[CharGen] To discuss the creation of the party

Hi all, and thanks for applying for my game.

The character generation stuff can be found here, but before you all start creating your characters, I'd like us to discuss what roles and types of character you'd each like to play. Please (re-)introduce yourself, and tell the rest of us what sort of character you'd like to play. Each of the character professions would be useful, and I've split them into five general types (and just because there are five of you doesn't mean I'd only accept one from each group - if you decide between yourselves to play five artists, I'd happily run with that!).

I would suggest that you try to cover as many of the skills as possible between you at a decent level, just so that you would then each have your own specialties and place to shine in the game. I'd also recommend making sure that each of you has at least one form of "interviewing" skill - Bedside Manner, Deception, and Persuade in particular, though Legal Talk, Psychology, Brute Strength (for intimidating others), The Mean Streets (for certain underworld figures and groups), and Dismal Sciences (for dealing with Bureaucracy) are all solid choices too. A few skills aren't used as much as others, but there will be times when they can really make a difference at certain points.

Feel free to ask questions too - I don't want to give much away about the actual campaign, but I also don't want you ending up with a character focused entirely on skills that aren't likely to be used much. The game itself is very investigative, so the usual types of skills for Lovecraftian games are all recommended - Spot Clues, Archival Research, Fine Manipulation and The Mean Streets are always good fallbacks, and the Academic skills are all useful in their own ways. You could probably do with at least one character whi can handle themselves in a fight too, so don;t neglect the Physical and Coordination skills.

Reintroductions? Well... I'm still Paul, 46, and from the Pacific Northwest region of the USA with about 3 1/2 decades of assorted roleplaying experience with a variety of systems and a variety of jobs under my belt. 🤷‍♂️

I don't change much, I just get older.

But onto the fun stuff... I often make combat characters. Drawing from my own time in the military makes it easy to get in the mindset of a character with military experience. That said, no need to be a one trick pony... skills like intimidation, mean streets, perception skills, and even dismal sciences would fit easily. Depending on what his job in the military was, I could use him to fill in a variety of skills if we have any gaps.

That said, if anyone else wants to play the combat heavy, I'm fine with that and can absolutely run with some other ideas.

As I've said before, the campaign is investigation-heavy, but there will be opportunities for combat so an ex-military character would be a good idea so that the group has at least one character able to shine there. There are certainly some parts that are fairly combat-heavy, but large swathes where the more cerebral or communication skills will be prevalent.

So, to sum up, a combat-based character would be a fine addition to the group. :)

One question... Reading a good bit of the rules document, and I got to the section outlining professions.

I noticed ex-military has a penalty to it, amd none of the other professions did. I admittedly didn't add up the points -- maybe ex-military start with a few extra points, and the penalty is to counteract that? It just struck me that a -1 to health or sanity felt rather stiff (mechanically) even though I agree it makes sense thematically.

I wondered if it was because Cthulhu games tend to not be as combat focused, and perhaps it was to edge people away from that role, but a few other archetypes are perfectly capable ass-kickers and don't seem to have a drawback.

Is there something I'm missing?

It's there because of the other part of the profession special - not being as bothered by violence and bloodshed. That cuts the difficult numbers down of all Mental resolve tests due to Violence or Blood by 1, and since a lot of tests will be difficulty 1, that means you won't have to roll at all for those ones - you'll succeed automatically. It also means that with a difficulty 2 test, you'll only need 1 success, which is much more manageable. You'll still be affected to the same degree from supernatural tests and from inhumanity tests (such as cannibalism, torturing others, etc), but that should save you quite a bit of Sanity over the course of the campaign. If you look at the Medical one, they have something similar, but only in regards to Blood (not Violence), so the ex-mil one is quite a bit better, hence the -1 to Health or Sanity (to cover either trauma
or physical injury) to make them more equal in scope.

Most other professions just have a free reroll to (usually) 3 skills per campaign area, so having a large number of your Mental Resolve tests reduced in difficulty is a pretty good option, even with the Health or Sanity deficit.

