[RPG]: Call of Cthulhu, reviewed by Travire (5/5)

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12370.phtml

Neil Lennon's Summary:

By far and away the best roleplaying game ever ! Deserving of the numerous awards and accolades it has been given, Call of Cthulhu goes from strength to strength. A must have for every serious roleplayer.

Go to the full review for more information.

[Fulsrush]

A good review there, even if it could have delved more deeply into what the system's like.

For example, what do you think of the Resistance Table, or the fact that the game prefers to use multipliers of your stat for stat rolls, rather than modifiers?

Do you find the combat rules to be poorly laid out, being interspersed as they are with pages of skill descriptions? (I do - this would be a prime area for reworking the format of the book if I ever had the honour of the task.)


And Style 5? This edition is an improvement on 5.5 so far as illustrations go, but I think it's got a long way to go before it's on a par with games like Artesia or the D&D corebooks. (Or the d20 Call of Cthulhu book, actually.)

I'd probably place Style as a 4, myself, and be tempted to drop Substance to 4 as well, due to the outdated clunkiness of some core mechanics (specifically, the Resistance Table - I ignore it and use opposed rolls, myself).

[kyouki]

There's a new edition of CoC on the way?

[Ron]

I would give a 5 in style to my 20th anniversary edition and a 2 to WotC's D&D core books, which have a clear but uninspiring text with great illustrations in an eye hurting layout and awfull covers. There is a lot of taste in this score and thus is not that useful. The review itself is very nice, although Fulsruch has some points regarding the resistance table.

[Fulsrush]

6th Ed's been out since 2004. I picked it up either last summer or just after it came out.

Good point there, Ron, about the D&D books. They're colourful but... it's not exactly inspirational stuff. That'd be where CoC's technically lower quality production comes into its own - it's atmospheric and does a good job of conveying the world of the Mythos (the 20s and 1890s versions, anyway).

I suppose the Style points aren't just for the technical brilliance of a product, but about whether the artwork, layout etc. support the ethos of the product.

[TrippyHippy]

I really have no issue with style at all, although the Character sheets for modern games and NPCs (the half page one) had some irritating typos. It was also, in my opinion, a mistake to go softback - the hardback first printing looks much better.

The game itself is an all time classic, without question, and is certainly one of my favourite games. There are a few nickety rules and ommissions that could have been ironed out in the new edition though: -

- There is no Mathematics skill listed - which is a bit of a major ommision in my opinion. It is, however, listed in the Keeper's Companion and Delta Green, so I really think they could have made an effort to include it in the new edition.

- Characteristic SAN is functionless and measured on a different scale to other Characteristics. It should be removed, with Sanity simply becoming a calculated attribute alone, like Hit points. Characteristic SAN is already represented effectively by the POW score anyway. In our games, we have replaced the Characteristic SAN slot on the character sheet with a Charm roll score (APPx5). It makes absolutely no difference to the game when played, but it does avoid some confusion.

- The DEXterity characteristic seems slightly redundant, only being used to determine Initiative and Dodge scores. I feel that some of the athletic skills could have been based on DEX+STR (like Climb and Jump). Personally, I'd prefer all these skills to be consolidated into one Athletics skill, but that's just me.

- Psychoanalysis is an inappropriate term in contemporary games, as it's widely discredited as a serious therapy in modern psychiatry. The rules allude to this themselves, but again there is no adjustment made on the modern day character sheet.

- The Resistance Table seems to present a very complex ruling when it is, in fact, just a simple equation in practice. The illusion of complexity isn't necessary.

All of these things are fairly peripheral and are, in fact, more issues of presentation than anything else. Nevertheless, seeing that they've raised these issues themselves in various suppliments, you'd think that Chaosium would have integrated these points into the core rules by now.

[Axiomatic]

I still say it's wrong to illustrate most, if not all of Lovecraftian monsters.

[Fulsrush]

I'd prefer them to redraw some of their monster illustrations - for example, the Cthulhu Dark Ages and Delta Green interpretations of the Mi-Go are excellent, far better than the uninspiring picture in the monster chapter.

[kyouki]

"With a new edition of Call of Cthulhu on the way ( 6th Edition for those keeping count ! ) I thought now would be a good time to write a review of what to me has long been my favourite roleplaying game."

Does anyone know anything about this? I was thinking of picking CoC 6 up, but if a new edition is on the way, I will wait for it.

[Travire]

Sorry, I think I'm getting my Editions mixed up. As far as I can tell 6th Edition is actually the latest edition, not a new edition. Its all fairly academic though as the rules vary very little from one edition to the next. I still use version 5.6 as the hardback cover makes it a thing of beauty, but I also have a 3rd edition softback and a 2nd edition boxed set of the rules. Most of the changes are to incorporate extra chapters taken from supplements, or small changes to how many points a character gets to spend on skills. You could still play recently published Call of Cthulhu adventures using 1st edition rules, without any problems though.

I didn't mention the Resistance Table as its not a major part of the game. Most sessions you'll never use it but it is useful when matching a PC's attribute against an NPC's attribute ( say STR vs STR in an arm wrestling competition ). It is fairly easy to calculate and the equation is given in the rules, but the table provides a quick and easy reference.

There is an Accountancy skill in the game which might make Mathematics fairly redundant, but if you like it its easy to add new skills to the game. NPC's have all sorts of none standard skills listed which could be used by players if they wanted. The system is flexible enough to add any skill you like, and a lot of free choice is given in character generation to pick new skills like this.

The characteristic SAN is a measure of a characters maximum sanity. Its different to the other ability scores as you never roll on it, but it is important to know. The higher your skill in Cthulhu Mythos the lower this ability gets, limiting your ability to recover fully after what you have found out.

Dexterity could be used to help determine the base percentage score of a couple more skills I'd agree. But the focus of a characters attributes is normally to provide a score to roll on when no skill fits. Its more often used to roll against DEX x 5 or something similar to perform a dexterous action not covered by skills.

Psychoanalysis is a skill which originates in the classic 1920's game but seems to get left in no matter what period you play. In the 1920's it was a fashionable area of mental health and there were few alternatives. It still remains a widely used and effective treatment of a persons mental health even today though ( I seem to remember Frasier is a Freudian psychiatrist ). If you wanted you could always rename the skill 'Counselling' for more modern games, to represent the wider range of treatments available.

One point I would agree with is that I think it was a mistake to try and illustrate every single monster in the Cthulhu Mythos. While some of these pictures are very good, all it takes is one bad drawing to ruin your image of that creature as something horrifying enough to damage your sanity. In general though I like the artwork, most of which has stayed in the book since the early days. The pen and ink drawings are particularly effective at creating a dark and somber mood. If I'd make one improvement to the game though it would be to go back to the black sillouettes they used for monsters in second edition. These were enough to show the general shape and size of the creatures but left the rest to the imagination.