4 out of 5 rating for Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition: Keeper Rulebook
If you want to find a completely alternative roleplaying experience to Dungeons & Dragons, but one that is equally proven to create a unique atmosphere, this is probably the game you will want to turn to.
The seminal horror RPG, it marries straightforward percentile mechanics to a deeply nihilistic game world where player characters face overwhelming odds against alien monsters they can barely comprehend (and to attempt to do so drives them insane!). It works by celebrating the primacy of intelligent investigation over violent confrontation.
I don’t like a number of the rule changes in the latest edition as I feel they undermine this original premise a little. The characters created and new rules added tend to emulate pulp action primarily, while the mechanics are made a tad more complex overall. They may have removed the Resistance table from previous editions, for example, but they have replaced it with an equally complex degrees of success table. The combat and chase chapters massively expand on what was previously written, and the use of Luck as a plot-adjusting currency pool is more forgiving against the stark horror that you found in older editions. The addition of these rules has meant that some of the more thoughtful prose and discussion, including the original Lovecraft story, have been chopped out to make space. I’ve dropped the rating down from the maximum because of that.
Nevertheless, the imagery and writing are very affecting and the game remains a classic that yearns to be played.