Craig Pay

Here’s another house rule for Call of Cthulhu. I’m not a fan of the automatic fire rules in Call of Cthulhu because they feel too crunchy. I did have a look at the rules in Delta Green, but they felt too simple, and inapplicable to Pulp Cthulhu.

My aim was a single dice roll, no matter how many bullets are being fired. I wanted to keep ammo tracking simple, and to maintain some degree of realism.

This is a house rule for Pulp Cthulhu which I keep forgetting, so I’m writing it down as an aide memoire for myself, more than anyone else!

Original credit to Seth Skorkowsky in his video on Call of Cthulhu Skill Mechanics (starting at the 28:12 mark).

My own house rule is slightly more generous than Seth’s, so I’m only using it in my Pulp Cthulhu games, rather than Classic Call of Cthulhu, where it suits the more optimistic tone.

The Lightless Beacon is one of my favourite Call of Cthulhu scenarios, especially as a one-shot for new players. The investigators are dropped straight into a mystery ‘in medias res’ with none of the usual frontloading. 

My only issue is that one of the pre-generated investigators has a tendency to overshadow the others. After comparing investigator characteristics and skills with those in the scenario it’s apparent why, so I’ve created investigators with more balance.

On page 15 of the Pulp Cthulhu rulebook there’s an optional rule allowing players to select an occupation before they pick an archetype.

My players seem to prefer this method but it can cause a lot of scanning back and forth through the rulebook trying to list which archetypes are then available.

Here’s a list of Pulp Cthulhu archetypes by occupation to save your players some time. I hope it proves useful!

Here’s a new house rule I’m adding to my Pulp Cthulhu games. It’s a riff on a similar rule in a Cubicle 7 publication, but I can’t say which one to avoid spoilers for my players!

Archetypes in Pulp Cthulhu seem somewhat forgotten beyond character generation. What’s to stop a Sidekick going Cold Blooded? Or an Outsider acting like a Bon Vivant?

This new house rule should encourage heroes to keep roleplaying the traits associated with their archetype, with a few bonus skill points awarded after each scenario as an incentive.

I like the skill-based system in Call of Cthulhu, but I’ve always thought that characteristics are somewhat underutilised, so I’ve decided to add the following house rule to my game…

A player may suggest the use of a characteristic instead of a skill roll to increase their chance of success, attempting the roll at one level higher difficulty: Normal requires a Hard Success, Hard an Exceptional Success, and Exceptional a Critical. The Keeper must deem the suggested characteristic appropriate: such as DEX for Throw or CON for Swim.

I love the Luck rules in Call of Cthulhu, and especially those in the Pulp rules. Here are three new Luck Spends and a modification to an existing rule. Feel free to use these (or not) in your own games!

“Keep Calm and Carry On!”

Cost: 20 Luck

A player may spend 20 Luck points to avoid the effects of Temporary or Indefinite Insanity. A subsequent loss of 1 or more points of Sanity will trigger insanity as normal.

Alternative names: “Oh dear. How sad. Never mind…” or “Always looks on the bright side of life! [sung]” or “Everything is AWESOME!” or “Hakuna Matata! [also sung]”