Game System Overview - LunarNeil/Call-of-Cthulhu-Campaign GitHub Wiki
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."
From The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft
The genre of Call of Cthulhu is Horror with overtones of helplessness and futility, where human life has no value in the great scheme of the universe, and our existence is so transient and pitiful that our world is not even our own to command. Maintaining the level of oppressive horror requires the Keeper to challenge players with a world that is dangerous, mysterious, and often unfair.
Many things can happen in The Call of Cthulhu, and you'll need every tool at your disposal to beat back the horrors that threaten to invade and destroy out world. Luckily for you, the game provides you with a system for handling these threats in a fair way, even when nobody can agree on what happens next. This bundle of rules is referred to as the "Game System," and refers to all the extra stuff that happens in a game aside from the talking and storytelling. Game Systems work as a kind of agreement between players and the Keeper that both sides will stick to a set of codified rules when something important to the Investigator is at stake.
The following helps define what those game-altering rules are and how to use them.
Game System
The default Call of Cthulhu rules ask The Keeper (game master) and Investigators (players) to each have a set of roleplaying dice, including percentage dice (D100), a foursided die (D4), a six-sided die (D6), an eight-sided die (D8), and a twenty-sided die (D20).
So naturally we're throwing out nearly all the rules. We'd lose sanity points just from rolling all those dice!
-What You Need To Play
- This Rule Booklet
- Two 10-Sided Dice
- Pencils, Paperclips and a Notebook or a Binder
- Two or More People to Play
Core Mechanic
The core mechanic of our Call of Cthulhu campaign is something called Dramatic Arbitration. This is just a fancy way of saying that when something can be solved by telling a good story, without needing to use the dice, it should be. Describing the actions of your Investigator in a detailed way that fits the tone, and meets with the approval of the players and the Keeper, is the appropriate solution to most problems your Investigators will face. Whenever something can be solved by doing something fun at the table, like playing cards rather than rolling a card playing skill check, the Keeper should give the players the option... assuming it is safe to do and the materials are available!
The only rule of Dramatic Arbitration is that the Keeper has final authority on what happens. This means that the Keeper has the right to ignore the rulebook, disregard scenario materials, or alter events involving the Investigators. This should be done in the spirit of fairness and genre authenticity, keeping the game consistent as well as enjoyable.
-The Fair Play Rule
The Fair Play rule states that the Keeper should not infringe upon the rights of players to have real consequences for success and failure.
The most common usage for this is to remind the Keeper not to step in on behalf of the Investigators when a situation turns against them. When the players feel that they no longer are being allowed to fail, or that the Keeper is softening situations for their benefit, the horror and tension that the campaign depends upon is lost. It also reminds the Keeper not to dismiss the Investigator's creative attempts to defeat the Mythos threats, so long as such attempts fit with the tone of the game.
This rule insures the Realms of Mythos and Madness remains a game that can be won or lost according to player skill and not the whims of the referee. Players must have the latitude to both succeed and fail, because the option to do one without the other renders any outcome meaningless.
-The Banter Rule
The Banter rule states that any challenge that requires focus or attentiveness from an Investigator has a higher potential of success when it is accompanied by appropriate action descriptions, in-character party chatter, and exclamations of surprise, horror, and excitement at dramatically appropriate moments.
In the simplest terms, this means that if describe what you're doing, talk to your buddies as if you were your Investigator, and keep your ears open for any small cues from the Keeper, your Investigators will get favorable treatment throughout the game. Investigators are less likely to be ambushed, or to fail a task under pressure, when the players are keeping their heads in the game. This is one of the few ways that the Keeper can intervene on behalf of the players without breaking the Fair Play rule, and helps the players to keep themselves immersed in the world of the game, which makes everyone have a lot more fun.
Mystery and Investigation Mechanics
The Call of Cthulhu is a game famous for lethal horror scenarios, but what the Investigators spend most of their time doing is Investigating. Just like most horror movies and stories of high suspense, the less you see of the monster the better. Tension isn't when the bomb under the table goes off. Tension is when there's a bomb under the table, and it hasn't gone of yet.
Running a Mystery isn't easy, so to make it easier on everyone we use a simple set of Mystery rules designed to guarantee that the investigations are exciting to play through and easy for a Keeper to manage. Following these rules help create Mysteries that the Investigators have every opportunity to solve, but without needing to hold their hands and rob the situation of any tension. None of these rules rely on dice rolls, though dice rolls can be used as part of an investigation.
-Clues
You will see many references to Clues throughout this rule book. Clues are nothing fancier than a plot thread, usually represented by some curious information written by the Keeper onto an Index card and handed to the player. They serve to advance the story without having a character instruct the Investigators where they need to go. You can also think of Clues as "Hints" that don't make much sense on their own, but can be assembled like puzzle pieces to reveal a Secret. Investigators will rarely have all the puzzle pieces, but once they get enough they'll start being able to make some guesses. Hopefully they'll figure it out on their own, but if they wish they can always use Sanity points to do research.
-Sleuthing out the Clues
Most of the Clues the Keeper hands out will happen during Investigation Attempts. Like real police of the era, Investigators will do most of this investigation by eye (that is, just looking at things) and will occasionally want to copy down information they see written, or collect a sample of a substance, or sometimes just smash their way in to try and steal the information they're looking for. The goal with these scenes is to make the players interact with the environment. Try to create settings with many interesting things to interact with, not like the featureless walls of a dungeon.
When making an Investigation attempt, most of the time there's nothing to roll, and players will want to narrate to you what they are doing and looking for. Because the goal of an investigation attempt isn't to roll the dice, but to interact with the environment, create rich descriptions that have several sensory cues about whatever is out of the ordinary. Desk lamps can illuminate areas of interest. Fresh tobacco smells can indicate a recent visit. Scratches on a desk drawer can indicate an attempt to force it open. Occasionally a Skill check is needed (unlocking a door quietly so as not to alert the resident) but our Call of Cthulhu game has no "Search" Skill to automate the process.
