Call of Cthulhu Character Generator for Windows Version 1.2

Getting Started

Pull-Down Menus

Options

The Characteristics & Rolls

Occupation & Age

Personal Attributes

Extra Year in School

Add Skill

Modifying Combat Based Skills

Modifying Education Based Skills

Modifying Intelligence Based Skills

Defining New Skills

The Final Product

Income Generation Methods

About

Occupation Reference

Skills Reference


Getting Started

Double-clicking on the Call of Cthulhu Character Generator for Windows icon displays the screen below.

To begin the character generation process, select Generate from the menu bar, or press Ctrl-G.  This displays the Characteristics and Rolls dialog box.

Characteristics & Rolls


Pull-Down Menus

There are several options presented in the pull down menus.

File Menu

Save As Text - prompts for a path and file name to save the last completed character as an ASCII text file.

Print (Ctrl+P) - calls up the standard Print dialog box.

Printer Setup - calls up the standard Printer Setup Dialog Box.

Generate - starts the Character Generation Process.

View Menu

View Stats - displays the statistics for a completed character.  This is the default view.

View Skills - displays the skills for a completed character.  This view is only available after a character has been fully generated.

Options - displays the Options dialog box.

About - displays the About dialog box.


Options

The Options dialog box enables you to select the die rolling method for character generation as well as the time period to play in.

Rolling Method

Select the number of dice used to roll the statistics.

3d6 -  rolls the primary attribute scores according to the Call of Cthulhu 5th Edition rules (ie. Strength, Constitution, Appearance, Power and Dexterity, on 3d6; Size and Intelligence on 2d6+6; and Education on 3D6+3.

2d6+6 - rolls all the primary attribute scores on 2D6+6, adding 3 to Education.

Best 3 of 4d6 - takes the best 3 of 4 dice rolled, except for Size & Power which are still 2d6+6.  3 Points are added to Education.

Period

Select the time period in which the game will be set.  This option affects skills and income generation.

1890s British - uses EDUx15 and INTx5 for skill points, and gives a bonus 10% credit rating for every £1000 of income, as per Sacrements of Evil and Dark Designs.

1890s American - uses the Call of Cthulhu 5th Edition rules for skill point generation

1920s - uses the Call of Cthulhu 5th Edition rules for skill point generation

1990s - uses the Call of Cthulhu 5th Edition rules for skill point generation

Currently, to obtain 1920s skills such as Computer Use, an unused skill must be redefined

Characteristics & Rolls


Characteristics & Rolls

To roll up a set of primary characteristics, press the Roll button.  You can press the Roll button as many times as you like until you come up with scores you like.

The primary characteristics are rolled according to the options established in the Options dialog box.  The remaining attributes are computed from these scores.

When you have scores that are satisfactory, press the OK button to proceed to the Occupation & Age dialog box..

Pressing the Cancel button terminates the character generation process and returns you to the initial program screen.

Continue


Occupation & Age

The Occupation & Age dialog box displays the primary statistics for the character from the Characteristics & Rolls dialog box.  These scores are now fixed.  From this dialog box you can select your characters age and occupation.

Age

The inital Age is rolled using the Call of Cthulhu 5th Edition rules.  This score can be increased in units of one year at a time or five years at a time, by pressing the respective buttons. Increasing to certain ages can grant additional skill points.  For every 10 years added, you gain 1 bonus points of Education (and the associated 20% for skills).  When you reach 40, and at every 10 years thereafter, you randomly lose 1 point from either Strength, Dexterity, Constitution or Appearance. The age can be decreased one year at a time, but cannot be decreased past a point where your statistics last changed.

Occupation

The selection list on the right side of the Occupation & Age dialog box displays a variety of options.  Simply click on the occupation desired to select it.  Your statistics will be changed if this class has any bonuses or penalties.

When you have selected the desired Age and Occupation, press the OK button to continue.

Pressing the Cancel button terminates the character generation process and returns you to the initial program screen.

for more information on individual occupations Click Here

Continue


Personal Attributes

The Personal Attributes dialog box enables you to personalize the character.  The entries made here appear on the completed character sheet.

Occupation - The selected occupation is copied verbatim from the previous screen.  This can be edited to appear differently on the character sheet.  This can be useful if you are playing a Spy or Gangster and do not wish the other players to know this.

Name - Enter a name for the character, or press the Pick Random button to provide one for you.  Be sure to select the proper sex before using the Pick Random feature.

