Larian Studios has become one of the hottest names in game development recently. A fiercely independent team of devs who worked for years on a passion project, and delivered the game of the year after a punishingly long open access period. They even beat a general boycott of D&D to succeed both creatively and financially, winning the hearts of millions. But with all that success in their back pockets comes expectation. What’s going to come next? Other CRPG companies have the IPs to Warhammer 40,000 and Shadowrun on lockdown and they’ve already announced they won’t be touching D&D 5E again in the future, leaving the Baldur’s Gate IP in the not-so-capable hands of Wizards of the Coast. Some people are hoping for another Fallout game in the style of the original two, which are vastly different from the RPG shooter we know and tolerate today. Some older Larian fans are hoping for an original title from the creative minds at the studio, or a sequel to a game from their existing IP, Divinity: Original Sin.
And those ideas are good ones, all promising creatively, and assured to be financial successes. However, they don’t come close to what I would consider to be the number one obvious choice. The TTRPG industry’s very own perpetual silver medalist, Call of Cthulhu. I don’t think a Coke and Pepsi analogy fits here – that designation is more fitting of pathfinder. Call of Cthulhu is more comparable to Dr Pepper – a more acquired taste, but those that enjoy it really enjoy it.
This is a game of which I’m an avid fan myself, having enjoyed some of the system’s starter campaigns by way of raising hell throughout New England in the role of a 1920s mobster. While this game system does technically have a few video game adaptations already, the reception of the most recent iteration was… far from glowing, with many reviewers criticising everything from the story, to the game’s length, to basic technical aspects. While the earlier licenced game has more fans, the Steam reviews criticise it for being a bad port, and technically not playable, among other issues. If we put the quality (or lack thereof) of these games aside for a second, the biggest takeaway was that neither was in the CRPG genre, meaning that a Larian adaption would bring a very different style of play versus a first person detective/stealth-action game.
In this article, I will discuss the various aspects that Larian would need to consider to make an effective Call of Cthulhu adaption, that’s both fun, spooky, and has enough faithfulness to the source material to please Mythos fans.
As a quick disclaimer, I must admit I have not personally played Baldur’s Gate 3 yet. The noises my device made whilst playing through all 100 hours of Larian’s previous fantasy CRPG Divinity: Original Sin 2 could be compared to an angry helicopter, and I simply don’t think poor Larry (my laptop) could handle it. But, even without having played their most recent title, I have enough DOS2 under my belt to claim a genuine interest in this studio’s games, and an understanding of what they’re like to play from both a narrative and game design perspective. So with that all said and done, let’s consider.
Capturing the Tone of Call of Cthulhu
Anybody who has ever played a session of Call of Cthulhu, or read any of HP Lovecraft’s actual mythos stories, knows that the sword and sorcery fantasy adventures Larian has become so well known for isn’t going to fly for the most part in this setting. The Cthulhu mythos is a dreary, hopeless, miserable and depressing place to live, with the central tennant being that you are an insignificant worm in the face of elder terrors you couldn’t even possibly begin to imagine. The mythos is a sick, corrupting force that humanity has no business dealing with. Whilst Divinity: Original Sin 2 clearly takes some inspiration from Lovecraft’s universe with how ‘source’ and ‘the void’ function, the overall vibe of that game is still too lighthearted to be appropriate for a Call of Cthulhu adaption.
Call of Cthulhu is a detective and mystery game first and foremost, so making sure that this is a horror/mystery game at it’s core should be a top priority. I think that the success (and beloved cult status) of Disco Elysium, a game by another studio in a similar CRPG style, shows that a low-combat approach is possible, while still having an engaging game. However, CoC does have a functioning combat system, and just because mystery needs to take priority in the story, doesn’t mean that you won’t have the opportunity to throw hands with cultists of Cthulhu when push comes to shove.
Generally, I believe the people at Larian are more than capable of telling a story that’s a little more sombre than their regular offerings, just because I think they’re really talented creatives. If they stick to the overarching tone of the Cthulhu mythos that hundreds of authors have successfully contributed to over the last century, and I’m sure they’ll be fine.
And, as they’d be directly collaborating with CoC’s publishers Chaosium, they’d have access to some of the most passionate, learned, and experienced Keepers (DMs) to consult for advice on how to strike the right balance between fun action and a spine-tingling narrative.
