#RPG-a-DAY2026 Week 3 Marvel Super Heroes, Advanced Set

For RPG-a-Day 2026 I am republishing Mirk the Meek's collaborative episodes on different genres. You can read all about that here: https://podbypost.com/nerds/rpg-a-day-2026

But for the blog I will be somewhat following Anthony's lead (read his post here: https://castingshadowsblog.com/2026/07/31/rpgaday2026-starts-tomorrow-my-plan/ )

Basically that means I will post a character on each Sunday of August. this week I will create one for the Advanced Box Set of TSR's Marvel Super Heroes. 

My favorite super hero game is TSR's Marvel Super Heroes. I actually prefer the original yellow box Basic Set with a few rules ported over from the Advanced Set but for today's character we will use the advanced set rules as written. 

(There is also the controversial, and fairly broken, Ultimate Powers Book that has its own generation tables, I'll do a character with it midweek as opposed to extending this already long entry.) 

Before we get started let's talk about the Universal Chart.

The above chart is where all the action happens. You find your ranking across the top, roll the dice and find the result on the left hand side. Cross reference them and the color tells you the result. Some things will have you do a column shift (CS) to the left or right. That in a nutshell is the core mechanic of the game. 

Two other things, first you should know that to help the game feel more like a comic book ranks have names, from the worst to the best they are: Feeble, Poor, Typical, Good, Excellent, Remarkable, Incredible, Amazing, Monstrous, Unearthly, Shift X, Shift Y, Shift Z, Class 1000, Class 3000, Class 5000, Beyond. As far as most characters go Unearthly is the top, the others are for column shifts and cosmic beings. The last thing to know is that the ability scores (Fighting, Agility, Strength, Endurance, Reason, Intution, Psyche) spell FASERIP which is a common nickname for this system. 

There are a couple ways to get characters in the advanced game but we will use the Generated Characters method to randomly roll one up. There are five steps: generate an origin, generate primary abilities, generate secondary abilities, generate special abilities, and lastly fill in the blanks. 

When you generate your origin you roll percentile dice and have a chance to get the following: Altered Human, Mutant, Hi-Tech, Robot, or Alien. I rolled a 60 which gives us a Mutant, here is the what the book says about them:

Mutants are members of the race of Homo Superior, a new race of man born from the race of Homo Sapiens (that's us). Mutant powers often (though not always) first manifest themselves in the teen-age years. Mutants are generally feared and disliked by the populace at large. Examples of mutants include the X-Men, X-Factor, and New Mutants. When creating a mutant character:

• Random ranks are rolled on Column 1 of the Random Ranks Table.

• Mutants gain one additional Power, up to the total number of Powers available to the Hero (maximum of 5).

• Resources are reduced by one rank.

• Starting Popularity is always 0.

• Mutants gain and lose Popularity at a slower rate than other character types.

• Endurance is raised by one rank.

• The majority of a mutant's Powers are inborn as opposed to equipment-based.

• They may be affected by mutant detection and mutant nullification devices. 

Now we need to generate primary abilities. The chart is pretty neat as each origin type has different maximums, for example normal humans max out at Excellent, Mutants at Amazing, but Robots and Aliens can have abilities that are Monstrous. Let's see what we get:

Fighting roll 58 for a score of 16 Excellent

Agility roll of 79 for a score of 26 Remarkable

Strength roll of 05 for a score of 1 Feeble

Endurance roll of 82 for a score of 36 Incredible. Because the character is a mutant we raise this by one rank to 46 Amazing.

Reason roll of 93 for a score of 36 Incredible

Intuition roll of 68 for a score of 26 Remarkable

Psyche roll of 12 for a score of 5 Typical

Next step is to generate secondary abilities. To get our Health we total the rank numbers of the first four abilities and to get Karma we total the rank numbers of the final three abilities. 

Health 89

Karma 67

Initial Resources are set at Typical and then adjusted by a roll on the Ability Modification Table, I rolled 72 for an increase by two ranks to Excellent. That is reduced by one rank to Good because we are creating a mutant. You can further reduce Resources to gain extra Powers, Talents, or Contacts but I'm going to forgo that for this character. 

Resources 8 Good

The last step is to generate the character's Popularity. Normally this starts at 10 and can be modified by whether the character's identity is public or secret, if a non mutant is known to hang out with mutants or if they are deemed unpopular for some reason. Since we are creating a mutant ours automatically starts at 0. This is also the point to decide if the character has a secret identity because if they do they will have two Popularity scores, one for the hero and one for their secret identity. I am going roll a d10 to give us a 50/50 chance of a secret identity or a public one, I rolled a 7 so it will be public.

Popularity 0

The next step is to generate special abilities. We roll once on each of the following tables: Powers, Talents and Contacts. 

For Powers I rolled 53 which gives 3 out of a possible 4 powers and because we are a mutant we get one additional power, up to the maximum, so we will start with 4 powers.

For Talents I rolled a 50 for 2 out of 5 possible talents.

