Welcome to the second episode of series 44, everyone! This series, we welcome James Coquillat, member of the Chaosium Digital Content team and cast member of the Stream of Chaos, to discuss Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition), a game of investigation and cosmic horror, from Chaosium, Inc! This episode we finish creating our characters!
Welcome to the second episode of series 44, everyone! This series, we welcome James Coquillat, member of the Chaosium Digital Content team and cast member of the Stream of Chaos, to discuss Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition), a game of investigation and cosmic horror, from Chaosium, Inc! This episode we finish creating our characters!
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James Coquillat
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Ryan Boelter 0:01
Welcome to the second episode of series 44. Everyone. We'll get right back to making our characters in just a moment. But first, some announcements. If you haven't noticed we broke our normal schedule this month quite a bit by releasing a spotlight episode in the middle of a series. We just couldn't wait to get this bonus episode to you however, because the game we spotlighted spotlit was Haunted Hill Academy, a game about a spooky boarding school and trying to uncover its mysteries while being a student there. We had a lot of fun creating characters for it. And Emilio's son is obsessed with the game as well. So we need to help ensure that this gets funded. It runs through the end of the month, and it only takes $5 to get the game in a plain text format or $15. For a well presented PDF. It may say it's a two player game, but there are additional rules for groups. And you can hear that group mechanic in action in our bonus episode. So check out the Kickstarter if you haven't already. It would be really cool to have this game be published if for nothing else. If for nothing else, just so neat gets to play it. That'd be worth it in the end. Finally, Academy comm event registration is live for everyone. Amelia and I both have some great events planned. So absolutely check those out. Emilia is running a couple REM create sessions that weekend. And we are both doing a panel together for this very show. I also have two games of chi Mira planned, as well as one game of our final gathering, which I think I'll be trying to run every year if this one goes well too. It was a lot of fun the first time and I can't wait to see how it goes this next time. I can't think of any other announcements for this episode so we'll get right to it. Thanks for your patience as our schedule gets a little wonky leading into November. I'm on the final stretch of preparing for the move so things should go back to normal once a candidate con is done with join me back here for the call to action after the show. But until then, enjoy the episode.
Ryan Boelter 2:49
Last time on Character Creation Cast we rolled our characteristics and just started rolling up our backgrounds to learn more about our characters we're picking up right where we left off enjoy
James Coquillat 3:04
So next is meaningful locations so rolling on this I have gotten an eight which is your family home
Ryan Boelter 3:12
meaningful location for me I've got the grave of a significant person who oh wow
Amelia Antrim 3:23
is a place connected with your ideology which is a belief in faith so what is a place connected to a belief in faith your
James Coquillat 3:31
church
Ryan Boelter 3:33
could be could be like a gambling parlor
Amelia Antrim 3:37
oh oh I was like a cliff that somebody accidentally fell off of
Ryan Boelter 3:47
a significant person that that has a grave that Hmm
Amelia Antrim 3:52
I'm gonna make note of these and see how they all kind of connected together before Yeah, decide how it's good but you know what any of those things are
James Coquillat 4:01
you kind of jump between this and your your your character skills and such as you begin to work things out. And next treasured possession
Amelia Antrim 4:08
Yeah, a sporting item. Yes.
James Coquillat 4:11
Oh, I roll something you found that don't know what it is. Oh, perfect.
Ryan Boelter 4:17
Oh, I got something given to you by your significant person. So my sibling you could
James Coquillat 4:22
you could have your entire character based off that one significant person because you've got the significant location right grave. You've got somebody that was given to you by them.
Ryan Boelter 4:31
Yeah. Yeah, I every single one so far has related to them in some way shape or form.
James Coquillat 4:36
You've got a Navy you've got harwin Yeah, so
Amelia Antrim 4:41
you are pretending to be your Twin
Ryan Boelter 4:45
Twin. That sounds really interesting.
Amelia Antrim 4:48
Maybe you stole your twins identity. Your twin is dead and now you're pretending to like or you could even
James Coquillat 4:53
just be pretending to be yet pretending to be one of your your your brothers or sisters. Yeah.
Ryan Boelter 4:59
Okay. I really like I really like that I stole their identity and their treasured possession is their identity. Yeah, that's fantastic because because they died because Okay, so the the first one my ideology and belief was what is this evil? There is an evil in society that should be rooted out. I wrote the rise of capitalism because why not? That's our theme. That's your theme. No, apparently. So then sibling a feeling of regret. I didn't help them out in a situation that ended their life. And that grave is my sibling. And I took the identity. That's Wow. Okay.
James Coquillat 5:41
That's deep. That's that's a that's an intense story right there. Yeah.
Amelia Antrim 5:46
Yeah. Here's all like, clicks together. Really?
Ryan Boelter 5:49
Yeah, I still have to do but yeah, let's see. Let's see what happens with traits too.
Unknown Speaker 5:53
I don't like the trip that I rolled. I got a good reputation. You can always reroll.
