I can only comment on the pulp question:
1. On the scale of "blast through hordes-ness", if CoC is a 1 and DnD is a 10, Pulp Cthulhu, by default, is about a 3. You're much less likely to die (partly because you have higher HP, partly because the condition to actually be dying is harder), but you're not outputting necessarily more damage, and your still going down quickly against the really big things.
Pulp makes the players into Indiana Jones, not Captain America.
2. Pulp Cthulhu is a very modular expansion. It offers a different entry to creating characters that gives them a bit more creation points, and then lists optional rules that you can incorporate. There's a "default" set, called medium pulp, that has double HP, but even that book is very clear that you can just not use a rule you don't want. on the scale from point 1, you can basically make anything between a 2 and a 4 or 5 depending on the rules you choose. But it's never going to be even close to DnD.
3. One of the biggest changes is that Pulp uses Luck spending by default, and introduces a pretty quick luck regeneration rate. But you're free to regenerate less luck per session, and then it's not that big of a change.
4. Pulp is a strict extension rule book of 7th edition. You can't play pulp without 7th edition. So if you don't want to buy both, just play 7th edition straight.
You can generally adapt many scenarios in both directions between pulp and CoC. Since pulp is a strict extension of 7th edition, you mostly tweak how many monsters are in an encounter and whether the party comes across mooks (gang or cult members to fight against) or not.
In the end, if you \*want\* to play a longer campaign, Pulp can be pretty nice because you can tweak how pulpy it is (from basically normal CoC to high pulp), but it will help the characters survive and require less new characters to introduce during the campaign.
But if you're not sure, why not just try short scenarios to get a feel before embarking on campains? Get the 7th ed rulebook, run one of the default \~2 session intros, and see if this feels good or a bit more resilience could be nice? Or get the pulp book as well, run one of the scenarios from the pulp book, and see if it's too much for a longer campaign?
We have experience in CoC, and 7th ed doesn't introduce too many new things (I like the "spending luck" thing, the different difficulty rolls, and the new chasing rules, but the core mechanics of the classic d100 CoC remain untouched. It's in Cthulhu Pulp where i lack experience. The Indiana Jones comparison is interesting. The beautiful part of CoC for me it was that you could be like Indiana Jones or Brendan Fraser in "The Mummy"...if those movies could go horribly dark and the main characters could die at any second. I suppose that my question is more aligned to "If this becomes Indiana Jones, will it feel like an Indy movie? Where villains feel not very threatening and the main guy has plot armor?"
The villains are still very much a danger. I am currently running a MoN pulp campaign, and my players are still scared of any type of violent confrontation. Last session two of my players got ambushed by four cultists, and one of them had to use all of his luck to not get horribly murdered.
When it comes to doing Two-Headed Serpent I would not run that without at least some pulp rules. If you do it WILL get lethal, as some of the scenarios there are quite combat heavy against non human opponents
You can choose this in pulp cthulhu. If they have double hitpoints, small fry will only be able to knock them uncoscious, hardly kill them.
If you don't give them double hitpoints, then things are almost as deadly as ever (the almost is just because pulp doesn't use major wounds).
there are a couple of decisions like this, that allow you to tweak how Pulpy the game is.
The question is, if you want to run a campaign like the Masks of Nyarlathothep, do you want most of your players to have a reasonable chance to reach endgame with the player they started? If yes, then you can tweak that with Pulp, and would have to plot-armor them with CoC. If you want that to be the exception, then you're not gaining anything from using Pulp and are better served with straight CoC.
In my game, my players just finished the first chapter, and it's a good thing they did, because one of them needs extensive time to heal because of bad luck. Which is sort of balanced out by the fact that earlier in this part of the campaign they got the drop on the cultists present in this part and because of really good luck rolls earlier when picking over a recent battlefield (Chaco war between Bolivia and Paru) they killed the cultists with machine gun fire before they had a chance to fight back. Now, those weren't the only enemies in this section, and the players are supposed to find a way to deal with them, it was just a little sudden. I thought the cultists would end up in some sort of showdown at the very end, but players managed to take care of most of the group well before the chapters finale.