The Story of Larian’s Call of Cthulhu
Look, I’m not here to do Larian’s job for them, and I’m certainly not here to subject you to multiple, long paragraphs of my Cthulhu Mythos fanfiction. What I won’t be doing in this section is writing an original plot for a game, beginning to end. What I’ll do instead is explore several avenues for a story outline, consider which mythos concepts would be the best to include in a Larian CoC game, and get an idea of the ‘shape’ of the narrative overall.
The Cthulhu Mythos has been a collaborative writing effort since way before The Backrooms Wiki or the SCP Foundation were even a twinkle in an unborn baby’s eye. Many, many famous and not-so-famous authors over the years have added their own concepts to the universe, not all of which are universally liked or accepted. While this does mean including something like the Elder Signs or elemental gods might be divisive for hardcore fans, the upside of this is that Larian wouldn’t have anyone to dictate to them what is officially ‘canon’ or not, and anything they produce will only be added to the ever-changing tapestry of this greater collective literary work. The greater mythos is a blank canvas that comes with a wide range of ready-mixed paint, and the developers of the game would be entirely free to not use some of the colours.
Creating Call of Cthulhu’s Setting – Time Period
The Call of Cthulhu rules, built off of the appropriately named Basic Roleplaying system, are designed to be versatile, and to work in any setting. The game officially supports both the 1920s and ‘modern day’ as the ‘default’ time periods, but their site also provides character sheets and even source books for games set in a variety of interesting eras. Ancient Rome, a sci-fi future, the mediaeval era, as well as various other decades from the 1900s – the elder gods have existed long before man, and will exist long after, so the only limit is your imagination. Even Lovecraft’s original stories feature mythos tales set millenia in the past, so when planning a setting for the game, Larian are spoilt for choice. Heck, they could even lean into their fantasy roots with the Mediaeval setting, with a story of a monastery beset by Cthulhu worshipping druids and tombs filled with the undead. And while I would personally be most excited to see a Call of Cthulhu CRPG in a modern setting, I think that at the end of the day, this game really has to take place in the 1920s.
The majority of Lovecraft’s original stories are set between the 1910-1930s, but really, this was more because that was ‘modern day’ for him, rather than any attempt to come up with a thematic period setting. Only in hindsight does this particular time period seem particularly fitting, with our expectations of detective film noir and romanticisation of the past projected onto the mythos. But sometimes things are a classic for a reason, and so yes, the early 1900s are the only time that this game could really be set for optimal impact and mass appeal.
While appropriate for the setting of the game, this does lead to a difficult topic the game devs would have to tackle. The early 1900s in the USA are, unfortunately, infamous for negative attitudes towards various minority groups. While Lovecraft himself certainly gave into the attitudes of his day and then some, there are still a ton of opportunities to have interesting characters of various different races, or who are LGBT in the setting. I think Larian handled representation in DOS2 pretty well, with LGBT situations rarely being directly plot relevant, but with same sex marriage, relationships, and NPC romancing being treated as a completely normal and accepted thing in that universe.
However, since this game is set in the real world, rather than a fantasy setting, they may want to have a real debate about whether to set the game in the ‘non-bigoted cinematic universe’ for the sake of not distracting from the main themes of the game, or, to tackle important issues head on. It’s worth considering that hateful treatment might give certain characters motivation to prove bigots wrong, or to protect themselves and their loved ones from discrimination and harm. On the other hand, it has the potential to remind too many fans of a topic they’d rather not have to think about while escaping to the world of a spooky game. Ultimately, this is a decision that will have to be made, for better or worse. On one hand, it may seem like they’re whitewashing history with a rose-tinted brush, but on the other hand, exploiting people’s very real experiences of discrimination for their fiction story. This issue is a real tough cookie.
Creating Call of Cthulhu’s Setting – Location and Story Structure
In any piece of media, where the story takes place has a huge impact on the narratives you can spin, and the context of the events that unfold. A film set in an impoverished industry town in the north of England is going to have different implications from something set in the Australian outback, or in Silicon Valley. Luckily, the man himself, HP Lovecraft, was kind enough to create his very own fictional setting where most of his major stories take place.
‘Lovecraft Country’ a term coined by one of Chaosium’s very own writers, refers to a fictionalised part of New England where original locations and Mythos happenings usually crop up. While most of it is beautiful, rolling countryside, the most important places are the city of Arkham, and the Miskatonic River, for which the University and the valley through which it flows was named.
The importance of Arkham in the Mythos is actually extremely fortunate, as Larian titles typically revolve around spending most of the game travelling to a large city, before then doing a whole bunch of stuff once you get there. Whether it’s spending your whole quest for divinity on the road to Arx, or making your way to the promised metropolis of Baldur’s Gate, this is a recurring trope Larian fans have come to expect when they play, making this the ideal end goal location. Of course, there is one other Lovecraft setting, one far removed from the cold yet cosy shores of New England. The Dreamlands.
