Elisabetta Golzio
High School Cthulhu is a roleplaying game by Gear Games, and in this preview we are going to show you its quickstart. We would also like to thank the authors for providing us with its physical copy.
On 8 October, its campaign started on Backerkit and, at the time of writing, it has already reached its goal (in just 24 hours, actually) as well as several stretch goals. What convinced users so much to achieve such a result?
Let’s start immediately with the setting chosen by the game’s two creators, Simone Raspi and Mattia Arnaudo: who among you has never watched an episode of Beverly Hills 90210 on television? Or Saved by the Bell? Those stories of love and friendship set between school desks are still capable of inducing us into sweet nostalgia at the mere mention of their name. Good. Now merge them with the aberrant, horrific myths of Cthulhu. You don’t think that’s possible? Nothing could be more wrong: we will prove it to you.
We are Those of Saint John’s High
Imagine being a young student in the 1990s, struggling with unrequited love, cassette tapes damaged by your walkman and VHS tapes of your favourite TV show: if you lived your teenage years at that time, you will find it all so easy. Now you will have to add a little effort of imagination.
Your school is not in a simple and generic place, but in the charming town that is Innsmouth. Perhaps not the most congenial place to live the best age of your life in a light-hearted manner because, as fans of H. P. Lovecraft will be well aware, unfortunately the mortality rate here is extremely high. No, it is not alcohol or drug use that raises it, but extra-dimensional creatures conjured up by maniacal madmen called cultists. What could possibly go wrong?
Preview of High School Cthulhu: the Students
How to create a young victim in this game? Oh sorry, I meant… How to create a playable character in High School Cthulhu? The quickstart perfectly summarises what we need. After obviously choosing a name, we move on to what is called the Style, i.e. our role within the school and our circle of friends. In this preview, we can choose among the Jock (the handsome and athletic student), the Cheerleader, the Nerd, the Goth, the Self Made (the one who is bullied by everyone) and the Rebel (the one who causes trouble).
Once this very first choice has been made, we will receive 10 Skill Points and Equipment, as well as an Attribute in which we are best suited. In the case of the Jock, for example, our Attribute will be physical activities.
A deeper insight into our character’s personality will be provided by the Journey, i.e. the goal our student has set for himself or the direction they are taking. A Rebel might undertake the Thug’s Journey, thus also making decisions about their actions and those around them. Like the Style, the Journey will provide us with additional Skill Points and an Attribute.
We will also be shaped by our knowledge: who are our Tutors? With which student did we form the deepest Bond? Furthermore, during our lives we have surely had to deal with a Special Type, who has marked our days forever. No, don’t hope for it, almost certainly not in a positive way. After talking to the Ancient One (our Master) about our Personal History and checking in our Inventory what we have in our Pocket and what in our Home, we have one last step: choosing our Traits.
Traits are special skills and talents that derive from our chosen Style and Journey.
Guts and Prodigies
But I mean, where is the horror? A little patience, please. As if adolescence wasn’t already full of it. Keeping our hormones at bay, making a fool of ourselves in front of our flame and getting bad marks at exams we could probably put up with. But in the face of cosmic horror, we need something more to give us the impetus not to go mad immediately: Guts.
We can earn Guts Points (up to a maximum of 6) and decide to use them to get bonuses during our rolls, to have remembered to put an item we thought was at Home in our Pocket, to activate some special abilities or to get a Prodigy. How do you get Guts? Basically, by being cool. Playing our character correctly, giving importance to their Bonds and being consistent with our Personal History will surely melt the heart of the Ancient One, who may decide to bestow them. Plead with them, just in case: you will need it a lot, so do it.
We have also mentioned the Prodigies, but we do not yet know their meaning. You continue to be too hasty. A Prodigy is a kind of small miracle that can only happen if we have managed to accumulate enough Guts Points to obtain it. For example, it will allow us to achieve an extreme success automatically, or to save an otherwise doomed friend. In any case, if you have a Prodigy at your disposal and a crazy idea in mind, talk to your Ancient One and the dream will become reality. Perhaps.
Preview of High School Cthulhu: How to Play?
In High School Cthulhu we find the Director’s Cut game engine created by Two Little Mice, which makes us roll six-sided dice pools when things could go in a bad way. How? By forming pairs, tris and poker regardless of the dice face obtained.
Our rolls can be Actions (moments when we take charge of the situation and act on our own initiative) or Reactions (something we have to face and is proposed to us by the Ancient One). In the former case, we will intuitively choose Skills and Attribute that will influence our roll. For example, moving a cabinet could be Physical + Muscles. In the second case, the narrator will choose for us.
We have four difficulty levels: Basic, Critical, Extreme and Impossible. Keeping in mind that we will never throw less than 2 and more than 9 dice, the more faces we match, the higher our success will be. With a pair we will therefore score a Basic success and with 5 dice representing the same number even an Impossible success. What if we wanted to improve our result? In the infinite goodness of Innsmouth, it is possible! If we have achieved at least one basic success, we can roll the rest of the dice, but at our own risk. If we improve our roll or achieve a basic success with two more die faces, so be it. Otherwise, even the small previous victory will be taken away from us and we will pay the sprawling consequences.
In any case our tests subject us to a great psychological stress that leads us to go mad and blacken squares in our Spiral of Madness: only by exceeding the expectations of the Ancient One by achieving a success higher than that required will we have no side effects.
Cultural Exchange
And here we are at the time of our introductory adventure, Cultural Exchanges, which introduces us to the real demon of the 1990s: video games. It seems, in fact, that there is a really difficult but very popular game circulating among students, Zaltur’s Quest, which those who play it seem to really get into. It will be up to us to unravel it using a good dose of investigation, ranging between school parties, abandoned churches and teachers’ offices.
But I’ll stop here so as not to spoil anyone’s surprise: download your quickstart, which has all the material to guide you through the story and the pre-made Student sheets to immerse you in the glossy, muddy atmosphere of this strange mash-up. You’re bound to meet someone so superb that they think they’re an Ancient One, right?
Conclusions of the Preview of High School Cthulhu
High School Cthulhu is a game that does not take itself too seriously in a universe famous for its mortality rate: in short, a living nonsense. And that is why it works. The Lovecraftian world is loved by many roleplayers and this revisitation, which draws heavily from an era so close but that now seems light years away, creates the right nostalgia effect. Graphics of the manual are designed to give the impression of a high school exercise book and its lines and margins make it plausible. The comic book-like illustrations are by Jacopo Tagliasacchi and Matteo Cecchi, while the colouring by Gianluca Papi and Francesco Romolo Antonelli add a further pop note to the visuals.
All you have to do is head to Backerkit before 24 October and secure yourself a copy. The digital version will cost 19 euros, while the physical version will have different costs depending on the add-ons desired (from 59 to 400 euros).
