|
Barad The Dwarf
Belgium
De Haan
Got some sanity left?
Come over to the RPGG Tavern, I buy you a drink.
-
Call of Cthulhu is one of my most favorite games. It is one of my most used RPG books in my small collection so I thought it was the time to put it to a review.
The sixth edition core rule book is a softcover book counting 320 pages. The book covers almost everything you need to know about the game. What do you actually get?
First of all you get an introduction about Call of Cthulhu and the stories written by HP Lovecraft.
Then the book move on to the Game System. I found this especially well written and easy to get through. When I first off all got the book, I skipped all the rest and directly got into the game system and it didn’t take me long to figure it all out thanks to the great write down.
The next part of the book is dedicated to references. The Cthulhu Mythos, The Necronomicon, HP Lovecraft, Mental Disorders, Keepers Lore, Beast and Monsters. It’s all in here.
Then we get a look at 4 small scenario’s you can run as a Keeper before the book ends with a bunch of utilities that can come in handy when playing Call of Cthulhu. A guide to Arkham, Character Sheets, Pre generated Investigators, price lists, ...
As you see you get a lot in this book. Everything you need to get this game started is in this book. Adventures, rules, extra information, ... I love it. You don’t need to have different books like in D&D where you need at least three core books to start the game up. The big problem for me however is how they put all this in the book.
I find the book hard to use when I quickly need to search something in the book. There is so much and it’s a bit separated in the book. A good example is that there is a whole chapter about Sanity and how it works. It has a nice table to roll and see what effect the sanity has but when it runs out a certain mental disease comes into play and if you immediately want that, you have skip through a part of the book to reach that part. Sometimes I get the idea that as a keeper that needs information you have to do some sanity checks. Another example is the spell list, there is a big spell list but it doesn’t really contain all the spells that you find in the cthulhu mythos books that are listed earlier in the book. Same with the beings, first you have a part of cthulhu mythos beings but for the earthly creatures you have to skip a part of the book again. I already put a bunch of post it in it with references so that I can get more quickly to the right part but it’s still not that ideal. I’m just happy that I bought the keepers screen just to get me quicker through the game without having to look everything up in the book. So a better grouping of parts of the book woudn’t be a bad idea to me.
For the rest I don’t really have much problems with the book. It offers a good read when you first want to start with the game.
The artwork in the book isn’t really my cup of tea. But I must admit that it gives a good atmosphere for the whole insanity concept.
-
Jason Carter
United States
Waldorf
Maryland
-
Great review! I love CoC and have been playing for many years. I recently picked up Malleus Monstrorum, its an awesome resource. The art is fantastic and there are more slimy things than you could shake a stick at! Check it out if you don't have it yet!
-
|
|
|
Got some sanity left?