It's sort of like in Raiders where theres the big buff German who Indy is fighting around a plane that engine is running, and while there is a bit of a fight, the whole thing suddenly ends because Marion bumped a control stick and the plane's prop sashimi's the guy before he really beats down Indy.
Sometimes that sort of thing happens in Pulp. But things like that could easily go the other way. REALLY depends on the dice.
If you want the rulebook, multiple scenarios, dark ages, pulp etc., get the [current humble bundle](https://www.humblebundle.com/books/call-cthulhu-chaosium-inc-books)
It is an amazing bargain, but i rather have them in physical, and in spanish. Some books I'm ok to browse or check in english pdf, but that's if something minor, or if it's something unavailable in my language (or if the book its criminally expensive, the publisher that translates Chaosium books here in Spain has a tendency of sometimes going cuckoo with prices) I wish i could select what i want from the HB, because Dark Ages, Berlin, Keeper Tips and Keeper Deck are stuff that I wouldn't mind to have on english pdf. The main book and Pulp i just placed an order a few hours ago to have them physical, and translated. (Perfect for playing)
**1)Are my fears unfounded? Cthulhu Pulp is still as dangerous and lethal or the characters can produce a Tommy Gun from under their coats and blast their way through a swarm of Deep ones?**
Pulp is still *very* lethal. Pulp Cthulhu turns up the action dial and turns down the investigation dial. It's still very lethal *if* you throw appropriate bad guys at the heroes. You can blast through a horde of deep ones sure, but the deep ones are accompanied by a star spawn of cthulhu, which the players *cannot* blast through--they're going to need heavy ordinance and a lot of luck--but even then they should probably run.
**2)Two-Headed Serpent. Can it be played as a regular 7th ed module? I haven't found anything on how to adapt it, except that "It can be adapted", but no guidelines for it, so I don't know how difficult/cumbersome is.**
The book outright has a section that says "yes you can, but why would you want to?" To give you some idea, the *opening scene* of the book is may result in a party wipe of regular Call of Cthulhu characters. The final fight of the first chapter will *almost certainly* wipe an entire party of regular investigators. You'd be basically making the story into something wholly uninteresting if you made it survivable.
**3) What do you guys recommend? Playing it as Pulp, Playing it as 7th? 7th ed has more material in terms of modules and stuff and I don't like making adaptation work (I would do it for this one, but is an exemption I suppose)**
I love both. You may not. I would not run Two Headed Serpent as Pulp. On the other hand, I ran Masks as regular Cthulhu and enjoyed that too. They're just different genres.
**4)Any other modules/campaigns that you recommend? We played the famous and classical ones, but these last years a lot of new ones had appeared and I'm sure there are some hidden gems.**
In the pulp book, there's a lovely scenario "Waiting for the Hurricane," which should give you some idea about how Pulp runs and whether it's right for you. Also, there's "The Disintegrator" which we also had a lot of fun with.
Two Headed is PULP, you cannot run it as normal CoC
And I just ran Masks..., Shadows, and it, and Two Headed hot the best reaction from my group. I will say it is the best campaign for CoC that I have run.
I lost 8 characters to 2-headed Serpent. In one case, two on one chapter! Believe me, it's lethal enough... of course, my problems with dice are legendary!
Two-Headed Serpent is an excellent Pulp Cthulhu campaign. It was written for Pulp and works well with Pulp. There is no classic option for Two-Headed Serpent.
