Last year in the Character Creation Challenge I had my first opportunity to create a character for the very popular Classic Traveller system. The post generated a lot of traffic and some feedback from fans of that system. During the rest of the year, I catch various sales on DriveThruRPG and one of those sales landed me the Cepheus Deluxe Enhanced Edition from Stelagama Publishing.
What is the difference between Cepheus and Traveller? Traveller is the original game and Cepheus is based off of the System Reference Document (SRD), so essentially a re-write of the rules for some clarification and house-rule additions. It’s kind of like how there is the original B/X Dungeons and Dragons and Basic Fantasy RPG. As I was doing some research on the differences, I came across Timothy S. Brannan’s excellent blog The Other Side where he had recently talked about this very subject.
So on page 9 of the rules it starts talking about the character creation process, but the actual steps start on page 12. Instead of rolling your characteristics, assign these scores to one of the six. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. The characteristics are still the same as they are in Traveller. Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence (now abbreviated as INT), Education and Social Standing. I wrote down my selection (and their dice modifiers) on character generation worksheet.
This is a game of skills. Before you started your career at the age of 18 you learned a single skill. I was instructed to select a homeworld and choose one of the skills available from that list. My guy would have grown up on a high-tech core world and learned about computers. This leads us to step three where the character goes through a career. I decided to make this character a scout (I didn’t see anything that was randomly rolled). I elected to increase my Education characteristic and add a skill rank in Survival. I rolled on the career event table and it instructed me to roll a life event. This resulted in a new romantic relationship which generated a contact. Hmm. Interesting. So no mustering out at the end of the first term so the character gains four years to the age of 22.
OK, second term. Two more skills increased and another life event rolled on the career event. My character ended up with cybersurgery getting cr5000 of commonplace cybernetics. I selected a cybernetic eye. Nothing I read stated that the career was done, so I added four more years and went to the third term. Added two more skills and on the career events I rolled up the discovery a new world which got me an extra skill (+1 END) and an extra benefit roll on mustering out. On to the fourth term. One more skills advanced. For the career event I rolled a rescue mission. I had to make a skill roll to see what happened. Failed to rescue, so I gained an enemy. Interesting. Next the 5th with 2 more skills and a career event roll. Another life event which resulted in the character studying and gaining +1 EDU. I’m supposed to roll an aging effect since I’m 34. But I don’t understand the table. It goes from 1 to -6, what am I rolling against?) It says see page 37, but that has nothing on it for aging. Ugh, not a good sign for this system. Do I go onto Term 6 at age 38? I guess I do. One more skills and a career roll. Deep space travel which resulted gaining a skill. Another aging effect in which I still don’t know what to do. Nothing said to stop so 7th and final term on the worksheet. The scout chart shows a bonus skill for science +1. Added a skill and rolled the career chart, exemplary service, gain a DM+1 on one benefit roll.
Ok muster out is where you leave your career and gain stuff before the adventure begins. I see the chart with the scout, but do I gain all of this? The Mustering Out benefits on page 30 were vague. Again I wonder if this book is meant to be used with another set of books? I don’t recall Traveller being this clunky in the character creation. I could have used a good GM helping me along with this character. I just wrote down what I had and put the final character sheet in the scanner.
Afterthoughts:
Was it fate? Today as I was writing up my character, Stellagama Publishing sent me a message that the hardbound POD of Cepheus Deluxe was now available on DriveThruRPG. Veeerrryyyy innnteresting.
I really liked that there was a character creation worksheet for Cepheus Deluxe. When I re-read my Classic Traveller entry in the 2022 Character Creation Challenge, I had commented that I would have created my own worksheet if I was planning to run some people through the character creation process. However the worksheet still had some mistakes on it (when referencing page number for example) which caused some confusion. When I tried to just look at the book, they had charts listed with little definition. For example on page 14 there was a Skills Package chart based upon the campaign style (good idea) but do I automatically get those skills? Or are the skill listed added to the skills list provided with each class? The charts with the class (as well as the master character generation table) mention adding to the characteristics, but it is not listed in the steps. I wonder if this document was written for players already familiar with the Traveller system? The worksheet needs a re-work. I know this character isn’t play ready, but I was frustrated by the time I got to this point.
The system itself sounds pretty straightforward. Roll 2d6 an add bonuses/skills to beat a target number. I’d love to play a session or two to see how this works at the table.
Additional Notes:
So far no feedback on the John Carter of Mars post I made on the Modiphus discord channel. However I did receive another email with a blog participating in the #CharacterCreationChallenge. I’ve added it to the links site on the CCC page.
Coming Up Next:
When The Moon Hangs Low
This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server.
So how I obtained the core rulebook for John Carter of Mars: Adventures on the Dying World of Barsoom was interesting. On the RPG.net forums there is a thread titled “Swap Your Unwanted RPGs (v3)” and someone was looking for the D20 version of the Judge Dread RPG. As much as I had fun creating a character for Judge Dread and thought that the JD world would be interesting to role-play in, the chances of actually playing was very low. So I reached out to the poster and several rounds of negotiation later, I sent him all of my Dread RPG books and he sent me three core books that will be used in the 2023 Character Creation Challenge. John Carter of Mars was one of them, the other two will be announced later (but you may have seen the covers on the 2023 Prepping for the Character Creation Challenge blog post).
John Carter of Mars is published by Modiphius Entertainment, the same company that released other games that I’ve used in past Character Creation Challenges. This includes Star Trek Adventures, Dune: Adventures in the Imperium and Star Trek Adventures: The Klingon Empire. So I’m a little familiar with the 2d20 system. The John Carter of Mars core rulebook was released after the Star Trek Adventures core rulebook, so I don’t know how the character creation instructions will come across. I don’t think I’ll have a problem reading the book from what I saw when I glanced through it. Other than that, I haven’t really dived into the rules until now saving my first impressions for this blog post. I’ve got a character sheet printed so let’s give this a shot.
