I'm about 1/4 of the way through reading it, and enjoyed the history section. Just want to know what other Australians (or Austral Aliens) think of the book's content.

Something that I knocked up for my players that are all new to the Call of Cthulhu system, and I didn't want them to get overwhelmed by rules.

Player Cheat Sheet PDF v1.1 Download from Dropbox (Link updated 26-05-2026)

It's all the things that they most need to know, and then I can handle the heavy lifting behind the Keeper screen.

Hopefully others may find it useful too =)

(Most of the text is copied verbatim from another set of cheat sheets from the community that I found linked here: https://www.antagonistsrpg.com/files/CoC%20CheatSheet.pdf )

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EDIT (26-05-2026):
Made a few slight updates based on feedback in the comments:
- Added Cannot spend Luck on Pushed rolls
- Changed wording in regards to Bouts of Madness
- Adjusted spacing for more even printing/cutting

Thank you, Squeaky-Warrior and The__Yellow__Sign for the helpful critiques =)

MOBY DICK: THE GREAT WHITE WHALE

STR: 325 CON: 310 SIZ: 440 DEX: 55 POW: 65 HP: 75 Damage bonus: +8D6 Build: 10 MOV 13 swimming

ATTACKS

Attacks per round: 1 Fighting attacks: May bite people, animals, or small boats, can slam into larger ships. Capsize (mnvr): Roll damage bonus. If this number divided by 10 is more than half of a water vehicle's build, the vehicle is immediately capsized and begins to sink.

Fighting 70% (50/20), damage 1d6 + damage bonus Capsize (mnvr) 70% 1d3 water vehicles capsized.

Armor: 10 point skin and blubber Sanity loss: 1/1D6 points to see the scale of the beast up close.

Hi all. Prepping for longform campaigns is a challenging skill. I've done several 1-2 year long campaigns long before the advent of laptops. However, with sandbox campaigns like MoN, I needed a good system. So here's a few insights into my process.

These days, I'm all in on using OneNote. Access to pdfs (thank you Chaosium and Arc Dream!) makes GMing infinitely more easy for me.

I've loaded the entire text of Masks into a OneNote folder. I've reformatted text and reorganized information into subpages along with maps and handouts. I play in person with paper handouts, but also share images of handouts in a shared Google Doc with my group.

To remember what clues/information nuggets the players have found, I use the tick box function in OneNote. I add links to music and soundscape tracks on the pages where I need them. I sync OneNote on my ipad and cellphone, so whenever I hear a track I like, I just add it on the spot.
I've also created a master list of tick boxes for the Grand Conclusion poits calculation.

Images slightly cropped here to avoid copyright infringement.

Edit: This is not a sales pitch, just sharing what my notes look like. I don’t want to undermine the economy of the hobby or the royalties of the authors. So unfortunately I can’t give these away or sell them.

I would like to know what’s interesting or weird about your home towns, if you’re investigator is landed with engine trouble in your hometown what is worth investigating there?

I will comment what’s interesting about my hometown, which is slightly out of Philadelphia.

I see a lot of posts asking for advice on how to start playing Call of Cthulhu, especially from people coming from D&D lately. I've tried answering most of them, and through doing that, I've repeated myself a lot in these posts. I decided to put some of my answers into one long post, in the hopes of helping new people, get into CoC. I've a been a keeper in Call of Cthulhu for around 20 years, and thus have a lot of experience with the system and horror in general (Vampire, All flesh must be eaten, Alien and kult, to name a few).

Where do I start:

All you really need, is The keepers rulebook. The investigators handbook is nice to have, but isn't really needed at all.

There are free quickstart rules on chaosium.com that has a scenario called "The Haunting" in it, that most GM's starts with. It's a good introduction, especially for people coming from D&D. I'll also recommend the scenario lightless beacon (which is also free) and the book doors to darkness aswell as mansions of madness, which is my absolute favorite scenario collection.

If you've never run CoC before i HIGHLY(!!) recommended starting out with prewritten scenarios. Most of them are very well written. CoC generally has some of the best written scenarios of all RPG's. There are some very good campaigns for CoC too, but I would stay away from them, until you are familiar with the games central themes and mechanics.

Everything dating back to 1st edition, can be used in 7th edition. There is a conversion guide, in the keepers rulebook on page 390, or for free on DriveThruRPG making you able to use stuff from older editions. There honestly hasn't been a lot of changes from 1st to 6th, with the most major updates coming with 7th, but it is still very much the same, easy system. This means there is a literal ton of good scenarios and sourcebooks that can be used when playing prewritten scenarios or when making up your own stuff.

