I have just finished reading through the Keeper's Guidebook for 7th edition. It is about the biggest change in rules I have yet to see in CoC. What isn't clear to me is if the changes really make any difference at all. Has anyone actually played it and feel that the changes in 7th edition were actually valuable enough to them?

I played Call of Cthulhu from 3rd Edition onward and always appreciated the tidy minimalism of the rules prior to 7th Edition.

For me, 7th Edition improves on nothing.  It is change for the sake of change.

If you need two books where one previously sufficed, or dozens of pages for combat and chase rules when four was plenty for three decades, maybe you will get more from it than I did.

For me, it's crap. Bloat for bloat's sake.

But CoC "editions" have mostly been new printings + some extras. I suspect a vocal internet minority of players (or non-players) convinced Chaosium that new rules would sell more than simply printing the old stuff again. I don't know if it worked. I haven't heard if its been a strong seller or not.

However, I'm not the audience for new rules. I still use my CoC 3rd hardcover, and my Stormbringer 3rd too.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1031074For me, it's crap. Bloat for bloat's sake.

But CoC "editions" have mostly been new printings + some extras. I suspect a vocal internet minority of players (or non-players) convinced Chaosium that new rules would sell more than simply printing the old stuff again. I don't know if it worked. I haven't heard if its been a strong seller or not.

However, I'm not the audience for new rules. I still use my CoC 3rd hardcover, and my Stormbringer 3rd too.

I had the same feeling that Chaosium needed to justify a 7th Edition with unnecessary changes.

3rd Edition is my preferred edition too.

Well they had to offer something new for the 7E. Rehash and recycled material for six editions is all fine and well. It's also offering no real reason to buy the seventh edition if it was more of the same. If it was a recycled rehash like the previous editions people on this forum would be complaining that they offered nothing new. It's a catch 22 for rpg companies. From what I heard all anecdotal they were losing too much of the fanbase to other similar rpgs like Trail of Cthulhu that fixed some of the flaws of COC.

The "problem" is CoC was effectively flawless. The system did a remarkable job of getting out of the way of the horror and mystery unfolding. The point of CoC was never interacting with rules, but interacting with the setting.

So Chaosium "fixed" things that weren't a problem. But that's not uncommon among publishers.

And I agree that without new rules, the editions were effectively just printings and that's a hard sell to those who already bought the game previously. I bought CoC 5e years ago and it was a perfectly fine printing of the core rules. Nice art, nice layout and I gave it away as a gift because it didn't do anything my 3rd "edition" didn't already do perfectly well.

It's a tough Catch-22 for Chaosium.

7e is change for change sake... and a bit of chasing after tends that, IMO, don't really fit the theme.
Otherwise I would have bought it (as I have prior 'editions'), if only for its visual clean-up of 6e's fugly fugliness.
The games of 7e I played in didn't make much use of the new bits, except the changes to stat ranges, but after reading it I decided I had no use for it and gave it a miss.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1031086And I agree that without new rules, the editions were effectively just printings and that's a hard sell to those who already bought the game previously. I bought CoC 5e years ago and it was a perfectly fine printing of the core rules. Nice art, nice layout and I gave it away as a gift because it didn't do anything my 3rd "edition" didn't already do perfectly well.

When you have a mature product, you have the problem of convincing people to upgrade. Some of the decisions make sense. A separate guide for players keeps information they shouldn't have out of their hands. But I don't think it needs a reprint of The Dunwich Horror (though that actually is a better fit for the game than The Call of Cthulhu)  bulking it up. It seems to me that they could have focused entirely on the 1920s and put more era based information in there to make the era less alien.

The content of the Keeper's guide seems to be all over the map. There seems to be plenty of mini-articles about game mastering and they are well written, but not exactly cohesive. Likewise, although it has a little era information, it doesn't do much for helping GMs select an era. If it were me, I would pick whatever era books I was planning on producing, and putting in a few pages of introductory material into the Keeper's guide. The 'Earth' of Lovecraft isn't quite our Earth either, and it needs some form of introduction that clarifies that without revealing too much of the 'mystery'. Of all changes, I was surprised the sanity mechanic wasn't changed more.

Something that has also occurred to me is that with OpenQuest and other 'opened' versions of RuneQuest, perhaps by releasing such a changed game, Chaosium is trying to regain control of their IP by effectively remaking the system.

The 4e CoC rulebook is objectively the best version and if you think otherwise you are WRONG.

I kid, they're all good.  What'd they change in 7e that was so heinous?

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1031125The 4e CoC rulebook is objectively the best version and if you think otherwise you are WRONG.