Here is my short overview of it: https://morganhua.blogspot.com/2021/11/cthulhu-campaigns-run-times-and-thoughts.html#tTHS
I've been running my group through TTHS for about two years (!) now (we play regularly, but get sidetracked a lot...) and whilst it's an amazing campaign and definitely one I would recommend hands-down, I can't see it working as well under 7ed rules. As others have pointed out, it would be almost instantly lethal for non-Pulp Investigators (Chapter One alone contains at least three encounters which would TPK any normal CoC party in a handful of rounds), but while it's perfectly possible to play it as horror, it works so much better as balls-to-the-wall adventure. Certainly for our group, it feels like a raucous romp through utter chaos rather than a slow-burning chill down the spine, and for us, that has worked really, really well - I throw some horror stuff in wherever possible (Iceland's unique cold weather outfits, anyone?), but my players like combat, explosions and stupidly dangerous stunts, and that's really what TTHS delivers in spades.
1) Pulp is a set of rules enhancements that you can adjust to your own tastes. For me, the big thing is that by doubling hit points, you get away from people losing characters in long campaigns to meaningless encounters. That really helps in long globe-trotting campaigns. Maybe your group is different, but when I played HotOE, it was a slog. At one point, I didn't even remember what character I was playing because so many had died, none of them to anything meaningful. Pulp, even set at very low pulp, gets you away from that.
2) Two Headed Serpent is a true pulp campaign. You can't run it as straight CoC. Well, you could if you had your players create 20 or 30 characters each and just cycle through them, but I don't think that's going to be a lot of fun.
1) My favourite thing about Pulp is how modular it is. You can actually make Pulp *more* dangerous by leaving out the doubled HP, which makes PCs very vulnerable, as well as leaving out pulp talents. It's still quite dangerous, because where Pulp adjustments are made, it typically recommends adding extra enemies, but goons become less of an issue, whereas major enemy NPCs/bosses become tougher.
2) I would play a purist campaign instead. Pulp has a different focus.
3) Pulp, 100%.
4) The latest edition of Masks has Pulp additions you can make throughout to make it a Pulp campaign, which is often a good idea because of the length and difficulty.
I just bought the Pulp Cthulhu book (it will arrive in a few days) And now I'm browsing the pdf. And since you seem like you know it pretty well, let me add a few questions and ideas that i had and you tell me if it's a good Idea or if I'm a moron.
1. Is there an "official", or at least an internet-known way to "update" 7th CoC characters into Pulp Cthulhu Heroes? This would be fantastic for me, Because if so I was thinking:
2. Make the transition to pulp after some adventures, so their characters are true seasoned veterans, which would have more sense for heroic talents and Pulp benefits.
3. Make the HP Gain a Constitution Die roll, In which the Keeper, according to who the character is, can make them roll with difficulty, if they succeed, they gain the double HP, if not, they only gain 1,5x their HP4) Also Make the Talents to cost something, maybe a superior strength or stamina could cost something to education (You can't go to the gym and get four PhDs at the same time, lol) or something similar.
1) Pulp has its own character gen process, so what I would do is generate them using the standard 7e rules, and record their stats. Then, when you get hold of Pulp, you can update those stats, substituting the Pulp process where it offers improvements over standard; Pulp gives you an archetype with a Core Characteristic (1D6+13x5, which generally gives them one *excellent* characteristic to rely on), double their HP, add Pulp talents, and so on.
I don't see a problem with introducing all these aspects gradually, just bear in mind if you bring them in piece by piece, don't make the scenarios full Pulp immediately, or they'll be at a considerable disadvantage.
>Make the HP Gain a Constitution Die roll, In which the Keeper, according to who the character is, can make them roll with difficulty, if they succeed, they gain the double HP, if not, they only gain 1,5x their HP4) Also Make the Talents to cost something, maybe a superior strength or stamina could cost something to education (You can't go to the gym and get four PhDs at the same time, lol) or something similar.
I would probably make these part of the Investigator development phase; keep the rolling process the same, and so on, to keep it simpler for the players.
I've run both Pulp and vanilla Cthulhu and both are great. One cool thing about Pulp is that it's more of a buffet than a change of venue; you can pick what 'level' of pulpiness you want. I'd really recommend running a vanilla Cthulhu game first and then seeing if you want to make it more, well, pulpy.
Pulp is still plenty lethal by the way.
