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A Fantasy version of COC


WAR PANDA

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I'm back roleplaying after a long break. I started Keeping a COC game recently and we've been having a blast. It's encouraged me to start a high fantasy game with my kids. So I love d100 and I'm really taken with the COC rules especially elegancy of the 1/2 and 1/5 of skills giving varied levels of success. I basically want a Fantasy game using the COC mechanics. 

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

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There are any number of D100 based Fantasy games. many of them are  slightly more crunchy than CoC, but work exactly the same. Basic Role Playing from Chaosium is the grand-daddy but as a toolbox ruleset lacks a specific setting although the 'In search of the Trollslayer' scenario is fun, there is a free setting called The Green available from BRP Central, and  Chaosium's Blood Tides covers Pirates in the Golden Age and that includes magic and Voudou. D101 games provides several options in the way of systems and settings. Revolution D100 is another newish ruleset  with a Merrie England Robin Hode setting that includes magic.

More crunchy (simulationist) systems include The Design Mechanism's Mythras which has Mythic Britain and  Logres for games in Arthurian period/post Roman Britain, Mythic Rome covering the Republican period and upcoming Mythic Constantinople set in the late 15th century as well as a fantasy setting, Taskan Empire. They also do Classic Fantasy which mimics the style of D&D using D100 mechanisms and can be used with all those old D&D modules.

Chaosium will be launching the newest version of Runequest (from which original game CoC was developed) around the end of 2017 and based on the free Quickstart that should meet your criteria but, and it's a big but, the setting is Glorantha by default and as such likely to be very in depth and could be harder to grasp as the setting has been around for forty years.

Nigel

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4 hours ago, WAR PANDA said:

I'm back roleplaying after a long break. I started Keeping a COC game recently and we've been having a blast. It's encouraged me to start a high fantasy game with my kids. So I love d100 and I'm really taken with the COC rules especially elegancy of the 1/2 and 1/5 of skills giving varied levels of success. I basically want a Fantasy game using the COC mechanics. 

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

 In Issue Two of Uncounted Worlds (PDF linked above) there are a couple of articles by Jason Durall (now Line editor of RQG, also lead author on the BRP "Big Gold Book) on adapting Call of Cthulhu (6th edition) to variant settings - one on Post-Apocalyse settings, and one on Sword and Sorcery.

Also available from Chaosium (in print and PDF at present, and it has a sample quickstart)) is the stand alone fantasy RPG Magic World:

https://www.chaosium.com/magic-world-2/

It's a BRP D100 family game, a little more complex than Call of Cthulhu, but probably less so than the new RuneQuest Glorantha (albeit until that's actually released that's open to debate). It is certainly less complex than either Mythras or Revolution D100 with all the options. Magic World, unlike RQG, is not tied to a specific setting (although it includes a sample one).

The BRP / D100 family is quite extensive, and whilst some branches are really quite diverse from each other, for the most part material for one particular  game is relatively easily adaptable for use with another. Several of the ones mentioned have quick-start / introductions that are free (at least in PDF) - I suggest picking up those and seeing which one you think will work best for you and your kids, and then look to adapt additional material as you need and when you feel confident to do so.

Some RPG systems are very intricate, full of clever, subtle linkages between different parts of the rules that make them interdependent on each other: they can be very rewarding to play, but are fragile to modification, and can be very frustrating for groups that either don't grasp the intricacies, or don't enjoy that  sort of structure. BRP / D100 games in general are far more "modular", in that whilst different subsystems work in the same or similar fashions to each other, very few are critically dependent on each other. It makes the whole family of games easily interchangeable and adaptable.

Cheers,

Nick

 

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Hey thank you all for your informative responses. 

Okay so while it seems there's no direct Fantasy version of COC, the "BRP / D100 family" is probably versatile enough to allow some of my favourite aspects of COC to be inserted into a basic set of preexisting fantasy rules. I suppose a little research is needed. There seems to be a lot of free or cheap pdf's out there that can give me an idea of the various nuances of each.

I really appreciate the info

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I’ve only played th new edition once, but CoC makes a great fantasy RPG almost as is and the new edition probably more than any. CoC magic has a great dark fantasy feel, with sanity blasted sorcerers casting strange spells from blasphemous texts. The only thing it needs is a bit more of a knockabout melee combat system.

I’d recommend picking up the RuneQuest QuickStart. It’s free on Drivethru RPG or the Cahosium site. Not so much for thbut full system, though you may find you like it, but to pick up some ideas to enrich the CoC combat system a bit as it’s based on a similar-ish core system. Though rather than hit locations, you might consider using dice for armour, as in Elric and Magic World so e.g. maybe leather armour protects for 1D4, Chain for 1D6, plate for 1D8, or something like that,

Simon Hibbs

Edited by simonh

Check out the Runequest Glorantha Wiki for RQ links and resources. Any updates or contributions welcome!

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Thanks Simonh. 

I'm not sure why exactly but the COC really appeals to me.

So I downloaded RuneQuest and the full version of OpenQuest (I really think the authors deserve something for their labor) and am reading through those. 

Ever since my Judge Dredd RPGing days I'm not a fan of hit locations :) Too many shots in the foot from point blank range. But the dice for armour sounds just like my thing. I'll have to check out Magic World as I think Nick mentioned it as well.

 

 

Edited by WAR PANDA
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I find Magic World very similar to Call of Cthulhu 6th Edition and I use it as my base D100 game (regardless of genre).  The book has quite a few editing and layout errors but the material is golden. Here is the review of Magic World I did a while back.  https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/16/16300.phtml

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Check out our homebrew rules for freeform magic in BRP ->

No reason for Ars Magica players to have all the fun!

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Nice review. I just bought the PDF and it is very close to COC (I've the 7th edition) I've just skimmed the contents as I'm working (ahem) but it looks like it ticks all the boxes. 

I think it features a success tier (1/20 and 1/5?) I was kind of surprised the character sheets don't leave room to place these values for convenience as COC does.

Im excited to have discovered this place and all the d100 goodness here. Thanks for the help people

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