-Putting Clues Together
When a player puts enough clues that they finally make a deductive leap and correctly guess what they point to, they have discovered what is called a Secret. Secrets are special insights, and aren't automatically shared with the group. They are usually a card given by the Keeper with a description of the secret discovered ("Dexter is actually a Necromantic Spirit possessing Ward's body!") and can give the Investigator who discovered them a powerful new Clue ("There must be a reversing Invocation to banish the spirit!") or a special advantage. When a Keeper wants to give a Secret to an Investigator they can either be overt about it, which means the Investigator is probably "acting funny" for a moment of realization, or they can be as sneaky and covert as they wish.
Investigators do not need to say what the Secret is, or say that it is a secret. Not even when invoking its power. Secrets can be shared, but it still remains a Secret so long as it has not been "openly revealed." Revealing the Secret is just explaining what the secret is, and allows the Keeper to jump in and flesh out what it means, and allows the Group to gain the benefits, but it removes the idea of the Secret entirely. Now it is just information, so write it down in your Journal.
The group of Investigators don't need to always solve things on their own, they can pool their clues and have a discussion about where the clues point. If they conduct this conversation in-character the Keeper is able to be of more assistance as well. These discussions are a good way to compare clues and reveal truths as a group, making it so nobody in the group gets a Secret for it and so everyone can contribute.
-Creating Mystery Plots
Every good Mystery needs a good plot. Plots are the story of what happens, when, and where. Writing a good mystery plot isn't that difficult, the rules of the genre are well established and can be used to guide you in creating an enjoyable mystery. First, let's define the three components you'll need when making a Mystery scenario for this game: Clues, Problems and Settings.
- Problems: Problems are the thing to be solved. This can be a murder or a theft, like in many detective stories, or it could be a terrifying creature that seems to be stalking the group. Problems drive the story, and there are usually multiple problems going on all at the same time. This allows for misdirection without being intentionally deceptive about who did what.
- Clues: Clues are the building blocks of the big picture, the hints that lead your Investigators towards solving the mystery once and for all. Big clues can give things away too early, and having too few clues can make the game frustrating and slow. Using a large number of small clues is a great way of giving your Investigators small tastes of success without giving away the game too early. It is also important to offer lots of clues because Investigators are sure to miss most of them.
- Settings: Settings are the descriptively-rich environments that Clues abound in. There are bound to be many locations in the Scenario that the Investigators can travel to, some of which you may be forced to think up on the fly, but you are likely to only have a few real Settings with much exploration potential.
Good mysteries are open-ended in nature, with one Problem to begin the story, a secondary Problem being discovered before you're half-way through, and a number of Settings that are relevant to the investigation, each of which has several clues (and often one major Secret to discover).
-Creating Mystery Scenarios
Mysteries are not just confounding plots, they're intellectual puzzles built upon an enjoyable dramatic framework. When creating a mystery scenario for this game, it can be helpful to follow the well-tested formula for literary mysteries, which gives players everything they need and lets Keepers focus on running the game and adding in a few twists as time goes on:
- One: Introduce a Problem, a Suspect, and a Setting very early into the scenario. The best way to do this is to have them all occur at the same time, much in the way that Police Dramas often begin at the scene of a violent crime where the primary suspect is a spouse. It doesn't matter if this Suspect or Problem is the main suspect or problem, it just needs to start off a chain of events
-Avoiding Stuckness and Chokepoints
This is mostly a Keeper section, so players can ignore it if they choose.
The importance of Clues is how they advance the plot. In a mystery, advancing the plot requires that the Investigators discover the Clues themselves as they work towards a solution. It is also important that the Mystery be mysterious enough that players cannot guess what will happen several steps ahead, even if they always have a good idea where they should go next. But if the Investigators don't notice the clues, or make the wrong assumptions, they can head off in entirely the wrong direction. Pushing them back onto the path, no matter their failures, takes away the Mystery and ruins the experience. So instead of removing the chance of failure or removing the search for clues, Keepers should remove the idea of checkpoints entirely.
This is called the Three Clue Rule, and it states:
For any plot-sensitive problem you need the Investigators to solve, include at least three clues and one alternate path.
For any story-ending conclusion you need the Investigators to make, include at least three problems and one alternate path.
This means for every plot-essential conclusion or Secret the Investigators have to reveal to advance to the next scene, or identify the bad guy, you need three solutions and enough room for a creative solution as well. You should also have Multiple plot-essential Secrets instead of a single signpost secret. So for any essential plot point you should have 3 Secrets supported by at least 9 clues.
Here is an example:
In this decrepit mansion is a secret door that leads to a series of dank caverns where Aldous Fibly is conducting his eldritch experiments. The secret door is now a chokepoint problem, because players must advance to that next area at some point, and so try to make sure that there are at least three solutions. The first solution remains the same: a successful Investigation attempt to notice the feeling of a cold draft from the wall, the way the bookcase sways when you touch the books, and the subtle scrapes on the hardwood floor. To this we could add a note in a different location where a cultist is instructed to "hide the artifact behind the bookcase" (where the secret door is); a badly damaged journal written by the architect or a contractor refers to the door or caverns; a second secret path leading to the caverns from the frigid cliff-side (this counts as a separate solution because it immediately introduces the possibility Investigators searching a new location); a probable scenario in which the main villain or a cultist will attempt to flee through the secret door; the ability to interrogate captured cultists; and so forth.
In this way the Keeper does not need to fudge things in favor of the Investigators, nor give them a blatant hint that removes the fun of investigation, just create a rich environment full of clues to discover. Once a Keeper gets used to this method of scenario design it becomes trivial to include multiple solutions to a single problem, or to provide multiple problems that all lead to the same conclusion.
