Quote from: David Johansen;1031183Yeah, I think it's the competition and the complaints and analysis behind it probably led to the changes.  A consistent complaint was people missing vital clues due to failed skill rolls.  If the clue's that vital, why are you making them roll for it in the first place.  You usually have to shove these things in their faces to make the players notice.

I haven't opened it in a while, but I think that was the question that Trail of Cthulhu was trying to answer. Except having answered it, Chaosium had to answer it as well.

I think there's room enough for decent combat in Call of Cthulhu, with the understanding that if you draw down on Nyarlathotep in a Cthulhu Now! campaign you are not going to leave alive.  I've had CoC players who didn't "get it" that just because they had Tommy-Guns and trench-brooms they couldn't take down a Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath.

But the thing is, sometimes, even the most hard-boiled gumshoe detective character has gotta blast on some cultists sometimes (ala the titular story when the cops rolled on the Cthulhu cultists in the Louisiana swamp).

Quote from: David Johansen;1031183Yeah, I think it's the competition and the complaints and analysis behind it probably led to the changes.  A consistent complaint was people missing vital clues due to failed skill rolls.  If the clue's that vital, why are you making them roll for it in the first place.  You usually have to shove these things in their faces to make the players notice.

This is why I prefer pass/pass task resolution systems and exciting failure.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1031253This is why I prefer pass/pass task resolution systems and exciting failure.

Well-written/conceptualised deduction adventures don't have this problem.

For someone buying CoC for the first time, would you recommend they purchase 7th ed. If not, why not?

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;1031261Well-written/conceptualised deduction adventures don't have this problem.

GM's and players worth a damn don't have this problem.

Not a single change is worth a damn in my book unnecessary changes all, Ill stick with my excellent 5th edition thank you.

Quote from: Motorskills;1031265For someone buying CoC for the first time, would you recommend they purchase 7th ed. If not, why not?

Given the price of the beastie, I might look at picking up an old or second-hand copy of CoC 6th to see if I liked the style and concept first.  I personally never made the transition to 7th because 6th is extremely simple to teach to new players and one can jump right into the mysteries while having very simple rules in the background.

If it addresses stuff you didn't like in the previous edition, or if you try it and like the changes, it's more playable for you:). If neither, it would seem to you like change for change's sake.
Whatever your answers, other people are going to disagree;).
Me, I liked pushing the rolls, and I liked the advantage mechanic. But I've at least tried the quickstart, unlike many people that seem decided that it's no good, it seems.
And now, /thread.

Quote from: wombat1;1031270Given the price of the beastie, I might look at picking up an old or second-hand copy of CoC 6th to see if I liked the style and concept first.  I personally never made the transition to 7th because 6th is extremely simple to teach to new players and one can jump right into the mysteries while having very simple rules in the background.

Which is especially an advantage for the one-shot style play that I've always like CoC for.  Makes for a good Halloween game.

Chaosium has always suffered from its own excellence. D&D basically had to have 3-4 editions published in the first few years because the first edition was unintelligible and the publishers couldn't decide which of two 'tracks' they preferred so they did both. Runequest, Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon, and Stormbringer were all basically perfect as hot-off-the-presses first editions and there was never really a meaningful reason to produce revised editions of any of them. Of course people will tend to like whatever edition was in print when they first bought the game, because the later editions are mostly the same and so mostly fine. But they could have just stopped at 1 in every case and we would consider them just as good. Sort of like Traveller.

Classic Traveller has the annoying "to-hit" roll though.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1031276Chaosium has always suffered from its own excellence. D&D basically had to have 3-4 editions published in the first few years because the first edition was unintelligible and the publishers couldn't decide which of two 'tracks' they preferred so they did both. Runequest, Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon, and Stormbringer were all basically perfect as hot-off-the-presses first editions and there was never really a meaningful reason to produce revised editions of any of them. Of course people will tend to like whatever edition was in print when they first bought the game, because the later editions are mostly the same and so mostly fine. But they could have just stopped at 1 in every case and we would consider them just as good. Sort of like Traveller.

The two important changes to Call of Cthulhu's rules have been the inclusion of occupations not drawn from H.P.Lovecraft's tales and allowing Investigators to regain Sanity Points.  Everything after that has been tinkering around or clarification, at least until 7th Edition came along and made a mess.

Are there some house rules that could be applied to 6e to give it some of the cool bits of 7e without turning it into two giant books?

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1031399Are there some house rules that could be applied to 6e to give it some of the cool bits of 7e without turning it into two giant books?

Yes. The combat section.