Home Brew: Alignment

So this is my attempt at an alternative to an alignment system. 

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Rather than have a set Good/Evil; Law/Chaos based alignments, characters instead assign a numerical value to traits that matter to their characters. 

Characters have 15 points to distribute among the below traits, with no more than 5 points going to any one value.

Altruism    Diligence   Diplomacy    Fealty                Humility    Temperance

Wealth       Leisure       Might            Individualism   Notoriety    Pleasure

When it comes to describing a person’s Alignment you could say the following “You feel the Duke values Altruistic behavior, but also sees the merit in the exercise of Might in political maneuvering.” Spells that detect or affect alignment will either only affect those creatures of planar/magical origin, or those whose traits are a 4 or 5.

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You will see that upper and lower traits generally oppose one another.  However, I tried use neutral language between the two (ex: wealth instead of greed).  A character could have points in "opposing" traits, and this would likely indicate a conflict within the person.

You may also notice that there are not a lot of points to go around.  The thought process is that most folks will be somewhere in the middle on most things and that points should be put towards the traits that truly define the person's outlook.   I also reserve 4s and 5s to be extreme personalities, and why they would "show up" on a detect alignment or other type spell.

Why keep detect alignment?  I wanted a quick drop in system that did not require a whole re-write of other material.

Finally, I would even encourage not having the player's fill this out until the completion of their first adventure.  Let them feel the character out first.

Call of Cthulhu One Shot: Halloween Game

We have the house ruled system

We have the pre-gen characters

We have the adventure

Now the game itself.

As mentioned in the adventure prep discussion, I had 2 adventures ready to go for Halloween.  The decision for which to run would be based on how many folks signed up.

In the last days before Halloween, the number of player's ballooned so that I would definitely run Fall's Run.  I ended up having one last hop-on the night of.  There were a few character swaps as people found they had selected the same pre-gen, as well some some pre-collaboration and character introductions over chat.

The game itself was to be set over video chat, and scheduled to be about 3 hours or so.  The night of we found ourselves with 6 players on 4 screens, plus me as GM.  After the initial tech setup, game setup, and general mood setting we got into it.  

I started off play with a clear statement that this was a horror scenario, and the expectation is that most characters will die, hopefully in fun interesting ways.  The hope was that setting that expectation would help more the night along.  I also set one more expectation, this game takes place in the 1890s and in a world with the cultural norms that implies.  I was not going to lean hard into the gender and racial politics of the time-frame, but I wanted to be clear, they would be present in the material.

The start of the adventure is a mystery, and while the events happen for all to see, the supernatural elements are hidden behind skill checks.  I quickly amend this (thankfully 2 of the characters have occult skills/abilities), I make the ghostly elements automatically visible to the occultists in the party, but not the rest/NPCs.  This allows me to keep the mysterious tone but keep the action moving.

Once the party gets to the main location of the adventure, they settle into a bunch of character play.  This is fun for everyone, but does sort of put the adventure on hold.  That plus a few die rolls that could have gone the other way, things start to languish.  So at this point, I start having the villains take more direct action, eventually one of the Party is charmed by the cabal.

In many way, the night plays out like a proper slasher film.  Odd happenings around the margins, and then a fairly quick descent into the direct conflict.  This can be great tension for a film, but less so for a game.  Thankfully, we had the aforementioned character play to keep the buy-in going.

As the night goes on, things quickly come to a head and the cabal is revealed and a fight happens in that moment.  Most of the character's are defeated, killed outright, or scarified.  A few are completely oblivious to the terrible events and go on with their lives.  

Lessons Learned:  

It was a fun night, but there are some things I would do differently.  First, Increase Sanity Loss.  Insanity effects did not really "go off" as much as I would like.   I think I will just go with automatic sanity loss/the higher value, and forgo saves vs sanity.  I may also consider shaving off some of the longer lasting effects of a sanity break.  It kills the momentum of a game if a players is catatonic for days/long hours....

Second, I should know better by now than to hide clues behind skill checks.  I need to make them clear, and save the skill checks for the follow up/"Forensics" portion.

Third, I need to add another caveat at the game start, "This is a mystery scenario, you are expected to proactively engage with it."

These all sound more heavy handed or critical than intended.  I am really just talking about a few moments, light tweaks here and there that could have made a better balance between the events of the adventure and the play of the night.

