History TabletopGame / CallOfCthulhu

* MagicIsAMonsterMagnet: ''Cthulhu Companion'', adventure "The Mystery of Loch Feinn". While in the underground area of Castle MacLaireag, any spell casting doubles the chance of a lloigor detecting and attacking the investigators.

* SickeningCrunch: A star vampire does this to Vetch's spine in ''The Fungi From Yuggoth'' adventure "Castle Black".

* DepartureMeansDeath: Spectral Hunters must stay within 1 mile of the doll that was used in their creation.

* CigarFuseLighting: In the supplement ''Terror from the Stars'', section "Field Manual of the Theron Marks Society". Theron Marks himself is stated to always have a lit cigar in his mouth during adventures in order to light sticks of dynamite.

* TheFace: The Field Manual of the Theron Marks Society (in the supplement Terror from the Stars) recommended having one of the [=PCs=] be a Communication Specialist - a charismatic character who is a good talker. They would have a high Appearance and high percentages in the skills Bargain, Credit Rating, Fast Talk and Persuade.

** Lots of things can cause sanity loss this in the game. Increasing Mythos does this, but so do things like killing someone or burning bodies. The game actually has an "Idea" stat, which is a measure of how good your character is at coming up with good ideas. A high idea score is a ''[[DumbIsGood very bad thing]]''.
** This is because when you lose too much sanity in one check, your character goes temporarily insane. You can save against that by [[FearlessFool failing an Idea roll]], with a success meaning your character has understood the full implications of what he is seeing.

* TheFace: The Field Manual of the Theron Marks Society (in the supplement Terror from the Stars) recommended having one of the PCs be a Communication Specialist - a charismatic character who is a good talker. They would have a high Appearance and high percentages in the skills Bargain, Credit Rating, Fast Talk and Persuade.

* Lots of things can cause sanity loss this in the game. Increasing Mythos does this, but so do things like killing someone or burning bodies. The game actually has an "Idea" stat, which is a measure of how good your character is at coming up with good ideas. A high idea score is a ''[[DumbIsGood very bad thing]]''.

One of the most famous TabletopGames of all time, ''{{Call of Cthulhu}}'' combines the adventurism and teamwork of DungeonsAndDragons with the LovecraftianFiction setting of the CthulhuMythos. Your adventurers, or rather investigators, are dropped into scenarios right out of a Lovecraft story, and must keep their wits about them; the goal of every ''C.O.C.'' campaign is not so much to ''defeat'' the Enemy, but to ''survive'' Its horrendous onslaught while following the mystery out to its bitter -- [[KillerGameMaster and usually grim]] -- end.

-->-- '''H.P. Lovecraft''', ''The Call of Cthulhu''

* RedEyesTakeWarning: Multiple examples

* SanitySlippage: The more the characters learn about the Mythos, the lower their Sanity score gets.
** Actually, lots of things can cause this in the game. Increasing Mythos does this, but so do things like killing someone or burning bodies. The game actually has an "Idea" stat, which is a measure of how good your character is at coming up with good ideas. A high idea score is a ''[[DumbIsGood very bad thing]]''.
*** This is because when you lose too much sanity in one check, your character goes temporarily insane. You can save against that by [[FearlessFool failing an Idea roll]], with a success meaning your character has understood the full implications of what he is seeing.

* FictionalColor: Several examples.

* FungusHumongous: Several examples.

* AliensAndMonsters

* ApocalypticLog

* CatsAreMagic

* TheCorruption

* HydePlaysJekyll

* InstantPeopleJustAddWater

* MagicIsAMonsterMagnet

* OnlyTheKnowledgableMayPass

* PokeInTheThirdEye

* SealedEvilInACan

* SlidingScaleOfUndeadRegeneration

* TheyLookLikeUsNow

* YouAreWhoYouEat

** In some ways a DeadUnicornTrope, however. At least the 5th and 6th edition core rulebooks actually encourage the [[GameMaster Keeper]] to come up with alternatives to simply killing off Investigators, such as having monsters choose to target Non-PlayerCharacters instead, having intelligent monsters avoid stupid direct confrontation, and finding alternative bizarre fates to characters dying outright. On the other hand, despite these recommendations, the fragility of the player characters and the game's attractiveness to a KillerGameMaster are quite real, as is the tendency for protagonists in the material on which the game is based to meet unpleasant endings.

* KillerGameMaster: A necessity in a game where the dead [=PC=]s are the ''lucky'' ones.

* {{Retcon}}: As of the sixth edition, the game discards the entire Good vs Evil aspect Derleth tried to jam into the CthulhuMythos, returning to Lovecraft's original vision.

* NaughtyTentacles: The description of the the God Himself states that his tentacles are capable of penetrating small openings. You know, in case you were wondering.

* TapOnTheHead: ''The Asylum and Other Tales'', adventure "The Asylum". Dr. Freygan's neck pinch.

* {{Lethal Joke character}}: "[[http://filesmelt.com/dl/DnD_Henderson1.jpg Who wants to hear the Tale of Old Man Henderson]]" "[[http://filesmelt.com/dl/DnD_Henderson2.jpg the character who 'won' Call of Cthulhu?]]"

** For obvious reasons, Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth both take this trope UpToEleven and BeyondTheImpossible. To clarify: The former, if not properly contained, can and will lay waste to ''entire planets''; the latter has a nasty habit of vaporizing everything in a five-mile radius with ''freaking '''energy bolts'''''.