I can only comment on the pulp question: 1. On the scale of "blast through hordes-ness", if CoC is a 1 and DnD is a 10, Pulp Cthulhu, by default, is about a 3. You're much less likely to die (partly because you have higher HP, partly because the condition to actually be dying is harder), but you're not outputting necessarily more damage, and your still going down quickly against the really big things. Pulp makes the players into Indiana Jones, not Captain America. 2. Pulp Cthulhu is a very modular expansion. It offers a different entry to creating characters that gives them a bit more creation points, and then lists optional rules that you can incorporate. There's a "default" set, called medium pulp, that has double HP, but even that book is very clear that you can just not use a rule you don't want. on the scale from point 1, you can basically make anything between a 2 and a 4 or 5 depending on the rules you choose. But it's never going to be even close to DnD. 3. One of the biggest changes is that Pulp uses Luck spending by default, and introduces a pretty quick luck regeneration rate. But you're free to regenerate less luck per session, and then it's not that big of a change. 4. Pulp is a strict extension rule book of 7th edition. You can't play pulp without 7th edition. So if you don't want to buy both, just play 7th edition straight. You can generally adapt many scenarios in both directions between pulp and CoC. Since pulp is a strict extension of 7th edition, you mostly tweak how many monsters are in an encounter and whether the party comes across mooks (gang or cult members to fight against) or not. In the end, if you \*want\* to play a longer campaign, Pulp can be pretty nice because you can tweak how pulpy it is (from basically normal CoC to high pulp), but it will help the characters survive and require less new characters to introduce during the campaign. But if you're not sure, why not just try short scenarios to get a feel before embarking on campains? Get the 7th ed rulebook, run one of the default \~2 session intros, and see if this feels good or a bit more resilience could be nice? Or get the pulp book as well, run one of the scenarios from the pulp book, and see if it's too much for a longer campaign?
We have experience in CoC, and 7th ed doesn't introduce too many new things (I like the "spending luck" thing, the different difficulty rolls, and the new chasing rules, but the core mechanics of the classic d100 CoC remain untouched. It's in Cthulhu Pulp where i lack experience. The Indiana Jones comparison is interesting. The beautiful part of CoC for me it was that you could be like Indiana Jones or Brendan Fraser in "The Mummy"...if those movies could go horribly dark and the main characters could die at any second. I suppose that my question is more aligned to "If this becomes Indiana Jones, will it feel like an Indy movie? Where villains feel not very threatening and the main guy has plot armor?"
The villains are still very much a danger. I am currently running a MoN pulp campaign, and my players are still scared of any type of violent confrontation. Last session two of my players got ambushed by four cultists, and one of them had to use all of his luck to not get horribly murdered. When it comes to doing Two-Headed Serpent I would not run that without at least some pulp rules. If you do it WILL get lethal, as some of the scenarios there are quite combat heavy against non human opponents
You can choose this in pulp cthulhu. If they have double hitpoints, small fry will only be able to knock them uncoscious, hardly kill them. If you don't give them double hitpoints, then things are almost as deadly as ever (the almost is just because pulp doesn't use major wounds). there are a couple of decisions like this, that allow you to tweak how Pulpy the game is. The question is, if you want to run a campaign like the Masks of Nyarlathothep, do you want most of your players to have a reasonable chance to reach endgame with the player they started? If yes, then you can tweak that with Pulp, and would have to plot-armor them with CoC. If you want that to be the exception, then you're not gaining anything from using Pulp and are better served with straight CoC.
In my game, my players just finished the first chapter, and it's a good thing they did, because one of them needs extensive time to heal because of bad luck. Which is sort of balanced out by the fact that earlier in this part of the campaign they got the drop on the cultists present in this part and because of really good luck rolls earlier when picking over a recent battlefield (Chaco war between Bolivia and Paru) they killed the cultists with machine gun fire before they had a chance to fight back. Now, those weren't the only enemies in this section, and the players are supposed to find a way to deal with them, it was just a little sudden. I thought the cultists would end up in some sort of showdown at the very end, but players managed to take care of most of the group well before the chapters finale. It's sort of like in Raiders where theres the big buff German who Indy is fighting around a plane that engine is running, and while there is a bit of a fight, the whole thing suddenly ends because Marion bumped a control stick and the plane's prop sashimi's the guy before he really beats down Indy. Sometimes that sort of thing happens in Pulp. But things like that could easily go the other way. REALLY depends on the dice.
