Nuketown

New Adaptation of Call of Cthulhu RPG

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Sun, 10/29/2006 - 2:49pm

Do we need another version of Call of Cthulhu? Pelgrane Press thinks so:

Pelgrane Press has announced that they will be producing an adaptation of Chaosium's seminal roleplaying game, Call of Cthulhu. The new game, as yet untitled, will be written by Kenneth Hite (Call of Cthulhu, Unknown Armies, GURPS, Star Trek) and based on an all-new game system called GUMSHOE written by Robin D Laws (Dying Earth, Feng Shui.)

Simon Rogers added "We are all great fans of Lovecraft, and of Chaosium's work. The new game will be compatible with existing adventures, and will include a hybrid option combining the two systems. The GUMSHOE rule set revolutionizes investigative scenarios by ensuring that players are never deprived of the crucial clues they need to move the story forward, and Ken has erudition combined with a gamer's soul which should lead to a great game." The game will be written and playtested in 2006 for release in 2007.

A little surfing didn't turn up much about how GUMSHOE (which also powers Laws' upcoming Esoterrorists) save this entry on "Buzzbomb cornered at the 7-11". It seems that the goal of the system is to get rid of the dead ends that come about from failed skill checks during investigations. The goal is to cut to the chase, allowing investigators to almost automatically find clues and then concentrate on figuring out what they mean.

I can't say this has been a huge problem for me. Of all the Call of Cthulhu adventures, only one has gone catastrophically amiss because of bad skill checks, resulting in an investigation that could not be completed (and the subsequent of the of the world, but hey, this is Cthulhu. More often failed skill checks warp the investigation and the game in unexpected (and often entertaining) ways. That said, I can see (and have seen) how failed skill checks can yield frustration, and the point of the game is to have fun, not to be frustrated.

I'm curious about this new edition, partly to see how its stated goals are realized, and partly to see how the Call of Cthulhu community receives it. The d20 edition of Cthulhu was received with near universal scorn by diehard fans of Chaosium's original creation. A large part of that was a reaction against d20 itself, particularly the idea of "leveling up" investigators, so it could be that they'll be more accepting of a Hite and Laws' narrative-focused offering. But I wouldn't count on it.

The game is still in development, and you can learn more about it by visiting publisher Simon Roger's blog.

Yog-Scott said,

Tue, 10/31/2006 - 12:12am

Interesting. On the one hand, I don't really have a problem with the current CoC game, so I'm not sure why another version is needed. On the other hand, I've got a great deal of respect for both Ken Hite and Robin Laws. I guess at this point I'd say that I'm intrigued enough to pick it up when it comes out.

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Kenneth Newquist said,

Tue, 10/31/2006 - 10:08am

That's about where I am with it. My curiosity is piqued by Hite and Laws' involvement, and I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it. That said, for me a huge part of Call of Cthulhu is how the story evolves based on the unexpected, as players fail SAN checks or miss the clue that could have saved them in their final confrontation.

One of our most memorable CoC adventures involved was Delta Green op based on the "Night Floors" scenario, in which one investigator went mad while exploring the otherworldly upper floors of a New York tenement. He ended trapped on one side of a door, his fellow investigators trying to hold it shut against them, blindling firing into the wood in an attempt to defeat the terrors in his mind.

I'd hate to see CoC become so story-driven that such unexpected events would become impossible. Simon Rogers at Pelgrane (and ProFantasy) ran a survey asking for people's feedback on Call of Cthulhu. Here's a blog post about some of the results.

There's the expected pro/anti Forge contingents, but IMHO if you're going to mess with Cthulhu, you might as well go full-bore and introduce some of the better Forge-inspired concepts. Just recreating BRP isn't enough.

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