Delving into Call of Cthulhu’s box for beginners
After a successful run of The Haunting last week, I’ve dropped a little money on money on Chaosium’s starter set. It’s very modestly priced at $30/£24, and if you support the creators by shopping direct (which I absolutely encourage), you always get a PDF version thrown in. Super useful for quick reference or you if can’t wait for shipping. The starter set has been updated for Call of Cthulhu’s 40th anniversary (2021); let us take a look inside.
Contents
- Set of D20 die
- Introductory rules
- Alone Against the Flames (solo adventure)
- Paper Chase (designed for one-two players)
- Edge of Darkness
- Dead Man’s Stomp
- Player handouts
- Updated blank character sheets
- Pre-generated character sheets
Not bad, right? Everything you need to learn and run some games that should last at least four sessions. I mainly picked this up for Edge of Darkness and Dead Man’s Stomp, so the rest is a bonus. Let’s skip right past the rules and look at the gameplay.
Introductory rules and dice
You get a standard plain set of dice, comprising a d4, d6, d8, d10, percentile d10 (plus extra for advantage/disadvantage), and a d20. Would it be nice if we got some cool occult dice, yes. Is it going to happen at this price point, no. Like many of you I already have too many dice, but this is aimed at newcomers who may not.
The introductory rules are succinct for quick and easy digestion; they also contain everything you need to create and advance your own investigators. I own a copy of neither the Keeper Rulebook nor Investigator Handbook (yet), but this seems quite sufficient to get games going.
Alone against the Flames
A solo adventure? Are they mad? Maybe. Honestly I enjoyed it more than expected – but I loved Choose Your Own Adventure books when I was a kid. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you’re too damn young! You basically read a passage and then choose your action by going to a certain page; it branches out and you get your own story. I never survived, not once.
If you do know what I’m talking about and you absolutely hated them, you might want to give this a miss, even if it is only 15-30 minutes of reading. While it’s quite predictable, it sets the scene well and really has that Cthulhu feel. I don’t even know if you can survive.
I checked, you can! That’s almost disappointing.
Paper Chase
Primarily designed for one player, it’s not a bad way for a new Keeper to cut their teeth. I read through the scenario and it’s quite cute. I won’t be running it because I’d miss the dynamic of a full party – that’s the main attraction of a roleplaying game. It’s also not quite bleak enough for my tastes, but it could easily be tweaked to make it a bit more grim. Much like the other booklets, the quality is decent.
Edge of Darkness & Dead Man’s Stomp
These are decent one-shot scenarios that should take around 2-3 sessions each (probably two). The pamphlets are of decent quality and the artwork is nice. All of the handouts are printed separately, so you can give them to players without faffing about with the booklet. It would look better if they were cut out rather than on full-size pages, but that would add to the cost of the set. It’s not really a big deal as you can cut them out if it bothers you.
I would have liked the locations to have a consistent box containing the description. The quick-start PDF does it better, with the sections you read out in italics. It’s no great hardship to set the scene yourself, but one of the benefits of a boxed scenario is that most of the work is done for you.
Conclusion
This set is tremendous value for money, and I highly recommend it for those who want to start playing Call of Cthulhu. I couldn’t even print all the material for the price of the box. If $30 is too steep or you don’t want another box on your shelf, you can grab a PDF-only copy for $10.
I obviously wouldn’t bother if you already have one of the core books, but it’s a great option for those new to the system.