7th Edition Quick-Start Rules

Call of Cthulhu RPG

by Sandy Petersen, Paul Fricker, Mike Mason

Welcome to Call of Cthulhu

Interested in Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu? You are not alone! Call of Cthulhu is Chaosium’s classic roleplaying game of Lovecraftian horror in which ordinary people are confronted by the terrifying and alien forces of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Call of Cthulhu is published by Chaosium Inc. — one of the original publishers of paper roleplaying games and has been in business for over 30 years. Chaosium is famous for the excellence of its game designs, and has won many Adventure Gaming Industry awards.

All you need to play Call of Cthulhu for the first time is this Quick-Start guide, some polyhedral dice, plenty of imagination and your friends.

Welcome to the worlds of Call of Cthulhu!

Genres: Role Playing Games, Horror, Games, Fantasy, Gaming, Cthulhu Mythos, Mystery

48 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Carl Sanford Joslyn "Sandy" Petersen is an American game designer. He worked at Chaosium, contributing to the development of RuneQuest and creating the acclaimed and influential horror role-playing game Call of Cthulhu. He later joined id Software where he worked on the development of the Doom franchise and Quake. As part of Ensemble Studios, Petersen subsequently contributed to the Age of Empires franchise.

Reviews

[Dave Brothers · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great, accessible introduction to Call of Cthulhu 7e, including for first-time roleplayers. The streamlined "pick-a-number" character generation is a perfect way for newbies to walk in and not be overwhelmed.

Note that this is available both as an affordable printed product and as a free PDF from Chaosium's website.

As others have said, if you have a group interested in starting play and want to use the included starter scenario, it can be helpful to identify early who will be Keeper and let players know to not venture into the scenario unless they want le grande spoilers. On the other hand, if you're keen on making your own, it's a nice format suggestion and style guide for a short, easy-to-run scenario format.

[Meredith Katz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice (and free!) introductory guide to the rules, and includes what looks like a fun scenario. I used the rules section for this when running What's in the Cellar as my first foray into CoC and it went smoothly. Only a couple of negatives:

- The rules go a bit light on the Sanity explanation (the included scenario goes into further depth on them, but if you're just using the rules, you'll miss some of the details of stages of insanity)
- The scenario isn't as well-laid-out as some of their other free scenarios (ie, What's In The Cellar). There's going to be a lot of page flipping back and forth in this one & I think before I run it I'll want to mark it up with notes on what pages I should turn to at what moments so I don't end up stalling while trying to find the right page for the players.

Other than this, a great way to help new Keepers get ready to run for new Players; I liked the sidebars throughout the scenario to give tips to a new Keeper. I suspect the scenario might be a little light for either seasoned Keepers or seasoned Players.

[Redsteve · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm up in the air on this one. It's very inexpensive and I thought that having a basic synopsis of the game for new players would be useful. And, as far as it goes, that's true. However, about half of this exceedingly slim volume is devoted to a CoC scenario ("The Haunting"), which is pretty good, not horrifically complicated but with opportunities for all sorts of characters to contribute. On the other hand, the sidebars seem to be aimed more at starting GMs rather than starting players. I'd prefer if this book focused 100% on the players and the adventure was just included in some other collection of scenarios. As it is, only 14 pages are devoted to getting new players started, and that includes the inevitable "What is a roleplaying game?" section. 3 stars.

[Matthew J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leave it to Chaosium to make such a great little book. Ever thought about trying Call of Cthulhu? Well, this gives you the basics of the rules for the current (7th) edition and updates the classic scenario The Haunting (formerly The Haunted House, I believe). My only complaint is that it doesn't come with pregenerated characters. But you've got the rules to make your own (and you can find pre-gens online, too). Great stuff. Frankly, I'd still recommend getting the Starter Set box if you were planning to get into the game, but this is a great little book.

[Jesús Guerrero · Rating 4 out of 5]

Habiendo leído parcialmente el gran manual del guardián, me descargué estas reglas de inicio rápido (que pueden ser adquiridas gratuitamente en la página de edge entertaiment) para repasar y afianzar un poco la gran amalgama de conceptos que requería tener frescos si quería dirigir una partida. Aunque no profundiza mucho en algunas secciones, como es normal, no deja de ser una más que recomendable lectura para todas las personas que se quieran iniciar en el mundillo del rol. Además, incluye una sencilla (pero entretenida) campaña que puede servir como inicio a muchos guardianes novatos (entre los que me incluyo). Estás advertido de todos modos... El rol es como las "Pringles" (Cuando haces "pop" ya no hay "stop").

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great way to get started with 7th edition, just a shame they are still using the same starting adventure after all these years, and including it in the book so everyone can read it, adventure should be separate in my view and they should have a new one for each edition, would be 5 star else!

[Eric Brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introduction to Call of Cthulhu. Clear on rules and a simple scenario to guide players into this world. Found a lot of resources created by the community to support this scenario e.g. music, sound effects, maps and handouts.

The game it self would have benefited with Pre Gens

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice handbook to allow characters to jump into gameplay. Contains a short introductory campaign.

[Travis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Does what it says.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is excellent as an introduction to the game, but not a replacement for the full rulebook. I had to look up some of the actual rules online for some questions I had while reading this.

[Júlio Burlamaqui · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ótimo guia para quem está começando! Oferece um one-shot (que pode se quebrar em algumas sessões) com um mistério interessante, ensinando bem as mecânicas de CoC. Definitivamente recomendaria como par assistir o vídeo do Seth Skorkowsky para dicas importantes. Minhas resalvas seriam: apesar de ter muita investigação, a investigação não leva a nenhuma descoberta interessante para o problema - caso os jogadores fossem diretos à casa, teriam o mesmo desfecho; além disso, não temos encontro com o mythos original. De qualquer forma, extremamente recomendado.

[Chris Salzman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewing for a campaign I'm running. The setting for this is decidedly horror, but the system seems readily adaptable for any ol' campaign. Will likely use it and rename Sanity to something else.

[Fanis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost everything you need to know to start delving into the Cthulhu mythos TTRPG with simple and straightforward rules. The haunting story on the back is easy to run and fun to play.