So one of my goals in the new house is to get everything out of the “temporary” cardboard boxes and sorted into permanent storage, on display or purged. I’ve got a lot of comics, blueprints, magazines, books and other resource materials that I’ve been trying to find places for. I want to store them safely, but keep them where I can access them when needed. For way too long I had stuff packed up in a “temporary” box stored in a location where I could not get it easily. Sure I had my collection listed in Google Docs so I could access it from my phone (this life hack has prevented me from buying stuff I find on sale when I already own a copy) but if I can’t use or enjoy it, why keep it? My latest trick has been this.
Storage envelope on a comic long box
One of the things that has bugged me about the comic long boxes (available from your local favorite comic shop) is not knowing which box contained which comics. While I was looking at the stack of long boxes it hit me. I should find some transparent envelopes that I can slip an index card or two inside that contains a list of the contents. I did a quick search on Amazon and discovered the YESSART 5×7 Small Plastic Envelopes. They were big enough to hold the index cards and transparent enough that I could find the box I was looking for at a quick glance. The envelope flap is sealed with Velcro to keep the index cards inside. The above photo shows how they could fit on the side of a comic long box, the photo below shows how it would fit on a magazine short box.
Storage envelope in use on a magazine short box.
I found a box of 1/2 inch Glue Dots that allowed me to secure the envelopes to the storage box. These dots are double sided and would stick to both the cardboard and the plastic. I decided to use four dots in each corner in order to make sure that the envelope stayed on securely. This way if I decided to re-use the box for a different collection, all I had to do was switch out the index cards.
The bad thing about going through the collection to get it documented and organized is coming across things I haven’t seen in a few years. Some of the Homebrewed Starship game stats that I’ve posted before have come from some of these blueprints that I’ve been collecting over the years. As I was going through them, I had to take a look at a few of them in detail again because of my love of Treknology and schematics. A few of them tripped ideas on how I could homebrew them for different systems. In a way that is one of the many reasons I am trying to get everything organized so I can let my creativity fly and put it on display on this site.
I love it when the creative energy starts flowing.
So I got involved in a discussion on a Stargate fandom page online. The topic was the much debated Stargate Universe series. Some people stated that they liked it, others (including myself) stated that we didn’t like it. The conversation was going pretty well until someone posted the following “You are not a true fan of Stargate unless you’ve watched all of Stargate Universe.” Now this was a statement that I really had to respond to as I’ve heard this “True Fan” comment before and it bugs me a lot. Rant Mode On: I think this meme said it best.
As most of you know (or have probably guessed), I’m a fan of a large number of science fiction and fantasy franchises. And there are some shows that I have not found entertaining. I could never get into the Buffy and Angel series no matter how hard I tried. It seemed like every time I sat down to give The X-Files a chance while it was first airing, it turned out to be the episode of the season with the most blood. There are other series, movies, comics and books that I just couldn’t get into. Some I will talk about in future blog posts.
Even in my favorite franchises, there are stinkers. I’ve only seen the last episode of Star Trek: Enterprise once. And I only plan to watch it once again (to mine it for quotes and trivia questions) before I avoid it at all costs afterwards. If someone would have had the misfortune of having that episode be their first introduction to the Star Trek universe, I could understand why they may not like Enterprise or even Star Trek itself. They get to decide what they are fans of, not me nor anyone else.
Using the term “True Fan” is a form of Gatekeeping. Gatekeeping, in the fandom/hobby sense, is allowing only those the “true fans” deem worthy to join them in the fandom. They may use this to keep fans of a certain series in a franchise out of their club/social media group/etc. (i.e. “You can’t be a true Star Trek fan if you like Star Trek: Discovery), or they may use this to keep certain players out of their games (i.e. “You can’t play in our Battletech game with papers figures, you have to only play with painted figs). A note on this last one. A sanctioned tournament for a miniature or card game requiring certain items to use in the tournament is a method of marketing and sales, not gatekeeping. And one I see in cosplay groups is, your cosplay isn’t worthy of inclusion. Really? With how much time, energy and effort goes into cosplay you are going to get upset because it’s not “screen accurate”? Someone who puts their heart into their fandom doesn’t deserve to get it crushed.