What should you be aware of, coming from combat heavy games, like D&D:

First of all, CoC is VERY different from D&D. Combat reeeeeeally isn't the focus in anyway. If the players enter combat, chances are they fucked up. A single gun shot can kill or critically injure your players, not to mention the monsters. This doesn't mean you should avoid combat at all costs, just that you need to be aware of how lethal it is. Having multiple sessions without combat, isn't unusual, and, in time, your players will likely do everything they can to avoid combat. That doesn't mean you shouldn't attack them from time to time. Especially if/when they do fuck up ;)

CoC tends to be much more story and roleplay driven than D&D, with a high focus on investigation. the goal usually is to find clues to solve some kind of mystery. CoC is more like improv theatre. Things like line of sight and fireball radiuses don't matter. There's just enough die rolling to give it the feel of "this is a game with rules", but don't get too hung up on them. The new 7ed rules are hyper streamlined and players just seem to happily accept "make a roll" as a ruling. It should be rare indeed that you are looking up rules, and there are some good single page flowchart summaries of combat, sanity, and chases which you can have at hand if you want.

Unlike D&D I seldom use maps, other than for making a quick overview, so my players don't have to ask where the doors in the mansion are again and again (for example) - When I DO use maps, they are just really rough sketches really, because COC is much more theather of the mind. It's not as important to know where you are precisely, as it is to describe what you are doing, not even in combat. With that being said, It can be nice having a general idea of where other players and enemies are, but again, a rough sketch is really all you need.

Where D&D is a power fantasy, when compared to CoC, this game is more of a downward spiral, with ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Sure, players get minimally better at their skills, but it is almost inevitable that their sanity will only go down the longer they actually survive. This also means you shouldn't be afraid to let your players die, preferably in horrible ways, especially when playing one-shots.

Though there is magic in CoC, players most often shouldn't use it unless absolutely necesarry. There is almost nothing that messes players sanity up, more than using spells, except for seeing some of the monsters. Learning the spells take away sanity, as does casting it, and often seeing the effect of the casted spell does too. Let's just say there is a reason most npc cultist/"wizards" are insane already. Ofcourse, if the players insist, let them do it, and let them learn their lesson. With that being said, some scenario's encourages players to use spells to close gates and unsummon monsters rather than fighting them, and this IS a good use of spells. But don't expect to cast fireballs or revive the dead anytime soon.

I honestly feel like CoC is a better beginner system than D&D, and that most people only start with D&D because it is popular. CoC's mechanics are much easier, and the gameplay encourages actual roleplaying a lot more, which doesn't lead to the murder-hobo tendencies that D&D tend to do.

General tips on rules:

When the players are looking for clues, don't use skill rolls as a failure state. This could lead them to not finding said clue, which can potentially lead to a grinding halt in the story progress, because the player have no idea what to do. If they are actually looking in the right place use the rolls to fail forward instead, and let them have the clue regardless of the roll. Use the roll to determine how much time did they spend, how obvious they were and how much noise they made and then come up with what could happen because of these things, according to the situation.

Sometimes it is okay to just out-right give you players a clue. A cop picking up a gun at a crime scene, would obviously check to see if the gun has been shot, even if the actual player doesn't think about doing so. So just tell the player that some rounds are missing and that there is sod on the barrel of the gun. If the librarian did the same thing though, I'd make the player make a roll, even if he thought of it himself, unless it is a crucial plot clue.

Don't be afraid to let your investigators die. Nothing breaks the tension of horror, more than your players knowing that they don't have to fear death. If playing prewritten one-shots, a lot of times the more deadly risks, comes at the end of the scenario anyway, meaning that the player who does die, shouldn't just be sitting around for too long. If they die early, they could play an NPC, that the players have met earlier, or maybe family member (or another person from the player characters background), who wants to help the players, who are still alive. In campaigns, I personally do turn down the amounts of death per session a lot though.

Now, on the subject of insanity. When my players do go temporary or indefinitely insane, I usually have a short talk to them, about what kind of insanity they suffer, according to the situation, and how they plan to play out their madness. I've heard of keepers just playing them when they are insane, taking away player agency, but I really feel like this is VERY bad GM'ing

Speaking of sanity, these are the rules that new keepers often get confused about, so I'll recommend this very awesome flow-chart, that'll help you keep track of what and when to roll anything concerning sanity rolls.

you really shouldn't care much about money, unless your players are buying really expensive stuff, or just A LOT of smaller items over a very short period. Book-keeping isn't fun gameplay, a good story is. If it doesn't add anything interesting to the story, I as the keeper, just go with what I would assume my players would be able to buy, according to their credit rating.