-Good Investigation Techniques
Investigators may not be Sherlock Holmes, but they can use the same methods as he does:
- Deduction is Reasoning Backwards
Many times a mystery will start with some event or some mysterious event. Trying to imagine what could have happened is always a mistake. Try to start with what you know and work backwards from it, collecting data as you go. If you have a body, the first clue as to how they died is certain to be on or near the body!
- Make no Theories before you have Data
Don't make wild guesses before you have evidence. The world of the Mythos is full of strange things, stranger even than the Investigators can imagine. Investigators should collect as many Clues as they can before they start making logical assumptions. If they find one clue and drive off, it would not be surprising if they get off track.
- Pay Attention to the small Trifles
Most of the Clues used to reveal a secret are small, seemingly unimportant things. You can't pay attention to every bit of small nothing as if it was as valuable as a footprint or a scrawled note, but searching for small trifling bits of evidence can help clear up paths and reveal Secrets.
- Obvious Facts can be Deceptive
If something is incredibly obvious it can also be overlooked. Every clue should be challenged and examined with an equal degree of skepticism. If you find a body in the river you may assume he drowned, but what if he did not?
- Talk to your Companions
When in doubt, share your thoughts with your allies. You can learn a great deal from the different way a companion may interpret a problem, or the unique skills they have may give them a perspective on it you lack. They may also have clues you missed that help fill in the gaps. Doing this in-character also allows the Keeper to help nudge you in the right direction.
Follow these simple rules for handling mysterious circumstances and the players will be able to solve the mystery for themselves in the classic style, without the Keeper tipping the scales in their favor. The one bit of Holmes wisdom you should discourage is his famous expression that "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" for in the world of the Cthulhu Mythos, the impossible is not only probable, it is inevitable.
Conflict Resolution
While most of the game is decided through talking, discussion, and dramatic arbitration, there are moments where the situation is so dangerous or the result of an action so questionable that the game must rely upon math, dice, and the whims of fate. The system that our home-brewed Call of Cthulhu campaign uses for dice rolling is called Conflict Resolution, also known as a Negotiated Contest.
Conflict Resolution demands that the win/lose stakes be negotiated after a conflict is introduced, but before any dice are rolled. Often, modifiers affecting the odds of winning or losing are also negotiated between the Players and the Keeper. The most important distinction here is the degree of narrative control that the players have: the win/lose stakes really can be negotiated and bartered for. This is called your Intent. Players can tell the Keeper that they Intend to knock the cultist through the window (not just roll "to hit" the cultist) and negotiate an appropriate set of stakes, after which they'll roll to see if the cultist really does get knocked through the window.
Once the stakes are set, the rules for Conflict Resolution are simple:
Player attempts to exceed the Keeper's stated Challenge Rating with a roll of 2d10 plus relevant modifiers. Higher is better.
When the resolution of this conflict is especially dramatic or interesting the Keeper can reference the Margin of Success meter, commonly abbreviated to the Success Meter. The amount by which a success had beaten the Challenge Rating by is compared to a simple slide chart: the greater the degree of success, the better the result. This adds an element of partial success to risk evaluation, as a marginal success on a complex task (such as jumping for a ledge and holding onto it only by your fingertips) can often be more detrimental than making a simpler attempt and succeeding without complications.
-Modifiers on Conflict Resolution Rolls
Modifiers are positive or negative influences on the Conflict that you are attempting to resolve. Having a highly honed safe-cracking skill is a positive modifier for safe-cracking Conflict Resolutions, while having to crack the safe as it bounces around in the back of a moving truck at night is a negative modifier.
Importantly, many of the benefits given by equipment are not positive modifiers, but factors that reduce certain negative modifiers or increase the effect of a successful attempt. For example, flashlights do not give your Investigator a positive modifier on attack, but they would reduce the penalties associated with dark conditions that make it harder to hit a target.
Investigators only apply one positive and one negative modifier on any given roll, no matter how many additional modifiers there are. The positive modifier used on the roll can be chosen by the player from all available positive modifiers, though there are few occasions where an Investigator benefits from not using the largest modifier in their favor. The negative modifier used must be the most negative modifier available, after any effects that mitigate their penalties, unless otherwise noted by the Keeper.
####-Margin of Success Determining how well you did is the only complicated thing you have to do on any given roll. This mechanic allows for faster and more variable conflict resolution, and dispenses with much of the table-searching, re-rolling, and effect multiplying inherent in a traditional system. It also allows for the tracking of partial successes in situations where Investigators are tremendously outmatched, which is all too common when dealing with Mythos creatures.
Margin of Success is determined by subtracting the Challenge Rating from the roll to determine by how much you beat the target, with a higher degree of success being better than a lower one. Once you know how much you succeeded by (a simple bit of math if there ever was one) you match it to the Success Meter to determine what Margin of Success you had on that action.
Given how limited this wiki is, I will display the Success Meter below in cruddy text form:
[0]-[1-2]-[3-4-5]-[6-7-8-9]-[10+]
Each bracketed value is a new "step" up the Success Meter, which is listed helpfully on each Investigator's character sheet in an easier to read fashion. When handling a complex action, the degree of success can be of great use to the Keeper when deciding how successful the Investigator was, especially in matters of combat and character conflict. Here the Success Meter replaces the need to roll for damage or perform a number of checks, as a single roll is able to describe a complex result with degrees of success or failure.
The Success Meter is a tool, not a universal rule: the effect it plays is dependent on context and those specific situations (combat being a notable example) that benefit greatly from the increased narrative flexibility.
-Investigator Skills and Conflict Resolution
Each Investigator has a set of skills, unusual talents, and personality traits that help define what they do well and what they don't. Some of this is just the story you tell about your character, but some of it you can choose to be important enough that it improves your rolls or gives you a special power. While anything interesting or notable about your Investigator can be used to justify an action outside of Conflict Resolution, only a few are specifically designed to impact the modifiers to your 2d10 Conflict Resolution rolls. Those are called the Skills of an Investigator.
