[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.