Colleges, Degrees - enter the educational institutions attended by the character and any degrees earned.  Use the Suggest button, if desired, for suggestions of what kind of education the character has had.  The program assumes that less people were well educated In the 1890s than they were in the 1920s than they were in the 1990s.

Birthplace - Enter a place of birth

When all the entries are as you want them to appear on the character sheet, press the OK button to continue with the character generation process.

The Colleges & Degrees Suggested are taken from Call Of Cthulhu 5½, by Kim Eastland :

EDU	Education	Degree

6-7	Grade School Dropout	None

8	Grade School	Grade School Diploma

9-11	High School	Grade School Diploma

12	High School	High School Diploma

13-14	College Courses   	High School Diploma

Junior College	High/Special School Diploma

Technical College	High/Technical School Diploma

15	Complete College	B.A. (possibly)

16	Complete College	B.Sc. or B.A.

17	Graduate Work	B.A. or B.Sc. (doing Masters)

18	Graduate Work	M.A. or M.Sc.

19-21	Doctorate Work	Working on Ph.D.

20	Doctorate Graduate	Ph.D. or finishing Medical School

21	Doctorate Graduate	Ph.D. or Medical Internship

22	Medical Residency

23	Doctor Of Medicine

This is for 1920s characters.  1890s get -1 and 1990s get +1 on the table.

Note that this is only a guide.  Feel free to give your character whatever you want.

Continue


Extra Year in School

You now have the chance to spend an extra year in school.  The chance of you being successfull is Int x 5%.

If you choose to try another year at school, you will be aged one year, and if successful, the dialog box below appears

and you gain an extra 10% to put into any skills of your choice.

if not

When you press the OK button, the Income dialog box appears indicating the characters annual income and social class.  Values for the income generation are determined by the time period selected in the Options dialog box.

Press the OK button to continue to the next step.

Continue


Adding Skills

Some occupations have, in addition to their default skills, extra skills to personalise their talents.  These occupations include Professors/Teachers, Dilletantes, Librarian, Field Researcher, etc.  A User Defined occupation gets to choose up to 15 skills this way.  If you choose one of these occupations you will be presented with the dialog box :

The Remaining field shows you how many more skills you may choose.  To choose a skill, select the appropriate skill on the list on the left hand side, and then click on Add.  The skill will then appear on the right, under the Occupation Skills.  These skills will all appear for you to take as Education Based Skills later.

When you have selected all the skills you want, click on OK to continue.

For more information on individual skills, Click Here

Continue


Modifying Combat Based Skills

Certain types of occupations, such as mercenaries, get bonus combat skills.

The Modifying Combat Based Skills dialog box displays the list of skills related to your characters chosen occupation.  Selecting one of the skills will display the current value assigned to that skill in the Current % field.  The Min % field shows the minimum values your skills can be reduced to.  The Remaining field displays the running total of points remaining.

To add points a specific skill, select the skill by clicking on it.  The current value will be displayed.  Add or remove points from the score by pressing the incrementing or decrementing buttons.

When all your points have been assigned as you want, press the OK button.  If you press the OK button with points still to be allocated, a waring dialog appears.

If you made a mistake, press the Cancel button.  If not, press OK to proceed to the next step.

For more information on individual skills, Click Here

Continue


Modifying Education Based Skills

The Modifying Education Based Skills dialog box displays the list of skills related to your characters chosen occupation.  Selecting one of the skills will display the current value assigned to that skill in the Current % field.  The Min % field shows the minimum values your skills can be reduced to.  The Remaining field displays the running total of Occupation Skill points remaining.  This normally starts at by Education x 20 (Education x 15 for 1890s Britain).

To add points a specific skill, select the skill by clicking on it.  The current value will be displayed.  Add or remove points from the score by pressing the incrementing or decrementing buttons.

When all your points have been assigned as you want, press the OK button.  If you press the OK button with points still to be allocated, a waring dialog appears.

If you made a mistake, press the Cancel button.  If not, press OK to proceed to the next step.

For more information on individual skills, Click Here

Continue


Modifying Intelligence Based Skills

The Modifying Intelligence Based Skills dialog box displays the list of all available skills, including those related to your characters chosen occupation.  Selecting one of the skills will display the current value assigned to that skill in the Current % field.  The Min % field shows the minimum values your skills can be reduced to.  The Remaining field displays the running total of Occupation Skill points generated by Intelligence x 10 (Intelligence x 5 for 1890s Britain) plus the 10% bonus for extra years in school, if received.

