coming Up Next:

Tales from the Loop

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

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 8: Rebel Scum 2nd Edition

Written by TardisCaptain

Day 8 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge and I’m going to use another roleplaying game that was gifted to me. For those of you who have read my past challenge entries, I had a last minute substitution last year adding the Red Dwarf The Roleplaying Game after my good friends gave it to me. So thank you again to Rich and Evelyn who gifted me a physical copy of Rebel Scum 2nd Edition The Antifacist Space Opera Roleplaying Game. As you can probably guess, it’s a Star Wars inspired game with the serial numbers filed off from 9th Level Games. It says “powered by polymorph” at the bottom that I’m not familiar with.

The physical book is an A5 sized publication with 79 pages and was published in 2025. The cover looks like an action figure on a card. A lot of the art on the inside look like action figures, trading cards or comic book covers. The character sheet itself is called an “action figure card back” and is one page. The player always rolls the dice (doing something or responding to something) and the die can explode a its highest number. The rules to create your rebel start on page 40.

First choose a class. Because this determines which card back character sheet that is used (and I had to print one out for the photo listed above) I had already selected The Robot. I could have also picked Renegade, Revolutionary, Rogue or Ronin (aka Jedi). It just hit me that all of these start with the letter R. Weird.

Next I pick a name. This robot shall be called Lifter THX1138. He was a worker droid who was originally assigned to work in a factory and was ordered by some bad guys to kill some civilians just for the hell of it. When he refused, they tried to dismantle him so he went on the run. And its role (the next step) is The Tank, which I think gets a D10. I’m not certain. These instructions are not written out very well.

Shining Star is the next item on the list. This appears to be the thing your character is best at. And it appears to already be on the action figure card back.

Each character stars with two Edges that are listed under the class. It looks like I just mark them on the sheet. They only gave a description for some of the edges later in the book. I really wish that they had been more complete. Sure, some sound self-explanatory, but that’s open to interpretation.

The only other thing listed in the creation list is the Bonds that the character makes with the other characters, but that’s only after the session has been completed. So, I think I’m done? Yea, I’m done. Here’s the sheet.

Afterthoughts:

I love Star Wars. I love roleplaying games that try to emulate the feel of different shows out there. I’ve seen games for fans of Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, Cowboy Bebop and others where the serial numbers have been filed off. But I wasn’t really impressed with this book. Sure there’s a lot of back ground is presented here. But a core RPG book needs to explain the system. It needs to answer the questions about how to play the game. It almost seemed like the system was just barely presented. I was impressed with the artwork and the filing of serial numbers in the universe. And I agree with Indiana Jones who said “Nazis? I hate these guys.” But this book didn’t inspire me to want to try to get some friends together and play like the above examples I just linked to. I’ve got plenty of other RPG options to use if I want to play in a galaxy far, far away.

Additional Notes:

On the RPGGeek message board I received a response to the White Lies 3rd Edition entry. Davwj commented “I also got a copy of this and like yourself am quite impressed. Love the new artwork, plus the new ‘Rookie Assignment’ section is another nice addition (including the very Traveller-ish possibility of permanently benching your agent before they’ve even started )” Thanks for the feedback.

Coming Up Next:

Star Trek Adventures- Captain’s Log

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.

Back to Top