Call of Cthulhu D20 is a very handsome book and an enormously fun game, which actively encourages the players to make it as frightening and complex as they like.
Post originally by Balbinus at 2003-03-18 06:16:03
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Hm, after posting my hymn of praise I do have a criticism. What happened in play?
You don't go into that a lot. I'd love to hear what level the characters were at, what kind of adventure you ran, how the game worked in play, whether anything seemed odd in the rules during play and so on.
It's a playtest review, not a capsule one. This is a great capsule review but more details on actual play would be really useful since you did actually playtest the game.
Post originally by Ben Counter at 2003-03-18 08:56:07
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I'm glad you liked the review!
I didn't give too many specifics on the games I ran becuase the review is already pretty long. Also, I didn't think the specifics of the rules were the most important bit of the game, but I agree I didn't put much in about the way the rules reflect the nature of the game's background. I'd say they do it very well - in my experience a couple of zombies can easily kill a 1st-level player who's on his own, for instance. That sort of thing makes the whole thing scary but, since players can always run away, means that supernaturally horrid things can be confronted and survived without just fighting them.
My experience with the game mostly comes from a campaign I ran with my local gaming club, with four players. They were all members of a private investigation agency who, while working on a missing persons case involving several hundred adolescents who disappeared from a South London housing estate, stumbled on a cult serving a Great Old One that I made up (can I do that? Oh well, I did). They tracked the cult to a remote Scottish island where the mad cult leader was trying to summon a couple of huge monsters by having the kids fight each other to the death in a big battle while he watched.
I found the rules to be very suitable to a low-combat sort of game. The Sanity rules, for instance, means there's always a threat in the game mechanics even if the players never meet anything to fight. The aforementioned zombie incident also occured during this campaign, which showed me that the game encourages that players to do very logical things, like run away when shambling corpses start lumbering towards them. The magic system, I found, was also very flavourful and scary -the characters only had one spell (Red Sign of Shudde M'ell, which is a cool hurty spell) but it made a massive dramatic difference because it could have a major effect and caused the caster to go bonkers after a couple of uses.
I also ran a couple of one-offs with friends. In one the PCs were passengers on board a coach which broke down in the wrong small town (an adventure I'm planning to run at GenCon UK next month - I think people can sign up now if they want) and in the other they were at an art gallery when mad cultists burst in, took everyone hostage, and started trying to wake the statue which was actually a petrified Servitor of the Outer Gods. These were both very cool, too - I find the game is really suited to a 'short story' sort of play where the GM has a finite story planned out that the players get to the end of it before moving onto the next one. 'Freeform' campaigns where the PCs can do what they like and pursue their own goals probably wouldn't work as well, since the conflict needs to be more focused for the horror elements to come through effectively and the game benefits from crerepy 'set pieces' or wierd or violent events.
I ran the End of Paradise sample adventure, too, although it wasn't quite as satisfying (although it was very thoroughly done, with things like sample DCs for Gather Information checks which makes things easier on the GM).
Post originally by Trevor Brierly at 2003-03-18 09:26:01
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Great review! You've inspired me to do something which I didn't really want to do, which is to buy a d20 book, and in particular this one. I'm a fan of the Chaosium version, and had nothing but scorn when I heard they were doing a d20 version. But I can be corrected, and I thank you for doing so!
One thing you might have added, is that there are a staggering number of supplements, modules, and other material for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu. It sounds like the d20 and Chaosium versions are close enough that much of the material from Chaosium, etc. could also be helpful for the d20 version.
Post originally by Danny Shaw at 2003-03-18 11:58:56
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I own both versions of the CoC game and, as a general rule, while a quite like the d20 system for various games, I,m not sure it quite gels with Cthulu.
It seems slightly bizarre to have a level based system, working along side sanity. After all, as you sanity drops quite rapidly (sometimes) its going to take much less time for your characters to go insane then it is for them to gain high levels. This kind of defeats the whole point of a level bases system, where gaining enough XP to increase hitpoints, skills etc is one of fundemental rewards of the game. Prehaps it would have been better to tie sanity to levels (i.e, sanity points could replace xp to a degree, sanity rewards for defeating foes, etc etc.) Its just an idea, all be it probably not a very good one.
Any one have any thoughts on this matter? Agree or Disagree?
Post originally by andy at 2003-03-18 12:58:06
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That's okay, since having a high-level cthulhu character in d20 would ruin the game anyway. There's a certain lack of fear once you have 40 hit points. Ghoul? Whatever, I'll beat it to death with my flashlight before it kills me.
Of course, until you get to be high-level, you won't have any skills you can depend on. There is in fact no way to make the high-skill low hitpoint character that is a Cthulhu staple.
I found the d20 CoC to be pretty deeply flawed for these reasons.
Post originally by harbinger at 2003-03-18 13:54:31
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HUH?
You can fairly easily get characters with a +10 in a skill at first level. This would allow that charater to acheive a 30 on a task that he could take 20 on.
how is this an unskilled character?
He is also first level and has a maximum of 10 hit points.
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