Tag: Role Playing Games

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

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 7: Attack from Space

Written by TardisCaptain

And with this entry, the first week is in the bag. For Day 7 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m using a game that I picked up as a thank you gift at SaltCON. Attack from Space an RPG by Kris & Friends. The way he explains it, this game was inspired by the random drawings he use to doodle in his notebook while in school during the 80s. After a Kickstarter campaign, the designer made the game and had a ton of artists send in doodles for it. This is a game where aliens attack a medieval kingdom and the players have to bring their knights to the table. I was given both the standard and ditto edition. The standard has more artwork in it, the ditto edition is more focused on just the rules.

There are three attributes and three qualities that each knight has. The attributes are Slash, Thrust and Parry. These represent the powerful actions, fast actions or precise actions of the character. Blood, Valor and Weird are the three qualities which represent health, determination and mental resistance. Then the knight has skills and equipment. The basics of the game is that when the knight wants to do something, they roll the bones (D6s) equal to the number in the attribute score. Then they keep the single highest result, the higher the roll, the better the result.

So, creating a knight has six steps. 1- Choose a class, 2- Train your knight, 3- Define your qualities, 4- Equip your knight, 5- Visit the armory and 6- Tell your story.

Classes: There are four classes of knights. Arrow (shoots arrows), Axe (tank that smashes things), Saddle (speed and a lance) and Sword (all around effectiveness). Each class comes with a different set of skills plus upgrade options when they gain experience. I think I’m going to go with simple and use the sword class. I wrote down the skills listed in the book.

Training: I’m instructed to add 1 to each attribute. Then I have 4 more points to spread between them (no attribute higher than 4).

Qualities: Each quality starts with a score of 2 (other than Weird which is 0). I have 8 points to spread across these, but it was advised the first two would be more beneficial.

Equip: I’m instructed to select two equipment items from the list. There is also an option to randomly roll for them. Ya know what, yea let’s see what the SaltCON dice say. Heh, a Tinder Box and a Bone Fishhook and Line. Better than I was expecting. I could have ended up with a copy of Wizard Magazine or Mustache Wax.

Armory: Ok, so we pick a primary weapon, some armor and a back up weapon. I’m going with the Longsword for the primary. Chain for the armor and a throwing axe for the backup.

Story: Name your knight. I dub thee Sir Reginald the Fourth. Pick or randomly roll some heraldry (The roll resulted in a bear. Actually that sounds kewl). As for any type of backstory, he comes from a long line of knights and wants to father Sir Reginald the Fifth. Gaining notoriety will help him get the best lady of the court to fulfill this sacred duty. Yea, that’s the ticket.

And we’re done, I transfered everything over to the character sheet and scanned it here to give the post a little bit more flavor. I hope you enjoy it.

Afterthoughts:

I picked this game to use today because I thought it would be a quick and easy creation on one of my busy days. And it was. It sounds like a silly game that could last a session or two with the right group of people. I’ve already got my games scheduled for SaltCON-Spring, but who knows, this could be my silly game for one of the next two SaltCONs after that. Anyone want to come try it out?

Additional Notes:

I was able to add a bunch of message boards to the list of links. Thanks to Thorr-Kan for attempting to get other message boards involved.

I received some feedback on my Dungeons and Dragons Rules Cyclopedia entry. Apparently each character also has a wrestling skill that I forgot to add. Also if the free Wrath of the Immortals supplement is used, then the character can also get special abilities depending upon their deity.

Coming Up Next:

Rebel Scum

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 6: White Lies 3rd Edition

Written by TardisCaptain

So far, so good with my entries for the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge. Today, Day 6, I’ll be making a character using the 3rd edition of the espionage roleplaying game, White Lies. In 2022 I used White Lies 1st Edition to make a character, and in 2024 I followed up with White Lies 2nd Edition. This game was originally based off of the D20 White Box RPG that used the Open Gaming License (hence the name White Lies). After Wizards of the Coast had their disastrous OGL fiasco a few years ago, the author wisely decided to remove all OGL items from this game and release a new edition. DwD Studios wasn’t the only publisher that decided to pull up stakes and head out to the land of Creative Commons licensees. A little after the 2nd edition came out, the author elected to move to a 3rd edition where he removed all of the AI generated imagery and replaced them with original artwork and polished up the system. I wanted to thank him by picking up and reviewing this latest edition. This game is PWYW on DriveThruRPG, but I would highly recommend chucking in a few bucks when you pick it up because a lot of love and effort went into this publication. Plus this is a small publisher (I think it’s only Bill Logan, the author, as the only employee of DWD Studios) that can use all the support they can be given. He’s doing something that I want to do so I look up to his works as a source of inspiration. Bill has also released BareBones Fantasy, Covert Ops, Frontier Space and more.

This book came out in 2025 and has 116 pages in the PDF. The character sheet is two pages long. Agent Recruiting (aka creating a character) starts on page 5. There are six steps listed.

Generating the five abilities are the first step in the process. These abilities are Toughness (formerly Strength in 1st edition), Dexterity, Intellect (formerly Intelligence and Wisdom), Discipline (formerly Dexterity) and Influence (formerly Charisma). I roll a D20 and consult a table for the score (ranging from -2 to +5) and place them where I want. I had all plusses except for one -1 score.

Step two (and new to this edition) is the background of the character on page 6. This is what the character was doing as an occupation before being recruited into the espionage business. There are 16 different trades available (with an option to roll a d20 to randomly choose) with 10 specialties under each one. The player can pick one (if they have something in mind) or randomly roll like I’m about to. They don’t even have to be limited to this list. This guy is in Technology & Engineering as a Software Developer. I’m then instructed to pick a skill that is appropriate to the background and note a talent bonus of +2.

