Call of Cthulhu - Planning, Announcements (Currently Full)

[angelic traces]

So I have this Call of Cthulhu campaign that I would love to run and I thought that doing it on here might work well. I would be using the old Chaosium d10 version. Some knowledge of the system would be helpful, but not unnecessary.

SPAWN OF AZATHOTH
I have seen the dark universe yawning
Where the black planets roll without aim,
Where they roll in their horror unheeded,
Without knowledge of luster or name.
- H.P. Lovecraft, "Nemesis"

herald of the end of time
Astronomers have theorized that our sun is not alone in it's journey around the galaxy, but is accompanied by an unknown second star of dim radiance. This second star, while perhaps invisible from Earth with even the finest optics, would periodically pass close enough to our solar system to have far-reaching effects upon the evolution of this planet.

The setting is Providence, RI in 1927. At least one investigator will have been a student or friend of Phillip Baxter, a professor of archaeology at Brown University.

Quick Start Guide
Character Thread - you can find everything you need to create your character here.
Plotting and OOC
IC Thread

[AndyZ]

I don't know the system but I definitely want in on this.  Reading over the Quickstart.

[angelic traces]

That's fine. It's all based on percentages, so it's a pretty easy system to learn. =)

[Elias]

I am in, wanted to do a cthulu game for AGES

[Elias]

WIP

INFO:

Player Name: Elias
Investigator Name:Sean Black
Occupation: Street Magician
Colleges, Degrees: None
Birthplace: Moscow
Mental Disorders:
Sex: Male
Age: 31
Orientation: Straight

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

CHARACTERISTICS:
STR:10 (Dmg +0)
DEX:12
INT:13 (Idea= 65%)
CON:8
APP:11
POW:14 (Luck=70%)
SIZ:13
SAN: 70
EDU:13 (Knowledge= 65%)
99-Cthulhu Mythos:
Damage Bonus:

POINTS:
Sanity Points: 70
Magic Points:14
Hit Points:11

INVESTIGATOR SKILLS: (Occupation points-195) (Hobby points- 130)
Accounting (10%):
Anthropology (01%):
Archaeology (01%):
Art (05%); ___:
Astronomy (01%):50 (total 51%)
Bargain (05%):
Biology (01%):
Chemistry (01%):20 (total 21%)
Climb (40%):
Conceal (15%):35 (total 50%)
Craft (05%); ___:
Credit Rating (15%): 50 (total 65%)
Cthulhu Mythos (00%):
Disguise (01%):
Dodge (DEX x2): 15 (total= 39%)
Drive Auto (20%):
Electrical Repair (10%):
Fast Talk (30%):
First Aid (30%):
Geology (01%):
Hide (10%): 10 (20% total)
History (20%):
Jump (25%):10 (total 35%)
Law (05%):
Library Use (25%): 20 (45%)
Listen (25%):
Locksmith (01%):
Martial Arts (01%): 5 (total 6%)
Mechanical Repair (20%):
Medicine (05%):
Natural History (10%):
Navigate (10%):
Occult (05%): 40 (total 45%)
Operate Heavy Machinery (01%):
Other Language (01%); ___:
Own Language (EDU x5): Russian 10 (total 75%)
Persuade (15%):
Pharmacy (01%):
Photography (10%):
Physics (01%):
Pilot (01%); ___: 10 (total 21%)
Psychoanalysis (01%):
Psychology (05%): 10 (total 15%)
Ride (05%):
Sneak (10%): 40 (total 50%)
Spot Hidden (25%):
Swim (25%):
Throw (25%):

FIREARMS:
Handgun (20%):
Machine Gun (15%):
Rifle (25%):20 (total 45%)
Shotgun (30%):
SMG (15%):

WEAPONS:
Melee (base%): total%, damage, hands, range, # of attacks, hp
Firearm (base%): total%, damage, malfunction, range, # of attacks, hp

Fist (50%): ___, 1D3+db, 1, touch, 1, n/a
Grapple (25%): ___, special, 2, touch, n/a
Head (10%): ___, 1D4+db, 0, touch, n/a
Kick (25%): ___, 1D6+db, 0, touch, 1, n/a

INVESTIGATOR BACKGROUND:
Residence: Loft
Short Description:
Family & Friends:
Episodes of Insanity:
Wounds & Injuries:
Marks & Scars:
Mythos Tomes Read:
History:

INCOME & SAVINGS:
Income:
Cash on Hand:
Savings:
Personal Property:
Real Estate:
Adventuring Gear & Possessions:

[angelic traces]

Oops, I knew I forgot something. Gotta add idea, luck, and know to my text character sheet. >.< This is the first game I've run like this, so things like that will happen from time to time. I hope you can bear with me.