For Contacts I rolled a 81 for 2 out of 4 possible contacts. 

Let's generate those Powers!

The first roll is 81, Body Alterations/Offensive, we roll another d10, 8, and find we have Claws. I roll 99 to get a rank of 63 Monstrous. I'll post slightly edited versions of the power descriptions after each.

Claws are... well, claws. Sharp pointy items that inflict damage on the Edged Attack column of the battle effects table. As with most sharp things, they inflict the listed amount and effect, and cannot be reduced in damage or effect. The Power rank lists both the damage inflicted by the claws and the material strength.

The second roll is 05, Resistances, we roll another d10 for 8 which is Resistance to Mental Attacks. I roll 45 for a rank of 16 Excellent. 

Any mental attacks that affect the Psyche from psionic (but not magical) sources.

The third roll is 91 for Body Alternations/Defensive. The d10 is 4, Water Breathing. 

This is a wimp Power. Face it. When the great hero parties take place, and Ulterior-Motive Man asks you what you do, if you say, "I breathe water" you end up wearing a full fishbowl. This Power allows you to breathe water (fresh or salt) as if air. No Power rank is needed for this Power. In addition, this Power allows the hero to see underwater as if on land (vision is reduced in the underwater realm), and survive at great depths. The hero's next Power may be either Swimming or Animal Communication and Control (Sea life). The hero may choose both, but then only breathes water, and will "drown" on dry land (reverse of characters drowning in water).

I copied the quoted text above in full for your enjoyment. Because I have the option I'm going to go ahead and take Swimming as the final power, I roll 23 for 5 Typical rank but that is raised to 63 Monstrous due to the text below.

All heroes are assumed to be capable of swimming (or at least remaining afloat and treading water) if free of impediments (inability to swim would be a minor limitation in the Talents section). The Swimming Power shows that the hero can move through the water at high speeds, as in the Lightning Speed Power applied to water.  (Lightning Speed lets the character move as a vehicle with a speed equal to the power rank. The power will always be at Endurance +1 column shift, raise it to this if you roll lower)

Next we'll generate our Talents. Two rolls on the table, 62 and 29, for Professional Skills and Fighting Skills. The professional skill is Pilot and the fighting skill is Acrobatics. 

Pilot: The character with this Talent has a working knowledge of most aircraft, and receives a + 1CS for all FEAT rolls involving an aircraft that character is controlling (including Control FEATs, Agility FEATs, and Reason FEATs involving aircraft handling and design). A character with a background that would permit it (a hero who is an alien) may extend this Talent to spacecraft as well.

Acrobatics: The hero with this Talent is very limber and as such gains advantages when under attack. The hero has a + 1CS when dodging, evading, and escaping.

Because I'm taking an Atlantean Contact in the next step I'm hoping the Judge will allow my Piloting Talent to apply to Atlantean Aerial-Submarines and other flying machines as well as human ones.  

Lastly we would generate two Contacts, I'm going to pick a Hero Group (the X-Men) and a Other National contact, someone from Atlantis, probably a member of the royal family, that the character has helped and knows.   

The last thing we need to do is fill in the blanks. The book provides the following checklist to help, we'll launch right into the narrative write up of the character to answer them:

• What is the character's fighting name?

• What is the character's alter ego, if any?

• Is the character male, female, or what?

• How tall is the character?

• What does the character look like? Is the hero physically good-looking or strange-looking (note Popularity shift in the latter case)?

• Where does the character operate? Where does the hero live?

• Does the hero have any Contacts other than the ones provided by the generation system?

• Check the hero's Resources. Where is this guy getting money like that?

• Does the hero wear a costume? What does it look like?

• Last, and optionally, what is the hero's specific origin? If you, the player, make up an origin, it saves the Judge the trouble of creating one for you. Judges by and large create very nasty backgrounds for heroes without stated origins, so when super-powered organizations come hunting for you, at least you know who they are.

Sven Sorenson was born in the harsh environment of Norway in a fishing village. When he reached puberty his mutant powers manifested themselves while he was on his father's fishing boat and it was attacked by pirates. No one was more surprised than Sven that he didn't drown when a pirate threw him off the side! His reappearance on the boat and sharp claws sent the pirates packing but not before they dealt his older brother a mortal wound. Soon afterwards the X-Men arrived looking for the new mutant. He trained with the X-Men but didn't join them as he wanted to combat crime on the seas. 

Sven picked the name The Silver Seal but his identity is public. A tall, handsome man with shoulder length blond hair he makes an impressive appearance. His costume looks like a silver wetsuit with a seal on the chest although thanks to his friends the X-Men it is more durable than a regular wetsuit. He doesn't live in one place but moves around from fishing village to fishing village helping where he can. Between money he earns and the gratitude of those he has helped he lives a spartan but decent lifestyle, after all he doesn't need much. He has dual citizenship in Norway and the United States of America (his mother was American) but he doesn't identify strongly with either.  