Does that help answer your question and assuage your worries in that regard?

I guess I didn't see the difference between the medical benefit and the ex-military benefit as being particularly big (as a mental/social focused game I assumed the violence aspect wouldn't come up often), but going into the game knowing your reasoning I can certainly be conscious of how regularly it comes into play. In hindsight, we may be able to reflect on if such a stiff penalty is warranted.

And to be fair... I do see being permanently one step closer to losing a character as a rather stiff penalty.

All that being said, let me stress that I'm not opposed to it... just curious.

EDIT: On an unrelated note, I noticed there are no talents (often a big part of systems using the YZE). Something you didn't want to include, something you just never got around to, something that's still a WIP, or something else?

Hello! so happy to be here! I'm Rook, 24, and I'm a huge fan of the Cosmic Horror genre.
I'm most interested in playing either an Investigative Reporter or a Professor from a Library. I like nerdy characters who dig themselves into deep shit with their curiosity lol. I can also do whatever if needed but those are what I'm excited about.

Hi all,

I'm not going to be able to post over the next couple of weeks, my dad passed away this morning, and so I'm going to be busy dealing with everything. I should be back after that though.

I am so sorry for your loss </3 Please take all the time you need.
The rest of us can just discuss character ideas in the meantime.

Really sorry to hear that, Nick. Take your time.

Hi, I'm Neil, now a fifty something gamer.from the UK.

I have thought about playing a jazz musician, but I'm not 100% set on it. I'm fairly happy playing most things, except possibly the full on mechanic / technical type. I've played a lot of detective types over the years (what can I say, I'm Raymond Chandler fan), but other character types are definitely on the cards.

Hello. I'm just catching up after being super sick (not to mention living in the U.S. and working for the federal government, which is lovely these days - very conducive to good mental health).

I am taking my son on a birthday trip over the weekend. Next week I'll try to catch up with everything here.

Hi all,

I'm back in Toronto now, but tired so won't be doing anything tonight. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be back in the swing of things, and can get this game going at last. Again, apologies for having to disappear for the last 3 weeks while dealing with my dad's funeral, but as long as you're all still willing and able to play, we can get going properly now.

Don't apologize. Seriously.

No worries.

Ok, we can start getting started. I see that Xanda hasn't yet joined us here, and looking at the recruitment thread, she has Zzzs by her name. I PMed her to see if she's still around, and want to wait till monday before starting up chargen in case she does get back to me. Otherwise I might extend an invitation to Windyridge and DrB in her place if I don't hear back.

So far, I think we have interest in the following professions / concepts - let me know if I'm incorrect. None of these are currently set in stone, just what I have gathered from this thread so far.

MaJunior: Ex-Military (though you can always choose another profession and bulk up the military-type skills to show prior military experience and your more recent profession if you prefer).

RollingforStew: Investigative Reporter or Librarian. For the latter, you could choose either Professor (for a university library, possibly a specialist library), or Antiquarian for a private library or museum if that appeals).

Neil: Jazz Musician. Artist is the obvious profession there, though as with my suggestion above, you could choose another and then add some relevant skills to represent a day job.

timplausible: ???

Yes, I thought about riffing off the artist, or perhaps the criminal. Also mulled over the Dilettante for a different character. Perhaps see what RollingforStew does and work around that.

I haven't heard back from Xanda, who has still not returned to the site, so I invited Dr_B to join us. I should be able to start chargen tomorrow at around this time, and will be doing it in several "rounds" so that we can all discuss what skills people want as their particular niches, and to discuss how far we want to cover most / all of the available skills between the group. Don't worry too much if someone else has a similar concept to you, or ants to play a very similar profession - I'd still be happy running a game if everyone decided they wanted to be Antiquarian booksellers, for example.

Thanks for the invite, and hello everyone.

