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I've used a lot of RPG.net's reviews myself, and I thought it was about time I gave something back. This is, therefore, my first review on this site (or anywhere). Please be gentle.
I bought Call of Cthulhu D20 (CoC, as it seems to be known) some time last year and I've run a bunch of games both with friends, and with members of the gaming club to which I belong (shadow-warriors.co.uk, for those of you interested). It is worth noting from the start that I have not played the Chaosium version of Cthulhu whihc uses the BRP system, and nor am I a particular veteran of the D20 system. I'm looking at CoC as a game in its own right.
The CoC rulebook is a nice chunky hardback weighing in a 320 pages. The cover is slightly odd, apparently being a photograph of a modelled background made to look as if tentacles are reaching out of the book's cover. Perhaps not that relevant a cover, but it does make for a simple and fairly striking jacket.
All the pages have a border in one of a variety of icky browny green colours and the illustrations are mostly in colour. The illustrations are generally impressive, being atmospheric, technically pretty good and relevant to the accompanying text. Many of the chapter heading illustrations, which I understand are by Christopher Shy, are particularly atmospheric. One or two illustrations don't quite cut the mustard (like the rather sketchy illustration for the Call Hastur spell in the Magic chapter) but the ratio is still good.
The layout is quite unusual - the columns are slanted, making everything look 'not quite right', and hence is quite appropriate to the game's themes. Aside from that there is very little wastage of space, while section headins are obvious and a rather sinister dark green. Sidebars are clearly marked off from the rest of the text, so they're obvious without having different backgrounds. All in all, a handsome book indeed.
Chapter 1 is the Introduction, which covers the usual 'What Is A Roleplaying Game?' bases as a sidebar, as well as sketching in the significance of H.P. Lovecraft and the stories (by him and by a whole wodge of other writers who used the ideas and themes he came up with) on which the game is based. It sets out from the beginning that you're not going to be saving any kingdoms or thwarting alien invasions - mankind's role in the Cthulhu Mythos isn't much more than 'food' and those who clash with the forces beyond space and time will be lucky if they're only driven insane. Interestingly, the Intro also mentions that you don't have to sumbit your gaming group to the sanity-blasting hopelessness of Lovecraft's vision, and instead can have a 'standard' horror game with Cthulhu bits mixed in. The possibility of adding Cthulhu bits into a D&D game is also mentioned, as is the fact that CoC owes a great deal to the earlier Cthulhu game still published by Chaosium.
Chapter 2 is character creation. Like most of the CoC rules, this reads like a cut-down version of the D&D standard D20 character creation rules. Personally, I like less rules, so I was quite pleased with how quickly a character can be created, and how much of what ends up on your character sheet is determined by the concept behind your character rather than the abilities or limitations the game requires you to have.
Characters are defined by a set of six ability scores which produce modifiers to a D20 roll, in a way that will be very familiar to those who have had contact with the D20 system before. What is very different from other D20 games is that CoC doesn't have character classes. There are no class abilities, for instance, and everyone has the same hit die. There's a choice between the Defence Option (good saves) and the Offence Option (good attack bonus), but that's it. And everyone's human.
Class skills (the skills which players are more likely to have, and can have at a higher level) are determined by a profession template (like blue collar, detective, or soldier). A useful selection is given but both in the examples and explanatory text it is made explicit that players can, with the GM's approval, alter these templates or make up their own. This is an example of an attitude that occurs throughout the book - players can quite happily mess around with just about anything in the game as long as the Gm says its okay. Because Cthulhu is based in a world that resembles ours in all but the inclusion of supernatural nastiness, this is very refreshing to see. If you want to be an animal beautician (like one of my players), you can.
Chapter 3 covers skills, which again are familiar to anyone who has played a D20 game and in pArticular modern-day ones like Spycraft or D20 Modern. The chapter runs through the skill check mechanics (roll a D20, add your abily modifier and skill ranks, and pray it all adds up to a big number) and chugs through a list of all the available skills.
Chapter 4 is feats, one-off special rules which give characters bonuses in specific situations or let them do things the rules don't normally allow them to. Because player characters in CoC are human, everyone gets two feats to start off with. The feat list can actually be a bit demoralising for players rolling up their characters because lots of the cooler ones are only available once you've got lots of other feats, which since characters only get a new one every three levels (no classes means no bonus feats) means that very few characters will ever be able to get Rolling Shot or Spring Attack. However, the Feats system does mean that beginning players have to think very hard about whether they want to be able to use a shotgun or be really good at a particular skill. You don't get characters who are quite good at everything, which makes for PC groups with more variety.
Sanity is Chapter 4. As explained in the book's introduction, the Sanity system is almost identical to the system from the BRP version of Cthulhu. A character has a Sanity stat which decreases when they witness (or do) horrible things, and increases (though not that often) when they achieve story goals or get decent psychiatric help. I really like the Sanity system as it makes all the horribleness of the Cthulhu background mean something much more than just monsters who can kill you - for most characters sanity will gradually decrease as they face up to various horrors, which is far more disconcerting than fretting about how man hit points you have. Also, if a player loses lots of Sanity within a short time they can lose it temporarily, which creates some cracking tension when one player is on the brink of freaking out at an adventure's climax.
