Character Creation

[Laraqua]

One: Create a character you will enjoy!

Two: Keep an eye on your language skills. Since we won't be rolling them all that often (only if you're trying to really get your point across to a more educated audience), you should take your skill in it as a guide to how your character speaks. A good rule of thumb is to consider they can speak as well as a native who has an Edu so low/high as to produce that score naturally. Therefore, English: 15% suggests a person who can speak English as well as an Edu 3 person might (like a small child - with much pointing and broken phrases). English: 40% suggests a person who can speak English as well as an Edu 8 person might - think a rural farmer who never bothers reading or talking much. English: 60% is enough to give you the conversational ability of an Edu 12 person - so the average high school educated person who's read enough books and has a regular vocabulary with a sprinkling of really big words. Note: You do not HAVE to have a character who displays an impressive vocabulary. You can always use a vocabulary beneath your potential, just out of habit.

Three: Any ideas for Benefits & Flaws, people? Post them here and give new players (or new characters) greater inspiration. For those new here, you may pick one Benefit for each Flaw you've picked, up to a maximum of three.

BENEFITS
Gift of Sleep - The character has the ability to sleep anytime, anywhere.
Bundle of Energy - Require only 6 hours sleep.
Cat-Napper - Requires 8 hours of sleep, but can take it in bunches.
Note: Notice how many benefit-choices there are involving sleep? Might be a clue there...
Ambidextrous.
Bi-Lingual - Two languages count for Edu x 5.
In Love - You're in love with an NPC ally who'd do anything for you!
Animal Awareness - You've got a knack with animals. They just seem to take to you.
Cultural Awareness - You've an idea of how to cope with the cultural differences and are capable of adapting on the fly to new cultures.
Eidetic Memory
Gift for Languages - You can understand and make yourself understood at a very basic level even with those you don't have any ranks in -- largely through body language.
Influential Friends

FLAWS
Allergy
Kleptomania
Lecherousness (POW x 5 roll to even try to avoid trying to take advantage of any chances)
Low Pain Threshold (you react intensely to pain)
Mental Illness: Phobia, Eating Disorder, Nightmares, Flashbacks
Bad Luck
Bad Reputation
Cowardice - POW x 5 roll to not abandon others when your necks on the line.
Death Wish
Drug Addiction
Fanaticism
Reckless Gambler
Habitual Liar
Intolerance
Jealousy

[Laraqua]

One further point, subsequent to a discussion in another game, Psychoanalysis shall from this day forth be called Psychotherapy - this is because psychoanalysis is fairly rare, can only be practiced by those who've spent several years training in it, and actually has a poor outcome rate with clinical diagnoses (most of the illnesses in CoC remove the self-insight required for psychoanalysis to be effective, anyhow). I've already made the changes to your sheets.

For any new player who decides to have ranks in the skill, you can have it be Psychoanalysis if that's the specific mode of therapy your character practices. We can also change it's name to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (a treatment that focuses on altering maladaptive behaviors by teaching clients to modify their own thoughts and treat their beliefs as hypotheses to be tested); Humanist Therapy (if you treat people by giving them a safe space to learn to be who they are deep down - very warm and supportive); Existential Therapy (if you help people find their own meaning in life when they feel their life is meaningless); Narrative Therapy (helping people understand the story of their life); or Psychodynamic Therapy (uses many of Freud's original theories with many changes, such as with Jungian Psychodynamic Therapy, and is often given in a shorter form than 7 years).

If you don't want to do any research to find yourself a nice pigeon hole to fall into, just leave it as Psychotherapy. Many people practice a rather eclectic form and you don't have to be an exception to that.