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The inaugural Free RPG Day was held on Saturday June 23rd in the USA and Saturday 21st July in the UK. Its aim was to bring gamers and potential customers into their local games store by making available a number of free mini supplements kindly provided by the publishers. Each is intended to introduce and showcase a particular RPG or range of supplements, either already available or forthcoming. The purpose here is to review as many of the following as possible in a series of mini-reviews, taking into consideration how well each stands on its own, how good each serves as an introduction or prequel to another fuller product, how well it stands up as Free RPG Day product, and just how good it is in general.
I have access to the following items, for which I would like to thank Roj at Wayland's Forge:
- GamesMastery Module D0: Hollow's Last Hope
- DCC #51.5: The Sinister Secret of Whiterock
- Wicked Fantasy Module #0: Temple of Blood
- Tunnels & Trolls Quick-Start Rules
- Mutants & Masterminds Beginner's Guide: Quick-Start
- Castles & Crusades Fantasy Role Playing Game Quick Start Rules
- Dungeonbattle Brooklyn for Xcrawl
- Changling: the Lost -- Free Rules and Adventure
- Little Boy Lost for In Dark Alleys
- Call of Cthulhu Quickstart Rules
- The Pig, the Witch and her Lover -- Free Adventure for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
- Flashpak for Cyberpunk 3.0*
- The Rifter #38*
- Return to the Tomb of the Five Corners*
- GURPS Lite Fourth Edition*
- Scion: the Hero*
* To be fair although I have a copy of The Rifter which was given away on the day, both time and personal prejudice will probably prevent me from giving a fair review. I declined a copy of the Flashpak for Cyberpunk 3.0 as I did not think that I could do a fair review of it following the extemely unfavourable review I had to give Cyberpunk 3.0 elsewhere. Similarly, Return to the Tomb of the Five Corners, GURPS Lite Fourth Edition, and Scion: the Hero have been covered elsewhere in detail, though all do a decent job of introducing their respective games.
The Call of Cthulhu Quickstart Rules was another offering for Free RPG 2007 both in the USA and the UK, one of the few non-fantasy offerings available. This is an introduction to the classic game of Lovecraftian horror, now over a quarter of a century old. It includes a stripped down version of the rules, a complete scenario, sample player characters or investigators, and the character sheet. Essentially everything needed to play bar dice and players.
The Call of Cthulhu Quickstart Rules gets down to the explaining in quick fashion. In succession, it tells the reader that his character is on his own in this game and that he has great magics or armies to back him up, who H.P. Lovecraft is, how Call of Cthulhu is played, the process of creating an investigator, and the rules. All of the basics are there, the notable omissions being the absence of any occupation and of the full game's weaponry list. Instead a player will have to make up his own occupation and weapons are kept very generic. Thus a handgun does 1d10 damage rather than 1d8 for a .32 Colt Automatic or 1d10+2 for a Webbly .455 revolver. Overall though, these Call of Cthulhu Quickstart Rules do a nice job of showcasing the brevity of the Call of Cthulhu mechanics.
The scenario included will be familiar to any gamers having been available throughout the game's history. "The Haunting" is at first a haunted house adventure. Set in 1920 Boston, a landlord asks the characters to investigate a property he owns that has a tragic history. It requires a little investigation prior to the player investigators stepping over its threshold, and like any Call of Cthulhu scenario, to be forewarned is to be forearmed, or at least have an inkling of what they might find. In fact it focuses as much on the investigation as it does on the exploration of the house. Once inside the Keeper or GM is given opportunity to play up an eerie incidence or two, even stage a bruising encounter with a bed. The climax of the scenario, which takes place in the cellar can degenerate into a very bloody affair, and is the reason that "The Haunting" has a well deserved reputation as a "party killer."
Some details have been removed from the scenario, most notably references to in-game Mythos tomes. Likewise elements have added, most notably links to other Chaosium releases for the game, such as Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, Dunwhich, Dreamlands, and Kingsport. Unfortunately the latter supplement is out of print, and really, none of these supplements is quite suitable for play by inexperienced investigators or players, or to be run by an inexperienced Keeper, particularly Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. Even with the recent incomplete and wonky update to a second edition.
Phyiscally, the Call of Cthulhu Quickstart Rules is 22 pages long and simply stapled together. It is undeniably bland looking and the choice of artwork, which could have been used to help sell the game, is poor. At least though, the Call of Cthulhu Quickstart Rules are readable, having been based upon older editions of the game rather the more recent so-called Sixth Edition of the core rules with its unnecessarily fussy and ostentatious makeover.
Its appearance is only the first of several areas where the Call of Cthulhu Quickstart Rules could be improved, because as given it does not entice, it does not sell itself. The second is in the choice of scenarios. Why is "The Haunting" used? Not only is it 25 years old, but so many have already played it. Worse still, a fuller version can be found in the core book, so anyone buying the core rulebook after trying the Call of Cthulhu Quickstart Rules will be paying for something he already has. The same is true of the four sample pre-generated characters -- they are straight from the rulebook. Further they are split between Cthulhu by Gaslight 1890s investigators and classic 1920s investigators, which odd when "The Haunting" is set in 1920 and the Cthulhu by Gaslight setting has always played second fiddle to the classic period of the 1920s.
Overall, the Call of Cthulhu Quickstart Rules feels dated and does not do Call of Cthulhu the full justice it deserves. This is despite the obvious quality of "The Haunting." What the Call of Cthulhu Quickstart Rules needs a scenario that is new and not available elsewhere, and definitely not one that the purchaser will find in the corebook. It needs a set of six ready to play investigators focused on the 1920s and suited to play whatever scenario it includes. It needs to look less scrappy and more contemporary. It needs to sell itself on physical looks alone. It needs to properly suggest what a group who have tried and enjoyed the Call of Cthulhu Quickstart Rules needs to purchase next. Finally it needs to explain to someone trying out the game how you pronounce "Cthulhu."
The last problem with the Call of Cthulhu Quickstart Rules is that is free to download, not only from Chaosium's own website, but yog-sothoth.com also, and has been for quite a while. So why was it made available on Free RPG Day? The point of the day was to get customers into the games stores, and something that you can download at home is not going to do that.
Highs: A classic scenario supported by a slimmed down, accessible version of the Call of Cthulhu rules. Lows: Lacklustre production values and an aging product do nothing to sell the full game and neither does Chaosium. Overall: Does the job it sets out to do -- provide an introduction to Call of Cthulhu, but more than that and the Call of Cthulhu Quickstart Rules is a failure.
For Free RPG Day: It might not be Dungeons & Dragons, but this is lacklustre that does nothing for the event itself or the game.
