At the Mountains of Madness

Tinte auf A1 Karton
Ink on DIN A1 Drawing Cardboard

#hplovecraft #hplovecraftreference #horrorart #cthulhuhack #doom #heavymetal #art #artist #artworks #artonmastodon #artshare #kunst #ink #inkart #inkwork #hrgiger #FantasticRealism #mystery #sinistra #morbidtales

#les3bonheursdujour

C'est le weekend, pas de réveil demain matin... Je me réveillerai très certainement à la même heure, mais j'aurais le plaisir de me dire : "Encore un peu"

Mes pizzas rapido presto étaient bonnes

Plaisir de regarder ma pioche à lire et de choisir... Ce soir je picorerais le jdr Shadowrun Anarchy, un petit scénario de Nami-e pour Cœurs Vaillants du Grümph et le contexte Rouge Delaware pour Cthulhu Hack

#jdr #cthulhuhack #coeursvaillants

Ran a one shot of the Cthulhu Hack yesterday. I used the "Lovely, Dark, and Deep" adventure from the Three Faces of the Wendigo book.

Half the party (and their dog) died. It was great. #CthulhuHack is a underrated game.

#TTRPG

RPGaDAY2025 - Day 21 - Unexpected - A RPG I unexpectedly loved

In praise of the Cthulhu Hack

https://polyhedralnonsense.com/2025/08/22/rpgaday2025-day-21-unexpected-a-rpg-i-unexpectedly-loved/

#CthulhuHack, #RPGaDAY2025, #Ttrpg

RPGaDAY2025 – Day 21 – Unexpected – A RPG I unexpectedly loved

What’s #RPGaDAY2025 ? See the details here.

Day 21 – Unexpected

For this prompt I’m going to talk about a RPG I unexpectedly liked.

The Cthulhu Hack

I’m generally a fan of OSR games. I like trying out the different versions, comparing the various rules, seeing what each system emphasizes.

One of my favorite of the systems I’ve tried is the Black Hack. It’s a D20 based roll-low system that was popular enough to generate many different hacked versions.

I’m also of fan of Lovecraftian games. I read the original Call of Cthulhu review in Dragon magazine when I was a kid, and picked up the 2nd edition boxed set right away. I’ve never actually run a campaign, but have run and played in many one-shots over the years.

Being a Lovecraft fan, I also have tried (or at least read) some of the other systems – Trail of Cthulhu, Lovecraftesque, Tiny Cthulhu, etc.

So when I heard about the Cthulhu Hack, which uses the Black Hack rules to run Lovecraftian investigation-based horror games, you’d think I’d be delighted. You’d be mistaken, I thought it was a goddamn terrible idea.

OSR games are great, but very often designers try to push systems that were generally designed for dungeon crawls and wilderness adventures into genres were they don’t really fit – espionage, sci-fi, horror, etc. The same was true of the glut of old d20 games, and the endless number of 5E hacks available today.

No disrespect intended if you enjoy any one those games (Hell, I’ve enjoyed some of them), but I don’t think most of them work.

So, with that attitude I was deeply skeptical of the Cthulhu Hack. I bought a PDF of the first edition (and eventually the second…), and it has gradually become one of my all-time favorite games.

How Does It Work?

As in most Black Hack based games you have the basic D&D style stats (called Saves here): Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intelligence, Charisma. They are generated randomly.

When a character needs to resist a threat or carry out an action, they roll a d20 against an appropriate stat: STR Save for melee attacks, INT save to solve puzzle, CON save to resist a poison, etc. If the result is equal to higher than the stat, the roll has failed, while rolling below the stat is a success. Some rolls can be made with either advantage or disadvantage (2d20 and keep either the lowest or highest).

Each character also has Resources. A resource is represented by a set die type. Every time the resource is used, the players rolls that die type (d12, d10, d8, d6 d4). If the result is 1-2, the resources goes down one die type. If the die type is d4, and the player rolls a 1-2, the resource is Broken, and can no longer be used.

There are two Investigation-based resources, Flashlights and Smokes. The Flashlight die is used anytime the player physically searches for clues or performs research. If they’re fast-talking, intimidating, or charming a person, they can roll the Smokes die. The attempt always succeeds, and they can continue to use either resource until they are broken.

There’s also a Sanity resource. Whenever something horrifying is encountered, a Sanity roll is made. If it’s a 1-2, the players suffer temporary insanity. After the Sanity die breaks, the character starts to actually lose sanity permanently.

Why Do I Like This Game?

First, the basic mechanic is efficient. All the GM has to do is decide which stat, and whether there’s advantage or disadvantage. There’s no constant arithmetic. The game moves.

The resource die system replicates both Gumshoe’s method of investigation, and Call of Cthulhu’s sanity mechanics with a single easy-to use mechanic.

Character creation is pretty simple. You roll some stats, and choose one of a series or archetypes that give you the basic resource dies and some special abilities. Quick character generation is a must in a high-mortality Lovecraftian game.

I also like that it’s not a tactical or gear-based game. Damage is done based on the archetype, either armed or unarmed. Except for a few special weapons, it doesn’t matter what kind of weapons a character has. Ammo can be tracked with a Resource Die, if desired.

Supporting Material

The Cthulhu Hack doesn’t have the decades of supporting materials that CoC has, but what it does have is of pretty high quality. Here’s some highlights:

From Unformed Realms: A series of random tables to generate a unnamable horror.

The Haunter of the Dark: An adventure that also serves as a guide to turning Lovecraftian stories into scenarios.

Valkyrie Nine: A sci-fi adventure in which the players are drones in a future moonbase.

Three Faces of the Wendigo: Three Wendigo-related adventures. I made pregens for one of them.

Here’s a PWYW Jumpstart version to try out the system. Here’s my custom Cthulhu Hack character sheet.

#CthulhuHack #Horror #Review #RPG #RPGaDAY2025 #ttrpg