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| The Bifurcated 7th Edition |
I've said (repeatedly) that to properly review a game you should actually play the game. Otherwise you are reviewing a meal based on the menu, or a movie based on the screenplay. Reviewing without playing can give you some insights, but will not take into account the full product. I will note that there are perils with reviewing RPGs even with playing, as each GM has their own style, and each gaming group has their own strengths and challenges, so one's mileage may differ even within a particular type of review. With all of that in mind, here is my mileage on the mechanics of the most recent edition of Call of Cthulhu.
I have a (mostly) regular Saturday group (when we don't reach quorum, we watch old movies), we have mostly done CoC in its various incarnations over the years, including long sojourns at the Mountains of Madness, on the Orient Express, and girding the globe in Masks of Nyarlathotep. However, we had a interest in taking a new product, Berlin, the Wicked City out for a spin, and that was written for the 7th edition, and I chose to run it in the new edition. We had previous dabbled with it in an organized play adventure, A Time To Harvest, before publication of 7E, but that was run by a colleague, and this was my first chance to run the system myself.
Most of the earlier editions of the game have been pretty interchangeable - the differences being primarily in presentation and in the skill lists. The game mechanics were pretty well-defined, and old products could easily be run with later editions. I will leave Berlin itself for another review (I have opinions), but let's talk about mechanics of the current Call of Cthulhu.
CoC 7 is a different animal than its predecessors. Each edition has been larger than its predecessor, and with 7th it has fully split into two volumes - an Investigator Handbook (Player's Manual) and a Keeper Rulebook (DMG). But the big change is how they evaluate ability scores/characteristics, which in turn makes changes to combat, and the eliminates the Power/Resistance table. This is a fundamental break with the previous editions, and to the better of the game.
The primary ability scores of earlier editions all built out of a 3d6 roll, like D&D. Some abilities are 2d6 plus 6, but that's a variant. Secondary scores are derived by averaging existing scores, often (Sanity) by multiplying by 5, creating a percentage. Skills are also created as a percentage, and where a skill in not applicable, you multiply a primary score to get a percentage.
The new edition inverts and unifies that process. You still have abilities in the 3-18 range, but you start off the game by doing the math and multiplying by five for the characteristic. That's your starting percentage. Then you take half of that value and finally a fifth (your original score). All of these numbers go on the character sheet. When you resolve a task, you determine the difficulty and roll percentile dies as before.
That's more numbers on the character sheet, but what this does is create more degrees of success. In 7E we have Regular, Hard, and Extreme degrees of success. This both allow the Keeper (GM) to set levels for tasks, as well as help determine the level of success. I found as a Keeper that I could more accurately describe ability successes in play beyond a binary success/failure. In addition, the player can "push" a failed roll to get another attempt. The push usually consists of some mitigating circumstance in order to allow it, and a second failure indicates something has gone horribly wrong. So we have critical failures, but they are player-instigated.
This is particularly good for opposed rolls, which previously used the Power/Resistance table when dealing with two characters in direct conflict. The Power/Resistance table was a full page table of numbers that could have been an equation (50 + 5 times (Active - Passive characteristic)). The resulting curve (more of a line) sloped off quickly in both directions, such that if your Active Characteristic was more than 3 better than your opponent's, you likely would succeed. Now, each side rolls for against their characteristic, and better degree of success determines who wins. It feels better than the bare-bones comparison of characteristics, and provides a bit more swinginess for evenly-matching opponents.
This methodology also applies to combat as well, and creates a more vibrant combat environment. As opposed to making a direct "to-hit" roll, you can make choices, and your opponent can make choices as well. For the attacker, they can attack, flee, or maneuver (a catch-all category that includes things like grappling, pushing, tripping, disarming and other non-lethal attacks). The defender can choose to dodge, fight back, or maneuver as well. Making the combat round involve decision-making from both combatants improves engagement without bogging too far into tactics. It also means that in some case you can take damage as a result of your attack roll, which some players did not care for, but I found sped up play more.
Gunfire, by the way, remains as lethal as it ever has been, given the damage that guns inflict versus the weak hit points of the PCs,.
7th Edition also embraces bonus and penalty die, much like advantages and disadvantage in 5th edition D&D. However, this does create the problem that you're hunting for every advantage in every situation ("I have the higher ground, but you've got an aimed shot and has the salad at lunch') D&D has an advantage in that one penalty die cancels any number of bonus dice and vice-versa, and I use that as a house rule in play.
7th Edition CoC is like 3rd Edition D&D, where we shook the entire system up and standardized it with a regular (mostly) system. It moves itself further away from the D&Dish roots, but still a clear descendant of early RPGs - The call and response of a GM (Keeper) and players, hit point terminology, character classes, etc...
And in play, it worked out much better than I thought it would on first reading. The rules are very clear, and copious amount of tables (in particular the ones on the GM Screen) help with a minimum of page-checking. I found in play that combat moved fairly swiftly, and allowed me more latitude in describing combats as opposed to standard "roll-to-hit and roll-for-damage", and in addition gives the players more options with the general maneuver rules without requiring specialized rules. It definitely moves the system forward, and (I think) will allow for easy retro-fitting to earlier published adventures. All in all, an excellent job.
More later,
