CALL OF CTHULHU STARTER SET Is A Good Introduction To The Game

Chaosium recently sent me their new starter set for the tabletop RPG Call of Cthulhu. Overall, I felt like it was a good introduction to the game that made me want to take a deeper dive into the rules and lore behind it all.

First of all, I love that this set included a solo adventure. It essentially worked as a choose your own adventure, but it helped walk you through building a character really well. Ultimately, my character did not survive, but I enjoyed getting to play a small mystery to help me know what kind of options I could expect to have in future games. It also helped me learn a little bit more about how most choices in a game like this really boil down to just a few key options. Definitely do this scenario whether you want to be a player or a keeper this scenario will help you especially if you are new to ttrpgs. It took me about an hour to complete but this will vary depending on your math skills and reading speed. 

I only got to play through 2 of the 3 scenarios, but I thought overall they were well done. The first scenario is designed for one keeper and one player, but I would recommend having two players. It’s not a particularly challenging scenario, but my player kept failing at uncovering key clues and though they did make it to the end, it would have been nice to have another player who could help with the rolls. Also, for me the joy of playing is having someone to collaborate with and that was missing with only one player. It took about an hour to an hour and a half to get through that one, so it’s easy to play in one evening. 

The second scenario is a lot of fun. It’s designed for more people and I had a group of 4 players this time. It took 3 sessions of about 2 hours each to get through, but it could easily be shorter or longer depending on what you are wanting. This scenario leads investigators to try and banish a monster in a house. The scenario is laid out well and does a good job of giving you enough information that a not very imaginative keeper will have plenty to work with while also giving you a lot of freedom to add in your own fun twists. For example, the creature is able to reanimate the dead to try and disrupt the players during their ritual banishment. The book makes a suggestion that although the undead cannot pass the protective wards, they may destroy them or the creature can throw a corpse into the room and reanimate it. I used this trick when the players had dispatched my human zombies to toss in a flock of birds and then reanimate them. 

There are a few drawbacks to the starter set. While it does slim down the rules considerably for you, I feel like there were a few points that could have been elaborated on. For example, the section on sanity does not tell you much beyond bouts of madness stage of sanity loss. It’s easy to assume sanity dropping to 0 is permanent insanity, but it would be helpful to know that dropping to ⅕ of your starting sanity leads to temporary insanity. Also, I would have liked a brief section on critical success and fumbled rolls. They don’t happen often, but it would still be nice to be prepared. 

Overall, I really liked this starter set. It gives you enough of a taste for the game to want to play more while not completely overwhelming you with all the intricacies of the rules. And it comes with character sheets and one set of dice. If you’ve been thinking about trying out Call of Cthulhu I would really recommend this, I give it a 9/10.