New Cthulhu Setting a Good Idea?

[Yuan-Ti]

News is out that Chaosium has a new CoC setting coming out-- called Dark Ages -- see this report:

http://www.gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=8869

What do you think? Is this a good idea? Personally, I think this is a terrific idea although I would have preferred a slightly later setting, in the Renaissance, for my own gaming preferences. Nonetheless, a lot of people on these boards have mentioned using CoC d20 rules in their D&D games, so maybe they have hit on something after all...

Btw, it isn't clear if there will be any D20 support for it, but it doesn't sound like it since it is "a compleat roleplaying game using Chaosium's classic Basic Roleplaying System."

Thoughts?

Cover shot:

 

[Iron_Chef]

News is out that Chaosium has a new CoC setting coming out-- called Dark Ages -- see this report:

http://www.gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=8869

Btw, it isn't clear if there will be any D20 support for it, but it doesn't sound like it since it is "a compleat roleplaying game using Chaosium's classic Basic Roleplaying System."

No d20 support equals no support from my gaming dollar. I really hate Chaosium's BRP system; it's incomprehensible and needlesly complex to me, like GURPS.

 

[JeffB]

BRP complex?

Like GURPS??????


Which BRP CoC rulebook are you reading?

 

[Drawmack]

I'm buying it. It fits well into something I like to do which is treansport characters between game systems. They find a dimension door and end up on dark ages earth. Their magic no longer works and any magic items didn't survive the trip.

 

[Gothmog]

WOOT!!! I love it! I knew there was a German version of Cthulhu Dark Ages, and I always hoped Chaosium would produce it in English. It doesn't matter to me one bit if it has D20 support or not, since I like BRP better for CoC anyway. Bring it on Chaosium!

 

[Henry]

Fascinating concept! I love it!

d20 support or no, the game world is the most important part of it, since CoC d20 has most of the rules I would need for the crunchy bits of a midieval setting.

 

[haiiro]

Hot.

This gives me all sorts of ideas about running a game in which the investigators also play their ancestors -- shades of Eternal Darkness (the Lovecraftian Game Cube game), with a liberal amount of Sean McMullen's "The Centurion's Empire" mixed in.

This sounds awesome.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Ready to order it at my FLGS as soon as I get back there!

As for complicated, umm the standard BRP rules fit into a 16 page booklet, in large type, and with illustrations! Complicated doesn't describe the BRP system at all... Methinks you may have looked at GURPS Cthulhu Punk? Or perhaps just looked at how thick the CoC book was and never cracked the cover.

I actually prefer the BRP version, I've been using it since the 1980s, and intend to run it again at a summer program this year. Explaining the system takes a lot less time than explaining D20. (By far the easiest to explain is Storyteller, I can have them playing the same day as character generation. However the only Storyteller game I have prepared this year is Changeling.)

I would have enjoyed seeing D20 rules as well, but WoTC isn't going to reprint the D20 version, and I don't know if the sales of the D20 version were sufficient to warrant adding them to CoCA. Still no sign of Pulp Cthulhu...

The Auld Grump, who first read Lovecraft while in 3rd grade...

 

[Desdichado]

I hope it's more for the setting than the rules -- if you want d20, just make all character classes experts from the DMG and toss the existing magic system and sanity system on top of it.

There's no good psychoanalysis in the middle ages anyway.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I've reviewed the German version of this product here. (Don't worry, the review is in English...)

No d20 support equals no support from my gaming dollar.

C'mon - there isn't really all that much rules information in it, and the little there is could easily be converted to d20 if you also own Cthulhu d20.

We all have our favorite gaming systems (mine happens to be GURPS), but IMO that's no excuse not to steal stuff from other game lines...