Call of Cthulhu vs Night's Black Agents
Compare Call of Cthulhu and Night's Black Agents side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Call of Cthulhu | Night's Black Agents | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Play Style | Investigation, Deadly, One-Shot Friendly, Atmospheric, Roleplay-Heavy, Mystery, Horror, Corruption, Skill-Based | Investigation, Espionage, 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. | GUMSHOE engine. Investigative abilities auto-succeed — if you have the skill and there's a clue, you find it. General abilities (combat, athletics) roll 1d6 + spent points vs. difficulty 4. Point pools refresh between sessions, creating resource-management tension. Four play modes (Burn, Dust, Mirror, Stakes) tune mechanics to your preferred espionage tone. |
| Dice | d100 | d6 |
| Complexity | Medium | Medium |
| Accessibility | Medium | Medium |
| Community | High | Medium |
| License | Chaosium Fan Material Policy | GUMSHOE SRD (CC BY 3.0 / OGL) |
| Cost | $$ | $$ |
| Publisher | Chaosium | Pelgrane Press |
| Year | 2014 | 2012 |
| Best For | Investigation-driven horror where combat is deadly and sanity is fragile. Great for one-shots. | Groups who want spy-thriller action fused with supernatural horror — burned agents unraveling a vampire conspiracy through investigation, chases, and tradecraft. |
| Highlights | Sanity system mechanically reinforces horror tone. Intuitive percentile skill system with tiered success levels. One of the largest published scenario libraries in the hobby. | Investigation never stalls — clues flow automatically, Conspyramid campaign structure is a well-designed GM tool, four tonal modes let you dial in the spy genre you want, highly modular vampire creation system, works stripped of vampires for pure espionage |
| Considerations | Chase rules add complexity with limited payoff, 46-skill list requires point allocation across multiple categories, sanity spiral can remove player agency in extended campaigns | NPC combat math can feel unbalanced against PCs, multiple point pools to track can bottleneck play, narrow genre focus limits reuse, requires significant GM prep for conspiracy networks |