Ryan Boelter 6:00
But it's interesting, though, because you could have a good reputation and not have it be earned. That's true. I got loyal for my trait wishes. Again. That's right You right in there with with my background.
James Coquillat 6:17
Sometimes it really works, sometimes it really fits together.
Ryan Boelter 6:20
That's why
James Coquillat 6:22
I've run three, which is a dreamer. Oh, so the next thing that we can jump on to is creating, so choosing Brother our occupation. So occupations in color theory, define the skills that we have access to. Now technically, you can create your own occupation. So really, you can kind of pick whichever skills you want. But there are a list of sample occupations that are listed on page 4041 of the khaolak filler rulebook and you can also find some additional occupations in the investigator handbook. Okay, when you choose your occupation you'll see a couple of rules around your occupational skill points and this is basically how you determine how many points you have to spend across your various skills so all occupations are built using education that's your training and your occupation so it makes sense and then every other occupation will also have one other characteristics that they draw from now these characteristics can be your strength your dexterity your education your appearance or your power your size your constitution I don't believe constitution is used but your your your size your and your intelligence definitely aren't nor is your luck. So what is a great way to start is to look at the characteristics that you have generated and to figure out what your highest one is. So for example in my case, I have a really high power I have power of 80 so I will start looking towards things that use power which you know musician is one of them. zealots I believe is also one of them so I've got a couple of options there if for example dex was your highest you might look at police officer or at drifter or at weight or something like that and I think I'm going to take artist as my
Ryan Boelter 8:29
interesting so if I wanted to power gauge the amount of skill points I do get I would go for because education is kind of the base right yes
James Coquillat 8:40
you can also you There are also ones that use education times to set two times four so you can you can take like scholar or something
Ryan Boelter 8:48
so it'd be looking at either into or appearance to go with it because those are both 70
James Coquillat 8:53
contact ins into will not be will not appear in any of them so
Ryan Boelter 8:57
interesting. So I I shouldn't look out for those things. Okay,
Amelia Antrim 9:01
education, appearance, dexterity power. Those are the ones that I see right?
Ryan Boelter 9:07
Yeah. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 9:09
Because those are all like not as good
Amelia Antrim 9:14
my column is at everything else is like 50 or so. I guess my appearances
Ryan Boelter 9:21
it's really interesting.
James Coquillat 9:22
So appearance is good for entertainer.
Amelia Antrim 9:26
Oh, it's I mean it's not bad for zealot.
Unknown Speaker 9:33
Big fan of that.
James Coquillat 9:36
There's also some additional applications inside the investigator handbook. And
Ryan Boelter 9:45
interesting there's a couple that I'm looking at right now that that go completely different directions between con man from the the criminal background and the investigator. added or deleted both rely on appearance which is good and both would probably be a good reasons for why I am taking over my twins identity. Yeah,
James Coquillat 10:18
I love the I'm just you know going to fro for ideas that I've had about your character and you now because of what what are the amazing things you wrote I think Dylan would be really cool. You could do something like, you know you you're you're you you you were both you know the heirs to some massive family fortune but you squandered yours and lost it all. And you know, somehow your your, your brother gets killed and you've adopted his identity or your sister get killed and you've adopted her identity? And you've taken the fortune because you've lost all yours? Yeah.
Ryan Boelter 10:54
Oh, that's so good. And then the grave would be my name on it. Yeah. Oh, that's, that's horrible. But oh goodness. My other thought was also entertainer, like an actor. But that might have goodness, yeah. Cuz then then the famous actor would have died. And then I would have taken my my siblings identity, or, or vice versa. Mm hmm. But I do like this whole dilettante, like I have all my stuff was squandered. Capitalism is evil. But my, my sibling was this like, really well rounded person that had, like, a lot of wealth to their name. So to keep that going, I kind of took over their business and their life. At that point, Oh, goodness,
Amelia Antrim 11:51
I don't know the one in here that I'm leaning toward, honestly, is bartender. Oh, fantastic. Um, since I have, you know, a belief in faith and a place connected with faith. And I don't know, I feel like we can play a lot of darts. And a lot of poker in the back of the bar can make a lot of a lot of shifted gears. And also my treasured possession is a sporting item. So I just feel like I feel like this is a sports bar.
James Coquillat 12:21
Now if we have Oh, laying in the traditional United States, kind of New England setting in the 20s, it's important to remember that it will be prohibition. So being allowed to enter has some additional cool things about it.
Amelia Antrim 12:35
It also says I have a good reputation. So a reputation for what I don't know actually having real news.
Ryan Boelter 12:45
Yeah, I think that's really cool. Yeah, I'm gonna go with Delta time. I really love that whole like, my, my, my break was unlucky. My siblings break was very lucky. And, and because of my actions, they died. Or because my lack of action at some point they had died.
James Coquillat 13:06
If it is, when I'm just just completely spitballing here. Maybe Maybe you got in a bunch of deaths. And they killed your brothers thinking that your brother was you or something?
