Rating: 
Summary: Call of Cthulhu continues a fine tradition!
Review: I have been a devoted fan of Howard Philips Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos since I first read HIS "Call of Cthulhu" when I was a teenager, around 35 years ago. I have been a devoted fan of Chaosium's productions since the first edition of RuneQuest, published in 1978, and even authored my own Call of Cthulhu game based on the RuneQuest system. When Chaosium decided to do a Call of Cthulhu game, I was ecstatic! I have been DM'ing and playing COC for many years now, and have STILL not exhausted all the possibilities for horror genre role-playing using it. I am now using the 5.5 edition rules, and finding them much cleaner than edition 4. Kudos, Chaosium!!
Rating: 
Summary: Good text and lousy art.
Review: I love this game. For the past three years I've been using a second-hand third edition and the fifth ed. expansions and streamlining are wonderful. Unfortunately the art and atmosphere of the fifth are not quite as good as before. So I'm using it as a reference and for source matereal. Still it's a great buy as the only RPG in which having a gun pointed at you is life threatening. Good luck and may your Sanity rolls never fail.
Rating:
Summary: not anything new, but still number 1
Review: i've carried all the editions of chaosiums call of cthulu and i haven't found very many substancial updates in any of them. thats the bad news. its still the best game i've ever played with simple yet accurate and realistic game mechanics and the most in-depth and involving plots. i'm a big fan of about 14 other role-playing games and systems. but i always come back to CoC for serious roleplaying.
Rating:
Summary: Heirs to the Tentacle
Review: Like all Chaosium games, Call of Cthulhu (or "Call", as it is referred to by initiates) is based on litterature. In this case, its Litterature with a big L: that of mr. H. P. Lovecrafts "Cthulhu Mythos". It explores such things as sleepy old new england towns, dreams, cats, terrible ancient books, ancestral secrets, insanity, and the wonderfully inhuman nature of the universe. It uses pulp melodrama to reveal the boiling terror under the world.
You also end up using a lot of percentile and 6 - sided dice.
The system is very smooth, indeed to such a degree that one does not even notice how much it supports the games world - view: you just end up playing that way: its one of the few systems i have never felt the need to customize.
Most impressivly, the game suceeds where countless horror writers (often of great abillity) failed: it is a worthy continuation of mr. H. P. Lovecrafts stories. It has had the good sense to ignore the well - meant travisties of august derleth (though recently there has been worrying signs of degenerate sympathy towards his "ideas"), and though one could quibble about the need for stats in cases such as Azathoth, it has suceeded in bringing Lovecrafts darkly holy world to life.
Simply put, this is one of the two best role - playing games in the world.
Pleasant nightmares.
Rating:
Summary: Horror Role-playing as it should be
Review: One of the oldest horror RPG's, it remains one of the best. Faithful in both atmosphere and plot to the works of the ever-chilling H. P. Lovecraft, modern Master of the Macabre, it evokes a true sense of 'weirdness' during an evening's gaming. A favourite of mine for years, both for it's subject matter and as a resource for other games with a horror theme. Highly recommended...
Rating:
Summary: The great Cthulu will eat your souls!
Review: The great cthulhu is coming! He sleeps eternal beneath the sea in the lost city, and waits for the stars to be right. Soon he will rise and rule this earth again! All will perish unless you bow before the Great Cthulhu NOW! (you might still perish)
Rating:
Summary: In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming...
