Daniel (@dungeondive) opens Chaosium’s 7th edition Starter Set and treats it as a complete system for solo play. His own history with Call of Cthulhu is thin — a short campaign in the early '90s, one one-shot since — which he considers odd given his love of Mythos fiction. October is the excuse to fix that.
Two things he admires about Chaosium before the rules even open: edition backwards-compatibility (nearly everything ever released for the line still works with 7e), and free PDFs bundled with every physical purchase — invaluable for printing handouts. The box contains Alone Against the Flames (a solo choose-your-paragraph adventure that doubles as character creation), a 23-page basic rulebook, and The Paper Chase with three starter scenarios plus pre-gens.
Mechanically, CoC is a percentile system where difficulty is halved or fifthed for Hard and Extreme tests — eliminating target-number guesswork, which Daniel argues makes it well-suited to solo play. The character sheet looks intimidating but is mostly a skill list. His own investigator, Stuart Chappell of Castle Rock — journalist, librarian, claustrophobic — emerged from the solo adventure in about two and a half hours.
Recommended next step: Pulp Cthulhu for a more action-oriented solo experience, since crafting mysteries for yourself is notoriously hard. He also points to Lumley’s Titus Crow, Howard’s Mythos stories, and Chaosium’s anthology collections as entry points.
Is the 7e Starter Set genuinely the right door for absolute beginners, or does solo-friendly CoC really start with Pulp Cthulhu?