Gatekeeping by “true fans” makes the base of participants smaller and could kill our fandoms. You never know what was someone’s introduction to the fandom or hobby. While I was manning the USS Ticonderoga recruiting booth during the opening weekend of Star Trek: Into Darkness, a new fan came up to me and stated that the previous Star Trek film had inspired him so much that he went and watched all of the original Star Trek television series. He was now a fan of the franchise itself and was checking out the other shows. Had he been talking to a “true fan”, he could have been discouraged by the belittlement and not checked out the rest of the universe that awaited him.
It’s not just geeky movies and hobbies that his plagued by this. I’ve seen this same “true fan” mentality in sports fandom. “You can’t be a true fan of the (insert team name here) unless you can name a player from their 2009 championship run.” As our Dwight meme says above: “False!”
Now when someone asks a question like “Is the new Superman & Lois television series any good?” I usually respond somewhere along the line of “I’ve enjoyed it.” If I found that I haven’t been a fan of a series, I state that it is something I haven’t enjoyed. If someone says they enjoyed a series that I have not, then I’m glad. Not everyone has to enjoy what I enjoy. I request the same respect in return. The “I’ve enjoyed it” answer is also how I avoid the bait posts where someone is trying to start an opportunity to troll fans of a series.
So to recap, if you were to say to me “I’ve only seen a handful of episodes of the anime Cowboy Bebop and enjoyed it, am I a fan?” my answer would be yes. If you asked if you wanted to cosplay as a gender-bended Robin Hood and his band of thieves in the Sherwood Forest, would I consider you a fan? My answer would still be yes. “I really like Real Salt Lake because they are a local team.” I’d say welcome to the fandom. Would I shun you if you only wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition? No, I would not and I even might ask if there is an opening in your game. You get to decide if you are a fan of something, not these “true fans.” Enjoy what you want to enjoy and don’t let anyone tear you down for it.
Now to get back to the Stargate Universe discussion. I really enjoyed the original Stargate movie ever since I first saw it on opening weekend. It took me a while to get a chance to sit down and watch Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, but I enjoyed them both to the point where I call myself a fan. Because I had enjoyed both of these series so much, I took the opportunity to get season one, disk one DVD of Stargate Universe from Netflix (this should tell you how long ago this was) and my wife and I watched the first five episodes. There was one good episode in that first set (it was about time travel). I liked the nerdy kid who’s name I can’t remember. I really wanted to follow Samantha Carter in command of the USS Hamond and see her adventures. And I thought the concept of being trapped on a living spaceship not under your control sounded interesting. But I found the writing in SGU horrendous. The acting really wasn’t up to snuff despite some good names on the acting list. The use of the tech to switch bodies to go back to Earth and spy on your ex-wife was dumb. It was dark, dreary and depressing and was practically a soap opera. Talking into the floating camera things was too much like how reality TV show contestants would react to a camera between dramatic takes (a major turn off). And the scene where some woman is talking to her floating camera making a message for her husband, and then forgets to turn it off while she cheats on him with another member of the crew really made me roll my eyes. I think I realized this show wasn’t for me when the lead scientist and the lead military guy was fighting in the fifth episode and I turned to my wife and said “I don’t even care who wins this fight.”
Now if you are a fan of Stargate Universe. Good for you, I’m glad you enjoyed it. Some of the SGU fans in the discussion stated that it got better in season two and encouraged me to sit down and give the series another try. I could see myself doing this once I’ve gotten all of my other catch-up and new watching completed. I’m really enjoying Superman & Lois and I watch it every week. WandaVision was another series I had to keep up on. I need to finish my first watch through of Farscape (yea I missed it when it first aired) and someday I’ll watch all of the episodes of Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda. There are a ton of shows in my streaming lists and interests that I want to watch. And that doesn’t even count the number of books and comics I want to read or games I want to play. Bottom line is that SGU is really down on the priority list. So yes I’d give it another try if my list has been completed, but that will not be for a very very long time.
I think I’ve said enough to end this rant. If you are still reading, thank you. Just remember, you decide what you are a fan of, not other people and not those who gatekeep with the term “true fans”.