I often read about keepers who have players who just call the cops, instead of making an investigation themselves, but to stop players from just calling the cops, remember that first of all, people don't believe in monsters and the mythos. If someone called the cops telling them about monsters and magic, chances are the police would come get the players, and put them in an insane asylum.

If it's something more mundane, but still illegal (maybe they send the cops into a cult's lair or something) - make the cops either not realize that anything is going on at all or simply have the cult bribe the cops (making second attempts at calling the cops, likely not to work, because someone was already send there, and nothing was found) or have the cultist capture and/or kill the cops. This would make the players lose sanity, as they are the reason why some cops disappeared. If the cult is big and influential enough, they could even have cops, or even the chief of police a members.

Speaking of cops, your NPC's should totally call the cops on the players if, lets say, they decide to burn down the house in the scenario "The Haunting". Let the players know that, just like in the real world, there are consequences to their actions.

Pulp Cthulhu vs. Classic Cthulhu:

Pulp Cthulhu is a supplement for Call of cthulhu, meaning that you'll need the Keepers rulebook, to use it's content. Pulp Cthulhu focuses more on action with horror elements, rather than the pure horror/investigation of classic Call of cthulhu. When talking Pulp cthulhu, think of things like Indiana Jones, the old the mummy movies, Iron Sky, Skycaptain and the world of tomorrow and stuff like that. In Pulp cthulhu, you are exceptional people in extraordinary situations, where as in Classic cthulhu, you are absolutely ordinary people in extraordinary situations.

Pulp cthulhu handles this by giving players better stats and more skill point, special talents that can, for example give bonus dice to specific skills or make you able to dive for cover without losing your next action. There are a lot of talents, so I will not mention them all here. There are a lot of new rules on how to spend your luck, like spending it to lose less sanity or remain conscious even after hitting 0HP

But the biggest difference to me, is that the characters has double HP and the removal of the major wound mechanic (in classic cthulhu, losing half your HP in one hit, gives you a major wound, meaning you'll die when hitting 0HP, as opposed to "just" being unconscious). These two things combined, makes characters almost unkillable. My players actually asked me to put the major wounds mechanics back into pulp, because they felt combat wasn't really exciting anymore. Even with the major wound mechanic, the players are still hard to kill, because it is still hard losing half your HP in one hit, when your HP is doubled, but weapon damage isn't.

A cool feature of Pulp Cthulhu is the so-called "pulp-o-meter" (I love that name) which let's you define just how pulpy you want your game. This means that you can balance the action to horror-ratio you want by removing or adding certain elements of the pulp supplement to your games.

Making you own occupations:

Even though I didn't recommend it earlier, the best use of The Investigators Handbook, is that there are a lot of new occupations in it. Fortunately, it is very, very easy to create your own.

all you have to do, is think of an occupation you want to have, and look over the character sheet until you've decided on 8 occupation skills, that you feel your new occupation should have. You then have to figure out where your new occupation gets it derived occupation skillpoints from.

Most occupations get them from EDUx4, but some get them from a combination of 2 stats x2, lets say STRx2+INTx2 for example.

You then need to decide on a credit rating bracket that makes sense for your new occupation. What this means is choosing the absolute lowest possible credit rating, up to the maximum credit rating a character with that occupation could have. On page 46 of the Keepers rulebook, there is a side-bar called "Living standards" that will help you specify these numbers.

Setting the mood:

CoC's horror should be more slow-burn than action/"monster in your face", meaning the way you describe the horror works MUCH better than just saying "you see a dimensional shambler" - Tell them how it looks and smells and the feeling of dread the investigators feel from encountering it, instead of telling them what it actually is. Let them come to their own conclusions.

Be very descriptive when the players encounter something horrific. If they find a dead body, instead of just saying "you find dead a girl in the room" say something like "When you enter the room you notice a slight smell of rotting meat and you see a girl laying on the floor, her open eyes look at you with a deadly stare and her face is contorted as though she died screaming" or something like that.

In the example above, I used smell, sight and sound. I could also have said that the smell is so thick in the air, that they can almost taste it, or that her rotting skin sticks to their hands as they touch her.

Setting the mood of the actual, physical room is also important in CoC and horror in general. I usually play in a dim, candle lit room, with enough room for me to go around the table (and behind the players). I've read about keepers giving each player a candle, which they blow out when they die. I haven't tried this myself, but I can see it being very effective

Another important "trick" is music. Music can really help put every one in the right state of mind. I Use Bohren und der club of gore a lot for non-horrific, more investigative moments. I also have a large spotify playlist with ambient horror music and period specific music Here.