The last thing I want to do is show how the character would be expressed mechanically in a module. 

The Silver Seal

Sven Sorenson, Aquatic Mutant

F  Ex (16)
A  Rm (26)
S  Fb (1)
E  Am (46)
R  In (36)
I  Rm (26)
P  Ty (5)

Health: 89

Karma: 67

Resources:  Gd (8)

Popularity: 0

Known Powers: Claws (Mn), Resistance to Mental Attacks (Ex), Swimming (Mn), Water Breathing 

Talents: Acrobatics, Pilot

Contacts: X-Men, Atlantean member of the royal family 

Background: Sven Sorenson grew up in in a fishing village in Norway. After his mutant powers manifested themselves he trained with the X-Men before setting off on his own. He mostly sticks to the ocean and the coasts and keeps a friendly relationship with both the Atlanteans and many coastal fishing villages. His passion is fighting piracy and other crimes on the water.

That is all for this week, see you midweek for the Ultimate Powers Book and next Sunday, 23 August, when I create a character for Cyberpunk 2020!

#RPG-a-Day2026 Week 2 AD&D 1E

For RPG-a-Day 2026 I am republishing Mirk the Meek's collaborative episodes on different genres. You can read all about that here: https://podbypost.com/nerds/rpg-a-day-2026

But for the blog I will be somewhat following Anthony's lead (read his post here: https://castingshadowsblog.com/2026/07/31/rpgaday2026-starts-tomorrow-my-plan/ )

Basically that means I will post a character on each Sunday of August. this week I will create one for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition. 

I didn't say it last week but I am rolling real dice for all these articles, my dice of choice these days are the Official Runehammer Dice Set found here: https://www.runehammer.online/online-store/Official-Runehammer-Dice-Set-p564679890 of course for D10s I prefer proper 20 sided dice marked 0-9 twice over the non-platonic abominations that are ten sided dice, Wondertrail and I believe Koplow make them and you can find them on Amazon or various other vendors online. I like to buy sets of black and white dice and always designate the black as the tens die when rolling percentile dice. They do come in other colors though. 

We will be bouncing back and forth between the Player's Handbook (PHB) and the Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG), I will not be using The Book That Shall Not Be Named (Unearthed Arcana if you must know). In OSR circles there is often much fuss made about rolling a character's attributes "3d6 down the line" and accepting what you get. Interestingly enough Gary Gygax doesn't recommend that in AD&D, instead he writes:

As AD&D is an ongoing game of fantasy adventuring, it is important to allow participants to generate a viable character of the race and profession which he or she desires. While it is possible to generate some fairly playable characters by rolling 3d6, there is often an extended period of attempts at finding a suitable one due to quirks of the dice. Furthermore, these rather marginal characters tend to have short life expectancy — which tends to discourage new players, as does having to make do with some character of a race and/or class which he or she really can’t or won’t identify with. Character generation, then, is a serious matter, and it is recommended that the following systems be used. Four alternatives are offered for player characters:

Method I:

All scores are recorded and arranged in the order the player desires. 4d6 are rolled, and the lowest die (or one of the lower) is discarded. 

Method II:

All scores are recorded and arranged as in Method I. 3d6 are rolled 12 times and the highest 6 scores are retained. 

Method III:

Scores rolled are according to each ability category, in order, STRENGTH, INTELLIGENCE, WISDOM, DEXTERITY, CONSTITUTION, CHARISMA. 3d6 are rolled 6 times for each ability, and the highest score in each category is retained for that category. 

Method IV:

3d6 are rolled sufficient times to generate the 6 ability scores, in order, for 12 characters. The player then selects the single set of scores which he or she finds most desirable and these scores are noted on the character record sheet.

In another place Gary says that he considers a viable character to be one with at least two attributes of 15 or higher. I normally use Method I as it is fast, easy, and fairly non controversial. This time I will do Method III instead, just to see what we get! 

Strength 8, 5, 8, 8, 8, 9 for a Strength of 9. 

There are no bonuses (or penalties) related to this score. It provides a 1-2 chance out of 6 of opening stuck or heavy doors and a whopping 1% chance of bending bars or lifting gates such as a portcullis. 

Intelligence 13, 11, 8, 14, 12, 10 for an Intelligence of 14. 

This is the minimum score to cast 7th level magic user spells, they go up to 9th level, and it provides the character four possible additional languages. If the character goes on to be a magic user they will only have a 55% chance to being able to learn a specific spell, they would be able to learn at least six spells per spell level (spell levels are separate from character levels in this game) but are limited to knowing no more than nine spells per level.  

Wisdom 11, 12, 12, 9, 18, 8 for a Wisdom of 18! 

This is the minimum score to use 7th level cleric spells, the highest level, and the character has a +4 bonus against mental attack forms involving will force, i.e. beguiling, charming, fear, hypnosis, illusion, magic jarring, mass charming, phantasmal forces, possession, rulership, suggestion, telepathic attack, etc. In addition if they become a cleric they will have no chance of spell failure and will gain the following bonus spells every day once they are high enough level to cast such spells: two 1st level spells, two 2nd level spells, one third level spell, and one 4th level spell. 

