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CALL OF CTHULHU GAME
GUIDE
Posted by Andrew E. on July 28, 2020
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Summoning the Old Gods for Fun and Profit
What’s A Cthulhu?
What’s Call of Cthulhu Like?
Lovecraftian Horror
Lethal Gameplay
What Books Do I Need?
Optional Books
Setting Books
Core Mechanics
Creating a Call of Cthulhu Character
Damage Bonus and Build
Bottom Line, Should I Play Call of Cthulhu?
WHAT’S A CTHULHU?
:
Nerd culture has soaked up Lovecraftian horror like a sponge
but if you’re still blessedly ignorant allow me to open your
eyes to the terrible truth. Fundamentally, Cthulhu lore (or the
“mythos”) all stems from the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
Lovecraft was a little-known horror and science-fiction writer
from the turn of the 20th century (with some rather
regrettable racial views) who garnered a massive following
long after his death. While never truly linked in any sort of
continuity, his works and lore centered around “the old ones”
and other mysterious entities have been combined into one
sweeping world in which humanity is under constant threat
and matters very little.
LOVECRAFTIAN HORROR
:
If you come into Call of Cthulhu and try to play it like D&D
with more fish monsters, you’re going to have a bad time.
This system is designed for a horror setting, and all the
monster and character abilities reflect that. The combat
systems are very simple and rely on narrative description and
there’s no classes or real character powers to speak of. The
game wants to spend the majority of gameplay investigating
a mystery, slowly learning the horrible truth, and more often
than not simply running in terror when the threat is finally
uncovered. If you try to run it like a “monster of the week”
battling system, you’ll find it blatantly unfair and rather bland.
It’s in the subtle hints and creeping suspicions that Call of
Cthulhu really shines. The horror genre isn’t the same as an
adventure genre with spookier monsters and treating this
system like an adventure game will likely just get all the
players killed.
LETHAL GAMEPLAY
Player characters in Call of Cthulhu won’t have a good life
expectancy regardless of how benevolent or cruel their DM
is. Even the weakest eldritch creatures around will likely take
an investigator or two out with them and most monster
entries are leagues beyond any thought of simply “taking
them on”. In Call of Cthulhu players shouldn’t get too
attached to their characters, and it’s rare to see an individual
investigator survive through multiple adventures. Even those
:
that do survive will likely be forever scarred both physically
and mentally, rotting away in insane asylums or too
traumatized from their near-death encounters to ever delve
into the occult again. Horror is not a genre ripe with happy
endings.
OPTIONAL BOOKS
Pulp Cthulhu takes everything I said about weak
investigators and a high mortality rate and throws it out the
window. Pulp turns the game from horror to horror adventure,
the stakes are still high, but the investigators are given a
fighting chance with expanded options and abilities. It shifts
the gameplay expectations away from fleeing the horror
towards actually fighting the horror with some expectation of
victory. This is the book you’ll need if you were wanting to
run Call of Cthulhu more like a D&D game.
SETTING BOOKS
From the core books, Call of Cthulhu is set primarily within
1920’s America or England with the optional rules needed to
play from the 1920’s all the way through to the modern era.
And while you would be right in thinking Call of Cthulhu is a
setting all its own, they’ve expanded your possibilities
between several radically different flavors of eldritch horror.
CORE MECHANICS
Call of Cthulhu is a d100 system, which means when you do
things and need to check for success, you’ll be rolling a pair
of d10’s commonly called percentile dice.
They’re used far less commonly, but you’ll also need the rest
of the common “polyhedral” dice for a few things, meaning
you’ll need at least 1 d4, d6, d8, and d20.
For the most part though, both the investigators and the
keeper will be rolling percentile dice whenever they need to
determine the outcome of an action, with the keeper only
rolling rarely when players need to roll opposed checks
against NPCs.
:
Each investigator has 8 characteristics that describe their
characters and dictate how strong/fast/smart they are, Etc.
They’ll also have any number of skills that detail how well
they’ll perform at certain actions.
For example:
Let’s change this example up and say the chasm is now 12-
feet wide. The Keeper decides that this would be a hard
jump check. Now because it is a hard check, our
investigator must roll equal to or under half his skill to
:
succeed. He’ll roll percentile dice, and on a result of 25 or
lower he’ll succeed on his jump, if he rolls above 25, he’ll fall.
Step 1: Characteristics
Dexterity determines how fast you can move and how well
you can dodge incoming attacks. Find your DEX by rolling
3d6 and multiplying by 5.
Step 2: Age
Step 3: Attributes
Your Hit Points keep track of how much punishment you can
take before dying (an important number to know). To find
your hit points simply add your CON and SIZ together and
dividing that total by 10 (round down). So, for example, an
investigator with 70 CON and 49 SIZ would have a total of 11
hit points.
If both STR and DEX are each less than SIZ: MOV = 7
If both STR and DEX are each greater than SIZ: MOV = 9
2 - 64 -2 -2
65 - 84 -1 -1
85 - 124 None 0
Your occupation will also give you a range for a special skill
called a credit rating. The credit rating is 7th edition’s
solution to the whole “paying your taxes” section from old
editions and serves to cut out the micromanagement when it
comes to money. Your credit rating is a skill, and you’ll have
to spend your skill points on it like any other. But your credit
rating isn’t used for skill checks, instead it determines how
wealthy your investigator is, and what they can afford.
And the last thing you gain from your occupation is your
suggested contacts. These aren’t things you actually need
to set up ahead of time, but you’re investigators, and
investigators need to ask a lot of people a lot of questions.
Say there’s eldritch trouble afoot with a suspicious circus in
town. The acrobat occupation specifically lists circuses and
carnivals under their suggested contacts, and your acrobat
investigator may well have an in with the big top that gets the
players past the tent flap where they would have been turned
away otherwise.
Step 5: Equipment
Step 6: Backstory
--
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ENJOY THIS GUIDE? YOU
MAY ALSO LIKE:
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are perfect for every gamer as a gift or just treating yourself!
DISCLAIMER
Last updated: January 27, 2019
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Blueshift Nine, LLC does not warrant that the Service is free
of viruses or other harmful components.
AFFILIATE DISCLAIMER
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