The spine of the book is printed on the short side, which would normally be the top or bottom of another book. But they do give us an attached bookmark ribbon, so that will be helpful. The character creation rules start on page 11. The first step is to select a general concept. The book lists several suggestions that are inspired by the source material. I could create my own, but being unfamiliar with the bulk of the source material, I selected one of these. The idea of an Adventuring Scientist attempting to find lost technologies and create new discoveries sounded intriguing.
Next I am instructed to generate the six attributes. These are Cunning (used for attacks, insults or theft), Daring (used for movement, defensive actions and piloting), Empathy (used for healing and understanding), Might (strength basically), Passion (a form of charisma and leadership) and Reason (using your mind and senses to figure things out). In Star Trek Adventures, you have Attributes and Disciplines that are used together in the 2d20 system. With John Carter of Mars, you select two attributes to work together (For example: use the Cunning + Might attributes to break down a door). So this is slight different than what I’ve seen in Dune and STA. Each attribute starts with 4 points in each category.
Then I select a race. After reading the descriptions, I elected to go with a Red Martian. I added the attribute modifiers and the racial knowledge details. Next came the Archetype (think the character’s class) which was Scientist for my guy. Not only did I add the attributes and the knowledge, but I got to select my first Talent (a specialization, natural skill or some power in something) and I selected Wealth of Knowledge (grade 1)
For our next step, we selected a descriptor. This is a single word that describes the character. Each descriptor adds some points to an attribute. There are fifteen different options from Bold to Driven to Savage etc. Thinking about my scientist, he is Driven because he believes that a lost Martian technology could have saved his father’s life. So I selected Driven and added the attribute bonuses. The character already received one talent when selecting an Archetype, but now we can select five grades (levels?) of talents that would logically fit the character. According to the chapter on talents, I can select what is listed or design my own. I’m not comfortable enough to design my own (perhaps if I had an experienced GM helping me) but I’m confused by the grades. Do I select a single grade 5 talent, or can I mix and match to make a total of 5? Most of the talents were connected to combat. I didn’t really see this character as a “jump in with weapons slashing” type of guy. I’m sure that an experienced GM would have helped here (and when I post this character on the JCoM Discord page, I don’t doubt that someone will answer my questions).
Step seven covers the character’s starting Renown and Equipment. Since this character is from Barsoom, he would have some sort of reputation with society so he starts with 10. With the core equipment, this is something that the character will always have available to them. The equipment section was… interesting. Looking at the sample characters, I decided that this scientist has a dagger that he keeps hidden on him at all times. After being attacked unexpectedly one time, he decided not to be caught unprepared again.
Selecting a flaw is the next step. This makes sense since no one is perfect. The book describes flaws as “anti-talents”. The book really leaves this up to the character to decide. If I had a GM, I could have discussed options with them. But with the limited time that I have available, I looked at the sample characters again and found one that fit the concept I wanted to follow and altered it slightly. Curiosity killed the Banth. Lose 3 momentum when you fail to take an opportunity to explore a new scientific mystery, unknown location (which may hold a device you are looking for).
When I got to the last step, which is selecting a name and finalizing the concept and attributes (and seeing the sample characters listed) I started to wonder if I had missed adding some attribute scores along the way. The 2d20 characters tend to have a set total number when you add all of the attributes together. Looking back at step two, there were 2 attribute scores I could have randomly assigned. I added them and I think I now have a complete set. No, I only have a total of 32 where as all of the sample characters have a total of 36. I went back through the list on page 11 and even the walkthrough on page 29, but I was still missing something. So I just randomly assigned 4 points to my attributes. Experienced players, what did I miss? Anywho, I randomly created the name of Jakour Detha and wrote down his Stress and Afflictions numbers and placed the character sheets in the scanner.
Afterthoughts:
Outside of having seen a few films based off of the source material, I’m not extremely familiar with the world that Edgar Rice Burroughs created. Due to my families fandom of Dune and Star Trek, I was very familiar with the universes they came from. With Star Trek, I probably could have helped answer any trivial minutia that may have come up during the writing process (an offer that is open to them). But with JCoM, I would dive deeply into the background material if an opportunity to play in a campaign came up. On a quick challenge, I didn’t have a lot of time to go into the background information, but I knowing it is there is a plus for this book.
With the “What do you know”, “What you don’t know” and “What you can do” categories, I’d highly recommend using the back of the character sheet to list all of these down. The space provided on the standard character sheet lacks the room to hold them all.
When I first had to create a character for Star Trek Adventures, I had to use a fan-created character creation guide to make sure I had everything correct. I wonder if fans had to make one for the John Carter game as I clearly missed something. It was just a little frustrating.
So would I want to play this game? Well I think I could answer that after trying a session or two. I know that Dune and Star Trek Adventures sessions will be available at the upcoming SaltCon. If I find a John Carter game, I may see if I can try to get into it.
Additional Notes:
I was able to tinker with the scanner settings and scanned at a higher resolution (300 vs 200). I think the scans came out a little bit better when I posted them in the blog.
Still looking for more participants who are taking the #CharacterCreationChallenge. If you know of any, please let me know. Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com I am still getting the “What is this?” question as people are seeing my social media posts.
Coming Up Next:
Cepheus Deluxe
This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server.
I picked up Swashbuckling Adventures from an online auction last year. I was very familiar with the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 system and I loved the pirate genre. When I was prepping for the Character Creation Challenge last month, I noticed that there was no separate character sheet for Swashbuckling Adventures like there was for games like Prime Directive D20, Star Wars D20 or Judge Dread D20, so I ended up using a D&D 3.5 sheet. Like the Prime Directive and Judge Dread, it referred to the D&D 3.5 Players Handbook for basic concepts, but added on with campaign specific classes and items of their own.
