Call of Cthulhu 7E RPG: Starter Set

Easy to follow along with. It is a mystery rpg not your normal hack and slash

The majority of the content in this is a choose your own adventure for a single player. It's supposed to get you familiar with the game but the vast majority of it is spent flipping between prompts only to tell you to do something with no instruction and you are left to go find the rule in the second book to try and understand what to do. I hope to use this to run a simple one shot so my group can decide if we want to get the core books, but the experience they created for learning would have turned me off from the game if I hadn't already played a session at a convention. I highly recommend looking for online one shots or see if your FLGS hosts anything to try this out over getting this starter set.

I can guarantee you will not be disappointed in this starter set if you are brand new to Call of Cthulhu. The price is great for the quality you get. All booklets in the set are paper, as you would expect for a starter set of any kind, but they are a quality, glossy, sturdy paper that feels like the designers truly cared. One thing I like about their system with this set is the step-by-step process of easing new players into the game. When you open the box, the first manual is a solo, choose-your-own-adventure, Alone Against the Flames. While this adventure can be downloaded for free on Chaosium's website, it is nice to have a physical copy, which I find, having played this adventure both by PDF and now physical copy, using an actual booklet is much more fun. This manual walks you through basic character creation and how a game of CoC is played. It helps get both players and keepers into the right mindset to get the most out of their experiences playing. Following the solo adventure, the next manual is the rulebook, which contains most of the rules needed for play. This is a diluted set of rules from the standard Keeper and Investigator Handbooks, but everything you need to know is there. After reading through the rulebook, and creating your own character (or using one of the many pre-gens available) you can start the included adventures. Here again, the scenario book follows the system of steady immersion. The first adventure is designed for two people, a keeper and a single investigator. This is great to help the keeper learn the tools of the trade while not facing the pressure of a whole group waiting impatiently or creating chaos with numerous ideas bouncing around. The first scenario is simple and works. The other two scenarios introduce more players and increase the complexity and investigator freedom. After playing all three, a group should be ready to tackle the main books and more complex scenarios available. You can also stick with the more diluted rules for playing scenarios, with a bit of work on the keeper's part to adjust. However, I do suggest that after playing through the Starter Set, maybe a couple of times to grasp things fully, you should invest in the core rule books, since that is where the game truly shines. Overall, this Starter Set is perfect as a 40th Anniversary edition, and, hopefully, it will introduce countless new players to the sanity-shattering greatness that is Call of Cthulhu.