07 July 2011

Call of Cthulhu 30th Anniversary Edition

The announcement (from here):

2011 MARKS THE THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY of the release of our Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game. To celebrate this important and rare occasion in our Adventure Gaming industry, Chaosium is proud to offer a special binding of the current edition (6th edition) of the Call of Cthulhu rulebook. It features thick (3 mm) leatherette hard-covers with the front cover and spine stamped with luxurious gold foil. The interior pages are printed in black ink, on 90 gsm matte art paper, and each book is individually numbered on the title page. The binding is thread sewn; square backed. Each book is individually shrink-wrapped, with the barcode stickered onto the wrapping so as to not mar the book cover.

I'm somewhat surprised that this will be a special printing of the 6th edition rules, as I had been under the impression that the 7th edition would be released this year. But given how little difference there is, rules-wise, between different Call of the Cthulhu editions -- one of the game's enduring virtues, in my opinion -- this hardly is a big deal. I merely was hoping for better layout in the special anniversary edition (I find the 6th edition too 'grey' and somewhat unattractive in places).

'ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!'

8 comments:

  1. Thirty years? Wow, a man can lose a lot of SAN in that time.

    I remember when it first came out, I had just watched Raiders and was totally sold on the thirties vibe; a game that let me play that sort of thing was going to tick all my boxes. Thirty years later, I'm still playing it (by e-mail) and have moved to a 1920-set, horror-oriented game but still regard CoC as the best game that doesn't have the letter D in the title.

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  2. My first CoC character, from 28 years ago (!), was a Chicago police detective named Erich Von Kopper (sigh).

    I need to catch up on your CoC posts, DG. :)

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  3. My, that would look nice on my shelves...

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  4. I was tempted, I must admit, but I've already committed myself to buying the 7th edition even though I don't need another copy of the core rules, so I let this one pass.

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  5. I wonder when we'll see the 7th edition? It seems unlikely, I think, that it'll be this year. (Not that I'm in any rush...)

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  6. I was hoping for this year, but this release makes that seem unlikely.

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  7. Have they fixed their website security? I've avoided ordering from Chaosium ever since they got hacked.

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  8. I'm pretty sure that the problems have bee fixed, Dan. I certainly haven't heard about any problems over the past few months.

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