Chaosium CHA23170-X Gamebook

I have heard some horror stories from friends but thought it couldn't be that bad, right. Sure enough after ordering these books from here the packaging showed up looking like something from the opening scene of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Frustrating because they are lovely books and I was kind of rooting for the delivery on this one.

First off, 7e is a fantastic iteration of the game. On this product, a few things knocks down the overall impression. First off, there aren’t enough minor creatures to contend with, not enough variety there. Even though the Lovecraft universe does not have many of these, Chaosium could have put in options for variety here. Second, there aren’t enough images either, even though some creatures have featured in the core rules the images that exist are nice, and at all cost they must avoid the garden variet 5e type cartoon colour images. This is a game about evoking imagination, but images makes it easier for a GM to pick creatures to read from. Third, disappointingly there are many spelling and editorial errors, to the point that it doesn’t look professional. At some point gamers must start to demand professional editing from these luxury slipcase products or we will get horribly badly edited books. Just flipping through for two hours, I found 5-6 glaring errors. I recommend waiting unitil they update and correct errors for this reason, if you have patience, which may take a couple years, but I hear they do it. But if users don’t start demanding better than shoddy editing in otherwise “beautifully” presented books, this is what we get. The fourth downside is that of use. Will you invest in this to create your own epic campaign? Small adventures? Do you need it? It’s massive. All creatures does not have images. Most creatures are deadly, which means you will not pepper a campaign with them anyway. If you are a huge fan of CoC and are building your own adventures, this has a lot to offer in terms of very powerful creatures, but if you are busy like most, perhaps you shoukd consider investing in adventure books instead, or if on the fence, wait and buy it in a couple of years time, if they sort out the spelling mistakes in this seemingly “luxurious” edition. 4,5 stars if you have a ton of time to invest in creating massive adventures with gods, less value if you will only create adventures with minor monsters.