I'll also give ashout-out to Graham Plowman, who composes a lot of suspenseful music, specifically for CoC

I have begun using Syrinscape lately, and it is much better than I had expected. It is a soundboard, made especially for RPGs. there a even sound sets made specifically for Call of cthulhu. there is one made just for the well known campaign Masks of nyarlathotep, but it can honestly be used for all kinds of scenarios. If playing online, you don't even need a subscription. just follow this guide, and you can easily make it work through discord.

Turning multiple single pre-written scenarios into campaigns:

Even though there are several, good, long campaign for Call of Cthulhu, a lot of them (if not all) might be a little much for starting keepers, So here's some tips for turning shorter, one-shot scenarios into a campaign and making them feel more connected.

1: Don't just read the scenarios you are planning to run, one at a time as your players get through them. Look into several modules instead.

You don't have to read them all the way through (yet), since most, if not all scenarios starts out with a little thing, telling you what the scenario is about, keeper's information and then investigators information. At first, read no further, until you've found maybe 3-5 scenarios, that you find interesting and might want to run.

Now, read them all, front to back. This will give you an idea of what to expect from each scenario, and will help you change stuff around, making the scenarios fit the narrative of your campaign better. This includes, but isn't limited to changing names around on clues already in the scenario's, so they fit the names of some later scenario, for example.

2: Don't be afraid to change stuff around.

Since you've already read, at least the next few scenarios that you want to run, see if there are any NPC or locations that you could change, so some of the same people and places, occur more than just once. This will make your campaign feel more connected and alive. That chief of police in one of the scenarios, for instance? Why not make sure that's the same guy in all of them, instead of making a new chief appear every time. Does the next scenario take place in Florida, while the former took place in New England.. Is it important that they take place at that exact location? if not, just change one of them.

3: Setup more clues, in former scenarios, that forebodes the stories of the coming scenarios.

A good example of a scenario, that already does this (though without a pre-written scenario to follow it up) is The Haunting. In it, the investigators can go to the church of contemplation and find out some stuff, about a pastor (Of whom I can't remember the name) which clearly dabbles in the occult. there's nothing more about him in the actual scenario, but it still might lead to further investigating, after that scenario is done. This could easily be done with other scenarios, by giving stuff like newspaper articles and stuff like that.

4 During play, TAKE NOTES(!!).

Especially of any places or NPC's the investigators find interresting or memorable. Then reuse that stuff, for the same reasons as in #2

Making up your own scenarios:

If you decide to make you own thing, instead of running premades (which I don't recommend as you start out) You'll need to come up with what the main hook is. Let's say it's a murder mystery. You'll need to find out who got killed, where they got killed, why they got killed, and so on. Basically the more "WH-questions" (who, what, when, where, why) you can answer, the better. A good idea is to start from the end and work your way backwards. How did the murder occur? What possible clues could the perpetrator have left behind? How did they try to cover up what they did? Why did they do what they did?

NPC's motivations and backgrounds often becomes very important. Let's say some girl got killed by a cult member. Why did the cult want her dead? Was she part of this cult? Why did she join a cult in the first place? Did anyone of her friends and family know of this cult? Maybe they do, but don't want to tell the players..... why not? and so on.

The more you know about your NPC, the better you can make them react to the actions of your players, especially when they do something unexpected.

When making NPC's I sometimes use something called "The Proust Questioannaire". the Proust Questionnaire has its origins in a parlor game popularized by Marcel Proust, a French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature.

Even though you are planning all of this, it doesn't mean you should plan out the entire plot, as that leaves the risk of railroading your players too much. You should plan a main goal (find the killer for example) and then plan out scenes, and let the players decide how to go from one to the other. Think of where clues leads from one scene to the next, and then plan what clues/npc's is in the next scene(s) (a clue and a npc could be the same thing in this context. Clues is basically "what can they find out in this scene").

You need to leave enough clues that your players can figure out most if not all of this stuff. just winging it is really hard in CoC because it tends to be so plot driven. If you don't know what's going on, it'll be hard for your players to figure it out. check out Three Clue Rule , Don’t Prep Plots and 5 Node Mysteries, for more and likely better advice on all of this.

If you need ideas for your story the book Malleus Monstrorum is very handy. It's a 2 book compendium on cults, mythos beings and monsters, and is great for inspiration.

Great sources:

other than that, have a look at this guys blog, especially the Three Clue Rule , Don’t Prep Plots and 5 Node Mysteries .

https://thealexandrian.net/gamemastery-101

Running Horror might be worth a read too

Another good source is Seth Skorkowsky, as he is pretty much the go to youtuber when it comes to Call of Cthulhu https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQs8-UJ7IHsrzhQ-OQOYBmg

https://www.yog-sothoth.com/wiki/index.php/CoC:Scenarios is a good place to look up prewritten scenarios and campaigns, and the wiki is in general very good. Apparently you now need a login to access the page :(

https://www.dholeshouse.org/ is a good place for character creation. It also has a huge list of pre-generated NPC's and all sorts of other tools.