Also, I'll get the stuff about income up soon. I know the books are kind of hard to come by, so if you want stats on a weapon or something I can look them up for you.

[AndyZ]

Any rules for how we roll up stats?  Presumably the honor system, but can we roll up a few tries and see what sets we like best?  Or do you want us to keep the first set we get?

[angelic traces]

Usually I have players go with the first set they get, it's part of the beauty of how CoC character creation is set up. Rather than starting with a concept and fitting your character too it, the concept should build itself as they character does. In addendum to that however, if your rolls are really terrible I wouldn't mind re-rolling them. Let's say anything less than a 10 can be rerolled (which means Elias, you can reroll that 8).

Also, putting up income stuff now.

[Callie Del Noire]

I had an old character I wanted try out.. but lost (and used a bit of alternate rules).

A psychic (psychometry) who did consultant work.. lived on a boat, wore gloves and brought her own cutlery.  (Yes, she had issues)

[angelic traces]

Sounds like a fun character! I'm sure we could figure out a way to work it. I'm up for tweaking some rules as long as it doesn't go too far overboard. Do you remember what you did to make her work?

[Callie Del Noire]

Sounds like a fun character! I'm sure we could figure out a way to work it. I'm up for tweaking some rules as long as it doesn't go too far overboard. Do you remember what you did to make her work?

You want it here.. or PM'ed..

[angelic traces]

Good question. We should probably hash it out over PM so as not to crowd up the thread too much. =)

[angelic traces]

I've added a fill-able PDF version of the sheet that I managed to find to the original post. I hope this makes things easier. ^_^

[AndyZ]

Stupid question, but is it too out of place for women to get college degrees in 1920?  One of the rough parts of these games is that I'm absolute rubbish at historical settings.

[angelic traces]

It's not terribly out of place but it does depend on the degree. Female doctors and engineers are uncommon but journalists and other humanities are more accessible to women. I'm fine with you rolling up a female character with a primarily male dominated occupation but it may lead to difficulties for your character as time goes by. Of course, this makes for good roleplaying as long as you're up for it. =)

[AndyZ]

Doesn't matter, I only rolled a 12 for Education anyway.

Strength 8, Constitution 10, Dexterity 9, Size 16, Intelligence 17, Power 11, Appearance 6, Education 12

Rerolling everything less than a 10...and rerollng until I get above 10...

Strength 11, Constitution 10, Dexterity 12, Size 16, Intelligence 17, Power 11, Appearance 13, Education 12

16 Size I'm going to have to figure out.  I figure that's very large and curvy, though not necessarily overweight?

[angelic traces]

SIZ is an average of height and weight, so with a 16 she could be tall and curvaceous or short and chubby, it's up to you.

Edit: Character Statuses,
Elias, I'm still waiting on income as well as background for your character.
We have character sheets coming from AndyZ and Callie Del Noire.

We just need one or two more characters and we can get started! I may let y'all start once we have these three hashed out but four makes for a better party than three so we'll see how it looks once we have these guys all done.

[AndyZ]

Katrina Pettingworth

https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/9/9f/Katrina_Pettingworth.PDF

Katrina was born the only daughter to Victoria and Edward Pettingworth.  Her mother unfortunately died of medical complications to which Katrina was never properly informed, and her father never took it well.  He spent long enough in town to make sure she was raised properly and educated by private tutors, but once she was sufficiently grown, he moved off to France to "manage some affairs."  He's never been back since, and Katrina has heard that he's found himself a second wife.  She doesn't really permit herself to have an opinion about that, since it wouldn't be a good one, even though there's no reason to be upset with him.

She lives with a small retinue of servants in the Pettingworth Estate, a small mansion roughly half an hour from Brown University by vehicle. 

One of the first things people notice about Katrina is her height: she's 5'10" without heels.  If she has any desires to be shorter and more normal, however, she's never expressed them.  Abnormality seems to be a reasonably acceptable trait among the eccentric rich, and it caused her to attempt to register into the university.  However, since she had private tutors and not a proper schooling, she wasn't accepted...at least, that was the reason she was given.

Undeterred, she put herself towards the position of librarian.  If she couldn't have a formal education, she would at least be saturated with knowledge from the books themselves.  This proved difficult, however, as she still had so many questions which could not be answered by a dry tome.