I had a chance to scan in a few more starships that I created for the Star Trek Starship Tactical Combat Simulator by FASA. As I had mentioned before in the blog entry: Homebrew stats for Starships, I’ve collected the starships that could be used in this tactical simulator from a wide variety of sources. I placed them in a master book of starships for easy reference. After I had collected all that I could find, I used the Starship Construction Manual to homebrew some stats of starships I had found in other technical manuals and publications. When I was doing this in the 90’s, I didn’t have access to a lot of resources to make the entries look polished. So these scans are the pages as they were made. The numbers came from the original sources (I needed a few basic stats to get started like the weight of the vessel, the speed, etc.) and I only created a document if I had an image to go along with the stats. The visual representation was a big thing for me and one of the reasons I really didn’t get into other combat simulators.
So for this post I present for you the Athabaska Class XII Cruiser, the Caracal Class XI Cruiser, the Citadel Class XII Cruiser, the Horizon Class VIII Cruiser and the Menagha Class XI Battlecruiser. Where I was random in the selection for the last post, I’m just taking them in order now to keep things simple.
Oh and just for a reference, here is a picture of the master book. Yes it’s thick and yes it has pages that haven’t been three-holed punched and added. You can see how worn this book is.
Wow, we did it. Not only was I able to make 31 characters in 31 days for the Character Creation Challenge, but there were quite a few others as well. From contacts on social media to message boards like the RPG.net Forums and the Old School Trek message board there were a few “completed the challenge” posts.
I wanted to thank those who participated. It was interesting to read some of the reasons behind why they selected the characters or system that was posted. I learned a few things about some of the games. Plus there was a few “I should have thought of that” moments. Someone created a character for the Wendy’s fast-food chain RPG called Feast of Legends. When am I going to get a chance to play that? This challenge would have been perfect to make a character for it just to get a feel for the game. I did that with a few games that I had in my collection.
Some of the character creation ideas impressed me, not because they did it, but because they had a theme. A couple of Traveler blogs created a lot of characters for their favorite system. One blogger made a variety of witches in different systems showing how the theme could be used across several games. I could tell that one participant posting on the RPG.net forum was a big fan of AD&D 2nd Edition Al-Qadim setting.
I’ve also made a few friends along the way. Apparently my bad jokes hasn’t scared anyone off yet. There were also quite a few thank yous coming from the different sources. I’m glad that others found enjoyment in this challenge as well. When I first came up with the concept last November, I was worried that I’d be the only one participating.
When I committed to doing this challenge, it gave me a little bit of extra incentive to get all of my books out of the garage. While my goal is to get rid of every cardboard box storing stuff, I still have a ways to go. There were some games that I know that I’ve owned (and I have them listed in my collection list on my Google Docs), but I can’t find the books. I’m hoping that I didn’t lose them over the years. I know I had books for Twilight: 2000 and Top Secret S.I. Also when I looked up the books on Amazon or Ebay, I noticed how much some of my older books were going for. Some of these books I purchased when they first came out and apparently are worth more than I expected.
The character creation process that frustrated me the most was for the FASA Doctor Who RPG. This shocked me as I swore I had played this game before. Amazingly enough the system that impressed me the most (from a creation standpoint) was Cubicle 7’s entry in to the Doctor Who RPG. I’m really curious on how the game plays out at the table. I was also impressed with Frontier Space, Age of Empire and a few others. This challenge also reminded me why I don’t play some flavors of Dungeons and Dragons. I want to write adventures, supplements and homebrews for all of the Star Trek RPGs. After this challenge I also want to write material for Apes Victorious, Gangbusters B/X, Tall Tales, Age of Empire, almost all of the espionage RPGs and the Doctor Who RPG by Cubicle 7. There is a large homebrew community for the DW RPG which has inspired me.
Most of the games that I created characters for, I own a physical copy of the books. I’ve been purchasing a lot of games from DriveThruRPG and the various charity bundles. There were a few that I didn’t use in this challenge, but I may for future challenges. Especially if I can get a hold of physical copies. These include Classified, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Mazes and Minotaurs, Modern Age, Rocket Age, White Lies, Traveler and more. Who knows what else I may have added to my collection by next January.
If you are still reading this far, thank you. The number of blog posts won’t be daily like they were in January. But I will be posting things as inspiration strikes. There are a few other topics that I wanted to discuss that time did not allow in January. So don’t be surprised to see some catch up posts soon. I’m also planning to fill out the rest of the sections that I’d like to have on this site.
