Help me understand Call of Cthulhu

[Bagpuss]

At long last I've been invited to play an RPG, not as a GM, but as one of the player characters! Huzzah!

Congrats it is my favourite RPG game.

But... Here are some things that make me less excited about getting too invested in my character:

Oh you need to get invested in your character, and quick, as they may not be around for long.

• the Dice mechanic is d100 roll under your skill. Okay, I'm familiar with that (former WFRP, Dark Heresy, Unknown Armies and Mythras player).
• the Critical failure range is 96-100 (or worse, depending on your stats). The critical success range is... 01. So already, you're more likely to critically fail than succeed. Okay, horror etc...

Critical Failure a "fumble" is always 96-100, if you need to roll under 49 to succeed, it only occurs on a 100 is you need to roll under 50 or more then you only Fumble on 100, so if you have a decent skill you only have a 1/100 chance of really screwing up. So imagine you are a skilled pilot on 100, chances are it is a gremlin causing your engine to fail rather than anything you did to fumble. So odds are generally better than D&D to fumble, but harder to critical success, but then there are more ranges of success than just pass, fail, fumble or critical.

Often a Keeper will rather than ask for a Hard or Extreme success just to pass, will give you some bonus if you pass by a hard or extreme success.

• There are clear difficulty checks: regular, which is you roll you skill straight up, half your skill or 1/5th of your skill. There are no beneficial modifiers.

Well you can spend Luck. Optional rule page 99 of 7th Edition, if your Keeper isn't using it I highly suggest they do. One if gives players more agency on when they fail a roll, and also, the GM can ask for Luck rolls (based on current Luck) to see who gets picked on by the horrible tentacle reaching into the cabin window. So players that spend their luck find it runs out, very thematic.

Also some Keepers will give say +20% if you have something that will make it easier, be it item or circumstance.

• While there IS an advantage / disadvantage system (re-roll tens die, for good or ill), this purely GM fiat. They can totally have you roll your skill at 1/5th it's rating WITH disadvantage too. Ouch.

Yeah if they are a dick, or you are trying to do something that is virtually impossible but they feel like giving you a gnat's chance in hell of succeeding.

• Upgrading skills means you have to PASS a skill check first, then roll to FAIL a skill check after the game is over. This makes it pretty hard to level up poor skills (in Mythras, it's different; when you fail a check, you get to see if you level it up after the game is over, and even if you fail, you still go up 1%).

There is also training, either taught in which case you automatically get 1d10 improvement, or self taught in which case you do a skill check as if you had ticked the skill in play. You can do this each four months of game time.

So... in this game, odds are you won't really improve much and there are no ways to get beneficial bonuses besides GM calls.

Yeah but you do start of pretty competent in you professional skills, and to be honest you don't use skills a lot anyway it is a roleplaying game, so you ask the right questions then you don't need to roll Persuade, you look in the right places you don't need to roll Spot Hidden.

Also failure on the dice often doesn't mean you fail the task, just that it takes longer to find the newspaper article, or the you leave evidence of your search so the suspect knows you have been in his office, etc.

This doesn't seem like a very fun system to play with, I admit. Even WFRP 1e had a bit more going on in it.
What am I missing? After 40 years of game design evolution... Call of Cthulhu still seems "stuck".

It's because you aren't playing the system, your roleplaying in the setting. The system largely stays out of the way, the more system and more complexity it has the more you feel you are playing a game not living in the setting.

I'd rather play Dark Heresy 1e, to be honest. Grim and Dark as it is, at least there are ways to negotiate a +10% to a skill check once in a while.

You don't tend to negotiate a +10% in Call of Cthulhu you just negotiate success.

Player: "I want to search his office."

Keeper: "Okay how are you looking?"

The keeper knows the paper they are looking for is in a envelope taped under a desk draw. Possible out comes.

A (Worst case scenario) Player: "I roll Spot Hidden. Do I find anything?" Player rolls dice, fails the roll.

Keeper you turn the place upside down, eventual after an hour you find an envelop hidden under a desk draw, they place looks like a hurricane has been through it and you hear keys opening the door downstairs. What do you do?

B (also not great): Player: "I roll Spot Hidden. Do I find anything?" Player rolls dice, passes the roll.

You quickly locate the paper in a envelop taped under a desk draw, you have plenty of time to copy it and leave, it was as if you were never there.

C: Player: "I search the room starting with his desk, looking for hidden concealments, false bottoms and the like, before moving round the room checking between books, check the dust to see if any have been moved recently."

You don't get as far as the book shelves as you reach under the desk draw you feel and envelope taped to the underside, have a tick in Spot Hidden.

D & E: Player: "I search the room starting with the bookshelf looking for something hidden between the pages, check the dust to see if any have been moved recently. Eventually going back to the desk he wouldn't have been daft enough to leave it in a draw. I'm careful not to disturb the place too much."

Ask you to roll Spot Hidden (on a success, get a tick) actually you think to give the desk a once over first, since he has a rather extensive library.

Or on a failed roll eventually after exhausting every option you return to the desk, only to discover what you were looking for taped under the top drawer.

 

[Bagpuss]

The most important thing i learned about CoC is sometimes succeeding on a check actually is the bad result.

