Hoo boy! Day 27 of the #CharacterCreationChallenge and I waded into the deep end with a character for Traveller: Danika Shermann.

Danika was a child prodigy, gifted with an insatiable curiosity and the intellect to make logical connections most people miss. She went to university to delve deeper into the sciences, particularly genetics.

A tragic accident in one of the labs, however, resulted in a spinal injury that paralyzed her from the waist down. Unwilling to give up her dream and unsatisfied with the current state of cybernetic options for someone in her state, she refocused on developing new cybernetics to return her – and others like her – to full mobility.

She has since joined Far Reach Exploration Enterprises, hoping to learn from some of the advanced, alien cultures that exist in the distant corners of the galaxy. Onboard the Gratiano, Danika acts as ship’s doctor as well as an advisor on the sciences.

Traveller

This RPG is pretty popular in the Sci-Fi community, so I thought I’d take a look at it for this challenge.

Talk about a challenge!

The character creation rules were really not easy for me. While I like the idea of a cyclical background build, this was no way as easy as the Lifepaths used in Twilight: 2000. Instructions were scattered and often buried within other text. I can’t tell you how many times I had to scroll back and forth and recheck a rule.

And, at the end of the day, I have no idea if the character I built properly follows the rules. I didn’t bother getting into equipment – there’s probably some supplement that would have given me the augmentation I wanted to support Danika’s background.

If I were to ever decide to actually run (or play in) Traveller, I would definitely seek out some other online resources, such as YouTube videos, to figure out how to perform the build. The rules as written were not helpful to someone new to the RPG.

All that said, there’s obviously a decent sized community around the game, so people have overcome the challenges I faced and are having fun with it. If you’re looking to try it out, grab the PDF from DriveThruRPG and then hunt down some online resources. Or tell me I’m a dummy and it’s much easier that I experienced – I can handle it.