When I printed out a yellow AD&D character sheet it brought me back to those days. However instead of printing one, it was photocopied. The yellow didn’t copy out very well in grayscale. I’ve decided that I would make a character from a class that I’ve never played. So today I am rolling up the stats for Kellerin a Human Paladin.
The method to roll the ability scores wasn’t listed in the Player’s Handbook, I had to go pull out my Dungeon Master’s Guide to see what options were available. Method IV sounded interesting (roll enough stats for 12 characters and then pick one set of stats), but I didn’t have that much time for dice rolling. So I stuck with Method II, roll 4d6 and discard the lowest die twelve times and select which score will go with which attribute. Kellerin ended up with the following stats. STR: 16, INT: 14, WIS: 15, DEX: 14, CON: 15, CHR: 17. It’s probably a good thing I selected Method II, there were a few very low rolls that were eliminated.
I then wrote down all of the class benefits, ability modifiers and background information from the DMG. Apparently Kellerin was the son of a Taylor who thought he was going to go into the family business. I can’t think of a reason right now, but somehow he ended up associated in a holy order that trained him to be a Paladin. If I was talking to the DM, I would discuss that the reason he is out adventuring is due to his assignment of protecting the cleric in our party that is also a part of the same order.
My eventual goal is to get Kellerin in a suit of full plate mail with a powerful magic sword so that he might be able to smite evil. However until that time he would be starting out with some non-magical armor and weapons that was selected from the equipment list with the starting GP rolled up as per the RAW.
The saving throw information was also in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. I’m glad that the later editions made sure that was all in the Player’s Handbook. Kellerin isn’t high enough in levels to list any spells or turning abilities. So I think I’m done. Here is the character sheet.
Afterthoughts:
It had been a while since I had thought about the STR 18/[percentage] attribute score. I remember having a character that was lucky enough to have an 18 strength score. I then rolled the percentile dice and got a really low number in the single digits. I remember thinking “really?”
While I had a blast going through memory lane going through the AD&D 1st Edition Player’s Handbook (and Dungeon Master’s Guide) I can recall why I stuck with BECMI when I wanted to play. There were too many nooks and crannies in AD&D 1e. I think that the reason I had never created a Paladin previously was due to the restrictions of role-playing such a character. At the time I wasn’t experienced enough to want to play it. I may be interested now, but I can understand why I wasn’t then.
Additional Notes:
And with that I’ve met the challenge. Thirty-one characters different characters from a different system, one for each day of the month in January. Whew. I will be giving a detailed analysis in tomorrow’s after-action post.
Coming Up Next:
The Character Creation Challenge After Action Report
The fan-made Star Trek RPG called Where No Man Has Gone Before v2.1 is based off of the D20 Microlite20 rules. The Microlite system is basically D20 slimmed down quite a bit so it is a quick system to learn and play. The Far Trek RPG system is based off of WNMHGB with some minor differences. There was also a version 1.0 of the WNMHGB rules that are more inline with the open source D20 system.
For the Character Creation Challenge I’m going to create, Ensign Navin a Deltan Starfleet Medical Officer serving on the Constitution-class USS Deneb, NCC-1826.
The attributes scores are only Strength (STR), Dexterity (DEX), Intelligence (INT) and Charisma (CHA) which are generated by rolling 4d6 and removing the lowest die. Then you record the stat bonuses on the character sheet (score -10 then divided by 2 rounding down). The racial adjustments are made to the the bonuses which are the only thing you use in play. Ensign Navin ended up with the following stats. STR: 14 (0 penalty due to -2 for being Deltan), DEX: 12 (+1), INT: 14 (+2) and CHA: 12 (+3 including the +2 for being Deltan).
Being a Classic Star Trek based RPG, the three classes are Blue Shirt, Red Shirt and Yellow Shirt. The skills are Communication, Engineering, Knowledge, Medicine, Physical and Subterfuge. Each character selects one skill to be their trained skill which will start out at your level +3. All other skills will be half of the character’s level rounded down, plus one. A skill roll is a d20 + skill rank + any stat bonuses (if any) + any situational modifiers.
Starting characters in WNMHGB get to choose two talents. These can be taken from a General list or a list specific to the class. I selected Field Medic and Recollections. Hit Points are the same for all classes STR bonus + 1d6 per level. Armor class is 10 + 1/2 level (rounded down) + DEX bonus. All characters start out with two action points which have a variety of uses to make your character more heroic during a session (or in the case of one of Navin’s talents, heal others). They can be regained by proper roleplaying or other GM decisions or talents.