Lovecraft’s ‘Dream Cycle’ stories feel a little separate from the rest of the mythos, both in tone, storytelling structure, and general cosiness. But, due to recurring characters, (both human and elder god) explicitly showing up both here and in the waking world, in addition plot threads continuing across both, it’s undeniable that the Dream Cycle is canon to the greater Mythos. The Dreamlands is where Lovecraft set his more wondrous stories, tales with less obviously depressing, hopeless, and miserable implications (although they were still present at times). This is a world of beautiful golden palaces a million feet high, dancing fae creatures, and resplendent kings in golden robes.
The only real fantasy-adventure, vaguely D&D-esque things the man ever wrote were set in The Dreamlands, including the controversial novella (which I really enjoyed), The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Reading it, you’d honestly be hard pressed to tell the fantasy elements and storytelling approach apart from a slightly nutty 5E campaign. Including The Dreamlands as one of the locations for the game would allow Larian’s fantasy pedigree to really shine, and include at least a small taste of Sword and Sorcery in the course of the adventure. The Call of Cthulhu website even provides a character sheet specifically for Dreamlands investigators, so this would be right at home in the canon of both the original Mythos, and Chaosium’s RPG.
So, with these settings in mind, I think it makes sense for the investigators to begin the first act somewhere along the bank of the Miskatonic river. In Divinity Original Sin 2, you’re travelling to Arx in search of Divinity, to wield the overwhelming power of a god. An analogous choice for this game could be that you’re travelling for Arkham, seeking a copy of the Necronomicon from the Miskatonic University library.
This overwhelmingly evil tome of dark magic has inspired many similar grimoires across fiction, including D&D’s Book of Vile Darkness, and Marvel Comics’ Darkhold. A Call of Cthulhu game that didn’t let you get your hands on this book to some capacity would not do the source material justice. This also gives the investigators a solid reason to make a beeline for Arkham, in addition to whatever personal investigations each recruitable party member would be undertaking.
As you travel through Lovecraft country and the New England countryside, there would be ample opportunity to run into various places and scenarios from Lovecraft’s short stories, such as the town of Dunwich, and the farmhouse setting of The Colour Out Of Space. To put it lightly, H P Lovecraft hated people from the countryside, and often cast both them and their way of life in a negative light in his stories. This is one of his many opinions which has… not aged well. Still, given how dangerous and unpleasant rural areas are in his stories, there would be a lot of freedom to include both pre-existing and original concepts in the game to populate the Miskatonic Valley. This land is cursed, and the idea that it would be inhabited by all manner of old god worshipping freaks and monsters is entirely thematically appropriate. And speaking of the Colour Out Of Space… all they need to do is recolour DOS2’s Deathfog to Purple, and then make it sentient. You’re welcome.
This brings us to the second act, and second major location of the game. As all you can really follow up a strip of countryside with is a city, I think this is the perfect opportunity to make The Dreamlands the act two setting. I’d consider taking inspiration from the so-called Somnambulist from German expressionist film The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, a film that released in the early 1900s, and has thematically appropriate horror elements. Some kind of villain, cultist, or evil scholar could put the party to sleep with some type of drug or spell, trapping them within The Dreamlands until they go on their own Dream-Quest to escape. The plot of that particular novella is already somewhat ideal for this section of the game, and the wondrous locations that Lovecraft describes could really stand out against the rainy, overcast New England hills.
The end of act two would bring us to the party waking up in a hospital in the city of Arkham – they’ve finally arrived where they need to be, and can complete the third act of the story. The central locations here are probably going to be the Miskatonic University, and Arkham Asylum. And don’t worry, it’s not that Arkham asylum (although it did inspire it), so you can put any worries about Jared Leto’s Joker showing up to haunt your nightmares to rest. I imagine the final showdown in the city being the culmination of a conspiracy against the players, the city, or perhaps the whole world that they’ve been investigating since the beginning. Crime meets Cthulhu, magic meets the mafia, and a finale with a whole lot of tentacles. I’ll let Larian figure the rest out, but I think this is a solid skeleton for the story they could tell. If you’re reading this, dev team, feel free to use these ideas, free of charge!
