Okay, now that I'm back to playing CoC, it's time to rewrite Chthonian. The working name will be Chthonian Redux, but I do want to eventually make it sound like its own game. Probably Terrible Insight or something like that.

Anyhow, here's the game in a sentence:
Players are normal people who get wrapped up in ever-increasingly horrifying situations, fighting an uphill battle against insanity and annihilation.

Do I get a second sentence? The horrible truth is that humanity is but a speck in the dust of the cosmos

There will be a nod to Lovecraft, but not a cohesive Mythos. Not even a definitive list o' Deities and such.

Inspiration: HP Lovecraft fiction (particularly: Shadow over Innsmouth, the Lurking Fear, Pickman's Model), "survival-horror" style video games, others I'm sure.

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Okay, now that I've got the setup in mind, it's time to think a about GNS. I am absolutely going for what I want d20/BRP Call of Cthulhu to be: Choices are Exploration of Situation/Character that turn Gamist under stress. So it's all exploration until the creature steps out of the shadows; then it's time for you all to kick ass or run away.

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So, how will my System promote the GNS split I want? For Exploration of Situation/Character, I'm going with an explicit Skill List. No attributes that modify skills or saving throws or the like. For the Gamist, you've got dwindling resources in the form of Sanity and Health.

I now break the Skill List down by thinking, what do I want my PCs to do?:
- Be alerted/disconcerted by noises/smells/weird feeling, etc.
- Research and study to uncover the truth
- Interrogate and persuade non-PCs
- Shoot things (often blindly, into shadows)
- Fight things (cultists, zombie cats, etc)
- Avoid physical danger or get hurt
- Avoid/Resist mental trauma, leading to both insanity and insight

Anything else I missed here?

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More stuff:
- I'm planning on a Class-based System. Your Skills are predetermined by choosing a Class (these are "what you do" roles, like Soldier, Professor, Student, Journalist, etc). Customization? You pick a Field and Hobby, which are the only two player-determined "skills".

- No whiffs, instead there're levels of success and failure. I want the system to produce highs & lows in both Power and Finesse. By this, I mean a person can achieve a "shotgun" success at one end (blunt, but all-encompassing results), and/or a "sniper" success (highly focused). Not sure how to do this, but I'm working on it.

- Scenario/Campaign design will follow the same method in d20 Call o Cthulhu. If it isn't broke, don't fix it :)

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I'll post more later. Questions? Comments?

Zak Arntson wrote:
- No whiffs, instead there're levels of success and failure. I want the system to produce highs & lows in both Power and Finesse. By this, I mean a person can achieve a "shotgun" success at one end (blunt, but all-encompassing results), and/or a "sniper" success (highly focused). Not sure how to do this, but I'm working on it.

I'll post more later. Questions? Comments?

How'bout something a bit like Godlike, but with playing cards? Hand size is determined by skill, all that jazz, you get it. Seems more natural somehow. Could have a rule for "splits," too.

Zak, on your list of actions/skills you forgot persuading people, which may or may not include languages.

I would vote against cards, I can't see how they link thematically to the game in the way they do with CF, Deadlands or Dust Devils.

RobMuadib,
After struggling with a ton of Power/Finesse-type rolling mechanisms, I've decided against it. The system would place too much attention (through handling time, anticipation of different results, etc) on the System. I originally would have the Players choose Power vs. Finesse, but that was way too much System for my taste. And any Power/Finesse rolls with just a roll of the dice I worked on weren't clean enough and/or didn't offer a good distribution. But I've come up with an alternative that allows for Expl. of Character.

Henry,
I decided at the beginning to stick with 6-sided dice. I couldn't consider playing cards unless it were appropriate for the game, such as Tarot Cards for a spiritual/fantasy/fate-driven game or a Poker deck for a Wild-West game.

Balbinus,
On the list is "Interrogate & Persuade," so I've gotcha covered.