Dexterity 12, 15, 9, 14, 7, 15 for a Dexterity of 15. 

This score provides a -1 adjustment to the character's Armor Class (AC), lower is better in this edition.

Constitution 6, 12, 8, 10, 11, 11 for a Constitution of 12. 

This score give the character a System Shock Survival chance of 80% and a Resurrection Survival chance of 85%.

Charisma 14, 14, 8, 7, 9, 12 for a Charisma of 14. 

This score allows the character to have a maximum of six henchmen at any one time, a 5% bonus to base loyalty of hirelings, and a 10% positive reaction bonus when meeting and dealing with people or creatures encountered. 

As you can see even using this method I barely got the two attributes of 15 or over that Gary recommends! That probably says more about my luck with dice, see Major Jazon Smasher from last week, than the die rolling method...

According to the PHB the next step is to pick our character's race (more accurately their species) and there are a number of options. In the base game you can play dwarves, elves, gnomes, half-elves, halflings, half-orcs and humans. This list will be expanded on in later books but we are sticking with the core books today. Before we pick we should think about what class we want to be as not all species qualify for all classes, something else that would change in future books and editions.

Considering the attributes rolled the character qualifies for the following classes: cleric (principle attribute Wisdom), fighter (principle attribute Strength), magic user (principle attribute Intelligence), and thief (principle attribute Dexterity). The scores rolled are not good enough to be a druid, paladin, ranger, illusionist, assassin or monk. Cleric makes the most sense with a Wisdom of 18 as even the next highest score of 15 in Dexterity does not give an substantial bonuses to be being a thief. 

Looking back at the options we see that only half-elves, half-orcs and humans can be clerics and the former two are limited to advancing to 5th and 4th level respectively. Now both half-elves and half-orcs can Multi-Class, meaning they can be two or three classes at once which has the advantage of making them more versatile at the expense of much slower level advancement. That could be attractive but I think the level limits for the cleric class are too low to make it an attractive option. This will be a human.

Humans are not allowed to Multi-Class in this edition but they can be a "character with two classes." Basically that means they will advance in one class for a time and then switch to a second class and advance in it. They can't go back to the first after the switch or go on to a third but it does allow class combinations that even Multi-Classing does not. The requirements are a 15 in the principle attribute for the first class and an 18 in the principle attribute for the second class. That means if I go this route the character would start as a thief and later on switch to being a cleric. Realistically they would probably need to get to 6th or 7th level to really benefit from the thief abilities and then they would have to get past that level before gaining hit points as a cleric and being able to use abilities from both classes. You see once you switch to the second class you cannot use any abilities from your first class until you pass that level in your new class. In a solo game that might be interesting and worthwhile but I am not going to go that route today.

So we have a human. The next step is to pick a class and that will be cleric, a holy priest of some sort that is a decent fighter, can cast spells, and has power over some of the fiercest foes you will face in this game, the undead. Clerics use a d8 for their hit dice, can use any type of armor or shield, they are limited to blunt weapons (club, flail, hammer, mace, and staff in the core books), they are allowed to use oil (flaming) but will never use poison unless of an evil alignment and the referee allows it. Their primary attribute is Wisdom and because our character has a score over 15 they get to add a 10% bonus to any Experience Points they earn. 

Let's switch to the DMG to determine some other character details. First will be their secondary skill, this a skill they learned growing up prior to becoming a cleric. A roll of 46 gives us Navigator (fresh or salt). So possibly they grew up on the coast or on a river or large lake. Very possibly that also means they will follow a sea god of some sort.

Next we will determine starting age, height and weight. A human cleric's starting age is 18+1d4, I rolled a 3 for 21 years old. That makes them Mature and now we will do some attribute adjustments. The age categories are Young Adult, Mature, Middle Aged, Old, and Venerable. There are modifies for each and you apply them progressively with the following caveat:

adjustments cannot exceed racial maximums nor can they be used if they cause abilities to exceed stated maximums. Likewise, any adjustments cannot lower any ability below racial or class minimums. 

At Young Adult we subtract a point of Wisdom and add a point of Constitution. That adjusts them to 17 and 13 respectively. Fear not because the Mature category than adds a point of Strength and Wisdom bringing the Strength up to 10 and the Wisdom back up to 18. We are now done as they won't reach Middle Aged until they are 40 years old.

These adjustments result in increasing our bend bars/lift gates chance from 1% to 2%, the System Shock Survival roll from 80% to 85% and the Resurrection Survival roll from 85% to 90%. 

For height and weight we will use the NPC Height and Weight Tables. Let's give a 50/50 chance of male or female. I rolled a 2 on a d6 so they are male. Next for height I rolled a 86 which is taller than average, followed by a 9, on a d12, for a height of 81" or 6' 9" he is a tall one! Next for weight I rolled a 04 for below average weight followed by 22 (on 3d12) for weight of 153 pounds, Ichabod Crane is that you?

