#Cats of Catthulhu

[rpgsandbox]

CATS OF CATTHULHU is the beloved rules-light roleplaying game in which the players take the part of ordinary cats, secretly defending human civilization from the Chaos Cults of the other animals. All the players have to do is act like cats, while the Cat Herder arranges exciting challenges for them—anything from snacky time to daringly interrupting dire rituals.

Ten years after the original publication, we are thrilled and chilled to reveal a new Anniversary Edition, with all material refreshed and compiled into a full-color hardback book with plenty of goodies to boot.

How is Catthulhu “Rules Light”?

In Cats of Catthulhu, the way the story will go is always a mystery. You and your friends play to find out what happens. One person, the Cat Herder, arranges the secrets and situations, and sets the scene, but even they don’t know where the night will end. The players take the role of individual, ordinary cats. All you really need to do is act like a cat.

Here’s how to play.

Listen to the Cat Herder’s descriptions.

Respond like a cat.

When the Cat Herder calls for it, roll two Cat Dice and count the Happy Cats.

That’s about it! There are plenty of details and suggestions in the book, especially to help the Cat Herder. But not a lot more rules.

And there’s no math. Cats don’t do math.

Making Your Cat

Take a look at this free, complete Cat Character Sheet. It shows all the suggested ways to define your own cat — from eye color to lifestyle — without using any numbers.

You pick one from the five Roles in Cats of Catthulhu. Every cat you’ve ever known falls into one of these Roles, often shifting between them over the years.

Catcrobat: The fastest around!

Pussyfoot: Everybody loves this kitty

Scrapper: Rough and tough

Tiger Dreamer: Sleepy mystic that sees visions

Twofootologist: Clever studier of human ways!

The rulebook combines all these details into 30 back stories for different sorts of cats. Pick one, or make your own!

CHALLENGES & CAT DICE

Many things a cat wants to do just happen, because cats can do a lot. But when a cat encounters a real Challenge, whether sniffing out hidden tuna or tackling a big mean dog, the Cat Herder might call for a roll of the two Cat Dice. 

Each die showing an alert, intent Happy Cat counts as a success.

A Sad Cat means a failure of skill or luck.

Almost every risky situation is either a Normal Challenge or a Hard Challenge. For a Normal Challenge, you only need one success on the two dice:

For a Hard Challenge, you need two successes:

You get six Cat Dice in the Boxed Set with a cat-shaped dice tray. You can order the dice separately with a dice pouch as well. Regular six-sided dice can work too, if you count a 1 or 2 as a failure and a 3 to 6 as a success.

The Right Cat for the Job (RCFTJ)

Most Challenges are best met by a cat with the right background. Usually this is a matter of the cat’s Role: a Catcrobat being the RCFTJ to leap up a scrambly slope, a Scrapper best at facing down enemies, and so on. As a player you could also make your case to the Cat Herder that you are the Right Cat based on your background, your previous experiences, or anything you can make up. It’s up to the Cat Herder to approve.

The RCFTJ gets one free success on every Normal or Hard Challenge. This makes Normal Challenges automatically successful — but we roll anyway! That’s because of the two mystical combinations we call Snake Eyes and Midnight.

Snake Eyes

If the two Cat Dice come up double 1s, that's Snake Eyes. The attempt results in an Embarrassment. You describe what happens to your cat, and how you try to play it off. Note that the RCFTJ still passes a Normal Challenge — just in an embarrassing way. Be creative in describing this accidental success!

Midnight

If you roll double 6s — Midnight — it means a Triumph! Describe how your cat sails through the Challenge with ease and style. The Cat Herder might even reward you with a little extra information or victory.

Treats

Finally, every cat starts every session with one Treat. The Boxed Set comes with delicious-looking fish shaped treats, but you can use anything except candy. (Candy is against the rules because it tends to disappear before needed!)

If you don’t like the results of a Cat Dice roll, you snack on a treat real quick (returning it to the Cat Herder) and roll again! Alas, this method doesn’t work on Snake Eyes.

The Cat Herder might hand out more Treats based on clever or hilarious actions. Keep those kitty wits quick.

