Chthonian consists of 7 Skills, currently you divide 18 points between them. These skills are Role, Aware, Stamina, Persuade, Research, Shoot and Fight.

You can find the current playtest rules here: http://www.harlekin-maus.com/chthonian/playtest.txt. A synopsis for the current system is: Each Skill has a score and a Descriptor. Use a Skill, you roll your Skill score in dice. You can add a die by "burning" a Descriptor by roleplaying using that Descriptor (usable once per scene). For each die that rolls above a Difficulty number, you get 1 success. 0 succ = failure, 1 succ = mixed blessing, 2+ succ = solid success.

Now, my Players pointed out that Aware and Fight were used most of the time, with Stamina and Research showing up just a few times. They weren't happy with the fact that they pumped a ton of points into little-used Skills.

I want to balance Character effectiveness, yet still provide a point-based creation system. Players are comfortable with visible points on their sheets, and I want to keep this.

Here are my thoughts:
Role - Shouldn't have a score. It came in rarely during play. You can use your Role for an extra die.
Shoot & Fight - Shoot is only good when you've got guns, so instead I'll providing two or three Fight Skills, each with a separate Descriptor (use Descriptors for bonus dice)

Persuade and Research are going to be used mostly during the investigation phase, so these aren't too important. Should I combine them into one Skill? Maybe a Discover Skill?

Aware and Fight seem to be the most commonly used. I'm splitting Fight into three Skills, but what to do with Aware? It's called into question a ton. Should it be a point-less Skill like Role? Where you can just get a bonus die by using your Aware Descriptor?

Since this game is more about the crazy action than being better than the other Characters, I'm thinking about reducing the effectiveness of a Skill's score. So here's the new proposed resolution system (and what I'd love to get opinions on):

Proposed Skill Use
Each Skill has a Score from 1 on up (5 being a tentative maximum).

When you use a Skill you roll 3 dice. AFTER the roll, when you see how many successes you have rolled, you can opt to spend x Skill points and you add x dice to your pool.

At the end of each Stage (in Chthonian this means a big boss-fight), you get back your Skill scores.

Has anyone used a system similar to this? I'm curious as to how it will play out. I will most likely try it out this coming Monday.

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If I do go this route, I'm also considering successes made during the investigation phases add to a "points pool" to be used for any roll made later on. This way the high Persuade & Research characters, by gleaning information on their situation, can pump up their combat & physical rolls. This would serve to
a) Encourage investigation & research, and
b) Characters who do better at Research can increase their effectiveness during combat, evening out their poor combat skills.

This would, using a one research/learning/persuade success = 1 die for the pool, tend to put a portion of your Research/Persuade points towards your Fight/Aware/Stamina, while still allowing the combat-oriented characters to have a mariginally higher effectiveness.

Unfortunately, these rules may be too specialized for Persuade and Research. This could be made simpler by saying "each success on a non-physical roll provides a point to your bonus pool".

Thoughts on this?

I think that that last part you have is the key to it all.

My thought is that when dealing with a Cthulonian monstrosity, that your Fight (shoot, whatever) and Awareness are going to be at a disadvantage due to the nature of such beasties. Thus, the investigators should need an edge to have a chance.

Have the target numbers to find and kill such creatures be obscenely high. Requiring lots and lots of dice to kill. How do you get these dice? From using your other skills, of course. Whenever a person "discovers" somegthing about the monstrosity, via Persuade, Research or Role, they get to keep their successes as descriptors that they can burn for extra dice against the appropriate baddies.

Essentially a currency rollover system aimed at the final resolution. Yep, you have an excellent idea there.

This gives a focus and meaning to the initial part of the scenario where now the characters just seem to be bumbling around trying to findd out where the baddies are so they can attack them. Make it a bit Gamist in that the players should realize that if they go directly to the source of the horror that they'll likely get eaten. Only by accumulating some bonus descriptors through investigation can they hope to survive.

This balances out not only the costs of the stats, but the value of each part of play as well. And it links the phases together.

"Remember when I pulled that strange gland from Dr. Mophus' twisted and bloated corpse, and persuaded the cops to let me keep it for study? Well, from my research and what I know of molecular biology, I think that we can use the fluid from the gland to control the creature. At least enough to slow it down long enough to electrocute it, which according to that strange book should do the job."

You could even make this a director stance thing, giving bonus dice for particularly disgusting solutions that the players come up with.

Mike

Various Thoughts:
One thought is that 18 points is only 2 points/skill with 3 for 4 of them. I think you intended that these be normal people, but your example with a 'high-security lab' is a bit misleading. Shadowrunners these people arn't. Couple with the effect that you need a skill of 2 to truly succed.(2+ successes) An average person has only a 25% chance of succeding on an Amature task without a complication.
I guess what I'm saying is that you need a 3+ to be reasonaly effective, even, at mundane tasks(4).
Perhaps your expecting charachters to be more effective than they are?

