Call of Cthulhu d20 RPG

Overall score:

This was a difficult review to write. I had to come at it from two completely different angles. Those of you who are familiar with the old Call of Cthulhu game will want something completely different then those who’ve never heard of Lovecraft. So, I’ll do this the easy way--I’ll split the article in two. If you’re familiar with all things Lovecraftian, go ahead and skip the first section. If not, read on.

Intro to the Cthulhu Mythos

"The Call of Cthulhu" was a story written by a man named H.P. Lovecraft, an early 1900’s American horror writer. While the game is named after that story, it actually incorporates something much more vast. Lovecraft approached most of his stories with a consistent world-view, and he often addressed similar themes. As he wrote more and more stories, he developed a kind of overarching connection between his stories. While they were all independent, many of them mentioned the same fictional towns, people, artifacts, and ‘deities.’

This is a simplistic explanation of what has become known as the "Cthulhu Mythos," the fictional Cosmogony that connected many of Lovecraft’s stories. The world he described is a dark, hope-shattering place where mankind is an infinitesimal blip in the timeline of the universe. In ages past, great powerful beings beyond the comprehension of our feeble minds ruled the planet we call Earth. Many of them, or their servants, still exist, and someday they will rise up again to rule where they once did. When that happens, mankind will be no more.

Lovecraft’s stories were not splatter-horror. Rather, they were about the horror of insignificance, the fear that there really is no benevolent deity, that mankind really is nothing. His characters usually ended up going mad by the end of the story--a transformation heightened by the fact that most of the stories were told in the first person. Poor, average people with too much curiosity--or too much bad luck--got sucked into a world they would much rather not have known, and it ends up being too much for them.

The game tries its best to recreate that feeling. In the original Cthulhu RPG, made by Chaosium Inc, players played ‘Investigators’ who got drawn into the world of the Great Old Ones and, despite the odds, fought against the inevitable doom of mankind. That original game was fun, but it was hindered by the fact that it was made by a smaller company with limited distribution and ability to release support materials. Still, it gained quite a following amongst players for its focus on storytelling and ambiance.

The D20 update

The authors of this new version (one of whom is Monte Cook, who had a great deal to do with the design of the new D&D system) wanted to maintain as much of the original game as possible, and they did an amazing job. I was surprised at how well they managed to adapt the D20 rules to Cthulhu gameplay. Unlike D&D, Cthulhu is very story and skill based, and usually incorporates very little fighting. 90% of the ‘monsters’ you might run into would be able to chew threw PC’s without even pausing to take a breath. (In the original game, I seem to remember that Great Cthulhu automatically ate 1d4 PCs a round if you ever tried to fight him.) So the same system that works for hack and slash D&D works just as well for skill-based detective work—impressive.

In this game there are no classes. It’s like everyone was a peasant--or, rather, an expert--from D&D. You go up levels, but your only choice for advancement is whether your character is offense-themed (which means your attack bonus goes up faster) or defense-themed (which means your saves go up faster.) You only gain feats when you hit the level marks (third, sixth, ninth, etc,) and there are no level-dependent magical abilities or powers.

As one could imagine, skills become very important in such a game. Every character gets eight (plus intelligence, of course) skill points a level. In addition, when you create your character, you get to choose a number of ‘class’ skills based on your profession.

Character creation is amazingly easy, as you can probably tell. While the combat system is the same as that of D&D, it has been simplified in a few cases because combat isn’t the focus of the game. Instead, it’s sanity.

Sanity is a holdover from the original Chaosium game, and is the biggest new rule in the d20 system. Every character has between one and a hundred Sanity points, and when you see something scary/unsettling, you make a d100 roll. If you get under your roll, you remain in control. If you get over it, you lose some sanity points. (Making it easier to fail your next roll.) If you lose too many at once, you can go temporarily insane. If you ever drop below zero, you lose your character permanently.

Just like the original game--and the stories--playing Cthulhu is kind of like fighting a hopeless battle. You have to watch your player’s sanity slowly drip away, and there is little you can do to recover it. (The only way to get sanity back is to rest for a week and undergo psychological counseling. That gives you one point. If you ever see Cthulhu, you’ll probably lose around fifty points of sanity per round.)

This makes for a very interesting environment. Be warned--Cthulhu is a dark game. If you play by the strict rules, your character’s fall is inevitable. The fun of the game is in the atmosphere, the role-playing, and the struggle. It’s a hard game. You start off with six hit points, and there are no healing spells, no armor, and the weak enemies--cultists that serve the great ones--have machine guns. It’s tough, and probably isn’t for beginning role-players. Most of the adventures are very open-ended, forcing you to use your wits to figure out what you’re even supposed to be doing.

I’m the type that likes a challenge, and this sort of limited-resources game appeals to me. However, if you like dungeon crawling or super-powerful characters, this isn’t the game for you. You’ll probably find it frustrating, depressing, and slow-moving. There are rules in the book for changing the game to give it a more fast-paced, hack-and-slash feel. (Think Night of the Living Dead, as opposed to a Tool video.) There’s even a large section in the back on converting D&D to Cthulhu and vice versa. However, the book costs forty dollars, so I think you could probably find better places to spend your money if you’re simply looking for a D&D sourcebook.

The book itself is wonderful. As I’ve said, I’m amazed at how different the game is from D&D--despite using almost exactly the same rules. It gives you a wonderful feeling for Lovecraft’s world and the Mythos, and it does an excellent job of maintaining the old game’s feel while upgrading it to more standardized rules. The magic system appeals to me (spells of the highest power can be cast by people of the lowest levels--you just have to be willing to pay the price) and the book is stuffed full of information. It includes monsters, rules, spells, GM advice, Mythos explanation, rules for playing in several different time periods, and two sample adventures. That, along with the hard-binding, makes it worth the expensive price to me.

I give the game five out of six as a warning--it isn’t for everyone. It can be a dark, depressing game, and requires a lot of skill--and proactivity--to enjoy. If you want D&D stay away. But if you’re looking for a new gaming experience, and you’re tired of hacking down yet another orc, this is the place to turn.

Note for Chaosium players

I’ll admit, my experience with the old Cthulhu game is limited, though I’ve long been a Lovecraft fan. I read through the main rule book, but it’s been a long time, and I never could find anyone to play it with me. I’ll go off memory and give you my impression of the difference between the games.

The most important aspect of the original--sanity--has been retained in its entirety. In addition, this book is far more thorough about sanity, its effects, and different inanities players can get. However, I get the impression that this version is a little bit easier--meaning it’s a little tougher to permanently lose a character due to insanity.

The combat system is, of course, completely different. However, I think the D20 system is well-done, and suits the game very well, since it can be played very simply. The other main aspect of the game, the skills, correlate fairly well, though the D20 system has always struck me as being too unbalancing when it comes to skills. It seems to me that a character usually has either a ridiculously easy time making a check, or nearly no chance whatsoever. However, this can be compensated for by the GM.

There are rules in the back for converting old Cthulhu characters to the new system, but it seems kind of ridiculous to do so. The old system didn’t have feats or even (I think) levels.

My suspicion is that hardcore fans will keep playing the original simply because of nostalgia’s sake. Even so, there is an awful lot of good information in this book, so you might want to consider it even if only for reference purposes.

EUOL

Written by EUOL on April 23rd, 2002