Oh yeah don't invest in Spot Hidden, it is much better to not see what kills you.

"Ignorance is bliss."

 

[Bagpuss]

The PCs fail statistically when under pressure. Not because they are incompetent. Under normal circumstances, i.e. during the investigation, you shouldn't be rolling that much.

Yeah generally it is assumed if you have 50% plus in the skill you don't roll it, the majority of the time. For example driving a car at 50% you've passed your test and you don't need to roll for day to day car use.

Now if you are racing down a country lance being chased by a nightgaunt the Keeper will ask for a roll, and if it is a dark AND stormy knight it might be with disadvantage.

Call of Cthulhu assumes success for most of the time. You might be asked for a Library Use role to research something but more often than not that's to see if it takes you 30 minutes to find what you are looking for rather than the whole afternoon.

 

[EpicureanDM]

It's a credit to Hite, Laws, and the rest that they codified the common wisdom shared in this thread in Trail of Cthulhu. I would always choose CoC 7th over Trail or any other Gumshoe game, but Trail is a great book of CoC 7th GMing advice if you look at it the right way.

 

[billd91]

Don't miss this simple trick that your game master doesn't want you to know about.
View attachment 440825

It’s always a funny joke, often repeated. And it’s not a bad idea to some members of the party steer clear of some of the mind-blowing revelations hidden in myth is tomes, but Bob, Dave, and Brian are the kinds of players doomed to fail at CthulhuHack because they’ll never learn the lore necessary to defeat the plans of the Old Ones.

 

[Bae'zel]

Okay, I don’t think this game is for you.

That’s very helpful, thank you for your contribution.

Most of the responses here have given me better insight: also my GM got a few rules wrong, so the game’s mechanics aren’t quite as harsh as I thought.

Hopefully my GM understands that a failed roll isn’t just “you fail and nothing happens”. It can be “you took too long” or “something goes wrong”. That isn’t really codified in the main rules, so we’ll see.

Like OSR games, I wanted to know how I should go into this game, eg, ask lots of questions, avoid having to roll whenever possible, expect the worst outcomes when the GM asks for a roll etc

I wasn’t complaining about the “spirit” of the game setting, I’m extremely familiar with the source author’s works. I was having issues with the rules: I’ve played many d100 games over the past 30 years and have seen some more interesting takes on it (in my opinion, anyway).

 

[VashVet]

That’s very helpful, thank you for your contribution.

Most of the responses here have given me better insight: also my GM got a few rules wrong, so the game’s mechanics aren’t quite as harsh as I thought.

Hopefully my GM understands that a failed roll isn’t just “you fail and nothing happens”. It can be “you took too long” or “something goes wrong”. That isn’t really codified in the main rules, so we’ll see.

Like OSR games, I wanted to know how I should go into this game, eg, ask lots of questions, avoid having to roll whenever possible, expect the worst outcomes when the GM asks for a roll etc

I wasn’t complaining about the “spirit” of the game setting, I’m extremely familiar with the source author’s works. I was having issues with the rules: I’ve played many d100 games over the past 30 years and have seen some more interesting takes on it (in my opinion, anyway).

I gave you a more detailed answer earlier. On reading your second response, I amended mine. I don’t think you’ll enjoy this game given your stance of how systems should play.

In other words, I’m not going to keep trying to convince you.

 

[Bagpuss]

Hopefully my GM understands that a failed roll isn’t just “you fail and nothing happens”. It can be “you took too long” or “something goes wrong”. That isn’t really codified in the main rules, so we’ll see.

It is. Page 194 on the Chapter 10: Playing the Game, which is basically advice for Keepers.

Rolling the Dice:

1: The Keeper decides when to call for a skill roll. Literally says don't roll for routine task, or if there is no drama involved. It also says you should avoid adding complications through dice rolls, when you want to keep the pace moving, even allowing players to do something difficult.

2: Dice don't tell stories people do. Says when a player succeeds a roll they achieve their goal but when they fail the Keeper decides what happens.

3: Losing the roll doesn't necessarily mean failing the goal. "It is important to realize that losing a dice roll does not automatically lead to failing a task." The italics is a direct quote.

There are a few more things but it is codified in the main rules, just in the section that is advice for the Keeper. Dice determine who gets to narrate, success and the players get to describe how they achieve what they set out to do. Lose the roll and the Keeper gets to decide what happens. It doesn't need to be a failure, in fact it warns against things that block play, like not finding a vital clue.

 

[EpicureanDM]

I wasn’t complaining about the “spirit” of the game setting, I’m extremely familiar with the source author’s works. I was having issues with the rules: I’ve played many d100 games over the past 30 years and have seen some more interesting takes on it (in my opinion, anyway).

You did say this, but didn't provide any concrete examples of d100 games doing it better. You said you've played and enjoyed Mythras. What does Mythras do better mechanically that you think CoC 7th doesn't do?

 

[overgeeked]

3: Losing the roll doesn't necessarily mean failing the goal. "It is important to realize that losing a dice roll does not automatically lead to failing a task." The italics is a direct quote.

This is one thing I'm surprised is not widely used in RPGs.

The default view should be that making a skill check, or check of any kind, is a save against consequences rather than as a binary pass/fail of a given task. This would prevent a huge number of common problems.