So while the character creation rules are on page 6 of the 3.5 Player’s Handbook, the campaign book for Swashbuckling Adventures talks about Nationalities on page 5 with new character classes starting on page 13. In Swashbuckling Adventures all of the characters will be human, but what region are you from? From the descriptions the regions are heavily inspired by European countries all the way down to the Middle-East on a planet called Theah. The region you select determines some languages and class skills.
I looked at the new character classes listed in Swashbuckling Adventures. The Highwayman sounded interesting. So did the Inquisitor. But if I’m playing a game called Swashbuckling Adventures, I’m playing a Pirate class. The abilities that the pirate favored the most was strength, Dexterity and Constitution.
So I rolled the 4d6, dropped the lowest die and selected where each score would go to each of the standard attributes in 3.5. I ended up with the following for this character. STR 15, DEX 15, CON 14, INT 11, WIS 13, CHA 8. For the country/region that my character came from, I selected Avalon (think the British Isles).
As a pirate, the hit dice is d10 (I rolled a 4 and added +2 from my CON for 6). They also start with 3d4x10 for starting money (called Guilders instead of gold pieces). My character started with 200 G. I selected my skills and feats (primarily from the Swashbuckling Adventures book) and gathered my equipment. This character is ready.
Dirk Clarkson was originally going to be a sailor in the navy when his captain announced that they were going privateer. Clarkson discovered that he loved the Pirate life so much that when his vessel was sunk, he hooked up with a gang of pirates instead of returning to Avalon. He now looks to earn his share of the booty on the next adventure.
Afterthoughts:
If you’ve played any Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, then you know the score. It was interesting reading about the different kingdoms in the campaign setting book. They had some items very detailed while leaving others available for the GM to fill in as they saw fit. If an opportunity came up to play in this setting, I would jump at it.
Additional Notes:
The publisher for Low Fantasy Gaming responded to one of my social media posts with their game. It was kewl to see the interaction. When I posted the Tiny Spies character yesterday I received a request to do Tiny Wastelands. While I own that game, I don’t have it in the 2023 schedule. I’ll have to add it to the 2024 lineup.
I’m using a new scanner this year. So far, I haven’t been impressed with the scan quality. I’ll have to see if I can improve the scan for future posts.
Coming Up Next:
John Carter of Mars
This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server.
Last year during a sale on DriveThruRPG I picked up a copy of Tiny Dungeon 2nd Edition just in time for the 2022 Character Creation Challenge. So I used it and was pretty impressed with the system. Gallant Knight Games had released several “Tiny” RPG books covering different genres. When some of them went on sale last year, I picked them up as well allowing me to use another one for the 2023 challenge. So for day 4 I selected the espionage game, Tiny Spies.
The superspy creation rules start on page 16. The first to select the archetype of the character you are going to play. These are like character classes and consist of Agent (solo spy), Face (confidence man), Driver (vehicle expert), Hacker (tech expert) and Soldier (tough guy). Since I’m only creating one character instead of a team, I’m going to select Agent. This earns me 6 hit points and an additional trait (usually a character starts with three, but the agent is more well-rounded). Traits are specialties that your character is really good at. Being a superspy, I thought the character should have Agile Defense, Charismatic, Eidetic Memory and Perceptive. The next item to select is the weapons proficiency. Being someone who needs to blend in, I selected Light Ranged thinking he would be a marksman with a pistol that he could keep hidden under his jacket. There is a background trait that I need to select. This is the experience that the character learned before they became an agent. Out of the seven available, I selected Analyst. The character was good with putting two and two together which originally got him a job with a shipping company. This assisted him when he was recruited as an agent for UNITY. The last step was to select a Belief. This is a simple statement that is a core of your character. There were six examples listed and from those I selected “Someone Has To Do It.” I figured he had put some puzzle pieces together and realized that he had to help make sure that things didn’t get worse.
So that was all that was on the character creation steps. I came up with the name of Daniel Drake. Drake was a suave looking gentleman but very determined to accomplish his mission. The equipment section describes to the GM how they could handle the allocation of gear and vehicles to the agents. Since Drake is a member of UNITY, he would obtain his gear from the Santa and the Toymaker Division. I did write down a few sample items to help fill out the character sheet. I’m going to declare this character done.
Afterthoughts:
Just as Tiny Dunegeons was simplistic and rules light, Tiny Spies is the same. The system sounds pretty upfront and easy to learn. I’d love to run or participate in a couple of one-shots to see how the system really works out. Especially the interesting chase rules.
I could see myself homebrewing for this game.
Additional Notes:
I would like to thank everyone who has been linking back to my website. It’s not required, but very much appreciated. I’ve noticed a lot of participants no only on the message boards but on social media as well.
Please let me know if I’m missing a website on the Character Creation Challenge section of the website. If you are thinking of starting now, you can do so.
Coming Up Next:
Swashbuckling Adventures
This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server.
In late 2021 when I was checking the blogs that had participated in the 1st Character Creation Challenge, I came across a blog that I didn’t have on my list yet. One of the games he had used was Low Fantasy Gaming. His descriptions intrigued me enough that when DriveThruRPG had a sale on the game, I snatched it up. I wanted to use it for a future challenge.
Low Fantasy Gaming is an RPG system that borrows from various D&D clones with a little hint of Dungeon Crawl Classics. Spell casters and magic items are rare. Clerics are called Cultists and the Artificer is a class you can choose from. Yes, even rules for black powder weapons. Mega-monsters are also very rare as well. While Halflings, Dwarves and Elves are available as possible races, the bulk of the population in the game are human. Half-Orcs are called Half-Skorn.