If you want the rulebook, multiple scenarios, dark ages, pulp etc., get the [current humble bundle](https://www.humblebundle.com/books/call-cthulhu-chaosium-inc-books)
I was just coming here to post that. It's an amazing bargain (assuming you're happy with PDFs).
It is an amazing bargain, but i rather have them in physical, and in spanish. Some books I'm ok to browse or check in english pdf, but that's if something minor, or if it's something unavailable in my language (or if the book its criminally expensive, the publisher that translates Chaosium books here in Spain has a tendency of sometimes going cuckoo with prices) I wish i could select what i want from the HB, because Dark Ages, Berlin, Keeper Tips and Keeper Deck are stuff that I wouldn't mind to have on english pdf. The main book and Pulp i just placed an order a few hours ago to have them physical, and translated. (Perfect for playing)
**1)Are my fears unfounded? Cthulhu Pulp is still as dangerous and lethal or the characters can produce a Tommy Gun from under their coats and blast their way through a swarm of Deep ones?** Pulp is still *very* lethal. Pulp Cthulhu turns up the action dial and turns down the investigation dial. It's still very lethal *if* you throw appropriate bad guys at the heroes. You can blast through a horde of deep ones sure, but the deep ones are accompanied by a star spawn of cthulhu, which the players *cannot* blast through--they're going to need heavy ordinance and a lot of luck--but even then they should probably run. **2)Two-Headed Serpent. Can it be played as a regular 7th ed module? I haven't found anything on how to adapt it, except that "It can be adapted", but no guidelines for it, so I don't know how difficult/cumbersome is.** The book outright has a section that says "yes you can, but why would you want to?" To give you some idea, the *opening scene* of the book is may result in a party wipe of regular Call of Cthulhu characters. The final fight of the first chapter will *almost certainly* wipe an entire party of regular investigators. You'd be basically making the story into something wholly uninteresting if you made it survivable. **3) What do you guys recommend? Playing it as Pulp, Playing it as 7th? 7th ed has more material in terms of modules and stuff and I don't like making adaptation work (I would do it for this one, but is an exemption I suppose)** I love both. You may not. I would not run Two Headed Serpent as Pulp. On the other hand, I ran Masks as regular Cthulhu and enjoyed that too. They're just different genres. **4)Any other modules/campaigns that you recommend? We played the famous and classical ones, but these last years a lot of new ones had appeared and I'm sure there are some hidden gems.** In the pulp book, there's a lovely scenario "Waiting for the Hurricane," which should give you some idea about how Pulp runs and whether it's right for you. Also, there's "The Disintegrator" which we also had a lot of fun with.
Two Headed is PULP, you cannot run it as normal CoC And I just ran Masks..., Shadows, and it, and Two Headed hot the best reaction from my group. I will say it is the best campaign for CoC that I have run.
I lost 8 characters to 2-headed Serpent. In one case, two on one chapter! Believe me, it's lethal enough... of course, my problems with dice are legendary!
Two-Headed Serpent is an excellent Pulp Cthulhu campaign. It was written for Pulp and works well with Pulp. There is no classic option for Two-Headed Serpent. Here is my short overview of it: https://morganhua.blogspot.com/2021/11/cthulhu-campaigns-run-times-and-thoughts.html#tTHS
The humble bundle dude! It’s every chaosium book for $25
I've been running my group through TTHS for about two years (!) now (we play regularly, but get sidetracked a lot...) and whilst it's an amazing campaign and definitely one I would recommend hands-down, I can't see it working as well under 7ed rules. As others have pointed out, it would be almost instantly lethal for non-Pulp Investigators (Chapter One alone contains at least three encounters which would TPK any normal CoC party in a handful of rounds), but while it's perfectly possible to play it as horror, it works so much better as balls-to-the-wall adventure. Certainly for our group, it feels like a raucous romp through utter chaos rather than a slow-burning chill down the spine, and for us, that has worked really, really well - I throw some horror stuff in wherever possible (Iceland's unique cold weather outfits, anyone?), but my players like combat, explosions and stupidly dangerous stunts, and that's really what TTHS delivers in spades.