I am in my fifties, based in the UK, and a long time HPL / CoC fan (as some of you will be able to tell from my avatar pic!). Interested in seeing how Year Zero works with this setting and tone, I loved that system in other games (Vaesen, the Walking Dead...).

Let me catch up with where you are all at, then I'll think of what character might be good to complement your party.

How would an Alienist fit your group of professions? I quite like the look of that, investigating the many facets of insanity and other ailments of the mind (while, no doubt, descending into madness himself!). He might possibly be useful to help the other investigators regain some precious sanity...

Hiya Dr_B, welcome aboard.

Seems fine by me, but then I'm generally willing to play a character that picks up some slack in skill areas that other PCs might not have.

An alienist is always a good choice - those psychoanalytic skills are always going to come in handy in a Lovecraftian game, after all.

OK, if we're all ready, let's start with Stage 1: Choosing your profession. Look over the professions in the rules pdf and pick one that suits the character concept that you have. Note what attribute and skill bonuses you have, your special talent, and your Credit Rating. We have some cool character sheets, but for now, just post here - we'll fill in the character sheets when we're finished.

You can also discuss, if you wish to, your choices, what you see as your character's role, where you see them specialising (if anywhere), etc.

Some questions please:

-in what city is the game set, and in what year?

-do you prefer our characters to know each other already, at the start of the game ?

Good questions!

It starts in 1937, and for initial location, let's go with the old Lovecraftian classic, Arkham.

You'll be travelling around pretty much from the off though, and to be fair, your characters can be from elsewhere (though probably predominantly from the US).

If you wish to know other characters from the start, you can do, but you will have been asked individually to attend a meeting, so by no means do you need to know any of the others. I've found when running this campaign before, that strangers work well - getting to know your fellow investigators is a good source of roleplaying potential.

Arkham 1937, perfect. Stranger investigators sounds great.

I am thinking my Alienist would be associated with a Sanatorium somewhere around Arkham - he doesn't run or manage it, but works there as a clinician and researcher, making the most of the range of mental patients to further his understanding of the human mind.

Sounds good Dr_B. :)

Looks good MaJunior. Don't forget to make choices where it allows you some (eg +1 to one of Brute Strength, Outdoorsman, or Vehicles, and whether to reduce Sanity or Health by 1. In the latter case, you can choose later when you have all of your attributes completed and know what your Health and Sanity will be).

Yeah, I'm not 100% sure which I'm picking between Brute Strength or Outdoorsman.

Probably taking a permanent -1 to Sanity, but I'm going to see how the character looks before I commit.

I've PMed timplausible and RollingforStew, as neither have been on for over a week now, so hopefully we'll hear back from those two soon. Neil, you're up for stage 1 too whenever you're ready.

If I don't hear back from RfS and tp, we can continue to stage 2, and I'll happily run the campaign for the three of you (I really like smaller groups), and put feelers out for other players if they would fit in nicely with the rest of you.

Sounds good!

I love smaller groups too , in PbP!

OK, with that, I'll work around the two of you.

Step 1

Aesthete - Artist
○ +2 to your Perception attribute
○ +1 to both your Academic and Social attributes.
○ +3 to your Core Skill, Artistic Vision
○ +2 to both your Persuade and an Academic skill, (aka Western Civilisation) skills.
○ +1 to each of Bedside Manner, Psychology and Spot Clues.

Credit Rating = 5. No, let us be good at this.

○ Once per major area you can choose to take an automatic success without rolling in Artistic Vision, or Persuade or Bedside Manner by appealing to a fan of your work. You must choose before (or rather, in place of) making a roll.

Vocalist, pianist and pretty good with jazz guitar, this African American lady is a here to help arrange matters.

Need a name, erm... Lillian Blakey.

Step 2

○ +1 to Coordination attribute (3), +1 to Perception (5) and +1 to Social (4) attributes.
○ Health 7, Sanity 6.

Somewhat thinking ahead but not set in stone :

Step 3:

○ +1 to each of Reflexes, The Mean Streets, Foresight, Archival Research, Mental Resolve.

