Call of Cthulhu General Thread [+]

[overgeeked]

The [+] is to keep things positive and prevent the same old, tired arguments about the style of play, genre, and time period. There are plenty of other threads to hate on games and play styles you don’t like. Also, this isn’t the place to argue about H. P. Lovecraft’s racism. He was a racist, end of. There’s no need to beat the long-dead horse.

There are a few people on here who play Call of Cthulhu and want to talk about it without the constant negativity of the other threads, so I thought we should have a general [+] thread about the game.

Okay, so, with that out of the way, let’s chat about the venerable old Call of Cthulhu.

Tips, tricks, advice, ideas, secrets, clues, reviews, links...whatever you’ve got.

Here’s a few useful links and resources…

Chaosium’s website.

Free QuickStart rules from Chaosium’s website.

Keeper Rulebook on Chaosium’s website. This is the core book and the only one you need.

The Investigator Handbook is optional.

Call of Cthulhu on Reddit.

100 Tips for Running Call of Cthulhu.

Yog-Sothoth forum. You have to sign up to view it. It’s free but takes a little time as it’s a manual add. Well worth the time as it’s a great resource for referees and players.

BRP Central forum. Official forum for Chaosium.

Seth Skorkowsky’s YouTube channel. Lots and lots of videos about Call of Cthulhu as well as reviews of scenarios and how to videos for running mystery, horror, and Call of Cthulhu.

Especially worth mentioning is Seth’s long review series of Call of Cthulhu 7E (the current edition). This link goes to the playlist of his videos reviewing the game. The first video is an introduction to the game and around the 11:40 mark he starts busting myths about Call of Cthulhu. It’s well worth the watch if you’re new to the game.

Alexandrian blogs on the Three-Clue Rule and Node-Based Design. These are a great help when designing your own scenarios for Call of Cthulhu.

 

[Committed Hero]

This thought linking Westerns and Call of Cthulhu is never far from my Keeper's heart.

 

[Reynard]

I have played in some very good CoC games, but I always feel liek the GMs were what made them good, not the system itself. I often feel like the system fights you -- rolls are often too difficult to feel competent in your so-called expertise, and a GM that calls for too many and/or does not work with your for partial successes or whatever can make the game frustrating in an old scholl D&D "search for traps" kind of way.

So acknowledging that COC can be great with the right GM, I am curious what folks who really like the game have to say about the system. How do you make it shine? What tools, including but not exclusively house rules, do you use to make it work for what is essentially a mystery game?

 

[Aldarc]

I have never played CoC, but it has definitely been on my list after watching a bunch of videos from Seth Skorkowsky and a few others. I have the CoC Starter Set. I also have the rules supplement for Pulp Cthulhu and The Two Head Serpent adventure. But I still need to get around to actually buying the core rules themselves. However, the main issue is just finding time to get around to playing the game. I mostly play with my partner nowadays, and there are higher games on our priority list.

 

[Alas]

If we're sharing resources, more people should know about...

Darkest of the Hillside Thickets!

They're a heavily HPL-themed Canadian rock band with albums like The Shadow Out of Tim and Dukes of Alhazred. It's a bit too comedic and rocking to be ambient music for game time, but if your investigators need a theme song to open the session, Darkest of the Hillside Thickets probably has something for them.

(This many not be news for CoC regulars, but Cthulhu-curious readers might like to see the lighter end of the Innsmouth spectrum.)

 

[CleverNickName]

Call of Cthulhu would have fallen completely off my radar during the pandemic lockdowns, had it not been for virtual play on Roll20 (it's not the only platform to play CoC on.) We don't play in-person anymore, so the list of games we have the option to play on is pretty small. Call of Cthulhu became our "other game" that we would load up and play, whenever our "regular game" of D&D got cancelled or rescheduled.

We ran The Lightless Beacon last Halloween (or was it the Halloween-before-last?), and it was an excellent adventure. Highly recommend.

 

[overgeeked]

If we're sharing resources, more people should know about...

Darkest of the Hillside Thickets!

They're a heavily HPL-themed Canadian rock band with albums like The Shadow Out of Tim and Dukes of Alhazred. It's a bit too comedic and rocking to be ambient music for game time, but if your investigators need a theme song to open the session, Darkest of the Hillside Thickets probably has something for them.

(This many not be news for CoC regulars, but Cthulhu-curious readers might like to see the lighter end of the Innsmouth spectrum.)

Yeah. I have a long list of Call of Cthulhu-appropriate music. I’ll have to round up my favorites and post them at some point.

 

[schneeland]

My experience with CoC from 20 years ago was mixed, but I gave it another chance with 7e, Pulp Cthulhu, and the Two-Headed serpent campaign, and I have to say, I find it quite enjoyable. Part of it is certainly the group, but I also find the new bonus/penalty dice system quite nice, and using luck more extensively took the edge off the rather swingy d100 system. We're playing for about 1.5 years now, and so far I would recommend both the system and the campaign.

 

[MGibster]

I have played in some very good CoC games, but I always feel liek the GMs were what made them good, not the system itself. I often feel like the system fights you -- rolls are often too difficult to feel competent in your so-called expertise, and a GM that calls for too many and/or does not work with your for partial successes or whatever can make the game frustrating in an old scholl D&D "search for traps" kind of way.

So acknowledging that COC can be great with the right GM, I am curious what folks who really like the game have to say about the system. How do you make it shine? What tools, including but not exclusively house rules, do you use to make it work for what is essentially a mystery game?

One of my first experiences running CoC was "The Haunting," a classic adventure included in the core book for many editions. My players were have some exceptionally poor luck rolling, having failed pretty much every single investigatory roll they made whether it was Library Use at City Hall or Persuasion to interview neighbors. This didn't stop them from completing the scenario, but it was decidedly less fun as they had no idea what was happening. At the time, there wasn't really any good advice for what to do in the core book to mitigate such things from happening (not that I can remember at least).

1. Remind players they can Push failed rolls. When you fail a skill roll in CoC, you can Push the roll, meaning you roll again, but if you fail, then some calamity befalls you. You fall flat on your butt if you fail a pushed climb roll, you run smack dab into the nightwatchman with a failed pushed stealth roll, or maybe you jump a curb and pop a tire when you fail that pushed driving roll. Pushing a roll really does increase the odds of success.
2. Don't forget about Idea rolls. When players get stuck, have their characters make Idea rolls, and give anyone who succeed a hint about how they might proceed.
3. Be flexible about where clues can be found. If the scenario says a clue can be found in city hall but the player goes to the library, let the clue be found at the library is the player is successful. Maybe the same clue can be found by talking to someone in the neighborhood whose an antiquarian with an extensive collection of maps of the local area produced over the years. (Maybe we can talk about the Quantum Map instead of the Quantum Ogre for a change.)
4. If a player searches in a specific place for a clue, don't make them roll, just have them find it. i.e. If Doctor Watson specifically flips through every book on the shelf, he finds the letter left in the pages of the Bible by Professor Plum. No roll needed.
5. Make sure core clues necessary for the plot to advance are found. If a clue from the Library is necessary, the PCs automatically find it, but a successful roll will net some extra information.

For mysteries and horror, it's critical the players get into the spirit of the game. Accept bad things are going to happen to NPCs and your character. Dealing with the horrors isn't a fail state, it's part of the fun. Make sure the players understand what's happening. A little mystery is fine, you don't necessarily need to understand the motivation of that Colour Out of Space, but a player needs to understand enough to make the experience satisfactory. There are too many scenarios with a lot of cool information the Keeper knows about but there aren't necessarily any practical avenues for the players to learn about.

 

[TheSword]

@GuyBoy one for you.