Call of Cthulhu d20 Preservation Society

[Desdichado]

Hey, Joe, do you still have that article? I'd like to read it if you do.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Hey, Joe, do you still have that article? I'd like to read it if you do.

I'll take a look. I know I have a hardcopy of it somewhere.

 

[Turanil]

I also have heard that was more successfull commercially than expected. Surprising that so little support has come out for it...or is that par for the course for Chaosium? (still doesn't explain the lack of 3rd party material, or does it, given licensing arrangements?)

This is but a guess, but maybe Chaosium didn't want the competition of d20 CoC against BRP CoC? Maybe they thought that if many people went to play d20 CoC they would have a hard time selling all of their BRP supplements available in stock? Who knows...

 

[Committed Hero]

Some late comments,

I bet the d20 CoC book outsold every Chaosium product ever made. I don't know why on earth they agreed to toss away the rights to CoC without some sort of plan to earn some money; but then again this is Chaosium we are talking about, whose decisions typically mirror their name (recently, they've denigrated d20 CoC on their own site).

There used to be an interesting site by a Dallas gamer who statistically compared BRP and d20 characters; according to him d20 characters are weaker until they surpass 5th level.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

Chaosium

Their hard core base just got angry that anyone would stoop so low as to convert CoC to d20. They had to choose between getting lots of quick money with d20 and alienating their hardcore fans OR keeping their hardcore fans and the smaller amounts of money they would get over a longer period of time. If they had gone and created d20 books or had created dual stat books they would lose their hardcore fan base. Creating d20 books means that their fanbase would have not had access to those books and they would have to print a d20 and a BRP book, thus further dividing their profits (apparently only GoO has that kind of power). And creating dual stat books would anger their fan base because they would percieve it as buying "useless" content (just look at the angry threads between Dungeon and Polyhedron readers. Even though the magazine went monthly and the content of Dungeon was not reduced [just spread out between two months], they were angry at having to buy "useless" Polyhedron content, while Polyhedron readers lost content with the monthly format with Minigames being reduced from 60 to 40 pages and odd months containing mostly filler material of dubious quality, with a few exceptions).

The d20 game was also slightly less hopeless than the BRP game. The margins of survival were higher, and that makes it feel less like horror and more like Pulp. I know I had problems with the game until I made a few changes (detailed earlier) but it makes a great base for converting skill-based games (like the World of Darkness or Kult) into d20.

 

[Desdichado]

The d20 game was also slightly less hopeless than the BRP game. The margins of survival were higher, and that makes it feel less like horror and more like Pulp. I know I had problems with the game until I made a few changes (detailed earlier) but it makes a great base for converting skill-based games (like the World of Darkness or Kult) into d20.

Do you have some reasons for believing that? 'coz in my experience, that sentiment is usually some misplaced logic along the lines of d20 = the system of D&D => D&D is not a horror game => d20 CoC is a more pulpy "action-oriented" game than BRP. This logic typically ignores the fact that BRP is essentially the Runequest system.

In my experience, your statment there is completely wrong. If you have some more concrete examples of why you believe that, though, I'm interested in seeing them. Usually the d20 CoC detractors in places like yog-sothoth.net and rpg.net haven't really been able to produce any.

 

[Desdichado]

I'll take a look. I know I have a hardcopy of it somewhere.

Cool! If all you have is a hardcopy, I'd take a scan of it too, if that's not too much trouble. E-mail me at jdyal at wowway dot com if you find anything.

 

[JoeGKushner]

And Chaosium did do several dual stat books and even tried to do Elric as a dual statted book. Ah, I had such hopes for that potential and they just screwed it up.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

From Chaosium's publishing schedule, I think there's only maybe 2 employees and 1 freelance writer. Most of the recent stuff is literally cut 'n' paste of older editions. :\

 

[Narfellus]

Yeah, i don't understand Chaosium's business model at all. They put out some great products, but so infrequently i wonder how they even stay in business. Something works right for them though. Must be those wealth rituals they perform in the basement on full moons...