Bucket of Bolts

As a solo or "journaling" RPG, character creation ... or rather, ship creation, is the entire game of Bucket of Bolts: there are no other mechanics.  This allows Bucket of Bolts to be used in conjunction with any "real" RPG that has actual ship stats in their rules.

Ship Creation

To begin to create your ship you simply start with a "medium class freighter" and pick three traits for the ship.  After the traits, you draw it (rough sketches are fine, no drawing ability is required), and pick a suitable model name and factory designation for it.

Traits

Given that the system has no rules for actually using the ship, traits are necessarily abstract, and the game defines them as:

These can be mechanical systems, battle  scars, modifications, facets of an increasingly wilful personality core—or just the way the craft feels to fly.

Example traits include sleek, nondescript, infamous, leaky, infested, or even rude.

Acts

After the ship is created, play consists of three "acts", where each act describes several captains who owned the ship during that act.  To begin an act the player chooses from one of four captains in that act.  For instance, the first act offers choices such as "long distance hauler", "galactic senator" and "intelligence agent".

Captain Questions

After selecting a captain the player then answers some basic questions about them.  For instance, if they select a long distance hauler, they must describe the family (blood or otherwise) that live on board the ship, and what it's most valuable cargo was.

Events

Next they must select an event to occur.  There are two event tables to choose from, each of which has six questions.  For instance the "Love & Triumph" table might ask the player to answer questions about a great treasure recovered from a long forgotten world, or about a time that an overwhelming force came against a community aligned
with the Captain (who helped to drive it off).

Ship Questions

After the event the player can choose to answer one or more "ship questions".  Each of these is optional, but the player is encouraged to answer some of them during play. 

For instance, one is simply selecting a name for the ship, while others include deciding on a secret mechanism (installed but not used by the last captian), or deciding how the crew respond after the ship's computer is upgraded with artificial intelligence.

Time

After each act the player decides how long the ship went between captains (eact act has different options), and then waits a related amount of time in real life (ranging from "no time at all" to up to six minutes, if the ship went for centuries in-between).  Players are encouraged to wait silently during that time or listen to the game's soundtrack (which, as of December 2021, was not yet available).

Depending on the amount of time selected the playe then may choose 0-3 time events (again from two tables with six options each).  For instance, a ship mothballed for a long time may have been picked over by scavenegers, and the player has to decide what parts the next captain has to replace, and what systems never work quite right after.

Finishing Captains/Acts

After the time has passed the player selects a new captain , and repeats the process again.  Depending on how many previous captains the ship has at that point, the player may also move on to the next act.

At the end of the third act (which comes either when the player is ready, or after ten minutes of real-life rest) the player reaches their final captain.  After that captain is done, they either describe the ship's ending