Unknown Speaker 13:21
Oh, no, yeah. Oh, that's
James Coquillat 13:23
horrible. It's a bit nasty.
Ryan Boelter 13:29
Okay, no, that's, that's beautiful.
James Coquillat 13:31
So once we've established our occupation, the next step is we go through, and we now use the occupation traits we've decided. So for example, I, I'm taking artists, which is power and education. So I times by power by two, I've times my education by two, and I get the final total value. So in my case, my education is 70, which comes out to 140. And my power is 80, which comes out to 160. So those two together will add up to 300. And I can then assign those 300 points amongst all of my occupational skills, and those are the skills that are listed alongside the occupation that you selected. So in my case, I have an art and craft of my choice history, natural world and interpersonal skill, and other language psychology spot here and then any to other skills. Okay, now we will get a couple of other skills down the line. So if there's something that you're missing, don't that you really want, don't stress about it, but you now spread out all these skills, how I like to do things myself, I just assign everything to 50. I think that going super super high, tends to remove some of the excitement, although I will occasionally take one skill at about 70. That's a defining characteristic. But by and large, I just like to put everything to 50 Okay, we're We're in the number crunching section once we're through this we're ready to play
Ryan Boelter 15:03
wonderful. So I'm just checking the boxes of all the skills that I have and I can figure everything out from there. Yes interpersonal skill charm fast talk intimidate are
James Coquillat 15:16
the four talking skills this way being trying to convince someone to do something intimidate being trying to scare them, or coerce them. charm being friendly and getting people to like you and enjoy your company and fast talk basically being lying.
Ryan Boelter 15:31
I gotta go fast talk.
James Coquillat 15:33
I think that your character would be pretty good at it all things considered.
Ryan Boelter 15:36
I know. I need three other skills as personal or air specialties. Okay, interesting.
Amelia Antrim 15:42
Oh, yeah. get any one other? Yeah, the only one on here I don't like is like that I have. I'm fighting brawl. But I'm like, I can't Hmm, it's not gonna go well.
James Coquillat 15:55
You have to I think you should be fine. Still, you'll still your damage bonus will be determined by your strength, annual size. So you should still hit the standard. Oh, okay. Yes. Which means that fighting brawl won't hurt you.
Amelia Antrim 16:07
Okay, because my strength is really low, but my size is pretty high.
James Coquillat 16:10
Yeah, I'll figure that out right now. Do you have the auto calculated? spreadsheet up or? Yeah. Okay. So you should have a damaged bonus in the bottom corner. Does your build say negative one or zero or 100? Okay, that's totally fine. So you're not at the bonus stage where you're like a big, tough roller. But you're perfectly fine.
Ryan Boelter 16:29
All right. Great. Nice.
Amelia Antrim 16:33
Trying to decide on my one other skill.
Ryan Boelter 16:35
I know.
Amelia Antrim 16:37
A sleight of hand, maybe?
Ryan Boelter 16:40
That's a good one. I wonder. Why did I choose there?
Amelia Antrim 16:46
I'm wondering is like medicine are reasonable. Yeah.
Ryan Boelter 16:50
I mean, like, if
Amelia Antrim 16:52
we're talking about like, 20s era bartender like you should maybe some like, first of all, I mean, first of all, like first aid knowledge. Like, oops, I poisoned my customers. But also like, you know, I feel like there's a level of like, chemistry and like, that is where a lot of that stuff was coming from was like medical grade, like, super bowl alcohol, kind of, you know, taking things that were meant for medicinal purposes, and then making booze out of them. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I like that. I mean, also from like, a power gaming standpoint, somebody should know how to do it.
Ryan Boelter 17:32
Someone's gonna do it.
Unknown Speaker 17:35
Cuz you pick dilettante. James pick.
James Coquillat 17:37
I picked an artist.
Amelia Antrim 17:40
Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, then I'm definitely gonna go ahead and pick medicine as my last skill here. Because artists don't know about artists and dilettantes don't know anything about medicine. No, but I was saying obviously, if we're talking about like, 20s era prohibition, and, you know, that we were talking about using a lot of like, medicinal and like medical grade. alcohols, yeah, being you know, distilled into something moderately drinkable.
James Coquillat 18:08
Sounds fantastic.
Amelia Antrim 18:11
So maybe, like, maybe an important thing to know about not poisoning my own customers. Yeah. Okay. Sure. levels at two. I'm gonna maintain my good reputation. Exactly.
James Coquillat 18:25
Just the right way. Right? Yes.
Ryan Boelter 18:27
So So I took acting as my art and craft. And then I took French as my other language.
Amelia Antrim 18:36
Brilliant. And then for the word dualism,
Ryan Boelter 18:38
I do it sounds French it does sound French but maybe I took Spanish I don't know. Um, and then the three that I chose the three other skills were law, listen, and psychology. Fantastic. All good
James Coquillat 18:55
choices. Yeah.
