Call of Cthulhu

Call of Cthulhu
RPG published by Chaosium
Rule System	Basic Roleplaying System
Authors	Sandy Petersen
First Publication	1981

Call of Cthulhu is a roleplaying game based on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, in which the player characters are more or less normal guys who might be able to fire a pistol without killing themselves. They try to find the truth of all existence. In the course of their investigations, the players might find themselves fighting horrors from beyond space, such as Cthulhu, who eats 1d3 investigators per round and is generally cranky after being woken from millennia of slumber.

System

Call of Cthulhu uses the Basic Roleplaying System (BRP), first used in Runequest and also for Stormbringer, Elfquest, and a variety of other games. It uses an array of D&D-style attributes (STR, DEX, INT, CON, POW, EDU, APP, SIZ) rated on the familiar 3-18 scale (since 7ed those are on %-scale), plus around 60 skills rated as percentiles.

Basics

To perform any action, roll d100 and try to get under your skill; rolling 1/5 of your skill is a critical success, or an 'impale' on an attack. Used skills are marked and at the end of the adventure may increase by 1-3 points if you succeed in rolling under the inverse of the skill. This leads to very gradual and organic character progression, and encourages players to use as many of their skills as possible at least once per adventure. Attributes are checked in exactly the same way, though are typically multiplied to make the check passable, typically by 5. Another option is comparing them to an opposing score on a resistance table, for every point of difference the check is 5 points easier or harder, and 10 points difference is either an automatic success or failure (for example, someone with 10 STR trying to bust a door in with 12 STR has a 40% chance of doing so). Damage is handled via hit points, which for PCs never advance beyond the region of 10-20, though if they can justify it to the keeper they can get armor.

Character Generation

Chargen is a relatively long process due to the number of skills and the percentile values, although the free program Byakhee is available to speed things up. You roll attributes, select a profession, gain a bunch of skill points to spend on your professional skills, (such as archeology or painting) then a bunch more to spend on your hobbies. For instance, firing Tommy-guns (which definitely ISN'T a total waste of points).

Gameplay

Investigators are typically unable to go toe-to-toe with the monsters in CoC, so most of the game consists of investigation, exploration and gathering clues, with the investigators typically finding something they can do to either destroy or banish the thing that has been ravaging the area. Imagine Scooby-Doo, except with eldritch, inter-dimensional horrors that will almost certainly kill you or drive you mad (so basically imagine the Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated finale), and who are impervious to most weapons humans can muster outside of a goddamn Howitzer (or a passenger ship, or everyone with a boomerang) to deal with (though, shotguns should work for anything roughly man-shaped), rather than Old Man Withers dressed up as a ghost to scare away the locals.

If you are lucky your investigations will allow you to reach any sort of confrontation armed with magic (which, you guessed it, drives you insane to use), a list of the creature's weaknesses, or at least a metric fuckton of dynamite. Spot Hidden and Library Use are two of the most commonly used skills and any player that thinks a gun is useful for anything other than intimidation will be having a fun time swimming inside a Shoggoth or using it on themselves to stop the voices.

Sanity

Sanity or SAN represents your mental stability. It is capped at the inverse of your Cthulhu Mythos skill; that is to say, you cannot know what is really going on and remain sane. When you experience something terrifying you make a SAN check; if you fail you lose a random amount of SAN, and often a small amount if you succeed as well. If you lose a substantial amount (five or more in one go) you can have a panic attack, flee or any other sort of madness, though you have to roll to repress the memory of the thing you see first. If you lose a very large amount (one fifth in a game hour) you can develop phobias, mental conditions, or go insane for months on end. If you run out entirely you become an NPC, who may go insane and gibber in a corner for the rest of his life, or he may go and join the bad guys. It's not all bad though, as going insane from something mythos-related actually gives you insight into the thing you have seen.

Sanity loss is a source of both frustration and good roleplaying opportunities, as on the one hand playing out multiple personality disorder can be good fun. On the other hand being trapped in a hole with a monster is bad when one character has a darkness phobia and is curled up in the fetal position, one is claustrophobic and has fainted and one with a snake phobia who refuses to use the rope to climb out can be either frustrating or Fun for player and keeper alike.

Setting

CoC is set in the world of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos but incorporates many of the inventions of later writers and the revisions of August Derleth. The historical setting is the 1920s, the era when Lovecraft wrote most of his work, and although modern adventures are possible (and have had a healthy amount of official support over the years), the Jazz/Classic era has several advantages, such as the lack of communications, the fact that parts of the world were still unexplored, and the plausibility of just about any adult male having military experience from the recent World War. It should be noted of course that you shouldn't allow yourself to get worked up over historical accuracy, and feel free to take liberties with events. Treat it like magic - it's Lovecraftian horror, I don't need to explain it.

