Just a followup on Call of Cthulhu as a RPG is that the mechanics are almost undeeded. A LOT of the mechanics of TT-RPGs comes from leveling or skilling up.
CoC works best as a one off (in my experience, 2-4 sessions total) and as such, you normally get to skip any sort of progression. The reverse is closer to the truth, as you may find your character going totally mad (more of an issue in prior editions) and being replaced.
As such, it’s almost better with novice players to give them a handout explaining their character, what they’re good/skilled at, and handling all the mechanics or rolls behind the shield, and explaining the effects.
Kinda like playing Paranoia - great for short run where you’re concentrating on having fun, not by nature a prolonged event!
What’s nice is that if you’re using an existing system with a lot of sub-genres (D20, GURPS, World of Darkness, etc) and they enjoy the starter then they have a taste of the system you’d be using, and an incentive to learn more, rather than the feeling of having to learn in order to play.
IE learn the rules to “Git gud” and/or build a perfectly customized character.
Of course, I’m a power gamer/rules lawyer by nature, and my tendencies are showing!
When I run into a player whose primary experience is with D&D, I sometimes find I need to nudge them a bit to abandon the D&D mindset. I don’t mean to disparage D&D, I play it myself, but there are things we typically associate with D&D that aren’t appropriate in other games. I ran a game of Legend of the Five Rings years ago, and it was very difficult for some of the players to wrap their head around the idea that looting the corpses of their enemies wasn’t a thing. Not only is touching a corpse taboo, but you’re almost certainly not going to be taking their stuff and selling it for gold.
Sometimes you do have players who just don’t get it for other reasons. I ran a Trail of Cthulhu game set in New York during the 1930s and emphasized that their were just regular people. Everyone got it and made appropriate characters except for the one player who insisted on making a time traveling fighter pilot.
But usually I don’t find it difficult to just explain how the game works. Getting shot sucks. You might die. Don’t get shot. You’re not an 8th level fighter who can take multiple arrow shots. You’re just a regular dude who doesn’t want to get shot or eaten by some incomprehensible creature from beyond the other dominion.
This is totally true. I once tried to explain it to a player more familiar with the D&D style that they’re as tough as a 1st level mage who was out of spells and it’s going to STAY that way. You know, the one who was just starting off and got killed in a single hit by a a goblin with a club.
Human characters (the only kind that players will generally play) have an average of 11-12 hit points. A large caliber pistol or any centerbore rifle can do that damage as can large stabbing weapons, especially with an impaling hit, as can most attacks from any serious Mythos creatures. There is no recovery from a major wound where hit points drop below zero, and “…[i]f a character suffers points of damage greater than or equal to their maximum hit points in a single blow, they die instantly.”. Death in Call of Cthulhu is a realistic and palpable thing that characters face even when they are just dealing with a few human cultists or a single ghoul. Pulp Cthulhu (which many people house ruled before it was ever a thing just to make it through campaigns like Masks of Nyarlathotep or Horror on the Orient Express because it was basically impossible for normal characters to make it more than a couple of individual scenarios without succumbing to injuries or madness) makes the game somewhat more survivable but depending on which rules you implement they’re still vulnerable to instant death from most direct Mythos threats.
That being said, in my experience most characters in Call of Cthulhu campaigns I’ve seen or run tend to go insane or die trying to run/drive/fly away rather than in direct conflict with Mythos entities because they often suffer a Bout of Madness or go into a panicked rout once they realize they are up against something that they can’t shoot (or burn, or blow up). The challenge as a Keeper is actually to feed the players enough clues and hints without railroading to let them figure out a workable solution (or escape) without walking directly into the face of madness or suffering a total party kill.
I once had a group of players that were supposed to go down to Atlantic City to deal with a growing Deep Ones threat taking over the boardwalk casinos and speakeasies, and instead they decided to take an improvised side quest on the way down over to the Pine Barrons to deal with rumors of the completely fictional (in universe) Jersey Devil because of one offhand comment, and one of the players managed to blow himself up and nearly take the rest of the party with him despite the fact that there was no actual threat beyond the Pineys that the party seemed determined to insult and threaten for no reason. Players in Call of Cthulhu are frequently their own worst enemies, which can make for a very memorable game but a lot of player character tombstones.
