Call of Cthulhu vs Kids on Bikes
Compare Call of Cthulhu and Kids on Bikes side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Call of Cthulhu | Kids on Bikes | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Play Style | Investigation, Deadly, One-Shot Friendly, Atmospheric, Roleplay-Heavy, Mystery, Horror, Corruption, Skill-Based | Mystery, Worldbuilding, Collaborative, One-Shot Friendly, Drama, Beginner-Friendly, Cinematic |
| 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. | Six stats (Brains, Brawn, Fight, Flight, Charm, Grit) each get a single die from d4 (terrible) to d20 (superb), with the assignment determined by a chosen Trope (Brilliant Mathlete, Loner Weirdo, Popular Kid, etc.). Roll the relevant stat die against a GM-set difficulty; rolling the die's maximum 'explodes' and the die is rerolled, adding the values together. Failed rolls grant Adversity Tokens, each spendable for +1 on a future roll. Combat is fully narrative: there are no hit points; the margin between attacker and defender rolls determines injury severity and who narrates the outcome. Age (child, teen, or adult) grants +1 to two relevant stats and unlocks a free Strength. Each campaign also features a Powered Character co-controlled by all players through shared Aspect notecards and a pool of Psychic Energy tokens. |
| Dice | d100 | d4–d20 |
| Complexity | Medium | Low |
| Accessibility | High | Medium |
| Runnability | Very High | Medium |
| License | Chaosium Fan Material Policy | Proprietary |
| Cost | $$ | $$ |
| Publisher | Chaosium | Hunters Entertainment / Renegade Game Studios |
| Year | 2014 | 2018 |
| Best For | Investigation-driven horror where combat is deadly and sanity is fragile. Great for one-shots. | Groups who want collaborative small-town supernatural mystery in the vein of Stranger Things or Stand By Me, where character relationships and tropes matter more than mechanical complexity. Especially well suited to one-shots, short campaigns, and tables that include players new to TTRPGs. |
| 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. | Pre-built Tropes turn character creation into a five-minute step, Setting Boundaries safety tools are integrated as the very first step before play, collaborative world-building constructs the town and seeds rumors before the first session, the Powered Character mechanic distributes shared narrative control of the supernatural element across the table via Aspect notecards |
| 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 is fully narrative with no hit points or initiative, which can frustrate groups who want tactical structure, difficulty setting is entirely GM judgment with example anchors but no formulas, the shared-control Powered Character can confuse players new to collaborative narration, long-campaign play requires the GM to invent advancement and pacing because the rules are tuned for one-shots and short arcs |