House Rules: Character Generation
  1. First, download a character sheet. We use 5th Ed. character sheets for the 1920's:

  2. First, fill in the Investigator Information (Name, Occupation, etc) in the upper-left corner.

  3. In the upper-right-hand corner, find STR, CON, SIZ, DEX, APP, SAN, INT, POW, and EDU. Put 99 in SAN for now, and distribute 100 points among the other eight. (Note: EDU should be at least 6, and SIZ & INT must be at least 8)

    STR
    Strength
    CON
    Constitution. How hardy and resilient your body is.
    SIZ
    Size.
    SIZHeight & Weight (men)Height & Weight (women)
    084', 90 lbs.4', 85 lbs.
    104' 5", 120 lbs. 4' 5", 95 lbs.
    125' 3", 150 lbs.5' 3", 110 lbs.
    145' 7", 190 lbs.5' 7", 140 lbs.
    165' 11", 240 lbs.5' 11", 175 lbs.
    186' 5", 290 lbs.6' 5", 230 lbs.

    DEX
    Dexterity
    APP
    Appearance. How nice lookin' you are.
    APPIntuitive Equivalent
    06Foul
    08Not ugly, but...
    10Average
    12Beautiful, at first glance
    14Beautiful at second glance, too.
    16Supermodel, first thing in morning
    18Supermodel, on runway

    SAN
    Sanity. Ignore for now.
    INT
    Intelligence.
    POW
    Power. Personal aura. Will-power. Presence. Luck.
    EDU
    Education.
    EDUEquivalent Degree
    06Elementary School
    09Junior High
    12High School
    16Bachelors
    18Masters
    20Doctorate
    21M.D. or Post-Doc

  4. Idea, Luck and Know are the number immediately to their left, multiplied by 5:
    • Idea = INT * 5
    • Luck = POW * 5
    • Know = EDU * 5

  5. If you are especially strong and/or large, you may have a damage bonus. If you are especially weak and/or small, you may have a negative damage bonus:

    SIZ + STRDamage Bonus
    02 to 12-4
    13 to 16-2
    17 to 24None
    25 to 32+2
    33 to 40+4

  6. In the Sanity Points (Sanity) box, circle your Luck.

  7. In the Magic Points (MP) box, circle your POW.

  8. In the Hit Points (HP) box, circle the AVERAGE of your SIZ and CON. (Round up.)

  9. The bottom two thirds of the page hold your skills. The level of a skill represents either your chance of doing something successfully or the amount of a particular field that you have mastered (expressed as a percentage, in either case.) Simply by being an adult American in the 1920's you automatically have a set of skills. These are in parenthesis next to the skill. You have 325 points to add to these base levels. So, if you add 5 points to Handgun, your Handgun skill is then at 25%

    Note: The character sheets have three speaking-related skills, Fast Talk, Persuade, and Bargain. Cross out all three of these skills and add a single skill named Talk. Talk has a base chance of 15%.

    You can spend the 325 skill points in any way that you please, with two exceptions:

    • No skills above 90%.
    • You cannot put points into Cthulhu Mythos.

    A skill level represents the percentage of the field that your character has mastered. If your level in a given field is 35% or higher, I assume that you have a basic understanding of the field, or have achieved proficiency over basic activities. Hence, if you have a 35% or higher in a skill, you will automatically succeed in performing actions that I deem "Easy". For all other situations, roll 1D100 and compare to your level in the skill. If you roll your skill level or under, you succeed. If you roll over your skill level, you fail. Also, I may ask you for the degree of your success or failure. If I do, I am only interested in the number of deciles (rounding up). So if your skill level is 55% and you roll a 41, then you succeed. by two deciles. If you roll an 88, on the other hand, then you fail by 4 deciles.

    One last note: Cthulhu Mythos is always hard, and combat situations are never easy. (The combat rules are somewhat more complicated, and covered in the Combat section.)

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Jonathan Herzog