Ryan Boelter 18:57
Try to try to think of somebody that that will be able to pull off like playing their twin. Yeah,
James Coquillat 19:05
yeah, I will say that the typical other language tends to be because of course this is called Cthulhu you know, ancient Greek or Latin or hieroglyphics so that you can decode the tone that said having French and Spanish will particularly help especially if you're going to be going to areas that are French or Spanish speaking so that you can get through Absolutely,
Ryan Boelter 19:29
I first for whatever reason Latin did not even cross my mind in a game that probably heavily utilizes that in the the wild mythos claims that you find thinking about
Amelia Antrim 19:43
this right and now when we you have such a weird level of like, power gaming, versus making characters that are like totally useless, like we have this terrible mix because we don't ever have to like, and Ryan and I always say like we never have to suffer the consequences of the decisions. That we make on this show because we just make the characters and then we don't do anything with them. So we can make all kinds of choices. But you know, like, you know, taking French instead of Latin that like in a real game would probably not be useful, but we don't have to deal with that. But Ryan also likes to power game. So like you have always have great stats, and then you pick skills. And I love that about you,
Ryan Boelter 20:26
it's fine. So I'm looking at percentages for assigning that to all my skills. And I'm noticing on the sheets themselves, there are parentheses with percentages into them in them next to the skills right now. So like, for my art and craft, it has 5% in there. For French, it's 1% and so on. Is that like a starting percentage?
James Coquillat 20:51
Yes, so every skill has a base value in it, and you'll see things like swim like jump, like stealth, a persuader, they have base values, and this basically means that anybody has a little bit of this skill, you have a starting ability in it. So okay, point that you put into it adds on top of that.
Amelia Antrim 21:11
Oh, very nice. gonna ask about that. Because a lot of skill based games, there's that question of like, well, what if I have to roll a skill that I don't have? So it does, you do have like a little bit of things. That's really interesting, sometimes only 5%. So yeah, good luck. But there is nothing,
James Coquillat 21:30
there is a system in coloca Zulu, where you're you gain if you have a skill above in languages as the most common if so if you have French above 50, you would gain 10 in all other Romance languages. Okay. And similarly, if you picked up a candidate picked another language, you sort of Oh, wait at once,
Ryan Boelter 21:51
I like that, I think I want to I want to do that. So it has to be above 50 or exactly 50,
James Coquillat 21:56
I believe it has to be above 50.
Ryan Boelter 21:57
All right, 52. I will make the math easy. So
Amelia Antrim 22:04
is points education times two and appearance. Now the
James Coquillat 22:09
one thing I should have mentioned, because I completely forgot now I'm a terrible person is you will also notice that you have a credit rating that your credit rating is your wealth, it is also your reputation and your ability sort of appear in well to do society. Now it's not your issue, you can kind of have a low reputation and people you know, still think your grace. This is kind of your your your your credit rating in terms of your very official, like ability to, you know, command people based on your reputation and standing. You need to apply your credit rating with your educational points. And you will see that your skill has a distinct range. So for example, if you pick author, the credit rating ranges nine to 30. If you pick engineer, the range is 30 to 60. If you pick Doctor of Medicine, the range is 30 to 80. There are times 50 to 99. Because of course your dots aren't exactly.
Ryan Boelter 23:11
So how do you determine what where you lie within there.
James Coquillat 23:15
You pick somewhere within that range, and you have to assign points from your distribution of points that you're spreading throughout everything.
Ryan Boelter 23:22
Oh, okay. So it starts at the lowest and you can
James Coquillat 23:25
stop it actually starts to zero. So if you have 15 you have to put in 50 points.
Ryan Boelter 23:31
Oh, fancy. Okay. That's my
Amelia Antrim 23:35
25
James Coquillat 23:36
which is which is a terrible thing that I should have mentioned daily, because it's pretty pretty.
Ryan Boelter 23:41
No, that's fine. Um, Oh, goodness. So I have to throw 50 points at it regardless. Alright, so I've got 35 left. What can you do with that? Oh, gosh, I hate math. Okay. This is this is really tingling my power my power gaming brain.
Unknown Speaker 23:57
Okay, so I have eight. Others got one.
Ryan Boelter 24:01
The skill ride is that,
James Coquillat 24:04
sir. Yeah, riding animals riding bicycles, or things
Ryan Boelter 24:10
like that. It's interesting that it's, I guess, rabid animals and stuff. Makes sense. riding bicycles, I guess. Yeah. You don't really know how to do it unless you know how to
James Coquillat 24:20
do it. Horse riding obviously a big thing if you're playing the Wild West, things like that. And even though there's still, you know, getting up on a horse every now and again,
Ryan Boelter 24:29
apart. 15 points into Ryan, push me up to 20. Ah, these are probably bad choices. But you know what? It's fine. I think I think I've got it. I spent my 270 points.
James Coquillat 24:41
All right, perfect. After you have done that, you are going to want to take a look at your intelligence. And you're going to want to times that by two and you can add that number of points to any skill you'd like. This represents your hobbyist abilities. So what have you been doing you spent Time picked up a little locksmithing. Maybe?