What does stamina do? Fear and Damage resistance are already taken by Safty and Sanity, so maybe just get rid of it? Maybe you can reduce it by one to get a bonus die on a Safety or Sanity role? It returns at the end of a Stage?

This might just be your GMing style. If you want crazy action, why have Research and Persuade at all, just have a 'Non-Action' skill, used for external stuff. Everyone can get a decent score in it, differentiated by a descriptor and be decent at the research phase and still be able to fight.
OTOH if you want Reserach & Stuff, just bring them up more often. Multiple research scenes. I can picture a Persuade role to get out of trouble after an adventure.


Did people have multiple fight skills? It would be something of an advantage as you get multiple descriptors. Same with more fight skills.

Zak Arntson wrote:
Now, my Players pointed out that Aware and Fight were used most of the time, with Stamina and Research showing up just a few times. They weren't happy with the fact that they pumped a ton of points into little-used Skills.

I want to balance Character effectiveness, yet still provide a point-based creation system. Players are comfortable with visible points on their sheets, and I want to keep this.

Here are my thoughts:
Role - Shouldn't have a score. It came in rarely during play. You can use your Role for an extra die.
Shoot & Fight - Shoot is only good when you've got guns, so instead I'll providing two or three Fight Skills, each with a separate Descriptor (use Descriptors for bonus dice)

Persuade and Research are going to be used mostly during the investigation phase, so these aren't too important. Should I combine them into one Skill? Maybe a Discover Skill?

Aware and Fight seem to be the most commonly used. I'm splitting Fight into three Skills, but what to do with Aware? It's called into question a ton. Should it be a point-less Skill like Role? Where you can just get a bonus die by using your Aware Descriptor?

Since this game is more about the crazy action than being better than the other Characters, I'm thinking about reducing the effectiveness of a Skill's score. So here's the new proposed resolution system (and what I'd love to get opinions on):

Proposed Skill Use
Each Skill has a Score from 1 on up (5 being a tentative maximum).

When you use a Skill you roll 3 dice. AFTER the roll, when you see how many successes you have rolled, you can opt to spend x Skill points and you add x dice to your pool.

At the end of each Stage (in Chthonian this means a big boss-fight), you get back your Skill scores.

Has anyone used a system similar to this? I'm curious as to how it will play out. I will most likely try it out this coming Monday.

---

If I do go this route, I'm also considering successes made during the investigation phases add to a "points pool" to be used for any roll made later on. This way the high Persuade & Research characters, by gleaning information on their situation, can pump up their combat & physical rolls. This would serve to
a) Encourage investigation & research, and
b) Characters who do better at Research can increase their effectiveness during combat, evening out their poor combat skills.

This would, using a one research/learning/persuade success = 1 die for the pool, tend to put a portion of your Research/Persuade points towards your Fight/Aware/Stamina, while still allowing the combat-oriented characters to have a mariginally higher effectiveness.

Unfortunately, these rules may be too specialized for Persuade and Research. This could be made simpler by saying "each success on a non-physical roll provides a point to your bonus pool".

Thoughts on this?

Zak Arntson wrote: Now, my Players pointed out that Aware and Fight were used most of the time, with Stamina and Research showing up just a few times. They weren't happy with the fact that they pumped a ton of points into little-used Skills.

Jared A. Sorensen wrote:
Just lump 'em together. Aware and Research are close enough to be the same thing, as are Fight and Stamina.
- J

What about something like a modified attribute/skill system...

Attributes- these are rated with a number but have no descriptor. They represent a character's raw ability in a given field.

Action- dynamic physical stuff ranging from breaking in a door to kicking a zombie in the head.

Awareness- on the fly perception, reflexes, reactions; ability to notice things and process immediate input.

Aptitude- how good you are at focused, technical, or acedemic tasks. A combination of manual dexterity, focused attention, and intelligence.

Weird- your innate capacity to understand and perhaps wield the Unnatural.



Then you get skills which are basicly just floating Descriptors.

Number of Dice Rolled:
No Skill= Attribute -1
Skill= Attribute
2 Overlaping Skills = +1
Burned Skill= Attribute +1
2 Burned Skills= Attribute +2

no more than 2 skills can be applied to any single action.


I would say 12 points for attributes and 6 Skills.

Like so:

Mike McColmb
Role: ex FBI Special Agent
Action: 3
Awareness: 4
Aptitude: 4
Weird: 1

Skills:
FBI Firearms Training
Self Defense
Interogation
Forensic Investigation
Beurocracy
Thick and Strong


note- this is just a rough sketch of a character, missing several things.


