Yep, the Kickstarter for Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition is live. If such things interest you, here’s your chance to make things happen.
I can say that in the two playtest games I was able to take part in that I didn’t personally care for the changes and additions to the system. But just because they weren’t my cup of eldritch ichor doesn’t mean that you won’t enjoy their flavor.
Speaking of the playtests, I can’t answer any questions about the new version of the game because (a) I think I’m still under an NDA and (b) I don’t really remember much except not liking the changes. Hopefully there’ll be a bit more information available than is currently up on the Kickstarter to help people understand if the changes will be to their liking.
You non-disclosure tease, you! I can’t tell much from the kickstarter description, but it looks like they’re taking the Gumshoe angle of avoiding plot-derailment via blown skill rolls.
Yeah, I saw that in the Kickstarter spiel, but it never really came up in the games I played. Maybe I would have like things better if it had. Or if the group had been smaller. Or more focused. Or more into the genre. To be fair, he grumbled, these have been my recurring problems with CoC of any edition, actually.
What I truly didn’t like was the “hard” and “extreme” skill roll thing and the elimination of the resistance table. They may have cleaned things up conceptually, but it felt like a kludgy way of trying to fix the “problems” (where “problems” means “things that people who hate BRP always whine about, but that have never been an issue for me, in play or in concept”).
And don’t get me started on the process of rolling up characters with this hard/extreme thing in place. Unless they’ve changed it, the concept of having the 3-18 stats replaced by percentiles, but still rolled on 3d6 (or 2d6+6) and then multiplied (and then divided!) to generate the base, hard and extreme values for those as well was just plain maddening (1d6 SAN, and I rolled a 6).
On the plus side, the “skill pushing” bit was kinda neat, but not really groundbreaking. So there, I said something kinda nice despite my misgivings. And I talked around the NDA by only loosely addressing things they’ve already revealed in the Kickstarter spiel. Which probably makes me an ever worse tease 🙂
It’s nice to see that they’ve already cleared their goal, he said politely. And if he had the money to spare he might even consider supporting them despite his general grumpiness. Maybe he’ll relent before the KS wraps up. Maybe.
Well, that is one of the neatest illos for a Mi-Go I’ve seen to date on the kickstarter page . . .
Yeah, I don’t really see the need for re-working this classic. I’ve got edition five (as well as the infamous d20 version), and I don’t see the need for anything beyond tht.
It’s a good looking Mi-Go, true. But yeah, revamping the game doesn’t really seem necessary. But I suppose if enough people who hate your game complain about it for long enough – and if enough new games come out that purport to cover the same territory get enough praise – it can feel like you need to do something. I just hope this turns out to be a good something and not an “Avalon Hill takes over RuneQuest” something.