Some of the other more well-known settings are:

• Cthulhu Invictus: Set in the Antonine period (96AD - 180AD) of the Roman empire. The empire is (relatively) stable and the citizens are (mostly) content. Sounds great right? Except there's a shadow war going on where agents are running around the empire fighting the Mythos wherever it rears its ugly head. Roman society was extremely different from today; they controlled their citizens in ways that would make fascists blush, people tend to do things more for honour or personal glory than because it's right, and nobody will think you are crazy if you say you saw a satyr or that someone cast a spell on you (in fact some careers actually start with a spell or two).
• Cthulhu Dark Ages: And just as you were starting to get used to Rome, it collapsed! The empire fell and Europe is now a patchwork quilt of squabbling barbarian kingdoms. But the Mythos is still out there, and it represents as grave a threat as it always did. Here, the horror comes not from the Mythos threatening humanity's understanding of the world, but its religious bedrock - you should strive to shake the faith of your PCs to their core and make them doubt their God even exists! Just recently received the 7th Edition treatment from Chaosium. Included in the book is details of an Anglo-Saxon community and a bestiary to throw at it.
• Reign of Terror: Mon Dieu, it is ze French Revolution, the birthplace of modern democracy; a time of mass bloodshed, intrigue and social upheaval. In other words, the perfect setting for battles with the Mythos. More a pair of scenarios expanding on the campaign "Horror on the Orient Express" than a complete setting but it gives enough flavour and options for further expanding it into it's own thing, plus plot hooks for Keepers to expand on.
• Down Darker Trails: Strap on your six shooters and saddle up, cowboy, because you're taking on the Mythos in the days of the old American Wild West. Expansive book with lots of historical details and options to play entire campaigns in. Comes with both regular and "Pulp" rules to fit all tastes (and the increased focus on gunplay will probably see you going the Pulp route) and has at least one campaign book as of writing. Definitely worth a look.
• Cthulhu by Gaslight: Lovecraftian horror set in the Gay 90's. The 1890s, that is! This is Cthulhu adventures in Victorian London, specifically - the zenith of the British empire, the time of Sherlock Holmes, Jack the Ripper and Penny Dreadful. It's very similar to the Jazz/Classic 1920's but with some key cultural differences, namely England's vast history (remember the saying, in America a hundred years is a long time, in England a hundred miles is a long way), gross social inequality, widespread interest in occult matters, and lots and lots of fog. Enjoy!
• Achtung Cthulhu: It's World War II, but with the Mythos. Currently in limbo as the company making it, Modiphius, released a 7th edition PDF and were talking about their own rules version of the game but have gone quiet. Think commandos and OSS operations against Nazis who are probably being their usual twat selves and playing around with Mythos bullshit to give them an edge over the Allies. Has the advantage of having two major antagonists to blow away in a hail of bullets and tank fire. Definitely better used with pulp rules, as otherwise your PCs will probably be killed in a hail of gunfire before you can say "Oh shit, I forgot Nazis tend to have MP40s."

There are also expansions to set adventures in the far future, as well as the fantastical Dreamlands and post-apocalyptic settings (just in case your adventurers in the 1920s failed to stop R'lyeh rising from the deep or the forces of Nyarlathotep from opening the Great Gate). However, these settings are much less used.

The premise of Lovecraft's world is that we live in a small circle of firelight and sanity created by human civilization, and beyond that circle, the universe is dark, uncaring, and full of things with tentacles and too many eyes. Our science doesn't properly describe the universe, and to understand the true horror of reality is to go mad. Before the rise of our civilization other, non-human things owned the world, and after we fall they will own it again.

In terms of physical location, the (fortunately) fictional city of Arkham, Massachusetts is a common setting. Arkham is an amalgamation of several New England towns and contains all the massive libraries, decaying colonial houses, faux-gothic estates and inbred lunatics that one could want for an American horror setting. There is also Arkham's Miskatonic University, an organization with a worse safety record than the fucking Umbrella Corporation. If your character is a professor, he likely teaches at Miskatonic, and will therefore surely die.

CoC on /tg/

This joke is older than most of you assholes reading this page.

Call of Cthulhu is consistently popular among gamers. "Roll for SAN loss" has inevitably become a meme, used in place of "ARGH, MY EYES" or sometimes "MAN THE HARPOONS".

See Also

• Trail of Cthulhu, an updated version of the game using the GUMSHOE system.
• Delta Green, a modern-day campaign setting for the game, in which the player characters are various military or government employees.
• Old Man Henderson, the only man crazy enough to ever defeat the Great Old Ones at their own game.
• Gunslinger Rick, he shot Cthulhu back to R'lyeh. Then left to smoke a cigar. He didn't win, not on the scale of Old Man Henderson, but he did give humanity another couple of million years

External Links

• Byakhee Character Generator (Sourceforge)
• Dhole's House Character Generator includes useful tools like handout generator and supports Pulp Cthulhu
• Chaosium Inc, publishers of Call of Cthulhu
• Basic Rules
• Basic Roleplaying, the system it's based on
• Chaosium's page

Published Editions

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  First Edition

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  Second Edition

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  GW Third Edition

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  Fourth Edition

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  Fifth Edition

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  5.5-5.6 Edition

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  Seventh Edition

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  D20 Edition

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  Japanese D20 Edition