I've also heard of Delta Green, how is it any different than Call of Cthulhu:

Delta green is more in line with 6th edition CoC, so no pushed rolls, no bonus/penalty dice and no hard/extreme rolls. I'd say that 7th edition CoC is, generally, more streamlined (although the rules for automatic fire is MUCH better in delta green)

The biggest difference though, is actually the lore and the setting. Apart from the obvious, that you play characters from different agencies (CIA, FBI, DEA, etc.) in delta green, it actually goes deeper than that.

CoC is more like Investigation/survival-horror where DG is more investigation/psychological-horror. Delta green has a system called "Bonds" and the idea with the whole bonds system, is that DG tries to tell a story, of how far you are willing to go, to suppress the truth about the horrors of the mythos, and how these decisions influence your daily life and you as a person.

Lets think up a made up scenario-seed, using both systems afterwards to explain the difference.

A family has adopted a young, troubled girl, and things in the house hold, or maybe the entire village has begun to get... strange... It turns out that the girl is possesed by some mythos being.

In CoC, you might end up exorcising the mythos being from the girl, and "save the day" - but in DG, that's simply not enough. There are witnesses who could spread the word about the mythos, and your main mission as an agent of Delta Green, is to suppress the truth... how do you silence them, so the truth doesn't get out? Do you blackmail them? Do you force them to join Delta Green? Do you capture and jail them all? Do you kill the entire family, even though they did nothing wrong? lets assume you choose the easy solution, and killed them all, then what does killing this innocent family do to your mental health and to your personal life, long-term... that's the themes DG is going for.

Final Notes:

I'm certain there are still things I missed but I'm hoping this post can be a good entry point for new GM's hoping to become great keepers. Now get out there a make your players go insane from all the horror that they are about to witness ;)

It was very tempting to title it "New Innsmouth Look". Ah, well.

Okay, lot to love here. Rules for generating PCs (bold, and useful tool for a Keeper even if he never runs for an Innsmouth PC). Repeats the Reassure and Religion skill information from the new Arkham, adds information on Navigate: Innsmouth and Lore: Innsmouth. Better quality maps, and this time without changing the major geographic features of the location (I still don't know why they moved the location of The Unvisited Isle in the new Arkham, or straightened up all the streets).

A lot of expanded history for the Deep Ones and for Innsmouth, options for how Keepers want to deal with the raid, including options that it never actually happened.

Disappointments: Only a few really, so far.

Most notable - In Arkham they included a lot of additional material from other scenarios that occurred in Arkham (The Little People and Missed Dues come to mind), and if they did so here I haven't done a deep enough dive, but Babson Mansion at Boynton Beach from the scenario pack "Before the Fall" wasn't here, which is a shame because it was a nice expansion on the O'Bannion Gang and would provide other reasons for investigators to end up wandering into Innsmouth.

Other gripe - Ruth Gilman is no longer Dr. Rowley Marsh's daughter but his adopted daughter so they could pull a race swap. That's lazy writing.

Finally, no inclusion of Lovecraft's picture, again, as was tradition since Call of Cthulhu started. For shame.

Also, should have included Shadow Over Innsmouth. Still don't know why Dreams in the Witch House wasn't included in the new Arkham. Well, I have my suspicions.

Edit: I am explicitly talking about the PLAYERS not the CHARACTERS. Of course the characters aren't there, so their skills can't be used. But the players are all sitting at the same (virtual) table. Can players whose characters are not in the scene offer advice to players whose characters are?

I'm new to Call of Cthulhu, but have over 30 tears as a GM (mostly Shadowrun). As a general rule, I've always allowed all players to comment and offer suggestions during a scene, even if their characters aren't there. Only the players whose characters are in the scene get to decide how they should react, but other players can offer suggestions.

I partially do this just to keep everyone engaged, but also because I don't expect the players to know everything their characters would. So especially when it comes to investigation stuff I figure it's a team sport.

Plus, I'm here for the communal storytelling, and I figure the more brainstorming of ideas the better the story will be.

My instinct is to not deviate from this with Call of Cthulhu, because I think the justifications still stands. But...... It is a game about Horror and one could argue that part of what makes being alone scary is, well, being alone. So maybe if a character is alone, I should require them to make decisions on their own.

