2022 Character Creation Challenge 5) Star Trek - Last Unicorn Games

 On to a somewhat disappointing Day 5 of the #CharacterCreationChallenge

Moving the second of my two Star Trek games, the earlier of the two chronologically, and this one was a MUCH WORSE experience in character creation. This iteration was purely Original Show, and the rulebook spends a lot of time fleshing out all the alien races that appear just for an episode as being full-fledged Star Fleet races that would cross populate the ships. I mean, I get it from a player choice perspective but it a) doesn't really capture the feel of the show, and requires way more digestion of data than the similar wall of aliens does in the Decipher version, as those aliens all have much more meat on their metaphorical bones. 

In any event, I found every step of the LUG character creation process less intuitive, more poorly laid out (everything is so cramped!) and harder to work through. By trying to give more options  - you can skip away from the tour of duty process to stop selecting options and instead build your own tour experience – I'm left feeling like I missed something because I didn't. The Edges and Drawbacks design is in full bloom here, but while it is also in Decipher Trek, the Drawbacks there feel like an afterthought, and you don't need them to move forward, and you'll pick up edges otherwise. Here? Not so much. 

In the end I put together a junior Navigation officer from an dangerous tide ocean and cliff colony world fresh off her first tour, named her after the She-Ra and the Princess of Power creator. She's playable, but I don't love her. I loved She-Ra more. Go watch She-Ra. 

2022 Character Creation Challenge 4) Star Trek RPG (Decipher)

 Day 4 of the #Character Creation Challenge!

There are eleventy-skillion versions of the Star Trek game, but this is the one I actually ran. It's the one created by Decipher Games after they got the license and the entire work crew from Last Unicorn Games jumped ship to take another bite at the apple. (I'll be doing the LUG Original Series Star Trek next, which will be interesting.) This version is designed to cover the whole of Star Trek to date in the oughts, so you can play in the TOS, TNG, DS9 or Voyager timeframes and sensibilities, though the visual style of the book very much harkens to the 1990's era Trek. 

Character creation is a stylized multi-step process, where you pick a race, then a profession (and in the case of Starship Officer, a sub-profession) which determines what skills are available and what special abilities you might get, then a personal development that can gives you skills outside your profession and gives you an Edge from a small set, then your Professional Development in your profession which pre-spends some of your skill points as well as another edge from a small set. You can spend 5 more skill points on professional skills, and potentially take a drawback to get another edge, and you're in theory done – you have someone at the start of their career. 

But since Trek PCs are seldom at the start of their career there are also multiple rounds of Advances, based on how skilled the PCs are. Each one gives you access to more skills and edges, which include promotions, command ranks, contacts, wealth and the other things that the characters we follow on the TV shows might have. 

In practice, this turns out to be fairly convoluted, but it's also close to what Jorune's system would be built with if you designed it today. It gives you a very detailed history of the character up to the point of play. When I actually ran Trek, I let everyone play 2 characters, and gave them 6 advances between them. One player was both the broadly experienced Betazed Ambassador (6 advances) and the green out of the academy cadet (0 advances), while another was the Chief Science Officer (3 advances) and the visiting Anthropologist around whose work we hung the first season arc (3 advances). 

For today, I don't want to worry about advances: I'm going to build a PC at the start of their career, and since this version of trek is meant to handle anything (there is advice on running Klingon crews fighting for the empire, for example), I'm going with something unusual. A Ferrengi Diplomat. When he is inevitably questioned about a contradiction there, he uses his stock phrase of "I'm in the business of empires." I'm picturing him as a sort of freelance, neutral negotiator, an arbiter brought in to handle disputes in ways that are most profitable to both parties, with himself (and the Ferrengi Commerce Authority) taking a small fee off the top (or negotiating in some longer-term advantage). He's very good at what he does, and could easily be on a late TNG/DS9 or later Federation ship as an expert. 

Species: Ferrengi

This gives him several advantages: a flat +1 on the Business skill, immunity to psi powers, a further bonus on Business if he can learn Science (Mathematics), and most intriguingly, a racial ability that lets him Appraise any situation and find a possible profit angle in it. 

Attributes:

I see Ferek as being small, even for a Ferrengi, but smart and very charismatic and persuasive. Using the default distribution with species modifiers I get 

Strength 4, Agility 8, Intellect 10, Vitality 6, Presence 12, Perception 10. 

