Customer Reviews

Central Casting: Heroes for Tomorrow (Character Creation System: Science Fiction)

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This was the second book in the Central Casting series, and while better in structure, possiblly tried to over-reach itself because of the huge volume of game-types it tried to cover.
Central Casting: Heroes of Tomorrow is designed for any era of Futuristic Sci-Fi gaming, including Gamma-World, Star Trek, Paranoia, StarWars, Teenagers from Outer Space, Traveler, Cyberpunk, and Warhammer. In fact, it is trying to cover all the different types of SciFi that makes this volume seem like it is over-reaching. Even breaking the subject down into 4 distinct categories (Imperial Space, Boldly Going where No One Has Gone, Tarnished Tomorrows, Post-Appocolypse) didn't quite provide enough snap--each one of those could have been an entire book.
The books are designed to allow you to plot out significant events in your character's history from before birth through adulthood, and the personality ramifications of each encounter. You will need a complete set of dice, including d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20.

Though now out-of-print, with a little effort, you should be able to find a copy for $40-45.

I highly recommend buying a copy of this book to help whenever you are in need of assistance breaking through writer's block.

Happy gaming, and may the dice roll in your favor.

Back in college (in what seems like yesterday but is in all actuality 1999) we used this book to augment teh D6 Star Wars RPG from West End Games. The problem I had with most role playing games (and still do in fact have this problem) is the vague feeling that new characters have never done anything in their past.

I can always say that Bill is a sly roguish smuggler that always gets the job done and has evaded the Imperials on many runs, but truth be told, his stats and lack of experience points say otherwise. Which points to Bill the Smuggler being a big liar, which I guess is quite roguish in its own way.

Enter Central Casting, spending a little bit of time rolling some dice, tweaking the results to match the setting/campaign and bending your mind and imagination enough to make these randomly rolled backgrounds and event fit into a cohesive and interesting character pre-campaign history that gives the player some bonus skills, extra starting experince points and a sense that he or she has lived before the game began.