Skills represent the things your Investigators do well, be it a specific kind of knowledge they are scholars of, or a unique aptitude for picking locks. When forced to call upon these talents under pressure, they function like positive modifiers on the Investigator's Conflict Resolution roll. Like all modifiers, Investigators can only apply one positive modifier to their Conflict Resolution Roll, and sometimes their skill may not be the largest bonus. If there is a superior modifier to the roll, such as simply using the key to open the locked door, then players can choose which modifier they wish to use in order to determine which influence in the Conflict Resolution moment is most assisting them.
Why would you ever not use the best roll on a skill-related attempt, even if it isn't the skill bonus? Skills are endlessly repeatable bonuses, while items or other influences might have more noticeable "bad stakes" on a failed roll. Keys can be dropped, artifacts can be cursed, precious items can be lost or stolen. No item is a real replacement for skill use. It would be tempting, for example, to invest in easily thrown dynamite rather than trust an average combat score, but eventually a bad roll could end in disaster for you and the rest of your group.
-Player Turns and Enemy Activity in Conflict Resolution
There is no turn order or initiative system in our Call of Cthulhu campaign. Whenever dice are being called for, every Investigator is able to act at the same time as another Investigator, and all players are able to discuss among themselves what their characters to do in the next moments of gameplay. This can either lead to a very natural kind of chaos, or incredible teamwork. The players are the only ones to decide which of those two they want.
There is also no designated "enemy turn" in Call of Cthulhu. Enemies that the players are specifically contesting or interacting with, like a cultist you are trying to strangle, will have their actions limited by the result of the Conflict Resolution roll. The Keeper has already stated what the Cultist would like to do during the Negotiated Contest for the Investigator's intent, and so their activities are already negotiated by the resulting narration of the Investigator's action.
Enemies the players are ignoring, allowing to succeed, or otherwise not contesting will have their actions narrated in the traditional non-Conflict manner. If the Player is giving no contest to the actions of an enemy then there is no conflict, and thus no Conflict Resolution required. They can still interact with a distracted Investigator, like shooting at them, but when they do the result of that interaction can once again handled by the Investigator's roll.
Note: In those unfortunate situations where players are fighting or struggling against each other, the Keeper should allow both sides to make an opposed roll rather than abide by the normal Conflict Resolution mechanics. Players in such a situation act at exactly the same moment, with mediated stakes and no Challenge Rating. The loser's adjusted total sets the amount by which the winner's margin of success can be calculated.
The only time the Keeper needs to roll on behalf of an enemy is when the Investigators have no meaningful way of opposing or interacting with the enemy but the outcome of its action is uncertain. Combat will often involve more Keeper rolls than usual, as the chaotic and unpredictable nature of that situation renders most outcomes uncertain, especially where such random instruments as firearms are used. This isn't an exception to the rule, just a clarification based upon a common scenario the Investigators are likely to encounter.
-The Panic Rule
The Panic Rule is an optional roleplaying tool that helps to increase tension among the Players. This rule states that a Player cannot undo an action in progress or change an announced Intent after negotiation has begun, but in both cases they are able to intentionally fail the current action before it happens.
While this sounds unfair, it serves an important narrative purpose that keeps with the genre of the game. Mythos threats often lurk in unpredictable places, and even gazing upon them can be damaging to the mind, and many Lovecraft characters will act with instant (and life-saving) moments of panic when confronted with the barest sight of such a horror. The Panic Rule tasks Players with careful listening and interaction, while keeping them from behaving too analytically. No turn-based game accurately captures the feeling of second-to-second terror as well as a real-time game does, but the Panic Rule gives your players a taste.
The Panic Rule also has a beneficial side for Players to invoke. Players can audibly invoke the Panic Rule (calling out "Panic Button!" or "Nope!" is a good way to go) to instantly an action, even in the middle of Keeper description. This is valuable for creating game tension. Imagine a situation where a player says they want to do something mundane, like peer through a door, and the Keeper begins describing an event while reaching for the dice he uses for Stability rolls...
Player 1: "I peer open the door slightly and peer down the hall to see what's making those noises."
Player 2: "Don't do it!"
Player 1: "I'm doing it!"
Player 3: "Oh no! Oh no!"
Keeper: "Okay. You press your hand against the cold door, and it hangs on ancient, rusty hinges. Your breath hangs in the air as you try to nudge it open. The hallway is lit by dim blue moonlight, and through the small opening you squint to see a billous loathsome shap-
Player 1: "Nope!" (slams hands on table)
Player 2: "I told you!"
Keeper: "You slam the door shut with a bang! Down the hall, you think you hear a low growl..."
In this situation the Player avoided Madness gain by scrubbing his action. He doesn't get to add any clues from looking out the door because he panicked, and even loses his cool enough to make the door slam. What would have been a fairly mundane encounter is now a source of excitement and fear for the entire group! What if the Player only imagined the sight of a Shoggoth? What if the Shoggoth was going to slip down the hall and ignore the players entirely? By giving players the option to freak out to save themselves, you encourage them to do so at every opportunity, increasing the terror at your table without a single added threat.
Investigator Management
Player characters are Investigators, and they posess a great number of personal attributes, including their skills, traits, obsessions, goals, madnesses and so on. Listing them all makes it sound confusing and complex, where in truth, our Call of Cthulhu campaign uses a very slimmed-down version of most character management systems. It just packs a lot of roleplaying tools into it, and is given an elaborate and exciting in-game personification called The Journal.
Managing your Investigator may seem daunting at first, because there are many terms and conventions that seem unusual, but read through this section and then the main Journal Section on the main page and you are sure to have everything made clear.