Profession: Diplomat

There's a dozen or so skills that the Diplomat can purchase in character creation, but the main thing is picking a special power from the 4 available to Tier 1 Characters (yes, there are tiers of advancement on top of everything else in character creation).  For maximal flexibility outside his core skill set I went with Bluff, which lets him ignore any test penalties when bluffing someone: he has enough of an order of gravitas that he can sell any idea without proof, at least in the short term.

Personal Development: Mercantile Upbringing 

This was a given, since I'm going outside the Ferrengi stereotype I needed to hook into the culture enough to get the all-important Business and Appraise skills, which are not in the Diplomat skills. I also got a point in Influence and System Ops (which is the 'all starship stuff' skill) as those weren't in Diplomat either. Ferek was raised in a perfectly normal small business family, where he learned to cook books, move product, and accept bribes from employees to stay employed. All normal stuff. 

The edge I selected for this development was Cultural Flexibility, which gives a +2 on all social rolls with other species. His father ran a business in a cosmopolitan crossroads, and Ferek got to know the buying and spending habits of pretty much everyone. 

Professional Development: Liaison

One the three options (the other two are Bureaucrat and Ecocultural Specialist), this one gave the best Negotiate (Mediate) score, and also felt like the best fit for the character. The Inquire (Fraternize) skill helps outside of negotiations in an investigation sense, so he has something else to do. 

The edge I selected for this development was Skill Focus – Diplomat, as it gives another +4 on Negotiate (Mediate) tests. When Ferek is doing his job – mediating a business dispute between two species – he has a +2 for his Intellect, +4 for his skill, +2 for the specialty (Negotiate), and +4 for this edge. +12 is pretty damn high and makes it likely he really is a professional, even if he's a bit narrow in his other skills yet. There's a Diplomat special power that gives Negotiate (Mediate) another +4, but I don't need that right now.

Last Steps

I have the option to take a Disadvantage in order to take another Edge. I really wanted to get Confident (Courage spent on social tests gives +5, not +3) because it fit the idea of someone who could walk in between a Klingon and an Andorian and be sure to bring them to an arrangement. The Disadvantage list is fully of stuff that's highly mechanical, but eventually realized how well Pacifist 1 fit: can't spend courage on attacks, will never attack to kill, will never leave someone to die. Of course you don’t leave someone to die. Dead people can't owe you favors. There's no profit in dead people. 

I'm not sure this is a character I'd want to play in a classic Federation game – he'd work as a walk on a few episodes a season – but if the game isn't a Federation one there's room for a lot of fun. 

2022 Character Creation Challenge 3) Doctor Who - Cubicle 7 games, 10th Doctor

 Dat 3 of the #CharacterCreationChallenge 

I'm really swinging back and forth between design complexity here, and Cubicle 7's Doctor Wo game is more towards the WEB Star Wars edge of the spectrum. Still, it uses a design mode I'm not fond of, which is the Attributes + Skills + Edges and Flaws model. I'm not a fan because while it is superficially very easy the edges and flaws all do very specific things, players have to read through a bunch of them because the name doesn't always evoke the specific mechanics, and you end up having to grasp a lot of the mechanics to make an informed decision. Still, this isn't the worst I've seen. 

But Cubicle 7? The character sheet that came in the 10th Doctor box? The one without room for the Areas of Knowledge for the skills? On the slick paper that doesn't take pencil well and takes ink even worse? Do better. 

Anyway, a quick skim of the text for the Attributes suggests the idea of a maximum Awareness. I considered making them an actual Alien, but I decided to go with the fragile young psychic trope. (OK, my first idea was to recreate Adric from the 4th and 5th Doctor because my wife used to work with the actor, but I changed my mind.) The Doctor used to travel with younger and less glamourous companions, so the idea of an 11 year old girl psychic worked well enough. 

This means Attributes of Awareness 6, Coordination 2, Ingenuity 3, Presence 4, Resolve 4, Strength 2. This is more in Attributes than the game recommends, but I'm good with it. It's easy to picture her being fragile for form but strong of spirit, standing up to adversaries of humanity with an alien level of perception and a strong will. 