Ryan Boelter 25:03
That's really interesting. Give me some psychoanalysis.
Amelia Antrim 25:06
What are we multiplying by to? intelligence? elegance? Wait, so that's like 140 points.
James Coquillat 25:13
Yep. And you can spread those wherever you'd like afterwards after education. These don't have to be in your your professional skills. This is just wherever you'd like.
Amelia Antrim 25:23
Wait, so we did our education and like, so whatever, from our career or occupation? Yep. Yep. And then now we do intelligence on top of that, right? Okay. This is how I hate math. Ryan, why'd you pick a math game?
James Coquillat 25:37
Kind of a front loaded thing. Once you've done this, you're in the clear, and you kind of never really have to do any of this again.
Ryan Boelter 25:45
Especially when, because the character sheet that we have on here, auto calculates the half and the fifth on there. So you always know what you're kind of Rolling Thunder, which is really cool. Um, one question I did have, what happens if you roll the exact number? Is that that is that is a pass. Yeah. Wonderful. Good to know.
Amelia Antrim 26:09
I need to like, make I need to write this down. Because I'm trying to like math. And I can't do it in my head.
Ryan Boelter 26:17
Like, whoa, driving an automobile is 20%. Whereas ride starts at 5%.
James Coquillat 26:24
Yeah, well, I guess, point the steering wheel, right. Whereas the horse has a mind I was
Ryan Boelter 26:30
gonna put some points in to persuade.
Amelia Antrim 26:31
Oh, first aid. Also. I know I have medicine, but also first aid.
Ryan Boelter 26:40
That's a good one. Well, medicine sounds like it's more. Yeah, definitely. Doctor level stuff, right?
Amelia Antrim 26:49
So probably law two, I feel like that's the thing that I'm gonna need to do.
Ryan Boelter 26:54
Okay, I've got 50 in law right now.
Amelia Antrim 26:57
Yeah, we put 25 in there for now. But we'll see psychoanalysis. bartender does.
Ryan Boelter 27:04
I mean, right, right. I was thinking about that. So I can psychoanalyze my my brother's life. post mortem. And try to better be
Unknown Speaker 27:18
Do you have disguise? Or is that a skill?
Ryan Boelter 27:21
Oh, boy. I'm putting 3530 points in that. So.
Amelia Antrim 27:27
Welcome.
Ryan Boelter 27:28
Thank you. So yeah, we've got a lot of a lot of good skills here for this character.
Amelia Antrim 27:39
Right, it's good to see everything in me to not pick a library use. I've got some libraries.
James Coquillat 27:48
Reuse is really critical in coloca theory, there's a lot of times where you know you you figure out a couple of clues and then the immediate option is quick everyone in the library
Ryan Boelter 27:57
and honestly, that's that's your ticket into the further in your power later on in the in the sessions, right?
James Coquillat 28:05
Absolutely. It is very helpful to have that kind of information. And in longer campaigns, you know, horror on the already expressed, it's really, really funny. That's a campaign where you're on the Orient Express and, you know, bad things are happening and each of the stops and it really gets the point where you arrive at a city and you kind of come back cautiously waiting for something to attack you and they go right and quick, everyone to the library, and hurry. frantically get as many books as you can as much reading done as possible.
Ryan Boelter 28:33
Hurry, hurry. Absolutely. So Gosh, I could have put more points into my credit rating. super rich, sounds fun, but that's 49 more points or 48 more points than what I put in there.
Amelia Antrim 28:47
Did you just put the base 50
Ryan Boelter 28:50
I put 51 points.
Unknown Speaker 28:51
What is the base for your 50
Ryan Boelter 28:53
is the lowest I could go Okay,
Amelia Antrim 28:55
so Yeah, mine was my range was eight to 25. So
Ryan Boelter 28:59
I'm thinking that I'm like, you know, having
Amelia Antrim 29:02
a good reputation apparently my credit is
Ryan Boelter 29:05
Yeah, I'm slowly discovering like, my my sibling fortune. Right. Like I'm assuming that they have hidden away something that I still have yet to figure out how to access
James Coquillat 29:20
Yeah, yeah. And you're you're trying to try to get a hold of the reins. You know, you have your meeting with the lawyer or the free correspondent, so there's no awkward questions.
Ryan Boelter 29:30
Yeah, exactly. Oh, man. I still haven't been able to tell if this is a good character or a bad character.
Amelia Antrim 29:39
Because we don't have
Ryan Boelter 29:41
we'll get there in the in the fanfiction section
Amelia Antrim 29:44
I'm sure well, Ryan, I'm really proud of you that you are at a point where you can say that you don't know if they're a good character or a bad character as opposed to like series four, where Cindy kept telling you over and over again. No, they are a bad person and you kept saying but like not that bad. He kept saying, No, Ryan.
Ryan Boelter 30:03
They're very bad. That was the beginning of the end of my moral character compass. By
Amelia Antrim 30:10
the end of your mark.