-Journal as Character Sheet
The Journal is more than just a fancy prop, it is a valuable addition to the character sheet concept. Call of Cthulhu is, in many ways, a mystery game. While you investigate the strange cults and mysterious locations of the Cthulhu Mythos you will uncover numbers of small clues, references to strange creatures, odd and occult symbols on the walls or in books full of bizarre ranting text. Players can't remember all that, or shouldn't be asked to, but without those details and bits of mystery it wouldn't feel like a Mythos game at all. The Journal helps make it feel like a real period piece from a bygone era, and it helps you keep track of all the tiny clues you find.
When the rules or Keeper say to add something to your Journal, they mean you should hang onto it, and ideally keep it with the rest of your game things. Paperclipping it to the inside of your notepad or adding it to a binder is the best way to make sure you don't lose anything, which can sometimes imply that your Investigator forgot lost it too! If you want to make sure you don't lose it, write it down as well. Your Journal is a great way to scribble down small clues that the Keeper drops and let you investigate them later.
-Understanding the Journal
One common element in Lovecraft's writing style is the use of a journal or letter to offer a believable rationale for his stories to be told entirely through first person narration... or for how the character can narrate after they've been eaten alive. Inspired by that, in our Call of Cthulhu campaign, each Investigator keeps a Journal that includes their character sheet information, Clues and Secrets they have collected, and any notes the player wants to make while on an adventure.
Just like in Lovecraft's stories, if the Investigator should die, they can opt to have their Journal (or at least parts of it) discovered so that their fellow Investigators don't lose any clues, notes, theories, or other bits of information they had recorded. It also allows the character to leave last words to his trusted (or hated) fellow Investigators, and to point them in the direction of that player's new character, often with a cryptic message that they "have to get this information to my good friend Professor West, of Miskatonic University..." or something similar.
-Journal Notes and Index Cards
You will see many mentions of index cards and other handouts being added to one's Journal, or suggestions to "scribble this down" on a page of your Journal. This isn't just because it is exciting to have a haphazard collection of scrawled notes and clipped on cards in your journal, but to make it easier to reference.
Weapons and major gear can have their information scribbled into a notebook page or onto an index card, allowing you to read the information on them quickly anytime you need them. Clues and Artifacts can be scribbled down or represented as Cards and Paper handouts, so when you and the other Investigators pause for a moment and compare notes, you will be able to sort out the leads and see where they point.
You don't have to do any of these things, but it will be much easier to track if you do.
-Investigator Attributes
Investigators are created using an Archetype, which is a basic character sketch that is itself built out of a few major Attributes that define what the Archetype does well, what it does poorly, and what character quirks it has by default. These Attributes are Skills, Traits, and Obsessions:
These define the things you can do either through natural talent, hard work, or knowledge. Skills are most notable for the beneficial modifiers they provide in Conflict Resolution. Every Investigator is going to have several skills associated to their occupation, interests, hobbies and experiences. Skills are relatively easy to pick up, but hard to master.
These are unusual physical or mental characteristics that can assist or hinder you. Traits are hard to pick up, you either have them or you don't, and the most common way to gain a Trait is by losing something else. Having an eye or an arm torn away by an abomination, developing a permanent psychosis, or taking on a strange fishlike appearance are all the kinds of Traits that Investigators generally prefer to avoid gaining. Traits come into play primarily in the special roleplaying opportunities they offer, but they do at times carry a special effect, such as water-breathing through your new neck gills.
These are personality traits that drive you, nearly to the point of irrationality. Obsessions don't need to be a sign of madness, but they tend to grow stronger as one's mental health erodes and their willpower grows weaker. Though generally a hindrance, obsessions are advantageous in one major way: they give the Investigator something more powerful than their fear, something inside them that drives them on. In just the right circumstances this weakness can be a tremendous strength.
Those cover nearly the whole spectrum of things a player has to worry about when roleplaying their Investigator. There are other sections to the character sheet that have places to write down additional items of interest, like the Investigator's long-term goals, but these aren't required. Investigators will also collect Clues, Secrets and Lore, and own equipment, but the above three Attributes cover all of the core character information.
-Tracking Health and Insanity Numbers
While further detailed below, both the Investigator's health and their level of insanity can be tracked on the player sheet. The two functions assigned to this are the Wound Gauge for health and damage concerns, and the Madness Meter for sanity and insanity. In both cases they track values from 0 (good) up to 20 (bad) and don't require any more book-keeping than that. Investigators cannot improve their Wound or Madness maximum, though they can raise the minimum of the Madness Meter by corrupting their mind with arcane magics.
-Sanity Points as Experience Points
Investigators who survive are given a valuable reward that allows them to improve their Skills, buy new ones, develop Traits and Obsessions, and contemplate the clues, creatures and strange events they've witnessed. The name for this valuable reward is the Sanity Point.
Sanity Points are like Experience Points, they simulate the way the mind works as it practices and experiences things. Sanity Points are usually handed out at the end of every session, to be spent with Keeper approval before the end of the next game session. Players cannot save up Sanity indefinitely, and unspent Sanity will disappear like sand through an hourglass if it is not by the end of the session after it was awarded. Keepers are free to bend this rule if a player really wants to save up for a major item and doesn't know what they want, but should be firm on not letting them carry more than a small amount of Sanity in their pockets at a time.
For an average session, where all the players had fun and the game ran smoothly, the award should be 5 Sanity Points.
Sanity is a generic resource, meaning that a player who receives bonus Sanity can spend it unpredictably. If a Keeper wants to reward a player for good use of a skill, they may want to consider increasing that Skill's progression directly. Similarly, if the player roleplayed exceptionally well, rather that giving, give them special Clues or Secrets. Allow players, through their own actions, to define what kinds of rewards they recieve. Sanity is not a carrot to encourage good behavior, but to encourage skillful playing of the core game.