Creating Call of Cthulhu’s Setting – Characters
The most important characters of a Larian game are of course any and all antagonists, as well as the recruitable characters you can bring along for the ride as members of your party. As this isn’t a regular fantasy setting, you’ll be limited to humans in character creation – no lizard people or wood elves allowed. But, the limit to a single species doesn’t mean characters have to be bland and generic – the Call of Cthulhu character creation system is built around day jobs and backgrounds, to help create a well-rounded team. Just picture these choices for your party mates at the beginning of the game, and all the different roleplay and story opportunities could be attached to each one:
- A mousy librarian who’s concerned over the new occult section that keeps turning up on the shelves, no matter how many times she throws the books away…
- A washed up private eye with a nicotine addiction, looking to blag his way back into the Arkham City Police Department.
- A veteran of The Great War who’s ‘Seen S***, man’.
- A fast talking gangster with an itchy trigger finger.
- A salty old sea captain/lighthouse keeper who tells anyone at the pub who’ll listen about the fish men who live in the ocean near Dunwich.
- A privileged, nepo-baby socialite who flirts with everyone and anyone they meet.
This lineup gives you a good balance of investigation-minded characters, roleplay/social characters, and combat characters, for when things get tough. While these are just rough archetypes, they’re a good starting point for the kind of builds that could help you navigate through the world of the Mythos.
A villain for the game would not necessarily have to be human. Beings like Nyarlathotep, The King in Yellow, or various other Avatars of ancient gods could collude to thwart our party, either directly, or indirectly with cultists, ghouls, or other minions. Any human villains would likely be worshippers of one of these gods, somehow seeking to bring about a disaster which our main protagonists seek to prevent. The possibilities are endless when it comes to the identity of the central villain, with the original short stories featuring all manner of mad scientists, evil sorcerers, and religious fanatics as causes for mayhem. Could we even see a cameo from a character like Herbert West or Charles Dexter Ward? I suppose you’d have to play to find out…
Speaking of cameo characters, there is also the opportunity to simply include other characters not as direct heroes or villains, but simply as people who pop us for a minute or two to show their face. While this runs the risk of being a little bit too ‘Marvel movie’ if it leans too hard into cheesy fanservice, I still think hardcore fans would get a kick of seeing someone like Randolph Carter make a brief appearance in-game. He’s about the closest thing the mythos has to a protagonist in my opinion, so perhaps running into him at the Miskatonic University, or (worst case for him) Arkham Asylum would be a fun moment for the hardcore bookworms in the audience.
The Gameplay Mechanics in Call of Cthulhu
We’ve talked a lot about the storytelling aspect of this RPG, which really, is at the heart of any tabletop experience. But what about the actual, meaty gameplay mechanics? Baldur’s Gate 3 wasn’t just a story rich RPG, it was also an adaption of D&D 5E, and in the same way, this Larian game would be bringing you the authentic Call of Cthulhu experience in electronic form. So how exactly would you go about adapting this system to a video game, and what fun and interesting twists could you include to spice up a 100+ hour long game?
Core Ruleset for Call of Cthulhu
I think we need to begin by looking at the most raw basics – what ruleset will be used. This is actually an extremely important question, as there are two versions of Call of Cthulhu’s rules, and choosing either one could radically alter how the end product feels to play.
First of all, we have the core CoC rulebook. This is a ‘low combat’ system, through and through. Taking a hard enough punch to the face can knock your character out of commission or land them in the hospital for a week or longer. This isn’t D&D, where you’re playing as classed up superheroes who level their way towards becoming demi-gods. In this world, if you get shot – with a gun – you tend to die. Or at least, suffer some very, very serious complications from that injury that can directly affect you for months to come. Consequently, the game has a focus more on investigation, and knowing when to retreat. If you’re looking to go steaming into a fight, even with a combat build, you’re going to be inescapably mortal, and not simply back to full health after a quick nap in the tavern.
Then, we have something called Pulp Cthulhu. This is a separate edition of the core rules, designed to make the story play out in a more action-oriented way. Put aside your 1940s film noir, and pick up an early issue of Batman. You know, the ones where he carried a pistol, and wouldn’t think twice about kicking a henchman off a roof to the concrete below? This ruleset is meant to capture the pulp fiction, over the top, cheesy action novel vibe, and apply it to fighting against cosmic horrors. This is less in keeping with the intent and ethos of Lovecraft’s mythos, but makes the game more accessible to people used to D&D, which is essentially a combat miniatures game with an RPG stapled onto it. Mechanics-wise, this version of the game doubles your health, adds a trope-y archetype to your character that gives them certain special powers and more cinematic fighting features, and generally makes the game a more combat-heavy experience.
