Call of Cthulhu vs Delta Green
Compare Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Call of Cthulhu | Delta Green | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Play Style | Investigation, Deadly, One-Shot Friendly, Atmospheric, Roleplay-Heavy, Mystery, Horror, Corruption, Skill-Based | Investigation, Deadly, Roleplay-Heavy, Character-Driven, Gritty |
| Core Mechanic | 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. | Roll d100 under your skill percentage to succeed. Matched doubles (11, 22, etc.) are critical successes or failures. Six stats (STR, CON, DEX, INT, POW, CHA) derived from percentile rolls. Bonds represent personal relationships and can be damaged as agents lose SAN. Sanity tracks Breaking Points: cross enough and you develop disorders. |
| Dice | d100 | d100 |
| Complexity | Medium | Medium |
| Accessibility | High | High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | Chaosium Fan Material Policy | All Rights Reserved |
| Cost | $$ | Free (Need to Know) / $$ |
| Publisher | Chaosium | Arc Dream Publishing |
| Year | 2014 | 2016 |
| Best For | Investigation-driven horror where combat is deadly and sanity is fragile. Great for one-shots. | Groups who want modern-day investigative horror where federal agents sacrifice everything (careers, relationships, sanity) to protect humanity from threats that should not exist. |
| Highlights | 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. | Bonds and sanity mechanics create personal drama, Need to Know quickstart is free and complete, strong atmospheric design, profession-based characters feel grounded, well-regarded published scenarios |
| Considerations | 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. | Dense investigative scenarios require significant GM prep, limited character advancement between operations, bond deterioration can feel mechanically punishing, SAN loss mechanics can remove player agency |