Pyramid Review
Call of Cthulhu 6th Edition
Published by Chaosium
Written by Sandy Peterson & Lynn Willis
Edited by Lynn Willis
320-page b&w hardcover; $39.95
The dark universe of Howard Phillips Lovecraft comes alive once again in the latest version of Chaosium's classic game system. Completely compatible with previous versions of the game, the new version sports a creepy layout and includes the complete text of Lovecraft's famous titular tale, "The Call of Cthulhu." If you aren't already familiar with Lovecraft, you've doubtless seen his influences in such films as The Blair Witch Project and In the Mouth of Madness, if not the Jeffrey Combs features based directly on his works. His is a world where the lives of men are as inconsequential as those of ants, and just beyond our reckoning, dark malevolent entities lurk awaiting the conditions which will let them manifest on our plane of existence. This otherworld of dark alien gods, and the knowledge of those entities is known as "The Cthulhu Mythos."
Call of Cthulhu provides GMs (called "Keepers" in this system) all the reference materials they will need to setup and run a campaign. They will of course need to provide their own dice, paper, pencils and players. The system itself is called the "Basic Roleplaying System," and will be familiar to players of Runequest as well. Players have attributes which describe their character in general terms, and skills which describe their character's aptitudes . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: October 29, 2004
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