Rules

[amarriner]

Rules
I'll list some general rules and guidelines here in this thread. I tend to be pretty "rules-light" when I play, but certainly we'll be using the rulebook to guide much of the action. I have version 5 of the CoC rulebook so that's what I'll be using, but I don't think there's much difference between most of the later versions. Feel free to correct me if I've made a mistake (which will inevitably happen! ).

Dice Rolls
I'd like everyone to make their die rolls on http://invisiblecastle.com/. You don't have to sign up for an account there to roll dice (though you can if you want to). Just click on the "Roll Dice" link, fill out the form and click "Roll the Dice". It works well and you'll be given a link to your die roll which you can post here on the forum. For your character name just try to be consistent because then all your rolls will be listed for that character name which is nice if you need to go back and see what you've rolled for. Also, please prefix your character name with [TC] in case there are other characters on there with your name. So if your character is John Doe, then you'd put [TC] John Doe in the character name field.

I'm pretty easy-going so I don't mind if you roll yourself without prompting. Conversely, if there's an instance where you're not sure, feel free to ask if you should roll. The only other thing to mention is that I'd prefer you don't interpret the roll as it pertains to the other character/NPC involved. For example, you might make a speech for your character who is trying to persuade someone else and post the roll link for him. Whether it succeeds or fails, I would then post how the other character/NPC reacts to it. Because even if it succeeds, it might not have the affect you expect so please wait for me to interpret the roll before continuing. But otherwise, you're free to roll or not as is your prerogative.

Posting
We have the OOC Chat thread for out of character discussion, and we'll soon have in character threads as well once we get started. I like the way some of the other Keepers run their games and so I'm adopting a convention I've seen. For the IC threads, try to color-code different kinds of text:

Descriptive text can just be the default black
A character's thoughts should be green
Something a character says will be blue
And anything OOC in an IC thread should be orange

That just gives the text a little flavor and makes it easier to follow, I've found. Also, it's helpful if you post character names in bold so as to differentiate them from the rest of the text. It's also good if you put your character name (and optionally their picture) at the top of your posts.


So that's pretty much it. I may amend this as we go, but for now it'll do as a starting point. Comments and thoughts are welcome.

[amarriner]

Updated per zielonobrody's suggestions (bolding). I also added the part about putting your character's names at the top of posts.

[amarriner]

Updated the Dice Roll rules with the text about whether players should roll dice themselves or wait for me to say so. I posted roughly the same thing in the "Lawyer" thread, but replicated it here in case anyone missed it.

[Miss Scarlet]

Since the subject of this post is about rules, I took a liberty to post here. If you don't think it's appropriate, please delete it.

This came to my mind because a player asked in another game of mine. There is a rule that establish when a character see a creature he/she gets automatically 5% in Mythos about that creature.

I don't use this rule, because I consider a "skill" a knowledge you have about some subject and only for seeing it you don't get this knowledge. You need information about it. You have to know about it before having the "capacity of rolling it". I mean, we don't have Cthulhu Mythos so doesn't matter what we see we can't figure it out by rolling "Cthulhu Mythos skill".

We have a "capacity to roll a skill" when we have points on it or the basis is at least 1.

By the way, this is another frequent doubt I see. The 1% some skills have as basis shouldn't be add to the points you put in the skill because this 1% says (to me) that if you are very, very luck, you can roll the dice and get 1. In interpretation is about the same, you are very, very luck and could find how something works, like biology. You can remember some obscure class you have in high school. Or chemistry, or physics. Or archaeology or anthropology (you've read something about in a newspaper or magazine or book), and so on.

[amarriner]

I suspect that the Cthulhu Mythos rule is probably a house rule of some kind. It does make a bit of sense, but I think adding 5% might be too much. Your CM skill would rise a lot quicker than it normally does. Either way, I don't normally use it and won't be using it here.

As far as the 1% goes, I always just count it like any of the other default values. So those kinds of skills are calculated just like others. Now that you mention it I guess your character did things your way so if you want to, you can distribute those "missing" points to your other skills if you want to.