Okay, I went and bought a spiral notebook for writing this game. Hopefully I'll put it to good use. Here's the System so far:

Class:
I haven't come up with a better name than Class, yet. Probably Occupation. Anyhow, this includes things like: Engineer, Student, Professor, Laborer, Journalist, Soldier, Dilettante. A Class gives you concrete Skill scores.

In addition to your Class, you select a Field and a Hobby. Your Field is a concentration, such as Engineer - Civil Engineering, or Professor - Mathematics. Hobby is something else you're PC is interested in. Such as Hobby -

example wrote:
Example character from my d20 Cthulhu game:
Class: Student
Field: Journalism
Hobby: Skating

example wrote:
Skater character:
Stamina: 2 nimble
Awareness: 4 alert
Research: 3
Persuade: 2
Shoot: 1
Fight: 1 scrapper

Blah.

Skill packages.

Zak, I think what would be really cool are "personality packages" that actually affect your ability in the game. Basically, I'm talking about the "quiet, studious, cautious" type and the "manic, wild-eyed freak." Both would have specific functions in the game...kinda like one character type is "...in quest of" and the other is more like "dealing with it."

Jared,
While personality packages would be great, I don't think it fits the game I'm aiming for. I'm also having an internal battle between numbers or not numbers. On one hand, the Players would like to have numbers & effectiveness. On the other hand, maybe I'm misreading my Players. More discussion w/ my Players is needed.

I had another idea, though, sparked by your Personality Packages. There isn't an emphasis on Skill scores. And instead of a "what can you do," the System emphasizes "how you do it." Resolution is: If it follows your Descriptor, you get a bonus to your roll. Otherwise, you're at average-effectiveness.

This way would be a sort of "sum of personality, abilities, etc. at a glance." The Persuade (Aggressive Fast-Talker) would have a different personality than the Persuade (Calm and logic reasoning) PC. The System, by providing bonuses for following the Descriptor, would reward and encourage using the personality/ability.

Example:
Persuade - Aggressive fast-talking
Research - Internet browsing
Stamina - Quick to dodge
Reflexes - Keen hearing
Shoot - Blindly shooting
Fight - Covers his face

With this system, I'd like to have other "Skills" that are how the PC deals with the stress of mental turbulence, like
Unknown - Concocts skeptical explanations
Anger - Lashes out at inanimate objects

And so on.

So, questions for everyone:
- What do you feel about the direction this is going?
- How can I reconcile a traditional numbers = effectiveness with the Personality/Ability Descriptor? What are your feelings on combining the two?
- Would the Descriptors being explicitly "how you do this Skill" do well to portray both personality and ability?

Lastly, I haven't posted the Sanity/Safety rules. They're essentially a dwindling resource to keep Stress high. Nothing fancy there.

Zak Arntson wrote: This way would be a sort of "sum of personality, abilities, etc. at a glance." The Persuade (Aggressive Fast-Talker) would have a different personality than the Persuade (Calm and logic reasoning) PC. The System, by providing bonuses for following the Descriptor, would reward and encourage using the personality/ability.

SNIP

With this system, I'd like to have other "Skills" that are how the PC deals with the stress of mental turbulence, like
Unknown - Concocts skeptical explanations
Anger - Lashes out at inanimate objects

Jared A. Sorensen wrote:
Better still if the characters' responses drove the action. Better still if intra-character friction could be invoked by having opposite-aligned personalities clash and cause stress...

What I'd be most interested in when it comes to such a system is how it differs from BRP (CoC's rules do allow for non-Mythos adventures already). It's simpler, which does to a degree encourage a more freeform style of play, at least until it comes to the high-stress points of the scenario like you said. So I think that works so far.

- How can I reconcile a traditional numbers = effectiveness with the Personality/Ability Descriptor? What are your feelings on combining the two?

Jared,
You nut. So you got me going in a good direction after all. Though I want to keep intra-character interaction fairly smooth; group cooperation against an outside force is key. Though I could be convinced otherwise. I do like the thought of increasing PC tension. I'm just not sure if that's what my group (myself included) wants out of a session.

