Call of Cthulhu vs Mutants & Masterminds
Compare Call of Cthulhu and Mutants & Masterminds side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Call of Cthulhu | Mutants & Masterminds | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Modern, Superhero |
| Play Style | Investigation, Deadly, One-Shot Friendly, Atmospheric, Roleplay-Heavy, Mystery, Horror, Corruption, Skill-Based | Superhero, Heroic, Crunchy, Character Building, Tactical, 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. | Roll d20 + modifier against a Difficulty Class. Heroes are built from a Power Points budget capped by a series Power Level (usually 10), which limits paired trait totals (attack bonus + effect rank, dodge + toughness) to twice the level. Damage is resisted with Toughness checks that escalate conditions (bruised, staggered, incapacitated) instead of tracking hit points. Hero Points let players reroll, edit scenes, or recover from conditions; complications coming into play earn them back. |
| Dice | d100 | d20 |
| Complexity | Medium | High |
| Accessibility | High | Very High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | Chaosium Fan Material Policy | OGL |
| Cost | $$ | Free |
| Publisher | Chaosium | Green Ronin Publishing |
| Year | 2014 | 2013 |
| Best For | Investigation-driven horror where combat is deadly and sanity is fragile. Great for one-shots. | Groups who want unlimited freedom to design any superhero concept (from masked vigilante to cosmic powerhouse) with a flexible point-buy build system and tactical combat that emphasizes power-level balance. |
| 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. | Modular power-construction system builds any superpower from effects, modifiers, and flaws; Power Level caps enforce balance even when individual traits vary widely; Hero Points reward roleplaying complications with mechanical benefits; conditions track damage progression instead of using a hit point pool |
| 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. | Character creation requires significant rules mastery to navigate the point-buy power construction; resolving an attack involves multiple checks per action: attack roll, Toughness resistance, condition tracking; Power Level caps can frustrate players who want to push paired-trait limits like attack and effect rank |