Chigg's Chargen Corner

 Brave New World is a really fun supers game from 1999 and it kinda shows. Published by initially by Pinnacle Entertainment Group (PEG) and later Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) for most of the supplements and reprints, BNW derives mechanically from PEG's earlier Deadlands game and thematically from dark comic book settings like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. Set in an alternate world (yanno, with superheroes...) in which the Kennedy Assassination was unsuccessful (mostly, RIP Jackie and the governor of Texas), the attempt on his life lead JFK to declare Martial Law in the US and this lead, slowly but surely, to a fascist dictatorship in which JFK is basically president for life. He keeps himself in power by utilizing the superheroes - called Deltas in the setting - who've been around since at least WWI as a kind of national police force lead by even bigger and badder supers known as Alphas. You play the resistance group, the Defiants, fighting the good fight against a

 Right, so as hinted at yesterday today's game is the Forged in the Dark game Band of Blades from Off Guard Games and Evil Hat Productions. As a FitD game, it runs very similarly to yesterday's Blades in the Dark game though it has a very different setting. In Band of Blades you're a member of The Legion, a band in retreat following a failed battle against the armies of the undead. Time is running out as more and more of your brothers in arms fall to the indomitable forces of the Cinder King. As Legionnaires, you must make it to Skydagger Keep before you're cut off or overtaken by the undead. Paying horrifying costs, you'll employ offensives, maneuvers, unwise bargains and desperate gambits as the ever-ticking clock nears its final hour. So that sounds fun! Let's get started, shall we? Character Creation Band of Blades uses a simple, 5 step character creation process that will be familiar to you if you've played a Forged in the Dark game or, to a lesser degr

 Welcome back, readers, to day twelve of our Character Creation Challenge! Technically, if we were going in order of what I have on my shelf, today should be Band of Blades which is a Forged in the Dark game of Legionnaires on the run from the Cinder King after a battle gone wrong. But instead we're going to skip over to Blades in the Dark, the original Forged in the Dark game because it came first so it should go first. That's just how my brain works.  Anyway, Blades in the Dark is a game in which you play a group of criminals in a magicalpunk post apocalyptic city full of ghosts, gangs and class struggle. Eight and a half centuries ago, a magical cataclysm destroyed the sun, shattered the moon, caused the stars to fall from the skies, filled the oceans with demonic leviathans and shattered the gates between life and death. The Immortal Emperor demanded that all swear allegiance to him for his protection against the horrors that now stalked the world and now, 850ish years late

 The Babylon Project: The Roleplaying Game based on Babylon 5: The Warner Bros. Television Series Created by J. Michael Straczynski is, well, the Babylon 5 RPG. I'm just gonna shorten that ridiculously long title to "The Babylon Project" for this character creation challenge entry. Based on my absolute favorite SciFi tv series, the game is an absolute dinosaur produced by Chameleon Eclectic back in 1997 the system absolutely shows its age. Let's get to it then, shall we? Character Creation "Creating a character for The Babylon Project is not a difficult process" the book tells us before beginning a 16 page, two column set of instructions on creating a character for The Babylon Project, "but it does take a little time". Well. Thanks for that heads up. Step 1 - Character Concept and Basic History The book is set in the year 2259 in the universe of Babylon 5. This is before the Narn-Centauri war and basically any of the events in the series. So all of

 Welcome back, readers! Today's character is for one of my favorite variations of my favorite systems: the Atomic Robo RPG. ARRPG uses a modification of the Fate core system that makes character creation even easier and, in my opinion, more fun. If you're unfamiliar with the setting, Atomic Robo is based on the comic book series by writer Brian Clevinger and artist Scott Wegener. Set in a world of super science, the book follows the (mis)adventures of Robo Tesla, the self aware, indestructible robotic creation of Nikola Tesla and his teams of Action Scientists. It's a cross between a superhero comic, Ghostbusters and G.I. Joe. If you haven't read it yet, I recommend picking it up. Character Creation So there are two methods of making characters in the ARRPG, the first is the E-Z No Math Character Creation method that lets you make a regular degular action scientist or business guy or whatever. There's also the Weird Character creation option that lets you make a rob

