Homebrew Call of Cthulhu - 1d6/1d10 SAN

[Usamimi]

Approximately 3 years ago, I began creating a simplified variant of Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu ruleset. I arranged a play test during the early stages of design with my brother.

The system was roll under. Skills ranged from one to ten.

My brother created a character who was an expert in sword use. He carried his sword and Kevlar body armour in a suitcase.

His name was Nappa.

The scenario in use was “The Haunting”. Nappa received his task: to investigate an allegedly haunted house owned by the client. He would be payed $50 upon completion. He set off for the library to attempt to find records on the house, but was thwarted by a security guard who resembled Rocky Balboa after a series of unlucky rolls.

At this point, I altered the resolution system, which required a change in die type and skill notation.

Nappa entered the house, and searched each room. Upon reaching the bedroom, he was attacked by an animated bed.

He killed it with a sword.

I had no stats for the animated bed, and so the fight was entirely MTP. It was unsatisfying.

Nappa proceeded to the basement, looting $10 from a sofa on the way, and restraining a flying knife. In the basement, he discovered the source of the haunting: an undead sorcerer. The fight proceeded in an identical way to the earlier fight with the bed. After killing the zombie, Nappa proceeded to taxidermy his claws to create glove based weapons.

My brother insisted on this despite the claws being inferior to his sword.

The game ended with unresolved plot hooks regarding documents in the basement.

I have not worked on the system since. My brother has declared Nappa to have zero SAN.

The incomplete nature of the system was an obvious failure point, as was the lack of coherent design and monster statistics. It was haphazardly balanced. Its’ only redeeming feature was that it was less clunky than Call of Cthulhu.