28th Game - Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition (Epithet)
Call of Cthulhu is one of the oldest still being published TTRPGs. The first edition was released in 1981 and the game has maintained mostly the same ruleset for that entire time, though admittedly, I haven't seen every edition. The 7th edition presents the only major adjustments to game systems I can remember since the early 90s.
I've said before that the edition wars and vast differences between different D&D editions is rather unusual in the TTRPG hobby. with most games you usually see massive rules shifts between 1st and 2nd editions, especially for indie products where the creator comes back with lessons learned (note to self). But the constant re-defining D&D has experienced for the past fifty years is odd.
As an example, the 7th Edition differences aren't even as severe as the differences between D&D 3rd and D&D 3.5.
Another note is that this is the first game we're going to do a epithet gorgon. Call of Cthulhu does not have any characters who aren't human. So, we're going to have a person that is referred to by other people as "gorgon". Given the connotations of the term, she's likely at least not conventionally attractive or possibly an outcast for some other reason.
Anyway, let's move on to the character creation.
Step One: Generate Characteristics
Step Two: Determine Occupation
Step Three: Decide Skills and Allocate Skill Points
Step Four: Create a Backstory
Step Five: Equip Investigator
Step 1 - Generate Characteristics
The older editions of Call of Cthulhu used a system similar to D&D with stats between 3 and 18 as determined below.
Strength, Constitution, Power, Dexterity, and Appearance used to each be determined by rolling 3d6.
Size and Intelligence are determined by rolling 2d6+6.
Education is determined by 3d6+3
And then some of those would be multiplied by 5 to determine other traits.
Power x5 became Max Sanity and Luck.
In addition, when you rolled a check for like Dexterity or Strength, then it would be multiplied by 5 to determine the percentage you need to get under on the d100 roll. Because, yes, Call of Cthulhu does all it's rolls by trying to roll underneath the percentage of as a skill on a percentile roll.
Now, the 7th Edition of Call of Cthulhu cuts out some of the steps above... a little bit as they are all set up as percentages.
This is how the stats are generated now.
Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Appearance, and Power are still determined by rolling 3d6 but now you multiply by 5.
Luck is now also determined by rolling 3d6 and multiplying by 5.
Size, Intelligence, and Education are now all determined by rolling 2d6+6 and then multiplying by 5.
So, we'll roll these now.
With this, I'm going to assign the following.
In the past editions, the minimum age would be your EDU + 6. In the 7th edition, instead you choose an age between 15 and 90 and you adjust your stats based on which age you chose.
I'm going to say about 35 or so. Let's say 37. Which says to make an improvement check for EDU.
Improvement checks are how Call of Cthulhu characters basically level up. If you've succeeded on a skill during a case, then at the end of the case you roll that skill and if you roll over the percentage, then you can improve your skill by 1d10. Basically this means it is easier to advance your skills when they're low skill, because at that point you're more likely to roll higher than the skill.
Basically, on an improvement check, you're trying to fail skill checks.
So, let's roll the Improvement against this character's EDU of 45.
I rolled a 64. That's higher than 45. This would be a fail in gameplay, but because this is an improvement check, it means we roll some to add to the EDU. I roll a d10 and get a 9. This means that the character's EDU is now 54.
The full age chart is here:
After we've determined the full percentages, we also have to determine "Half" and "Fifth" values for cases when the roll is more difficult than normal. These are determined by division and rounding down.
STR: 45, Half: 22, Fifth: 9
CON: 55, Half: 27, Fifth: 11
SIZ: 60, Half: 30, Fifth: 12
DEX: 85, Half: 42, Fifth: 17
APP: 35, Half: 18, Fifth: 7
INT: 70, Half: 35, Fifth: 14
POW: 65, Half: 32, Fifth: 13
EDU: 54, Half: 27, Fifth: 10
LUCK: 75, Half: 37, Fifth: 15
We then use these characteristics to determine other attributes
Damage Bonus, based on STR + SIZ
Build, a new trait, is also based on STR + SIZ
Hit Points, based on CON + SIZ
Magic Points, equal to one fifth POW
MOV based on the relative comparisons of STR, DEX, and SIZ
Speak Own Language, equal to EDU
Starting with Damage Bonus, we use this chart:
This character's STR is 45 and their SIZ is 60, resulting in a total of 105. This comes to no damage bonus and a build of 0. So basically, fairly average.