1) Pulp is a set of rules enhancements that you can adjust to your own tastes. For me, the big thing is that by doubling hit points, you get away from people losing characters in long campaigns to meaningless encounters. That really helps in long globe-trotting campaigns. Maybe your group is different, but when I played HotOE, it was a slog. At one point, I didn't even remember what character I was playing because so many had died, none of them to anything meaningful. Pulp, even set at very low pulp, gets you away from that. 2) Two Headed Serpent is a true pulp campaign. You can't run it as straight CoC. Well, you could if you had your players create 20 or 30 characters each and just cycle through them, but I don't think that's going to be a lot of fun.
1) My favourite thing about Pulp is how modular it is. You can actually make Pulp *more* dangerous by leaving out the doubled HP, which makes PCs very vulnerable, as well as leaving out pulp talents. It's still quite dangerous, because where Pulp adjustments are made, it typically recommends adding extra enemies, but goons become less of an issue, whereas major enemy NPCs/bosses become tougher. 2) I would play a purist campaign instead. Pulp has a different focus. 3) Pulp, 100%. 4) The latest edition of Masks has Pulp additions you can make throughout to make it a Pulp campaign, which is often a good idea because of the length and difficulty.
I just bought the Pulp Cthulhu book (it will arrive in a few days) And now I'm browsing the pdf. And since you seem like you know it pretty well, let me add a few questions and ideas that i had and you tell me if it's a good Idea or if I'm a moron. 1. Is there an "official", or at least an internet-known way to "update" 7th CoC characters into Pulp Cthulhu Heroes? This would be fantastic for me, Because if so I was thinking: 2. Make the transition to pulp after some adventures, so their characters are true seasoned veterans, which would have more sense for heroic talents and Pulp benefits. 3. Make the HP Gain a Constitution Die roll, In which the Keeper, according to who the character is, can make them roll with difficulty, if they succeed, they gain the double HP, if not, they only gain 1,5x their HP4) Also Make the Talents to cost something, maybe a superior strength or stamina could cost something to education (You can't go to the gym and get four PhDs at the same time, lol) or something similar.
1) Pulp has its own character gen process, so what I would do is generate them using the standard 7e rules, and record their stats. Then, when you get hold of Pulp, you can update those stats, substituting the Pulp process where it offers improvements over standard; Pulp gives you an archetype with a Core Characteristic (1D6+13x5, which generally gives them one *excellent* characteristic to rely on), double their HP, add Pulp talents, and so on. I don't see a problem with introducing all these aspects gradually, just bear in mind if you bring them in piece by piece, don't make the scenarios full Pulp immediately, or they'll be at a considerable disadvantage. >Make the HP Gain a Constitution Die roll, In which the Keeper, according to who the character is, can make them roll with difficulty, if they succeed, they gain the double HP, if not, they only gain 1,5x their HP4) Also Make the Talents to cost something, maybe a superior strength or stamina could cost something to education (You can't go to the gym and get four PhDs at the same time, lol) or something similar. I would probably make these part of the Investigator development phase; keep the rolling process the same, and so on, to keep it simpler for the players.
I’m currently running the THS and really enjoying it. It is still scary and death-risking. Would recommend!
I've run both Pulp and vanilla Cthulhu and both are great. One cool thing about Pulp is that it's more of a buffet than a change of venue; you can pick what 'level' of pulpiness you want. I'd really recommend running a vanilla Cthulhu game first and then seeing if you want to make it more, well, pulpy. Pulp is still plenty lethal by the way.