-Optional Sanity Budget Mechanic
Optionally, Sanity can also be given out at the beginning of a session, in full or in part. When this is done, Sanity can be "burnt" to give the Investigator a +1 on the result of a Conflict Resolution roll. If an Investigator had been given 3 Sanity at the beginning of that session, and they needed a 12 for a contest that they only rolled a 10, they could burn 2 Sanity to nudge their roll upwards. Sanity is extremely valuable, so Investigators should be hesitant to ever use this option, but it does allow the Keeper to add an element of dark temptation to the Sanity spending mechanics if they feel their players will respond to the tension.
-Clues, Secrets and Lore
Investigators will pick up a lot of Clues as they advance through the adventure. Clues, which are talked about above in their own section, are small plot threads that the characters can scribble down and try to investigate later. Once a Clue has been investigated it may reveal a Secret. Clues and Secrets are incredibly valuable, but they can be hard to keep track of in your head, so use your Journal to track them. There's no specific place you need to put clues, you can write them anywhere.
Not all clues are explicitly handed out, you may hear the Keeper narrate some conversation on the dock that you think is interesting. Write that down and later on you might want to follow up on it. Sometimes the Keeper will hand you pre-made clue cards or handouts when you find clues or reveal a secret that are of special importance. Using your Journal means you won't lose track of these.
Lores are Secrets that have a potent Mythos connection that could cause one to go mad from the revelation of it. They too are often the product of research or following plot threads, but Lores can also be burnt into your mind through contact with Mythos situations. Like Secrets, they can be simple or complex, anything from knowing that the Elder Sign repels certain creatures to knowing the exact non-euclidean layout of the city of R'lyeth.
-Equipment, Artifacts and Money
Money can be important in some campaign settings, but there is no need to track exact figures or worry about the precise costs of items. As such, Money doesn't really need to be anywhere in your Journal, but if your Keeper wants to make your game more nitty-gritty (or if you wash up in Hong Kong and trying to make money for a boat back home becomes a bit of a plot point) then you can track it in the Gear section of the character sheet.
Equipment should be negotiated with the Keeper, who will allow an Investigator anything they deem reasonably available and within their budget. When looking for equipment, make sure to negotiate with your Keeper for some small items your character normally will be carrying on their person. Things like pocket watches, handkerchiefs or small knives are good examples of things that might not have an obvious use now but may be valuable later. Your Investigator will not be walking around with a duffel bag full of adventuring gear at any time, so scribbling your character's generic "Gear" down onto an Index Card and paper clipping it to your sheet is extremely valuable.
Big or important items, like rifles or scientific gear or the eldritch notes of your mentor, are worth creating a quick-reference index card for and scribbling down somewhere in your Journal.
Artifacts are much harder to get than Equipment, and often the point of an adventure will be to secure just one. These can be anything from small carved figures and ritual items to arcane tomes filled with eldritch lore. Artifacts should not be given out to Investigators unless their is a compelling campaign reason, and whenever a player has an Artifact it should be well noted in their Journal as well as clipped in, if the Artifact has a handout as well.
Madness Meter and Stability Tests
In the basic Call of Cthulhu campaign rules, Sanity was a generic attribute that measured the current mental stability of your Investigator. To make this system sit better within our campaign setting, and provide a slightly more robust model for "dramatic" insanity, there have been a few changes made to the Sanity system.
First, the name has been changed from the Sanity Score to the Madness Meter. Secondly, instead of counting your Sanity down from 100 all the way to 0, we are counting your Madness up from 0 and ending at 20. This makes it more consistent with the rest of the dice-rolling in the game, where we use a 0 to 20 scale and roll over the result, not under it.
Lastly, when a conventional Call of Cthulhu game would call for "a roll for Sanity Loss," we call for a Stability Test (otherwise called a Stability Roll) against your Madness Meter. Stability refers to the way emotional flexibility, your mental toughness, and your intellectual comprehension interplay when put into a stressful situation or faced with traumatic events. Succeeding on a Stability roll means you're able to keep your cool, and a failure means that you lose control somehow, and most likely have added to the Madness Meter.
####-Rolling for a Stability Test Whenever you encounter the horrors of the Mythos or come across something mundane yet horrific (such as stumbling across your best friend’s horribly mutilated corpse) the Keeper may ask you to make a Stability Roll against your current Madness. The Stability Roll is exactly the same as other rolls in this game. You roll two 10-sided dice and add the result, with relevant modifiers (which are rare) added to the final roll. The higher you roll the better you do, and rolling under the target (your Investigator's level of Madness) number means you fail and gain 1 point of Madness.
Stability rolls aren't called for to see if you suffer distress from severe mental trauma, but to see how badly your mind fares after the encounter. The only way to avoid this (to "dodge the blow" as it were) is to avoid seeing or experiencing those horrible things. Shut your eyes, plug your ears, and run. No matter how horrible you imagine the cosmic abomination to be, it would be worse to actually see it, for while your human imagination is limited the true nature of the universe is terribly, unmercifully unbound.
One last note, Stability Tests can also be called for when the Traits and Obsessions of an Investigator make it difficult for them to maintain focus. If your Investigator is a Priest, the sight of a Shoggoth crushing his church may cause a crisis of faith that requires occasional small stability rolls for weeks or months to come. If your Investigator has a violent temper, you may be required to make a self-control stability roll when the Innsmouth ferry captain tells you he lost your luggage in the lake. These are up to the Keeper's discretion, but taking Traits and Obsessions that have behavioral components is a sign you're interested in having those roleplay moments.
####-Stability Roll Consequences Any time you are forced to make a Stability roll, succeed or fail, your character will experience a terrible wave of anxiety that gives them a negative Conflict modifier (-2 is normal) until they are able to calm down, and they become less able to resist subsequent Stability tests (-2 becomes -3, then -4, and so on) until the point that they finally snap and have an incoherent outburst of terrified emotion. During such an episode the Investigator is not lucid enough to make any more Stability rolls.