This chapter also contains primers on various mental disorders. It would be very difficult to actually roleplay a character who was schizophrenic, so much of this chapter isn't that useable by GMs or players (although it's all very interesting). There's also a sidebar on different phobias, another on addictions and a handy one on treatment for mental disorders from the early part of the 20th century to the present.
Sanity is a great mechanic but it might have been useful here to have some guidelines on how much sanity loss should accompany player actions (like realising you've killed your best friend or doing something deliberately horrible like torturing a suspect). This aspect of Sanity helps players consider the moral implications of their actions, so it would have been very handy for it to have been fleshed out more in the text.
Chapter 5 covers Combat. This contains most of the rules mechanics for the game and is a cut-down version of the combat familiar from other D20 games. D20 Combat is quite 'bitty' in that there are lots of different mechanics - armour classes, attack rolls, saves, initiative, and so on - all contributing to combat, making this chapter less easy to navigate than the others. That said, lengthy combat in Cthulhu isn't that common an occurence so most GMs can probably get by with only the basics from this chapter. It might have been nice to see an even more stripped-down combat system suggested in a sidebar or appendix, for GMs who would be happy to do away with things like Initiative or hitting objects.
Combat also covers some other rules mechanics, like environmental dangers and disease. It's not so much a chapter on fighting as it is a place to put all the number-crunching bits of the game that don't fit into character creation.
Chapter 6 is equipment. It starts with various weapons (including, happily, semi-improvised weapons like shovels and tyre irons) giving their stats and prices. It then goes onto firearms.
There are two basic levels of firearms detail that GMs can implement in CoC. One has entries for generic pistols, shotguns, submachine guns, and so on. The other has a rather exhaustive list of individual firearms which then have their own statistics and descriptive text, and often an illustration. This cornucopeia of guns takes up most of the chapter and is presumably for the benefit of player and GMs who actually know their guns and want to make sure that when a cop pulls a gun he pulls the right one. I don't know anything about guns, but I did see the attraction of giving games an extra level of detail by making on character's pistol different from another.
The rest of the chapter has price lists for other sundry items like clothing and tools. Most don't have rules and are more like price lists, although the suggesting for what items you need if you're going housebreaking or outdoors adventuring are very useful.
The next chapter (we're up to Seven now) is Magic, And is also where things start getting really freaky. I like magic in Cthulhu - it can be very, very scary. Put simply, players and monsters can cast spells they happen to know (usually, in the case of players, from reading tomes describing the Cthulhu Mythos) whenever they want but must pay an attendant price in Sanity and abilty damage, which cannot be avoided. This means that magic doesn't get cast very often by players, especially meaningful when, with few class abilities or magic gizmos in the game compared to other D20 games, a single spell can have a massive influence. The impression really is that magic is unwholesome and somehow wrong, but can be a valuable ally if you're willing to take the terrible risk.
The spells themselves are of a great variety (there are just as many spells that affect someone's mind as there are spells that do damage) and there are a lot of them, varying in power and the Sanity and ability cost. Interestingly, and appropriately, the book encourages GMs to call spells by different names, so magic keeps some of its mysterious and sinister character even when players are familiar with it.
Mythos tomes, the main way in which characters will find spells, are also described here. Reading them costs sanity but gains you spells and points in the Cthulhu Mythos skill. There is a danger here, I think, that tomes could become more like power-ups in a computer game than repositories of forbidden lore - when the players find a big dusty book they know they should get the smart one to read it so he'll have another spell or two. It would have been beneficial to have information on other ways that players can learn spells (pacts with evil monsters, having your brain messed around with by aliens, etc.).
Creatures fill out chapter 8. One fact that is constantly apparent is that very few of the monsters here can realistically be faced by player characters. Even a Ghoul, a very lowly creature as far as the Mythos goes, can tear a new one in any low-level investigator who goes toe-to-toe with it. Monsters are more useful as end-of-adventure monsters, usually with some other way of killing them that just fighting them, or as something to unleash on players who do something horribly, horribly wrong. Full stats and Challenge Ratings are given even to things like Shoggoths that couldn't possibly be faced by players on even terms - ostensibly this is so they can be used in D&D games, but really it's so we can all boggle at the fact that a Hunting Horror is CR 20 and a Shoggoth could probably eat your average archfiend.
What's really missing here is some stats for NPCs and the more common enemies PCs will actually face, like cultists and well-meaning police. There are stats for a sample 1st, 5th and 10th-level cultist but it's not really enough. It would be very useful indeed to have sample police, soldiers, passers-by, escaped lunatics, and so on, to save the considerable hassle of coming up with a character from scratch. There are some templates, too, like Ghost and Mummy, but a few more less spectacular ones would have gone some way to making interesting NPCs and bad guys easier.