Review: The works of master horror writer H.P. Lovecraft of the 1920s have influenced almost every single good horror writer to date, from Ann Rice to Stephen King. COC is likely the best RPG ever put to print, and the publisher Chaosium just makes things easier for players by adding content from their various supplements with each new edition. A typical game session has your characters snooping around for clues, and interrogating various NPCs (non player characters), and then implementing a course of action. The climax of a campaign also often (unfortunately for players) includes one of the hideous deities of the Cthulhu Mythos, such as Azathoth, Cthulhu himself, Dagon, or, possibly the worst, Nyarlathotep, trickster god with a thousand avatars or "masks". COC is the only game that has ever given me, as the gamemaster, chills reading a supplement in the middle of the day. I also recommend picking up one of the numerous Cthulhu Mythos anthologies of short stories. Prepare to be scared
Rating:
Summary: to all fellow DM's
Review: this be my second time of being DM in call of chtulhu and would very much like some help. The book I have is an old 5th edition(I think) and would like some help in getting the atmosphere right. This book has all the things you need to get you started and hooked on role-playing games,(rpg-youll be surprised how many people dont know that) It tells you about weapons, strenghts, insanity,(which I tell you is a real pain in the *&%" to finaly understand how it works).I love call of cthulhu and will be playing for many more wednesdays to come.
Rating:
Summary: The Best RPG of them all
Review: This is a very unusual role playing game. There are no happy el ves dancing in the forest c start with, and characters hardly gain in abilities. The bad dudes you are fighting are impossible to kill. Your character can go nutty, and become a non player character. One shot can kill your character. You dont fight much, becuase if you do, you die. This is role playing with a difference.Call of Cthulhu is set in the dark worlds of H P Lovecraft. Characters (or better "investigators") are ordinary people- journalists, doctors, reporters, police- drawn into discovering that there is more to the world than meets the eye and the hand of ancient dieties is behind supernatural goings on. That haunted house down the street may be a result of more than a mere ghost- it could be an an anchient deity trying to re enter the earth. Sounds a bit dull huh? And, if you are a "hack and slash" RPG player it may well be. Where Cthulhu shines is its remarkable ability to create real feelings of fear and dread as you sneak around haunted houses. The mythos is wonderfully sketched, and the rules are readily understandable. You should be ready to play in about one hour. Combat is straightforward, although quite deadly. The game can be set in any era, such is its flexibility. We played in 1860's London, it can just as easily be 1880 Auckland, 1920's Chicargo ( that is the "typical" era) or if you are hankering for a "X Files" experince, in the modern day. This rule book is VERY high quality. Thick cover, OK illustrations, nicely laid out. It even has a reprint of the title story. I can honestly say that in the hands of good experinced players and referees you will have one of the best role playing experinces ever. In one game I played a few years back it got so creepy one of players had to stop as she was getting too "freaked out". and how often can you say that you have had that experince playing D & D?
Rating:
Summary: The Best RPG of them all
Review: This is a very unusual role playing game. There are no happy el ves dancing in the forest c start with, and characters hardly gain in abilities. The bad dudes you are fighting are impossible to kill. Your character can go nutty, and become a non player character. One shot can kill your character. You dont fight much, becuase if you do, you die. This is role playing with a difference. Call of Cthulhu is set in the dark worlds of H P Lovecraft. Characters (or better "investigators") are ordinary people- journalists, doctors, reporters, police- drawn into discovering that there is more to the world than meets the eye and the hand of ancient dieties is behind supernatural goings on. That haunted house down the street may be a result of more than a mere ghost- it could be an an anchient deity trying to re enter the earth. Sounds a bit dull huh? And, if you are a "hack and slash" RPG player it may well be. Where Cthulhu shines is its remarkable ability to create real feelings of fear and dread as you sneak around haunted houses. The mythos is wonderfully sketched, and the rules are readily understandable. You should be ready to play in about one hour. Combat is straightforward, although quite deadly. The game can be set in any era, such is its flexibility. We played in 1860's London, it can just as easily be 1880 Auckland, 1920's Chicargo ( that is the "typical" era) or if you are hankering for a "X Files" experince, in the modern day. This rule book is VERY high quality. Thick cover, OK illustrations, nicely laid out. It even has a reprint of the title story. I can honestly say that in the hands of good experinced players and referees you will have one of the best role playing experinces ever. In one game I played a few years back it got so creepy one of players had to stop as she was getting too "freaked out". and how often can you say that you have had that experince playing D & D?
|
