2022 Character Creation Challenge Day 21 & Day 22

Friday the 21st of January was a day I ran out of time and energy so I never managed to write up a post for the character I created for the challenge, instead I put a photo of the character sheet on twitter which got more interest than when I make the effort to write them up as a blog post, actually that's not true, as a result of the challenge and posting daily on the blog I have had a lot of people taking a look at my solo rpg site and that's made the effort truly worth while, I just don't get many likes on my twitter tweets but does that really matter, well in the grand scheme of things, no.

The character I created for my 21st day of the challenge was Keadan Woodgaze, an elven ranger for Beyond the Wall RPG.  I did think about giving him his own post, retrospectively, on the blog more for completeness than anything else but I decided not to, I have more than enough characters rolled up my Barley campaign using BtW rules, if anything is to be done with him it will be as an NPC and I may make him a 3rd or 4th level Ranger and fit him into an adventure somewhere, sometime.  For now he will just live on a piece of paper and a distant twitter tweet.

So that brings me to the 22nd day of the character creation challenge, I did intend to do one last Low Fantasy Gaming character but I feel with 6 created already that was enough, I also feel I have exhausted Beyond the Wall, my Barley setting is nicely populated as far as player-characters go, I think its time to do something very different.

A game I have not played in over 35 years and yet remains dear to my heart is Other Suns, Niall Shapero's Sci Fi game published by FGU.  I must have bought it back in 84 or 85, I think I ran a game or two but it just suffered from being a bit over clever and complex,( I mean, to calculate your Dodge score you have to work out the formula 2x (INT + DEX) + WIL - BLD -42, okay, you don't need a degree to work that out but its still a little over the top),  and it was a little light in the background department, the Hegemony seemed really colourful but there just wasn't enough there to really get a game going, if both those things had been addressed I think it would have faired better than it did.

One criticism of the game which I think was unfair was that it was to cute with its furry species, many of the intelligent species were very close to earth like mammals, that much is true, but then even Traveller had its Vargr and other furries, in fact I think Other Suns was quite a gritty game, combat was deadly and you could throw characters into strange alien world to explore, allowing your imagination to run wild and the sprinkling of furry characters was something I loved.

At the time though the game just got abandoned, over the years the box and reference sheet got lost or perhaps damages and thrown out, the books are a little worse for ware but still, perhaps its time to revisit the game, after all I am 35 years older and I see things through very different eyes to how I saw things then.  So a game I found too complex back then, today may just be a heap of coolness to play, so day 22 of the challenge I give you Zandra the Planetologist,   

NAME :  Zandra        Human Female Planetologist.

Rank 109 (courtesy commission only) 

STR :  9       INT :  12    WIL :  6    CON :  11    END :  17    DEX :  10    CHA :  14
Hight (LEN) :  151cm (4'9.5")        Build (BLD) :  11      SIZE (SIZ)  :  19  MASS 68kg (10st 10lbs)
Hit Point (HIT)  :  14        LUCK (LUC)  :  9
Telepathic Strike Capability (TSC) :  0        Telepathic Resistance (TRP) : 5

ABILITIES :

Accuracy (ACC)  :  -2%
Attack (ATT)  : -4%
Damage (DAM)  :  0
Dodge (DOD)  :  -3% (0)
Knowledge (KNO)  :    -1%
Manipulation (MAN)  :   -5%
Observation (OBS)  :    -6%
Parry (PAR)  :  -9%
Persuasion (PER)  :  +1%
Stealth (STE)  :  3%

SPECIALITY  :  Planetology

Skills  :  

Cartography  23%
Geochemistry  23%
Geology  23%
Meteorology   23%
Oceanography   23%
Planetology   46%

Encumberance :  96, can carry 28kg at 1g

Zandra turned out to be one of those characters you probably wish you had never rolled up but in fact could be a great character to roll play.  At only 151cm tall and 68kg in weight I can only imagine her to be short and a slightly overweight and with at best average rolls for abilities, (except her charisma), I see her as being rather less than exceptional, certainly a bit of a hindrance in a fight and even her speciality of Planetology she is less than mediocre but her likeable character probably carries her through.

I have had a load of fun revisiting this game after all these years and that's what the hobby is all about, having fun,

Adventure on!