Valamir,
This would indicate a certain amount of Author-stance. I'm not sure if that's the direction I want to head. Most of my games lately have been Author/Director-stance. I want to head back to GM lays-it-down with Player suggestions.

Oh, and there will definitely be some type of barometer to measure stress. I'll bring it up below.

Evan,
This system will differ from BRP's in that I have an explicit way I want the game to be played. None of this "if only I find a way to use Research, I can hash the skill and maybe increase it at the end of the adventure" (exp. of System). In addition, PCs are not weak monster-food.

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I'm thinking of combining the scores w/ descriptors. Use the Descriptor and you get a bonus. Even negative Descriptors would offer a bonus (remember the results of a roll are "Yes, and", "Yes, but" and "No, and", so there's room for successful "failures")

Still sticking with the six Skills. On the char sheet I'll order them in how I picture a scenario to run: Stamina, Reflexes (the "gotcha!" hook), Persuade, Research (the investigation phase), Shoot, Fight (the "boss-fights" and climax).

Working on the safety/sanity bit, still. So far the rules are: You have 10 slots in a Score (safety/sanity score). Damage is measured in hashes through a slot, either a "T" (Temporary) or "P" (Permanent). Temporary means you can easily shrug it off at the end of the scene. Permanent means you _may_ shrug it off at the end of the scene, but it most likely lasts throughout the scenario.

Damage/Sanity-loss consists of making a roll and losing a certain amount of points depending on your successes. A Knife-toothed bat, for example, would be: Fight - Wicked flashing teeth - Difficulty 3+ (0/1T/2T). This means, 2+ successes = 0 damage, 1 success = 1T damage, 0 successes = 2T damage.

Right now, the only Damage/Sanity scores I can come up with are:
Unnatural (ability to cope with weirdness, like Man-eating Tapeworms)
Violence (ability to handle obvious shit, like a rabid dog just gouged your friend)
Safety (ability to avoid subduing damage, your "Health")

Hey,

Maybe I need to read this more carefully, but right now, it looks as if we're grading into Unknown Armies design territory, with its Madness Meters.

Am I wrong? I might be; as I say, I'm not quite following all the ins & outs of Zak's design process anyway. Help me out and explain how it's different.

Best,
Ron

With regards to allowing for shotgun and sniper successes the simplest option would seem to be a dice pool system. Roll a handful of dice and successes can be used to buy various effects.

For example, a research roll results in two successes. You can choose to find out two facts about the occult group in question or one highly detailed fact. Perhaps you could even allow the player to buy an additional success by accepting a linked failure. The player could buy an additional success giving him three references by accepting a failure, maybe the process takes twice as long, maybe he actually finds four references but one of them is completely wrong (it'd depend on desired style of play wether or not the player is told which is wrong I'd guess).

I might be wrong but I think this would neatly handle the problems of whiffs, leading naturally to a system that results in 'No and', 'Yes but', and 'Yes' results.

Ron,
Unknown Armies madness meters: I've noticed that, don't worry. Is this a bad thing? Yes, since I'm not fond of the initial impressions the Madness Meter gave me. No, because I haven't actually played UA to see how it works. In my design notebook, I've hashed out a different way to do things, anyway. It was looking close to UA's madness meters, and I really didn't want to force a lot of number/checkmark juggling. Question: Are you implying that borrowing/being inspired by a madness meter-like mechanic would be bad?:

You have two meters (which is, essentialy what hit points from D&D, madness from UA, sanity from CoC): Safety and Sanity. These start out at X and keep going down to zero. The mechanics and particulars of each are still in the air.

In addition to this, you have an amount of Skill in different areas of Sanity. Violence, Unnatural, Anger, etc. Each of these has a Descriptor (again, the What do you DO?).

Find a bag of fingers? That's a Violence check against Sanity, Diff 4+ (0/1T/1P).
Shot at by a thug? That's a Reflexes check against Safety, Diff 3+ (0/2T/2P).

