Help me drift Call of Cthulhu

[Ragnar Deerslayer]

I'm running a BRP CoC game.  I enjoy its emphasis on exploring situation, but its sanity mechanics suggest that it might also be very enjoyable to explore character.  I have verbally encouraged my players to "get in the mind" of their characters, and think about how their character's worldview is changing as a result of his/her experiences, but I don't have a way of allowing them to showcase this during the game or of rewarding it.  

Two of my six players are first-time roleplayers, and the other four, while experienced, have played little beyond D&D, GURPS, and Exalted.  Just telling them to "immerse themselves in the character" simply isn't going to cut it, and I don't want to frustrate them.

I'm running a series of pregenerated scenarios.  I thought I might steal an idea from DC Heroes and add "subplots," that is, roleplay scenes having to do with the characters' normal lives and the effect the Mythos investigations are having on it.  I could put them in between the adventures, and make them optional, so it's not too much pressure.  Since all the characters are residents of Arkham, and half of them are Miskatonic U students, I thought I might also throw in a requirement that a scene or subplot must involve another PC – it might build party relationships, and be more interesting for the other players.

I'm not sure how to reward the players, though.  DC Heroes used Hero Points, but Call of Cthulhu doesn't really reward characters much through character advancement.  I could give them a few points of sanity (call it "reconnecting with everyday reality makes the horrors of the Mythos lessen" or something), but I'm not sure I like that.  The best I can come up with is a free "Reroll" for each subplot roleplayed (meaning they would have one, or at most two, available during a "real" adventure).  By spending your "Reroll Point," you may reroll any roll you just made.  You must take the second result, and cannot spend any more reroll points on that roll.  This would keep the tension in a roll (not like an automatic success), encourage them to roleplay subplots, and keep their characters alive just a tiny bit longer – letting them delve into the character even deeper.

Is there some really obvious pitfall I'm overlooking?  Any suggestions on other ways to encourage "exploring character?"  Has anyone done something similar?

Thanks,

Ragnar

[Pagrin]

I think you'd be better off rewarding them with Sanity points myself. Because as you have commented it can be reflected in the game world as working to keep themselves sane.
Rewarding them with a game mechanic for the meachincs sake seems a little to heavy on the system and not on the setting, for my mind.
If you want them to develop their character a little more you need to create a way of the setting reflecting this. By getting them to interact with each other that's great but also allow them to link toward a few key NPCs, which can hten be used to draw them into your plots. IE if they like an NPC they are more likely to try and save them when the s**t hits the fan.
Just my two cents worth. :-)
Pagrin :-)

[Mike Holmes]

First, you can do this without a reward system attached if you want. It's a matter of what sort of situations you put the characters into. To get them to display what their characters are going through have scenes that involve people with whom the PCs would confide. This can be as part of a subplot, but it doesn't have to be. Merely require that each player list their characters closest family members and friends. Somebody on this list should be a person that the PC can confide in. All you have to do, then, is have the NPCs in question come across the PCs when appropriate, and say, "Hey, you look troubled, what's up?" Don't play the NPCs as challenges - that is avoid the urge to have them suggest to the PCs that they are hallucinating, or having them try to have the PCs admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Instead make the NPCs supportive and inquisitive. Allow the PCs (more importantly, the players) to trust these NPCs and so allow them to divulge info on what they think is going on, etc.

Now, if you want to give a reward for divulging, go with something like the above suggestion, and award sanity points for doing this. There's in in-game rationale here, that a character unburdening, is much like a session with a psychologist (for which there are sanity "healing" rules). Make sincerity count for more here than guardedness. And you'll get what you're looking for.

Mike

[b_bankhead]

Greeetings I have been working on the issue of Drifting Call of Cthulhu for some time, and I am in the process of working on creating an entirely new mythos game, Cthulhubabe, nominally based on Ron Edward's Trollbabe.  To familiarize yourself with the issues I have already discussed you might want to look at the following threads of mine:

Drifting to R'lyeh
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8459
Chulhu's Clues
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8482
Hot Lead and Hypocrisy
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10197

Now onto the immediate subject subject: Exploration of Character (EoC)in Cthulhu Mythos gaming.

First CoC (Call of Cthulhu) is overwhelmingly a game based on exploration of color and situation, (however as my above threads pointed out, the explorationo of color is partially broken because the sanity mechanic punishes you for it...). EoC in the game is rendered difficult by several factors:

1. Lethality: CoC is notorious for killing PCs, the game openly reccomends that you don't become attached to your character, which is something that strongly works against EoC.  

So, some mechanisme for mitigating lethality might be necessary, from an outright ban on player mortality (like Trollbabe), to some mechanism for the character to loose things of importance, (such as relationships) in the place of loosing the character.

2.Sanity and Madness: Although mental derangements acquired in exploring the mythos would potentially seem to be an excellent field for EoC (as you yourself pointed out), there are problems with it in practice:
   a. Insanity is something used AGAINST the character rather than    BY the character
So expand the mechanism for the character to use madness and derangement as tool in the game. CoC already has support for using insanity as a means of gaining insight in the issues related to the scenario, you might want to look at expanding the scope and use of that mechansm.

3. Character skills as lifepath
The most important existing mechanism for EoC in the game is the character's skill list. In a sense the skills the character's have are essentially a kind of roadmap of the character's past, after all you had to get that 75% medicine skill SOMEWHERE. Make skill levels above an existing threashold automatically indicatig some kind of relationship which the player can customize and expand upon (and sacrifice to survive, see above...)

4. Expand the scope of 'skill' ratings
In Heroquest ratings don't onlyr refer to skills, but also equipment, relationships ,wealth, special abilities and so forth. It should be possibe to make 'skill' ratings refer to things that aren't really skills at all in the same fashion.