To add points a specific skill, select the skill by clicking on it.  The current value will be displayed.  Add or remove points from the score by pressing the incrementing or decrementing buttons.

When all your points have been assigned as you want, press the OK button.  If you press the OK button with points remaining, a waring dialog appears.

If you made a mistake, press the Cancel button.  If not, press OK to proceed to complete the character generation process.

For more information on individual skills, Click Here

Continue


Defining New Skills

When you choose an undefined skill (one labeled as other) you will be presented with a define skill dialog box :

This allows you to enter a new name for the skill, and its base percentage.  This can be useful for adding new types of skills, or defining 1990s skills such as Computer Use.

If you clicked on the other skill by mistake, choose Cancel, otherwise choose OK when you have filled in the details.

For more information on individual skills, Click Here

Continue


The Final Product

Once the Modifying Intelligence Based Skills dialog box has been closed, the character generation process is complete.  At this point, the primary statistics for the new character are displayed in the main program window.

The following options are available:

Use the View menu to toggle between the primary statistics and skills list for the current character.

Use Save As Text from the File menu to save the character as an ASCII text file.

Print the completed character sheet to your Windows printer.


Income Generation Methods

No matter what the actual era is, all income is first generated in terms of 1920s Dollars, according to either Call Of Cthulhu 5 ½, or The Investigator Companion Volume 2.

Then, according to the era, the amounts are translated to similar amounts in the investigators time.  This is done according to the table in the Call Of Cthulhu manual for rolling money (p16 of CoC Ed5).  That is to say that the following amounts are considered equal :

1890s	1920s	1990s

---------	---------	---------

$5,000  	$4,500	$15,000

$10,000	$5,500	$25,000

$15,000	$6,500	$35,000

  etc .......

1890s British Currency is converted by trying to map most middle to upper values to between £1000 and £10,000 (this tends to be fairly generous at the moment).

The social class of the character is based upon the 1920 Dollar income, according to The Investigators Companion Volume 2 (p 9)


About the Program
About

The Call of Cthulhu Character Generator for Windows, Version 1.2 was written by Andrew Lawrenson (lawrens@cs.bris.ac.uk - until July '95) using Borland C++ Version 4.5.

This Help File was written by Joab Ben Stieglitz (stieg@ix.netcom.com) and Andrew Lawrenson.  Skill and Occupation Reference Help Files written by Andrew Lawrenson.

This program should contain the following files : COCGEN12.EXE, COCGEN12.HLP, OCC1.HLP, SKILLS.HLP, BC450RTL.DLL, BIDS45.DLL, OWL250.DLL, INSTALL.TXT, COCGEN12.TXT.

Disclaimer

THIS PROGRAM IS FREEWARE AND MAY BE FREELY DISTRIBUTED, AS LONG IT IS DISTRIBUTED UNMODIFIED, WITH ALL THE ORIGINAL FILES.  IT MAY NOT BE SOLD FOR PROFIT.  THIS PROGRAM IS SUPPLIED "AS-IS" WITH NO GUARANTEE WHATSOEVER.

(c) Andrew Lawrenson, 1994, 1995.

The program has been fairly well tested, but there will almost certainly still be bugs in places.  Any flames, comments, suggestions, job-offers, bug reports, etc, etc welcome to

lawrens@cs.bris.ac.uk

(Be gentle with me - this is my first real windows program)

In addition, new skills, classes, etc. to be implemented are most welcome for implementing in the next version.

Version History

v1.00	First Public Release

v1.10	Added :

Random Names, possibility to change Career name, degrees, sex

Two new classes from CoC5.5 : Consulting Detective & Inventor

2d6+6 and best 3 of 4d6 rolling methods

Income, for 1890's, 1920's and 1990's.  In addition, support for 1890's english characters

Ability to decrease age.

Chaosium copyright notice added at the request of Chasoium.

Ability to view skills before printing.

You can now save the character to a text file, rather than print.

You are now told what social class your character is.

All screens will now fit on a 640x480 resolution screen (at least they do on my computer, with small fonts).

Executable file renamed to cocgenXX.exe where XX is version number

v1.20	Added :

Help Files.

Install Routine.

Call of Cthulhu © 1992-1995 by Chaosium, Inc.

The Unspeakable Oath © 1992 John Tynes.

Any use of Chaosium Inc's copyrighted material or trademarks in this file should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks. Any commercial use of Chaosium Inc's copyrighted material or trademarks without Chaosium Inc's express permission is prohibited.