Character Creation: Xandoria Galaxies

Not off to a rip-snorting start for the chargen project in 2024. But that's OK! I can still make 10 for January if I'm diligent and don't choose anything that makes me spend three days overcoming the "NOOOOO" response!

Like this game, dammit.

The Game: Xandoria Galaxies
The Publisher: Dilly Bean Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

The thinking here was that, for the first few months of 2024, I wanted to do only games I have in PDF but not hardcover. I used to have so many more of those than I do now, but years of prioritizing them in this project and spending most of my gaming dollars on books rather than PDFs (and fewer bundles on Drive Thru, as I think about it - I think all the hotness is on itch nowadays, but I'm reluctant to buy bundles off itch because a lot of the games included in them are zines or otherwise half finished, and generally they don't have the same bang for the buck) have changed that ratio. Now only about 50 of the games on the list are PDFs, so I figure maybe I can whittle that down to nothing over the first half of the year. I dunno, it's an artificial milestone, but aren't they all?

I picked this game because...I dunno, it's got a weird name? But then I read it, and it's a whole lot of "eh." It's a sci-fi, maybe space-opera kind of thing, but like, the first 10 pages are a couple of pages of fiction, a couple of pages of intro, a couple of pages of setting, and then in with the raspberries. The system is a percentile kind of thing, and that's fine, but man, is this book ugly. And aesthetic isn't my first concern, but like:

WHAT THE CHRIST

So yeah. Also it's just very amateurish; I don't really know what the game is about and it doesn't really hook ya. The game's been out since 2011 and there's no reviews or even ratings on DriveThru. But it's on the list, so it's getting a character!

There's actually an 11th step, but it's equipment-related, so you know I'm not too worried about it. 

Now, basically I can be a robot, a human, or a hy-man (a weird genetically enhanced human with pointy ears and affinity for magic). I dunno, let's just make a fighty robot, how about?

Aaannnd there's no place to write race or class on the (extremely garish) character sheet. Must not be important. Or name, for that matter. 

Well, anyway, next is Class. Let's do Protectorate! A "protectorate" is usually referring to a place, not a person, but whatever. 

Now, I don't know what to do with those text boxes, but maybe it'll get explained later. Next step is Primary Stats! 

The stats in this game are...well, you can see them in both of those boxes: Rumble, Agility, Might, Moxie, Smarts, Perception, Spirit, or RAMMSPS (ram's piss?) for short. I'm meant to roll 2d10 for each one, and then roll one more time so I can "replace a bad roll" (no word on what you do if all your rolls suck). So here we go!

Rumble 9
Agility 14
Might 7 (oof, weak robot)
Moxie 13
Smarts 17
Perception 12
Spirit 7 

And my extra roll gives me...7. So no point switching anything out. OK, then. 

Now, do I add the bonuses listed in those boxes to those rolls? It never says, and there's no example of chargen, but then again the word "DRAW" gets used all over the book and it's never defined as far as I can see, so that's the level we're on.

(Was this game made by a bunch of 9-year-olds? That would actually explain a lot.)

Well, moving on, let's assume we do add these bonuses in. That would give me:

Rumble 13
Agility 18
Might 10
Moxie 17
Smarts 20
Perception 18
Spirit 8

Health is the sum of the first four stats (58) plus 15 for being an android (73) plus 20 for being a Protectorate (93). Wild is the sum of the last three (46) with no boosts. DRAW is equal to my base Spirit, which is 8, but can I even use DRAW? I can't use DRAW Disks, whatever the fuck that means.

Now we buy "cheats." (Little yellow squeaky things that somethetimes steal my ladytypes?) And these...oh, come on. We total up the primary stats (104), and I can spend that much on Cheats, each one costing 20, so I can buy 5. But like...so you get less if you rolled shittily for your stats? That's bad game design, guys. 

Well, one thing you can do is spend a Cheat to boost a stat by 10. JESUS. I have no idea if the math works out, here. All right, well, I want my robot to be stronger, so I'll blow 3 Cheats (sounds dirty) and boost my Might to 40, the maximum. Presumably that also raises my Health by 30 so WHY AREN'T DERIVED TRAITS AT THE END eh. That's a thing that not even Savage Worlds has figured out, I can't expect this day-glo mess to get it. 

For my other two, I'll take Lucky (reroll 4 failed rolls...per session, I guess?) and God Mode (subtract Moxie from damage, presumably incoming damage). 

Assign points to basic actions! Uh...this is not addressed in the section following the page on chargen, so I guess we don't actually do that? There's nothing on the sheet about it, either. So I'ma skip it.

Optional: Pick Flaws! You know, normally I'm all about it, but today, since it's optional, I'ma skip it.

Determine Extras. Cool, Extras are different than Cheats, I guess. Oh, wait, you get those in play, so...why is this a step in chargen?

(I mean, I can guess why: Because no on except the author(s) have ever run this game, so no one ever made a character for it without the author(s) sitting with them, so no one has ever stress-tested this process and this version of the chargen process is probably several incarnations behind the finished rules. But anyway, I'ma skip it.)

Pick a persona! And then it goes into Good/Neutral/Evil. I mean...I'm an android, I think Neutral is fine. 

And then determine age, which can affect stats, but like, I'm a robot, I don't age. 

Jesus fuck, fine, done. My robot is named Cube (his serial number starts with QB). He's kind of boxy and made of some real shiny, blue metal. That's as much definition as this requires.