Phillip Baxter was one such individual, who seemed to follow her perspective of pursuing knowledge for its own sake instead of prestige or authority.  She's never been to an excavation, though she's left little hints that she'd love to go if he ever invited her.  She hasn't given up the hope of getting a proper education, though she sees a great deal more value in his friendship than that goal.

[angelic traces]

Looks great! We talked about her history some but could you fill it in so that other players can check it out as well? Once we have character histories we can figure out how you all get drawn into this mystery. ^_^

[nyarlathotep]

Is it too late for me to join in?

[angelic traces]

No, not at all! We're still working on finishing up characters before we get started. ^_^ Do you have an idea of what you'd like to play?

[Lumasan]

Posting the fact that I'm interested. I sent you a pm btw Traces. I'm also working on a character right now. I derped on looking and seeing the quick start guide. I'm totally not going to last long if I keep derping. :D Soooooooo excited. I have been wanting to be in one of these campaigns for ages, but no one I knew would run one. D:

Here's what I rolled for my only set. I shit you not. My dice are the dice of unforgiveness and no uniqueness.

12 Str, 13 Con, 13 Dex, 14 Power, 12 Appearance, 9 Education, 13 Int, 13 Size.

Looks like I need to re-roll the Education, but I just wanted to show this set to you, because I hate my dice. >.> I end up with such normal characters on a normal basis in most campaigns. I usually have to boost things with species or traits.

Looks like I have a 13 for education now. I'm not liking the look of all those 13's. D:

And now I can't get the PDF to modify anything for me. >.>

[nyarlathotep]

No, not at all! We're still working on finishing up characters before we get started. ^_^ Do you have an idea of what you'd like to play?

Well I did have a psychologist and an archaeologist that I created for games that didn't get off the ground. I could PM you one of those but the stats were picked and not rolled. I could create a new character if you prefer.

[Lumasan]

I can't seem to get the Idea, Luck and know areas on the PDF (free one) to work for me. I can't enter in any numbers at all in them, despite saving the pdf to modify it further. Am I missing something here or is it the file?

[nyarlathotep]

I can't seem to get the Idea, Luck and know areas on the PDF (free one) to work for me. I can't enter in any numbers at all in them, despite saving the pdf to modify it further. Am I missing something here or is it the file?

Haven't looked at the PDF but I'm guessing those are calculated by the form. Idea is always 5 X Int, Luck is always 5 X Pow, and Know is 5 X Edu (max 99)

[Callie Del Noire]

Haven't looked at the PDF but I'm guessing those are calculated by the form. Idea is always 5 X Int, Luck is always 5 X Pow, and Know is 5 X Edu (max 99)

I use Hero Lab for mine.. let's me track things too.

[Lumasan]

This I know now, by looking at them online. But the auto calculations aren't working for me. Not sure what's going wrong. :/ I might have to resort to using a written sheet, or printing one off, filling it in and then scanning. :(

I just looked up hero lab, I need something I don't have to buy and the one other place to get a pdf (from Chaosium) won't let me create an account because it's verification thing is bugged. :/

[Callie Del Noire]

This I know now, by looking at them online. But the auto calculations aren't working for me. Not sure what's going wrong. :/ I might have to resort to using a written sheet, or printing one off, filling it in and then scanning. :(

I just looked up hero lab, I need something I don't have to buy and the one other place to get a pdf (from Chaosium) won't let me create an account because it's verification thing is bugged. :/

I've been using Herolab a LONG time.. like since version 0.90. As a result I got A LOT OF Licenses over time. (My pathfinder section is WIDE)

[Lumasan]

I forgot to role income. I literally just rolled a 9 on a d10. What. What kind of occupation with my stats could I possibly do to give me that much yearly income. Or should I just go with oil tycoon's daughter. *facepalm* I knew this was going to happen. Roll my stats (everythings practically the same) roll income, get second highest. X3

[angelic traces]

Hi guys!

I think our best bet is to use the fill-able one I linked in the first post. You can save it from the wiki, fill it out, and re-upload it so that we can all see it.

Lumasan, go ahead and replace one of those 13s with a 16. You can pick which. I call shenanigans on those dice. =)

nyarlathotep, if you want to play one of your old characters shoot me a pm and I'll take a look at them. Of course new characters are welcome as well. It's up to you.

I apologize for any confusion. This is my first time running a dice based game via a forum, so things might be a little bumpy at times. I'm going to put it out there right now that this isn't just my game, it's your game too so if there's anything I can do to make things better feel free to point them out to me. ^_^

[angelic traces]

UPDATE!
I've figured out the solution to the character sheet problem. I've formatted it after the one's provided in my campaign book. If you've already sent me something, don't panic! I am going to convert everything I have over to the new format and put it in the first post. Feel free to start on your own if you'd like but don't worry about it. I caused the confusion, so let me get things reorganized for you. =3

Edit: I've done AndyZ's sheet, so you can check it out in the first post.

