Batman Role-Playing Game vs Call of Cthulhu
Compare Batman Role-Playing Game and Call of Cthulhu side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Batman Role-Playing Game | Call of Cthulhu | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Superhero, Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Tags | Licensed IP, Heroic, Investigation, Crunchy, Tactical, Character Building, Martial Arts, High-Power, Strong GM Support, Beginner-Friendly | Investigation, Deadly, One-Shot Friendly, Atmospheric, Roleplay-Heavy, Mystery, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Corruption, Skill-Based |
| Core Mechanic | Abilities and quantities such as weight, distance, and time are rated in Attribute Points (APs), a scale on which each AP doubles the last. A Dice Action rolls 2d10 against a Success Number found by crossing the Acting Value with the Opposing Value on the Action Table. Doubles add and may roll again, while double 1s always fail. When a roll of 11 or more beats the Success Number, it earns a Column Shift for each entry counted rightward past the Success Number that is at least 11 and no higher than the roll. The Effect Value is then crossed with the Resistance Value on the Result Table, moved left by the Column Shifts, to give Result APs (RAPs) of damage or effect. Before the roll, both sides may bid Hero Points, each adding 1 AP to one value without more than doubling it. | Roll d100 equal to or under your skill percentage. Success tiers at half (Hard) and one-fifth (Extreme) of the skill value. Bonus and penalty dice adjust the tens digit. Failed rolls can be pushed for a second attempt at greater risk. |
| Dice | 2d10 | d100 |
| Complexity | High | Medium |
| Accessibility | Very Low | High |
| Runnability | Low | Very High |
| License | All Rights Reserved | Chaosium Fan Material Policy |
| Third-Party Publishing | No verified route found | Not yet researched |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | Unavailable | $$ |
| Publisher | Mayfair Games Inc. | Chaosium |
| Year | 1989 | 2014 |
| Languages | English | English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish |
| Best For | Groups who want to play the Batman, his allies, or original Gotham heroes in detective and street-crime adventures against his rogues gallery. | Investigation-driven horror where combat is deadly and sanity is fragile. Great for one-shots. |
| Highlights | Hero Points serve as both the bonus for rolls and the currency for advancement, so every point spent to win a scene is a point not banked toward growth. Starting Killing Combat forfeits all of a hero's Hero Point awards for the adventure, building the Batman's code against killing into the reward system. Interrogation and Clue Analysis turn Result APs into graded information, so a stronger roll reveals more of what a suspect or clue can tell. | Tracking Sanity as a depletable score ties mental erosion to the fiction, so confronting cosmic horror mechanically wears characters down. The percentile skills resolve on a d100 roll-under, with Hard and Extreme bands at half and one-fifth of the rating. Bouts of Madness convert failed Sanity checks into temporary phobias, manias, or loss of character control. |
| Considerations | A Dice Action reads its Success Number from the Action Table and, only when the roll succeeds, takes a second lookup on the Result Table for its effect, so each successful attack or other rolled action needs two table references. Designing a Gadget runs a multi-step Hero Point cost formula with Reliability Number modifiers, Drawback discounts, and a final halving. Only one player can be the Batman, so everyone else plays another listed hero or one built with the creation rules. | The chase rules add a detailed positioning subsystem whose complexity outweighs how often it sees use. Character creation allocates points across a long list of skills, a slow first step for new players. In long campaigns the sanity spiral can strip a character of player control as madness accumulates. |