Stating the average human

[cookiegerard]

This friday, I will be running a game of Call of Cthulhu. It is set on a ship called the Demeter, during a storm in which the players are tasked with escorting a package from English to Ireland. Early on in the game, a crew member called Renfield will seem to just suddenly turn feral and tear out the throat of another crew member. The players will most likely kill him, as it will be made clear that Renfield is completely insane, if not, another crew member will kill him. The bodies will be placed in the sick bay, and a few hours later, Renfield's body is gone, vanished without a trace. Next, crew members will start to vanish, leading to a thrilling surprise that there is in fact a vampire on the ship, if you hadn't guessed from the little hints here and there.

I will be using the stats for a zombie for the undead Renfield, my idea being is that the players will think he is the vampire, try to stake him in the heart and.. nothing will happen, hopefully panicking them. However, it is the stats for when he is still alive that I am finding it a bit hard to do.

As far as I can see, there is no "human" stats, as in you have the stats for Cthulhu, vampires, tigers, etc, but none for an average, run of the mill human. I could, and might use the stats for the premade characters or for one of the people you meet in the scenarios, but what would you do? Would you make a whole new character, roll die and use that, or would you do as I might do and use a premade character sheet from the book.

If you have any better ideas, I would love to hear them.

Thanks.

[Gladius]

I only stat the important stats for the purpose of the NPC - in a combat, I just stat STR, CON, DEX and so on. If it's a spellcaster I stat POW as well. Really, the question is, what do you WANT him to be? Is he supposed to be strong? Give him a high STR. Is he quick? High DEX. Attractive courtesan? High APP. Don't agonize over this, just pick the numbers as you want him to appear. You're in control!

[Gladius]

Also, for the 3d6 stats, I believe that 10 is the "average" human stat.

[TAK]

Also, for the 3d6 stats, I believe that 10 is the "average" human stat.

I'm going to "Well, actually..." you, sorry.

Well, actually the average of a d6 is 3.5, thus average of 3d6 is 10.5. Thus 10 and 11 will appear just as frequently. If you want an average human, I believe 3 10s and 3 11s is the way to go... now, will someone figure a way to randomize those 11s...

[trevlix]

now, will someone figure a way to randomize those 11s...

I'm sure there are more elegant ways, but:

Code: Select all

#!/usr/bin/env python

import random

def printAttr(a, b):
    print a, b

attr = [ 'STR', 'CON', 'DEX', 'POW',  'APP', 'INT']
stat = [10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10]

i = 0

while i < 3:
    r = random.randint(0, 5)
    if stat[r] != 11:
        i = i + 1
        stat[r] = 11
        
map(printAttr, attr, stat)

The first 5 results:

STR 10
CON 11
DEX 10
POW 11
APP 10
INT 11

STR 11
CON 11
DEX 11
POW 10
APP 10
INT 10

STR 11
CON 11
DEX 10
POW 10
APP 10
INT 11

STR 10
CON 10
DEX 11
POW 11
APP 11
INT 10


STR 10
CON 10
DEX 11
POW 11
APP 11
INT 10

[Keeper Dan]

Well, the basic answer is that Investigators are normal humans. The character creation rules count for NPCs as well. In Call of Cthulhu, characters are not above average as they are in many other games. They're normal people dealing with extraordinary circumstances.

Gladius is right, though. As a Keeper, you are free to just write down any number you want to for an NPC. You have the 3 to 18 range for most stats as your normal baseline, but you can have a character that's say, an immense gangster. He's "Jabba the Human". Siz 21, Con 12, Dex 7, App 6, Int 16, Pow 17, Edu 20
Those were just pulled out of thin air, and gives me the character I'm imagining. Simple as that.

Your fisherman guy... He's a professional sailor, so I'd give him high end Con, Dex and Str. That's a rough life, and takes a lot of agility, stamina and strength. Is he really good at his job? Then higher end of average for Int and Edu are in order. If he's the Gilligan of the crew, then the lower end of the spectrum. When he zombifies, then it's just the physical stats are all you care about.

[Nvision]

The Investigator's Companion is a great source for quickly pulling stats for NPCs of various professions, if you want something with a little more flavour.

[fox01313]

Late to this but agreed about just writing up the important NPCs, for scenes it'd be good to just keep a running tally of the rest of the npcs to find how crowded it is. Maybe come up with a 1d10 or 1d20 chart to roll off of if the PCs want to talk to some random stranger (so the chart matches professions that might be in that area/setting) as well as a 1d6 chart for the range of age/gender (ie. 1-3 for young/average/old male & 4-6 for the same with female). While the more information you can do to enrich the scene is good to bring the world more alive, you don't want to waste a lot of time with the little stuff that the players might not be dealing with.

Maybe too for the unnamed generic npcs you go with 1d6+8 which should give them random stats if needing something quick.