Call of Cthulhu

Call of Cthulhu is a roleplaying game based on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft in which the player characters are more or less normal guys who might be able to fire a pistol without killing themselves. They try to find the truth of all existence. In the course of their investigations, the players might find themselves fighting horrors from beyond space, such as Cthulhu, who eats 1d6 investigators per round and is generally cranky after being woken from millennia of slumber.

System

Call of Cthulhu uses the Basic Roleplaying System (BRS), first used in Runequest and also for Stormbringer, Elfquest and a variety of other games. It uses an array of D&D-style attributes (STR, DEX, INT, CON, POW, EDU, APP, SIZ) rated on the familiar 3-18 scale, plus around 60 skills rated as percentiles.

Basics

To perform any action roll d100 and try to get under your skill; rolling 1/5 of your skill is a critical success, or an 'impale' on an attack. Used skills are marked and at the end of the adventure may increase by 1-3 points if you succeed in rolling under the inverse of the skill. This leads to very gradual and organic character progression, and encourages players to use as many of their skills as possible at least once per adventure. Attributes can be tested by multiplying them by 5 or comparing them to an opposing score on a table. Damage is handled via hitpoints, which for PCs never advance beyond the region of 10-20.

See Also

Trail of Cthulhu, an updated version of the game using the GUMSHOE system.