We can all move onto stage 2 now - add 3 points to your attributes (Physical, Coordination, Academic, etc), with no more than 2 points going to any one attribute, and with a maximum of 5 points in total to any one attribute. All your attributes start at 2, remember, so points added from stage 1 and stage 2 are in addition to the base 2 for each one.

You may want to make sure that between the three of you, you have a decent enough attribute rating for each attribute, so that you have all bases covered, unless you want to be particularly deficient in a particular area collectively for the sake of roleplaying.

After this, calculate your Health (Highest and lowest scores of your Physical, Coordination, and Perception attributes added together), and your Sanity (highest and lowest scores of your Academic, Scientific, and Social scores added together).

I submitted a WIP character sheet (using the template), to track all these as we progress

I'm so sorry for ghosting for a while! life, amiright? I'm back and not going anywhere for a while if you'll have me! Please let me know if you think my character is too similar to Dr. Gabriel Walker and I can try to sort something else out. tho given my backup idea was a Librarian using Professor stats I might have to brainstorm a bit.

Welcome back, RollingforStew. :)

Yes, welcome back, RolingforStew.

My thought is perhaps there is a bit of similarity between the Alienist the Investigative reporter and my Artist workings.

I'm open to changing characters if folks agree. I really don't mind and Investigative Reporters are useful!

Sitting at home with a aching swollen foot for at least a couple of days.

I think Artist, Investigative Reporter, and Alienist have enough differences to make them all equally valid in a party together, so I don;t think there's any need to change, Neil.

Now for Stage 3: Choose five skills that you currently don't have any points in, and add 1 point to each of them. You can't add to Credit Rating or Cthulhu Mythos.

Step 3 revised -

○ +1 to each of Reflexes, The Mean Streets, Foresight, Mental Resolve, Theoretical Sciences.

Took Archival Research away for Theoretical Sciences. Was going to go for Darkest Africa, but some affinity for mathematics suddenly made sense.

Neil, which Academic specialty did you go for in Stage 1 for +2? Western Civ?

if someone has Western Civilization, I am happy to change that one for another culture, to cover more bases.

Yes, it was Western Civilisation I'd picked.

Cradle of Civilisation is always a good choice, especially for an alienist, for the familiarity with Latin and Greek.

Perfect, I'll go all Classic!
Switched.

OK, while we're waiting on RollingforStew to do Stage 3, think about Stage 4: Adding another 5 points to skills wherever you like, with a maximum of 3 total to any one skill other than your Core Skill, which can be raised to 4. Think about what skills you're deficient in as a group as well as individually, though again, don't worry if some skills are left low as a group - you'll never miss any core clues.

So far, only MaJunior's character has any proficiency in combat (which is fine if you want to leave that arena to him), and you're collectively low in terms of Scientific generally and, to a lesser extent, Academic. I will say that there may be fewer opportunities to use Scientific skills for long stretches of the game, but at times they will come to the fore, and sometimes importantly so. That said, there are opportunities (like pushing rolls, using your Drive, etc) to overcome those hurdles so feel free to put points where you want to.

It may be worth discussing where you want to be as a group though, and whether you're ok with some deficiencies in order to strengthen other skills that you want to shine in / make sure you have a low chance of failure.

this is how my Alienist is looking, before adding the 5 skill points of Stage 4:



in no particular order, I am thinking it would be useful for me to assign them to:

-Mental Resolve
-Spot Clues
-Endurance
-Reflexes
Possibly as an Alienist dealing with hospital bureaucracy: -Legal Talk

They're all very good choices, I think.

Tentatively, with Step 4 I will probably be doubling down on what my character is already good at. I feel like +1 to Ranged Weapons and +1 to Hand Weapons are a given, and maybe +1 to Brute Strength.

Mental Resolve and Outdoorsman are high on my list, but as mentioned I haven't settled on anything as of just yet.