Training is part of step three. I get to select a division (aka character class) that the character is a part of. I get to note the details from the division including the first roll on the rank & promotion table. With my +4 to INT, I also get to pick that many additional skills from the skill list. This guy isn’t very strong (that’s where my negative number went) so I’m going to make my own Q type character in the Engineering Division. I wrote down the skills, added the extras, determined his starting Stamina (aka hit points).

Now we are onto outfitting the character. The Engineering division didn’t get anything automatic during the character creation process (that happens in the mission briefing). I did write down the basics listed in the agent recruiting steps including the starting money. I’m going to just note the money now and would decide on any additional purchases after the mission brief.

Step five is another new step compared to 2nd edition. The rookie assignment. Roll a percentile and see what your character learned from the experience on their first mission. This reminded me of the experiences that new characters in Star Trek Adventures would get when they got to roll for what happened in their past. I thought it was a nice touch. On the rookie assignment, my yet-to-be named character had an impressive performance helping the agency track down some money being used to fuel tensions between western nations. I wrote down the additional attribute and skill bonuses received from the experience. I’m glad I rolled this one, like Traveller, the character could have been wounded enough to force me to make a new character.

And the last step (six) is the final assessment of the character. This includes things like Rank & Merit (level and experience points), Stamina (HP), Defense, Movement, Initiative, Languages, Skill bonuses, weapon information and finally a name. We shall call this character Walter Cunningham, because why not? I transferred everything over from my notes to the character sheet. I didn’t scan the second page as it looked like it was just for notes.

Afterthoughts:

I love how under the copyright Bill Logan states “Be a muse to others.” We need more support like this in the RPG community.

Earlier in the 2026 challenge, another participant had posted a White Lies character on one of the message boards. When I gave my approval and informed him that I would also be making a character, the poster informed me that he had been running a White Lies campaign.

I do wish the PDF file had been bookmarked. I was moving back and forth between sections while making this character. That’s the only negative thing I can think of so far in regards to this book. The rest is beautiful and I would love to write or homebrew for this system.

Additional Notes:

I was informed of another blog to add to the main 2026 #Character Creation Challenge page. Please look at the list and let me know if I’m missing any. These can be personal blogs or message boards.

In response to my Dungeons and Dragons Rules Cyclopedia entry, Sharro on RPGPub responded. “I see you also got fooled by the camouflaged page numbers. I had the book for years before I found them. Lots of swearing about a book that made reference to page numbers but didn’t number the pages…”

I’ve got some personal business dealing with a funeral coming up. I’ve set up a buffer so hopefully I won’t miss a day. But if real life prevents a post from happening on the day, I will get caught up.

Coming Up Next:

Attack From Space

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

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 5: Dungeons and Dragons Rules Cyclopedia

Written by TardisCaptain

And here we are on Day 5 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge and today we will be making a character for the Dungeons and Dragons Rules Cyclopedia. Now I can probably hear a few of you saying: “But Carl, didn’t you already use BECMI for your very first Character Creation Challenge entry back in 2021?” Yes… but the first players handbook in that set walked a new player through the character creation process and rules by going through a solo “pick your own way” adventure. While the character creation is basically the same (no pun intended), there are some extra rules that are available in the Rules Cyclopedia. I had picked up this book quite a while ago via DriveThruRPG PoD (click link for review) and I thought that it would be good to use this system with the extra items.

There is a different character sheet provided with this version. The one seen in the red cover Basic Player’s Manual was… well basic with lots of wasted real-estate. This character record sheet has more sections for some of the different rules. The steps for creating a character are found on page 6. They are 1- Roll ability scores, 2- Choose a class, 3- Adjust the ability scores, 4- Roll up hit points, 5- Roll for starting money, 6- Purchase equipment, 7- Generate other numbers, 8- Note adjustments for ability scores, 9- Select alignment, 10- Name, personality and background, 11- Determine the height and weight of the character and 12- Earn experience. I’m not certain what that last one is. If it’s not listed in the next couple of pages, I’ll also be flipping back a few pages to the weapon and non-weapon skills.

This is roll 3d6 in a row system according to RAW. I rolled the six standard D&D ability scores with the special D6s I picked up from SaltCON last year. And it looks like this new character is going to be a not-so good looking Human cleric with the following stats. Str- 10, Int- 11, Wis- 17, Dex- 9, Con- 12 and Cha- 7. I briefly considered forcing this character into a demi-human class, but that’s just to high of a Wisdom score to let go. I looked at the adjust ability scores information and you can trade two points from an ability score to your prime requisite by one. You can’t pull these numbers from Constitution, Charisma or Dexterity. Well I don’t want Charisma to get any worse. I also can’t lower any ability score past 9 so this character’s Strength will not be going down. I could drop the Intelligence to a 9 and not suffer any negative effects, but it could affect any skills that I select that are Intelligence based. So I’m going to not adjust anything at this time.

All right, the important Hit Points of the character. The Cleric rolls a 1d6, so sticking with my SaltCON dice I rolled a 5. Unfortunately, the character’s Constitution score isn’t high enough to earn a HP bonus.

Starting money for this Cleric is determined by rolling 3d6 and multiplying it by 10. I rolled a 14 (I could have used that during the ability score generation), so 140 gold pieces to start. The RAW states that the character already has normal clothes. I picked up the standard fare that most starting characters have including the standard holy symbol. With the higher GP count, I did splurge for some chainmail and a shield.

Next I calculated up the AC and found the character’s saving’s throw information. With the high Wisdom score, I can add the bonus to the savings throws vs magic. There was an option for THAC0, but I stuck with the regular attack roll table. I’ve never really been a fan of THAC0. And to be honest, I’m more of a fan of the Ascending AC (if your opponent’s AC is 13, you need to roll a 13 or higher to hit it). This book has the Descending AC.