Positive and Negative traits next. Three Negative traits in Distinctive, Unattractive, and Eccentric. I wanted to move away from the gamine psychic child and lean into something like Dorothy Spinner from the Doom patrol comic – beetle-browed, pug-nosed, overly high forehead are my tags – so she's far from a classic beauty. Her tendency to become overly serious, to flatly state uncomfortable truths that she shouldn't know, and her deep intense stare round out the process. 

For positive traits: Empathic and Psychic Training (which you may as well take if you're taking Psychic, because the cost of one is deducted from the other) from the regular Traits, with Psychic and Clairvoyant from the special Advantages. She's got a very high sense of people, can resist most psychic attacks, can read peoples surface thoughts, and even spend 1 minute seeing things up to 1 KM away. 

With my remaining point I pick up Screamer, because it's one of those system/setting specific abilities that I love: when confronted she can let out an ear piercing shriek that stuns everyone nearby for a second. So in genre. Love it. 

Skills: As an 11-year-old there's a lot she doesn't have (Marksman, Science, Survival, Technology and Transport are all 0). Her Athletics, Craft (specified as Dance) and Fighting (which I see as panicked wildcat brawling) are all 1. Her Subterfuge 3 (with the 'Sneak' Area of Knowledge) give her something to fall back on when her powers aren't useful. 

While she's not especially ingenious, she read a lot, saw a lot, paid close attention to her minders medical activities, and has some intuitive sense, so I'm finishing up with Knowledge 3 and Medical 3 (with the Area of Knowledge Psychology). 

The picture her is that she is a young girl – Katarina Olafsdottor - rescued by the Doctor from a USSR Remote Viewing experiment in the 1960's. She's been travelling with him since; originally from Iceland, she doesn't know why she was kidnapped, or where her parents are. She's in desperate need to adult affection and structure and will latch on to one of the other companions for it (the Doctor is a bit too Alien, and she can see it). Katarina is essentially a support character for the Doctor and for the other companion – she will always use her powers and presence to bolster her adult's self-confidence, so that the adult can go back to adulting for her. She's not one of those kid psychics with vast reservoirs of power… she's a kid, a lost one, who happens to have seen more than she ought. 

 I really like this PC and would love a chance to play a few sessions with her. 

2022 Character Creation Challenge 2) Skyrealms of Jorune (1987 update)

Day 2 of #CharacterCreationChallenge

The Skyrealms of Jorune character sheet from the 1987 edition is an integral part of the character creation process – the rules supplement repeatedly directs people to the character sheet where it will all make sense. And it more or less does. But it's also a 4-page monstrosity. So I'm doing a descriptive Walk Through 

First I decided I wanted to play a Boccord, an offshoot of humanity that is bigger, stronger, and has some special senses over regular humans, but suffers some social drawbacks. This is right in my wheelhouse, as I love playing big, strong PCs. 

I rolled the stats, which are in 4 groups of 3. Roll 3d6 (or 1d6+7 for the last group) 3 times for each group and place where you want. Then roll 1d6 bonus points that you can distribute inside that set. My sets

Constitution 12, Social 8, Color 10. Bonus die was a +1, which I used to increase Constitution. I could have swapped the Social and Color rolls, and a low Social will end up hurting me in the long run, but you need at least a 10 Color to access the Boccord special senses, so that was a no brainer. 

Strength 12, Education 13, Isho 9 (I swapped the Education and Isho rolls). Bonus due was a +1, which I used to increase Strength. The low Isho has very little impact on a Boccord, so no loss there. 

Speed 8, Agility 13 Aim 9 (I was already seeing a strong melee fighter so I swapped the Agility and Aim rolls). Bonus die was +5, which boosted Speed to 10, Agility to 14, and Aim to 11. 

Spot 8, Learn 13, Listen 9. Bonus die was a +4, so Spot moved to 10 and Listen to 11. 

The immediate thoughts when I was rolling were for a strong warrior type, and I really liked the high Education and maxed out Learn scores. Combined with the low social and Hemen Korath (yes, that's his name) had become a voracious reader and autodidact. 

