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It got darker. The glare of the
red neon sign spread farther and farther across the ceiling. I sat on the
bed and put my feet on the floor and rubbed the back of my neck.
I got
up on my feet and went over to the bowl in the corner and threw cold water
on my face. After a little while I felt better, but very little. I needed
a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed
a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them
on and went out of the room.
Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My
Lovely
Characters for niteside dreams are slightly different from those used in a normal Call of Cthulhu game. Not only they are acting in a magic-rich environment, but they also have to follow the classical clichés of hard-boiled and noir fiction.
What follow are fast and loose guidelines for adapting the standard rules to help the keeper and players entering this new world.
Character Creation
As per Call of Cthulhu rulesbook (any version, any edition),
or variant
thereof. Startig characters for this game do not differ from the basic CoC
character when it comes to basic stats, character development points or skill
allotments.
We personally favour Pagan's optional approach (as published in "Realm of Shadows"), in which you pool all your character creation points and spend them to draw a character closer to the player's concept than to a published template; but that's a matter of tastes and we can't expect all keepers to own the campaign book or share our preferences.
Also, please note that wherever possible we will stick to the basics as published in the Call of Cthulhu rulesbook (5th edition), the only book we're pretty sure all interested parties own or have ready access to, summarizing those part we lift or adapt from other sources. Freely available, net-based resources will be privileged whenever possible.
Individual keepers are free (more than that, they're openly invited) to use any other resource, option or rule-twist they feel will make their games more entertaining.
Skills
All the basic skills in the 1920s Investigator Sheet, as they are
the closer (if not arguably the same) to the ones representing a 1940s
background.
A few Magical
Skills will be added, in the Magic section, for those characters proficient
in the wizardly arts.
Carreers
Finally we come to the part where we can observe the game world
as it directly influences
our
game: in a noirish setting, Lovecraft's classical characters (reclusive erudites,
poets, dreamers) must leave the scene to other, rougher archetipes.
Suggested character carreers:
Criminal
Entertainer
Journalist
Lawyer
Musician
Police Detective
Private Investigator
Dilettante
All of the above are featured prominently in noir films and novels, so that examples and inspiration sources abound. Also featured, if less frequently, are
Artist
Clergyman
Doctor of Medicine
Engineer
Hobo
Many variants can be created starting from the simple templates
of
the above, so that variety should not be a problem.
Chaosium's "1920s Investigator's Companion" offers dozens of carreers among which to chose, some particularly useful in this setting. Other carreer collections are available on-line - including our very own "Book of Characters" available from this site (as a .zip file of the plain text version).
More characters professions, unique to the niteside dreams setting can be found in the Magic section.
War Experience
Noir is a post-war genre.
While
a case could be made about a few noir precursors from the thirties
(Hammett's novel "The Maltese Falcon" chief among these), the war as "death
of all illusions" is an important element in setting the general mood.
During the War (a large scale conflict similar to World War II, and briefly described in the Setting section), men lost their hopes and dreams facing death daily, while women at home learned of their potential doing "men's jobs" and keeping the war machine going.
To put the above in game terms, we'll apply a slightly revised version the old war experience system published by GDW in Green and Pleasant Land.
Any man eligible for service (CON>7) has probably seen action during the conflict. This adds 1 point of EDU for each year spent in service, and costs him 1d4 SAN per year - to a maximum of 4 years.
Women eligible for Civil Services (working in factories, e.g.) have it lighter, gaining in EDU as men but losing only 1d4 SAN overall (comes form tension, from knowing that you are building killing devices, and from realizing that you're not the porcelain doll they let you believe).
The increase in EDU creates a bonus in Character Points that can be spent on the following skills
Men - Hide, Climb, Credit Rating, First Aid, Handgun, Make Maps, Rifle, Submachine Gun, Sneak, Spot Hidden, Swim, Operate Heavy Machinery/Pilot Aircraft
Women - Drive Auto, Accounting, Credit Rating, Electrical Repair, First Aid, Mechanical Repair, Operate Heavy Machinery, Spot Hidden
In addition to poor health, among the factors that might have spared the character's his or her war years we can remember age, wealth and status, living abroad, being in jail or being in the police forces.
Weapons and Equipment
Refer to the Cthulhu Rulesbook for available items.
Generally, noir characters have limited firepower and fights tend to be short and unpleasant for all involved. The Violence section holds a few stats and general guidelines.
Additions to the equipment list can be extracted from the Sections about
Magic and Setting.
As already stated in the background section, in our
gaming world we decided
to introduce a magical/mundane duality, the rule of thumb being:
"Wherever both a magical and a technological solutions to a given problem
are possible, both will be available and in competition on the
market."
A Name-Dropping chapter is included in the Background Section to help you establish a more coherent setting by naming brand-names (if it works for Stephen King it will work also for you).
We usually give our Call of Cthulhu characters a minimum list of default
items they have with themselves at the onset of an adventure, and we'll do
the same here.
Unless differently stated we'll assume that all characters
in play own:
Magically inclined characters can add to the above a single small amulet or lucky charm.