I kid, they're all good.  What'd they change in 7e that was so heinous?

Well, it's been a while since I looked at 7e, but here's the changes I remember.  I don't say if their heinous or not.

1) Stats are now on a 0-100 range, instead of a 3-18 as before.  (Basically, multiply stats by 5).

2) For all skills in addition to the base value, you also write down the half and the 1/5th value, for more difficult rolls.

3) There's a sort of advantage system, where if you've got a better chance of succeeding you roll two tens dies and one ones die, and take the better of the tens dice.

4) There's a bit where you can re-roll a failed skill attempt, but something *bad* will happen if you fail the second time.

5) Luck is a sort of resource (like DCC) where you can spend it down to increase your skill rolls.

6) I think there's an improved chase system, but I rarely use chases in games, so I don't remember.

As always with changes in games, some folks think they're the cat's pajamas, and some folks think that they're a betrayal of everything CoC stands for.  As a long-time player, I don't much really care.

(There's also a lot of room taken up with suggested campaign frameworks - groups that PCs could belong to that would lend them to investigating, like a band of ex-soldiers from WWI.)

Quote from: sureshot;1031085Well they had to offer something new for the 7E. Rehash and recycled material for six editions is all fine and well. It's also offering no real reason to buy the seventh edition if it was more of the same. If it was a recycled rehash like the previous editions people on this forum would be complaining that they offered nothing new. It's a catch 22 for rpg companies. From what I heard all anecdotal they were losing too much of the fanbase to other similar rpgs like Trail of Cthulhu that fixed some of the flaws of COC.

That is the utterly retarded mindset you morons have thats cause these idiotic edition treadmills where each new version is somehow incompatible with the past ones.

YOU DO NOT NEED A NEW SYSTEM. EVERY EDITION THAT IS NOT EFFECTIVELY A REPRINT LOSES YOU CUSTOMERS.

Quote from: jcfiala;10311311) Stats are now on a 0-100 range, instead of a 3-18 as before.  (Basically, multiply stats by 5)./QUOTE]

This simple change showed a fundamental lack of understanding how BRP works by the new designers. I never managed to even get around to reading how the monsters with larger ability scores were handled. How did they convert a monster with (EG) a 6th edtion STR of 60+ in the new edition?

Quote from: jcfiala;1031131Well, it's been a while since I looked at 7e, but here's the changes I remember.  I don't say if their heinous or not.

1) Stats are now on a 0-100 range, instead of a 3-18 as before.  (Basically, multiply stats by 5).

2) For all skills in addition to the base value, you also write down the half and the 1/5th value, for more difficult rolls.

3) There's a sort of advantage system, where if you've got a better chance of succeeding you roll two tens dies and one ones die, and take the better of the tens dice.

4) There's a bit where you can re-roll a failed skill attempt, but something *bad* will happen if you fail the second time.

5) Luck is a sort of resource (like DCC) where you can spend it down to increase your skill rolls.

6) I think there's an improved chase system, but I rarely use chases in games, so I don't remember.

As always with changes in games, some folks think they're the cat's pajamas, and some folks think that they're a betrayal of everything CoC stands for.  As a long-time player, I don't much really care.

(There's also a lot of room taken up with suggested campaign frameworks - groups that PCs could belong to that would lend them to investigating, like a band of ex-soldiers from WWI.)

Stats on % seems needless.  The half and fifth values for skills, that's OK, just saves the keeper some book...keeping.  

Advantage-like system?  NO.
Re-roll failed skill attempt?  NO.
Luck spent to increase skill rolls?  HELL NO.

As for adventuring frameworks that's for the keeper to handle.

Yeesh, so it's half fruity nonsense, half bad game-changing.

Will stick with 1st-5th as needed.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1031145Re-roll failed skill attempt?  NO.

The re-roll on skills has long been a popular house rule, but something I always thought of as situation dependent and left up to the GM. Some of the examples of consequences of failed skill re-rolls are dumb, like spilling ink on a ledger for a failed Accounting roll. Why not just have the PC flub the numbers and receive incorrect information?.

Other changes seem pointless or aimed at backing the game away from horror and toward some 'action/adventure' game. Luck points and the car chase mini-game would have been a better fit for Pulp Cthulhu.

When I want pulp COC action/adventure on the scale of an Indiana Jones type thing there's a lot of game systems I can use.  But when it comes to pure unbridled inescapable cosmic horror, when I want COC...I want COC.

I'm like Michaleen Flynn from The Quiet Man in that.  "When I drink whiskey...I drink whiskey and when I drink water...I drink water."