For the Alignment, I’m going with Lawful. There are only three of them in this system. As for a name (reaches up into the reaches of my mind), lets go with Brother Carthan of the Good Guy Church. Hey, I don’t know what world this guy is playing in so we’ll go nondescript until the DM tells me what gods they use. After an (insert bad guys here) raid on his farmstead left him an orphan, the Good Guy Church took him in. He is trying to repay the church by going on various quests for them out in the field with his friends the other player characters. Grin. The chart for determining the character height and weight is just a generic chart. Nothing to roll, so I picked something I thought would fit a traveling Cleric. As for the “Earning Experience” section, it just describes going up in level and what happens when you reach “name level” (aka Level 9).

So that’s the end of the standard character creation process, but as I have mentioned above, I wanted to include some optional rules found on page 75 “Other Character Abilities”. This includes Weapon Mastery and General Skills. At first level Brother Carthan gets two weapon mastery slots as a Cleric. Had he been a Fighter he would have started with four. At certain class levels, the number of slots increases that I can spend to learn new weapons, or increase a current weapons mastery that the character has. Anything without a slot is considered “unskilled” and only does half damage if a successful attack is made. And these can’t be generic in nature (e.g. Normal Sword mastery doesn’t cover Bastard Sword). There are some weapons that come in as Basic (the first level of mastery) such as throwing rocks. I selected War Hammer and Sling since that is what I had purchased earlier. If I decided to increase a mastery of a weapon that I’m already skilled in, eventually it would lead to attack roll/damage bonuses, AC bonuses, the ability to attack more than one target and even place an opponent(s) in Despair (which may cause them to flee or surrender depending upon their intelligence). It is not limited to just Fighters, but they get more slots than the other classes.

At creation, each character gets four General Skills. A higher intelligence can add more. There is a list of suggested skills and what ability they fall under. More can be added by the DM if needed. When a character needs to use a skill, they roll a D20 and try to match or roll under their ability score. The DM can give bonuses or penalties depending upon the situation. Later, when Brother Carthan gains more levels, additional skill slots can be acquired and spent on the same skills (making them better) or adding new skills all together. I selected Bravery, Ceremony, Danger Sense and Detect Deception. I then transferred everything over from my notes to the character sheet. Since Clerics don’t get spells until 2nd level, I did not scan the Spell Book Sheet.

Afterthoughts:

I hadn’t noticed this until now, but the page numbers are smack dab in the middle of the footer surrounded by a leafy graphic. It was easy to hide the page number in it.

When reading the rules for weapons mastery and skills, there were rules for unskilled use of weapons, but not for skills. What happens if my character tried to start a fire without flint and steel? This is something that the DM would have to make a decision on. Later, while I was reading some of the skill descriptions, they had guidelines for unskilled use, but not on all descriptions. I really want to compare some of the different OSR skill rules against each other at some time.

I can see how Weapons Mastery may lead to some roleplaying opportunities. You found a magic weapon, but you are not a master of it’s type, you need to search out a trainer who can teach your character.

I was getting some flashbacks while creating this. But I can also see why I’ve moved onto other OSR systems like Basic Fantasy.

Additional Notes:

I’ve had a few participants in the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge tell me that they are making characters, but not posting them online. I’d like to encourage these participants to post them on social media, discord or one of the message boards. Let’s share them for others to see. I’m already finding out about games that I’ve never heard of. In 2020 there was a game released called Visigoths vs Mall Goths which involves time travel to a 1990’s mall which sounds like crazy fun.

Coming Up Next:

White Lies 3rd Edition

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

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 4: Twilight: 2000 4th Edition

Written by TardisCaptain

On Day 4 the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m going to create a character for a game that I remember playing when it first came out but has the latest edition available. This character will be for Twilight: 2000 4th Edition by Free League Publishing. I just realized that I’ll be using a lot of their books this year. In the early 90’s had played the first edition of Twilight: 2000. I don’t remember much about the system, but I do remember enjoying the campaign the GM was running. In the 2025 challenge I created a character for Twilight: 2000 version 2.2.

I had played the 4th Edition of this game at a past SaltCON back in 2023. I don’t recall much about the system other than thinking it was a little crunchy at the time. Like Rivers of London, I’m going to go on the scenario that there is a game with some friends later that day and I need to quickly get a character put together so that I can join them at the table. We are stuck in Europe after everything has broken down with the goal to get home to the United States.

The PDF set that I had picked up from DriveThruRPG had several books in the core set including a Player’s Manual. It lists two different ways to create a character for the game. Following a Life Path (more options) or using an Archetype (quicker creation). Had this been a planned event, I would have gone with the Life Path option, but I really want to see of the Archetype could get me a character that I wanted to play. The steps for the Archetypes are found on page 20 and contains nineteen steps (as compared to twenty-one for Life Paths).

Step one is to choose the archetype itself. There are nine in total including The Civilian, The Grunt, The Gunner, The Kid, The Mechanic, The Medic, The Officer, The Operator (aka special forces) and The Spook (aka the spy). I played a grunt type character in the first edition game. I made a medic last year for the challenge. I don’t recall what character I played in the one-shot, but I don’t think he was anything special. For some reason, the Spook is really catching my attention, so I’m going to go with that. Just the thought of a spy caught behind the lines when the war breaks down appeals to me.

The next step has me picking the nationality of my currently unnamed character. I’m sticking with USA since I’m thinking that the rest of the party is American soldiers. After that, the branch of service is chosen for the next step. As The Spook, I only have one option of Intelligence. Had I been a grunt I could have picked the branch of service. This also affects the next step of rank, of which he has none as a spy. I do recall James Bond holding the rank of Commander but that was from his previous military service.

Step five is to determine the attributes of the character. They are Strength, Agility, Intelligence and Empathy. I’m instructed to start all of these at a baseline of C (which uses a d8). I’m allotted three step increases that I can spend (up to B or A which would result in using a d10 or d12). For my yet-to-be named espionage agent, I selected Agility and Intelligence.

On step six we determine the hit capacity and stress capacity. Basically the health of the character. Hit is determined of STR+AGL die added together and divided by 4 (rounding up). Stress is the INT and EMP in the same formula.