The next step is to pick an Alignment. AD&D uses a nine point alignment system as shown below:

I am going to make our cleric Lawful Good. The PHB tells us:

Lawful Good: While as strict in their prosecution of law and order, characters of lawful good alignment follow these precepts to improve the common weal. Certain freedoms must, of course, be sacrificed in order to bring order; but truth is of highest value, and life and beauty of great importance. The benefits of this society are to be brought to all.

and the DMG expands on that with:

LAWFUL GOOD: Creatures of lawful good alignment view the cosmos with varying degrees of lawfulness or desire for good. They are convinced that order and law are absolutely necessary to assure good, and that good is best defined as whatever brings the most benefit to the greater number of decent, thinking creatures and the least woe to the rest.

Seems like a good stance for a priest and using a little inside knowledge it also will be beneficial as we go through modules and meet various non-player characters (NPCs) and find magic items as they are weighed more toward this Alignment. At this point it would be appropriate to pick the character's religion and deity (or deities) but let's hold off for now. 

No need to pick spells at this point, a cleric is able to cast any spells of a level they have access to, they just pray to their deity each day for the number they are allowed to memorize. For our first level cleric that would be three 1st level spells, not too shabby. 

We can also turn the undead, basically that means they will run away from the cleric. The chart in the DMG tells us that on a d20 the 1st level cleric can turn a skeleton on a roll of 10 or higher, a zombie on 13 or higher, a ghoul on 16 or higher, a shadow on 19 or higher, and that they need a 20 to turn a wight. These numbers will improve dramatically as they increase in level.  

After picking an Alignment we roll for our Hit Points. WOW!! I rolled an 8, lucky day!  

At this point the PHB tells us:

ESTABLISHING THE CHARACTER

By determining abilities, race, class, alignment, and hit points you have created your character. Next you must name him or her, and possibly give some family background (and name a next of kin as heir to the possessions of the character if he or she should meet an untimely death) to personify the character. Having done all that, your Dungeon Master will introduce your character to the campaign setting. In all likelihood, whether the locale is a village, town, or city, your character will have to acquaint himself or herself with the territory. 

The first step will often be getting into the place, i.e. a gate guard demanding to know what business you have in the town or city. Thereafter it will be necessary to locate a safe and reasonably priced place in which to lodge — typically an inn of some sort, but perhaps a rented cot, a loft or even chambers at a hostel. Since the location selected will have to serve as base and depot, it must be relatively safe from intrusion or burglary. Once a headquarters has been found, your character can set about learning the lay of the land, and attempt to find the trade establishments needed to supply the desired equipment for adventuring. Perhaps it will also be necessary to locate where other player characters reside in order to engage in joint expeditions. 

In any event, your character created, personified, and established will be ready to adventure once equipment is purchased and relations with other player characters are settled. If player characters are not immediately available, or if they are not co-operative, it is advisable that men-at-arms be hired. Hirelings of this sort, as well as henchmen (q.v.), are detailed in the sections entitled HIRELINGS and HENCHMEN. 

But we aren't actually done! We have to determine languages, starting money and buy equipment. 

They start knowing Common and their Alignment Langauge of Lawful Good. The books strongly suggest they learn the other possible languages as the game progresses but since there is a table to generate languages for NPCs we'll just roll on that four times.  35, 53, 30, 22. That gives us Storm Giant, Kobold, Frost Giant, and Elvish. Interesting mix, I'd say that indicates our character is from the north and maybe was fostered by giants (or at least friendly with them) due to his height. 

For starting money we roll 3d6 x 10 for the amount of gold pieces he starts with. 6 for 60 g.p., unfortunate as that will limit the armor choices, probably to Ring Mail.  I'm not going to buy equipment but they will definitely need to be frugal until they earn, or find, some gold. 

There are random tables to determine NPC personae and although the DMG recommends against using them for player characters lets do it anyway to see what we get. The first table is Alignment and I rolled a 10 which is neutral, since neutral clerics have to be druids and he doesn't qualify it is just as good that we aren't using this. Next is Possessions (or wealth), I rolled a 4 which is average. That tracks.

Now we have two tables for Appearance, I rolled 10 and 2 meaning they appear ancient but clean. Maybe they have an early receding hairline and unnatural wrinkles? Sanity is next, 7 tells us he is neurotic which may explain the older than natural appearance!  

For General Tendencies we roll a d12 and a d6, 14 tells us he is perceptive. For Personality we roll two d8s, 5, 4 which is extroverted and blustering. His Disposition is 8, hot tempered. For Nature we get 6, vengeful! I rolled a 5 for Honesty which is average and for Energy I rolled a 3 for normal. Next we have Morals, 5 is lusty! A 4 tells us his Intellect is active. For Materialism I roll a 2 for intellectualist. Bravery is 8, craven (oh no!), Thrift is 5, average and lastly his Piety is 3, pious. 

