Call of Cthulhu or Traveler?

[Dr. Harry]

Traveller

CoC does have a good system, and it can be a lot of fun, but CoC as an introduction to RPGs? There's a whole class of story from people whose introduction to role-playing was CoC who got turned off because they wanted to play heroes bigger, faster, and stronger than normal schmucks and got a race between getting killed and going mad.

I don't want to say anything against CoC, but I don't know that I would use that as an *introduction* to role=playing ...

 

[Plane Sailing]

I second Gilladian, Basic Role Playing might be the best bet, as the one rule set gives you really good basics for fantasy, sci if and horror - Along with the opportunity for character advancement, which was always one of the weak points of traveller.

 

[brewdus]

duh.. Traveler

Come on this is the classic of all space games here, have yet to find a person who didn't enjoy the originals of this game back in the day.

Here's your first! I hated Traveler the few times I played it!

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Wow, tough call.

I think I'd lean towards Call of Cthulhu. It excels at one-shots, and the percentage-based BRP concept is easy for newbies to grok. I think the horror aspect may also have broader appeal than Traveller's brand of sci-fi (although if you sell Traveller as "Firefly-style science fiction" you might get more interest than otherwise).

However, if your club has a GM that is experienced with BRP games, then the aforementioned Basic Roleplaying gold book is pretty hard to beat. (But the gold book might not be the best choice for someone who is just learning to run the BRP system -- it's packed with options and optional rules that need to be selected prior to running a campaign or scenario.)

 

[Steel_Wind]

Call of Cthulhu. Traveller as a setting is great. But if you buy the 6th edition of the Call of Cthulhu book (ISBN 1568821816), you get a version of the game that's been pretty much stable for a couple decades (very minor edition changes) and provides a complete game. On the other hand, the latest Traveller book, the Traveller Core Rulebook (ISBN 190610333X) is but one edition of a ruleset that has meandered all over the place historically. Not only that, what Traveller is famous for, its setting, isn't even included; this is a generic sci-fi rulebook.

This.

CoC is a classic RPG that has been in print for 30 years, in almost unaltered form. There are, accordingly, a VAST host of adventures for it. It is also a game where the player's don't really NEED a rulebook and one book at the table for the GM is sufficient. In many ways, keeping all the rules with the GM (Keeper, whatever) improves the mystery and heightens the tension.

You will definitely get FAR more mileage out of a copy of CoC than just about any other RPG rulebook I can think of -- including Pathfinder RPG.

And coming from a Pathfinder fan, that's saying a lot.

 

[rgard]

If your players are familiar with d20, how about both at the same time? And if you can push the funds available to around $55.00...

Traveller T20 for around $30.00 on ebay.
Call of Cthulhu d20 for around $23.00.

Same basic rule set.

Stuck on freighter with disabled jump and maneuver drives the players find that something very horrible got loose in the hold and they have to fight their way across the ship to the lifeboats?

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I've never played Traveller but CoC is an excellent setting and it's quick character creation (I've had first time player complete characters in about 10 minutes), easily grasped mechanics, and its penchant for deadly horror stories makes it works very well for four hour one-shots.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Call of Cthulhu d20 for around $23.00.

I would recommend against CoC d20 (even if you could find it), as I don't think the mechanics suit the scenario as well as BRP % mechanics.

Cheers

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I would recommend against CoC d20 (even if you could find it), as I don't think the mechanics suit the scenario as well as BRP % mechanics.

Seconded. FWIW, I prefer the classic Traveller (or Mongoose Traveller) mechanisms over the d20 variants, too.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Eh, personally I think the two systems are fairly similar in that they're both basic linear skill systems. Traveller tends to produce more interesting characters and the mechanics are cleaner and simpler. I think you can do more with the basic background setting too, as it is rather open-ended. You can always do dark horror in space, and jumping in the Aldebaran system might not be that healthy....

CoC IMHO has a really great premise, but as a GAME I never was that impressed. I always felt like the system was working against what you wanted to do story/narrative wise. The combat system actually is pretty annoying too, though you don't generally need to bother with it much, thankfully. The adventures are great, but also LONG in general. There are a couple fairly quick scenarios that came with the older boxed set, but they were pretty basic.

Traveller you really had to make up your own adventures for, but they could be most anything, which was kind of nice. Personally I never really paid a lot of attention to the settings they laid out in the later books and supplements.