Saeviomagy
Adventurer
I hate brp.
Why do I hate BRP?
CoC is a game where death is likely and imminent, where you play a normal human being with normal levels of capability, and where you lose your mind through seeing things that man was not meant to be able to imagine.
The reality of the BRP system is this:
1. Your character will usually suck badly at his core competency. In the BRP universe, it's fairly common for a lawyer to not know the law or a doctor to not know basic first aid. Those pesky percentages are the problem. Note however that an awful lot of bad-guy NPC's in pre-written games are crack shots with firearms, or deadly lethal brawlers.
2. Your character will take ages to make, because you have to spend about 300 points on skills.
3. Your character will not be what you wanted, because you have to roll your stats.
In short, BRP manages to combine the worst aspects of the rolling system (you don't get what you want) and the worst aspect of the point allocation system (you spend a long time making the character).
4. Physical stats almost mean nothing. Mental stats rule the game. By a long shot.
5. You will be driven mad by fairly mundane events. Seeing a corpse affects your sanity even if you have a skill of 80% in medicine. Conversely there's a huge chance that a lot of characters will be totally unfazed by manifestations of the supernatural. Strangely enough, the more you know about the supernatural, the more likely seeing it will drive you mad, which really doesn't fit in with lovecraft's stories...
6. Don't take the 'criminal' profession. Simply have another profession and take the skills - that way you don't lose 2 points off your education for nothing...
7. Despite extensive weapon charts, and far too many stats on each weapon, there is basically about 5 weapons worth owning.
8. Knowing martial arts, knowing how to kick, knowing how to punch, knowing how to grapple and knowing how to headbutt are all seperate skills. Knowing how to hit someone with any blunt object under the sun is a single skill.
Oh, and they change the major revision number when there are no rules changes in the system, which is why they're up to 5th edition I believe.
My recommendation would be to use some other system to run CoC. Unknown armies is great for it's sanity system, and it's still percentage based. Godlike is particularly awesome - with deadly combat, a quick character generation system, sanity system and the like, especially since the publishers have released a conversion document (entitled cthululike) which tells you how to handle almost anything.
I probably wouldn't recommend d20 - but it works better than BRP if only for ease of use.
Why do I hate BRP?
CoC is a game where death is likely and imminent, where you play a normal human being with normal levels of capability, and where you lose your mind through seeing things that man was not meant to be able to imagine.
The reality of the BRP system is this:
1. Your character will usually suck badly at his core competency. In the BRP universe, it's fairly common for a lawyer to not know the law or a doctor to not know basic first aid. Those pesky percentages are the problem. Note however that an awful lot of bad-guy NPC's in pre-written games are crack shots with firearms, or deadly lethal brawlers.
2. Your character will take ages to make, because you have to spend about 300 points on skills.
3. Your character will not be what you wanted, because you have to roll your stats.
In short, BRP manages to combine the worst aspects of the rolling system (you don't get what you want) and the worst aspect of the point allocation system (you spend a long time making the character).
4. Physical stats almost mean nothing. Mental stats rule the game. By a long shot.
5. You will be driven mad by fairly mundane events. Seeing a corpse affects your sanity even if you have a skill of 80% in medicine. Conversely there's a huge chance that a lot of characters will be totally unfazed by manifestations of the supernatural. Strangely enough, the more you know about the supernatural, the more likely seeing it will drive you mad, which really doesn't fit in with lovecraft's stories...
6. Don't take the 'criminal' profession. Simply have another profession and take the skills - that way you don't lose 2 points off your education for nothing...
7. Despite extensive weapon charts, and far too many stats on each weapon, there is basically about 5 weapons worth owning.
8. Knowing martial arts, knowing how to kick, knowing how to punch, knowing how to grapple and knowing how to headbutt are all seperate skills. Knowing how to hit someone with any blunt object under the sun is a single skill.
Oh, and they change the major revision number when there are no rules changes in the system, which is why they're up to 5th edition I believe.
My recommendation would be to use some other system to run CoC. Unknown armies is great for it's sanity system, and it's still percentage based. Godlike is particularly awesome - with deadly combat, a quick character generation system, sanity system and the like, especially since the publishers have released a conversion document (entitled cthululike) which tells you how to handle almost anything.
I probably wouldn't recommend d20 - but it works better than BRP if only for ease of use.
Furthermore, we used all sorts of props (plastic guns, old clothes from the thirties, etc.) to help build up the appropriate atmosphere. Then, as we did play, we tried to scare ourselves with the game in addition to what we eventually imagined about what would lurk in the dark hall behind our back. Around 5 hours in the morning, with fatigue and the adventure reaching its climax, we had some really "good" 
moments... 