Ryan Boelter 30:12
Exactly. Yep.
Amelia Antrim 30:15
I'm really glad that I've been able to witness this growth.
Ryan Boelter 30:19
It's been a lot of fun. All right,
James Coquillat 30:21
I've I think I've put together my character.
Amelia Antrim 30:24
Almost there, I have 20 more points
Ryan Boelter 30:27
on subtracting 48 points from things and just going super rich. Because, you know, why not?
James Coquillat 30:36
It's pretty helpful. I will tell you,
Amelia Antrim 30:38
you know what, we're gonna just spend this last 20 points in a call. I try not to
Unknown Speaker 30:47
hold that as long as I could have to be at least a little bit myself. All right,
Ryan Boelter 30:52
I'm gonna lower this and up my worth. I'm going to lower Oh, that one hurts a little bit. It's okay. 25 added up by six. I go. Again, they're up to 86 credit rating right now. Oh, my God. We're getting there. We're getting there. I think. Yeah. Where does that leave me now? 36 credit rating times.
James Coquillat 31:24
I'm sorry. I was at you. He during character creation. You can't put a skill over 90. I believe credit rating might be an exception, but my understanding is 90 is the highest. Oh, let
Ryan Boelter 31:34
me see.
Amelia Antrim 31:35
Okay, I have a question on the backstory page. Yeah, there's injuries and scars, phobias and manias. I know what a phobia is. What is it mania? So you're obsessed with?
James Coquillat 31:46
Exactly, yeah. Universal phobia, those starts. By default blank, of course, you can add something if it's pertinent to your character, you may develop them throughout play.
Amelia Antrim 31:58
Gotcha. Sounds like I know what mania is, in general, because I have that. But
Ryan Boelter 32:04
Alright, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna just stick it at 90. And put those six points back somewhere. Just Sorry, no, we're fine. Put that back in psychology. That's fine. And one more point somewhere past talk? Sure. There we go. Brilliant. I don't know I don't have to look it up.
James Coquillat 32:27
And with that our characters are completes, we now look towards very quickly a couple of final details that if you have the auto calculating sheet, those will have already been generated. So you hit points, your movement rate, your bills, things like that. So movement rate is useful and chases hit points is how much help you have magic point determines how much you can put into your spells. Your damage bonus is how hard you hit things, and how effective you are in wrestling, things like that. let's determine our character's age. should have probably done earlier, but that's okay. I'm
Ryan Boelter 32:58
picking age. I'm just gonna go 24
James Coquillat 33:02
All right, fantastic. I'm gonna go I'm gonna go 33
Amelia Antrim 33:06
I feel like I want to be like 40 perfect.
James Coquillat 33:11
So 40 is technically in the brackets, where you start to feel the effects of age for the first time. So like,
Amelia Antrim 33:18
cuz I'm 33. And I'm pretty sure I'm failing.
James Coquillat 33:22
Mechanically, at least. So first of all, for the two of us who are in the 20 to 40 year old bracket, we make two improvement checks for education. So this means we now roll a D 100. And we want to fail this we are rolling against our education, and we want to fail. So we want to roll higher. Yes. Oh, boy. My first roll with a success, which means not right. Oh, and my second rule was success. So
Ryan Boelter 33:49
I rolled the two for my first one. Yep. I saw the 00. And I was very hopeful. 42 I also succeeded, okay.
James Coquillat 34:01
For us, our characters are fine. Okay, but you shall I don't have to say experience. So you need to make a you need to do exactly. Oh, we shouldn't have done two. We should have just done one. You do two.
Amelia Antrim 34:20
Okay, two education. Yes, that's right. We should have done the one. Sorry. And that's those are deacons, right?
James Coquillat 34:26
Yeah. Do you want hundreds? Oh, hey, look
Amelia Antrim 34:31
at that. That's a 93.
Ryan Boelter 34:34
So that means you failed. Now. All right,
James Coquillat 34:36
in which case you could increase your education by one day. 10.
Amelia Antrim 34:41
Because, okay,
Ryan Boelter 34:45
that's interesting.
Amelia Antrim 34:47
For
James Coquillat 34:48
four so your education goes up by four and make a second Education Improvement test.
Amelia Antrim 34:55
Changes.
Ryan Boelter 34:56
Wow.
Amelia Antrim 34:57
Now it's 69
Unknown Speaker 35:00
All
Ryan Boelter 35:01
right.
Amelia Antrim 35:03
All right, that is 31.
James Coquillat 35:05
Okay, so you've only increased education by four. But bear in mind that that's that will give you an extra couple a couple of points to play with. So you know, you don't worry, it's only an extra it's only an extra 8.4. Right, double. So eight points.
Amelia Antrim 35:21
That's even worse.
Ryan Boelter 35:24
Awesome in something awesome in the
Amelia Antrim 35:26
first day now it's eight team. There you go.
