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Call of Cthulhu

7th Edition
Investigate cosmic horrors and try to keep your sanity
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horrormodern
InvestigationDeadlyOne-Shot FriendlyAtmosphericRoleplay-HeavyMysteryHorrorCorruptionSkill-Based
Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish
Diced100
System FamilyBRP
Cost$$
LicenseChaosium Fan Material Policy
PublisherChaosium
Year2014
Complexity Medium
Accessibility High
Runnability Very High

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.

Best For

Investigation-driven horror where combat is deadly and sanity is fragile. Great for one-shots.

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.

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.