Next comes the skills and they use the same D (d6) to A (d12) rating. I’m instructed to pick one B level skill, two C level skills and three D level skills. After reading the skill descriptions, I picked the skills I thought a spy would have. Connected to the skills (and step 8) is choosing the starting specialty from the archetype. I selected Infiltration since getting into places unseen is what spies do.

The Coolness Under Fire rating was determined by the Archetype (which I had already written down). And after that, the next step is determining the unit morale. According to the book, it’s equal to the highest command skill of a group member. Well making this character on my own I’ll leave this blank for now.

For step eleven I pick a moral code for the character. There are some suggestions under the archetype or I can make one of my own. I selected “The mission can succeed with the right amount of planning.” Step twelve is the big dream of the character. Again the archetype has some suggestions. On my own I came up with “My government can survive, even if it’s just through me.”

The next two steps have to do with the group (which again on my own is a little difficult to do). So my buddy in the group would be determined later. How the character met them, they were a backup support team assigned to the character when he was on an infiltration mission. Things went to hell before they could get back to their assigned unit.

Step fifteen is the appearance and I went with the one described in the archetype. Also from the archetype is the selection of gear (which I already had written down). Group gear and vehicle is on steps seventeen and eighteen. I’ll skip this for the time being since I’m without a group.

The last step is the number of starting permanent rads the character has been affected with. Since this is a war that nukes have been dropped in, everyone has been caught in some sort of nuclear fallout. This is determined by rolling a d6.

When I was making the version 2.2 Twilight: 2000 character last year, the first step was to pick a name. I didn’t see that option in this series of steps, so I’m picking one now. I pulled up a random name generator and selected Benton Ward. I then transferred my notes over to the character sheet to present here.

Afterthoughts:

The basics of the game is to use the die from your Attribute and your Skill (if any) and see how many successes you roll (usually 6 or higher). There are methods to push rolls at the cost of stress

I’m actually quite glad that I made a character for this system. It reminded me a little of the one-shot game that I played. If I recall correctly, we didn’t do a lot of dice rolling at the table, so I’d want to try it out a little bit more. But I loved the fact that the Referee’s manual had a conversion guide for T2K 1st and 2nd edition to 4th edition if they wanted to use the published adventures that had already been released.

I remember the GM for the 1st edition T2K campaign that I played in did a lot of homebrewing for the game. He loved looking up the information on different weapons and hardware. I could easily see myself doing the same for this game, if I thought there was a chance to get into a campaign. I remember collecting and reading combat magazines in the 80’s and 90’s and Twilight: 2000 was right up the alley of those publications.

Additional Notes:

On the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server I had a participant (clash_bowley) tell me that they were having fun making their characters even if they made three of them in a day. That is part of the reason that I run this challenge.

On the RPG.net message boards, I think it’s kewl that Greyarea13 is using Advanced Fighting Fantasy to make Masters of the Universe characters. Also on that same thread, Hafwit loved my Time Lord character and loved that he had the skill of Cheat Death.

Coming Up Next:

Dungeons and Dragons Rules Cyclopedia

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, Doctor Who, Role Playing Games

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 3: Time Lord

Written by TardisCaptain

As most readers of my blog may have already guessed (by the title) I’m a big Doctor Who fan. It was another sci-fi genre that my father introduce me to while I was growing up. So for day 2 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m going to create a character for a rare game called Doctor Who: Time Lord. I had picked this book up when it came up really cheap on Ebay. And I didn’t know until after it arrived that it was a discarded book from a public library. Luckily I wanted it for the information inside and not as a collectors item. So, I didn’t complain about it to the seller. But be certain you know what you are bidding on with that site.

Now I’ve created several Doctor Who RPG characters in past challenges. During the first year I had created a character for the FASA Doctor Who RPG which I had played in the 90s. Also in that same challenge I later made a character for the Cubicle 7 Doctor Who RPG 1st Edition. In 2025 I had the opportunity to make a Sontaran for the 5e inspired Doctors and Daleks RPG.

When I started reading the Time Lord core rulebook, something became very clear. This game, which was published in 1991, was meant to be played by the players as one of the characters seen in the TV series. Every single Doctor that had appeared on the TV screen (at the time) had been stated. Same with all of the companions, enemies and other characters. The bulk of the book is a character guide with their stats in tow. I was actually quite impressed and a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to use it for the challenge. But then I came across Appendix I on page 276 where it gave you the rules to create a companion based upon yourself. Thus began my descent into the weirdest character creation process I had ever come across.

There are several attributes for a Time Lord character. Strength, Control, Size, Weight, Move, Knowledge, Determination (aka Bravery) and Awareness with a score ranging between 1 (extremely bad) and 6 (extremely good) with 3 being the average. These are pretty basic RPG attributes. The book states that you are supposed to create the character representing you with the referee. I’m going to base this Carl character off what he would have been back in the early 90’s when this book was published.

For Strength, the referee and the player has an arm-wrestling match to determine the rating. Now you see why I picked 1991 Carl. In all likelihood, I would have been arm-wrestling Geothan or Jill back then. But we were basically the same stature when we were younger. If I was beaten, I would have gotten a lower score (like 2 for puny) or if I won then I could have been awarded a score of 3 or 4. I know I wouldn’t have had a 5 for body-builder. I’m going to guestimate that I would have been average (score 3).

Control was pretty easy. 1991 me wasn’t in track and field and I didn’t play sports or exercise three times a week. So the book states that most players will have a Control score of 3 (again average).

Size was a little weird. It stated that male characters will usually have a score of 3 (average) but females will have a score of 4? I went back to the abilities descriptions on page 51 and re-read them. For some reason with size, the smaller the number, the taller you are. Very weird. So I guess that makes sense that some females could have a score of 4, but the book says Size affects both bulk and height and should be modified according to the player’s extremes. 1991 Carl is a little tall compared to others, do I make him a 3 or a 2? This is where having all of the characters in the show stated helped out. I flipped through them and found random characters and even the ones I thought would be taller (Ogrons, Zygons, etc.) and they were still listed at a 3, so a score of 3 it is.

