Call of Cthulhu vs Fiasco
Compare Call of Cthulhu and Fiasco side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Call of Cthulhu | Fiasco | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Modern |
| Play Style | Investigation, Deadly, One-Shot Friendly, Atmospheric, Roleplay-Heavy, Mystery, Horror, Corruption, Skill-Based | GM-Less, One-Shot Friendly, Rules-Light, Narrative, Collaborative, Drama, Fiction-First, Low-Prep |
| 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. | No GM. Setup uses cards (or dice in Classic edition) to establish relationships, needs, locations, and objects between characters. Scenes alternate between Establish and Resolve: other players either frame the scene or choose its outcome. The Tilt at the midpoint introduces chaos. The Aftermath tallies white and black dice to determine each character's fate. |
| Dice | d100 | d6 |
| Complexity | Medium | Very Low |
| Accessibility | High | Very High |
| Runnability | Very High | High |
| License | Chaosium Fan Material Policy | Proprietary |
| Cost | $$ | $$ |
| Publisher | Chaosium | Bully Pulpit Games |
| Year | 2014 | 2020 |
| Best For | Investigation-driven horror where combat is deadly and sanity is fragile. Great for one-shots. | One-shots where players collaboratively build and then dismantle a story of desperate people with big ambitions: inspired by Coen Brothers films and crime-gone-wrong cinema. |
| 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. | Zero prep, no GM required, playsets define different settings and genres for each session, Diana Jones Award winner, plays in 2–3 hours |
| 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. | Heavily dependent on player chemistry and group dynamic, Tilt can derail carefully established narrative threads, new players often struggle with self-directed scene framing, outcome quality varies significantly between groups |