My general philosophy on the die rolling in this game...do what you need to do, be as outrageous as you need to be, and we'll play it out in a truly cinematic fashion.

Don't sweat it too much, you will be hauling unlicensed particle accelerators on your backs, there WILL be property damage.

All right...Characters.

Your character sheet will look like this:

Name

TRAITS TALENT(S)
Brains/
Muscles/
Moves/
Cool/

Brownie Points:

Goal

Now...to define it...

Ghostbusters have four Traits: Brains, Muscle, Moves, and Cool.

Each Trait is assigned a numerical value. The higher number a Trait is, the better a character does when using it. You have twelve (12) points to allot among your Ghostbusters’s Traits. You must assign at least one point to each Trait, and you may not assign more than five points to any one Trait.

Brains
 Brains shows how smart your Ghostbuster is. Very smart people (Brains/5 or more) can do calculus in their heads, write computer programs which work the first time they run, and speak foreign languages like a native. Bozos like to watch Lost in Space reruns on TV without realizing its a rerun.

Muscle
 Muscle tells how strong your Ghostbuster is. Strong Ghostbusters (Muscle/5 or more) can rip phone books in half, intimidate puny characters at a glance, bite the caps off beer bottles, or throw bureaucrats into the garbage. Weaklings get their tongues caught on postage stamps.

Moves
 Moves determines how dexterous and physically adept your Ghostbuster is. Ghostbusters with decent Moves scores are better at shooting guns, catching baseballs dodging or throwing rocks, observing, picking locks, juggling, driving, and creeping a long ledges. They like to flirt, they like disguises and they like to dress up. Maladroits get personal things caught in their zippers.

Cool
 Cool people are bold, brave, and brassy. Cool people have aplomb - they don’t scare themselves into useless activity, and they know their own capacities with a Cool/5, you maintain your pace, even if you show up at a black-tie ball in a chicken suit. On the other hand, a Ghostbuster with Cool/1 calls the FBI when his toilet backs up.


Next, skills...or in our line of work, Talents. In Ghostbusters, unlike real life, characters can do a lot of cool things and get away with it, usually. Smart folks know lots of stuff about lots of stuff, Strong folks gots lots of Muscles, Quick folks gots Moves, and Fonzie, well, he's got Cool.

If you want your Ghostbuster to have a Talent not on this list, why not talk it over with me first? I'm your friend. You know I am.

I'm sure I'll be reasonable about it.

Oh. You get four Talents, one per Trait. If you have a Trait of five (5) or above, you get second Talent for that Trait. Talents are the Trait Level Plus 3 - a Trait of 3 would give you a Talent of 6.

Brains
 Here is a short list of Brains Talents: Accounting, Anthropology, Archaeology, Astronomy, Biology, Botany, Bureaucratics, Chemistry, Deduce, Electronics, Electrical Repair, Geology, Guess, Hair Styling, History, Journalism, Library Science, Linguistics, Mathematics, Mechanical Repair, Medicine, Occult, Parapsychology, Physics, Psychoanalysis, Soap Opera Romances, Sports Facts, Zoology

Muscle
 Here's a list of a Muscles Talents: Brawl, Break Things, Climb, Gobble Food, Grapple, Intimidate, Jump, Kick Things Over, Lift, Rip Things Open, Run, Swim, Wrestle

Moves
 A Ghostbuster could have one of the following Moves Talents: Attract Attention, Balance, Breakdance, Catch, Disguise, Dodge, Drive Vehicle, Fire Weapon, Gossip, Hide, Listen, Make Music, Pick Pocket, Seduce, See, Sleight of Hand, Sneak, Sniff, Strut, Throw

Cool
 Here are some Cool-type Talents: Bargain, Bluff, Borrow, Browbeat, Charm, Convince, Fast Talk, Orate, Play Poker, Play Stock Market, Raise Children, Tell Fibs


Finally, tipping the dice in your favor - you, as new Ghostbusters, each start with 20 Brownie Points. After that, you'll earn Brownie Points as rewards when they succeed at their mission or achieve Goals.

It's nice to get recognition for a job well done, you know?

When the Ghostbusters are doing badly, they lose Brownie points and receive parking tickets, abusive calls from their creditors, and long stays in the hospital.

Brownie Points are more than measurements of how well your character’s doing, however. To some extent, Brownie Points let you rewrite the script - to have your characters attempt incredible feats or bail themselves out of terrible jams.

You spend your Brownie Points to increase your character's chances of succeeding at difficult tasks. For each Brownie Point you spend, you can roll one additional die when your character is attempting to use a Trait or Talent. You have to decide to spend the Brownie Points before your roll; you cannot use them to reroll failed dice.

Brownie Points can also be used to cut down the bad effects when your character is hurt. For example, if he or she has to go to a hospital, each Brownie Point you spend at the time of the accident reduces hospital time by a week.

If your character does something that is amazingly stupid – that should, by all rights, mean his immediate and permanent extinction – the Ghostmaster can, instead of crushing him like a grape, allow your character to spend Brownie points to avoid the fate he or she so richly deserves.

If you ever find that you have 30 Brownie points you don't know what to do with, you can buy an additional point to add to one of your Traits (This option is available only if the Ghostmaster agrees).

I don't think we'll get that far - but you never know.

Oh! Last thing - Goals.

Each Ghostbuster has a goal: sex, soulless science, fame, serving humanity, or Money. This provides a focus and direction of sorts for the character to follow - Venkman was after sex, Egon, after soulless science, Ray, serving humanity, Janine, her goal was Egon, etc. Pick something that seems to fit where you want to take your character...and we're off to the races!

Oh. One more thing... Schtick.
This is something I did in a PBeM version - and we had fun with it. A Schtick is something that happens most episodes, or every episode. This can be something like, "Attempts to sell a loaded Ghost-Trap" to "Gets arrested for arguing with the cops over parking tickets", or whatever. We had one female character with the schtick, 'Ends up PG-13 naked in each episode'. That one was fun, and forced me to do something innovative each and every episode.

Questions? Post your characters and their background! I'll set the IC thread up in a while!