Imagining a pulp globetrotting Cthulhu campaign. I’ve played and enjoyed Call of Cthulhu, but my taste wends away from skill-based systems these days. What if a player character had just a few base statistics and a chunky measure of their knowledge, in terms of how close they come to broaching the veil of ignorance that can kept humanity’s gaze undazzled and its courage unchecked? What if that?
[no image, writing on my phone at work.]
A player character has ten points split between Strength and Luck. Sometimes you’ll roll a d12 or 2d6 and add your score, aiming for a 13 or higher. The character also has two(?) points invested in Sciences, which they can expand very gradually over the course of the campaign.
A Science normally goes from 0 to 2, but can also be set to -1, as the mind fearfully blocks out deadly insights. Sometimes this superficially resembles more normal mental conditions, but those are different and should be considered separately (i.e. you’re not allowed to get mad at me). You can start with one or more skills at -1, but this is still mostly a downside and you don’t get extra points elsewhere. “Sanity damage” as such is damage directly to a Science score, and the more complicated trauma of horror is left to the DM and players to express.
Alienism
-1: social bafflement, unable to understand emotion and having difficulty guessing someone else’s thoughts or plans
0: basic sense of a theory of mind, understanding social and chemical factors influence mental stability, but easily mystified by theories of psychology
1: Up-to-date with theories of the mind of the early 1930s. Capable of quickly sensing a target’s -1 sciences. Can relate mental health to balance, ability to work, and disruption to others. Can use medication to crudely shift behavior.
2: unjudging but incredibly informed understanding of the mind, capable of perceiving subtle needs and drives without basing assessment on social expectations or work ethic. Can use medication to finely shift behavior and wellbeing.
Anatomy
-1: cannot distinguish people by appearance, and has difficulty perceiving objects as straddling categories, such as hybrid animals, multi-use tools, and androgyny.
0: perceives faces and figures more easily than other objects. Familiar with basic injuries and ailments, and can take a college try at treating them, possibly buoyed by folk knowledge or rumor. Capable of imagining mythical chimeras.
1: skilled in first aid, and capable in some medical specialization that gives an up-to-date understanding of human anatomy, its major systems, the basic effects of most drugs, and the strict limits of human performance. Conceives of the human body as the interrelation of parts, systems, substances, exc.
2: groundbreaking understanding of the human organism, with preliminary findings showing the way to do something perhaps a century advanced of the modern (again, early 1930s) sense of the medically possible.
Anthropology
-1: fantastical worldview, typically based on imagining of idealized past or intricate delusions. Expects others to conform, and is not acculturated to any extant society
0: provincial mores, understanding their own culture and either denigrating others or failing to understand that they are meaningfully different
1: worldly view, engaged broadly with multiple cultures or in-depth with a society of interest (perhaps historical). May speak many languages enough to get by, or have high literacy in area of focus. Capable of stepping outside one’s own upbringing.
2: has a well-grounded framework for all societies and understands the human condition. Capable of deep insights into novel and complex social arrangements. Effectively a specialist in all times and places
Art
-1: creatively inert, unable to appreciate artistic expression. Has difficulty relating deep emotions
0: amateur abilities.
1: skilled in a method of expression— in the appropriate venue (i.e. on stage for a dancer, in an exhibition for a sculptor) or when the DM deems appropriate, their art can excite a profound feeling or emotion.
2: transcendent artist, in an appropriate venue capable of excite a feeling about something in particular, even if it’s subtextual. A dancer can eroticize crime, a sculptor can evoke dread of modern banking, exc.
Charm
-1: surly and pharisaical, the sort of uncharmingness resultant from a deep desire to not be a sucker. They fail to amuse even with deliberate effort, their contempt shining through.
0: judged on their actions, WASPiness, apparent wealth, and looks. Capable of putting their deeds in a good light with effort, but unable to make others accept it despite themselves
1: when plausibly neutral, can seem inoffensive, unsuspicious, and likable. Has the body language of someone doing no wrong, a ready friend
2: even when doing something offensive, suspicious, and presumptuous, can still do it cutely. Shooting at someone in a charming fashion won’t stop them from firing back, but will make them sad to do it and more readily accept deëscalation.
Command
-1: in competition and struggle, lacks a distinction between effective strategy and what “should” be effective. They tend to inflexibly favor last stands, frontal charges, and chivalrous death cults.
0: finds the prospect of truly harming others stressful, but when pressed capable of applying basic problem-solving to do so and work with others.
1: reconciled to conflict, and knows modern military tactics and strategies. Can prepare a position for defense or figure out a blind spot, and senses when violence is about to break out of a conversation.
2: unhesitating in doing what is necessary, acting before all others. Great mind for logistics. Quick to adapt new ideas and technologies to conflict, and industrialize harm.
Finance
-1: develops an alternate understanding of financial value, throwing any excess cash behind long-shots, losing bets, and sad mistakes. They might ideologically align with e.g. Marxism, yet be truly incapable of materially supporting their cause. Can expect to fall prey to scams, substandard accommodations, and the ready distrust of anyone with a wealthy patron.
0: familiar with day-to-day expenses and has a concrete understanding of what it means to make ends meet. They may or may not have a typical job, but they have a firm grasp on the concept of expense and cash.
1: does not need to directly interact with the personal economy, perhaps due to a trust fund or family money. Doesn’t need to work, and has no sense of what “a little bit of money” means. They are capable of hiring guides and staff, traveling first-class, and getting meetings with respectable people.
2: has totally decoupled any sensible meaning of value from money, and adroitly navigates stock, speculation and other schemes. Familiar with the delusions, dreams, and fancies that guide global markets. As a result, they are richer than Croessus, capable of employing any number of people, chartering any sort of transit, and accessing any institution.
Library Science
-1: fails to properly coordinate the contents of documents, often constructing alternate memeplexes to avoid changing underlying beliefs. Cannot sort different texts in a way others can readily understand.
0: literate and capable of conducting research, but stymied by technical jargon outside expertise. With help, can find remote articles.
1: may efficiently search a library and understand its total contents. Knows how to quickly read and understand esoteric text. Can make a working taxonomy and intuit if a particular specimen fits within one category or another.
2: up-to-date on both scientific discoveries and modern events, and capable of knowing where to look to find out more. Can efficiently search a library and understand the way of thinking of the person who organized it. Readily correlates disparate information across disciplines.
Mentalism
-1: never gets a niggling feeling that something is wrong
0: has the occasional sense of significance they can’t easily place. Sometimes discerns another’s disposition by subtle physical cues.
1: With close mutual attention in good circumstances, can get a sense of another’s thoughts and subconscious drives, sensing the relative source of externally created notions— whether from media, an acquaintance, hostile hypnotic assassin, exc. At a cost, can receive a prophetic dream by seeking a pressure point in the collective unconscious
2: with close mutual attention, even in difficult circumstances, can quickly get a sense of another’s thoughts and drives and their origins. Capable of lucid dreaming in all states of unconsciousness.
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If a character has a science at 2, they might develop ways to combine them in frightening ways. Someone with Art 2 and Command 2 might make war their canvas and encode a religious awe of themselves, for example. Beware! Player characters are susceptible to being coöpted by dark powers, and it is dangerous to the party to introduce capabilities that you can’t countenance being used against you.
DMs can introduce new sciences, keeping in mind that the -1 disadvantage should nevertheless be a plausible defense against piecing together dissociated knowledge that could open up terrifying vistas of reality, and that the second advantage should expose a new vulnerability to the same.
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