OOC chat

I kind of like the idea of the campus spirit committee, or if we want to just roll in with the horse polo and have it be an athletic club it fits background of my character that makes things a bit easier potentially right?

Personally I think it is more interesting if people are members of different communities, whatever floats their boats really. Otherwise it feels quite artificial to me. Plus those different communities can then serve as different resources or sources of tension.

I thought Jocelyn might be an older cousin of Ellie's (was it Ellie? The bookish English student). And she won't be a fan of the lees studious PCs, but maybe she has a connection to one of them

I'm fine with the group being from different clubs, majors, and social circles. The challenge I'm trying to solve is why this specific set of people come together and stay together once things start to happen.

If everyone is only a loose acquaintance - with no shared history, no overlapping commitments, and no common reason to trust one another - it becomes much harder to justify why you’d stick your necks out together when things turn dangerous or strange.

The campaign does include an expedition as a built-in way to unite the group, but I'm not keen on that approach. It's going to be a stretch to explain why some of you would sign up given your chosen field of study.

I'm not saying you have to be close friends or members of the same club, but I do need something to work with. I guess I need some help from you all in defining what motivates this group to act together, or even get together, when the story begins.

The trouble is finding something that really binds our characters. Superficial acquaintance is fine to start with, but then as the GM says, we need to be ready to risk life and limb for each other! And we cannot all be related by blood 😅
(I've seen this binding work best once the horror and oddities begin, nothing like otherwordly unexplainable threats to glue a group of wildly different folks, in the face of adversity)

What about if we initially shared a students' accommodation? ie rent rooms in the same house. It could be a way of spending time together outside the respective different commitments at Uni during the day...

I've submitted my project and am taking the rest of the afternoon off - huzzah!

How are we doing stats? I thought there was a point-buy option but don't see one in the Investigator's Handbook or Keeper's Rulebook. And I've not seen anyone roll here. I'm also a little wary of ending up with a series of bad rolls or ones that don't really fit the character.

The Student template doesn't list Astronomy in the School Of Physical Sciences. Any opposition to me treating it like it's there anyway for my character?

The optional methods of creating stats are in the Keeper's book, pages 47-48

I personally used option 3, ie made all the rolls (honour method!) then assigned them choosing where each roll goes.
The point buy is option 4.

I'm fine with whatever club or social group so on to make the narrative work, I did kind of build my character around the Polo club though.

Ah, grand, thanks! I'll take a look.

One option might work is that you all frequent the same corners of the library - drawn there by curiosity. Maybe you all have, for your own reasons, developed an interest in the occult, folklore, or obscure historical texts. You may bump into each other in the same sections, or grabbing at similar books.

It could be possible that each of you have independently tried to gain access to the Restricted Collection of the Orne Library. Maybe you've crossed paths trying to curry favour with the Armitage cabal: Dr. Henry Armitage, Prof. Warren Rice (Classical Languages), Dr. Francis Morgan (Archaeology) & Prof. Albert N. Wilmarth (English).

You don't need to be working together, but have noticed each other. This not only helps bring you all together, but gives each of you an inherent curiosity that will make it easy to pull you into the mystery.

Just a thought.

I think that would work really well for Ellis. Maybe he's heard there are books that go into obscure details regarding star patterns and ancient practices involving the positions of certain stars or galaxies.

Pitching possible connections:

Since Ellie and Ellis are both undergrads, they could have had some classes in common, perhaps spending time together in study groups and becoming friendly. There were also probably some comedic issues with the professors taking roll, since their first names are very similar.

He's also on friendly terms with Marcus Davenport, having met at several campus parties (perhaps with Ellis trying to talk Marcus into easing up a bit on the hooch). I think Ellis would try to take something of a brotherly role, trying to be the supportive family that Marcus is lacking.

Just submitted Ellis to the game. I did point-buy for creation and I used the student template from A Time To Harvest that @McButterpants linked. I added it to my library to make it accessible to everyone.

Today’s a late night for meetings, but I’m going to see if I can get things started.

My goal is to do a quick review of the investigators to make sure nothing’s missing, then I hope to post the introduction.

Let me know if you have any questions.

@SamIAm Let me know if you need any help with the character sheet.

I like the idea of the library being a commonality, that works really nicely! Hopefully everything seems to be ready to go, super excited for this!

I did a quick review of the Investigator sheets. It's hard to review this information after the fact, so let me know if I'm wrong.

@Dr_B
- I think you may have shorted yourself some Skill points. You get 4xEDU and 2xINT. I calculate 390, but I only see 355 added. I probably missed something.
- Awesome job on the background and notes! Lots to work with.

@radiantskys
- You need to roll your luck (3d6 x 5).
- You may have shorted yourself on Skill Upgrades. You get 260 points (4xEDU) to allocate to Occupation Skills, and 170 points (INTx2) to allocate to anything you want. I only count 337 added.
- Please fill in all of your other Skills with the base skill. You click on the Skill to add the appropriate roll to the roller (see example below)

@MrCyan
- Ellie is missing number for App, Pow, Siz & Edu.
- Great work on the background. Please add in some details on Traits, Ideologies & Beliefs, Significant People, etc.
- Please fill in all of your other Skills with the base skill. You click on the Skill to add the appropriate roll to the roller (see example below)

@virtualbasement
- Please fill in all of your other Skills with the base skill. You click on the Skill to add the appropriate roll to the roller (see example below)
- Please add in some details on Traits, Ideologies & Beliefs, Significant People, etc

Sorry for the late response. I am fine with any of the options in either the Investigator or Keeper rulebooks: Rolling, Point Buy, or Quick Fire (page 48 of Keeper rulebook).

I failed to create a thread for investigator creation - better late than never.

You are right, I amended it now:
the missing 35 skill points were divided across Sleight of Hand, Drive, and 5 points to Dodge

Thanks! I'm sure some interpersonal hijinks between characters can be arranged 😉.