The degree to which a Traumatic Event affects your Investigator depends on how severe the Trauma was and the margin of success on your Stability Roll:
- Successful, by a large margin
If the Stability Roll is successful by a few margins and the trauma was not severe, the Investigator will be shaken, maybe horrified, but otherwise outwardly unaffected. They do not gain any points of Madness and will be able to shake off the jitters once they have a moment to calm themselves away from the source of the distress.
- Successful, by small or no margin
If the Stability Roll is successful by only a bare margin and the trauma is severe or rather personal, the Investigator will be shaken, mortified, and suffer an outburst of terror, rage, or despair. They will be nearly incoherent and almost impossible to calm down or reason with. If they have any mental Traits that compel their behavior during this time, such as a phobia, their self control will be compromised. They do not gain any points of Madness, and will be able to regain their composure once their outburst has passed and they are able to rest for an extended period.
- Unsuccessful
If the Stability Roll is unsuccessful, the Investigator will be gripped by a temporary madness and launch into an uncontrollable outburst of terror, rage or despair. They may be unable to distinguish reality from delusion, and can behave in extreme or unpredictable ways. If they have any mental Traits that compel their behavior during this time, such as a phobia, their self control will be nearly nonexistent. They will gain 1 Point of Madness, and can only regain control of their faculties after their madness has run its course and they are able to rest for an extended period.
####-Understanding the Madness Meter The Madness Meter rises as your Investigator begins to struggle with maintaining a normal human perspective, either as a result of psychological damage or due to learning the terrible secrets of space. Madness does not manifest itself as babbling insanity, that's the symptom of an unstable mind. Madness is often more subtle, and has more to do with your ability to perceive the world in a way considered healthy, rational, and normal. Those are human standards, however, and the true nature of the Lovecraft universe is not one that humanity would consider rational.
Madness defaults to 0, though some Investigators may start with more or less depending on elements of their background. Every time a Stability roll is failed, your Investigator gains 1 Madness from psychological scarring. Some creatures are so horrible that even seeing them grants an extra point of Madness, just from the revelation that such things can and do exist. Investigators can also gain points of Madness by performing magic, handling eldritch artifacts, researching the nature of mythos creatures, or a variety of other forays into forbidden knowledge. Attempting to comprehend the incomprehensible destroys your ability to act and think rationally, and some would consider such understanding a blessing, but it nonetheless makes you seem strange or unnatural.
####-Removing Madness Points The Madness Meter is treated as permanent, but there are ways to repair the damage. Destroying a mythos creature can demystify it enough to ease the Madness. Ending a grave threat to mankind can give you new hope and erase several points of Madness. You can also spend Sanity Points to remove small amounts of Madness through long-term recuperation, which Wounded Investigators will be doing anyway. Desperate Investigators at the end of their Meter can expend Sanity to pick up negative Traits as a way to control the Madness, such as developing a dependence on alcohol or suffering recurrent bouts of amnesia that erase the memories of madness. All of these depend upon a Keeper's approval, but they can add a lot to your character development.
Combat and Wound Mechanics
Investigators are not action heroes who seek the thrill of combat, though it must be said that they are adventurers who seek to undermine the machinations of immortal star-gods and their cults on Earth. Violent conflict, even armed confrontation, is not an unforeseeable result of the Investigator's activities, and it is by no means unusual for Investigators to come prepared to defend themselves against human cultists, angry natives and dangerous animals.
Combat rules in our Call of Cthulhu campaign are simple compared to other roleplaying games, but the following is only a brief overview of the rules. For more in-depth examinations of Combat, Weapons, and Wound Mechanics, see the Combat section of the rules from the main directory.
####-Taking Damage and Suffering Wounds When an Investigator is shot, stabbed, bludgeoned by debris, crushed by their own weight after a fall, or torn limb from limb by a wrathful god, they take Damage. The more damage an Investigator takes, the closer they are to death, and as a consequence, the worse they feel.
Investigators measure damage on a Wound Gauge, similar to their Madness Meter, measured from 0 (unhurt) up to 20 (dying).
This is pretty simple stuff. What is new to damage in our Call of Cthulhu campaign is the concept of Wounds. Wounds are negative status effects that give added excitement to the dull matter of counting damage, and describe just about any negative status that impairs the Investigator and can get better (or worse) over time as a result of medical attention.
Investigators who take damage from an attack or accident will also suffer a Wound appropriate to the source and severity of damage. The act of receiving Wounds does not, on their own, threaten the life of an Investigator. If an Investigator is hurt and takes trivial or non life-threatening damage, it is still possible the Keeper will assign them a Wound (such as Broken Ankle) that can impair them without being a threat to their life. Investigators risk death when the damage on their Wound Gauge approaches 20, but the number of wounds they suffered to reach that number is irrelevant.
Full details on what wounds you can look forwards to receiving can be found in the Combat section.
####-Combat as Mental Trauma Investigators may have a higher propensity for violence than your average individual, but they are not immune to the incredible stress of a life and death struggle, or from the psychological effects of pain. When an Investigator is subjected to Combat in a way the Keeper believes to be profoundly stressful, they can call for a Stability Roll to assess the mental strain. When an Investigator is given a painful or mortifying Wound, the Keeper will often call for a Stability Roll as well. Investigators with fighting pasts may be more likely to succeed or avoid these entirely.
Blasphmemous Magics
Magic is an otherwordly force, more ancient and fundamental than the atomic chaos of our universe's origin, deeper and more terrible than the laws we see around us. Magic leaves a footprint in our reality that can be felt at by advanced science and applied mathematics, but only the most cynical and desperate of mystics have ever attempted to discover the cause and source of its unshakable grip on creation. It fuels the strange violation of normal laws that cosmic forces depend upon to allow their strange geometries and alien biology, and it is mercifully forever outside the perceptive and cognitive grasp of man.
