The investigators returned to their Cairo suite of rooms after visiting the deranged archaeologist laying low in the squalid storage space of a tailor’s shop. The archaeologist had come upon an ancient scroll of worship for Bast, the cat goddess. Dr. Rico stood on watch, pacing through the living area, pausing to look around the curtains at the busy night life of Cairo. He noticed an increased number of cats on the streets. And wasn’t that a tiger on the rooftop across the way?
His study was cut short by a frantic scratching at the door. Dr. Rico walked over and unlocked the deadbolt. He opened it an inch, and that was all that was needed for the five feral cats outside the door to squeeze their heads through as they desperately tried to get inside the suite. While dealing with the cats, both trying to keep them out of the suite and trying not to hurt them as he tried to close the door again, Dr. Rico heard a shatter from the window he’d just been looking through. He whirled around to find the curtains on the ground, shredded to ribbons. A large shadow sat crouched on top of the silky curtains’ remains. Its growl shook Dr. Rico’s stomach. Its yellow eyes glared.
Then it pounced.
Dr. Rico dove out of the way. Unfortunately, his feet tripped over the cats squirreling into the room, and the panther dragged its claws across Dr. Rico’s flesh.
It didn’t have to go down like that. In Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition, the investigators have resources available to them to alter fate. Like everything else in Cthulhu, these tools have a cost should they be relied on too heavily.
First, there is the “push” mechanic, where any failed roll outside of combat can be rerolled. The result of the reroll needs to be accepted. It’s great if it’s a success the second time around, but it’s much worse if the reroll fails. Whereas a failed roll the first time around yields a result equal to the status quo, the reroll failure makes things go from status quo to bad.
For instance, an investigator is on the ledge outside his hotel window. He reaches a drain pipe he wishes to climb down into a shadowy alley. If he fails his Climb roll, he doesn’t fall. The pipe doesn’t break. He remains struggling on the ledge, trying to get a grip on the pipe.
However, the Keeper will then taunt the player, saying, “Would you like to push the roll? You can get away into the alley. But if you fail, the pipe might break. You might tumble into garbage cans. Or a monster is hiding in the alley, looking for easy prey. What would you like to do?”
The player makes the decision to maintain the status quo or to gamble for a more favorable situation by rerolling the dice. On a failure, the Keeper thinks of the absolute worst thing that could happen as a result of failure then dials it back to the second worst thing that could happen. That’s the result the Keeper presents to the player.
The second resource the investigators have is Luck. This is a score of points that can be spent on a one-to-one point basis to reduce the failed roll to a success… or even from a normal success to a Hard or Extreme success. While this expenditure would save Dr. Rico from the first pounce of the panther, it reduces his available pool of Luck points, making it increasingly unlikely he’ll be able to buy down a failed roll on subsequent attacks. Even worse, if there isn’t an obvious target for the enemy to attack, the panther will choose the target with the lowest Luck score.
Spending Luck in a Pulp Cthulhu game is an even more dramatic decision. Luck can be spent there to avoid unconsciousness, turn lethal hits into “just a scratch,” and most dramatically avoid certain death. A certain amount of Luck points are required to perform these pulp abilities. If the Luck points aren’t there… the character is out of luck.
Dr. Rico rushes through the open doorway into the hall. He slams the door closed and uses his strength to hold it closed as the panther repeatedly throws its bulk against the door. Will the panther be able to break through? It might come down to how many Luck points the Keeper gave the panther.