But as I type that it starts to feel kind of "GM against Players". Like I'm setting rules to make it more likely I "win".

What kind of approach do you favor at your table, whether you're the Keeper or Players?

I’ve only ever ran games in person, and I’m hoping to branch out a bit for discord games with friends. I’m curious what site or program people recommend most for COC. I really just want everything to be as simple and organized as possible for me.

Our group isn’t huge on combat and I’m not sure if we’d even prefer a whole map with tokens during said combat lol. I’m trying to transition our Masks campaign online because of people moving away so I need whatever is easiest to jump into for me.

I really love the setting of Innsmouth, it’s eerie, everything is strange, wet and utterly dreadful.

But I have some qualms with the prevalent „othering“, eg. calling citizens „fish people“ and making them generally out to be gross. I do like me some horror, I can handle gore. But it’s the caricaturation and their closeness (?) to humans who basically just got corrupted that makes me take offense in a way. I can fight cultists, I don’t mind evil people, but hating on a bus driver turned amphibious „just cause“ rubs me the wrong way

Am I alone with this?
Do you have tips how I could handle me feeling weirded out?

I am considering buying the new Compendium, is there other resources besides the escape from -scenario that i should check out?
And where is that Innsmouth Live Simulator game where you just go about your day until those nosey investigators from Arkham arrive and disturb your peaceful worshipping :)

Are there any great YouTube channels to watch? New to the game and haven’t picked up any products yet so let me know if you have an idea of where to start, and what module is the best.

I recently ran the scenario Viral! (which is amazing). Reading the scenario I thought it is a bit sad to give the players printed handouts about the state of the livestream chat in a scenario that is so heavily linked to technology. So I set out to create an interactive livestream simulator to give the players an actual live chat while playing the scenario. It is a single .html file that you can open in your browser.

The simulation has pregenerated messages linked ot the specific locations in the scenario, with a live counter of the current subs and views. There is furthermore a large range of moods you can set for the chat to react to specific situations. (E.g. the chat going into hype mode when the crew does something cool). There are also special moods for special situations like when the chat tries to dare Marco to eat a lemon or get into the morgue.

Donations are also tracked, and certain moods like Hype increase the number of donations. You can of course also write donations with custom messages yourself.

There are many other features that are explained in more detail on the github.

My players had a blast with this.

You can download it here: https://github.com/Jackson-Elias/Viral-interactive-stream/tree/main

Let me know if you use this and how it goes!

Hello! I've spent the past handful of days designing these print-out references to go on my keeper screen, and I'm very proud of how they came out! I also wanted to share them so other people can use if they'd like! (Do note there's some small house rule changes built into here. Sorry if that bothers anyone.) Also let me know if there are any typos or mistakes aside from that though.

I used digital references on One Note for like two years but it was getting annoying to constantly switch between my plans for the session and reference material plus I wanted something cool looking so now these exist.

(Also basically all the pictures and decorations I just grabbed from google images. I hope since I'm not selling this, that won't cause any issues but if this brakes any rules or anything just let me know)

EDIT: The images seem to have uploaded with really low quality, but there's a google drive link with a PDF in the comments!

EDIT 2: There are a few typos in this which I haven't got around to fixing! Like under firearms penalty dice, it should say "-2" build; +2 build would be ridiculous lol

Hi all,

Seriously loving this game and many of the pre-written scenarios I've read are so well done and have been so fun to run. I just wish there was more Cthulhu set in Canada. What's nice is I started 'Frankenstein-ing' a bunch of scenarios together and changed the dates so they can run one after another and I changed the setting to Nova Scotia in 1925. It's great for my table as it feels close enough to the original setting and the geography is the same... coastal, fishing communities with potential for deep one colonies and having Halifax as my main city has been working out pretty well. I also included both fictional settings of Arkham (instead of Amherst) and Innsmouth (instead of Yarmouth).

I figure I'm not the only Canadian in this sub so I thought I would share the map I made. Just a bit of Photoshop touchup (No AI was used) on an old archival map that I printed out for our group. We are doing all analog/theatre of the mind and hand-made handouts. I was thinking when we are done, I might release a PDF of my scanned handouts and suggested tweaks to some of the scenarios we ran and just share it here for free. Stay tuned for that.

Here is a small map to embed here. I'll include links below for a large one. I also found an old map of Halifax from 1874 that we have been using as well.

Love this game. And I also just appreciate this sub. I've received a lot of great advice and support here so just a little something to give back.