That is... outside the grasp of any Sane man...
Magic is never an ally, it is always an enemy. But should you choose to dabble in Magical arts, you will find that while it certainly will gnaw at your psyche and drive you mad, it can also grant incredible power. There are always those to whom the quest for power exceeds all sense of self-preservation, or who sacrifice their sanity willingly if it means they can challenge the great elder powers of the Earth. Most Investigators will learn about magic, perhaps collecting a vast amount of Mythos Lore, but practice none of it themselves. The rules below will explain how to integrate magic and the maddening aspect of Mythos research into the Campaign and run characters who tempt the powers beyond.
####-Forbidden Knowledge and Mythos Lore Forbidden Knowledge is a Skill that allows the Investigator to make sense of dark secrets, and has its full description in the Skill Section. The information you gain from Forbidden Knowledge is not inherently dangerous or maddening, but it is usually knowledge that asserts a worldview contrary to ethical, social and rational norms. While one can have a wealth of Forbidden Knowledge and never stray into Mythos research, one of the most common applications of Forbidden Knowledge is to allow the Investigator to research the mad ravings of ancient tomes and refine their discoveries into a piece of Lore:
Lore, also referred to as Mythos Lore or Magic Lore, is a Secret that gives the Investigator a special advantage in Mythos contests.
Lore functions similarly to a Secret, a special bit of character knowledge that isn't automatically transmitted to the group (though it can be told to other Investigators), which gives you special insights, advantages or leverages at certain points in the game. Unlike a Skill, which allows you to do something you would normally do, only better, Lore (and all Secrets) allows you do to something that you would not normally do. This is crucial for uncovering the veiled secrets of Arcane Ritual magic, which can be important if you want to stop a dark ritual from succeeding, and can also lead to valuable insights on the weak points, behaviors, or motivations of the horrors you're facing.
Most of this valuable information regarding the Mythos threats is Secret information, so there is a great wealth of potential Lore to uncover. There's no way to be more specific than that, and defining exactly what kind of Lore the Investigators uncover will be up to the Keeper.
####-Tomes and Artifacts of Magical Power In the broad terminology of the campaign, magical tomes are considered Artifacts of great power, but most players (and Investigators) who hear the word "artifact" may think about ritual daggers, obsidian Statuettes, and carved masks. For the sake of clarity, while both are considered Artifacts by the game, Tomes and Spellbooks refer specifically to compilations of Forbidden Knowledge specifically designed to teach or assist in the performance of Ritual magic.
Keepers will typically provide props in the form of book pages as handouts, scribbled with incomprehensible text and strange arcane diagrams, to represent the untapped potential of these horrid volumes. Players are encouraged to interact with them and use them as clues for investigation, and they often play a major role in any Arcane Ritual magic that the Investigators attempt. Attempting to wield magic without the aid of a Tome or detailed reference requires an advanced understanding of magical rituals, and even so, has a great potential to end in failure, madness or death.
####-Casting Magic and Performing Rituals If an Investigator has a Tome and has studied it until they have become proficient in Arcane Ritual, with the approval of their Keeper of course, they are able to perform magic from their Tome or from their Lore. Casting magic from memory (ie, from Lore) is fraught with dangers, so players should restrict themselves to the most documented rituals of their Tome.
Magic is the absolute strangest thing an Investigator can dabble into. They are willingly polluting their mind and soul with the insane chaos of the outer realms when they partake in black magic, and so it makes sense to stand for a bit of strange ceremony yourself with what is called the Ritual Rule:
The Optional Ritual Rule for Magic and Conflict Resolution
Whenever an player would be asked to roll their Arcane Ritual skill, either for using magic in a contested situation or because the Keeper believes they have a reasonable chance of failure, the player must also perform draw or recite the associated Ritual Signs and Chants listed in the tome. The degree to which this pleases the dark forces of magic (the Keeper) results in either an extreme positive or extreme negative modifier on the resulting Conflict Resolution roll.
Tomes should be designed with this in mind, often with simple geometrical shapes representing the Ritual Signs (the classic Warped Star elder sign is a good example) and a well noted instruction to recite some kind of nonsense chant ("Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fhtagn!") either at the end or throughout the entire procedure. This should only be for fun, but it helps stress the problematic nature of magic usage in the Cthuhu Mythos, and leads to a few rare moments of comedy.
####-Creating an Arcane Tome Investigators who know several spells from Lore can also attempt to scribe them into an Arcane Tome of their own, a lengthy process whereby the Investigator researches and transcribes the rituals into a book. This is also common practice when an Investigator wants to copy magic out of an old tome into a new volume of their own so they have a personal reference for magic.
This is commonly done the old fashioned way, with a pencil and paper under the direction of the Keeper. Tracing is the easiest way to do this, but part of the fun is getting into the act of copying a deranged manuscript yourself. Investigators can only transcribe those things they understand (woe befall any who transcribe incantations they have not translated) so in-character research is important. When finished, the player should have a near duplicate of the original text in their own handwriting, with additional pages of their own magical rituals. If a player and Keeper cannot coordinate to do it this manner, the player is allowed to scan and copy the Keeper's tome handouts.
####-The Price of Magical Power Magical power does not come from the practitioner; all such power is borrowed from outside forces, even inscribing the simplest of magical signs and requires the would-be wizard to reach out across the astral sea and touch minds with ancient cosmic horrors. They form an intangible bridge of Thought between the astral and material planes, channeling some power or some... thing through the conduit of their mind that imbues their signs or speech with strange and terrible power.
The act of channeling magic is treated as an assault on the psyche, exactly the way encountering a horrific abomination is handled by the Madness rules. Simple or subtle magics may only provoke a penalized Stability Test, while magical rituals that awaken or call forth alien intelligences are even more Maddening than seeing these entities face to face, and cause automatic points of Madness on top of a Stability Test to retain composure.