Weight is our next attribute. The average person has a score of 4. We are back to the higher number representing more on the character (thus heavier). I didn’t argue on this one and wrote down the score.

For Move it only says that all human characters have a score of 3 with a special ability (a sub-skill under an attribute) of Running 1. As we all know, there is a lot of running in Doctor Who. Usually in a gravel quarry substituting for an alien planet.

Knowledge used examples from the UK Educational system (which I seem to be learning a lot about while making different characters). It is based upon what education level you had reached. Well 1991 Carl had been to some community college, but didn’t have his university education (score 5) just yet. So I put him down with a score of 4.

The average Determination score was 3. I wasn’t stubborn as a mule, or in a brave occupation (firefighter, soldier, etc.) so I couldn’t bump it up higher.

Awareness is the use of sight, smell or hearing. I don’t think the use of glasses pushes me down to a score of 2, so I kept it at a 3. With how many girls flirted with me in the 90’s that I missed (according to friends who told me after-the-fact) I know I couldn’t bump this up to a score of 4.

Now we have the Special Abilities of the character. These are based upon the background and training of the character and refers us to chapter 3. The attributes listed above are the “Common Abilities” that each character has. Under each Common Ability, are special abilities (such as the Running 1 under Move listed above). The guidelines in the back of the book suggests that the Referee should provide Cheat Death 1 to Humans with average Strength (3). Again I thought of 1991 Carl and wrote down what I thought would be reasonable. I didn’t give any of the Special Abilities a score of more than 1.

There wasn’t anything in the Appendix about the wounds or equipment on the character sheet. I went back and looked at the chapter they were described in. You mark off wounds when damage is taken, but I couldn’t see anything about what each character starts with. When I looked at the boatload of character stats in the book, they all had the same number of wounds to check off. So, I guess I’ll leave that be. As for the equipment, again little is listed other than a few weapons that are usually carried by the opponents. I went back to the many characters listed and it looks like common sense items that they carried. So I just jotted down a few things and called it good. Here is the character sheet that I would have presented to the Referee for their approval.

Afterthoughts:

And for clarity’s sake, the way the system works is that the player rolls two D6s when they are attempting a task with a chance of failure. They then subtract the lowest number rolled from the highest number rolled and add any scores from the applicable abilities. These numbers are then added together to see if they meet or beat a target number between 0 to 10 based on the difficulty of the task.

Looking through the list of Special Abilities I had to chuckle when I saw that Screaming was listed. Yea there was a lot of that in early Doctor Who episodes. Gloating was also listed and specifically mentions The Master.

From what I understand, there was a bit of an online community for this game before the new Cubicle 7 books were released. The fans had expanded the game and included a better character creation system. However, since I’m focusing on the rules themselves, I did not use the fan made system.

As for playing or homebrewing for this game, I doubt I’ll get a chance to do either. The system sounds interesting enough to try and I wouldn’t turn down a chance. But the likelihood of that happening seems very slim.

Additional Notes:

I was able to get a few more links put up at the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge page. Keep them coming in. I’m also following a lot of entries on the different message boards and on the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge on BlueSky and Mastodon.

Some of the feedback on my Rivers of London entry encouraged me to pick up the first book of the series. I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to do that soon, but I’ll see if the e-book ever comes up on sale.

Coming Up Next:

Twillight: 2000 4th Edition

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

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 2: Rivers of London

Written by TardisCaptain

For Day 2 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m going to create a character for a game that I didn’t even know existed until last SaltCON. It is called Rivers of London by Chaosium and was based off of a series of novels called, you guessed it, Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch. I had received it as a thank you gift for putting in so many volunteer hours as a GM at the con. From what I can read on the back of the RPG book, there is a branch of the London police department that investigates those who have been changed by magic. It appears to be a percentile based system that may be common with other Chaosium products. I’m not very familiar with this line as I’ve barely dipped my toe in that water with past Character Creation Challenge entries.

There was a solo game at the start of the book. However I jumped straight ahead to the character creation section on page 43. The book does say that the chapter was written for new players who may be unfamiliar with the source material. Thankfully it also directed me to page 76 where a summary of character creation can be found. The scenario I’m running for the purposes of this blog post is: I’ve just been handed the book to create a character for a game that starts in an hour. I’m more interested in gaming with my friends than I am in the world itself so I’m going into it blind. Perhaps a GM friend really likes the source material and wanted to try the game out.

According to the summary there six steps in total to create a character. 1- Determine Occupation, 2- Assign Characteristics, 3- Advantages, 4- Determine skills, 5- Backstory and 6- Equip the character.

On page 45 is a list of Occupations that are used in the game. This is the job that the character makes their living at. Some are used in the source materials, some are added for rounding out the game. I went to the referenced page for the more detailed information on occupations on page 62 and read through some of them before deciding upon Police Officer (I guess I’m going with the path of least resistance here). It gave me a required skill, recommended skills, a contact and equipment.

For step two the summary tells me that I have 280 points to distribute between five attributes with the score ranging between 30 to 80. The summary states that I should have these in blocks of 10 and that the average person has a stat of 50. The attributes are STRength, CONstitution, DEXterity, INTelligence and POWer. I noticed that INT had replaced Appearance that I had used in the Basic Roleplaying character I had made last year. I’m not a big fan on assigning points so I gave each attribute 30 to get the minimum, then bumped up all but POW to the average person (I’m not seeing this guy as a big magic user type character). Then I slowly started spending the rest of my points until I ended up with a strong character that had some good health and dexterity with average intelligence. I guess this guy is a rookie cop. When writing down the attributes, I also had to write their half value on the sheet. And hey, I actually get to roll something. 2d10+50 to determine the luck of the character. Next item to determine is MOVement which is just 8. The last item in this step is the character’s age, which is just determined by the player. A quick internet search shows that public school in the UK ends at 18 and that the average police training is 2-3 years. So, I’m going to say the character is 21 years-old.

