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Achtung! Cthulhu v/s World War Cthulhu


Hexelis

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I just ordered Achtung! Cthulhu (investigator and keepers guides). They look awesome, still waiting on WWC. Does anyone have any insight or comparisons on these, which one's better? would they work well together? etc, etc... Any thoughts or comments would be welcome.

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I've run a fair amount of WWC and played the Fate version of the A!C adventures. You could use concepts and ideas from one in the other but bear in mind that A!C is designed as very pulpy and WWC usually doesn't go that way (depending on the players). basically WWC is just 6e CoC with a different background but A!C is pulpy 40's action.

 

Which one is better depends on your preferred play style.

 

A!C has the Nazi's actively using the Mythos and summoning stuff to help them,

WWC has the Mythos more as a background to the war where things with tentacles and cultists take advantage of the upheaval to gain power.

Nigel

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While A!C's setting has a very pulpy feel to it, if you use the CoC 6E rules it will still be quite a gritty affair. So the difference is mostly in the tone and focus of the setting material, not the level of deadliness. I don't use WWC myself, but I'd say mixing and matching elements from both should be easy enough.

RPGbericht (Dutch)
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Not sure that lots more skills is really a selling point. If you have say 250 points to spend at character generation are you better putting them in to lots of skills at low levels or focussing on a smaller range to skills and being better at them. Analysis Paralysis is going to hit some players hard with loads of skills. The half a dozen extra (specialised) skills in WWC are plenty.

 

The 6e skills at very low levels (1-5%) are more a hindrance as there's usually one player who want's to try the ole Hail Mary throw at a skill the more skilled characters has failed at, "I've got 1%, I could roll that".

 

I honestly prefer the older CoC versions where skills didn't have these low base percentages. I don't know how players with a tendency to want to roll at low chances of success are going to deal with 7e's reroll/pushing the roll mechanism without pulling fanciful reasons for a re-roll out of their posterior.

Nigel

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  • 2 months later...

So, after getting both systems and checking them out: We made characters with Achtung! Cthulhu, the character creation system is really nice, it goes into detail on your civilian life plus military training. Then we played "The Angel of the Abyss" free scenario for World War Cthulhu (I forget where I found it). Now we've started the "God in the Wood" scenario from the WWC book. I like WWC better for the setting, it feels more dark and gritty like the CoC I'm used to. But I like the boot camp training and rank options from A!C, you get a more detailed military char. Still both had very good quality products, both had excellent info for WWII. I'm glad I got both, I can run one and use the other for additional material. :)

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  • 1 year later...

If it's of interest, we're readying the print run for Assault on the Mountains of Madness for Achtung! Cthulhu, written by myself and a company of other fine and talented authors. 

It might rival Beyond the Mountains of Madness for size, and is certainly grander in scale.

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I've gotten both of these (and reviewed both actually) and they're both great.

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I'd rate the WWC stuff as better - but then I like the grittier take on things that pulpy when it comes to Cthulhu.  I was expecting more from Achtung! in terms of how to run games and bristling ideas, but it turned out to be a more work-a-say treatment of WWII in general.  I checked out the Savage stats and wouldn't recommend them if you're that way inclined, didn't really check out the BRP side, so that may well be all cool and the gang - sounds like the character generation gave you what you want at least!

If nothing else, with two game lines you'll have twice as much material to pick and choose between which can only be a good thing. :)

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I'd been interested in WWC primarily as a WWII game for BRP... and probably ignoring the Mythos stuff. Does it seem like there's enough purely historical content to warrant a purchase?

Not that I wouldn't eventually run a WWII Mythos game... but my immediate thought was more about cloak and dagger games involving the French Resistance.

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You could certainly do the SOE+French (or any other) Resistance movement with WWC very easily. I've run quite a few games at conventions and a couple of campaigns and the one-off games have often gone with the military operation over the Mythos one if the player's prioritised rather than balanced the two threads.,.

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Nigel

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