Gaming with the Gnomies: 2023 #CharacterCreationChallenge Review and Index

After last year's #CharacterCreationChallenge, when I questioned myself if I wanted to do it again for again, I answered with a resounding "Heck no!"

A year later and my opinions may have been tempered.

It's funny that with all the hub-bub with WotC, the SRD, the OGL, and the AFL/CIO PBJ/BLT/PTA, I've made enough D&D 5e characters that I have a better appreciation of the system, and quite frankly, I see no reason to use third party products when I should have decades of variables with the PHB (and a little campaign variation from one other hardcover.) I remember the early deluge of d20 as a GM and as a retailer. It stifled creativity (or at least put it on a high shelf in the back of the store). Of all the items I picked up to mine for ideas, I found them extremely lacking, produced merely to make a quick buck, and after staring at the past 23 years of monthly gaming solicitations, it truly hasn't evolved past the days of Judges Guild and Role-Aids (at least with JG you got bang for your buck).

I don't see the flag-bearers of the new revolution/renaissance impacting more than select keyboard warriors. The multiple stores I've visited in the past year will make their profit off of 5e, and eventually OneD&D, and barely carry to other's products, if at all.

Rant aside, the whole challenge, with some time to plan things out, was a nice distraction that created a number pre-gen PCs/NPCs for my games, as well as confirming my picks of rulebooks to purge before my move in December. I still have most of them in pdf, but I felt no compunction to pull up the files and make something. I did delve into the rule-light skirmish games that are more wargaming than roleplaying, but dear readers can go back over the years with my Savage Worlds/Showdown campaigns to see that's my normal M.O.

Despite these challenges being a great exercise in making characters for games I own, but rarely play, it's certainly not to increase traffic on the antiquated blog. I mean, the 31 extra posts for January did increase pageviews, just to the the links and nothing else. "Most Popular" character, for the most part, were the early days, and I knew for a fact that a Gamma World character named Ko'rona Vyress would top the list. The top five were some of my D&D 5e pre-gens I was developing, followed by my daughter's Venus Fly Trap character for Gamma World.

To return to my earlier rant, the people want what the people know, and will only deviate if you can provide that unique spark.

Day 1 - D&D 5e - Emeline Lassu - Half-Elf Ranger #Saltmarsh

Day 2 - Gamma World - Ko'rona Vyress - Altered Human

Day 3 - D&D 5e - Norma Gimblespringer - Halfling Battlemaster #Saltmarsh

Day 4 - Brutal Quest - Kerenga Vai - Blue Martian Harem Guard

Day 5 - D&D 5e - Bloodwyn Pfleegor - Human Chaos Sorceress #Saltmarsh

Day 6 - Hackmaster - Cyprion Broodbank - Favomancer

Day 7 - GURPS - Preston Logan - Artillery Spotter

Day 8 - Kobolds Ate My Baby - Caffeine McBouncy - Kobold Daredevil

Day 9 - Gamma World - Cuddles - Mutant Bear Enforcer

Day 10 - Call of Cthulhu - Norman Swanson - Miner from Pennsylvania

Day 11 - Space Scoundrels - Gyr - Security Expert