For Hit Points, you add CON (55) + SIZ (60) and then divide by ten, rounding fractions down. I've noted this character's values above, so it comes to a total of 115. Divided by ten and rounding down gets us to 11 HP.
Finally, for MOV we look at SIZ (12), STR (9), and DEX (15).
If neither DEX nor STR are equal to or greater than SIZ, then MOV is 7.
If either DEX or STR are equal to or greater than SIZ (or all three are tied), then MOV is 8.
If both DEX and STR are equal to or greater than SIZ and there is no tie, then MOV is 9.
For this character, DEX (15) is greater than SIZ (12), but STR (9) is less. So MOV is 8.
That brings us to the following Attributes.
STR: 45, Half: 22, Fifth: 9
CON: 55, Half: 27, Fifth: 11
SIZ: 60, Half: 30, Fifth: 12
DEX: 85, Half: 42, Fifth: 17
APP: 35, Half: 18, Fifth: 7
INT: 70, Half: 35, Fifth: 14
POW: 65, Half: 32, Fifth: 13
EDU: 54, Half: 27, Fifth: 10
LUCK: 75, Half: 37, Fifth: 15
As to what exactly these numbers equate to in a narrative sense, we have a chart for that.
This means that she's slightly under average human strength, a bit healthier than the average person. Slightly under average human size, aery fast and nimble, smarter than average, fairly strong willed, and just shy of a high school graduate.
Step 2 - Determine Occupation
This is determined the same way you determined occupation in older editions: you choose it. Though it gives a small paragraph on the idea of creating new occupations, namely not to give an occupation more than eight skills in it's package.
Now, the differences here come in how the Occupations are set up.
In older editions, there would be a list of skills and then you would get a number of points to spread between them equal to your EDU (4-21) x 20. In this case, you get a list of skills, then a Credit Rating range followed by a way to determine how many points you have for your skills.
In most cases, the points are EDU x4, which is generally going to be the same number of points you'd have gotten by multiplying the old system's EDU by 20. However, several occupations determine skill points by taking EDU x2 plus another attribute times 2.
For example, the farmer uses EDU x2 and either DEX x2 or STR x2 and the musician uses EDUx2 and either DEX x2 or POW x2.
Also, let's talk that Credit Rating range. In older editions, Credit Rating was a skill like any other that would show up in a package like with Dilettante. Not every package had Credit Rating. In 7th edition, you still buy Credit Rating with points as normal, but it is supposed to fall within certain range for example.
The farmer needs to have a Credit Rating between 9 and 30.
A lawyer will fall between 30 and 80.
A dilettante will fall between 50 and 99.
A drifter will fall between 0 and 5.
This does mean that you will find some of your points pre-spent in order to reach the minimum Credit Rating score.
We'll do with the actual assigning of the points in Step 3, but for now let's go with choosing an occupation.
I'm thinking our character lives on the edge of some community doing a mix of hunting and farming on some old family land. Both Drifter and Farmer have some of the stuff appropriate to a person that does a lot of farming, but we're going to go with Farmer.
Farmer comes with the following:
Art/Craft (Farming), Drive Auto, one interpersonal skill (Charm, Fast Talk, Intimidate, or Persuade), Mechanical Repair, Natural World, Operate Heavy Machinery, Track, Any one Other Skill
Skill Points: EDU x2 plus either DEX x2 or STR x2
So that brings us to next step.
Step 3 - Determine Skills and Allocate Skill Points
After choosing farmer as her occupation, I'm also choosing DEX as the stat to determine starting Occupational Skill Points. On top of this, we get a number of skill points to assign to any skill we want referred to as Personal Interest skills. These are determined by Intelligence x2. In older editions that would have been Intelligence x10 but because 7th edition Attributes are 5 times higher at base than the Attributes of earlier edition, this comes to the exact same number of points in either edition.