I genuinely think that adapting either of these could work, depending on what creative direction Larian would like to take the game. If they wanted to make something more similar to their Divinity series, which is full of heavy and pretty complex combat that occurs quite regularly, then perhaps Pulp Cthulhu might be more appropriate. Games feel different in video game form, and while low combat may work for a group roleplay session, a solo player controlling a whole party may want to keep the action going, even if the Pulp system is still more deadly than 5E would be.
On the other hand, if Larian wanted to take an approach more similar to Disco Elysium, which replaces much of the genre’s expected combat with dialogue and skill checks, then raw Call of Ctulhu might make for a better base. Overall, it depends if they’d want the game to be more about fighting and adventure, or introspective and mysterious. Even having this as a difficulty setting could be interesting – Pulp Cthulhu being the default, and an optional hard mode for the whole game being the lack of those combat-friendly changes. While my personal preference would be in favour of raw CoC 7th Edition – no pulp – they both still use the underlying Basic Roleplaying template, and either would make for an entertaining game experience from beginning to end.
Call of Cthulhu Combat
As discussed above, the feel of the combat system would depend on if they decide to go with Pulp rules, which will boost the power of characters in a physical confrontation. Only a few stat changes can mean the difference between a skinny bookshop owner being able to murder you with a single punch, and the ability to fight off a horde of cultists single handedly and live to tell the tale.
But even accounting for Pulp’s stat buffs, the core combat in Call of Cthulhu would remain the same. As the system wasn’t necessarily built for combat first, the battle system is much, much more simple than 5e, and mostly comes down to opposed rolls that are roughly in the same ballpark as one another. You’re either rolling a brawl stat or a firearm stat against someone’s opposed attack or dodge, the rules even say that your exact distance in metres from them isn’t super important, as long as you can boil it down to “very close”, “pretty close”, “far”, etc. This is something that would not fly in a video game when there is always a world map with objectively measurable distances, so Larian might want to find ways to add more depth and manoeuvres to the fighting system, and tighten up the required dice rolls for digital play.
Previous Larian titles have had a big focus on a magic system, with the option to use a whole bunch of different spells at the character’s disposal. Fortunately, Call of Cthulhu has an entire magic system built right in. Set in a world where evil sorcerers are often the root cause of mythos shenanigans, players are able to use rituals and incantations to achieve their goals, for good or for evil. These might take a much heavier toll on the investigator than what you’d expect in a fantasy RPG, but spells could still be a way to further spice up combat for those playing.
Overall, the combat system, which is fast, lethal, and built on approximations, may need to be expanded and make a little easier to make for a more satisfying and fair video game experience, but its innate challenges could be fun for experienced gamers. Given the bloodbath that CoC combat can quickly become, it would be essential to stock up on this game’s iteration of the resurrection items Larian likes to add to keep the whole party going throughout encounters. Despite the controversial nature of the good Elder God lore in the mythos, I think using an elder sign badge to bring back fallen comrades might be a fun detail to include, and relate it to one of this developer’s recurring game design hallmarks.
I only worry about how healing would be implemented, as Call of Cthulhu is a game where it takes multiple in-game days, and sometimes even weeks to recover from a big injury. And, in a combat scenario where you’re instantly resurrecting fallen comrades to finish the battle, I don’t know how you’d be able to fully adapt the true toll that injuries have on an investigator.
This might be a case of leaving certain game elements behind in the adaption process, as the passage of time in a CRPG isn’t as clear as it is in a tabletop game with a Keeper to dictate the passage of time. I think it would be a shame to abandon the element of realism that injuries and healing have in this game, as they underscore the theme of ‘fragile humanity’, but ultimately, the choice whether to do so would depend on how combat-heavy they make the game.
Sanity in Call of Cthulhu
Possibly Call of Cthulhu’s flagship game mechanic, sanity plays a core part in this game, both thematically, and in direct gameplay. In this game, death is not the only thing you need to worry about. You also have a certain amount of sanity points which are calculated from your base stats, representing your character’s general level of mental fortitude and strength of will. As you begin to encounter horrifying violence, and later, mythos beings, your sanity is chipped away at, leading your character further and further down a dark, dangerous path. If your character drops to zero sanity points, they might as well be dead. At this point, the Keeper gains control of them as an NPC, and they’re likely to either be carted off to Arkham Asylum, become a new and unhinged villain, or otherwise run amok spreading chaos and confusion to anyone unfortunate enough to encounter them.