I haven't reconciled a diminshing Sanity/Safety affects rolls. The original mechanic was 10 points = 10 dice (no Violence, Unnatural, etc), similar to CoC's Sanity mechanic. The less sane you got, the harder it was to succeed against weirdness. Still pondering it.

Design Process: Ron, you're looking at it. This is why I have so many half-baked games out there. I'll follow avenues, try things out, abandon a game completely. And so on.

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Andy, I've decided against the Shotgun/Sniper approach to resolution. But it's something to keep in mind for future design. (which reminds me to buy Godlike maybe today)

Zak Arntson wrote:
Find a bag of fingers? That's a Violence check against Sanity, Diff 4+ (0/1T/1P).
Shot at by a thug? That's a Reflexes check against Safety, Diff 3+ (0/2T/2P).

Hi Zak,

You wrote,
"Question: Are you implying that borrowing/being inspired by a madness meter-like mechanic would be bad?"

Nope. Nothing of the sort. Inspiration is good, just wanted to be sure that it was recognized, if it applied.

Also, UA has some very definite game goals, I think, and so if you're being inspired by it, then it's worth thinking about what goals are being brought into the picture.

Best,
Ron

Don't know whether it would be of interest, but I was considering a descriptor based insanity mechanic of late.

For each level of sanity, you choose a description of something that your character defines as making him sane. As your character looses sanity, you cross them off the list (players choice). If it's crossed off you can't do it. So your list might contain "relate to other people", "question own actions", "believe humanity is important in the universe" etc. Makes a sanity mechanic more personally relevant and gives a cue to how to roleplay as sanity deteriorates.

Sort of meshes with some of the ideas here, which is why I mention it.



Matt

Jared,
I know about the two different hitpoints. My Players enjoy the Sanity-separate mechanic. I also want to keep a distance between physical health and mental health. You can be safe and insane. Or sane and unsafe. For now I'm keeping Sanity and Safety separate.

Ron,
Agreed about UA's design goals and watching my own. That's why I veered away from meters for each aspect of psychological breakdown. I need to stick to the "What do you do?" concept. The Stamina/Reflexes/Fight/Shoot are good Safety Skills.

Everyone,
Any suggestions on good Sanity Skills? Unnatural, Violence and Anger seem okay, but I'm sure there's some missing. Especially if I roll Anger into Violence. I'll try and hit psychological websites/texts sometime soon.

Matt,
I like that idea, and I can see the similarities. Alternately, you could list a bunch of insanities. You gain them as the game progresses. For Chthonian Redux, it would be too much bookkeeping if layered on top of the Skills/Scores, but it's a cool design technique (files it away in my brain, hoping to remember that Matt thought of it first :)

Okay, current incarnation of the game. Critiques & Comments highly welcome!

1) Character Concept
To get a feel for your Character answer the following questions, as if they happened in your Character's past:
How did your character
- handle coming home and getting attacked by an insane roommate?
- find out a snowflake-shaped organism was attached the roommate?
- learn that the organism escaped from a nearby research lab?
- gain access to the lab at night? With a gun?
- deal with the security guards? What about the fist-sized fractal-crabs?
- get into the highly restricted lower-level?
- defeat the horse-sized wasp-lobster and its human zombie slaves?

Lastly, give your Character a defining phrase. Two or three words. Like "paranoid hacker" or "overbearing police officer".

2) Skills
Everyone has the same Skills. You get 18 points to distribute (min 1, max 5). 2 and 3 are human average. You also assign a Descriptor to each Skill, which is "how do you do this thing." Answer the question following the Skill. This answer is your Descriptor. A Descriptor is how your Character _generally_ does things, and you are not required to use your Descriptor every time.

Aware - How are you made aware of your environment? (I act on hunches, really good hearing, etc.)
Stamina - How do you handle physical stress and harm? (I grin and bear it, leaping from danger, etc.)
Research - How do you research facts? (use the Internet, I use my social contacts)
Persuade - How do you get people to do things for you? (I flirt with them, I'm a convincing liar)
Shoot - How do you handle a gun? (I cover my eyes and fearfully shoot, I take steady aim without regrets)
Fight - How do you fight? (With a flurry of precise blows, with something big like a pipe)

3) Safety and Sanity
These both start at 10. Each point should be given a box (you will write letters in these boxes during play). Safety is a measure of physical danger (0 = death), Sanity is a measure of mental danger (0 = irrecoverable insanity). Your current Safety score, for example, is how many empty boxes you have.