Now, to flesh that out with skills. Skills are purchased in three passes, and each time you have your EDU stat to spend. The first pass lets you buy packages of skills and occupational groups. Buying the packages gives you logical clusters by skill type, while occupations are more varied but still make sense. Each skill has 10 levels, those are grouped into Inexperienced (0-1), Familiar (2-4), Experienced (5-7) and Seasoned (8-10), and the 1987 rules supplement gives the GM guidelines as to what success or failure looks like at each level – experienced people not only have a higher chance of success, but they also get more when they make the roll and fail forward more often. It's complex, but it's comprehensive. 

My picture for Hemen was a very bright kid from a low social status who read a ton and ended up going into the armed forces to expand his skills. He might not have expected to, but when he's out of the army he's going to start his Tauther test and head for citizenship. 

His high Agility gives him an automatic Familiarity (level 3) with Athletic skills, while his modest Aim makes him suck less at ranted combat (level 1). His Education gives him a Seasoned (9) Writing and Experienced (5) reading of the Human language. His low social gives him a starting skill level of 1d6-1 in interaction, and I lucked out with a roll of 6. So Interaction starts at an impressive Experienced (5). 

I started with saying Hemen grew up in Ardoth, the capital city, and picked up the City Skills group for cheap (it's only 1 point if you have an urban background). He's got a broad Familiarity with Ardoth, and is Experienced with Connections and Bureaucracy. 

I also dropped 2 points on Practical Knowledge, the skill package that covers, well, day to day knowledge. I wanted Hemen to be broadly read and this was a good place to start. This made him Familiar with Current Events, Geography, Arithmetic, Weather, and Fauna Recognition and experienced with Lore. I'm deliberately leaving off Earth Tech and History for reasons to be made clear later. 

Now, I could have one with the Iscin career, or bought the packages of Classics and/or Sciences, but those imply a broader, more formal education and I like the idea of Hemen being one of those street kids rising to General someday, hence the Practical Knowledge. 

Then 2 points buys the Yord career, which is the equivalent of a town guard. This is Hemen's first step out of the lower classes. He works 2 years in that for the cost of 2 Education points (that's 5 spent total, 8 left), and gives him Experience with Getting Around, which since it's in the City Skills group he already has adds +1 to the 5 of normal Experience level, so he is Experienced (6). He get Familiarity (2) with all pole weapons, knife and fist. Finally, he gets Familiarity with Human Interaction, which raises his base in that from (5) to (6). 

Hemen's next step is moving to the Burdothian Military (for 8 Education, wiping him out). He enlists for 6 years and gets all the advantages of the Militia career and the Burdothian Military (Infantry) Career. This is a big deal because the Militia lets you make 3d6 rolls against Spot, Listen, Constitution, Strength, Aim and Agility, and any where you roll higher than your current increases it by 1 point. This ends up increasing Hemeth to Strength 14, Spot 11 and Listen 12. Not bad. 

The Militia also gives Familiarity his Knife and Fist, which adds to his Yord career and gives him Familiar (3) with both. He gets Familiarity with one pole weapon, and I increase his Pike to Familiar (3), again adding to his Yord career. He gains Familiarity (2) with the whole Outland group – and I'm not sure if the level bonus he'd get from his Agility applies to Conceal Self and Silent Move because those only come if you purchase the group – and Expertise (5) with Set Up Camp… There's a Set Up Camp skill? OK. He also gets +2 levels on all the Athletics skills, which with his Agility bonus means he's Experienced (5) in all. 

Most Importantly for his long term ambitions he gets Military Etiquette (5) and Earth Tech (5) from Practical Knowledge, which is why I didn't raise it earlier. 

Being in the actual Burdothian Infantry improves this by giving him Experience with one pole weapon, so I'm improving Spear to Experienced (6) – again a boost on the Yord career. He also gets Experienced (5) in Sword and Defense w/Shield. He's a very versatile close combat fighter, able to use sword alone, sword and shield, or spear with great experience. 

That's the first round of skills. Now he has his Education in points to raise any skills, 1 point per point, up to a maximum of (5). 

First step is taking Classics – History Familiarity (2), which indicates a deeper dive in history than the Practical Knowledge skill. Succeeding in this gives you broad and deep insight into History and failing at the Familiar level gives you what you would have gotten from a success Practical Knowledge roll. It's the only Classical skill you can raise without buying the whole set, and it's the core to the character being an autodidact. He also picks up Familiarity (2) with Human Etiquette, Storytelling and Oration, rounding him out as an acceptable public speaker who, while still clearly of the lower classes, isn't an embarrassment. 