When rolling sanity, what you’re really trying to do is fail an intelligence roll. If you do indeed fail, you don’t really get it. You see a tentacle monster, but you didn’t really take in the implications of that. It’s probably a dream, or the alcohol, or a man in a funny costume, or so you tell yourself. However, if you succeed in that intelligence roll, the true depth and implications of that horror are fully apparent, which can cause serious side effects for your character in the long term.
There are ways to recover sanity, ranging from successfully defeating mythos beings (and the comforting knowledge that they can indeed be stopped) as well as using the psychology skill. Essentially, going to therapy. Because of this, gameplay hinges on a delicate sanity economy. If you keep seeking out combat, seeing horrible injuries, and summoning abominations, your sanity may become seriously jeopardised. But, if you manage to succeed in all your endeavours, you may begin to make a slow but shaky recovery. Managing your sanity economy becomes important to decision making, but can also make you more bold as you fight to earn it back, and thematically, your character makes less rational decisions as their sanity points start getting lower.
When you encounter supernatural horrors in this game, your Cthulhu Mythos stat increases, allowing you to roll to innately understand mysterious events. When this stat becomes higher than your sanity, your character undergoes a permanent personality change, as they become more harrowed, aloof, and distant from knowing things that no man should. This change is irreversible, and I think having alternative dialogue for all companion interactions for after they’ve been broken by the mythos could be a fun detail to include.
However, the most unique and fun thing about sanity rolls is the consequences of failing one. Seeing a horror may call for a sanity roll – if you pass, you might still lose a little sanity. If you fail however, you might lose a significant amount more. Losing a large amount of your sanity on one go can lead to some serious side effects. Characters will experience a temporary bout of madness, usually characterised by losing control over their actions, developing a temporary fixation or phobia, and will generally act irrationally for some time afterwards.
Madness in a video game is usually characterised by attacking and acting randomly, even against party members, for a few turns. This could be implemented with little difficulty, with investigators having the characters stop what they’re doing to perform any number of crazy actions, and act on paranoid obsessions instead of listening to commands. Even out of combat, you may develop a mania that say, compels you to wash – right now – you’re covered in bugs! Your active quest and marker would be changed to the nearest body of water, and your character simply will not do anything else until they’ve satisfied their mania. Losing control of some party members, but also watching them do all manner of unique and crazy action, hallucinate extra enemies, or turn on their own friends could provide a ton of fun and variety to these important rolls. This bout of insanity usually lasts until the character has had a chance to get some ‘me’ time in a safe location, but can last longer when losing significant amounts of sanity in one roll.
However, my favourite effects from these bouts of madness aren’t even what happens in the immediate moment. The real flavour comes from the long-lasting effects, which I think could be a fantastic addition to a long, story RPG game like this, especially when applied to your NPC companions. I’m talking about the addition of new backstory elements. An investigator’s character sheet has a number of specific backstory elements on it. Places, objects, and people that they consider to be important to them make up a big part of an investigator’s personality. Their core beliefs, ideology, religion, and outlook on life, as well as phobias and manias. If any of these backstory elements are messed with during the course of a game, they can cause sanity damage. For example, if your special item is an antique brooch your grandma gave you on her deathbed and it gets destroyed, that will take a psychological toll. If your favourite professor who got you through university when no one else cared is brutally murdered, that might also take a significant psychological roll.
However, suffering a bout of madness can sneakily just… introduce new backstory elements to your character, as you develop a weird fixation with something you previously didn’t care about. That box of matches in your pocket has now become your special matches, and you’d freak out if anyone tried to use them. That random lady who works in the book store? That’s now your aunt, although she doesn’t seem to remember you… Did you have a hallucination about bears during your bout of madness? Guess who just unlocked a new phobia.
This adds so many possibilities for roleplaying to this world. As Baldur’s Gate 3 had a lot of different endings with a ton of variety, these kind of varying, permanent alterations to character backstory and personalities could work to create a unique and memorable party every single time.
Imagine one party member suddenly developing an intense fear of dogs, so when you get to a scene with a lovable poodle, only that party member flips out and runs away, when they had been fine with dog NPCs before that point. Imagine random junk items in your inventory now being no longer possible to discard, or at the very least, causing a sanity penalty if sold, consumed, or destroyed. Imagine other party members giving you conflicting details about their main plot and the people involved with it, after they randomly decide they never had a sister, or used to be married, when you’re sure that wasn’t previously the case. Imagine that suddenly, the crappy diner where you planned your last investigation is now your favourite restaurant, and your character refuses to eat anywhere else. All of this adds up to a ton of flavour and intrigue, and helps capture the off-beat creepiness of how mental illness is portrayed in Call of Cthulhu.