Finally onto step three. Advantages. This is something exceptional about the character in the game world. I can select one major advantage or two minor advantages. Some have prerequisites so I looked over the list in the book. There were less than I expected, but it made it easier to pick two that a rookie cop might have. Fast Reactions and Speedy (which bumped up the character’s MOV score).

Next is selecting skills. He had to have Law to meet the requirement for his occupation. The book instructs me to pick six skills in total. There are several common and combat skills that everyone gets. If I pick one of these as one of my six, they get bumped up in value.

Step five is the backstory of the character. There are actually a series of questions for the player to answer at this time with 3-4 possible answers each. So for this yet to be named character, let’s go through them. For childhood: What did “family” mean? Large family with lots of siblings and extended relatives. What did “home” mean? Uncertainty, lots of time we had to move because of the parents looking for work. Where did the character live as a child? It’s complicated. As mentioned above, they had to move around. What culture did the character get brought up in? Proud British, even if they had struggles. For present times: Mom is still alive and the character keeps in touch with most of the family. Returning home brings back memories of Dad’s passing, so it doesn’t happen much. Moving to London to pursue a career in law enforcement was a way to bring about some stability in the character’s life (or so he thought). As for the character’s first brush with the supernatural, since it’s an option I’d probably let the GM provide that in a flashback. The Affluence Rating is part of the backstory and since I didn’t take any wealth advantages, I’m going to assume it’s average. The last sub-step is to identify someone who the character can call when ever they want. I’ve already mentioned the character’s mother above, so I’ll stick with that.

Heh, in step six it says to name the character and then equip them. I don’t think I’ve seen those two items combined together. Uh, name? After pulling up a random British name generator I selected Oliver Cook. I then wrote down the equipment listed in the law enforcement occupation description. And with that, I think the character is done (at least I hope it is).

Afterthoughts:

I liked having the series of questions to ask when it came to determining the backstory of the character. Most of the time when a system says “come up with something” I start drawing a blank unless I’ve already got something in mind.

It was a little bit easier to create a character for this game than I expected. It always seemed that games from Chaosium was overly complicated. This was actually very smooth with how it was written out. Nothing really made me say “I wish I had a GM to explain this to me.” I don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance to play this game, or if I’ll even do anything with it. I’ve got too many books on my reading list to even consider trying this series. I’m glad that I made a character for it, but this book may end up going into the trade pile.

Additional Notes:

Thank you to everyone who has contacted me about getting your blogs and sites on the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge page. I’ve noticed a few of them are brand new just for the challenge. I’d like to encourage you to keep blogging even after you’ve completed the challenge. The more we share our gaming experiences with each other, the better our community is. If I’m missing yours, please let me know ASAP and I’ll get it on there. I’m always worried that I may have missed someone. Especially some of our past participants.

I’ve already received feedback on my FASA Star Trek- Trader Captain’s and Merchant Princes character. There was a lot of encouragement to make a merchant character in Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition so we could compare the two of them together. I don’t know if it will be the exact character, but don’t be surprised if I add it to my 31 day lineup.

Coming Up Next:

Time Lord

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 1: Star Trek Trader Captain’s and Merchant Princes

Written by TardisCaptain

And welcome to new year and Day 1 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge. After much soul searching I decided to return to an old favorite, the Star Trek Role Playing Game. In the first challenge I made a Starfleet character and in 2023 I created a Starfleet Intelligence character. FASA released quite a few books for additional character types and I decided to use the Trader Captain’s and Merchant Princes. I had never made a merchant for this system as all of our games in the 90’s were Starfleet based.

As with all FASA Star Trek systems, they provided a Character Generation Short Form. This is found on page 126. So let’s begin. Step one, create attributes. Strength, Endurance, Intellect, Dexterity, Charisma, Luck and Psionic Potential. The last two are a straight up percentage roll. The others are 4D10+30. Then add the racial modifiers to the attributes. So, I don’t think I’ve made an Edoan yet, so I’ll make one now.

Step two is the Character Background. We are rolling a 1D10 to see what three possible background options come up between Privileged, Normal and Disadvantaged. This yet to be named character came up as Normal.

The background skills are determined in step three. The number of skills are INT/10 rounded down. With my INT of 65 I get to pick 6 of them and roll a 1D10 to come up with the starting score. I picked the six skills.

Step four is the Advancement Lane. Where did the character get some education from? After a D10 roll he went to the Merchant Academy. So onto step five I added the skills that came from attending the Merchant Academy. This included the Outside Electives. In the Mid-Program Evaluation, the character was approved for specialty training, so I selected Helm/Navigation to focus on.

Step six is the Apprenticeship Program. Again a lot of skills scores were added or updated. On the Mid-Program evaluation he must have done something bad because no further education was allowed. The character now has to enter the base-level labor program which is step seven.

So if I’m reading this correctly, the character gets a year of unspecialized labor (hopefully flying a ship). For this first year he gets 10 unspecialized and 1 specialized skill at 1d10 that I pick. Then we get to roll on the opportunities table and add some modifiers. He didn’t get an apprenticeship, but he did get specialized labor which was another round of 1D10 to different skills. After the second year I rolled again and he barely made it into the Apprenticeship program. That he was forced out of, so do I just go to next step that I didn’t do in step six? It seems like I’m kinda in a loop. I’m going to guess I’m back in step 6-D (each step had a series of sub-steps) and continue from there.

