I mentioned that whilst AD&D was possibly my favourite RPG system, it was a close run thing between that and another - Call of Cthulhu.
Call of Cthulhu 5th Edition, Peterson & Willis, Chaosium 1989. From my personal collection.
Whereas AD&D concerned itself primarily with fantasy, derring-do, cavern exploring and, well, DRAGONS, Call of Cthulhu (CoC for short) looked towards the ancient horrors which lurk in the shadows, evil cults and weird events...
In the United States of the 1920's.
Now, to a boy of 15 from a provincial Midlands market town, this equated to Bugsy Mallone, Al Capone, Bonnie & Clyde and Tommy-guns. Of course, I didn't realise that was a few years down the road, but it evoked a setting which was just as exotic as Tolkien.
Published by Chaosium (still one of the best RPG publishers around) and based on the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft (considered by some to be the father of modern US horror), the game pitches groups of investigators (the players) against the nameless horrors of the Great Old Ones, including the Great Cthulhu himself, in a race against time to stop the cultists from causing the end of the world....
It's a markedly different system to AD&D, one I would say is more involved. With skill lists and no set character classes (and not a sign of an alignment system), a player could be whatever they wanted to be (as long as it fitted the setting) - in my time I've had characters that were librarians, military officers and policemen, even a cricket playing spy in one memorable game!
The big difference though, behind the mechanics, was the 'feel' - AD&D at its core has a strong emphasis on combat - one of the largest chapters in the rulebook is for just that, whereas CoC's strength lies in evoking a sense of horror - that creeping feeling on the back of your neck, the knowledge that no matter what you did, there were things out there that you just couldn't fight, or if you did, you wouldn't defeat without either dying, or going stark staring insane...
Which leads me to the thing that, for me, is the USP of Call of Cthulhu - the sanity rules! Every time you encounter the monsters, read a text or decipher a carving, your character runs the risks of going mad. The Sanity Rules control this with great effect, never appearing to make light of insanity, giving weight to the decisions your character makes.
The writing throughout the rulebook, originally by Sandy Peterson and ably updated (in the edition) by Lynne Willis is fluid and inspiring, each section easy to understand and pick up.
Contained within the rules are a few introductory adventures that I've ran over and over again with various groups, and they're all great little scenarios to get your teeth into before you look further afield.
I've loved this game both as player and Keeper (the CoC term for the GM), and even now, many years later my old group still recount the adventures we endured.
I still run games now, the rules in their 6th edition (soon to be 7th). The original 1920's setting now vyes for time alongside newer versions (which use the CoC rules under license from Chaosium) such as World War Cthulhu (adventures set in 1940's World War Two Europe), The Laundry (which takes its setting from another series of books - this time the Lovecraft / Deighton lovechild of Charles Stross's books of the same name) and Cthulhu Britannica (games set in the UK, with a great series of adventures set in Scotland, written by Stuart Boon and the winner of several awards and a personal favourite). Curiously, these three settings are all published by those fine fellows at Cubicle 7, who are also the malevolent minds behind this year's big kickstarter, Cthulhu Britannica: London, which I can't wait for!
Coming Soon from Cubicle 7....
Next time: my gaming take a turn toward mutant animals, and a foray into the dark future of the 41st millenium...
