Call of Cthulhu grows to the second best selling RPG core book on Amazon USA

[overgeeked]

Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn!

 

[overgeeked]

So any ideas as to why Call of Cthulhu is finally getting more sales? Are there popular live plays I’m unaware of? They doing promotions like the Critical Role one shot? Anyone able to explain the sudden up tick besides “it’s about time” or “well deserved”. It’s both of those, but why now?

 

[Morrus]

So any ideas as to why Call of Cthulhu is finally getting more sales? Are there popular live plays I’m unaware of? They doing promotions like the Critical Role one shot? Anyone able to explain the sudden up tick besides “it’s about time” or “well deserved”. It’s both of those, but why now?

I think the CR game was very important. And those CR sponsored games don't come cheap.

 

[CleverNickName]

So any ideas as to why Call of Cthulhu is finally getting more sales? Are there popular live plays I’m unaware of? They doing promotions like the Critical Role one shot? Anyone able to explain the sudden up tick besides “it’s about time” or “well deserved”. It’s both of those, but why now?

It's probably a lot of little things. The Critical Role one-shot you mentioned probably helped, and so did the Lovecraft Country series that @MGibster mentioned. For me, it was discovering The Magnus Archives podcast a couple of years ago.

 

[darjr]

It also became a bit of a thing on streaming in general. That seems to have kept going because it seems folks enjoyed it very much.

But also I think credit is due to the return of some of the old hands at Chaosium. It seems they went out and learned a lot of things about doing business and so on and brought that back.

 

[overgeeked]

I think the CR game was very important. And those CR sponsored games don't come cheap.

I have no doubt. But that was a year ago. I was thinking something more recent that I’d missed. And weirdly, the CR Call of Cthulhu one-shot is how I discovered CR.

 

[darjr]

Well that’s cool. Sometimes the spark that fuels play and word of mouth takes a joy to build up steam.

 

[Sock Puppet]

Almost like it's the second most played RPG online...

http://blog.roll20.net/posts/the-orr-group-industry-report-q3-2020-breakout/

And has been for two years.

 

[MGibster]

I'm a little surprised that a somewhat depressing game like Call of Cthulhu is doing well right now. Members of my group said they didn't want to play Alien because it was too bleak in light of the current pandemic.

 

[GrahamWills]

I'm a little surprised that a somewhat depressing game like Call of Cthulhu is doing well right now. Members of my group said they didn't want to play Alien because it was too bleak in light of the current pandemic.

I know the classic view of CoC is that everyone dies in the end as the world is destroyed, but that's because it's fun to do that at one-shots in conventions! Actual campaigns aren't like that at all. I've run several, and they overwhelming are about the heroes facing barely understandable cosmic horrors and saving the world. Even Lovecraft's stories themselves are a mix. In general, a single protagonist is probably doomed (unless they re Harry Houdini), but a small grou much wins nearly every time. Dunwich Horror in particular reads like a solid successful RPG session - players discover the evil, research it, fend it off as it attacks in their base, and then they equip a party, search it out in its lair and destroy it.

I assume Roll20 is mostly campaigns -- so I'd expect more of the Mask of Nyarlathotep / Dunwich / Beyond the Mountains of Madness style, rather than The Horror on the Doorstep. A group of plucky scientists fending off and defeating barely understood horrors that cannot be seen in the face of an indifferent government seems actually a pretty good fit for the world at the moment!