I’ve been playing Call of Cthulhu since the original box set come out. While I enjoy the game immensely, it has always been a challenge to find players because of the setting.
Historical Challenges
Fewer and fewer people are interested in, or even know about, the history and culture of the 1920s. This has come to an extreme in recent years with players who not only don’t know about the 1920s, but who have no interest in history at all.
Personally, I have no interest in playing modern day games. And while there are other historical settings, finding players for Roman, Middle Ages or Victorian settings is even more challenging.
Into this vacuum came a new sub-genre, World War II Cthulhu. It combines the mystery of Call of Cthulhu with the historical accessibility of World War II. Add the Indiana Jonesian “beat the Nazis to the it” paradigm, and you find a Call of Cthulhu game people are willing to play.
Mechanical Limitations
The key feature of Call of Cthulhu is the Chaosium Basic Role Playing (BRP) system, and the Sanity mechanic. I looked at the d20 conversion and the Savage Worlds implementations and found both of them lacking.
As with all d20 systems, the emphasis in d20 Cthulhu quickly slides to the mechanics. The role playing disappears in the pursuit of the best set of skills and feats in the attainment of higher experience levels. In my experience, all the feel and flavor of the Cthulhu setting, and pretty much any other setting is lost to the rules lawyers.
On the other extreme is Savage Worlds. In many regards, the mechanics are simpler and more role play focused than d20, but the physical and mental damage systems are too simplistic, and the Sanity mechanic eliminates the slow deterioration exemplified by the Call of Cthulhu Sanity attribute.
These trends, combined with a flood of Lovecraft purists focused on the necessity of the inevitable failure of the investigators, left a big whole in the Call of Cthulhu gaming universe. Indeed, the games I have played over the past few years with my group focused more on the interactions of the investigators with their environment than the perils of the unknown.
World War II
I have looked into a couple of flavors of Cthulhu during World War II. The first was the various incarnations of Weird Wars. Because of their more generic horror of war bent, I was unable to find players. However, the Savage Worlds incarnation did lend itself to blending with the Realms of Cthulhu setting for a brief attempt at a World War II crossover. However, anytime you have to fudge the rules, people complain, and then the game is over.
Achtung! Cthulhu
Last year, I went whole hog for Achtung! Cthulhu from Modiphius during their Kickstarter campaign. One of their selling points was that they were providing the rule sets for both Call of Cthulhu and Savage Worlds under one cover. This was attractive to me because I was an experienced Call of Cthulhu player, but after an experience with Deadlands and an attempt at Realms of Cthulhu, I saw Achtung! Cthulhu as a way to translate from one system to another.
While I like the setting, I am a little disappointed with the books. Indeed, most of the text is devoted to Savage Worlds, citing that most of it already exists in the Call of Cthulhu rules, and the feel of the text lends itself more to Savage Worlds implementation. There are even some pieces included for Savage Worlds that are missing for Call of Cthulhu, such as Promotion.
Don’t get me wrong. Achtung! Cthulhu provides a wealth of information about the setting, equipment stats, typical NPC stats , and the like, and makes for a very entertaining game. I ran two of the original Achtung! Cthulhu modules on Roll20 and have a devoted set of players.
The problem is that the adventures are written in the Savage Worlds style. Unlike published Call of Cthulhu adventures, where the plot is stated for the Keeper, the scenes are mapped out, skill checks for specific results are spelled out, and stats for all the NPCs are provided, the Achtung! Cthulhu adventures are very open ended. In fact, both of the original modules, Three Kings and Heroes of the Sea, each have a significant omission that is relevant to the ultimate success or failure of the mission. I came up with a tangential fill for the gap in Three Kings that became a significant aspect of that scenario. My players avoided the Heroes of the Sea hole altogether in a very entertaining inter-PC debate where the team leader ultimately made the call.
World War Cthulhu
Recently I came across World War Cthulhu from Cubicle 7. Unlike Achtung! Cthulhu, World War Cthulhu is exclusively for Call of Cthulhu. The bulk of the book is focused on setting. The only mechanics provided are character generation and equipment stats. However it complements Achtung! Cthulhu nicely. Particularly with respect to character generation.
Setting
Both Achtung! Cthulhu and World War Cthulhu set up the investigators as covert operatives. Their missions are intended to be behind the scenes. They are not intended to be front line fighters or even commandoes. Their missions are to uncover what is going on and stop it.
In Achtung! Cthulhu, the investigator team starts out with a blank slate. They are ordinary personnel recruited into the clandestine service. Over the course of their missions, they are exposed to mythos and occult elements while trying to figure out what the enemy is up to. The Nazis have competing secret organizations devoted to mythos related investigations, and over time, the investigators’ organization is focused on combatting those elements.
In World War Cthulhu, the investigators are recruited into Network N, an independent branch of MI6 focused on combatting mythos related activities. Rather than facing off against organized Nazi efforts to command mythos powers and entities, the investigators are fighting on two fronts. They must take the fight to the traditional cultists and malevolent forces of the Cthulhu Mythos, while also fending off the Abwehr, Gestapo, other historical wartime opponents. This is the premise from the beginning, and the investigators have knowledge and resources available to them from day one.