[Muse]

Do you still need players, Angelic? 

[angelic traces]

We have two completely done, two halfway, and one in progress. We could take on one more! ^_^

Everyone, I typed up a description of Providence. I hope it will help with the backstory writing!

[Lumasan]

Wait... do you still want me to put in the app as a pdf? *confused by the changes*

Okay now I'm really confused. It says in the quick start guide to take 8 skills as class skills... so how come everyone else has more than that? *confused*

*epic facepalm* I just derped. There's hobby skills too. *facedesk*

[angelic traces]

I'm sorry. =(

You can still use the pdf for your own reference, but I want the stats posted in a block like the ones I have up. If you want, I can copy it over from the pdf for you. =)

As for skills, you get occupation skill points equal to EDUx20. These points can only go into your eight choosen skills. After that you get INTx20 in personal interest points. These points you can put in any skill to flesh out your character. Does that make sense?

[AndyZ]

EDU*20 as well as INT*20?!  Crap, the quickgen just said EDU*15.  I have a lot more to spend!

[nyarlathotep]

The version 5.6 rules had skills as EDUX15 I believe. I think the 6.0 rules changed it to EDUX20. It's been a while so I could be wrong.

When I've run Call of Cthulhu games in the past I haven't been too bothered about stats and skills so long as they are reasonable. A game like this has such a low survival rate and relies so much on mystery solving and intellect that most of the time it's fairly pointless anyway. Even a muscle bound genius can be reduced to a quivering wreck or ripped into tiny pieces even by a member of a lesser servitor race.

[angelic traces]

Yes it's EDUx20. I lied on the personal points though. When you asked I went and looked at the book a second time to double check and that is only INTx10. Sorry again for any confusion. >.<

[Lumasan]

You know what sucks? Migraines and people who get in the way of me finishing a character sheet. >.> Is there a limit to personal/hobby skills we can have? There's no statement I can see in the quickstart guide regarding max number of hobby/personal skills.

Also are we taking in to account anything from the 1920's Investigator's Companion (particularly the occupations)? Was a bit curious, because I was looking at it for an idea of common occupations at that time, and they brought up things about added things for choosing an occupation (like con bonuses, int bonuses, keeping your cool and what now)

[AndyZ]

I'll be out for the next two days.  I may get some posting done but won't really be back until tomorrow night.  I'll try to add the other points when I can.

[Lumasan]

I am running into problems left and right with this pdf, and it isn't the auto-calculating one. I have no idea what's causing them since no one is having my problems. I officially cannot add any skill points, only check my boxes. >.>

[angelic traces]

Hey guys! Lumasan, I don't have the Investigator's Companion but if there's something from there you wanted to use you could pm it to me and I will consider it. I'm sorry that you're having so much trouble with the sheet! If you'd like, shoot me a pm with the character you'd like to create and I'll see what if I can make it work. ^_^

[Lumasan]

Alright, I'm thinking I'm going to have to do something to make this organized. Idk what yet. I will not let this pdf defeat me. X3

[BraveEarth]

Because I live very close to Providence I am going to be looking over your guys' shoulder to make sure you did your homework

[angelic traces]

I'm pulling my content from a campaign book, but I would be interested in knowing if they got anything wrong. =p These guys may not stay in Providence very long though. Were you interested in playing Brave?

[BraveEarth]

I'm wholly unfamiliar with the system other than its infamous lethality.

[angelic traces]

Aw, too bad. It's a pretty easy system to learn, since it's all percentage based. It is certainly a dangerous game for characters though. It takes a good keeper to to keep the players just on the edge of dying/insanity and not send them over the edge without making it obvious that you're doing it. =p

[AndyZ]

Okay, Katrina's PDF has been updated to give me Edu*20 and Intel*10 skill points.  I only had Edu*15 before.

[ChaoticSky]

O.o Wow, this looks very.... interesting, too bad I'm late to the party  :-(

[AndyZ]

I'm sure there's still room if you want in.

[angelic traces]

The campaign is designed for up to six, so yes, you're still welcome to join. ^_^

[angelic traces]

Crucial Update!
I accidentally put in the wrong values on the income list! The numbers for 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 somehow got switched with the modern numbers. They're still pretty high though, since it's 1920. My bad! >.<