RPGaDay 2026, Day 1: Discipline

The default for a character motivated by discipline is usually a military or similarly employed person. Discipline is central to military training, but it need not be due to how most folks view this word. When you’re young, discipline is often extrinsic — there are rules, parents, teachers, coaches — and the most commonly associated thing with discipline is punishment. As an adult, discipline might still be extrinsic: I don’t want to go to jail. I don’t want to lose my job…but the most successful people tend to be ones where discipline comes from within. Discipline, the Swanson Pyramid of Greatness tells us jokingly is “The ability to do a boring thing over and over again” but it’s more than that.

Discipline is the ability to restrain your emotions. It is the ability to push yourself past your limits, fears, or to do that boring thing over and over again. Ask anyone who exercises regularly — it’s getting past that first (and most recent) “I don’t want to” to do what you have to. The lack of discipline is the main point of failure for most new college students. It’s the point of failure that causes corruption, and by extension the collapse of trust not just interpersonally, but at a societal level.

So, here’s two versions of a character driven by discipline. The first was crafted quickly in the excellent Outgunned!system by Two Little Mice. I based this on someone I know well — Robert Moray is an interrogator, former army, well educated, and worked as a contractor through the global war on terror. He sought out for his ability to create rapport above all else. He’s the guy you send to schmooze drug dealers and other criminals; or send in with a team to collect a high value target to interrogate. He’s not a brute, but can rise to the occasion. His main ability is his ability to be what he needs to be, to full invest in that persona, then use it to be who his target needs him to be. The downside to something like this is that deep down, the good person doing this job for “the greater good” has had to do awful things and his conscience attacks whenever he’s not in the thick of it. The scary thing is how easily it is for him to put that all away and be who he needs to be at that moment.

What is it that keeps the demons at bay? What is it that helps him keep his cool when he needs? What allows him to smile at a bad guy and treat him like his best friend when he wants to put a bullet in him? Discipline — the ability to control himself.

The second choice for this is a character that will probably pop up a couple of times this month. A major NPC, she was written up as a player character — a habit I have for central NPCs that will show up on a regular basis in a campaign, and will even likely be aiding the player’s characters. This one was originally crafted in the old Decipher Star Trek system, but is presented here in Modiphius’ Star Trek Adventures format at what would have been the start of the campaign.

Kerr’s driving force has always to be better than she is. A council housing kid, Fiona was driven to escape mediocrity. She wasn’t a great student, but an excellent athlete. She barely made it into the academy, rocked out of science but landed in security operations when her physicality and personal skills allowed her to graduate in the middle of her class. Despite excellent fitness reports while a security officer and later head of security on the starbase at Andoria, she was overlooked for promotions, due to the lack of prestige of assignment, but also the influence of an admiral and a former instructor with a grudge.

However, her tenacity and fearlessness during a crisis on the starbase brought her to the attention of Captain Garth of Izar, who snatched her up for his chief tactical officer and pushed through promotions to get her up to where she should have been. With the outbreak of the Federation-Klingon War, she was able to show what she could do with inspiring leadership, a good head for tactics, and an absolute refusal to surrender or show fear. At the Battle of Deneva Prime, she rescued her medical personnel and killed the commander of a Klingon force in hand-to-hand combat, and was gutted in the process. She barely survived, but is infertile and badly scarred in the abdomen. At the war’s end, she was Garth’s hand-picked successor, and while she was given the office of captain, she was denied the rank and remained a commander. (Her former instructor, again…)

Kerr is a fierce opponent and a loyal friend, she awards merit and scorns sloth. She has a vicious temper and sharp tongue, but she can be very diplomatic when it suits her. Or in Captain Garth’s words, “If her people or her personal reputation is on the line, Fi won’t stop and she won’t allow you to win out of sheer spite.”

The Black Campbell