The next four chapters, on the Cthulhu Mythos, the Gamesmaster, Stories, and Settings, cover the various themes of the game, the ways in which GMs can create adventures and scare the bejeesus out of their players, and the places and eras in which a game might be set. These are big on atmosphere and bringing out the futility of trying to fight the Mythos on its own terms (such as by loading a pickup with guns and driving out to kick some cultist ass, a plan explicitly ridiculed). Lots of different ways are described in which the supernatural can be used, and in which adventures can be more or less soul-destroying in their deptiction of humanity's hopeless plight. There are also suggestions on refereeing the game, Sanity rewards, and character advancement. The advancement rules posit the possibility that the mechanical rules be ignored and players just gain a level every other adventure (woo-hoo! I can't be bothered with all this XP business).
The Settings chapter covers the twentieth century in terms of the various horrible things that happened and the ways in which Mythos gods might be involved. Stories suggests principles for plotting adventures and making sure there's enough ghastliness in there to keep players on their toes. All in all these chapters show the great variety of ways in which the game can be played, both in terms of era and setting, and thematically. However, I can't help but feel that this is at the expense of focus - there isn't that much concrete information in here, just suggestions. If I'm playing a modern-day game and my players get arrested, I don't know the sequence of events that will befall them (as of the writing of this review I haven't been arrested for anything and I don't know much about law enforcement) - that sort of information would have been hugely useful in these chapters. The suggestions are varied and thought-provoking, but a more definite 'toolbox' of useful information would have put some pages to better use, I feel.
Two adventures follow. I actually quite like sample adventures in roleplaying books, not least because they give an indication of what a GM should include when creating their own adventure. I have only run one of these adventures, 'The End of Paradise', which is set in an old movie theatre. It does a good job of maintaining a creepy atmosphere but the climax is a bit of a let-down - if the players get everything completely wrong they'll probably all die or, at least, witness the horrible deaths of stacks of innocent people. On the other hand, if they get everything right, they'll never know they've succeeded (since the hideous disaster capping the adventure doesn't come to pass). My players were a bit disappointed that they didn't seem to achieve anything, even though they actually got a lot of things right and could be said to have 'won' the adventure.
The second adventure, 'Little Slices of Death' set in a sleep research facility, also looks quite thoroughly written and sinister. It's different in structure to 'The End Of Paradise', being based around a series of events rather than a single location, so it helps budding adventure writers to have both in the core book. I think of both these adventures as examples of how to put a short adventure together rather than a real USP of the rulebook.
Another appendix has guidelines for translating CoC monsters and spells into D&D. This appendix is most notable for having game statistics for all the gods and demigods of the Cthulhu mythos, and a right ugly bunch they are too. It is from this chapter that GMs are likely to get more information on the Cthulhu Mythos than they will from the earlier Mythos chapter, since each god has a few details of his/her/its/their activities and followers. Once again, stats are ostensibly so Epic-level (or stupid) D&D characters can face them in battle, but it's really so we can all coo over Azathoth's Challenge rating 50 or Tsathoggua's 'Alter Reality' ability (which basically reads 'as a move action, Tsathoggua can do anything he damn well likes'). This section, while not really for rules use in the core CoC game, does give some indication of the magnitude of horror each of these gods will inflict on humankind when the stars are right.
Next is a conversion appendix for changing BRP characters to D20(doubtless useful for anyone who has some of the mountains of supplements put out for the BRP version), and a reading list of Mythos-related works and horror stories. A page of sample PCs, an index, and a character sheet round things off.
Well, at long last we've reached the conclusion. The most important thing is that all the Cthulhu games I've run with this book have been good, scary fun. The rules and the way in which they are presented encourage players to get into the spirit of things, going crazy, convincing themselves that the monster's behind the next door, and generally letting themselves get freaked out. The book itself looks good and the style of writing is very accessible - rules are described simply and effectively while the writing in the GM's chapter is always coming back to the fact that this is a game and it's all about investigating the unknown and getting eaten or driven insane when you find it. CoC is a great game and the core rulebook is a fine example of an RPG.
There are problems, most notably with a lack of focus on the setting that sometimes makes it difficult for a GM to get a handle on the way the world and the Mythos interact. CoC D20 is aimed more towards modern-day games while the BRP focused more on games set in the 1920s of Lovecraft's own era. However, there are still vestiges of the 1920s background in the CoC rulebook, most notably in the equipment chapter which has firearms from all throughout the century, not just the modern day. The Settings chapter also has a potted (and extremely cynical) history of the twentieth century. While this is all well and good it's not carried through - neither the 1920s or the modern-day setting is properly fleshed out. It would have been better, I feel, to concentrate on one of the two (I would prefer the modern day) and produce, say, a 1920's supplement for the other. This would free up pages for more useful information like sample PCs, information on relevant topics like police procedures that might crop up, and groups to which PCs might belong to or other ways of getting player characters into the game.
That said, it's not enough to mar what is a throughly recommended game. From a personal point of view, I love the simplified mechanics and the removal of emphasis on combat. Equally refreshing is the explicit attitude that neither GM nor players need to treat the book as any kind of authority, and can quite happily make things up or ignore things altogether if it suits them. Not perfect (hence the non-perfect marks), but all very impressively done.