So Belly of the Beast is a game with a strange little setting that I kickstarted *checks watch* oof. Several years ago now. It's medieval fantasy with a super fun twist: The whole planet your game's set on, all the kingdoms and knights and wizards and whatever else were eaten by a giant monster. A huge asteroid crashed into the planet then a couple generations later it hatched and the creature inside it just started eating everything. EV. REE. THING. So now it's been another couple generations or so and you're all living in this giant monster which is presumably flying through space to its next meal. You don't know, you're in the Belly of the Beast and have other things to worry about like going deeper into this thing's guts and getting the resources necessary to survive in a pretty hostile environment. Don't worry tho, because of [REASONS] there's enough plants and animals and mountains and such stuck in here with you. Remember, the great Devourer a

 Welcome back to day 8 of the Character Creation Challenge. Today we have another quick one, the namesake of the Powered By the Apocalypse engine, Apocalypse World. So Apocalypse World, like All Flesh Must Be Eaten before it, doesn't really have a "setting" per se. It has a genre. The Apocalypse has come and gone and you're trying to eke out a living in the burned out remains. Was there a war? A plague? A rogue comet crashing into the Himalayas? Your character has no idea. And, honestly, it doesn't really have much of an effect on their day to day life. You're here, the world is shitty, there's gangs of raiders and probably mutants and maybe even mutant raiders and you need to get enough food and water and shelter to live to see another day. Cool, let's make a character. Character Creation Overview Right, so we've already covered Masks so the bones of this are going to sound familiar. Every character has six Stats, each with associated Moves: Cool

 Welcome back to day seven of the Character Creation Challenge! Today we're going to be jumping into Eden Studio's 1999 release All Flesh Must Be Eaten. AFMBE is a zombie horror survival game that tries real hard to be generic. And it does a pretty good job at it, to be honest. There's not really a "setting" in the game, per se, so you can use the rules for whatever zombie themed gaming you want. You wanna do Resident Evil? Go for it. Night of the Living Dead? Sure. Dawn of the Dead? Knock yourself out! World War Z? Absolutely! That being said, we'll be doing a generic survivor in a generic walking dead style post-zombie apocalypse setting. Let's get to it! Step 1 - Character Type AFMBE allows for three different types of characters:  Norms. These are the regular folks who survived the zombie uprising. Bank tellers, cashiers, gas station attendants, school teachers, the people that you meet walking down the street each day.  Survivors. These are your forme

 This is a unique little fantasy game from Tab Creations . I backed it on Kickstarter because while I'm not a fan of generic fantasy settings, I'm a big fan of unique  fantasy settings and, in my experience, one set in a fantasy version of India ticks that box. I haven't actually played this one yet, it's got some funky poker cards instead of dice mechanics that I never sat down to learn, but no time like character creation to jump into a new rule system! The Setting I'm just going to quote the introduction from the corebook (only book?) here: The world of Bhurloka is one of myth and legend, and at the center of it, the great subcontinent stretches from the burning Dhar Desert in the west to the sweltering Wenga Jungle in the east, from the snow-capped Wolaya Mountains in the north to the Endless Ocean of the south. A thousand cities with myriad customs fill the subcontinent. Hundreds of city-states and small kingdoms parcel up civilization, with great swaths of unt

 Looooong day at work today means a quick and easy character creation tonight. As such I'll be skipping my usual alphabetical order thing and pulling a game off the shelf that I know has fast and easy character creation rules. Masks: A New Generation is a role-playing game of teen superheroes from Magpie Games. First published in 2016, Masks is a Powered by the Apocalypse (PBTA) game set in a world of super heroes and villains in which you take on the role of a team of new(ish), young heroes. Unlike most other supers RPGs, the focus isn't on powers so much but on interpersonal relationships. I really enjoy the game and can't wait to get into it with y'all. Getting Into It With Y'all Step One - Choose A Playbook So unlike traditional RPGs that have character classes or even more freeform skill based systems, most PBTA games begin with choosing a playbook. Depending on the nature of the game this could be something as simple as "fighter" or "wasteland w