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I rarely use the Mythos and the Sanity rules in my Call of Cthulhu settings, they are mostly pseudo-historical ones without a Lovecraftian horror element. In the few cases where I use Sanity, a failed Sanity roll only means that the character becomes temporarily insane, there is no permanent damage that is carried over from one adventure to the next. The character is considered to recover or to be healed between the adventures. The one exception is the Cthulhu Mythos skill, which lowers a character's Sanity permanently and so makes temporary insanity more likely. However, I think this makes only sense in campaigns with a lot of downtime between the adventures, in my campaigns of this kind there is usually about one year between the adventures, so the characters have a plausible chance to get back to normal within that year.

I have to admit that I rarely read descriptions of actual games, most of the few examples I tried to read where not really interesting and tended towards a "Look how great my character is" writing style.

In my settings "Sage" is more a general description like "Soldier", not a specific profession or trade. As the soldier is defined by his specific combat skills that make him a footman, cavalryman, archer and so on, the sage is defined by his knowledge skills that can make him, for example, an engineer, lawyer or medic. A Trade (Sage) skill could give some general background knowledge about the way sages work, for example how to do research, how to write papers, the eti- quette and customs among sages, and all that, just like a Trade (Soldier) skill could give a basic understanding of how the military works (ranks, orders, etc.). However, I would not consider such a skill necessary.

I have decided to use "Trade" for this kind of skill, because - as I understand it - Craft is limited to the production of something, while Occupation could include activities that are not related to any specific profession. So in my setting it is Trade (Farmer), or Trade (Banker), or Trade (Courtesan).

Projects ... far too many of them ... I am usually working on my "holy worldbuilding grail", the (almost) perfect science fiction desert world and water world settings, and I think this will continue for a couple of years, until I am truly satisfied with the result or finally give up the at- tempt. The current versions (V. 5.01 each) are Godot (desert world) and Pando- ra (water world). There are also some minor science fiction settings, like the In- surgency, but most of them are shelved, and I only rarely add something to any of them. My second "worldbuilding playground" are pseudo-historical alternate earth set- tings, usually "what if" scenarios where a small real world nation is replaced with a fictional one. Among the victims of such replacements were Avignon, Bhutan, El Salvador, Malta, Qawasim and Socotra, most of them during the early modern age, but some also during the medieval age or during both historical periods. Right now I am once more working on an improved version of the Thule setting, an alternate history of a medieval Prussian settlement on Greenland.

Yes, it is rumoured that a (near) death experience can help a lot to focus one's mind ...

I like this idea very much, mainly because it keeps my general skill list shorter and at the same time encourages the players to decide whether and where they want more detail and individuality for their characters by choosing modifiers for the general skills. I am not yet sure how well this will fit into the setting in question, where certain modifiers and combinations of modifiers would be so obviously useful that every player character would be likely to have them. On the other hand, this would al- so be the same with separate skills. Besides, in this specific setting the players will create their characters without knowing exactly on what kind of planet their characters will have to operate, so the risk that all will take the same modifiers is low. I have to think it through a bit more, but I really like it.

Thank you very much. The Athletics skill is a good idea, I think I will use it, too.

I wonder whether I should introduce a glove with an electrified thumb as an ille- gal melee weapon ... and a version with an electrified drilling thumb for the use against opponents who wear a spacesuit ...

For the Godot science fiction setting I am currently working on the characters will need at lot of technical and scientific skills, which tends to make the cha- racter sheets a bit overloaded and the distribution of skill points more difficult than usual - too many skills to assign points to. Therefore I thought that it could help to to combine the perception skills (Lis- ten, Sense, Spot) into one Perception Skill and the unarmed combat skills (Brawl, Grapple, perhaps also Dodge) into one Unarmed Combat skill. This would eliminate a couple of skills from the list and make it a bit easier for the players to spend points for the more setting specific technical and scientific skills their characters will need, I think. Before I do that - is there any important reason why this would be a bad idea ? Thank you.

Thank you very much, this is what I was looking for - problem solved.

The setting I am currently working on will have a number of characters, mostly engineers and scientists, who learned a basic engineering or science skill and la- ter specialized in an advanced field of that skill. An example could be an engineer who started as a construction engineer and la- ter got advanced training as a habitat systems engineer, or a biologist who later became an ecologist or a geneticist. The habitat systems engineer will of course still know a lot about other fields of construction engineering, and the ecologist will still know a lot about other fields of biology, but of course less than about the field he specialized in - only, how much less ? I could use the Root Skill / Branch Skill approach of the Ringworld RPG to solve this problem, but I do not really want the additional complexity of that system. On the other hand, I have no better idea how to handle the relation between a basic and an advanced knowledge and skill. Help with this would be most welcome - Thank you.

No, not really. While it is not that difficult to translate the mechanics and the general framework of a setting, the "fluff" that transports the "feel and mood" of a setting requires more language skill than I have. I can write such texts in German, I even managed to sell a few science fiction short stories (and therefore know what my name in print looks like ...), but to do it in English in about the same quality would be hard work for me - and I do not want to see anything in lesser quality published.

Well, to translate the "fluff" parts of the setting would be work instead of fun, so it is highly unlikely that I will ever feel an urge to do it ...

Indeed.

Provided it would fit into your setting, an aquatic or semi-aquatic one would be most welcome.

We once had a similar player. Since his character's behaviour caused problems for the characters of the other players, their characters finally threw his charac- ter over board during a sea voyage and strictly refused to accept any new cha- racter of this player as a party member.

I suspect that this would be difficult to distinuish. For example, I often buy mate- rial I have no immediate use for, but which may become most useful with one of the future setting ideas on my list, and sometimes also material as an inspiration to expand that list. I do not know whether I will really use such material one day, but I do not consider myself a collector - if some material is outside my areas of interest, I do not buy it, because I am not interested in a complete collection.

Thank you for the very nice cutouts in the downloads section.

If you prefer wilderness adventures, I think Griffin Mountain could be a good start: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=83384&filters=0_0_40050_0 If you are more into city adventures, Pavis would probably be more interesting for you: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=83383

Well, if an only averagely honest characters tells a lie, this is no big surprise, be- cause people expected him to tell a lie now and then anyway. But if a character with the reputation to be honest and trustworthy is caught telling a lie, people tend to be disappointed and shocked, and therefore to remember this much lon- ger.

The way I use traits, the inner logic of the setting provides the stick: The nor- mally honest character who is caught telling a lie will from then on suffer from a negative modifier when attempting to use his social skills with any characters who have heard about his lying.

Yes. If Brave and Cowardly are the opposite ends of a scale, 50 % Brave does mean 50 % Cowardly, just like a glass that is 50 % Full is necessarily also 50 % Empty.

It could also be the solipsism problem, the players' conviction that only their player characters are real, and all of the other characters of the setting are just fictional ...

One of the methods I use is the combination of families and social networks of the characters with the society's customs of blood debt and blood feud. If the characters harm someone in a way that is seen as dishonourable or other- wise unacceptable by the society, the relatives and friends of the victim have the right to demand a compensation from the characters, and if they refuse to pay this compensation, a blood feud must begin - the relatives and friends of the characters' victim will kill the family members, friends and allies of the cha- racters. Until now I have had only one player who did not understand this concept and had his character ignore it. As a result this character was killed - poisoned - by his own sister, because his family had decided that they had to get rid of him to restore their honour and end the blood feud. By the way, an interesting quote from Wikipedia about a society that is known for taking the blood feud obligation seriously, the Greek Mani: