In our recent Call of Cthulhu campaign, the main Keeper, Richard, took a break for a few sessions to let his friend Brady try his hand at being a game master. For Brady's game, I rolled up a jazz drummer named Theo. He's running a module that requires all the players to have mob connections, so my jazz man is way in debt for lots of booze, drugs, and women.
In the session last week (the third session of Brady's run), our investigators have become trapped in the boarding house where the thief we're trying to track down lives. There are all sorts of weird things happening in the house. In one of the rooms, there was a young girl playing violin, and my PC and the mob hitman ended up in that room while other players investigated other rooms. The music she was playing was strange, and the hitman checked the bedroom to find the girl's parents dead with blood pouring from their ears.
It wasn't hard to put two and two together. As the girl (ghost? demon?) started to play again, my PC decided to instruct her on the finer points of jazz rhythms. After a bit of discussion, Brady had me roll my Arts: Jazz skill, and I got a hard success (less than 50% of my chance to succeed). So Brady decided that instead of the 2 minute performance she was supposed to give -- at which time bad things would happen -- my rhythm lesson sped up her performance and since it was over in only one minute, we were able to escape the room unharmed.
Yes, that's right. I was able to avoid catastrophe with jazz.
Never let a min-maxer tell you you're wasting your time selecting non-optimal skills or a non-optimal background. You never know when those oddball skills/proficiencies/knowledge may come in handy!
There is no such thing as a hopeless character. My favorite PCs were bards in D&D, and antiquarians in CoC. So many leftfield possiblities, so much more interesting to roleplay than killing machines.
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ReplyDeleteSo I am playing in a group that has been working through Masks of Nyarlothotep for almost two years. We've been through more 20 characters both diverse and memorable.
ReplyDeleteAs much as we try to create interesting characters there is a definite instrumental convergence toward certain characteristics. In a longer-running CoC game sanity essentially acts as a meter for character duration. If you skimp on POW your character will not only fade sooner but you may become a liability to the group. You really don't want to make a char that sinks such a long-running campaign.
Also, there is a tendency to make more utilitarian characters with a higher body count because a lot of what differentiates them happens through play rather than concept. That said, it's always great when a weird character-defining skill comes in handy.
(fixed typo)
@Ted - yeah, I tend to agree, if the player and game master have the right attitude. I don't have a problem with players who want to power fantasy their own PC. It can be fun at times to have that mechanically optimized character. I just won't stand for it when they mock players who are fine with the challenge of the quirky or unoptimized but flavorful character.
ReplyDeleteI should say, no one in our CoC game is like that. Everyone has been trying to play up interesting characters first, and having fun bumbling through the adventures.
But to touch on Andrew's point, we haven't yet suffered a death or insanity, even though we've been playing every other week since October. So that whole "might as well be competent before you die" thing hasn't been a factor.