And the victims are...

Humans. That's what I want my players to be running. Normal, everyday humans. No superheroes. No mages. Just ordinary people finding themselves exposed to extraordinary events.

In thinking about this I reckon I've made my decision about the system I'm going to base this game on. As mentioned in my earlier post, I can see a lot of similarity between the game I have planned in my head and the existing roleplaying game "Call of Cthulhu", so why try and re-walk ground already trodden? I'm going to use the Chaosium CoC system for my Hellraiser game.

This works well for me as it's a game about normal people facing unspeakable horrors, and it means it already has the idea of the player as an ordinary person built into it. It also have several other elements which make it a good fit for what I'm planning. Firstly, there are several different expansions for Call of Cthulhu which offer rules, items, skills, etc for different time periods. The idea of running a game which spans from the early 19th Century, through the 1920's and into the present really appeals to me, especially if the past actions of the characters has repercussions in later period games!

Secondly, CoC has a ritual based magic system. Yes, I know I said earlier that there wouldn't be any mages, and there won't be, BUT there is provenance for magic in Hellraiser, but it will be very rare and complicated stuff linked (most likely) to secret societies and individuals. We're not talking about throwing fireballs at Cenobites here! Magic will be ritual based and may not even be available to players.

Thirdly, "Sanity Rules"... I love the idea of insanity in Call of Cthulhu, and how you can deduct points from players as they see things that distress them. It's very much something I'd like to bring into the Hellraiser game. After all, if you stumbled across skinless Uncle Frank in your attic room, I'm damned sure you'd lose a few sanity points! ;)

Anyway, I'll have a look at specific changes to the CoC rules set once I've had a re-read through them and had a think about what specifically needs to be in a Hellraiser game.