The section for equipment stated that you shouldn’t be worried about ranges, but it has ranges listed on the character sheet. This confused me and I’d probably homebrew something if I was running a game. I selected the equipment that I felt a members of Starfleet Medical would normally have and considered the character done. Here is a scan of the Character Sheet.
Afterthoughts:
Some of the talents are Vulcan specific (Nerve Pinch) which I felt that the members of that race should have gotten for free. Yea it make the Vulcan characters a little bit more powerful, but they were that way in the show as well.
I thought it was interesting that one of the optional rules was TV Ratings. After each episode the GM would roll a die to see how the show did in the Nielsens. If the results were too low, the TV executives may demand some changes such as a cute sidekick or replace a character or some inane suggestion that upper management usually things will fix things right away. Considering the ratings question with various Star Trek series, this gave me a chuckle.
If given a choice between the light-rules RPGs, I don’t know if I’d play Far Trek or WNMHGB. They both have their strengths and weaknesses. I know that I will be homebrewing for both systems.
Additional Notes:
Apparently some participants in the Character Creation Challenge have also been using the social media hashtag of #31CharacterChallenge as well as #CharacterCreationChallenge. I had not been following the first hashtag so I don’t know how far it reached but you may be able to find some additional entries there.
This system by Goblinoid Games is Spaceships & Spacemen. Think Dungeons & Dragons B/X meets Classic Star Trek with the serial numbers filed off. You are on a starship serving the Galactic Confederation. Your opponents are the Zangid and the Videni instead of the Klingons and the Romulans. Taurans sounds a lot like Vulcans, etc. As a person who collects and studies Star Trek based RPGs (I’m still looking for a physical or PDF copy of Starfleet Voyages) I knew I had to create a character for this system in the Character Creation Challenge.
S&S uses just about the same system as Apes Victorious (that I created a character for yesterday) so this should go pretty quickly. Since I created a Human yesterday, today’s character will be one of the unique races to the game based upon the random ability rolls. They rolled high enough that I was able to select a Gorran (Gorn like lizards) and after adding the ability adjustments I ended up with the following stats. STR: 12, CON: 18, DEX: 9, INT: 9, CHA: 10, PSI: 13.
The skills in S&S are different from Apes Victorious. In AV they were based on a percentage score or a d6 roll depending upon the skill. In S&S the four skills are Combat, Contact, Science and Technical with a d20 roll with a requirement to roll equal or less than your character’s score. The contact skill is used in first contact with alien life form (a form of diplomacy) or the ability to recognize patterns and what is in your surroundings. If I’m reading this correctly, it could be used for perception/spot/listen type skills. Each class has a primary skill, some branches also have a secondary skill. If a skill is not a primary or secondary, it uses the other rating on the chart. The higher your character level, the better the skill roll.
The ages of the character can adjust the ability scores. This character ended up with the age of 22 which is an adult and adds +1 to the STR and PSI scores (umm… why on that last one?) But I didn’t want to go back and re-calculate the stats again so I left them as they were. If I were running a game I’d make sure this was added in early of the character creation or just skip it for the Adult range.
Equipment assigned to a character in this fleet is based upon the branch, sub-class and rank. A player can select items from the equipment list based upon a number generated from his rank plus one. Unit 1/2 equipment is basic and common. The higher the unit, the more unique the items become. Beginning players end up with basic equipment, higher level characters can choose from other distinguished items. Interesting technique. This allowed me to get a beam pistol for my security officer (which I felt was needed) but there was no armor options left that was 1 unit.
It took me a minute to find out how the Defense score worked. Instead of having an Armor Class, your Defense score is an adjustment to the attacker’s Combat Skill roll. Interesting. I wonder how this works in gameplay. This was the last item I need on the character sheet, which is posted below.
Afterthoughts:
Both Starships & Spacemen and Apes Victorious had a lot of psionic abilities. But I’ve never been a psionic player. So I’d probably only really push for this aspect of the game if the race (i.e. Vulcan like abilities) were part of the character.
Going thought the equipment they had a “laser sword” that is only usable by Security or Rigelians. I wonder what influenced this item.