I don’t see this character going to Command Training School, so I think I skip step 8. On step 9 is the Trading Experience and Skills. I roll 2D10 to see the number of years served. Wow, just to be a regular crewmember on a merchant ship still takes years (more for CO/XO or the equivalent of a Department Chief). If I did this correctly, he served 11 years as a navigator on a merchant vessel. That adds to some skills, but he’s still not at a chief level. Perhaps he’s just on the cusp? Anyway, I added the skills listed in this step.

Technically that was the last step. But when I moved everything from my notes to the sheet, I noticed it didn’t have the combat skills, equipment or anything else. I went back through the book (including the original rulebooks) and found the information. I guess they were expecting experienced RPG players to find these items. Here is the character sheet for my Edoan trader named Kraxx.

Afterthoughts:

There were some printing errors in the short form, I seriously doubt that a character would gain a skill addition of zero. Why even put it in the book with limited space. I’ll have to look back though my collections and notes to see if there was ever an errata for this book.

I think I can see why I never played in a FASA Star Trek merchant campaign. Of course, everyone wanted to play Starfleet officers when we were playing Star Trek. If we wanted to just play merchants, we could have played Traveller or Star Frontiers instead. But now that I’ve made this character, I’m wondering how the Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition merchant character would roll up? Perhaps I’ll pick that for one of my later characters in this challenge.

Additional Notes:

I’ve already had a ton of people contact me about making sure their blogs were posted on the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge list. If I’m missing your participating blog, or message board, please let me know and I’ll get it added. I’ve been enjoying the entries that I’ve read so far.

Coming Up Next:

Rivers of London

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, Doctor Who, Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek, Star Wars

Prepping for the 2026 Character Creation Challenge

Written by TardisCaptain
Some of the games that I plan to use in the 2026 #CharacterCreationChallenge.

Welcome to the end of the worst year that we’ve experienced since 2020. In some ways it was even worse than that dreaded year. Multiple deaths, an economy going bad and too many other things to mention here have cursed the past 365 days. I will eagerly shove 2025 out the door when the clock strikes midnight on New Years Eve. As mentioned before, January is almost upon us which means it’s time to create the characters. Over the past several months I’ve been prepping for what I hope will be a better year. Something that I really look forward to is participating in (and reading the other entries) for the #CharacterCreationChallenge. I like seeing the creativity of those in the RPG community. I like seeing what I come up with as I make these characters. I enjoy trying out (and reading about) different RPG systems that I don’t get a chance to play at the table. Thank you to everyone in the community who participate in this challenge.

From the image above, you can see some of the physical books that I plan to use for the 2026 challenge. Some I picked up at different SaltCONs for volunteering or picked up in the game swap room. A couple of others I received as rewards for backing the Kickstarter campaigns. A few were gifts (thank you again to those who gave me games, you know who you are). And then there were a few that I had owned for quite some time, but hadn’t used in building a character. I have a ton of games on PDF that I had picked up from DriveThruRPG or charity sites.

Because the upcoming January is already hectic I haven’t really nailed down what game will be on what date like I have in the past. The funeral for my mother-in-law is quickly coming up and I have other family commitments that are happier occasions. So I’m hoping my prepping will allow me to get all of the 31 characters done by January 31st. However, should real life dictate that I have to go into February, I’ll not stress out too much like I did last January.

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.

For the five previous years of the Character Creation Challenge (in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025) I’ve had quite a few 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 have had some people tell me that they are pre-making some of there characters before the challenge. I’m not going to blow the referee whistle at them. As I’ve stated when this was started five-years ago, this is for fun. I know we all have real lives to worry about. And as much as we’d like to be able to focus on our hobbies and what makes us happy, we still have to function in this society. So I’m not going to dock you for setting up a buffer. All that I ask is that you post your entries in at least one location (the #Character-Creation-Challenge channel on the TardisCaptainDotCom discord, on a personal blog (tell me the URL), on one of the many RPG message boards, on social media with the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge). I love seeing what other RPG fans have come up with.

If you are reading this after January 1st and you still want to jump into the challenge, please do. A few participants last year either did a quick catch up or just made sure they ran a full 31 days. The choice is yours. This challenge is just for fun with our gaming systems.

Remember to have fun with this. That was one of the primary goals of the challenge.

You can also use this graphic to help promote the #CharacterCreationChallenge.

31 Day Character Creation Challenge
Feel free to share this image on social media to spread the word.

What games are you using for the challenge? Do you have any questions about the challenge that wasn’t covered on by the FAQ? This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or click on my social media links with any comments.

Posted in: Role Playing Games

The Power of Gaming 2025 Edition

Written by TardisCaptain
The Well by Shoeless Pete Games

Every year on the RPG.net gaming forums members of the RPG community participate in a gift exchange called the “Secret Satan” (a play on Secret Santa). I’ve had the opportunity to participate in this gift exchange in the past where I was gifted Mutant Crawl Classics, two Ravenloft books, Teenagers from Outer Space and Fantasy Age 2nd Edition. Not only have I used these in past Character Creation Challenges, but I’ve also ran TfOS at a past SaltCON. I’ve sent my gifts off to my victim, and my gift just arrived yesterday. So many thanks to my Secret Satan for sending me The Well Roleplaying Game. I love the surprise that happens when I open the package.

This book is softbound with 122 pages. The Well was written by Peter Schaefer. The cover art was created by Chris Walton and the interior art was created by Kurt Komoda. No AI was used in the creation of this game. The ISBN number for this publication is 978-1-7364018-0-4. There is a single page character sheet and a character worksheet to assist in making a character. I will be using this game in the upcoming Character Creation Challenge.

The game setup for this game world is that decades ago, humanity has retreated underground in what’s called “The Well” which is 100 meters in diameter and capped at the top. Why? Well there are several options given in the GMs section, but none are set in stone to give the game master some freedom. At the bottom of this well is the last known city called “The Bastion”. The upper layers of the well above the city contain various crypts of the ancestors that, again for reasons unknown, the dead have started coming back to life. The city is under siege and could be overrun if the answer is not found. The characters, called Gravediggers, attempt to find unlooted crypts and sealed tombs to find loot, and hopefully some answers.