Last we roll for Interests, 6 is husbandry. 

You can see why they don't recommend those tables for player characters, it went off the rails pretty quickly as we ended up with a cleric of average wealth who appears ancient but clean. He is neurotic, perceptive, extroverted and blustering with a hot tempered disposition. He has a vengeful nature, is of average honesty but is pious. An intellectualist he is also lusty and craven! He has a normal amount of energy and thriftiness as well as an active intellect. Finally he has an interest in husbandry. That would be quite the handful to role play!

So skipping that last section as Gary wisely tells us to let me put everything together in a more narrative fashion. I suppose we should name him as well. Considering what we have revealed I'll give him a Nordic name, Magni the Keen-eyed.

Magni was born in the far north to a trader who travelled the seas. Magni quickly shot up to an unnatural height and was shunned by others in the village. His father had made friends with storm giants that he traded with and Magni was able to spend his adolescent years with them studying the lore of their gods. Upon coming of age he was sent back to the world of men with the hope of improving relations between men and giants, or at least convincing men to stay out of the giant's affairs. 

Mechanically he looks like this:

Magni the Keen -eyed, Lawful Good Human Cleric, 1st level, 0 XP (10% XP bonus)

Str 10 Int 14 Wis 18 Dex 15 Con 13 Cha 14

Hit Points 8 AC 5 (assuming Ring Mail, a shield and his Dex bonus)

Spells 3 1st level. 

That is all for this week, see you next Sunday, 16 August, when I create a character for Marvel Super Heroes!

#RPG-a-Day2026 Week 1 Traveller 1977

For RPG-a-Day 2026 I am republishing Mirk the Meek's collaborative episodes on different genres. You can read all about that here: https://podbypost.com/nerds/rpg-a-day-2026

But for the blog I will be somewhat following Anthony's lead (read his post here: https://castingshadowsblog.com/2026/07/31/rpgaday2026-starts-tomorrow-my-plan/ )

Basically that means I will post a character on each Sunday of August. I'll start this week with 1977 Traveller. While I am using the 1977 edition you can get the rules I am using, with some minor changes and errata, for free off DrivethruRPG. I don't have an affiliate link or anything so I'm just posting this link for ease of access. It is not an endorsement of the site. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/355200/classic-traveller-facsimile-edition

Let's start at the beginning:

INITIAL CHARACTER GENERATION

Characters are generated initially through a series of six double dice rolls, which determine the basic characteristics affecting abilities and reactions. Each player should roll two dice for each of the six characteristics: Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, Education, and Social Standing. Record the results.

Strength is both a general evaluation of the character's physical ability, and a specific measure of force which may be applied in combat situations.

Dexterity measures physical coordination.

Endurance measures physical stamina and determination.

Intelligence corresponds to IQ.

Education indicates the highest level of schooling attained.

Social Standing notes the social class and level of society from which the character (and his family) come.

Values for characteristics may range initially from 2 to 12 (7 is considered average). As a result of various modifications, characteristic values may ultimately range from 1 to 15. Characteristics (for player-characters) may never exceed 15, and do not go below 1 except for calamitous injury or aging.

Obviously, it is possible for a player to generate a character with seemingly unsatisfactory values; nevertheless, each player should use his character as generated. The experience procedures and acquired skills table offer a genuine opportunity to enhance values, given only time and luck. Should a player consider his character to be so poor as to be beyond help, he should consider joining the accident prone Scout Corps, with a subconscious view to suicide.

Wow, that took a dark turn at the end didn't it! Traveller just uses standard six sided dice. 

Strength 5 

Dexterity 8

Endurance 8

Intelligence 5

Education 9

Social Standing 5

Well considering that the book says 7 is average this is a decidedly below average character! Maybe I should follow their advice and attempt to join the Scout Service! 

Now it is time to name our character, I'm going to quote the book here to show how our concept of naming characters has changed since 1977, or has it?

Once generated, a character should be named. Several schools of thought exist as to the nature of names. 

One school holds that the character should carry the name of his player; the referee can then refer to Frank or John and everyone present knows exactly who's who. This usage, while convenient, tends to lose some of the flavor of the campaign. 

The other school calls for the use of pseudonyms, or fanciful names (for example, Jamison, or Fairweather; more extremely, Seeker, or Starkiller). As with everything in the game, the actual choice depends only on imagination. 

Titles: A character with a Social Standing of 11 or greater may assume his family’s hereditary title. The full range of titles is given in Book 3. For initial naming, a Social Standing of 11 allows the use of Sir, denoting hereditary knighthood; a Social Standing of 12 allows use of Baron, or prefixing von to the character’s surname. 

Rank: Characters receiving commissions and promotions (explained below) may use their rank as part of their names, even after leaving the service, or retiring.

So I could just stick with Jason or do something fancy like Planet Smasher. Best ask my GM so for now we'll thread the middle with a slight twist of both, Jazon Smasher. No worries about having a title with a Social Standing of 5! 