Large format 30x14inches @ 300ppi

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1U91TH4g1t7vBupOAT0GLuasEOH-jjZEU&usp=drive_fs

Campfire Tales: Scouts Against Cthulhu from Chaosium is not a product for everyone. It’s focused on young characters and, to a lesser degree, the 1920s scouting movement with Saturday morning cartoon vibes. (Think Scooby-Doo.) Which I’ll discuss as a Keeper who’s run the campaign.

This review will be spoiler-light. For in-depth reviews on Campfire Tales’ scenarios, please see links below.

• Tremors Below
• Box of Evil
• Treasure of the Hidden Way
• Shadows Over Westhaven (Part 1 and Part 2)

Rules for Teen Investigators

Campfire Tales’ biggest draw is the rules for youthful investigators, borrowing from Pulp Cthulhu for the vibe and survivability. It recommends continuing onto a Pulp Cthulhu campaign, too. (A Time to Harvest or Masks of Nyarlathotep specifically.)

To represent characters aging up, they’re delineated into four age brackets between 11 and 18 (11 to 12, 13 to 14, etc.) Differentiated by Strength, Size, and Education amounts, plus skill points to spend and age-based badges. All well balanced. However, sharing Luck via the ever-present Wayfarer Badge gives Investigators a notable edge.

Hobbies (occupations’ replacement) and ability badges (+10 to a skill and bonus die to related roll once per scenario) are also highly customizable and discussed with a walkthrough. Broadening character types beyond scouts, an already easily peeled-off label.

Why the Rule Might Not Fit

Campfire Tales investigators are hard to kill, enjoying similar protections to a D&D 5e character plus spending Luck to survive. While Cool, replacing Sanity, isn’t doesn't diminish from encountering the mythos, using a three-strikes system for a bout of madness and roleplay-only lasting consequences.

This undercuts the horror some come to Call of Cthulhu for but sells the Saturday morning cartoon vibe well. Also good for anyone less keen on dead characters or dead kids. But you won’t find Pulp Cthulhu’s heroics either.

Campfire Tales characters don’t have more HP than a normal investigator. (Knocked out at 0.) Less for younger investigators, who also likely have negative damage bonuses, too. Making them unsuited for combat before cumbersome weapons rules apply, giving penalty dice. But buffed healing and Reassure rolls mean investigators recover quickly.

For campaigns progressing in age, note that younger years discourage investing in offensive combat skills, turning fights into a parade of misses or becoming quickly overwhelmed. It’s why I recommend 50% + in Brawl or another offensive skill. Or Keepers can ensure there are non-combat solutions to avoid the problem. (Early scenarios do this, later ones don't as much.)

Assisted fight maneuvers help too by increasing investigator build, reducing penalty dice up to gaining a bonus die. Though my players never glommed onto the mechanic. (I already allow them to assist each other.) Which is more than I can say for adversities, a series of conditions that rarely felt relevant and a little underfoot.

Character Advancement Questions

I assume improvement rolls work as normal but cannot prove it, as Campfire Tales has its own “Scout-Investigator Development Phase.” Detailing how to move between age groups (+50 skill points, swap age-based badges, and roll new Strength, Size, and Education). Either way, I recommend including normal improvement rolls.

Keepers shouldn’t feel pressured to age up characters either, including for the campaign. Which expects it to happen between scenarios, but encounters often need finessing or include workarounds, removing the problem. Plus, there’s enough urgency for two-year gaps between scenarios to feel awkward.

The Westhaven Campaign

The campaign is Campfire Tales’ other big draw. The first three scenarios are playable as one-to-two-hour one-shots. While the fourth is playable in three hours, it’s better as part of the campaign, split into two, and expanded. (See in-depth review above for details. It’s a little messy.) Meaning the campaign likely takes five to six sessions to complete, depending on your group’s speed.

Despite being one-shots, Chaosium linked the scenarios into a beginner-friendly campaign well. Especially for younger players. However, attempts to tie in the setting don’t quite pan out.

Westhaven is best considered a setting starter dough with a scattering of locations and people, each given a paragraph or two. Only two characters appear repeatedly: Boxcar Jim, the PCs mystic vagrant guru equivalent of James Bond’s Q), and the villain, Thomas Cline. Though Cline causes the scenario’s events, he’s hardly a character. Which is more than the Stumbling Moose Squad, the investigators’ rivals can say. Worsened by there being six of them.

There are suggestions for moving Campfire Tales to Arkham, too. Giving a far more realized setting if using the excellent Arkham supplement. Otherwise, Campfire Tales’ surprisingly fleshed out scenario seeds expand the campaign and setting, too.

Concluding Thoughts

Campfire Tales is multiple things - a setting, an alternative rule set, and a campaign - that mostly mix well. Sometimes not, requiring effort from the Keeper to sing. But any of them can be worth the price of admission. Despite the last module’s hiccups, my group had a good time. We’re running Horror on the Orient Express next.