If the OP (or anyone else) is interested, you can currently buy the Pathfinder 2 (Remastered) Beginner Box with some other goodies for $5 via Humble Bundle. Or spend $30 on the whole Remastered Player’s book, GM’s book and a ton of other content. All in PDF format.
I have two versions of CoT in house, the Chaosium 4th Edition, and the 1st D20 edition.
In Chaosium an average starting character with average CON and SIZE has 11 HP roughly. A wild dog (not a wolf, not a Mythos creature) does 1d6 bite damage. Three bites on average and you’re dead. A .38 revolver does a full 1d10 (not counting an impale) which means again, 2 shots on average and you’re dead.
So a comparison to a 4 HP 1st level mage hit with a 1d6 club is meaningful!
In the D20 version, a first level investigator has 6 HP assuming no modifiers or feats. The same .38 S&W revolver still does 1d10 (again, ignoring criticals). One barely above average shot and you’re on the ground, in a coma or dying (negatives). Bump it up to a still reasonable .357 Mag (2d6) and the average roll puts you in negatives easily. Nothing needs be said if it’s a shotgun or rifle, much less a mythos creature.
Anyway, the point is different versions and editions of the game will fudge the numbers somewhat, and if you want a pulpier, Indiana Jones style CoC that’s fine, but in many editions, any sort of combat can easily be one hit kills to players.
Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition (which is actually the first major revision of the Chaosium Basic Roleplaying-based rules) has the “Major Wounds” rule where a character has to have a would equal to at least half of their maximum hit points (for your average character above it would be 6 points) in a single blow before injuries can cause death just to prevent incidental injuries from killing playersby hitting 0 HP. So, as long as the dog didn’t roll a 6 or get an impale, the most it would do is cause the character to become unconscious and spend several weeks recovering from the vicious attack.
Before 7th Edition (7E), I home ruled out hit points entirely, replacing them with Critical/Major/Minor/Incidental wounds with special effects (burning, crushing,drowning, mauling, et cetera) based on damage threshold and type of attack, which reduced the bookkeeping and made damage more visceral, and also easier to scale up and down for a pulp-ier feel by changing damage thresholds and number of Major and Minor wounds player characters could absorb. But the 7E rules are easier for players to learn and nearly as good for providing a ‘realistic’ simulation of injuries from a damage tolerance standpoint. Regardless, it is certainly plausible for a character to die from a single injury or attack by a very mundane creature or even a child cultist with an improvised spear. (“‘I got killed by that fucking brat?’, Philip Magnus, p.i. exclaimed as he expires.”. Truly, on of the best deaths Call of Cthulhu deaths ever.)
Also available for the OP (or anyone else), you can currently get a PDF of the core rules for Traveller and two scenario/adventures for free if you want to go science fiction in your gaming. So another low-no-risk entry into TTRPG gaming to explore.
It was a goblin with a club. Not a elephant rifle (I actually had a “Great white Hunter” character who used one.
Nope. "A character is dying when their hit points are reduced to zero and they have also sustained a Major Wound. Record the Current Hit Points as “0” and check the “Dying” box.
The character immediately falls unconscious. The player must make a CON roll at the end of the next round and every round thereafter; if one of these CON rolls fails, the character dies immediately. Only the First Aid skill can be used to stabilize a dying character. Medicine cannot be used to stabilize a dying character. "
So yeah, a large caliber rifle can kill a PC with one shot. But not a dog, even with three- you would be down and bleeding out.
Also for size you roll 2d6+ 6, so average HP is 12, not 11.
Right.
We used to have debates over whether Traveler was truly a true RPG- yes, you have stats, but once you start playing your character does not normally improve (i.e. level up or have the skills increase, etc)…
So, no, in D20 you absolutely were disabled at 0 HP and officially dying at -1. Which was, assuming the numbers I quoted previously you were dead in a max of 9 rounds to make a 10% check to stabilize (or have someone with the Heal skill stabilize you) before you were an ex-investigator.