Creating a character starts with the steps listed on page 9. There is an alternate option to create 3-4 random level zero characters, but I’m going to stick with a single 1st level character. The attributes presented in Low Fantasy Gaming are Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Perception, Willpower (mental toughness) and Charisma. Each character starts with one automatic 15 to use on an attribute. The remaining attributes are determined by rolling 4d6 and using the highest three. Once the six rolls have been made, the player selects which attribute gets which score. Using this method, I ended up with some pretty good scores with nothing over 15, so I could be just about anything. I’m sticking with human in the spirit of the game, so no racial adjustments and looking over the classes I selected Ranger. The final attribute scores are STR 14, DEX 15, CON 14, INT 13, WIL 12, PER 15 and CHA 9. There is also a luck score which is 10 + half the level rounded up. So starting the character gets 11. Lucks are used for both savings throws and luck checks (such as a second chance when your skill roll fails). Each time the character successfully uses luck, it gets reduced by one point and can be regained through rest. At first level, hit points are automatically at max for their class which is a philosophy I have used recently in a Basic Fantasy session. So my ranger has 9 HP to start.
The ranger starts out with three skills, Animal Lore, Wilderness Lore, Stealth. He can also choose three from a list of skills the class might use. I selected Apothecary (I figured he would know about the herbs used to treat illness while in the wilderness), Athletics (climbing trees) and Detection (spotting things while hunting). With my +1 INT modifier, I can select an additional language besides common so I selected Elvish. The rules also state at 1st level my ranger gets a beast companion between adventures (I didn’t choose something because I would have asked the GM to roleplay something out on this) and a special ability called Rangecraft. This provided a variety of one time effects that he could encounter while out in the wilderness or in combat.
The next item on the character creation list is to write up a background or randomly roll a party bond. The list was provided for quick and easy party cohesion. The rules recommended rolling a D20 twice and selecting and select the one that fits or sounds like fun. I’m up for rolling more dice. The first roll was to have the party members be bodyguards for some type of lord. The second was to have the party be the survivors of a mercenary company that was destroyed by bitter rivals. I liked the second one so I wrote that down.
3D6 x 10 for starting gold (had I been a fighter, it would have been 5D6 X 10) resulted in 120GP. I liked that the rules had gear rarity rules. I may use them in other fantasy style games. After looking at the gear packs listed in the equipment section, I selected the one for the ranger. Nothing too fancy with the weapons, a long sword, dagger and longbow. Since he needs to be stealthy in the wilderness he wears studded leather. I believe this character is ready.
Golarth was hired by the Hand of Dovar Mercenary Group as a scout. While returning from a scouting mission they discovered that the rival band, the Silver Blades, had attacked the camp. Golarth and his companions had managed to just barely escape downriver on a small boat. The party is now trying to make their fortune in the world while staying one step ahead of the Silver Blades.
Afterthoughts:
I could see this game being used to roleplay the Castlevania animated series that came out recently. I’ve also thought about a campaign where magic is rare and this might be the system for it. At a minimum, there are a lot of concept from this ruleset that I may steal for other games.
Additional Notes:
I had another participant send me an email with a link to their blog with their #CharacterCreationChallenge entries. I’ve added it to the Character Creation Challenge site. As more are discovered, I will continue to add them to the list.
Follow up to Star Frontiers from yesterday. When I had posted the character in a Star Frontiers fan discord server the other members provided me with some feedback. I had completed all of the steps (my weapons would have been provided by the company that hired me to be a troubleshooter) but I did misread one item. When selecting my starting skills, one of the skills must be from my chosen PSA and the other can be any skill. So the character I made yesterday would have been altered slightly before I used him in a game.
Coming Up Next:
Tiny Spies
This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server.
So when I posted my entry for Top Secret in the 2021 Character Creation Challenge, I talked about how my gaming buddies had copies of Star Frontiers and Top Secret, but for some reason, we never played either of them. So, just like with the post for Top Secret, I’m going to pretend it’s the 80’s and one of my friends has said “Let’s make characters for a Star Frontiers game that I’m going to run.”
Now there are two books in this hardback POD version. The basic game and the expanded game. As a new player, we would have started our characters in the basic game rules on page 4. I’ll jump over to the expanded rules after the character is made to see what else may be needed.
OK, we are using the percentile dice for this game. Each ability score will range from 1 to 100 with the higher number being better. The attributes appear to be linked in bases. So we have Strength/Stamina, Dexterity/Reaction Speed, Intuition/Logic (basically alertness and problem solving) and Personality/Leadership (yea, it’s charisma). There is also a listing for Initiative which is more of a modifier than an attribute. I roll percentiles and consult a chart to see where each base is from 30-70 and you roll in order. Before writing the results down, I wanted to select my race as there are modifiers. The four races in the core book are Humans (I have no idea who these guys are), Dralasites (short blob lifeforms that can stretch and have mechanical voiceboxes), Vrusk (Many legged insect looking lifeforms) and Yazirians (apes with leather wings between the arms and legs). They all sound cool, but I’m going to let the dice decide (my choice, this wasn’t in the rules). A random D4 latter resulted in this character being a Vrusk. With my adjusted stats I now have STR/STA 50, DEX/RS 45, INT/LOG 45 and PER/LDR 50. I divide the RS score by 10 and round up to get the initiative modifier, which is 5.
Next I select a name. K’likki sounds Vruskish (I only saw one Vrusk name in the start of the book) and that is where the basic rules end on character creation. However I see that on the next few pages are some other items that are listed on the character sheet such as movement information. So I add them to the sheet as well. The rest of the basic rules covers some equipment descriptions (employers provides), how to run combat and an intro adventure. I’m going to jump over to the expanded rules and take a glance at the character creation steps there.