There is an entire section in the rules where the Star Master (GM) can generate an alien race that is humanoid with a strange forehead. It even has 100 random foreheads that the SM can randomly roll for. Some looked quite familiar, while others were a little out there.
I could see myself playing this game to try it out. I also want to make sure I’m familiar enough with this system as I want to homebrew a lot of Star Trek material. Even with this not being an actual Star Trek game, it is close enough for me to want to include it in my collection of Star Trek type games.
Additional Notes:
Yea, tomorrow’s game is also a Star Trek RPG as well. I wanted to make sure I got the Trek games in that I had access to and I had something special for the last game in the 31 day challenge. So we’ve got two of them back-to-back.
Apes Victorious is a role playing game that is heavily inspired by the 1970’s Planet of the Apes franchise. I’ve enjoyed watching this series when I can and I even put in the DVD of the first movie last night to prep for today’s challenge. While I’ve seen a few of the newer Planet of the Apes movies, I haven’t sat down and watched all of them. This was a universe I was interested in role-playing in. So I decided to make a character for the Character Creation Challenge.
One of the things that stood out from last night’s viewing is that the smart Humans did not have their technology to save them or confirm their stories. The ship crashed in the water and the non-intelligent Humans stole and trashed their equipment. Making another astronaut character seemed a little cliche, but the Apes Victorious book suggested that a smart Human could have emerged from a cryo-sleep in a bunker. So Martin Reynolds was a smart Human that was woken from his hibernation state by an alarm that he needed to evacuate the underground facility quickly before it exploded. Grabbing a few things while running for the exit he now finds himself in an unknown world. What will he find? What caused the destruction of his bunker? Who else survived?
Apes Victorious uses the same system as other Goblinoid Games (Labyrinth Lord, Mutant Future, Starships & Spacemen 2e) which are all D20 based with a few minor tweeks. The ability generation is done by 3d6 with the option to assign the scores after rolling. I will be using the Astronaut class for the revived sleeper (since he just woke up and not constantly living underground like an underdweller descendant).
The only difference between B/X D&D attributes and AV attributes is Psionic Potential (PSI) replaces the Wisdom (WIS) score. Astronauts do not get any attribute adjustments so Reynolds ended up with the following stats. STR: 11, CON: 11, DEX: 17, INT: 13, CHA: 9 and PSI: 8. Rolled a 5 for his Hit Points.
The equipment was easy (Astronauts get this). I didn’t include the rubber raft since he was actually a sleeper instead of a flyboy.
It appears that only Underdwellers get the psionic abilities. I wrote down the To Hit score and the save checks for Energy Attacks, Poison or Death, Stun Attacks and Radiation. After I wrote some description notes I considered the character done. Here is the character sheet.
Afterthoughts:
I really want to write up a homebrew for the Sleeper class now. It would be very similar to the Astronaut but have some tweaks from the Underdwellers and other sources.
I liked how the character sheet has the graphics that remind me of the classic PotA series. The system was pretty basic and straightforward. I could see myself playing or even being the Ape Master (Game Master) for a campaign.
Additional Notes:
While I still haven’t been able to locate any additional websites that has posts for the Character Creation Challenge, I have been seeing a lot of participation on the social media hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge.
While I’ve had lots of experience with the D6 Star Wars RPG by West End Games, I have never played the D20 Star Wars RPG by Wizards of the Coast. I’ve been able to collect a few of the books. Apparently there is a revised edition and a saga edition with smaller books. But I’m not certain how they all go together. But being a Star Wars fan I knew I had to make at least one character in this system for the Character Creation Challenge.
I will be using the Revised Core Rulebook that was published in 2002. I’m thinking a Fringer that is a member of the Rodian race named Navik. He was kicked out of his village by a rival who’s father was on the village council. Navik wandered the lands until he decided that he wanted to leave his homeworld, probably forever. After taking a few odd jobs he ended up helping some rebels. Feeling like he was wanted for once, he has joined the cause for freedom in the galaxy.
With this being one of the many D20 variants I was curious on how the attribute generation was set up. They had the 4d6 random generation rule, the planned generation with base attributes and spending points to obtain the score you wanted or just a standard score package. The last one didn’t sound very fun, I’ve done the second before so I rolled. I just feel better rolling for the character. After adding racial adjustments Navik had the following stats. STR: 15, DEX: 16, CON: 14, INT: 13, WIS: 14 and CHA: 8.