It’s worse if anything in the Chaosium 4th ED I mentioned, because there you fall unconscious at 1-2 HP, not zero or negatives. And they WON’T wake up without external help. Zero hp is dead, no negatives, no nothing. Not to mention the whole “shock” thing, which is similar to more modern editions which you and Stranger are talking about - take 1/2 your HP in a single hit you need to roll less than your CON on a d20 or you are unconscious and again, will NOT wake up without outside help.
But AGAIN, that depends on the version of the game you’re playing, which I explicitly mentioned.
Anyway, back to the thread, the point is that when picking a TTRPG for a group, you have to deal with expectations. If you watch action movies, or play CRPGs with a lot of damage taken before death, you’ll want to break the assumption EARLY in more lethal games. So the comparison to WoW classics or other games Hardcore mode with extra damage/lethality and perma-death may be more useful to younger players.
Like I said, it’s about setting expectations for whatever TT-RPG the OP ends up selecting. If you pick me for a CoC game, my expectations are going to be vastly different based on the editions I’ve played vs the ones you’ve played. And different in turn for someone who’s just played D&D or a C-RPG.
But that’s always going to be a challenge to a GM working with players new to them. I’ve had (and been) that GM that kills players to make sure the PCs know that the plot armor is thin, and had PCs walk away in anger because it was “unfair”. I’ve been the Player in a game with open and allowed PvP (in character) who got sick of being taunted by another player and set up an ambush that flat out killed them in ways there was no way to avoid, and that player walked away because again, it was “unfair” even if explicitly allowed and discussed prior to the campaign.
Talking these sort of issues through before the game starts is important regardless of the mechanics chosen to control the story. Similarly, does Plot trump Rules, or Rules over Plot? Yes, I’m often the player who will try to do a cheap shot on a villain while they’re monologuing if the GM doesn’t put them out of range.
A dog that makes a critical success (which would be an impaling strike) can indeed kill a character, as can one that hits the critical would threshold and the does a couple of ‘average’ bite attacks. And even just a large caliber pistol can kill any ‘average’ human character with a single impale. From the 7th Edition Call of Cthulhu Keeper’s Guide:
If the attacker achieves an Extreme success with a penetrating weapon (such as a blade or a bullet) then an impale has been inflicted. This means that the weapon or bullet chanced to strike a vital area, driving deeply through arteries or slashing crucial tendons or muscles. Apply the increased damage as for an Extreme success with a blunt weapon (maximum damage plus maximum damage bonus) and add a damage role for the weapon.
A 9mmP or .38 Special handgun will do 1D10 damage, so on impale, an average of 15-16. A .45 ACP does 1D10+2 (avg impale; 19-20); .357 Magnum, 1D8+1D4 (avg impale: 19). Very few characters have more than 15 hit points, and even those that do would be critically injured and bleeding out unless one of the other characters can somehow end the attack, successfully apply First Aid, and then get the wounded player character to professional medical care before they fail a CON role. So, yes, combat in Call of Cthulhu is quite deadly and player characters are extremely vulnerable to even mundane creatures and human cultists (or other opponents, such as lawmen trying to stop them from burning down a house with ‘people’ in it), much less Mythos threats that have a large enough damage bonus to reduce the character in question to a greasy wet smudge on the pavement.
I’d almost go the opposite for a new group and say they shouldn’t be overthinking it. Assuming the OP mainly has a bunch of novices playing, none of them really have any experience to say what sort of mantra should rule or how it should be run. I’d say to just go for it, figure out the bumps along the way and not worry too much about treating it as serious business you might mess up from the start because you all didn’t strategize on game theory enough.
Those sorts of talks CAN be important but more so when you have groups of more experienced gamers who have all settled into expectations and preferred styles gained from previous campaigns and tables.
d20 Call of Chtulhu was not only one of the few games adapted to d20 that was any good but was a damned fantastic introduction to CoC for new players. I thought it was going to be a terrible game and was pleasantly surprised to find out how good it was.