OK, on page 4 of the expanded rules there is a more detailed list of steps. The first few in generating the ability scores and using the racial modifiers are the same. If this character had been human, I could have added 5 points to a single ability score (not base). I also had the option to move points around if I so desired. I’m going to keep my scores as I have them written down. I’m instructed to write down any racial abilities that my race has (Vrusk are Ambidextrous and a comprehension score of 15 percent, which appears to be a special skill). K’likki will be a male. And I get to roll for credits. d100+250 results in 277, but the rules states that I can buy the standard equipment pack for 250. I was going to find the equipment section, but the book (after showing good details on the races) showed the skills section. A starting character chooses their Primary Skill Area (Military, Technological and Biosocial). I’m not certain which one to take with the attributes that I have. As a starting character, I choose a PSA and then select two skills from that group. So I’m going to keep it simple and just choose military with Beam Weapons and Melee Weapons. Perhaps K’likki was the member of a security squad for his company that became disgraced and that is the reason he is out on his own adventuring. Also trying to find a way to clear his name. I think the character is done? From the rules-as-written I can see where the character creation system kind of sputtered out. I would have asked questions to an experienced GM when creating my character to make sure I had everything fleshed out. From what I understand by reading blogs from Star Frontier fans, the later books in the game helped smooth out some of these rough edges. I don’t have access to them for the challenge. I’m wondering if someone re-wrote the character creation steps to make sure everything was in one spot. Here is what I have for the character sheet.
Afterthoughts:
I liked the idea of using a Basic game to learn the ropes and an Expanded game for regular play. I think in the Expanded character creation steps it should have included information on how to obtain my character’s standard starting skills. I finally found the equipment section, but there was no way I could pick up anything with 27 credits (after buying my starting adventures pack).
I am a big fan of the d100 type system. I would love to see how the game actually plays at the table. Oh how I wish I could have lived in that alternate 1980’s. I don’t know if I’ll find someone running this game at the upcoming SaltCon, but perhaps I could find a game on Roll20 that would accept a newbie.
Additional Notes:
I was able to pick up this book in 2022 with the credit I earned from you guys clicking on my DriveThruRPG links and buying games. So thank you for helping me get a POD for this book. I wrote a review of the POD books that I have picked up from DTRPG. The next set of credits that I earn will go towards a game that I will use in the 2024 Character Creation Challenge.
So I’ve been able to update the large list of blogs and message boards participating in the 2023 Character Creation Challenge. This includes the first (to my knowledge) non-English website. If I don’t have your site listed yet, please email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com and I’ll add it. There are some new sites and some sites I recognize instantly. For those of you who have participated in all three years, thank you. For those of you who are new, welcome to the challenge.
Oh, if you are just finding out about the Character Creation Challenge now, you can still jump in. In the past a few participants hadn’t started until day 10 and they were able to catch up. Remember, this is just for fun.
Follow up to yesterday’s character from Alien. I mentioned that he looked like Ivan Draggo in combat fatigues and a reader on the RPG.net forums sent me this. Once I was able to pull it up, I thought it was perfect.
Coming Up Next:
Low Fantasy Gaming
This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server.
Hello readers and welcome to my first entry into the 2023 #CharacterCreationChallenge. Last year I used the first day to post about Dune: Adventures in the Imperium because of how much I’d love to play that game. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to at the upcoming SaltCon. Another game that I hope to play is Alien from Free League Publishing. I had the opportunity to meet the writer of the Alien RPG, Andrew E.G. Gaska at the 2022 FanX: The Salt Lake Comic Convention. He was able to explain a little of the game to me and he signed my book. So I wanted to use Alien for day 1 of the new challenge.
Meeting Andrew EC Gaska at FanX 2022.
OK, so let’s get down to making a character for this game. The character creation steps start on page 27. There are two types of play for this game. Cinematic (think one-shot, character has a good chance of dying by the end of the session) or Campaign Play (self-explanatory). I’m going to run with the assumption that this character will be for a campaign. I need to select a career for my character out of a choice of nine available. The choices are Colonial Marine, Colonial Marshal (oh, I wonder if the movie Outland could be an inspiration for something like this?), Company Agent, Kid, Medic, Officer (think CO of a mining vessel like the one we first saw in Alien), Pilot, Roughneck (worker) and Scientist. Since I told Mr. Gaska that my favorite movie of all time is Aliens, I know that I’ve got to make a Colonial Marine. I’m going with the name Jan Karlsson (plucked out of the air).
There are four attributes in Alien. Strength and Agility (both self-explanatory), Wits (this covers intelligence, sanity and perception) and finally Empathy (think Charisma and how you treat others). You get 14 points to spend over these attributes. Minimum of 2 with a max of 5 for the key attribute of your career (4 max on the others). For the Colonial Marine, my key attribute is Strength. I selected the following for Jan. Str 5, Agi 4 Wit 3 and Emp 2.
Now we spend some points in our skills. There are only twelve of them and they are tied with one of the attributes listed above. As a starting character, I can spend 10 points on any of the following (keeping in mind that my Colonial Marine has to have certain skills) with a max of 3. Close combat, Heavy Machinery or Stamina (under Strength), Ranged Combat, Mobility or Piloting (under Agility) Observation, Survival or Comtech (under Wits) and Command, Medical Aid and Manipulation (under empathy). As my character progresses, I can increase the skill numbers. Jan is not a leader, he’s a point and shoot guy who also wants to make sure he and his squad comes back. So I selected Ranged Combat-3, Close Combat- 2, Stamina- 2, Observation-1, Survival- 1 and Medical Aid- 1.
For a campaign, each player starts with one talent and can earn three more later. A talent in the Alien RPG is a trick, move or minor ability that gives Jan a small edge in something. Each career has a selection of three starting talents to choose from. Later, there is a selection of general talents that can also be used. For the Colonial Marine, I loved the idea of the Banter talent. It helps reduce stress levels between fights. Plus I love interacting with my fellow players at the game and making them laugh.