At this point Jazon is 18 years old and ready to start his adult life. In original Traveller you gain experience by joining one of six services. Your options are Navy, Marines, Army, Scouts, Merchants, or Other. These options would be quickly expanded on in later books. While I won't post the tables here, remember you can get a free PDF at the link above, each service has a target number to enlist, to survive a term (4 years), to be commissioned as an officer, to get promoted, and to reenlist. Some of these rolls are modified depending on your characteristics. Once you are in the service you will have a chance to learn skills each term. If you fail the reenlistment roll you are mustered out and ready to start adventuring. If you don't try to enlist at all, or are rejected, you will be drafted in one of the services so you will have a chance to get some skills whether your dice like you or not.

Let's take Jazon through the process. What service should he attempt to enlist in? Looking at the modifiers the Army gives a bonus to some rolls for Dext, Endur, and Educ which are Jazon's three above average characteristics. The negative to the Army is that the reenlistment roll is the highest of all the services. What the heck, let's give it a go.

To enlist in the Army I need to roll a 5+ on two dice. I get to add +1 if Jazon's Dext is 6 or greater and +2 if his Endur is 5 or greater, since Jazon has both I add +3 to my roll. I rolled a 6 (modified to a 9) so the recruiter happily takes him in.

Now for the controversial Survival check, if I fail this Jazon dies in the line of duty. Later editions softened this. The roll is 5+ and I get to add +2 if his Educ is 6 or greater which it is. with a roll of 6 (modifed to 8) Jazon survives his first term. 

Since he survived let's see if he manages to get a Commission. He needs a 5+ and gets to add +1 if his Endur is 8 or higher which it is. I rolled a 9 (modified to 10) so Jazon is commissioned as a Lieutenant! 

Now we see if he receives a Promotion during this term, yes I know it seem like double dipping to get commissioned and promoted in the same term but the rules specifically allow it. To receive a promotion I need to roll 6+ and I get a +1 if Jazon's Educ is 7 or higher, see why I picked the Army? I roll a 9 (modified to 10) and Jazon is promoted to Captain. Not bad for a 22 year old which is the age he'll be at the end of this term.

The next step is to see what skills Jazon learns during the term. He automatically gets Rifle-1 for joining the Army and SMG-1 for getting commissioned to Lieutenant. The rest of a character's skills come from random rolls on tables. The you do get to pick the tables you roll on though. The options are Personal Development, Service Skills, Advanced Education, and a second Advanced Education that requires a 8 or greater Education characteristic to roll on, luckily Jazon meets that requirement. During a character's first term they get two skill rolls. Getting commissioned also grants a roll as does being promoted so Jazon will get four rolls and can pick any of the tables. I'm actually going to roll once on each table. That gives Jazon the following skills: +1 Dext, Air/Raft-1, Gun Combat-1, Medical-1. For Gun Combat I need to pick a specific weapon type, let's go with Automatic Pistol-1. 

Now we need to see if Jazon is allowed to reenlist. I need to roll 7+ and there are no modifiers. 8! Jazon just made it. Time for term two.

The modifiers are the same so let's start with the Survival roll, 7 all good there. Next we see if Jazon is promoted, another 7 so he is now a Major. After the first term you get one skill roll a term but he gets a second roll due to the promotion. Let's roll on the two Advanced Education tables. We get Electronic-1 and Administration-1. Last we roll to see if Jazon can reenlist. I roll a 4 and he is not able to reenlist and at 26 is ready to start his adventuring career.

Let's muster him out, there are two tables you can roll on, the first give you stuff and possibly characteristic increases and the second is for credits. You roll once for each term of service and can be awarded extra rolls depending on what rank you achieved. Major Jazon Smasher gets four total rolls, two for time in service and two for mustering out as a Major. I am going to make all the rolls on the first table as being short of cash is always a good way to start an adventuring career. 

I roll 2,5,1,1. That works out to +1 Intelligence, one ticket for a High Passage, and two for Low Passages. High Passage is basically first class travel and Low Passage is being cryogenically frozen during transport with a chance of not surviving the defrosting process. Jazon will sell the two Low Passages for 900 credits each (90% of the ticket cost) which will give him 1,800 credits, one High Passage ticket, and the clothes on his back at the beginning of the campaign. 

Let's put this all together in narrative form.

Young Jazon Smasher loved to read and learn. His family was poor but luckily he rarely got sick and had good hand eye coordination, helpful for video games, but he struggled at school. He also detested physical labor. When he came of age he did quite a bit of research into the various services and decided the Army had the most benefits for the least amount of risk. It also appeared he could probably skate by if he played his cards right. Off to the recruiter he went.

He was able to ace the test and was accepted into the Army. Although he was trained as a rifleman, as all soldiers are, Jazon decided to volunteer for a medical program and managed to not only get a commission to Lieutenant but a promotion to Captain during his first term. Medics typically carry pistols so he was trained in the use of the standard issue automatic as well as piloting air rafts to evacuate patients. Officers get to carry submachine guns instead of rifles so he was trained in their use as well. He managed to avoid being deployed in any combat areas and had no problem reenlisting.