At the end of a Scene, you may have a number of T and P marks in either score. You make both a Safety and Sanity Check at Diff 4; each success lets your erase one T. For example, if I have Sanity (T P P T T O O O O O), I have 5 empty boxes. I roll 5 dice and get 2 successes. My Sanity now looks like (T P P O O O O O O O). For every T you remove, you remove a (T)Insanity (see below for more details)

At the end of a Scenario/Adventure, you remove ALL T marks. Make both a Safety and Sanity at Diff 4, each success removing a P. For good roleplaying and reaching story goals, the GM may reward you with free removal of a number of P marks. For every P you remove, you remove a (P)Insanity (see below for more details).

Optional Rule: Character Improvement. Before the Scenario begins, mark down how many P marks you have in Safety. At the end of the Scenario (AFTER you've rolled to get rid of P's), subtract your current P marks from your beginning count. You get a point to distribute among your Skills for each P earned during this Scenario.

4) Resolution
If there is a chance for something interesting to happen, the GM may ask you (or you can initiate) a Check. Roll your Skill in dice. Add a die if you use your Descriptor. The GM gives you a Difficulty (4 or above). For every die equal to or above that difficulty, you get a success.

One note: For really tough things, the Difficulty may be ABOVE 6. This is represented by 6Ex, where E stands for 'Eat' and x is a number. This Difficulty 'Eats' x dice that show up 6; they don't count towards successes. Example: If thorough study of some digital video is a 6E2 Sanity check, and you roll 4 successes (four 6's), the Difficulty 'eats' two of these. You now rolled 2 successes.

The number of successes you roll create the outcome. This is a Fortune in the Middle system, so an intended outcome is stated before the roll, followed by what actually happens after the roll. Every outcome must be a) advance towards the end of the scene, or b) introduce complications to the scene, or c) both. Also note that combat is not necessarily a one roll = one blow affair. Your roll determines the outcome of the combat.

If something is really difficult, like the climactic big bad-ass monster, you can give it Points. Every Success made removes a Point. at Zero Points, things are overcome. Most things have no Points, and failure or success immediately lead to something else. Even with the Points, there are NO WHIFFS! Knocking down a Point from a 3 Point problem should further things along (whether it's expositional dialogue, awful consequences or just plain excitement).

Successes
zero - No, and - Failure with consequences
one - Yes, but - Marginal success with consequences or marginal failure with benefits (GM's choice).
two or more - Yes, and - Complete success.

Optional author-stance rule?: Each success after the second allows the Player to introduce a single fact into the GM's outcome?

damage
A potentially damaging situation is given a Difficulty rating (just as above) and how many successes equate to how much damage. Diff 5 (Sanity: 0/1T/1P) means Difficulty 5, two+ successes = 0 damage, one success = 1T damage to Sanity, zero successes = 1P damage to Sanity).

If you are making a Sanity Check, you get a bonus die for each Insanity (T) or (P) that you incorporate in your actions. This represents your Insanities acting as a shield against terror.

losing sanity
Anytime you lose Sanity due to Sanity damage, you get a (T)XXX or a (P)XXX, where XXX is some specific Insanity ("fear of the sea" or "murderously hates horses"). At the end of the scene/scenario, for every T you remove from the sheet, you remove a (T)Insanity. For every P you remove, you remove a (P)Insanity.

5)Scenarios
A Scenario consists of the following stages:

1) Shocking Hook - One to three scenes which start with a wet splat and get the Players invested into the situation (note I said Players. You want to interest the Players more than the Characters).

2) Discovery/Research - Depending on how you want to have this play out, this can be Character-initiated (going to libraries, investigating old houses, etc), or forced (you're stuck on the ship, and you HAVE to go from room to room).