Progression and Levelling in Call of Cthulhu
A specific level system is something which is somewhat absent from Call of Cthulhu. While both Baldur’s Gate and the Divinity games had a clear level up system that would progress-lock certain areas and provide a huge bonus when reached, the same cannot be said for CoC. Progression is a funny one in Call of Cthulhu, as it works both ways – your character is not necessarily going to be in a better, stronger place at the end of the story.
The basic progress system works by making a note of each time you make a successful skill check. At the end of a session of play, you try to succeed on that skill again to see if you gain some points in it. Skills are rated on a 1-100% chance to succeed, and that improvement roll can increase the percentage somewhat. Rather than having distinct levels that represent major progression, you gain experience much more gradually and subtly. At the end of the day, you’re still a human with regular abilities, and so levelling up to insane power tiers found in fantasy games just doesn’t work for the setting.
In terms of adapting the rules, these improvement rolls could be calculated upon completing a mission objective (similar to being at the end of a game’s play session at the tabletop), or, for a more fun, beneficial, fluid levelling system, just calculated immediately after every successful roll. Although, this is open to abuse from people spamming actions that require this check, which is why the tabletop makes you pace yourself to one improvement roll per session.
However, character change is not always for the positive. This game is meant to reflect how the mythos ravages the mental health of those that mess with it, leaving broken, hollow people. We’ve discussed the double edged sword of the Cthulhu Mythos skill, and the negative effects of losing sanity. It’s important to note that a character may actually be in a worse, more fragile position by the end of the game than they are at the beginning, especially if they mess with magic (which we’ll get to). Rather than being a level 20 warrior with endless buffs, you may instead be a skinny janitor whose core stats have been ravaged, and you’re playing with your last few sanity points as you limp to the finish line.
Certain injuries and bad decisions can result in punishing long-term consequences, so balancing the game to still feel like you’re making progress and facing cooler enemies while actually, in some ways, your character is getting weaker is certainly a challenge. Still, it works on the tabletop, so I have every faith Larian can find a way to translate that into a video game narrative device.
Magic System in Call of Cthulhu
Magic in Call of Cthulhu resembles the magic of Dungeons and Dragons in only the most superficial way – it requires deep, long, intense study of a book to memorise spells to use to your advantage. At the very least, that is the case for the classic wizard from Baldur’s Gate’s source material. However, that is about where the similarities end. In your classic fantasy CRPG, magic is a core combat class – it’s powerful, sure, but everyone in the world is fully aware that it exists, and being able to wield it, while not necessarily commonplace, is at least viewed as something that is entirely possible and realistic.
The Cthulhu Mythos is a much different place, however. For the average person living in the world of Call of Cthulhu, magic is viewed as, perhaps, a man in a top hat saying ‘abra-cadabra’, and nothing more. The Mythos is a mysterious, outer force that doesn’t often touch the lives of average folk, and so magic is a lot more of an unknown, dangerous, and deadly force.
Spells are typically learned from mouldy, evil grimoires, forbidden knowledge scribbled down by mad scientists and ancient practitioners of mythos wizardry. While a character with extremely high Cthulhu Mythos stat could theoretically create their own, they’d likely have one foot in the asylum before pulling it off. The process of reading these books and learning the putrid knowledge contained within will also always deal some amount of damage to your sanity, so investigators should consider whether the knowledge contained within is really worth the price of knowing…
Each character has a basic amount of Magic Points, which can be spent to cast spells. These regenerate over hours in-game, but if your entire supply are used at once, physical damage can be taken in place of spending them, causing your flesh to tear open and scorch. So, unlike in a regular Larian game, these spells would be best used sparingly, and only in desperate situations. Each spell also has a mandatory sanity cost to cast, as your mind is warped by the dark magic you’ve bent to your will.
However, losing a little sanity and sustaining a few magical burns may be the least of your worries. When using magic during fits of insanity, you may stumble upon the key to some deep magic. Casting these ultra-powerful effects call for a permanent sacrifice of your base stat of ‘power’, to be able to cast. Once an investigator hits zero power, they lack any free will or ability to resist outside suggestions whatsoever – your personality would simply cease to be. This plays into the previously mentioned anti-progression system, where you may end up finishing the game with lower base stats than you began with, in exchange for one-off uses of deadly spells. Facing off against other magic users in an opposed roll can lead to more power being gained, creating a ‘playing with fire’ economy when it comes to magic which is at least as volatile as gambling with your sanity during combat.