It wasn’t on the list on page 27, but in the descriptions following the next items are calculating your health and stress. Health is self-explanatory but if you reach zero (and don’t die) you can receive a critical injury. Stress is what your character feels under certain situations. The stress level can rise if you push a skill roll, perform certain actions (or lack of actions such as lack of sleep), etc. If stress gets too high and isn’t kept in check, your character can panic (which is bad). Starting health is based upon the Strength attribute (so Jan’s is 5) and stress at the start of the game is 0? (Flips back a few pages to the combat chapter) Yea it’s 0.
Next on the list is choose a name (done, see above), decide on your appearance (imagine Ivan Draggo from Rocky 4 in Colonial Marines fatigues) and select a personal agenda. From the looks of things, the personal agenda is something about your character that you want to fulfill, or want to keep secret. If you are playing a cinematic game, you earn story points if you complete an agenda item. In a campaign, you gain extra experience points. Since these can be anything I selected “Previous unit let a company man die because he was endangering the team. We kept the details a secret and want to keep it that way.” Since this is a campaign, I can select a buddy and a rival. The rules stated one or both could be another PC. Since I don’t have other PCs to decide on, I’m randomly picking my buddy to be Chester Williams, a marine I helped train and the rival is Miguel Rodriguez, a guy who claims to be an ex-company man, but Jan doesn’t really trust him.
With gear, there is more than just the stuff you have. You can also select a signature item and there are also consumables. From the Colonial Marine details what I felt was appropriate. Jan’s signature item is an old pocket knife that an ex-commander gave him before he died. I think I only track consumables (food, water, air, etc.) if we are off ship. So I’m leaving those sections blank right now. And hey I get to roll my first die while creating a character. Jan has $500 to start out to buy other equipment, of which I did that I thought was logical for a Colonial Marine. I think the character is done. Here is the sheet.
Afterthoughts:
There were only a couple of areas where it was a little confusing. Besides the physical book, the publisher also sent me a PDF copy. I was able to use that to do some quick searches for subjects like “cash” and others. The pages are black, but the majority of the text is in light boxes with a dark font. So it isn’t too hard on the eyes. I still haven’t had a chance to go through the entire book cover-to-cover, but I really hope to play this game at an upcoming convention. The log entries at the start of the book was drawing me into a story. I really want to see the system in action. With experience, I could easily create a character quickly. I wonder how much material that the publisher has pulled from the older Dark Horse Alien comics? I could see myself homebrewing some of those items.
Additional Notes:
I’ve been seeing submissions for the #CharacterCreationChallenge on the RPG.net forum and on social media using the hashtag. I’ve even been tagged on a few Mastodon posts. Several participants have emailed me links to their sites. So far there have been some interesting submissions. There was even a link to another message board on Board Game Geek that are participating in the challenge. I’m trying to get all of the links posted on the Character Creation Challenge page so that everyone can see them.
Update: The TardisCaptain dot com Discord is now ready and can be accessed by following this link.
Stack of character sheets printed out for the 2023 #CharacterCreationChallenge
So another year has come and gone. And I’m very happy to see it leave. While 2022 had some good things that happened, such as the opportunity to see a boat-load of musicians perform in live concerts, it also had some challenges as well. A lot of these challenges was related to health issues. Note to everyone, if you can avoid breaking bones, please do so. My little mishap turned a one-month project into a six-month project.
I’m not going to go into a huge list of what I did over the year while reading, watching, playing, etc. I’m going to try to give end-of-month reports talking about the geeky things that I accomplished that month.
Now off to the USS Ticonderoga New Years Eve party. Tomorrow I dive into the deep end of the pool with the Character Creation Challenge.
Oh, on January 1st I should be launching a new Discord server for feedback an interaction with readers of my blog. I figured this would be a better way to do interactions instead of having to make people try to log into another site and try to keep everything secure. Links posted soon.
So as I have mentioned in previous blog posts (Here and Here) that I had volunteered to put together and OSR one-shot in-person game for my college aged daughter and her friends. This group had been playing (mostly) together since junior high school and had only played 5th Edition. I elected to run with the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game using the core rulebook. I added on the 0 Level Spells and Magic User options supplements. During our online session zero, I had the players roll percentages and used the chart found the Background Skills supplement to give them a life before they started their apprenticeship with the Union of Adventurers and Explorers (aka The Adventurers Guild). I sent the players the BFRPG Character Sheet designed by James D. Jarvis (it had the page numbers on the sheet for the different sections, something that I thought was very helpful). For the game masters screen, I printed out the works of Scott Abraham and attached it to a Star Trek RPG Narrator’s screen from Decipher that I had in my collection. The map that inspired me was drawn by Tim Hardin and made available on his website.
In my preparation for the adventure, I decided to purchase a larger battle mat. The one I had used previously to help teach my nieces and nephews Dungeons and Dragons session was too small for the online map I had elected to use. When I read that the mat would only take marks from wet-erase markers, I purchased some of those as well. I also borrowed a case of figures from my friend, Jeff Sullivan, who was my Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 DM for years. This was also the first time I had an opportunity to play with the North to South dice that I had received earlier this year. In the same room was a TV that I had connected to the internet. Bringing up YouTube, I had it run the Diablo dungeon music (it was the only one that I could quickly find that was long enough for our session). I did have one of the players tell me that it added to the spookiness of the adventure.
I also wasn’t the only person preparing. Since this is the first time my daughter’s friends had gotten together in person for quite some time, my daughter wanted to make two recipes from Heroes’ Feast, the Official Dungeons and Dragons cookbook. She made the Mithral Hall Potato Leek Soup and Bytopian Shepherd’s Bread. While making the food, she discovered that the book was very well made as it survived her spilling a little bit of water on the page she was reading from. She wanted me to add that to my review. The players loved the soup and bread when we stopped to eat.
