Call of Cthulhu vs Public Access
Compare Call of Cthulhu and Public Access side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Call of Cthulhu | Public Access | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Play Style | Investigation, Deadly, One-Shot Friendly, Atmospheric, Roleplay-Heavy, Mystery, Horror, Corruption, Skill-Based | Investigation, Mystery, Collaborative, Player-Only Rolls, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Atmospheric, Corruption |
| 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. | When a move is triggered, roll 2d6 plus one of five ability modifiers. A 6 or less is a miss, while many moves split hits into 7–9, 10–11, and 12+ tiers. After a result is narrated, a player can turn a Key to raise it one tier and replace that outcome with a different timeline. |
| Dice | d100 | 2d6 |
| Complexity | Medium | Medium |
| Accessibility | High | Very High |
| Runnability | Very High | Low |
| License | Chaosium Fan Material Policy | Proprietary |
| Cost | $$ | Free |
| Publisher | Chaosium | The Gauntlet |
| Year | 2014 | 2023 |
| Best For | Investigation-driven horror where combat is deadly and sanity is fragile. Great for one-shots. | Groups seeking a finite collaborative analog-horror campaign where player-built theories, personal histories, and found-footage prompts shape the truth behind a small-town conspiracy |
| 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. | Clues have no fixed locations or canonical answers, so players assemble them into a theory and roll to establish whether it is true. Turning a Key raises a resolved roll by one tier and replaces the narrated failure with an alternate timeline. Odyssey tape prompts let players author uncanny broadcasts that become a campaign timer and feed connections back into Deep Lake. |
| 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. | Dawn, Day, Dusk, and Night must occur in order, which constrains free-form scene pacing. The Keeper must synthesize campaign discoveries into a custom final TV Odyssey mystery. The intended campaign engages childhood trauma, body horror, ritual sacrifice, and other dark material. |