The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is the fear of the unknown
H.P. Lovecraft
The previous sentence is an excerpt from the famous horror writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft, in his book “Supernatural Horror in Literature.” His quote explains the power of invoking fear in the audience and how authors can use it to their advantage. Out of the range of emotions, fear is one of the most powerful emotions we can feel. It can make us focus and aware of the situation we are in, or it can make us unpredictable and wild. Although many people try to avoid intense and terrifying situations at all costs, there are a few who find enjoyment in being afraid. It is the reason there is such an influx of horror books, tv shows, movies, and even games floating around in our collective pop culture. Many of these forms of media try to capture the sense of hopelessness H.P. Lovecraft and his contemporaries were famous for, especially the tabletop roleplaying game “Call of Cthulhu.” “Call of Cthulhu” is a survival-horror tabletop roleplaying game (TRPGs for short) written by Sandy Peterson back during the 1980s. The game has seen revisions over the years, with the recent one co-written by Paul Fricker and Mike Mason. For those who are unfamiliar with tabletop roleplaying games in general, they are games where players play as custom characters in worlds of their own. A separate player, known as the Game Master, participates in the game by narrating the scene, refereeing the game, and playing as the non-player characters. The game would proceed like so, the Game Master would give a brief description of the area the characters are in: “While looking into the cellar from the open trap door in the parlor, your view is extremely limited. Light from the parlor spills into the cellar illuminating a ladder, some shelving, and the white shell and gravel floor. You can make out that the shelves hold jars, small boxes, and other knick-knacks. Everything is covered in a thick layer of dust. You also note that the cellar has no lighting, so lanterns or flashlights are needed. Large cobwebs are everywhere” (Hook). The Game Master would then let the characters interact with their surroundings. Of course, they are limited to what they can do based on their characteristics such as strength or ability to practice magic. After a player decides what to do, the Game Master would either ask that player to roll dice to determine the outcome or describe the effect the player’s choice had on the story.Games like these take inspirations from the games of pretend we played as children, but with a set of rules that dictate the consequences of specific actions, creating new characters, combat, and more. Tabletop roleplaying has been a part of our broader pop culture since its inception in 1977, with the release of the original Dungeons and Dragons. Since then, TRPGs have been influencing most of our modern media, including modern RPGs. Like any form of entertainment, there are many genres of tabletop roleplaying. “Call of Cthulhu” sits as one of the best in survival-horror, having earned hundreds of awards over the years. What makes this game stand out is the barrier of entry to playing, the tone of the game, the unique mechanics found in the game, and the game being a steppingstone to the lager Cthulhu Mythos.
Like many TRPGs, the barrier of entry for “Call of Cthulhu” is determined by the rules of the game. Most TRPG rulebooks come in large hardcover books the size of school textbooks. Recently, the publishers of “Call of Cthulhu,” Chaosium Inc., is following a trend to release a shortened version of the rules to download for free. This initiative, that many TRPG publishing companies are doing, is to introduce any prospecting players to their game, without overwhelming and intimidating them with a large amount of information. Unlike most TRPGs, however, there is a tutorial available to download for free as well on the Chaosium webpage. The tutorial takes the form of a solitaire scenario called “Alone Against the Flames”. Solitaire scenarios are scenarios, or adventures, that are played by one person without a Game Master. These scenarios are like “Choose your Adventure” stories, but with an emphasis on the game mechanics affecting certain choices. What makes “Alone Against the Flames” attractive for inexperienced players is that the players learn the basics of creating characters and playing “Call of Cthulhu,” while playing through the scenario.