I just don't see a grunt in the military as excelling in academics or science, so I'm not going with any of those. While I do see rather narrow specific examples of some of those skills being applicable, I don't see them as a broad enough knowledge to justify the entire skill. Examples... ballistics would be phsyics, but subsumed with the Ranged Weapon skill. Understanding gunpowder is technically chemistry, but knowing how to reload ammo doesn't mean you understand chlorine gas (I do wish we had talents to cover narrower applications of skills, but I'm not worried about it.)

My tentative ideas are Endurance +1 for long or late gigs, Ranged Weapons +1 (even if it started out throwing stuff), +1 to patch a hole somewhere and the others boosting existing skills.

The tricky choice is [spreading skill points to cover a wide ramge of situations] vs. [boosting those areas where a group skill check might be required] , say when we are all trying to sneak somewhere... Or we all need to climb a tall wall.

I am looking at those puny 2 dice I have in Physical and Coordination, and cringe at the thought of letting everyone down... Year Zero can be punishing... Individual checks are fine, the group ones are deadly! 😅

Hmm, what no stealth skill and Coordination is 3. Maybe I should consider that.

Lillian will not like mêlée. She can speak French, though.

There aren't likely to be many group skill challenges like that; where they are, I'm likely to say either one person rolls for the group (with probably a higher difficulty to cover all of those involved), or that each person rolls individually, but extra successes can be used to cover other characters that failed. We'll see, if and when it comes, and depending on the context and circumstances.

That also brings me to something that I haven't yet fully fleshed out - characters helping each other / doing the same task. I'm torn between only having one person roll when eg searching a place, and the others helping, or having everyone roll. I'm tending to the latter, just to make things easier and to give you all a better chance of success.

I feel like having a teamwork rule you like in place may be warranted.

If we're all searching a room or sneaking through a building, all of us rolling individually makes absolute sense. But if some foul monstrosity is trying to kick in a door and two people are holding it shut? I feel individual rolls might not fit (although arguably could still work from a mechanical standpoint).

But don't mind me, I'm just thinking out loud.

if it helps, this is how they do it in The Walking Dead's declination of the Year Zero system:

+1d6 per person always felt a bit underwhelming. They're giving up their entire action. As someone who has rolled 7 or 8d6 and gotten zero successes, I don't feel +1d6 would meaningfully increase my odds of success...

But I admit that's a feeling.
I also admit the dice roller here hates me. 😂

All that being said, more dice are less impactful as you get more dice... going from 2d6 to 3d6 is a considerable improvement, 9d6 to 10d6 not so much. It also keeps dice pools from getting overwhelming through The Power Of Teamwork. It's a balancing act, no doubt.

But I still say 1d6 feels underwhelming. Lol

would it work with:

+1d6 if the helper has no dice in the required skill, but +2d6 if the helper has some?

(If a strong man helps you in a brute force test, surely that's better than a sickly frail old man??) just brainstorming.

I agree, just adding +1d6 does seem underwhelming, MaJunior.


What I was considering was something based on other YZ games, but tweaked a it, so that those with high attributes and skills could contribute more. How about this: One person rolls, with the others aiding (and in some cases, like holding a door, maybe only one or two others would be able to aid). That person adds a number of dice equal to 1/3 of their Attribute + Skill in question, rounded down. So Att 2 and skill 0 would not allow you to help in any meaningful way, 3-5 in total would be +1, 6-8 would be +2, and 9-10 would be +3 dice added to the original roller. There'd still be the 10 dice maximum rule that a lot of YZ games have.

What do you all think?

Seems OK to me. Another way would be to allow a certain amount of rerolled dice per helper with say, 4 or 5 plus using Nick's formula.

I don;t want to bring re-rolls into it, since you have the ability to re-roll anyway, and I don't want to end up with multiple re-rolls from a single roll.

I am not mathematically minded at all! 😅. It Seems OK, and it's the kind of thing that playtesting can prove right or wrong...