So, for our "Gorgon" we have the following:
Occupation Skill Points: 278 (EDU: 54x2 + DEX: 85x2)
Personal Interest Skill Points: 140 (INT: 70 x2)
So, let's start with occupation skills and credit rating. We're choosing Intimidate for the interpersonal skill and Survival for the "other" skill. Each of these has a starting value listed below
Interpersonal Skill: Intimidate 15
Operate Heavy Machinery 1
And we'll allocate the following points.
Operate Heavy Machinery 34
That is the full 278 points of our Occupation skills. I'll do the totals below when we're done.
So, now we'll do some of the Personal Interest skills.
On a side note, I heard a great justification for a farmer knowing occult way back when in the Scion discord server. Basically, farmers have a load of folk knowledge and live out on the edges of society where the supernatural things are most likely to happen. Granted, "Occult" in Call of Cthulhu is more a matter of the history of cults, secret societies, and the like. Still, it's a good argument and one I agree with.
But, anyway, the skills I'm interested in mostly are below along with their starting levels:
Firearms: Rifles/Shotguns 25
We're not going to hit all of those skills. And I'm assigning as follows.
That is all of our 140 points of personal interests. Now to list just the skills we added points and are thus above their default starting level:
Operate Heavy Machinery 35
Step 4 - Create Backstory
So, first we're going to turn to fantasy name generator and drawing from Colonial American names to hit that 1920s feel a bit better I find a lovely virtue name in the form of Comfort and we'll pair that with the surname Dunlap (but the married name Graham).
Comfort Dunlap was once married and had a beautiful child. Unfortunately, in the wake of a fire she was terribly scarred, her husband was dead, and her husband's parents leveraged their money to make sure they would have custody of her child. She exhausted herself in a fight for her child, both financially and emotionally, and eventually vanished off to her hometown and her parents old farm. After ten years, the locals have sort of put her in the category of someone not to talk about more than necessary. One of the crueler more well read people in town early on referred to her as "the gorgon at the old Dunlap place" and it stuck to her irritation.
Step 5 - Equip the Investigator
In the prior editions, wealth was determined by a 1d10 roll but in 7th edition is determined by your Credit Rating. Roughly the wealth is as follows:
Penniless - Credit Rating 0
Average - Credit Rating 10-49
Wealthy - Credit Rating 50-89
Super Rich - Credit Rating 99
This is an odd one for me, because I used to understand Credit Rating as your ability to pass as a respectable person so you could have high wealth but moderate to low credit rating, such as if you're Howard Hughes in his grungiest era or just any minority in any era. I suppose it is a sacrifice on the altar of streamlining.
Anyway, there's a chart that shows how much money a person gets based on the time period and your credit rating. There's three sections in the wealth section:
Cash - Money you have on hand.
Spending Level - Prices below which the game says you don't have to track.
Assets - Land, vehicles, and other long-term value things.
Comfort here has a Credit Rating of 20, which puts her at Average and the chart for the 1920s puts her at:
Her assets include a swath of undeveloped land. Much of the land has been fallow for decades while she lived with her husband and on her own she's only managed to bring back a small patch. Beyond that she has a used and battered pick-up from the 1910s.
I'm not doing the full purchasing here, but that's the gist of the character.
Comfort Graham (nee Dunlap)
STR: 45, Half: 22, Fifth: 9
CON: 55, Half: 27, Fifth: 11
SIZ: 60, Half: 30, Fifth: 12
DEX: 85, Half: 42, Fifth: 17
APP: 35, Half: 18, Fifth: 7
INT: 70, Half: 35, Fifth: 14
POW: 65, Half: 32, Fifth: 13
EDU: 54, Half: 27, Fifth: 10
LUCK: 75, Half: 37, Fifth: 15
Operate Heavy Machinery 35
Assets: $1000 (fallow land, undeveloped, old house, old pickup)