Achtung! Cthuhu Character Generation
Achtung! Cthuhu essentially use the same character generation procedure as Call of Cthulhu, but provides two flavors. In both cases, characteristics are generated using the Call of Cthulhu rules. First you select a Nationality. You then have the option of creating a civilian character or a career military character. For civilian characters, Achtung! Cthulhu provides a table of Civilian and Covert occupations from the Call of Cthulhu that are appropriate to the setting, as well as a few new ones. These use the basic Call of Cthulhu system for character creation. They they have the option to sign up for military service, in which case they roll up an initial rank, and get +1D6 in 1-4 skills depending on rank, and then 1D6 skill advances equal to the investigator’s INT characteristic for military training. Achtung! Cthulhu includes optional tables for previous mythos background, but these are for flavor only, and do not affect the make up of the character.
Assuming an EDU and INT of 15, the civilian character who joins up or gets drafted ends up with a total of 450 skill points from stats, 1-25 points from rank training, and 15-60 points from military training. This totals up to around 466-535 skill points for a starting civilian investigator.
For career military characters, you start by selecting a service or rolling on the draft table. You then complete basic training, which can increase CON, relegate the character to rear echelon duties, or designate him as unfit for military service (where you then choose a civilian profession and have part of a back story). After that comes boot camp, where the characters gets +1D6 in 4-6 of skills depending on service. The character then rolls initial rank, and gets +1D6 in another 1-4 skills depending on rank. The character then chooses from a number of military occupations, which all have entry criteria in order to choose them. If the character meets the entry criteria, he can then spend his EDUx20 skill points on the identified skills for the occupation. The character then has the opportunity to complete one or more training packages, such as Commando School or Parachute Training, if they meet the entry criteria. These generally grant points in another 1-2 skills. Lastly, the character has INTx10 skill points to spend on anything they like except Cthulhu Mythos.
Assuming an EDU and INT of 15, the career military character ends up with a total of 450 skill points from stats, 5-30 points from basic training, 1-25 points from rank training, and maybe 10 points from a training package. This totals up to around 455-515 skill points for a starting career military investigator.
Characters generated using the Achtung! Cthulhu system are very similar to standard Call of Cthulhu characters. They tend to have a handful of very strong skills and a large number of skills at the base level. The strong skills are usually lopsided selections divided between one or two character defining skills, weapon skills, and survival/perception skills. And in general, these characters fail a lot.
World War Cthulhu Character Generation
I think that the World War Cthulhu character generation system is better. There is only one path, which replaces the Call of Cthulhu system. The characteristics are rolled up in the same way. A character’s starting age is EDU+6. Add 1 to EDU for each additional 10 years. Characters over 50 subtract 1 from STR, CON, DEX or APP for each 10 years over 50. The derived characteristics are calculated per Call of Cthulhu.
This is where World War Cthulhu veers off. The character then chooses a nationality, which grants a set of five skills at +10%. The character then chooses rural or urban upbringing, for four more skills at +10%. The character then chooses things like name, degrees, birthplace, sex and age. The character next rolls or selects from four predefined personality types (bruiser, expert, thinker, leader) that grant +20% in 14 skills.
At this point, World War Cthulhu resumes the Call of Cthulhu character generation system for the character’s pre-war occupation. World War Cthulhu provides a list of appropriate occupations from the Call of Cthulhu rulebook, as well as some new ones. The character gets to spend their EDUx20 on the skills associated with the selected occupation. The character then gets to spend their INTx10 on any other skills other than Cthulhu Mythos.
The next step is to add the character’s military service to the mix. World War Cthulhu provides a number of broad options, each of which has an associated set of skills amounting to about 100 skill points.
Since the characters are specifically working against the mythos threat, at this point the character establishes why they are involved with the fight against the mythos by rolling for a previous mythos encounter resulting in a loss of 1D2 to 1D6 SAN and a gain of 1-3 Cthulhu Mythos points.
The next to last step identifies the character’s reason for joining the PC organziation, and gains +5% in two more skills, potentially even Cthulhu Mythos. And in the final step, the character gets special training resulting in another 70 skill points.
Assuming an EDU and INT of 15, a World War Cthulhu character is a lot more potent. He ends up with a total of 450 skill points from stats, 50 points from his Nationality, 40 points from upbringing, 240 points from his personality, 100 points from military service, and another 80 points in additional training. This amounts to every character starting with 960 skill points.
The World War Cthulhu Atmosphere
I am currently running our first adventure with World War Cthulhu, though it would be more accurate to call it the introduction to the campaign. The team has been dropped into occupied Northern France with a mission to investigate the presence of three known enemy occultists, but they have a cover mission of training a fledgling resistance group. To achieve both goals, they must establish their cover identities and interact with the French and German populations. So far, the sessions have been both suspenseful and entertaining as the team figures out the lay of the land while avoiding being discovered.
In Conclusion
The addition of World War II to the world of Call of Cthulhu is a welcome one. A far greater pool of players can relate to World War II than to the 1920s. The two most recent incarnations of this genre, Achtung! Cthulhu from Modiphius, and World War Cthulhu from Cubicle 7 provide a rich and engaging setting. Achtung! Cthulhu provides the structure and includes things like sample NPCs and equipment stats. World War Cthulhu provides the mood and environment, as well as a better mechanic for generating characters that may survive. The books are complementary, and I recommend using them in tandem.