Another unique aspect of “Call of Cthulhu” is the mechanics of the game itself. Many TRPGs use physical health to determine if a character is well enough to manage the dangers of the world. “Call of Cthulhu” uses this system but emphasizes more on the mental health of the characters rather than their physical health. The reason is that the characters are encountering extradimensional beings that transcends the character’s sense of reality. A character’s mental health is recorded on the “Sanity” track of the character sheet. Whenever the players come across something that put their characters’ sanity to the test, the GM may call for the players to roll a “Sanity Check.” If the players succeed in the check, their characters come out of the encounter with their sanity intact; but if they failed, the value of the “Sanity” track lowers. If the number of the “Sanity” track reaches zero, the character becomes either temporarily or permanently insane. The difference between the two is that temporary insanity knocks the character out of the game for a time while permanently insane characters are treated as dead characters. Another aspect of the game is “Luck”. Obviously, the player’s luck in their dice rolls influences the outcome of certain choices or the session itself. To compensate the bad luck of the players, “Call of Cthulhu” integrated a “Luck” track on the character sheet. This track works like the “Sanity” track of each character sheet. The differences between the two is that players use the “Luck” track when they are asked to roll a “Luck check”; and the players can spend the score of the “Luck” track as points to influence their rolls. The catch is that players cannot increase the “Luck” score. This makes players aware on how they are spending their “Luck” points; because the more points they spend, the difficult it would be for players to succeed future “Luck” rolls. The third unique game mechanic is the unbalanced combat found in “Call of Cthulhu”. Most TRPGs’ combat system is fair and balanced. The reason for this is to give all characters a fair chance to survive the encounter. “Call of Cthulhu’s” combat system leans heavily against the characters through overpowered creatures. The reason is to help emulate the sheer power of these creatures while setting the dark and morbid tone of the story. Weapons, on the other hand, are much more powerful than one might think. The reason is to emphasize how fragile humans are, especially the characters of the game. The last game mechanic that is unique to “Call of Cthulhu” is the level-up system. Most RPGs use a point system as their level-up system. The way it works is that each character earns points after an encounter. When the characters reach a certain number of points, they level-up. With “Call of Cthulhu,” their level-up system works differently because of how weak these characters are in comparison to characters from other TRPG systems. The way that “Call of Cthulhu” characters level up is that they first put a checkmark next to the skill they succeeded on. Then, if the characters survive the scenario, they roll for the skills they marked off. If they failed their rolls, they increase the skill score by adding the current skill value with the value rolled on a 10-sided die. All these unique mechanics work together to help create the sense of hopelessness and pure terror of each session.
Compared to most TRPGs, “Call of Cthulhu” sets a much darker and morbid tone. The reason is because of one of the core focus of the game, exploration at significant risk to one’s sanity. This focus is an excellent departure to most TRPGs, where they encourage adventure and exploration of the unknown. The main reason for this is because of the source material “Call of Cthulhu” takes its inspiration from. The influences of “Call of Cthulhu” comes from the many works of H.P. Lovecraft and his contemporaries, whose works laid the groundwork for cosmic horror. Cosmic horror is a genre of horror where the fear of the unknown creates a sense of terror. This type of horror can be seen in all aspects of the modern horror genre, especially in movies. What makes this type of horror unique is that you can take anything that not a lot a people understand and make it terrifying. This is especially useful if writers want to add a bit of scientific flair to their works. H.P. Lovecraft used many of the latest discoveries of his time when designing his horrors. One of the difficulties of writing cosmic horror is that it is easy for the writers to lose focus of the fear of the unknown and focus more of the fear of a certain person or creature because they are deemed “dangerous”. GM’s can learn a lot about invoking the terror of cosmic horror when they are exposed to the stories that make up the Cthulhu Mythos.
When designing “Call of Cthulhu,” the designers felt it was essential to expose their GMs and players to the larger world of the Cthulhu mythos. Being one of the oldest interconnected universes in all modern media, it has influenced many aspects of our pop culture. At the same time, not many know of its existence or the people who influenced its development. The main reason for this is because of the controversial topics found throughout H.P. Lovecraft’s works. Such topics includes racism, sexism, and xenophobia. Examples of these include having white men be the protagonists of the story, using derogatory terms to describe people of color, disrespecting and disregarding the culture of colored peoples, and having people of color being the antagonists or villains of his stories. These are the author’s personal views, back when he was alive, and it does not reflect the current state of the Cthulhu Mythos. Even the writers of “Call of Cthulhu” deters their GM’s from using these controversial themes in their games. Nevertheless, the Cthulhu Mythos is a vast and ever-expanding universe, like that of many mythologies. Luckily, the core rulebook does give valuable information about the Mythos. These subjects include the complex history of the Mythos’s development. Summaries of the various Elder Gods, Great Old Ones, and other entities in the Mythos are in this book as well. Some suggested readings for potential GMs and players are also provided to help understand the Mythos and how cosmic horror works.
In conclusion, Call of Cthulhu gives its players a uniquely harrowing experience not found in most TRPGs. The reason for the one-of-a-kind experience is because of the purpose of the game. This game strays away, from the traditional hack-and-slash adventure game, to a much more suspenseful survival-horror game set in a world like our own. The game mechanics used in this game emphasizes the feelings of hopelessness as players play in the Mythos. Even with the massive number of rules, the writers made sure that new and inexperienced players can understand the basics of the game. All the while, they made sure that the game was easy to learn and available online for all types of people. One of the benefits this game brought was the awareness it generated to one of the oldest interconnected universes. Because of the large amount of information found within the rules and supplementary material, an influx of new additions will influence the Mythos.
Works Cited
Hook, Jon, et al. What’s in the Cellar. Edited by Mike Mason, Chaosium Inc., 2017.
Lovecraft, H. P. Supernatural Horror in Literature. Dover Publications, 1973.
Petersen, Sandy, and H. P. Lovecraft. Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook Horror Roleplaying in the Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft. 2016.
School House of Independent Thinkers 