Finally, finishing his military career he adds 1 level in Range – Knife and Range – Spear. The difference between his current, Aim based Inexperienced (1) and Experienced (2) is huge (5 points on a d20), so that's a no brainer. He also has practiced his Advance maneuver, letting him change range categories, moving it to Familiar (2). It's not great, but it's something. I have one point left that goes to Woofen Interaction (1); he's at least had some contact with one of the planets genetically engineered races. 

Last Step! Harren has 13 points to spend to increase Practical Knowledge skills. This is the "yes, you're going to short change these skills to learn swordplay, so we're going to force you to take them" mechanic, but since Harren already has this Package he is able to move a lot of his skills here to Experienced – the only ones that aren't are Fauna Recognition (1), Fauna Recognition (2) and Geology (0). 

There's a lot of steps to this, and a contemporary game design would do it VERY differently, even if just in fleshing out the nascent Lifepath system of the three rounds of Education spend, but it does lead to a nicely rounded character. The dice roles gave me something to hang my hat on for an idea, and I think Harren is well positioned to start his Tauther test. 

2022 Character Creation Challenge 1) Star Wars 1st edition - West End Games

 Welcome to the 2022 #CharacterCreationChallenge

You can read all about it here while I dive right in. 

In the 2022 31 Characters, 31 Systems, 31 Days challenge I'm starting in the upper right of my games shelf and working left. That means the d6 Star Wars games. I'm not making Pcs for each edition, so we'll go with the classic movie poster cover version. 

Star Wars d6 is dirt simple in its character creation: pick one of the 30 templates, customize it by adding 7d of skills in 1d to 2d increments, and give 'em some personality. You're done. 

In my case I liked the idea of importing a sort of Star Trek character – a Capital Ship officer – into the Star Wars setting. Weighing between the Retired Imperial officer and the Mon Calimari, I went with the Mon Cal, because that provided a ready-made expertise in Technical skills. At 3d+2 there's really only the Tongue-Tied Engineer better than that, so good chance this PC – Lt. Commander Batath – is the groups go to for keeping the ship running. 2d into Starship Repair makes him hella good at it (5d+2, average roll = 20), and we'll leave the rest at the respectable 3d+2

Let's do Perception next: it starts really low for a hero/slightly above average for a normal person (2d+1), but I need to sink 1d into Leadership to sell the concept. Another 1d goes into Bargain so he has a good chance to get needed parts and supplies in the field. 

I like the idea of Banath having a bit of a scoundrel streak when it comes to sourcing is Equipment, so inside his formidable 3d+1 Knowledge I'm going to boost Streetwise to 4d+1. He's got sources and connections in the Black Market, which is probably why his latest promotion moved him from outside the engineering room of a capital ship to inside this detached special forces crew of PCs. 

Since he's hanging out in the field now, he needs to be able to acquit himself well in a fight, so we look at his solid Dexterity of 3d+1. Boost his Blaster to 4d+1 and now he's not a liability. 

His Strength score is the heroic average of 3d, but since he's a Mon Cal lets give him another 1d in Swimming for 4d. I'm flagging to the GM that I'm investing in him being from a water world.

Finally, his 2d+1 Mechanical. This is lousy and I have no dice left to spend anyway. When the starfight breaks out, Lt. Cmdr. Batath is keeping the ship together, not flying it!

A quick background: Lt. Cmdr. Batath is an up-and-coming officer in the Rebel Alliance. He thought his new promotion would put him in charge of a capital ship engine room, but instead he's been assigned to a special operations team, in part due to his off the books black market connections and ability to source otherwise unobtainable parts in the field.

A fit Mon Calimari male, usually wearing a crisply maintained officer's uniform, but able to 'blend' with a rattier outfit and hooded leather cloak. Lt. Cmdr. Batah is a proud of his rank and  accomplishments, a bit officious inside the confines of an engine room, but he's also got a wide streak of scoundrel in him when it comes to procuring parts and supplies to keep the ship running and the mission on track.

Gear: Well-maintained blaster pistol taken from an imperial raiding party. Standard Comlink. Crisply maintained rebel uniform. Hip-mounted tool kit for fast draw. Hooded leather cloak and 'seedy' clothes and vest.