Confrontation & Weirdness - Intersperese weird/horrific scenes and fights with people. Monsters are good, too. This is survival-horror, after all. No sense in throwing security guards at the Players for the first 2 hours of gaming.

Mini-bosses - Between large plot-points or physical areas, have a fairly tough monster. It can also serve as exposition, with dialogue for example.

3) Final Confrontation - This should be some big-boss fight. Go balls-out with craziness. Give the boss a ton of Points, forcing a lot of successes, much use of Descriptors and Insanities. And let the Players know it's the final fight, so they don't have to save any resources.

Okay, after my Actual Play of Chthonian (played my own game! gasp!), I've got some rules updates.

Character Sheet (caution, in-progress, subject to change, "Chiller" font required AND it uses bizarre CSS & Tables): http://www.harlekin-maus.com/chthonian/charsheet.html

Character Creation
The defining phrase from step 1) above is now an additional Skill: Role. You still have 18 points to divide among them.

Always write down your Descriptors before dividing any points. Descriptors can be negative; even if they are negative, you can still use the Descriptor for an extra die.

Each Skill receives a little box beside it. During a Scene, if you use your Descriptor with the Skill, you check off the box and get an extra die. You can only do this once per Scene for each Skill. So you could use your Fight and Shoot Descriptors during the same Scene. At the end of the Scene, erase the checks, you can use all your Descriptors again in the next Scene.

Safety & Sanity
There are no numbers attached to your Safety and Sanity. You start out with ten boxes in each. Mark off Temporaries starting with the right-most. And mark off Permanents starting with the left-most. You can never roll more than 5 dice for a Safety/Sanity roll. For example, if I have two T and three P's, my char sheet should look like:

Safety: P P P O O O O O O T
This means I have a 6 in Safety (Safety: 3P/1T). If I roll my Safety, I use five dice (there is a five-die maximum for rolling Safety/Sanity).

Sanity: P P P P O O O T T T
This means I have a 3 in Sanity (Sanity: 4P/3T). If I roll my Sanity, I only use 3 dice.

Burning Safety: You can burn Safety to get extra dice to roll. Maximum for any roll is three dice. You burn BEFORE rolling the dice. 1T of Safety = 1 die. 1P of Safety = 3 dice. So, you can choose to burn between 1T and 3T, or simply bite the bullet and burn 1P.

Recovering Safety & Sanity: Just like the previous rules, at the end of the Scene, you roll Diff 4, each success knocks off a T. At the end of the Scenario you remove all Ts and roll a Diff 4, each success knocks off a P.

Zero Safety: You don't automatically die, but you are completely able to die. Remember this, and the GM won't be pulling punches.

Zero Sanity: You are irrevocably insane. Roleplay your disorders above all else. You also suffer 1P Safety damage every time you make a roll (whether the Player or GM initiated the roll).

Sanity
Hmm ... I want to really bring this into the game more than I experienced during play. My thoughts are this:
- Make sure you have (1T/2T/1P) type Sanity checks. Even 2+ Successes should weaken resolve.
- Remember to apply Sanity checks, but during the breather after the first bit of action (if it's a monster attack). PCs should get a quick reflexive action before going crazy.
- A PC doesn't gain a Disorder from 1T. Anything higher, though, and you do. You can only gain a single Disorder from a single roll (i.e., if you get 2T Safety damage, you only get one Temporary Disorder)

Disorders
If you use a Disorder in describing an action, you get a bonus die. You can do this as many times as you want during a Scene, unlike Skills.

- Removing Disorders: You may remove a Temporary Disorder for every Sanity T removed. You may remove a Permanent Disorder for every Sanity P removed.

Resolution
0 Success = Failure with consequences
1 Success = Success with complications
2+ Successes = Success with benefits

You are encouraged discuss the outcome with the group, if needed. Player input (especially the Player who made the Resolution) can go a long way towards helping you decide on consequences, complications and benefits.