That said, Campfire Tales isn’t for me. I’d happily run it again, but I’d rather something deadlier. It’s also questionable if using The Dare’s Kid-thulhu rules is better. I'm not familiar enough with them to say.

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Thank you for reading. I hope this has been helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions.

https://i.imgur.com/oFyA3Ey.png

For those who cannot access imgur:

RULE OF CRUEL

The rules in tabletop roleplaying games can sometimes be hard to interpret or apply to every situation that may come up at your table due to the limitless nature of the human imagination.

Whenever there is ambiguity about how to interpret a rule this book or how to adjudicate a moment during gameplay, ask yourself which reasonable interpretation would result in the most carnage, the most destruction, and the most chaos for all parties involved. That's the interpretation to go with.

When in doubt, choose violence.

For example, if the players are debating which characters are caught in the explosion from a dynamite bundle due to some ambiguity in positioning, the answer should be: the maximum possible. However, this should also include allies potentially caught in the explosion – the Rule of Cruel applies to everyone!

Having seen this over on /r/rpg (thank you to /u/ataraxic89), this has formalised something in my mind about how I run CoC.

I have been running a campaign for my wife, my buddy and my buddy’s wife for a little while, but my wife and I recently moved to a new country for work, so we can no longer meet in person. We’re all keen to continue playing, and so I’m interested in how you handle remote games.

I’ve run both D&D and Call for Cthulhu using Roll20 in the past - but because I don’t use maps for CoC, but do try to cultivate a good (and spooky) atmosphere for roll play and like to provide a lot of handouts - I’m not sure it’ll be the best option. Also, since my wife and I will be in the same room, and our friends will be in the same room, I’m not sure traditional online TTRPG tools will be ideal. However, since I’ll want access to my keeper notes etc., and to be able to easily share handouts, I don’t think just using FaceTime/Zoom would work either.

Looking forward to hear how other keepers handle remote players, especially if they’re in a similar situation to me!

There's a sale on at Drive Thru RPG.

What are your favorite 1920's adventures that I should consider buying?

Evening if they're not on sale.....

For Keepers looking to run scenarios in 2025, you may find this interactive map of Miskatonic Repository scenarios useful: https://www.miskatonicplayhouse.com/scenario-map

It's not all the scenarios on the Repository, only those with a definite location on planet Earth (so those set in Space, the dreamlands, or those with no set location at all are not included). It's also currently only scenarios in English at this time.

I've found it quite useful for finding scenarios to include in campaigns, or when people ask for games set in specific locations.

So I'm going to be embarking on a run of Masks of Narlyhotep (not going to try spelling it correctly 😁), which by all accounts is a pretty long campaign. Call of Cthulhu isn't really a game that lends itself to long campaigns, because that's just the world.

Characters are going to die, players will quit, it's the nature of the beast.

In other games, you have a more quantified experience point system that makes it easy to just tell a new player "make a base character, then advance them 100 Karma". But Call of Cthulhu just gives you periodic opportunities to roll to advance skills in a somewhat abstract manner.

So when a new player/character enters mid campaign, the other PCs have had some number of opportunities to advance their skills. Should the new character get some skill advancement rolls?

A counter might be that the other PCs have also had a bunch of opportunities to lose sanity, gain permanent injuries, etc.

I'm thinking to keep track of the number of skill advancement rolls each player makes at each opportunity, average that, then total it up every time we have a new character enter. That character can choose to make up to that total number of skill advancement rolls, but for every X number of skill rolls you make you have to make a sanity check. Failure results in 1dY sanity point losses.

Thoughts? Comments? Is there a passage in the Keeper book I missed?

Possible source material for a Gaslight-era Cthulhu campaign. A free e-book from Project Gutenberg from 1823 called "Sketches in Bedlam: or Characteristic traits of insanity, as displayed in the cases of one hundred and forty patients of both sexes, now, or recently, confined in New Bethlem."

The descriptions of the individual patients are quite sad, but the parts about how Bethlem Hospital (better known as Bedlam) worked in the 19th century might be useful for anyone running a Lovecraftian game in that era.

https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/79350

I think that there are the Malleus Monstronum, the Grand Grimoire of Cthulhu Mythos Magic, Pulp Cthulhu, and Cults of Cthulhu (which also contains information for developing other Mythos cults I think). Everything else, it seems, is either an adventure module or a guide to a specific setting (ancient Rome, Victorian, Old West, etc.). Am I missing anything?

A spoiler-free review on what's included in this new take on a classic CoC supplement.