The system uses a D6 to reach a target number to achieve a task. Skills and equipment can added to the results of the roll. Additional dice can be added to the pool by teamwork, playing a gambit (taking on a possible complication) and others. The dice explode on a roll of a six, or you can save it in a pool for a future use. I wonder how it plays at the table.

Some of the interior artwork in The Well.

So once again thank you to the members of the RPG.net community. A special thank you to Kid Twist for organizing this festive event. You’ve all helped make this hectic December a better one. I hope that my contribution gives as much joy as I’ve received.

Have you had a chance to play The Well? Do you have any questions about this RPG? 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: Collecting, Reviews, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Spy-Fi, Westerns

Modern Necessities a Kickstarter Reward

Written by TardisCaptain

Continuing my catch up process, here is my report on the Kickstarter rewards that I have received for backing the Modern Necessities campaign by The Scrying Dutchman (that is the name used in the credits of the book). This set of books takes the B/X style rules from the Old-School Essentials books by Nerotic Gnome and provides different options for modern style games. This includes current times (with the Modern Necessities Professional Edition book), western times (with the Single Action book) and futuristic times (with the Cutting Edge book) that were included as part of the stretch goals. These three books are not stand-alone games, so they would need to be used with Old-School Essentials or another B/X set of rules. The level I backed included the PDFs as well as POD versions from DriveThruRPG. So far, I’ve been pleased with my POD purchases from DTRPG. You can read about my comparisons on this blog post.

The primary book is Modern Necessities Professional Edition. The two add-on books would need this book first. The ISBN for this softbound book is 2-370021-833733 and has 170 pages. While the cover has some color on it, all of the artwork is black and white. The cover was drawn by Noeland Collins with interior art provided by Galen Pejeau, Jonathan Torres, Carlos Castilho, Adam Black, Earl Geier, Jeshields and The Wonkee. The last two were listed that way in the credits.

The chapters covered in this book are Gameplay (primarily the use of modern firearms and a couple of optional skills system that can be used in OSR style games). New Classes (such as Crook, Detective, Face, Heavy Gunner, Hired Killer, Martial Artist, Medic, Ninja, Psychonaut (drug powered users of magic or mental powers), Sapper, Scout, Secret Agent, Sniper, Soldier, Survivalist, Tech Expert, Treasure Hunter (think Laura Croft), Vigilante (think Punisher) and Wheelman. Racial Traits used in modern based games (Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Halfling, Half-Orc and Human). Chapter five covers all of the different weapons both modern and racial (such as the differences between a dwarven or elfin gun).

The next two chapters covers different types of armor and equipment. Magical items comes up in the next chapter (magically enhanced gun anyone?). Chapter nine tells us about the vehicles used within Modern Necessities.

Chapter ten takes us into a new section of the book, Technomancy. The use of magic with technology. I love the spell Crypto that converts physical monetary items into cryptocurrency. When you try to convert it back again, there’s a chance that the money/treasure returns at a lower value. In a similar vein, chapter 11 covers Psionics.

Chapters 12 and 13 provide information on NPCs and Hired Help. Kind of like a monster manual and lists of hirelings for modern times. There are some common types here (street punks, security guards, grey aliens, etc.) and some may be supernatural or alien in origin. I remember seeing a similar listing in the White Lies RPG and thinking how helpful it was. One of the opponents is obviously the Terminator with the serial numbers filed off.

The Extra Rules chapter is like a GMs section with information on how to make the game more cinematic. There are other rules that make the game unique if the GM wishes to add them. This is then followed by the Loot Tables in the next chapter. Different items that can be dropped by civilians, criminals, law enforcement, etc. The sixteenth chapter provides some different plot hooks with the last chapter presenting an introductory adventure for the GM to use.

Some of the examples of artwork used in Modern Necessities.

By contrast the two additional books, Cutting Edge and Single Action, have a smaller page count, 75 pages and 47 pages respectively. The ISBN for Cutting Edge is 2-370022-615949 and 2-370022-616014 for Single Action. Cutting Edge expands the Modern Necessities with information for cyberpunk and space opera games. This includes more technomancy spells, cybernetic implants, mechs, beam weapons and more. Some of the NPCs and Opponents include those inspired by Aliens, Predator, Blade Runner and more. Single Action allows the GM to run a western themed campaign with or without magic. Both books contain new character classes (six new for Cutting Edge and seven new for Single Action) and equipment.

Hey look, another familiar name.

Overall I got excited looking over these books. This is something that I could have homebrewed myself and seeing the ideas already in print give me energy as per my favorite Ray Bradbury quote. I inquired about a character sheet for Modern Necessities as I want to use this game in the upcoming Character Creation Challenge. The Scrying Dutchman responded that he was only planning to use the Old-School Essentials sheet, but he seemed open to the idea of generating a specific sheet for this game. While I love the art in the books, I was a little confused by one thing. It shows the different fantasy races in modern equipment and garb, but one race in particular was used in different pieces of art. The devil-looking Tieflings. Yet there were not gaming information for this race in Modern Necessities or the Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy Player’s Tomb. I’m sure it wouldn’t be that difficult to port the races over, especially after the players see the artwork showing goblin, tiefling and draconian characters in the book. After reading the Skill Throw System and the 2d6 Skill System, I wonder how these would play at the table. Overall I’m very happy backing this project because I started thinking about how I could use the information in a game. I don’t know if I could pull this off as a one-shot for SaltCON or try to put together a campaign. I guess it would have to depend upon finding players to sit at the table and when I get the last stretch goal reward of Bunker on the Borderlands which has an adventure in it. But these books made me want to write and homebrew for roleplaying games.

Do you have any questions about Modern Necessities or the two companion books? Have you backed any Kickstarters lately? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

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