James Coquillat 35:29
Brilliant. You also a tragedy, you must deduct five points from either your strength, your constitution, your index or your dexterity.
Amelia Antrim 35:41
But I put my constitution down to 75. Fantastic.
James Coquillat 35:45
You reduce your appearance by five.
Unknown Speaker 35:48
That's just garbage. All right. Brilliant. Yes.
Ryan Boelter 35:56
So now we need names, right?
Unknown Speaker 35:58
The the other book
Amelia Antrim 36:00
has has names in it. What?
James Coquillat 36:03
Yes, you can use our Rand you could do this tables that you can roll on otherwise, you can decide on your own your name. Let's assume that we will be playing in the traditional New England setting. So if that gives you any guidance as to names you'd like to pick Of course, you might not be from New England.
Ryan Boelter 36:18
But there you go. All right. I'm going for it. Table me up. If you have a random table. I'm going to roll on it. Yeah.
Amelia Antrim 36:26
Did you find it? It's on? Page 54? Yep.
Ryan Boelter 36:29
All right. So I rolled a two again, interesting. Abraham or Agatha. We'll see what my surname is. And I'll choose based on that. 91 Vallier Ooh, interesting. I like that. Agatha. I'm gonna go with Agatha. Agatha Vallee No,
Amelia Antrim 36:51
no, I got Rupert or Phyllis and I'm just not.
Ryan Boelter 36:55
I want to see what my twins name is. Oh, yeah. Very cool. 91 civil?
Amelia Antrim 37:07
I'm just rolling out love and I'm gonna keep rolling.
Ryan Boelter 37:12
So I always go by scible unless you know my secret.
Amelia Antrim 37:18
What is it? What is your secret name?
Ryan Boelter 37:20
My secret name is Agatha. My siblings name whose identity I have become his symbol.
Unknown Speaker 37:26
100
Amelia Antrim 37:30
It's when a friend and obviously that's what we're going with because that is my parents. dog's
Ryan Boelter 37:34
name. It's fate. I'm done with she her pronouns. Perfect. What was your character's name? Then, James.
James Coquillat 37:44
I'm going to go with a leg while moving. Yay. I'm gonna take a take a French name. Um, and I have my character is an artist and I have given them I've decided to make the most intolerable artist of all time. They have a huge intimidate. They're a genius. And do you want to distracting them from their work as they know about their apartments, flinging paint everywhere and yelling to themselves?
Amelia Antrim 38:10
The last names in this table is slaughter. And so obviously, even without rolling, I'm gonna go ahead and pick that
Ryan Boelter 38:19
caspa will slaughter without laughter
Unknown Speaker 38:21
Exactly.
Amelia Antrim 38:24
Oh, this is very good. Residents. The classic would be awesome. Oh, yeah. But what is the name of my bar?
Ryan Boelter 38:31
Oh, gosh, that's a good question. Right?
Unknown Speaker 38:36
Because we can't just call it the slaughterhouse.
Ryan Boelter 38:44
Okay, Ah, ha, us.
Amelia Antrim 38:50
I'm just gonna write this down for my residents so that I don't forget.
Ryan Boelter 38:53
Oh, that's amazing. Okay. I guess my residents would have to be the valley or estate. Mm hmm. In in Arkham.
Unknown Speaker 39:05
It's actually in the suburbs. suburbs
Ryan Boelter 39:08
of posh. 1920. suburbs of Arkham. Yep. That would be so much worse, I would imagine. Because all the horror is gonna start on the outside on the outskirts and work its way inward.
James Coquillat 39:27
Exactly. Ah, you know, suburbs are bad news. The Yo, yo, yo, there. Yeah.
Ryan Boelter 39:36
Unless you're in a fancy mansion in part of the western suburbs. Yeah. Cthulhu esque crocodiles guarding my mansion. Very sure how I got them. Who knows?
Unknown Speaker 39:52
Questions.
Ryan Boelter 39:53
I just pay extra eyes on regular crack
Amelia Antrim 39:59
artists to do For you they know
James Coquillat 40:01
the luck it must I've added extra legs to You can't stop me it's
Ryan Boelter 40:11
commentary on the time amazing so it sounds like we did it sounds like many people what about the
James Coquillat 40:22
luck luck yes that final lost touch so roll 3d six and times it by five see
Amelia Antrim 40:28
turned real Mele Amelia is not very lucky
Unknown Speaker 40:35
Oh think Amelia is not bad
Ryan Boelter 40:37
luck is my lowest at 35
James Coquillat 40:39
oh well that makes sense your character Phil on some hard times.
Ryan Boelter 40:43
I know that I have to build that back up somehow.
James Coquillat 40:46
You do get lucky you do earn luck throughout play but you also spend throughout play so here oh interesting. 7070 Oh, you're very wise. 45 Very
Ryan Boelter 40:57
nice. And within what is? What is our starting sanity then to
James Coquillat 41:00
starting Saturday is equal to power.
James Coquillat 41:09
To say no, I'm not saying enough. Well, it's only 35 So okay, yeah, that just means you get to get to the fun part quicker.
