Call of Cthulhu vs Feng Shui
Compare Call of Cthulhu and Feng Shui side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Call of Cthulhu | Feng Shui | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Fantasy, Scifi, Historical, Modern, Post-Apocalyptic |
| Tags | Investigation, Deadly, One-Shot Friendly, Atmospheric, Roleplay-Heavy, Mystery, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Corruption, Skill-Based | Cinematic, Combat-Heavy, Fast-Paced, High-Power, Martial Arts, Playbook-Driven, Pulp Action, Strong GM Support, Tactical, Theater of the Mind |
| 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 a positive d6 and a negative d6, subtract the negative die from the positive, and add the Swerve to an Action Value. Meeting or beating the Difficulty succeeds, while open-ended sixes create extreme results. |
| Dice | d100 | 2d6 |
| Complexity | Medium | Medium |
| Accessibility | High | High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | Chaosium Fan Material Policy | All Rights Reserved |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | No verified route found |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $$ | $ |
| Publisher | Chaosium | Atlas Games |
| Year | 2014 | 2015 |
| Best For | Investigation-driven horror where combat is deadly and sanity is fragile. Great for one-shots. | Groups that want fast Hong Kong action, tactical shot-by-shot fights, melodramatic hooks, and time-traveling campaigns that mix genres |
| 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. | A descending shot countdown makes every action and interrupt change when a character acts again. One-hit mooks support crowd-clearing spectacle, while featured foes and bosses use deeper wound rules for climactic fights. Feng shui sites link faction victories to changes in history across four connected eras. |
| 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. | Combat requires tracking shots, interrupts, wound thresholds, and different enemy tiers. Starting characters use prebuilt archetypes and follow curated advancement tracks. The rules assume proactive cinematic fights and melodrama instead of grounded realism or cautious procedural play. |