February is here and the #CharacterCreationChallenge for 2025 is over. While it’s still fresh in my mind, I wanted to summarize my experience with it, as well as noting my favorite (and least favorite) RPGs – purely from the point of view of doing a character build with limited time to learn the rules!

First, I should mention (or reiterate, if you’ve read my previous posts) that I did add some rules for myself that were not requirements of the original Challenge: namely that I intended to use a different RPG for every build and would avoid using the same genre back to back. This meant I needed to delve into some games that I barely knew anything about beyond how to acquire (legally) the rules necessary to build a character.

For ease of character builds, there were a few standouts:

• Pretty much all the titles from Free League Publishing were reasonably painless. Attributes and skills are common gaming concepts and these rules made it clear how they were used.
• Games based on either Powered by the Apocalypse or Forged in the Dark. The use of playbooks with some simple selections for capabilities meant that once I learned one build system, the rest fell into place.
• OSR games, due to their close association with the D&D I grew up with. This includes the Without Numbers games as well as OSE, Shadowdark, and a few others.

There were some that were a struggle for me:

• GURPS. I knew going in that this system had a reputation for complexity. Trying to cram through the rulebook to perform a quick build was painful, as I really had to page back and forth quite a bit and took copious notes.
• Traveller. I’m not even sure the character I created is playable. Build rules were scattered all over. This one needs more resources to learn how to play than just the rulebook.
• Lancer. Yes, there’s an online builder, which is definitely recommended. I used it to check my work but, since my goal was to build using the books, I wish it wasn’t necessary.
• Pathfinder. I have a weekly PF2e game that I GM and I am reasonably familiar with the character build process but, I have to be honest that it isn’t easy and takes a good amount of study to come up with a reasonable and rules-compliant PC. The automated online tools help make sure you don’t miss anything major, but there’s lots of prep necessary before you can bring it to the table.

Those games I struggled with could be because (in some cases) they are genres I’m not well-versed in, though there were some games in the same genre (the Without Numbers games standout) that were easier than other, more classic games. I also attribute some of the struggles to the need for this challenge to crank them out quickly. For most any of those games, if I were to play them, I’d spend a lot more time learning them.

That said, some games are just easier to get off the ground, which is a big part of getting the game adopted. Of course, if it then doesn’t remain fun to play, groups will bounce to something else.

For every game I tried, and many that I looked at but didn’t (Cryptomancer, Shadowrun) I still have great admiration for the people who created these things. These are not easy to imagine, build, publish, market, or maintain, so my hat goes off to them.

Check out the entire list of builds: