#CharacterCreationChallenge 2023 Post-mortem

Post-mortem: as defined by the Society for Creative Anachronism, a post-mortem is held after an SCA event to see what happened, what went right, and what went wrong. The military calls it an after-action report.

This year’s goal was a different character RPG each day. Mission accomplished! I had to prewrite a lot of the characters this year due to a mid-month vacation. That feels like cheating, but I’m going to go with planning instead.

I tried delving into the creation process some this year. I don’t know that worked or not. I’ll have to take a little more time next year. I *REALLY* enjoy creating the backgrounds. Writing is about my only artistic outlet, so this scratches that itch.

Last year I mentioned wanting to expand into more of my RPG library, like GURPS, Palladium, and my DTRPG backlog. GURPS didn’t get touched; maybe next year. Palladium got used, though, and that well is deep and wide! The DTRPG backlog got a bit of use in the B/X game, so it’s a start. The inclusion of Crimebusters came as surprise; I may need to dig deep into my Dragon Magazine Archives. Next year, I hope to hit GURPS and keep going through the DTRPG backlog, may be with the reviews I have been threatening. Beyond the Wall, its cousins, Heroes Journey, and some 5E spin-offs also have my attention for next year.

This year’s breakdown:
5E-6
3E-7
2E-2
BD&D-3
Tall Tales B/X-1
Shotguns & Saddles-1
Gangbusters B/X-1
Crimefighters-1
Beyond the Supernatural 1E-1
In Nomine-1
MSHSPG-4
Heroes Unlimited-1
Robotech 1E-1
Rifts-1

D&D in it’s various incarnations remains my bread-n-butter. I *like* the heroic fantasy genre. Superheroes remained my second favorite. But Westerns and the Great Depression (non-CoC!) made appearances, as did some modern and futuristic fantasy.

The D&D is not a surprise; I play it almost exclusively. Superheroes is, as I’ve only really played in two superhero campaigns, ever. But I’m a big Marvel fan, so it’s not surprising that genre is a part of my repertoire. I am an avid SF fan as well, so it is also surprising more SF besides Robotech did not make it into my listings. Maybe next year. I am not a big pulp fan either (lack of exposure, really), so the Roaring Twenties/Great Depression games are not my usual genre either. So that was a nice change of pace.

This year’s list of characters is here:
https://thewhiteminotaur.wordpress.com/category/charactercreationchallenge2023/

I’ll be here next year.

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