Well we know three of the 16 new investigators are a sailor, a violinist, and a waitress.

I am quite curious what else is coming as well

Since this game has some background with the Feds, I wonder if we may get an agent

I always like characters who are veterans of the Great War in this setting (which you can guess that I enjoy playing Harrigan) but a German may be quite interesting as well - former Stormtrooper maybe - may have to finally create a custom character if it doesn't happen

A Demagogue of Socialism or some radical agitator for the time could be interesting

Maybe also a character with actual noble title from Europe

Do you guys have any predictions?

half human half deepone?

Many of the characters in the Strange Eons custom pack seem like common professions:

Sea captain, Farmer, Courier, Housewife, Antiquarian.

Since there are 16 characters coming and there are only 15 stable locations, my guess is that one character will begin Lost in Time and Space (with protection) rather than on an unstable location. A bartender from Hibb's would be cool though.

Don't forget that Calvin is likely to be an investigator—and he's a teacher! Hello, clue trading!

@Pitt:

Probably not, as "turning into a deep one" is a new mechanic.

i really liked the dreamer character and wish there were more out there investgators then the normal kind of boring ones

pittplayer said:

Actually, playing as mundane middle-class characters is one of the best parts of the game. You wouldn't expect a salesman to suddenly be thrust into a mission against all odds to save the world. Personally, I find the more fantastic and outlandish characters (such as Luke) to be less interesting.

Kevin himself noted that it's not easy to convince a gamer that RPing a waitress will be particularly fun, aside from Arkham—where the mundane meets the unbelievable.

There probably won't be a 'sea captain' since we know there's already a sailor.

I can't remember - is there a fifty/fifty gender split among existing investigators? If so, then presumably half the new investigators will be women and half men. If not, I think a 'suffragette' investigator is long overdue...

A federal agent is a strong possibility, what with this being Innsmouth.

An escaped convict - there isn't one of those yet, is there? Something like "If this investigator is ever arrested, he is recognized and must be retired immediately." Heh heh. I should make that, actually.

A german soldier would be interesting, and would resonate nicely with that Lovecraft story in which a german submariner discovers a ruined temple on the bottom of the sea.

A genuinely non-human character is very unlikely (it'd have to have very complex rules in order to make it make any sense at all) but since there are so many new investigators, there might well be an 'odd' one (like the Dreamer) or maybe another child (what whatsername from kingsport).

Starting 'Lost in Time and Space' would tie in nicely with one archetypal sea-themed character: the castaway, whose ship was wrecked by Dagon or whatever. He could have a talking basketball as a fixed ally.

These ideas are too good for me to jsut sit around waiting to see if they happen. I may have to make some custom investigators myself.

so a mi=go character is out of the question? sad

pittplayer said:

There have been quite a few attempts (in the Custom Investigators thread) to make a Yithian character, or a Mi-Go Brain-Case character, or a Deep One, and so on. Most of these attempts have involved things like "this investigator can't trade", "other investigators in the same space lose 1 sanity", "this investigator can't be arrested/LiTas/delayed", "this investigator can't gain allies", "doesn't make horror checks", "can't read Tomes", "can't go to the hospital", "switches sides during the final battle", "starts with Join The Winnng Team as a fixed item", ...

...and so on and so on. You have to re-wire the whole game. It's always been a nice idea, but usually, in order to make the alien investigator's actions seem in-keeping with the theme/story, the investigator ends up collapsing under the weight of its own rules. I'm not saying it can't be done, but no-one's come up with a good way of doing it yet - and the same problems have probably occured to Kevin Wilson, who has even more of an obligation to stick to the 'theme' of the game than we do.

I think as it stands there is 1 more girl than guy, at least I am pretty sure that is the case. The sailor, violinist, and waitress are definites.

My guesses:

Calvin Wright as a Teacher

Some kind of Federal Agent, that'd be sweet.

I would like to see a Hunter, someone that starts with a rifle.

A Banker?

Perhaps another religious character, like a priest or something.

A farmer seems like a good idea that hasn't been utilized.

Perhaps a pilot of some kind? That would be a good one to tie into The Great War

stick with the theme of the game? and that would be basing it on lovecraft, right? non human or half human characters are stock in trade in lovecraft, plus do we really need more waitresses and singers and crossing guards? Those half been done to death, lets do something diff with this exp. Releasing the same things over and over is boring and i dont want to spend $50 on more plumber characters. I do get your point about being a regular joe versus the mythos is the basis of the game, i really do get it, but do u get my point. Variety!! Lets make stuff to please all players, not just a few.

stick with the theme of the game? and that would be basing it on lovecraft, right? non human or half human characters are stock in trade in lovecraft, plus do we really need more waitresses and singers and crossing guards? Those half been done to death, lets do something diff with this exp. Releasing the same things over and over is boring and i dont want to spend $50 on more plumber characters. I do get your point about being a regular joe versus the mythos is the basis of the game, i really do get it, but do u get my point. Variety!! Lets make stuff to please all players, not just a few.

pittplayer said:

I think that "theme of the game" in this context means the 'story behind the investigators struggle' - and the game's content assumes a fairly narrow definition of that story, so really every investigator has to be a "human from the 1920s who is investigating the mysteries of the Mythos in order to prevent disaster". Of course there is quite a bit of flexibility there - I don't see why the occasional time-traveller can't turn up, for example, in keeping with The Shadow Out of Time and even The Transition of Titus Crow.

wouldnt the only thing that a character need be based on your concept be that the investigator be against the mythos? You can be nonhuman and still be struggling againt the mythos, right? I dont get why they have to be human babysitters and bartenders.

i do get what you are saying and yes most should be reg joes but all i am saying is come on lets have some fun! Make a couple crazy characters.