Magic can be very useful in combat for instant effects, but some more intense rituals can achieve larger, long term story-impacting effects, such as raising the dead or summoning ancient entities. Perhaps magic could be slightly more forgiving in a modified Pulp Cthulhu approach to this RPG, but I feel the base rules more accurately allow for the true danger and terror of the mythos to be underscored.
It’s a core tenant of video games to horde a resource for a rainy day, only to beat the game having never used it. This turns that idea on its head, in a push your luck game of “how low can my base stats go?”. How much of your own willpower are you willing to spend to get what you want, and will you make it to the third act of the game with power to spare, or be limping your way to the Miskatonic University on only the remaining fumes of your sanity?
Skills and Pushed rolls in Call of Cthulhu
When building a character in any RPG, the skills that you assign allow you to really make each of their personalities shine. While some systems only have a very limited set of skills, Call of Cthulhu has a huge list of options, covering every nuance of social interaction, combat, and investigative actions, plus every-day tasks. There is even scope to add new specific tasks, or nuanced subdivisions of existing ones. The way you distribute your points among these really helps flesh out a character.
But skills are only a small piece of the puzzle, a formality that no game could mathematically function without. The skill system in Call of Cthulhu is one I’m a big fan of, for sure – not too hyper specific, unlike some systems (I’m looking at you, Cyberpunk 2020!!!), but also not as broad and vague as D&D 5e’s short selection of general proficiency areas.
But, this is a mere segway into discussing one of my very favourite game mechanics, which I think could add endless fun and excitement to a Larian experience. One that could make the outcome of failure so entertaining, you may just pass on save-scumming your way out of disaster. The pushed roll.
Failing a skill roll in CoC is less of a ‘fail’, and more of a ‘not succeed’. If you try to shoot at a vase, you simply miss – you don’t hit anything else. If you try to translate Japanese and fail, the octogenarian natto salesman will just be confused, rather than actively angry or offended. You tried to do something, but the stated goal was not achieved without any significant ill effects.
But the real fun comes when you push a roll. If you have failed a roll, you essentially have the option to just… try harder. If you tried to shoot that vase and missed… well, you had all that training in firearms! And also you had time to focus… there’s no way you could have missed! If you tried to speak Japanese and failed, you may argue that since you had a pocket dictionary in your inventory at the time, you could have used that to give you an advantage. In the tabletop game, you usually need some kind of pretence to justify a pushed role, but in a Larian game, it would simply be an all-too-tempting push of a button.
Pushing a roll means that you simply get to try the roll again – but if you fail this time, there will be dire consequences. You might miss the vase, and accidentally hit the duchess’ priceless family heirloom, causing you to have to mortgage your house to replace it. This gameplay mechanic adds all kinds of crazy fun to failure, and nurtures more of the game’s ‘push your luck’ mentality.
I’ll never forget the time in a game of tabletop Call of Cthulhu where I pushed a roll to threaten a family at gunpoint, and accidentally fired the weapon directly at them. Four cover-up murders later (including a random truck driver that our party accidentally confessed to), my newly christened murder-hobo was running through the woods naked, covered in blood, half insane, and partially deafened from a giant dynamite explosion. And all because I thought to myself “surely I can’t fail a 60/40 chance roll twice in a row!”. How wrong I was.
Knowing the attention to detail, branching stories, and endless creativity Larian puts into their games, I can absolutely see them including multiple unique, funny, and devastating RNG outcomes for pushed rolls for every significant, plot-relevant roll in the game. And, a number of generic ones that can happen any time a specific skill is pushed. A pushed roll’s punishment can cripple a plan in its tracks, but can often lead the story in such a thrilling new direction that you’re happy to live with the ‘character development’ it will cause. When you’ve just failed a roll during a tense negotiation with a dark god’s avatar, and the lives of your whole party are on the line, perhaps that ‘push roll’ button will seem more tempting than it usually does. What’s the worst that could happen…?
Conclusion
While it may be a fresh creative direction for the company, I think dipping their toe into a horror narrative might be the perfect next challenge for Larian Studios. While another Divinity Original Sin or Baldur’s Gate game might be more in keeping with what fans have come to expect, taking a crack at Call of Cthulhu could keep the core gameplay approach of a ‘tabletop party-based RPG adapted to a video game’, and take it in a new direction. The Cthulhu Mythos is a beloved IP, with an active fan community stretching back over a hundred years. As the number two system in tabletop gaming, I think the unique, fun game mechanics, story elements, and opportunities for great characters this system provides is an opportunity that Larian can’t afford to pass up. I just can’t wait to see what they’ll do.