The view from behind the DMs screen
Overall the adventure went really well. I warned the players in session zero that, since this was a one-shot, I was going to railroad the party to the meat and potatoes of the session. I had named this adventure “The Ruined Temple of Glimri Orehaul.” The characters had to go into the catacombs below a destroyed dwarven temple to rescue the son of a dwarven noble and get him out before the orcs guarding the place discovered them (causing a diplomatic incident between the two kingdoms). I’ve had some readers ask me if I’ll “publish” the adventure. I’ve got my notes and some feedback from the players, but I think I may want to re-draw the map. The online one that I used was very good (and gave lots of options for the characters to get lost in) but is very, very large. The number of squares across the map was larger than the new mat I had purchased just for this session. As much as I tired to stay true to the map, I started cutting off sections just to make it fit. I had also written the adventure with some flexibility in mind. The clues (including some handouts) and where the son they needed to rescue could be placed in any number of rooms. This way I could allow the party to explore, but also keep within our limited time frame. I think this helped as I read some of the feedback from the players (see below). I had more plot items that never got fully explored but were hinted at during play. This caused one of the players to ask me at the end of the session to tell us what they missed (and they had missed a few things wandering to and fro). I took this as a good sign that they were interested in the adventure. There were a couple of items I would have loved to seen their reaction to while playing. I may have to run a second play-test when I complete a second draft of the adventure.
The Players: Note, all players are identified by their character name.
Chad McBuffman is a human fighter. The player has been enjoying RPGs for 4 years. The only other game she has previously played is D&D 5th edition. As the DM, I had to remind myself not to start blurting out MST3K “Big McLargeHuge” names from the riffing of Space Mutiny. But I loved the humor this player had.
Irisk Vannfu is a dwarven thief. The player has been enjoying RPGs for 7 years. Besides 5th edition she had also played D&D 3.5 and her first game was with the Decipher Star Trek RPG. She loved the fact that her character had been a cook before the adventure.
Sillari is an elf magic-user. The player has been enjoying RPGs for 9 years. She has previously played 3.5, 5th edition and something called Pokemon D&D. She had typed up her spell list with her cantrips and 1st level spells. She also made a sketch of her character.
Tryx Smolfollow is a halfling thief. The player has been enjoying RPGs for 4 years and has only played 5th edition prior to the Basic Fantasy one-shot we just played. The player had a ton of notes (before and during the game) for her one-shot character and drew several drawings of party members.
Zephyr Silversong is an elf cleric. The player has been enjoying RPGs for 6 years. She has also played 3.5 and 5th edition D&D. The player also came up with the name of the god her character worshiped, Azalea (uh-zay-lee-uh). She even provided an image of the holy symbol.
Player Questions:
I had asked the players in session zero if they would be willing to fill out a questionnaire after the game. I wanted to use the answers on this blog. Thankfully they agreed. They answered these questions without conferring with each other.
–Question: What did you think of the Basic Fantasy character creation system?
Chad: It felt limiting, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But one of my favorite parts of RPG’s is making all these fun fantasy characters, so I wasn’t a fan of that.
Irisk: I didn’t mind it! It made me choose something I might not have on my own. I really grow to like the guy I got.
Sillari: It was good! It was fairly straight forward and easy to understand. Thought I was confused on some mechanics just because I’m so used to 5e at this point.
Tryx: It was very interesting. It’s interesting what race and class you could play was limited by your dice rolls. Also interesting that you had to roll them in order rather than picking and choosing what stat goes where. Normally I think of a character idea and have my stats, class and race match that. For this one, I dreaded to roll my character first and then figure out what I wanted to play. Also interesting that there wasn’t backgrounds or personality stuff so you could play a wide variety of characters.
Zephyr: It was simplified which made it easier to understand. Rolling for stats in order was a fun challenge. I do wish there was more for backgrounds since that helps me flesh out a character’s story.
–Question: What did you think of the Basic Fantasy game?
Chad: It was fun. Definitely different than 5e, but similar enough that the learning curve was pretty easy.
Irisk: I loved how simple and simplified it was. I think it’s more approachable than 5e is. I especially loved initiative rolling and as a lazy player I liked that the DM helped handle many traits and tasks. I love percentages. (DM note: I rolled all spot, search, find type rolls behind the DMs screen so they didn’t know if they failed the roll or not)
Sillari: It was fun, and while it felt very different from what I’m used to, I definitely appreciate the simplicity and use of playability. It was definitely different from what I was expecting, but it was very enjoyable.
Tryx: Again, very interesting. It’s interesting that there wasn’t skill stats, though that makes sense because you can still just use the overall ability stats. Also interesting that the GM rolled a lot of things for you rather than the character rolling. I think I’m most intrigued by initiative. Rolling it each round means you’re not always at the beginning or end of initiative – you get to move around more. But having it change also, I think, adds more complexity to combat, which I already struggle to keep track of.
Zephyr: It was very fun! It ran similarly enough to 5e that it was familiar, but new enough that I had a bit to learn. Rolling imitative every round was a fun change, but overall it provided a good roleplaying experience for me.
–Question: What feedback would you give the DM on the adventure?
Chad: It was fun! I liked the improv and humor. Though sometimes I felt like I was misheard, but we were always able to clear things up.
Irisk: It was fun (smiley face). I wish we had more time to explore, because I wanted more colorful dialogue and world building, but that wasn’t really possible with our time limit.
Sillari: I really had a great time with it! I’m not use to just doing dungeon crawls, but they’re always really fun and I had a lot of fun. It had a good balance of encounters.