There's no reason that an alien investigator 'clashes' as such (the Yithians are probably just as opposed to Cthulhu as humanity is, maybe moreso) but the credibility problem isn't with their motives so much as with their methods. How do you explain why a Yithian has been made Deputy of Arkham? Why would a Yithian be scared of other Yithians? Why would it have such trouble in the City of the Great Race?

None of these things are actually problems - it's easy enough to ignore them and just enjoy the fun of being a conical alien with five arms - but usually, when someone tries to create special rules to 'solve' these problems, you end up with an investigator whose 'special abilities' contain more rules than an entire expansion rulebook.

What we really need - now that I think of it - is a rules sheet, herald or scenario which establishes a base set of rules for alien investigators and what they can and can't do. That way, all the boring rules ("alien investigators can't take out bank loans" or whatever rubbish people want) can be available seperately, leaving room on the investigator sheets for interesting stuff, and meaning that people who don't care about the theme elements can just ignore all the fiddly exceptions.

Making "crazy" characters often ends up as a) gimmicky characters, or b) characters which try to dictate a particular playing style to the player. The advantage of the boring ordinary regular Joe Soap characters is that the player can 'customize' them during a game by playing them in a particular way.

Still, I agree - let's go for it....as soon as I can think up some actual ideas that will work.

From the image at www.trictrac.net/reportages/centre/20090207_nuremberg/imagerie/181.jpg is it quite obvious that Calvin will return as an investigator, ot at least so it seem if you look at the most right part of the box.

The numbers of Male and Female investigators are currently equal.

A Yithian walks into a bar.

Are the patrons really going to buy him a drink and challenge him to a game of darts?

Only humans, please. Or at the very least, one human with supernatural powers. But they have those already (Jacqueline fine, particularly; anyone with a spell come to think of it).

On the other hand...the Mythos IS full of aliens that conveniently take human shape for a while:

The Great Race of Yith survives by transferring their consciousnesses into the bodies of other species (The Shadow Out Of Time)

The Shan are capable of parasitically 'nesting' in human hosts (The Insects from Shaggai)

And don't the Mi-Go have some trick to do with constructing artificial human bodies for themselves? (might be in The Whisperer in Darkness)

But since a human-that-turns-out-to-be-an-alien is nearly always intended to be a source of horror in a story, it's not a very appropriate thing to actually play as.

nether is it appropriate to use the necronomicon or use soul shattering spells, or for that matter make all the other players lose the game, but arkham horror still has those in the game. i dont understand why people are so against my idea.

All those other elements you named are plausible. There could be a traitor, spells can be cast--the Necronomicon is a prevelant element in the Mythos. But, an alien character that looks and acts like a human, down to being horrified by hearing his name whispered by the echos in the Witch House--not really practical. That's really what we're against.

Insanity and horror are in the domain of the human, and if you're going to make an alien character then you'd need to re-write the rules regarding sanity, and pick and choose half the currently published Arkham encounters and say the character can't have them, because they don't make sense.

Varied alien protagonists and PCs is the domain of Cosmic Encounter. Humanity as the sole protagonist against mind-warping cosmic horrors is the domain of Arkham Horror. And Doom too, I guess.

pittplayer said:

I'm not against it, I'm just trying to weigh up the pros and cons! And this thread is meant to be about guessing what will happen, not what we'd like to happen, right?

Cthulhu Mythos aliens are extremely alien and part of their appeal (by which I mean, their repulsiveness) is how totally incomprehensible they are to human intellects. And the investigator rules were mainly designed to cope with humans, who will all fear/flee/fight the same sorts of things. If you have characters who have a significantly different outlook to the rest of the investigators, you have to twist the rules to cope with it, and usually it's too difficult to do, since you don't get much space for special abilities on an investigator sheet.

I know that we on the forums might not care about any of these reasons, but I think that Kevin Wilson probably does, which is why I guess we won't be able to play as a Yithian of a Nug-Soth or a Mi-Go.

If you want to have a go at making a balanced, playable "alien" investigator in Strange Eons, go nuts! But beware... for it's an endeavour that's driven many an Arkham Horror fan mad...

I am not saying they should make a completely alien character that you need to change all the rules for, i just want more variety in characters, 300 year old wizards that live underground, agents with their minds twisted by mi-go, researchers who have lived on Yuggoth for years, etc. What is wrong with that?? And in regards to that you can play aliens in other games, soooo????? I play Arkham Horror and i think it would work.

And i was trying to guess what would happen with innsmouth characters, and now i am defending my ideas.

—pittplayer said:

No, you're right. This thread was about guessing what the investigators are going to be, not what we want them to be. But in that case, I wouldn't get my hopes up for anything too different than what has already been published—at least from a common, mundane, citizen standpoint. Like I said earlier, there will likely be 15 investigators who start in stable locations—that leaves room for one oddball who either starts in an unstable place but who has a supernatural ability with regards to getting drawn into gates, or who starts in Lost in Time and Space or something completely bananas. There is still room for an absurdly old Wizard or someone else with a wacky affliction. Just don't expect more than one.

Or the sucker could start in jail, it just occurred to me.