Call of Chtulhu Adventure Prep

My CoC d20 remix was designed with a specific purpose in mind.  To run a Halloween one-shot (possibly with some spill over into subsequent sessions). While I could have mixed in goodies from other horror systems, I also wanted to stick to being able to run from 1 book more or less.

However, when it came to the adventure itself, I had no such constraint.  I wanted to run something that skewed more "spooky" horror instead of weird/cosmic horror.  To meet this goal, I chose the adventure Falls Run by James Wyatt in Dungeon #67.  I chose this one for a number of reasons. First, I had run a version it before in an 1890s game.  In setting that game up I had done a lot of work to get into the content of the adventure, so my work was half done.  Second, The adventure starts with a packed train in an isolated area.  This would make it very easy to get all the different characters together and into the action, which is handy for a one-shot.  Third, I just really like it!

As an aside, I also adapted the introductory adventures from the Masque of the Red Death boxed set "Red Jack" and "Red Tide".  The former is a better adventure for a small group and I was not sure how many people would be attending yet.  The latter would be a good continuation in case folks wanted to make a mini campaign out of it.  Plus I was already in the mindset to do conversions, so why not.

As I noted, for Falls Run, I had already done an adaptation.  So my typical work of taking what is in the module and typing it into relevant info and bullet points was mostly done.  Adventures (especially of that era) were written in a more narrative format (understandably) which can make finding the info you need in the hubbub of running a game troublesome.  

In this case, I created a starting paragraph to set the mood, a quick timetable of the inciting "spooky" events.  Then a quick bullet point list of info on the town, townsfolk, and their relations.  Finally I set up a couple of call outs for important details, info so I don't forget it, and can easily reference it as the player's start to take actions.  At it's heart, this module is a mystery, so it is good to make sure you have all the parts in the right place.

That having been done year's ago, only needed slight modifications, so I only needed to put in stat blocks.  with my homebrew they are much simpler than the ones I made years ago, but those old d20 blocks did server as a nice baseline for power/balance. The hardest part is the spell system.  The adventure features a cabal that dables in magic.  The CoC system is very different than the traditional D&D system and has different spells.  Perhaps, I should have just "hand waved" it and used the original spells, but I wanted to play fair by the players.  So I dug around to find the closest CoC equivalent.  I did not worry about the cabal's Sanity loss when casting, they are all already a bit "crazy".

The other tricky point ended up being assigning Sanity Loss for encountering given phenomena. Again, I pulled the closest equivalent from the CoC book.   However, in hindsight, I think these values were too low (especially for a 1 shot).  If I do it again, I would either bump them up, or forgo the save to lessen the effect.

Since this was going to be an online video chat based game, the final step was collecting images to show on screen to set the tone.  The module itself has a few illustrations, and the internet was able to provide photographs of the area (not quite from the same era, but close enough given the pace of change in Appalachia between the 1890s and 1920s.)

Call of Cthulhu d20 Remix

 Setting aside any particular feelings about the d20 system and license, I find the d20 variants of various games to bee a great gateway to other styles of play.

Similar to my discussion of Mutants & Masterminds and Star Wars, I decided to take the d20 Call of Cthulhu system I already owned and was familiar with and adapt it.  First, it almost goes without saying that CoC is essentially a one-shot game and not one for long term campaigns. Second, I wanted something that could be used as a general "horror" game, from Scooby Doo, to Slasher Films, to Zombie Survival.  With those ideas in mind I went about adapting the core rule book.

Power Level: Borrowing from Mutants & Masterminds, instead of character levels that one progresses through, I decide that the campaign or game has a Power Level that determines how accomplished/tough the characters will be.  These Power Levels (1-6) generally map to the character levels presented in the d20 CoC book.  I stop at PL 6 based on the ideas presented in D&D E6  where level 6 is the upper limit of "normal humans".

Class: I opted to smoosh the 2 classes presented in the rulebook into a single class.  Combined with the above Power Level, presents your characters with the following abilities.  Attacks, Saves, HP/AC, etc. are only adjusted by Ability Score Modifiers (which are generated normally) or Feat selection.

