Call of Cthulhu vs Delta Green: which TTRPG fits your group?
Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green side by side: dice, rules weight, prep, playstyle and what each game is about. Still split? Put both to a group vote.
| Call of Cthulhu | Delta Green | |
|---|---|---|
| Publisher | Chaosium | Arc Dream Publishing |
| Dice | d100 (percentile) | d100 (d%) |
| Players | 2–6 | 3–5 |
| Complexity | ||
| Prep | ~30–60 min | ~30 min |
| Foundry VTT | Community + Official modules | Official контент |
| Free version | No | No |
| Playstyle | Mystery Horror Narrative Social | Horror Mystery Narrative |
| Setting | Historical Weird | Modern Weird |
Send both games to your players as one vote: everyone votes from their own phone, no signup.
What Call of Cthulhu is
The oldest and most renowned horror RPG in the world, first published in 1981 by Sandy Petersen. The 7th edition is the modern, polished version of this classic. The foundation is the percentile-based Basic Roleplaying (BRP) system: every skill has a percentage value, and to succeed you must roll under it on a d100. Simple, intuitive, elegant. But the heart of the game is not the dice. Call of Cthulhu is about investigation. You are not warriors or heroes. You are ordinary people — private detectives, professors, journalists — who have encountered something that should not exist. Every brush with the incomprehensible leaves scars: the Sanity mechanic tracks a character's slow descent into madness. Unlike D&D, where characters grow stronger, in Call of Cthulhu they deteriorate. This is not a power fantasy — it is a Greek tragedy at the gaming table, and that is exactly why the system has endured for over 40 years.
- you want classic Lovecraftian investigation with clues, libraries and witnesses
- your group enjoys ordinary people slowly losing their sanity
- you want a huge back catalogue of eras and published scenarios
- players want characters who grow stronger over time
- your group prefers solving problems through combat
- you want a GM-light game; the Keeper carries the mystery
- Sanity
- Percentile system (d100)
- Investigation
- Pushed Rolls & Luck
What Delta Green is
Modern Lovecraftian horror. You are federal agents (FBI, CIA, NSA, CDC) secretly fighting cosmic horror. By day — bureaucracy. By night — impossible operations. Every mission destroys your personal life: family, friends, sanity. The mechanics track how the job devours everything.
- you want modern cosmic horror played as federal agents with badges
- your group likes watching the job erode characters' families and sanity
- you enjoy operations with planning, a field op and a grim aftermath
- you want 1920s investigators — Call of Cthulhu fits that better
- your players want characters who recover and come out stronger
- your group finds slow, paranoid investigation less fun than action
- Bonds and losses
- Sanity
- Operation structure
- Federal agents
Send both games to your players as one vote: everyone votes from their own phone, no signup.
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