If Mike wants to shoot a zombie, he can throw all 3 Action dice (or has 3 points to spend to boost the action) because of his FBI Firearms Training skill. If he wants to kick in a door, he has his Thick and Strong skill to help. If he needs to leap between buildings while chasing a cultist... he doesn't have a skill for it, so rolls only 2 Action dice. If he is wrestling the cultist to the ground, he has 2 skills which help- Self Defense and Thick and Strong- for a +1 to Action. If he needs to study crime scene photos for clues, he does so with his Aptitude at full value. If he needs to read arcane tomes for info, he does so with a -1 because he lacks the skills for it.

Something like that.

Mike,
Yes! That's what I'm going for. Although Chthonian adventures are purposefully more action-packed than the stereotypical CoC adventure. It goes like this: Hook (involving something terrible and action-y) -> Discovery Stages filled with Violent Interludes, each ending in a Mini-Boss Fight -> Finale, w/ Big Boss Fight.

I'm wary of author/director stance, but that's probably due to my gaming group. They like to invent things about themselves, but they enjoy unearthing things they don't know _as players_. But your example isn't so much as author/director stance. It's more like offering a suggestion to the GM. Which is great, because Skill resolution is dependent on suggestions by the Group to the acting Player.

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Damion,
Yup, the score spread is intentionally low. Players tend to pump up their rolls by Burning Safety. By the end of our game, they were nearly dead but achieved some amazing results.

And these people aren't Shadowrunners, but they are Characters in an action-movie/survival horror videogame, where one police officer can take out an entire city of undead.

Stamina acts as reflexes, strength and endurance all in one. Aware is for noticing things (hearing, seeing, smelling, intuiting, etc). Persuade & Research are probably staying separate. Right now, there are only two combat skills, Fight and Shoot, both with only one Descriptor each.

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Bailywolf,
There won't be any Skill/Stat split. I like your idea, just not for Chthonian. I like how the rolls go real fast right now, with just a glance at the sheet to possibly use a Descriptor. I don't want to increase the handling time of matching a bunch of Descriptors to a Skill. Though I may be over-wary. Maybe I'll playtest this (or have you played anything like this already?)

And yes, I will be keeping the "no and" "yes but" "yes and" scheme. I've decided to drop the "no but" and allow the GM to change a "no and" to a "no but" if he wants.

And to avoid the whole hoarding thing, you've got each stage filled with conflict ending in a mini-boss. In our short adventure the Players fought a zombie dog, zombie baboon + evil TA, zombie baboon pack, evil scientist, and zombie/boss TA. All different combats demanding point-spending all around.

And yeah, I did get the mechanic from Dying Earth :) In effect, your points ARE Burning your Descriptor. So with the new model using the old rules, all Skills are at 3 with a variable number of chances to Burn the Descriptor.

Yeah, I like lending points to another Player. Maybe at a cost? Two for one or something. If I make it one-to-one, then you remove the benefit of a high-Research Player earning bonuses for combat. And I want EVERYONE to kick some ass, even the wimpy grad students.

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Jared, I agree that Stamina and Fight could be combined. But I like the difference between Aware and Research. Aware is used to hear something sneaking around or finding footprints. Research is for ... well ... research.

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Wow! Thanks everyone for you responses. What an amazing bunch of input! Just for that, here's a sneak preview of the playtest layout (text highly unfinished): http://www.harlekin-maus.com/chthonian/chthonian_playtest_1_0.pdf

It's designed to be printed out one-sided, hence the constant page number in the right corner. And I'm thinking of balancing out the page number monster with some other graphic in the upper-left.

It sounds really chewy. I've been thinking of starting a game-of-the-week indie session... and this bad boy is certainly on the dance card.

As for the skill/stat thing... it would increase book keeping a share... and could lead to some disagrements if judgements differ on whether "Pizza Cheff" allows you to use a pizza cutter to serate zombies with... For the least possible overhead (as I believe is the direction you want) it might not work.

I've used a similar scheme before with good success (in a one-shot thing I ran one weekend set in an pure Cast a Deadly Spell meets The Big Sleep ripoff)- attributes provided hard numbers, talents (what I called them then) defined what an attribute could be used for...


Anyhow, let me check out the new version.

And a side note here... by "TA" do you mean Teaching Assistant? A demon zombie Teaching Assistant? I thought this was a game of fantasy...

OK, first aproximation lookover... ...nice...

Love the layout (your page number body horror guy is very evocative). The rules are clear and quite reasonable... and it left me thinking one thing very loudly:

HELLBOY.

You seem to have captured the core dramatics of a Hellboy story here...the only difference is that in HB the PC's would have some supernatural mojo to sling. But really, with about a page of extra rules on supernatural characters, its ready to roll. Well done all around (I consider it a strength when a game with sparse- or no- specific setting can be adapted with minimal effort).

This will most sertainly find its its way into my group's rotation.