Amelia Antrim 41:17
That's true. It's like real Amelie.
Ryan Boelter 41:21
Amazing.
James Coquillat 41:22
With that we are done.
Ryan Boelter 41:24
Whoa, that's that's this was really fun. There was a lot of math but but it didn't feel like it was overpowering. At least. No,
Amelia Antrim 41:34
it wasn't terribly mathy math because I could round everything to like fives. So absolutely. Except for first aid, which I put 18 it was it was Amelia levels of mass. Dear listeners, I could do it. And so can you.
James Coquillat 41:54
True then Jeff, from there, your characters don't change a huge amount and coloca feel you have improvement checks as they their skills gradually increase. But most of the chair what changes will be their story, their attitudes, you might add more to their backgrounds, and flesh out new interesting details. But these investigators and you know now we would figure out some links between the party we would talk with our keeper and we would get ready to dive in to Call of Cthulhu and some cosmic are
Ryan Boelter 42:23
very cool. Well, I'm excited to get Tara fanfic in our next episode about how we all got together and everything.
Unknown Speaker 42:30
James, thank
Amelia Antrim 42:31
you so much for joining us for our Call of Cthulhu character creation episodes.
James Coquillat 42:36
No problem. Thank you so much for having me. It was great to be here.
Amelia Antrim 42:39
Do you want to remind everybody where they can find you and what you're up to?
James Coquillat 42:43
Absolutely, you can find me on Twitter at Robo pelikin. And you can find me streaming called Cthulhu at the stream of chaos on the weekends. Check that out on the calcium twitch channel or on the calcium YouTube channel.
Ryan Boelter 42:58
Very cool. And thank you everybody else for listening. And please join us on the next episode for our discussion bloc. Call to
Amelia Antrim 43:11
Action. Yeah, like that.
Ryan Boelter 43:13
I didn't anticipate how much I'd be invested in these characters, but I'm really itching to play them right now. There was definitely a lot of math involved in the process. But that really did get my mind going for how to power game the system. And that's always fun. We got into some great discussion as well. So I can't wait for you to hear that next episode. But before we let you go, we do have a couple calls to action. First up if you are attending acana con this year, check out our events. Emilia is running a couple of world building sessions. And I am running a couple camera sessions as well as a session of my dread reflections Highlander mashup. Our final gathering the dreaded reflections of the immortal soul. If you are a patron of the one shot network and have access to the secret archive, you can actually hear how character creation works for that system right now. It's a ton of fun and ripe for historical shenanigans. In addition to all these games, Amelia and I are also planning a Character Creation Cast creates random characters with you panel, where we'll have a wide array of random tables and utilizing audience participation role on them to create a group of random people and figure out what sort of setting they would play in. It was a lot of fun last time and this next time should be even better. Finally, check out the Haunted Hill Academy Kickstarter that is still in need of your help to fund. It is a fantastic game about being a student at a spooky boarding school. And it seems right for Scooby Doo shenanigans. eldritch horror, straight up wizarding school or anything in between the character creation is pretty great and gives you a lot of flexibility for your character. You can check out our spotlight episode on it from the last week. Or you can go check out the Kickstarter right now and help get it funded. That's all we have for now. Until next time, stay safe, drink water, get vaccinated if you haven't yet, and keep making those amazing people. We'll see you next time.
Ryan Boelter 45:45
Character Creation Cast is a production of the one shot Podcast Network and can be found online at www dot Character Creation cast.com. head to the website to get more information on our hosts this show and even our press kit. Character Creation Cast can also be found on Twitter at Creation Cast or on our Discord server at discord dot Character Creation cast.com I'm one of your hosts Ryan Boelter and I can be found on twitter at Learn Neptune or online at Lord Neptune calm. Our other host Amelia Antrim can be found on twitter at ginger reckoning. Music for this episode is used with a Creative Commons license, or with permission from the podcast they originated from. Further information can be found within the show notes. Our main theme music is hero remix by Steve combs. And it's used with a creative commons places. This podcast is owned by us under Creative Commons. This episode was edited by Ryan Boelter. Further information for the game systems used and today's guests can be found in the show notes. If you'd like to leave us a rating or review. We have links to various review platforms out there including Apple podcasts in our show notes. Also check the show notes for links to our other projects. Thanks for joining us. I remember we find that the best part of any role playing game is character creation. So go out there and create some amazing people. We will see you next time.
Amelia Antrim 47:32
Now we got a
Unknown Speaker 47:32
ransom show blurbs show blurbs show show show blurbs.
Amelia Antrim 47:39
Character Creation Cast is hosted by the one shot Podcast Network. If you enjoyed our show, visit one shot podcast comm where you'll find other great shows like design doc
Ryan Boelter 47:50
join hosts Hanna Shaffer and Evan Rowland as they redesigned a role playing game design doc is an experiment in public participatory analog game design. It's fun, it's messy, and you're invited along for the ride.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai