Pre Game Discussion

OK first up, I want everyone to answer a couple of questions:

1) What is your knowledge of the Cthuhlu Mythos and the works of HP Lovecraft?

2) Do you have any expectations of what a game of Call of Cthulhu involves?

3) Are you happy to go through full character creation or is your preference for a pre-generated character?

Excited to be in the game!

1) I have read numerous works by Lovecraft, Call of Chthulhu and Pickman's Model come to mind, so pretty familiar. "With strange aeons even death may die."

2) My expectations are: cultists, insanity (isn't there a Madness mechanic?), investigation.

3) I love me some character creation!

Excited to have you in the game! This scenario is a new one for me, having run Dead Boarder three times for the last few groups, this will be a nice change.

1. Some, I'd guess mostly limited to what is probably fairly common knowledge.

2. People becoming involved in situations that are increasingly outside of their understanding. From a game perspective, we probably aren't going to get a story that wraps up neat and tidy when dealing with things outside of human comprehension.

3. May as well jump in with both feet... full creation.

There's a free PDF Quick start rulebook which might interest you. It uses a more basic character creation than I am taking you through but it's free if you want to grab it.

Hello, all. Thanks for the invite. Excited to be here!

1) Lovecraft is one of my favorite horror writers. Up there with Poe, Stoker, and King. Love the Cthulhu mythos.

2) Would expect madness, insanity, horror, and investigation. All the good stuff!

3) And yes, character creation, definitely.

Hey hey everyone! Thanks again for the invite Keeper!

1. I read most of Lovecraft's major works as a teen, then took a 20 year hiatus, and just recently got back into it with the Glass Cannon APs for CoC and Delta Green. Also highly recommend BBC4's Shadow Over Innsmouth podcast.

2. Same as what the others mentioned, though I know it's known for its high PC death rate, and sanity loss is a major component of the game. And things man was not meant to know!

3. Totes down for character creation. That being said, I do still have my previous CoC character on GP that I didn't play long, and wouldn't mind using him as a "pre-built". He was built using the character creation method from player's rulebook (same how-to as you have listed in the cc thread).

Hello. I am excited to play.

1) It has been a while since I read his work, but I have read a good portion of his work. I have also played some of the games set in the cthulhu mythos, like cthulhu saves the world.

2) I don't have any expectations that others haven't mentioned. I assume that we will be investigating things and/or seeing things we should not have. Also madness.

3) I do enjoy going through character creation.

Hello, I'm excited to play as well

1) I know very few about the Cthulhu Mythos, but I read quite a few HP Lovecraft.

2) Mostly render the character insane or dead, like in most of H.P. Lovecrft novels.

3) Either is fine with me, if it is good for the story Pre-define characters are very good, otherwise I very much enjoy create a character from scratch. I even bought the starter kit in pdf to understand creation rule for this game.

It's great to have you all here, it's unusual to get a full party new to the system, so you'll all be learning together, so feel free to ask questions and no question is too stupid!

I'm glad you all have some familiarity with Lovecraft, and understand that madness is a big part of the game. There is a sanity mechanic and your character can end up permanently insane on top of the danger of dying. The Mythos is unforgiving and there is no shame in running away.

A big part of the game is research, so skills like Library Use can be invaluable and equally social skills like pursuade, charm and fast talk come in useful for interviewing people. It's not all research though, survival often relies on more martial skills, so firearm skills and Fight - Brawl (used for all hand to hand combat) can be the difference between life and death.

At the end of the day though, your characters are just everyday people about to face the unknowable.

I'll go with character creation and have started the process with some of you. CTME, if you want to use your own character, I'm happy with that, let me have a look at him first, send me a screencap of him on Discord or something.

As an old school GM/Keeper I’m not overly conscious of triggers and such so if there’s anything you would prefer to avoid please let me know either here or privately.

Be assured that I don’t portray sexual violence and despite the era and proliferation of it in Lovecraft’s works, I keep overt racism out of my games for the most part (although social themes may be an unavoidable part of any game set in the 1920s)

Everyone feel their characters are ready? Just waiting on Garyd20 to finish up but I think everyone else is about there.

I certainly think I'm ready to start.

Sort of a holdover from D&D, Shadowrun, etc. but not having gear feels a little weird, but I also don't know that it's needed for the character. He has a home and a car, so yeah.

I think so, just waiting for the G.M. to tell me if he is okay with it and if nothing is missing.

By the way where do we begin the story ?

For gear, you can really decide what you normally carry with you. Being 1920's, it's perfectly ok to carry a firearm. You can also have more specialised equipment at home. I don't worry too much about fiddling with dollars and cents when buying things, it's a lot more abstract than D+D. You have a daily expenses figure and a cash in the bank figure, so assuming you're not buying anything overly extravagant, you can get hold of whatever you want.

I'll have a final look over sheets today.

The story will have a thread entitled Gamplay.