Power Level	Saves/Attack	Hit Dice	Skill Rank	Feats/Special
1	+0	1d8 (8hp)	4 / 2	1st, 2nd
2	+1	2d8	5 / 2
3	+1	3d8	6 / 3	3rd
4	+2	4d8	7 / 3	Ability Boost
5	+2	5d8	8 / 4
6	+3	6d8	9 / 4	4th

Skills:  I condensed the skills down to the standard dozen or so we see in modern d20 style games. Acrobatics, Athletics, Deception, Devices,  Expertise, Heal, Insight, Occult (Mythos), Perception, Sleight of Hand,  Stealth, Survival, Vehicles, and Wealth (see below).  Characters get the equivalent of 4 skill points per level (16 at 1st level).  I short hand this to pick 4 skills you are "Good" at for Max rank, or pick 8 skills you are "OK" at for half rank.

Wealth:  I generally like the idea of the wealth mechanic in games that feature "modern" notions of capital, banking, etc.  It speeds up character creation and play by allowing for a roll to determine if a character has or can acquire some random thing.  Also makes for quick "bribe" checks. So I do away with the actual dollar amounts, and treat Wealth as a skill.

Base starting wealth = 3 (+ Profession Modifier + Cha Modifier).  The Wealth Feat will also add +2 per use

Weapons: Characters all begin with "Simple" weapons, and can gain more based on their Occupation features or Feat selection.  Weapons are broken down into "Proficiency Groups", and I use the simplified firearm stats rather than track specific make and model.

• Simple Weapons: small blades, clubs, canes, improvised weapons/tools, fists (1d4-1), etc.
• Melee Weapons: swords, batons, bayonets, etc.
• Ranged Weapons: bows, crossbows, slings, thrown weapons
• Firearms: Handgun, Rifle, Shotgun, etc.
• Handgun: d10/x3 crit, 20' base range
• Rifle: 2d10/x3 crit, 200' base range
• Shotgun: 2d6, 25' base range
• SMG: 3d10, 25' base range

Sanity: I stick (mostly) with the sanity mechanic in the book (it is not my favorite since it tries to map too closely to real world mental illness) so that I can stick with using one book/resource while running the game.

• Starting Sanity: 10 +Con +Int +Wis +Cha - Occult Ranks
• Sanity Break: Loss of Sanity = to 1/2 Wisdom Score in 1 go, result in Temporary Insanity (per chart in book)
• Insane: loss of 20% (starting) Sanity in 1 hour of Sanity = 0.
• Unrecoverable: at -10 Sanity
• Recovery: Through long term care characters can regain d6 Sanity per month.

Characters: Putting it all together I create some basic stock characters (Detective, Psycho Analyst, Blue Collar Worker, etc.) then the player's pick one and customize it.

GM Notes: Finally I make myself a cheat sheet/GMs screen of the house rules, sanity/weird happenings tables, and spell effects. All told it is about 5 pages, with most of that being due to keeping all the table info cleanly formatted.

Death and Dying

 Following up on What is a Hit Point, I am sharing what I currently use when a character hits 0hp.

 

I originally developed this chart while playing 2nd Edition, but the target numbers on the current version is tweaked to work with OSR style games. (Ability Score 18 = +3 Modifier).

The philosophy comes from the notion that 0HP = Dying, and -10HP = Dead.  Assuming an average die roll of 10, a character at 0HP will end up scarred.  A Character at -10 HP will end up seriously maimed (and likely out of the adventuring life) 

Using a die roll (pun intended?) provides some variability, keeping it from being a pure numbers game "Its OK, do actions X Y Z, I am only at -5HP and have 5 rounds to spare".  I also retained the lose 1 HP per round so there is still a ticking clock, things getting worse.

I chose to add in the ability to stay conscious and act beyond 0 HP.  This is a mix of the 0HP = "Disabled" status from 3e, the desire to allow the character to still have something to do on their turn, and I just like the visual of the character fighting to the bitter end, or trying to hold their guts in til help arrives.

Since I don't have specific skills in my OSR game, I have healing kits to take the place of allowing characters without Cure spells to provide aid to the dying.  

So far the numbers bear out that somewhere between 0 and -10 HP your character's adventuring life is over, but they may live, and at least have a chance to end up with a cool scar and story to tell at the tavern.   Perhaps to offer a warning to the Player's next character.