Not sure where RollingforStew has gotten to, I'll PM him. In the meantime, if the rest of you are happy with your selections for Stage 4, then lock those in, and we can move on to Stage 5: Choose a Drive. This is what you'll use every now and then (usually once per major area) to change one die to a 6 (usually guaranteeing you a success, unless you require more than one success) after a roll, as long as it your Drive fits the circumstances. They're all short phrases that should be applicable to most situations though, and they should also explain why you'll take on the job, and keep at it even when things look bleak.

After that, move straight on to Stage 6: Write up a little bit of background (you don't have to go crazy here - just something I can work with to get you into the campaign - and we can expand on it through roleplaying as we go on, so if you just want to hint at things for now, that's fine). Also choose a name, if you haven't already, maybe do a short description, and choose an avatar pic. I prefer non-anime ones, and if in doubt, look for famous people or professions from the 1930s and choose a photo from those on offer.

When these two stages are done, we'll be ready to start, and I can work on a little prologue. I may have further questions for each of you, to help set the scene, but we should be ready to go this week.

His Drive is 'Unearth the Hidden'

His Bio:

Endurance +1, Ranged Weapons +1, Stealth +1, Persuade +1 (3), The Mean Streets +1 (2).

Drive: Your Time To Shine.

I'll knock something bio related up tomorrow (hopefully, it is looking a bit packed).

Awesome characters so far. I take it, MaJunior, that you're going for the -1 to Sanity to represent shellshock?

Since the three of you have completed characters, can I suggest you fill in character sheets (we'll use this one at the top please) with these details, and then submit them here please.

I think that's what I'm going with...

But I may change it to -1 Health between now and when I submit. Because indecision is a thing I am well aquainted with. (Permanent lung damage from Mustard Gas would be the easy explanation.)

No worries. Have a think about it and decide when you fil in the character sheet. :)

I did use that sheet, but I edited out the big scenario flyer, as it didn't do a whole lot of good for the readability on this here telephone.

I hope the above is OK, Nick! I was trying to make some sort of locational and thematic link.

Nice! I like the jazz angle and the mysterious circumstances of Mac Blakey's death.

Looks good Neil. I will say that you won't be in Arkham for very long, so investigating Mac's death won't be much of an option without spinning off into a B plot that will make the game longer, though I can probably fit something minor in to the initial proceedings.

I'm hoping to have initial in game posts up by the end of this week, maybe even today if I get chance.

Cheers, Dr_B. Nice choice, by the way.

That's fine, didn't expect a big sub plot.

Need to add a smattering of gear, I think.

Gear is more abstract than you may be used to - basically, if it makes sense for your character to have it, you probably do (notebook etc for a reporter, that sort of thing). If it doesn't make a massive difference to what you're doing, then we can assume you have it with you. If it is something that might make a difference to your actions, then make a Foresight roll to see if you packed it with you. If you think it's something that your character would definitely have, then we can discuss it in the OOC thread once I get that started. If you wish to buy a particular thing at some point, then we can go into Credit Rating rolls.

Excited to make a start!

New OOC and IC threads are up:

OOC: https://gamersplane.com/forums/thread/36292/

IC: https://gamersplane.com/forums/thread/36293/?p=1820452#p1820452

If I'm reading this right, we have an Alienist, an artist, and an ex-military? An idea has sprung to my mind for a Religious. I'll try to put the pieces together tomorrow.

Cool, looking forward to seeing what you come up with. :)

I submitted a character sheet for Trent Holloway. Trent is a practicing Quaker who recently graduated from college with a degree in theology. Trent comes from the "unprogrammed" school of quakerism, which focuses on silent searching for the inner light. During a recent worship, Trent's believes he contacted something strange and dark instead. Since then, he has had infrequent disturbing dreams. He has a vague sense approaching doom that he can't shake. Now he seeks answers, hoping he might help resist whatever darkness is coming.

Approved. :)

If it's ok with you, I'll have you meet up with the rest of the group in Savannah - they should be headed there shortly.