On his second term he was promoted to Major and became better versed in administration and bureaucracy. Stationed at a remote outpost he picked up the hobby of repairing electronics. Sadly the Army was going through a draw down when he came up to reenlist and his lack of combat experience kept him from being retained, he was mustered out at 26 years old and now has to find a way to support himself. 

One of the cool things about this game is the Universal Personality Profile, a shorthand to see a character's mechanical build. Here is what the book says about it:

Characters may be precisely defined using the Universal Personality Profile (the UPP), which expresses the basic characteristics in a specific sequence, using hexadecimal (base 16) notation. In hexadecimal notation, the digits 0 through 9 are represented by common arabic numbers; the digits 10 through 15 are represented by the letters A through F. The highest single digit in base 16 notation is 15. Characteristics are listed as a string of 6 digits, in the order originally rolled: strength, dexterity, endurance, intelligence, education and social standing.

For example, a character who is totally average in all respects would have a UPP of 777777. If, however, he were highly intelligent, his UPP would be 777B77 (the B in the 4th position indicating an intelligence of 11). 

While the use of the UPP is voluntary, it is made available to allow the referee

and other characters to see at a glance the characteristics of persons they encounter

and deal with.

The UPP for Major Jazon Smasher is 598695. So here is how you would write him up in a module:

Major Jazon Smasher 598695 Admin-1, Air/Raft-1, Auto Pistol-1, Elect-1, Medical-1, Rifle-1, SMG-1

That is all for this week, see you next Sunday, 9 August, when I create a character for AD&D 1E!

 

RPG-a-DAY 2026, The Plan

 For RPG-a-Day 2026 I am republishing Mirk the Meek's collaborative episodes on different genres. You can read all about that here: https://podbypost.com/nerds/rpg-a-day-2026

But for the blog I will be somewhat following Anthony's lead (read his post here: https://castingshadowsblog.com/2026/07/31/rpgaday2026-starts-tomorrow-my-plan/ )

Basically that means I will post a character on each Sunday of August. I'll start tomorrow with 1977 Traveller.

So long, and thanks for all the fish

 If you are following this blog you will have a few days advanced notice that I am ending the podcast. I just have too much on my plate at the moment between work, family, and health to maintain the standards I want. This has been coming for a while and it is important that I just accept it and move on. I appreciate all the support over the years and hope to see you at a gaming table in the future. 

End of 2025 Contest

I have not done a contest in quite a while so I got with Jason Wiebe of The Dungeon Plunger we are doing a joint contest to end out 2025!

All you have to do is submit an entry answering this question, "If you could only play games from one company for the rest of your life what company would it be and why?"

You can send your entry to either Jason or myself. You can submit by email, Speakpipe, comment to blog, podcast or Youtube, discord or any other way you can think of! The last day to enter is 19 December 2025. The award show will be published on 28 December 2025. We will play all audio entries and read all text entries. After all entries have been aired we will randomly pick two winners. Note that if someone sends multiple entries they will only be entered in the winning lottery once. The winners will each get a $25 DrivethruRPG gift certificate or if they are in the US or Canada we will send them something from our RPG collections. 

Good luck!

#RPGaDAY2025

 

Check out my latest episode, S2 #RPGaDAY2025 Bonus32 where I talk to Dave and Anthony about the RPG a Day and this year's prompts. Below are the prompts from the infographic in regular text form which will hopefully be friendly for text readers. 

Every year, #RPGaDay hopes to get people talking in a positive way about tabletop roleplaying games. For each day in August, use the prompt to inspire a blog, vlog, social media post, adventure hook, or artwork, and share it with the tag #RPGaDAY2025 to celebrate everything great about our hobby. If you’re uninspired by the prompt, roll some dice and add some extra elements from the bottom shelf! 

1 Patron

2 Prompt

3 Tavern

4 Message

5 Ancient

6 Motive

7 Journey

8 Explore

9 Inspire

10 Origin

11 Flavour

12 Path

13 Darkness

14 Mystery

15 Deceive

16 Overcome

17 Renew

18 Sign

19 Destiny

20 Enter

21 Unexpected

22 Ally

23 Recent

24 Reveal

25 Challenge

26 Nemesis

27 Tactic

28 Suspense

29 Connect

30 Experience

31 Reward

The Bottom Shelf

Question roll a d6

1 Who

2 What

3 Where

4 When

5 Why

6 How

Mood roll a d10

1 Envious

2 Nostalgic

3 Proud

4 Enthusiastic

5 Confident

6 Optimistic

7 Lucky

8 Grateful

9 Contemplative

10 Excited

Subject roll a d8

1 Adventure

2 Character

3 Genre

4 Rule

5 Accessory

6 Art

7 Person

8 Lesson