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<blockquote data-quote="The Great Sun Jester" data-source="post: 993792" data-attributes="member: 13022"><p>If you don't mind somebody else shoving their oar in, this is something I've been wanting to come out and say for a while now. I'm sorry if this comes across as a little abrasive, but there are thing which I believe need to be said. The essential problem, to my mind, with D20 Cthulhu, is the same as with most, if not all, other D20 conversions, that all it results in is a D&D game in another setting. The D20 system is designed for 'epic heroic fantasy' roleplaying, and, for all its supposed flexibility, it is good for little else. This is neither the time nor the place to discuss its shortcomings within its own genre niche, though I would love for somebody to point out any character or characters, other than perhaps Robert E. Howard's Conan, in any decent fantasy novel or film that act like those of a D&D party. That it is ill-suited to Call of Cthulhu, however, is the point at hand.</p><p></p><p>I wouldn't argue that Chaosium's BRP system is an ideal one, even that it is ideal for Cthuloid horror roleplaying, it is itself somewhat old-fashioned in its style, and its rules slightly illogical in places, but it is nonetheless vastly more suitable than D20, as well as being simple enough for anyone to learn in half an hour. Furthermore, it has the advantage of twenty-odd years of support behind it, in the form of excellent supplements and campaigns: I doubt that TSR/Wizards could ever write as good a campaign as Masks of Nyarlathotep or Beyond the Mountains of Madness. Though Chaosium are releasing some dual-statted products, their geologically slow release schedules mean that you are unlikely to see any significant number of D20-ised Cthulhu books in the near future.</p><p></p><p>To put it another way, turn the clock back to 1990 for a moment. Go on, humour me.... Would anyone then have seriously attempted to have used AD&D 2nd Edition rules to play Call of Cthulhu? I doubt it. Would anyone even consider doing so now? I continue to doubt it. Yet, there exists undeniably more similarity, in terms of systems, between 2nd Edition AD&D and 3rd Edition D&D than between Chaosium's BRP and either of them. So why?</p><p></p><p>D&D hasn't really changed that much in two decades, certainly it's been refined, but the basic mechanics of race/class/level/hit points and Thac0 (or AB) haven't been altered, and neither has the central dynamic of player characters killing things, stealing their stuff, and gaining experience to advance from petty thugs to godlike heroes. If Sandy Petersen and Chaosium's other writers had thought, back in the early-eighties, that Call of Cthulhu, their game of eldritch cosmic horror based upon the works of H.P. Lovecraft, wherin the players portrayed ordinary men and women of the 1920s who became unwilling participants in a futile strugle, ending only in death or madness, against uncaring, unknowable gods in a bleak and uncaring universe, would have benefitted from a D&D-type system, wouldn't they have written it that way then? Enough other RPG companies of the time certainly produced D&D knock-offs, some of which are even still around today.</p><p></p><p>The only reason for Chaosium to have now released a D20 version of Call of Cthulhu is for the sake of selling their game to D&D players who, for some inexplicable reason, cannot envisage playing a different system. This would never have been necessary were it not for D&D's equally inexplicable stranglehold on the roleplaying games market in recent years. Thus they are marketed a game that is essentially D&D dressed up as Cthulhu, a principle which can be extended to most if not all other D20 conversions, certainly to those of Legend of the Five Rings and 7th Sea.</p><p></p><p>There is, at least to my mind, no good reason for using the D20 system for Call of Cthulhu, and there are many reasons not to do so. Chaosium's BRP version is vastly more appropriate and playable. If you're looking for an alternate system to Chaosuim's BRP for a Lovecraftian game, or for any supernatural/occult/horror setting, then Atlas' Unknown Armies, White Wolf's Storyteller games, or even C.J. Carella's Witchcraft are all superior choices to D20. If you want to play heroic fantasy, and we all do, once in a while, then play D&D, or better still, play Ars Magica, or The Riddle of Steel.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The Great Sun Jester, post: 993792, member: 13022"] If you don't mind somebody else shoving their oar in, this is something I've been wanting to come out and say for a while now. I'm sorry if this comes across as a little abrasive, but there are thing which I believe need to be said. The essential problem, to my mind, with D20 Cthulhu, is the same as with most, if not all, other D20 conversions, that all it results in is a D&D game in another setting. The D20 system is designed for 'epic heroic fantasy' roleplaying, and, for all its supposed flexibility, it is good for little else. This is neither the time nor the place to discuss its shortcomings within its own genre niche, though I would love for somebody to point out any character or characters, other than perhaps Robert E. Howard's Conan, in any decent fantasy novel or film that act like those of a D&D party. That it is ill-suited to Call of Cthulhu, however, is the point at hand. I wouldn't argue that Chaosium's BRP system is an ideal one, even that it is ideal for Cthuloid horror roleplaying, it is itself somewhat old-fashioned in its style, and its rules slightly illogical in places, but it is nonetheless vastly more suitable than D20, as well as being simple enough for anyone to learn in half an hour. Furthermore, it has the advantage of twenty-odd years of support behind it, in the form of excellent supplements and campaigns: I doubt that TSR/Wizards could ever write as good a campaign as Masks of Nyarlathotep or Beyond the Mountains of Madness. Though Chaosium are releasing some dual-statted products, their geologically slow release schedules mean that you are unlikely to see any significant number of D20-ised Cthulhu books in the near future. To put it another way, turn the clock back to 1990 for a moment. Go on, humour me.... Would anyone then have seriously attempted to have used AD&D 2nd Edition rules to play Call of Cthulhu? I doubt it. Would anyone even consider doing so now? I continue to doubt it. Yet, there exists undeniably more similarity, in terms of systems, between 2nd Edition AD&D and 3rd Edition D&D than between Chaosium's BRP and either of them. So why? D&D hasn't really changed that much in two decades, certainly it's been refined, but the basic mechanics of race/class/level/hit points and Thac0 (or AB) haven't been altered, and neither has the central dynamic of player characters killing things, stealing their stuff, and gaining experience to advance from petty thugs to godlike heroes. If Sandy Petersen and Chaosium's other writers had thought, back in the early-eighties, that Call of Cthulhu, their game of eldritch cosmic horror based upon the works of H.P. Lovecraft, wherin the players portrayed ordinary men and women of the 1920s who became unwilling participants in a futile strugle, ending only in death or madness, against uncaring, unknowable gods in a bleak and uncaring universe, would have benefitted from a D&D-type system, wouldn't they have written it that way then? Enough other RPG companies of the time certainly produced D&D knock-offs, some of which are even still around today. The only reason for Chaosium to have now released a D20 version of Call of Cthulhu is for the sake of selling their game to D&D players who, for some inexplicable reason, cannot envisage playing a different system. This would never have been necessary were it not for D&D's equally inexplicable stranglehold on the roleplaying games market in recent years. Thus they are marketed a game that is essentially D&D dressed up as Cthulhu, a principle which can be extended to most if not all other D20 conversions, certainly to those of Legend of the Five Rings and 7th Sea. There is, at least to my mind, no good reason for using the D20 system for Call of Cthulhu, and there are many reasons not to do so. Chaosium's BRP version is vastly more appropriate and playable. If you're looking for an alternate system to Chaosuim's BRP for a Lovecraftian game, or for any supernatural/occult/horror setting, then Atlas' Unknown Armies, White Wolf's Storyteller games, or even C.J. Carella's Witchcraft are all superior choices to D20. If you want to play heroic fantasy, and we all do, once in a while, then play D&D, or better still, play Ars Magica, or The Riddle of Steel. [/QUOTE]
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