Bailywolf wrote: HELLBOY

Groovy.

What is the functional distinction between Fight, Shoot, and Brawl? If Fight can go either way, why use it at all?

Zak Arntson wrote: What do you think of changing "Disorder" to "Attitude?" So instead of concentrating on Phobias and Tics, you get more of an action-oriented feel? Your Attitudes become "Hates a guy in uniform," or "Can't stand cramped spaces."

Bailywolf wrote: And a side note here... by "TA" do you mean Teaching Assistant? A demon zombie Teaching Assistant? I thought this was a game of fantasy...

Any thoughts on campaign structure? It seems brilliantly suited for one-shots....but what about something more long term? The TV model works pretty well (with source material abounding- Buffy, Angel, X-Files, Kolchack TNS, Melinium, The Others ect)- a group of characters (for whatever reason) have bizare, terrifying, and disturbing adventures every week, with certain threads which tie each "Season" together into a semi-coherent whole.

But campaign play calls into question such things as Advancement... any thoughts thereabouts?

Also, this highlights another way to do your disorders. One bad turn grants an Attitude...you can tap this only during the current adventure, and once the you work it through (by shooting the zombies that terrify you or kicking the crap out of a possessed cop in uniform) then they disipate into the psychic ether of your mind. Basicly Temporary disorders. Get hit with an especialy bad whammy, and you pick up a Disorder- basicly Permenant psychic damage that will be with you until you can get some therepy (but imagine the trouble you'll get into in the sort of mental hospital you might find in the Cthonic World....).

I'm all about the possibility for campaign play... I like evolving a character through play... and as I suggested HELLBOY, the sort of paranormal agency thing is a great stchick for putting every one in the right place at the right itme with the right toys fighting the right Nazi occultists...


And as for Supernatural characters... basing all their special stuff off a Weird trait would work great... perhaps with a variable number of descriptors...

Weird 4: Huge Demonic Musclature; Invulnerable Stone Hand; Absurdly Hard to KIll; Wisecracking Superhuman Cool


With some generic catagories of descriptors:

Enhancement- represents a supernatural enhancement to a mundane ability. Subtract your Weird score from the difficulty target number for related tasks. Hellboy is really really strong.

Attack- dish out especial punishing damage with one kind of attack. Subtract Weird from the difficulty target. Hellboy's stone hand can punch through concrete with ease.

Defense- resist certain kinds of damage more easily. Reduce the severity of the dmaage you suffer by a number equal to half your weird (round up). Defense can be mental or physical. Hellboy is really really hard to hurt. Hellboy is also really really hard to freak out with supernatural horror...though his personal life is a different matter.

FX- do something impossible for a human... simply roll your Weird to see how well you do. Mind control; shape changing; flight; teleportation; precognition etc. If the GM rules the ability to be overpowered, you must Burn something to use it (generaly either Safety or Sanity).



Perhaps with a Catch trait... one Catch for each Weird descriptor...

Catch: Weak Floors; Techo-jinx; Protect the Innocent; Gnarly


Catches can also be based on some generic templates.

Situation- you find yourself in a certain situation surprisingly often. If you ever roll all 1's the situation occors immediatly or as soon as possible. Hellboy falls through the floor with remarkable ease.

Hinderance- your difficulties are increased in some situations. You must add 2 to all target numbers in some circumstances. Hellboy's gear is always breaking, blowing up, or simply failing to get the job done. Also, his demonic mug sets him aside- he can't sneak, wear disguises, or blend in worth two shakes.

Compulsion- when confronted with a situation in which might trigger your compulsion, you must burn Sanity not to act on it- 1 point per scene. Hellboy can't let an innocent be victimized.

Bane- something normally harmless hurts you. It either inflicts 2 damage steps more damage against you or it makes all your actions Stressful while it is affecting you.






Anywho...goooooood stuff

I'm tackling campaign structure in another thread, so you can see it there.

If I do go the Weird Character route, there won't be much change. If you play Hellboy, well, you just happen to big and red and the harbinger of the apocalypse. I mean, a roll of 3 successes against a 10-success monster can mean anything. If you're Joe Blow, it probably means you dodged a sweeping talon and popped a good shot in its face. Hellboy, on the other hand, would have thrown the thing through the floor.

For Chthonian, I'm not keen on laying out specific advantages and disadvantages. Yeah, Hellboy falls through floors a lot. That's what 1 success is for: "You dodge the falling minotaur, but go crashing through the floor of the colliseum!"

Possibly the only change would be in Color, now that I look at it. And Safety = 0 wouldn't mean death. It would mean the monster has you in its giant hands and is squishing you and pontificating.

But then, once I'm done with this thing, I'm opening it up to Supplements using the Ron Edwards method.

Groovy.... I'll just squidge off to that other thread...