Tryx: It was a lot of fun! This was the first time I’d used a mat and figures and I really enjoyed that. I also enjoyed the maze and getting to uncover it. I’m a little sad we didn’t get to discover the whole thing, but that’s okay. There was a lot of interesting depth I didn’t expect in a one-shot. Not just an abandoned dwarf temple with dead orcs and dwarves, but also kobolds, rats serving/reporting to rat man, and Sheeka the spider and her children. Also removing the helmet resulting in the undead. Very curious if we could have removed that differently, if it wouldn’t have triggered the undead… Anyways, all of this to say I really enjoyed it. Thanks for putting so much thought in!
Zephyr: I really enjoyed it ! It was a well rounded adventure with puzzles, traps, encounters, roleplay, treasure, etc. The party worked well together and I enjoyed the ambiance and suspense added by the DM’s descriptions throughout the game. there were also several ways to accomplish our goal which made it fun to figure out for ourselves.
–Question: What advice would you give other D&D 5e players who try OSR for the first time?
Chad: Let loose and have fun and have a good party! The best part of RPGs is, well, the role playing. So as long as you have fun characters and don’t get caught up on the differences, you’ll have fun.
Irisk: Don’t get attached to your character too early.
Sillari: Familiarize yourself with the rules, but don’t get overwhelmed by the reading! It’s more simple than you probably think. Have fun, loosen up, do what ever you enjoy, whether that’s roleplaying, min/maxing, stat crunching!
Tryx: Don’t go in with an existing idea of what you want your character to be. Let the dice determine it. After the dice tell you your race and class, figure out a personality that is fun for you to play and goes along with it. I think a lot of the game is kind of like simplified D&D (may be pretty similar to earlier editions, I dunno), so just have fun and don’t worry so much about all of the complexities you’re use to in 5e.
Zephyr: Read the rules. It’s very similar in concept, but uses different dice and different methods. Overall though, just have fun! Be open to the new methods and use them to your advantage.
Final thoughts from the DM:
Overall, I’m very pleased with how this one-shot went. The players were very interested in the game and I’m glad that they had fun. They were more worried about the encumbrance rules than I was. As they were wandering through the dungeon, I kept thinking “yes they are about to reach one of the kewl areas of the map” only to turn at the last minute and go in a different direction. But they bumped into enough of the planned events that I was able to present the clues. They didn’t know it, but they had figured out one of the puzzles even before I had all of the clues put into place. I think this was more of a testament of the players ingenuity than the puzzle itself. I’m also grateful that they let me throw notepads at them with notes for them so they could roleplay off of the knowledge only they knew (such as if they spotted something everyone else missed)
I have had some of the fans of Basic Fantasy ask if I would submit the adventure to them for possible “publication”. I have all of my notes and sending a party through the game was a good way to see where the rough spots were at. I think I want to re-draw the map as it is about 10-25% to big for the adventure (as well as the battle mat itself). I think once I have this done I’ll round up another set of victims…. errr… players and run it again.
Thank you to the players (you know who you are), Tim Hardin for his map that started the creative juices flowing, Chris Gonnerman (I watched some of your BFRPG videos prior to running the game) and to all of the blog readers out there who gave me feedback in preparation for the session.
And finally, here is a gallery of the characters drawn by the players during or just after the game. They gave me permission to share them on this blog post.
Chad McBuffman, human fighterSillari the magic userThe cleric Zephyr SilversongMultiple images of Tryx SmolfollowTryx seeing a brown bear in the distanceTryx finding an orc necklace decorated with dwarf earsTryx and Chad teaming up to solve one of the puzzles Tryx hearing her guide staying “stay on the path”Irisk and TryxSillari finding herbsKeeping a book from the temple library as a treasure find
Some of the games that I plan to use in the 2023 #CharacterCreationChallenge
As I’ve mentioned before, it is always a good idea to plan ahead for a 31-day challenge. I’ve already seen quiet a few people prepping on the RPG.net forums. They are deciding upon which system(s) they wish to use. Are they going to follow a theme or just create characters randomly? I’ve already had some people reach out to me using various methods to let me know of their participation. Please let me know, Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com if you plan to post your characters up on a blog. I’ll link to it from the Character Creation Challenge section of my website. I also have something else in the works, but I’m not quite ready to announce it yet. Still trying to get some ducks lined up in a row.
I’m once again using a spreadsheet with the date, day and game type to schedule my games. This way I won’t have two fantasy games next to each other. I can also plan a game that may take more time and energy on a day off. This is also a good idea for those dates I know are going to be busy, I can schedule the systems I’m more familiar with for these days.
As in the past, I’ll try to walk through the character creation process as I understand them in the rules-as-written (RAW). This also gives me a chance to do a review of the process. I will then scan the character sheet for all to see. And I will have all of the character sheets printed out before the challenge starts. I’ve found that this helps me get everything ready.
If you are posting on any of the social media websites, please use the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge so that other participants can find them. I love seeing what other RPG fans have come up with. I also know that there is one reader who wants to see if a game will pop up that he’s never heard of. I was able to accomplish this last year with my Technoir entry.
I’ve picked up some new physical books by online auctions, trade or special sales. I’ve also done a lot of purchasing from Kickstarter, DriveThruRPG, HumbleBundle and Bundle of Holding. I even donated to a Doctors Without Borders fundraiser, for which a lot of PDF copies of different games were provided. Some of these sounded very interesting.
If you are reading this after January 1st and you still want to jump into the challenge, please do. A few participants last year either did a quick catch up or just made sure they ran a full 31 days. The choice is yours. This challenge is just for fun with our gaming systems.
Remember to have fun with this. That was one of the primary goals of the challenge.
You can also use this graphic to help promote the #CharacterCreationChallenge.
Feel free to share this image on social media to spread the word.
