Call of Cthulhu Character Generator v1.10 THIS PROGRAM IS FREEWARE AND MAY BE FREELY DISTRIBUTED, AS LONG IT IS DISTRIBUTED UNMODIFIED, WITH THIS TEXT FILE. IT MAY NOT BE SOLD FOR PROFIT. THIS PROGRAM IS SUPPLIED "AS-IS" WITH NO GUARANTEE WHATSOEVER. (c) Andrew Lawrenson, July 1994. E-mail: lawrens@cs.bris.ac.uk (until July '95) IF YOU ARE UPGRADING FROM VERSION 1.0 The program has now been compiled under Borland C++ v4.5 Thus, the files OWL200.DLL BIDS40.DLL and BC40RTL.DLL are no longer needed and are replaced by OWL250.DLL BIDS45.DLL and BC45RL.DLL If the old DLL's are in a separate directory for this program, they may be safely deleted, but if they have been placed in the Windows directory, or another copy exists in the Windows directory, DO NOT DELETE THEM. They may be used be other applications. Note also, that the name of the executable has been changed from win_cth.exe to cocgenXX.exe, where XX indicates the version number. This program does what its title suggests - helps you create characters for Call of Cthulhu. It uses the base CoC5 rules, but in addition, uses the Investigators Companion Volume 2 for extra classes and skills, as well as skills from Call Of Cthulhu 5.5 from the Unspeakable Oath issue six. This program is not intended to replace these manuals, but to suplement them - they will still both be of use when generating a character. In total, the program currently handles 139 classes and 103 skills (both of which include user definable options for your own special classes). The process for creating a character is : i) Roll the stats. This can be repeated until a satisfactory set is found. ii) Choose a Class. A user definable class is available, where you can choose your own skills (up to 15). iii) Modify Your age. iv) Modify Your Class Name, Name, Sex, Degress & Birthplace. v) Your income & social class is generated. vi) Choose any personal speciality skills, if applicable. vii) Choose combat based skills (for mercenaries, etc). iix) Choose your skills based on your education. There is an 'other' skill, which can be redefined to any other. ix) Choose your skills based on your intelligence. Either x) Print out your character. This will print out a character sheet (two sided) that should work on any printer (it's only text). Or xi) Save your character to a text file to be printed from another application How to use this program should be fairly obvious when run. Notes ----- If you choose 1890's British as the Era, then you will only get EDUx15 and INTx5 for your skills, but will get a bonus 10% credit rating for every #1000 of income, as per 'Sacrements of Evil' and 'Dark Designs' (and probably 'Cthulhu by Gaslight', but I don't have that one). You can preview your stats and skills before printing by choosing the 'View Stats' and 'View Skils' options from the 'View' menu option. As well as rolling just 3d6 for attributes, you can now choose to have 2d6+6 for all skills, or the best 3 dice out of 4d6 (but keeping 2d6+6 for POW & SIZ - this should give better results). You get an extra 3 points onto EDU, whatever method you use. Use the 'Options' menu option to change this. The random name generator works by choosing random combinations of first name (gender specific) and last name. There are about 30,000 combinations of both male and female names. When ageing your character, you can also decrease your age a year at a time, but you can only go back to the last point where an attribute changed (you age at 40, for example, so you cannot backup from 43 to 38, only to 40). If you do not wish other players to know what occupation your character is (if you are a spy, for example), you can change the occupation name at the same time you enter your name, sex, etc. If you choose 'User Defined' as your occupation, your income & class will be left blank. If you generate a 1990's character, if you want 1990' skills, such as computer skill, you must rename one of the 'other' skills. This will probably be addressed in a future version. As you can see, it closely follows the standard call of cthulhu character generation. It automatically handles all the special cases of all the different classes though. The main things not yet implemented are : Equipment. Extra skills from Coc 5.5 are not given as occupation skills. A better Text file ;-) A Windows Help File The program has been fairly well tested, but there will almost certainly still be bugs in places. Any flames, comments, suggestions, 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