Interesting, this game calls it Vitality Points instead of Hit Points and your CON score is your Wound Points. There are also Force Points (even a non-Jedi starts out with 1 FP). A Reputation score is also a part of the character.
Not a lot of basic equipment in the core rulebook I wonder if one of the supplements had a lot more equipment to choose from. But I selected what I thought a wandering Fringer would have and called it good. Here is the character sheet.
Afterthoughts:
I was a little surprised that Bounty Hunter wasn’t one of the classes in the core rulebook. With how popular the Mandalorians are I thought for sure that they would be in there. I was thinking about making a Bounty Hunter after watching The Mandalorian series.
This character sheet uses really small fonts. I understand trying to get as much as you can on the page, but I probably wouldn’t use this character sheet in a campaign. I’d probably put something together in Excel.
Being familiar with the D20 system I could see myself easily playing this system. However if given a choice I’d play the D6 version first probably due to the nostalgia factor.
Additional Notes:
I’m having a lot of fun coming up with these characters. Some I had a general idea what I wanted to do before I started. Others like this one I made up on the spot. It’s interesting to see where inspiration strikes and where it strikes from.
The Star Trek Roleplaying Game by Decipher was the first Star Trek RPG that I played with my local Star Trek club. I was even able to GM a few sessions. I had a group of young Ensigns (the player characters) lead by an NPC Lieutenant as the CO, head to a shipyard to recover the USS Crockett for refitting just after the end of the Dominion War. Starfleet needed to pull some older, but still serviceable ships out of mothballs to rebuild the fleet and get back to the primary duty of exploring. Because the PCs got kicked off the station managing the shipyard, the team left with the Crockett before making sure the ship was ready to go. There was a very large nest of Talarian Hook Spiders that woke up from hibernation when the environmentals warmed up. As the crew tried to re-take back the ship, one of the PCs accidentally set the Lieutenant on fire who then fell in the turboshaft that they were traversing through. Luckily he survived despite being very injured. After the players recovered the ship and got to their destination, the poor Lieutenant was placed on a medical leave and eventually retired somewhere far away from the PCs.
For this entry in the Character Creation Challenge, I decided that I would make an Andorian Flight Control Officer serving on the Nebula Class, USS Ulysses NCC-66808. His name would be Ensign Rexun and is is a member of the Athrun keith (clan). Selecting the race and the profession was the first and second part of the character creation process.
The attributes used in this STRPG is Strength, Agility, Intellect, Vitality, Presence and Perception. For the random method roll 2d6 nine times and discard the three lowest results, then assign a score to the attribute. There is also a pic method but I felt like rolling dice today. With the racial modifiers Rexun ended up with the following attributes. STR: 8, AGL: 8, INT: 9, VIT: 8, PRE: 7, PER: 9.
Reaction tests are like savings throws. You select the highest of the attribute modifiers that feed into the four reaction scores. These also in turn generate your Initiative and Defense scores.
This is a skills based system. I’ve been a fan of these types of systems, but I’ll play the “general skills” games as well. I just feel that the skills list makes the character unique, especially when you are homebrewing a character seen in the show or in the expanded universe. These skills are selected by going through several steps including Personal Development (military brat was selected) and Professional Development (I selected Helm/Navigator)
The character creation process rounded out with wound status, courage and renown. There is a chapter on equipment, but it wasn’t part of the creation process listed on pages 20-21. In the RAW Starfleet equipment is assigned as per the mission needs. I considered the character done. Here is the sheet.
Afterthoughts:
Creating this character brought back lots of good memories. Especially with friends from Starfleet Command’s Seventh Fleet. We did some homebrewing in our games and it made me want to homebrew again.
There was a time I had to go find the Players Guide errata. Luckily I had it readily available. The book had a few rough edges while trying to navigate the character creation system. Quite a few bookmarks were used. I remember in the Fleet we had created our own Character Creation Guide to assist members unfamiliar with the game.
Additional Notes:
We are entering the home stretch towards the end of the Character Creation Challenge. Because I’m creating a character and writing a blog post at the same time, it takes quite a bit of coordination and energy. Especially when I have to stop myself from pulling out the other resource books and fan made homebrews after the character is created. I get distracted by the shiny things sometimes.
