Firstly, it was Chaosium’s first Free RPG Day book secondly it was the first newly published Call of Cthulhu material in 20 years written by the original creator of the game.Īnother interesting first for Chaosium in 2016 was the establishment of their “Organised Play” programme via the “Cult of Chaos”, a free-to-join association of Keepers that volunteers to run Call of Cthulhu either at public events (e.g., conventions) or for their own home-grown groups. This short, modern-day title was significant for a couple of reasons. The other Chaosium release for 2016 was a more slim tome - a Free RPG Day scenario by Sandy Petersen called “The Derelict”. Chaosium Creative Director Jeff Richard has mentioned at convention panels that this high production value will be standard for all future books produced by the company. Interestingly, this book was briefly released in limited numbers at NecronomiCon 2015 in a black and white softcover format but Chaosium subsequently made the decision to abandon that layout in favour of a new, full-colour hardcover treatment to better fit in with the more lavish presentation that premiered with the 7th Edition books and Pulp Cthulhu. Doors To Darkness is a book of 7th Edition scenarios which is specifically targetted at beginning Keepers and players, with the book providing more-than-typical guidance text to help folks who are still learning the game. In addition to these two big rules-related books, Chaosium released a couple of books which brought new scenarios. While other Lovecraftian games have incorporated “pulp” sensibilities (in particular Trail of Cthulhu), few if any have embraced this mode with as much gusto. It is quite a significant release for Call of Cthulhu, though, since it introduces a rather different “mode” of play - much less focussed on investigation, and much more on two-fisted, Indiana Jones-style, action. The version that finally came out in 2016 probably has very little in common with the book that was originally announced in the mid 2000s, having been extensively “reworked” by Mike Mason and others.
Those of you who have followed the game for a while will already be aware that Pulp Cthulhu has been an “upcoming title” for Call of Cthulhu for a decade or more. The other big, BIG release for Chaosium in 2016 was Pulp Cthulhu. The Kickstarter isn’t entirely finished yet, but it’s close to being done - which must be a big relief to Chaosium (who have earned the unenviable epithet “The Company That Almost Kickstarted Itself To Death”). Although versions of the final layouts have been kicking around for a year or so, it has been great to see most backers of their 2013 Kickstarter campaign get their books. ChaosiumĬhaosium had a big year in 2016, mostly due to the (much elongated) delivery of it’s anticipated 7th Edition Call of Cthulhu rules. Here’s a breakdown of the books released in 2016, grouped by publisher. There is no denying that 2016 was a year dominated by Kickstarter-delivered titles … in fact every single title that was produced for Call of Cthulhu came out as the result of a Kickstarter, or as an add-on to a Kickstarter. Of course, that number does include two pretty important titles - the Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition rules (which were technically published in PDF form late in 2015, even though most people didn’t get hard copies until late 2016) and the long-awaited Pulp Cthulhu. Depending on how you count it, there were between 10 and 12 new book titles released for the game compared to around 16 in 2015. I hope WinstonP doesn’t mind ?Ĭompared to the last few years, 2016 was a quiet-ish year for new Call of Cthulhu releases. Because I know that the Sentinel folks are really, REALLY busy with a combination of real world things (a new homonculous) and finishing off their amazing Arkham Gazette Kickstarter, I’ve decided to step in to write up this year’s write up - a “those were the tentacles that were” kind of thing.
So, normally at about this time of year our good friends over at Sentinel Hill Press put together a blog posting which summarises all the nifty products that were released for Call of Cthulhu in the previous year.