Dire Challenges

In rare cases, a cat feels compelled to try something incredibly important and incredibly dangerous. When tackling such a Dire Challenge, special rules allow you to roll three Cat Dice — but your cat might get hurt in the process. No Treats allowed. No automatic successes. Use with care.

Scrapping

Fights happen. Much of the time, a little pacing, a little snarling, a puffed-out tail, some quick swats, and it’s over. Other times it gets more serious. In Cats of Catthulhu, just how dangerous a fight becomes relies entirely on the player’s decisions. Five levels of intended mayhem determine what you try to inflict on your foe. Even if you lose the roll-off, the worst the baddie can do to you is one level worse than what you went for.

For example, if you face a Scrap and just want to avoid getting hurt, you choose Dodge. No matter how big and menacing the foe, the worst they can do is Stun you — because you didn’t go wildly wading in all teeth and claws.

It’s a unique approach to combat that preserves more options than just murder.

Rules Summary

The Cat Character Sheet sums up ALL this information, right next to the place reserved for your sketch of your heroic feline!

Catventures

It falls to the Cat Herder, aka the game master or referee, to arrange exciting situations for the Player Cats, and take the part of every other beast, human, god, or object in the worlds.

Fortunately, between the main rulebook and De Felis Mysteriis, you get 13 ready-to-go scenarios! Of course, as an ambitious Cat Herder, you will want to make your own cat adventures, or “catventures,” as well. The book walks you through the simple process of arranging Challenges, risks, and rewards to satisfy any group of curious four-foots.

CATS OF CATTHULHU 10th Anniversary Edition Hardback Rulebook

Compiling, revising, and expanding upon all three of the original Catthulhu Deluxe rulebooks, the 10th Anniversary Edition is a gorgeous, full-color collectible hardback with new art and information for players of all experience levels. The book will run to about 300 letter-sized pages with estimated delivery by August 2024.

ART NOT FINAL, ASSETS MAY CHANGE SLIGHTLY

DE FELIS MYSTERIIS 10 New Catventures

Created by a whole litter of brilliant modern RPG writers, De Felis Mysteriis offers ten complete adventures for the Cat Herder to run: enough for a whole campaign of Cats of Catthulhu and more. Estimated 128 pages, delivery August 2024.

ART NOT FINAL, ASSETS MAY CHANGE SLIGHTLY

BOXED SET OF ALL THE THINGS

A durable and beautiful game box contains the hardback 10th Anniversary Edition, a copy of De Felis Mysteriis, six new cat dice, a custom dice tray, five adorable cat meeples, wooden cat treats, a pad of cat character sheets, and extra goodies to boot! August 2024 estimated delivery.

Apart from the beautiful books, art, and goodies, what’s different? Well, we’ve learned a lot after ten years of running Catthulhu and we’re boiling those lessons down for you. Of course, the complete edit is not done yet. We need your support for that! However, here are some changes you can expect to see in the 10th Anniversary Edition.

SIMPLIFIED CHALLENGES: From now on, every Challenge is either Normal, Hard, or Dire. Anything that would be an easy Challenge, your cat just does with no roll.

SNAKE EYES AND MIDNIGHT: Special results from double 1s and double 6s always apply, instead of being an “advanced” option.

SCRAPPING: Fights are just as quick as before, but with a new level of control. Your cat decides how hard to commit to the scrap, and that limits the consequences they can suffer—or inflict.

TREAT USE: A cat starts each session with only one Treat. The Cat Herder is encouraged to award more whenever players do something clever or funny. Also, you can now pass a Treat to another cat!

SCENT USE: Putting your smell on something to make it familiar will be simplified.

WORLDS OF CATTHULHU: The nine extra campaign settings are getting a fresh read-through, especially the extensive fantasy setting of Fuiry and its Status and Trend rules.

And everything else is getting the gimlet eye as well! The resulting whole should prove coherent, easy to understand, and full of fun. Help us make it real!

Kickstarter campaign ends: Thu, April 4 2024 4:59 AM BST

Website: [facebook]

[1-50thofabuck]

The cat faces going from frustrated/upset to fierce as the numbers increase is too cute!

[airic-fenn]

If youre pissed that WOTC is revoking its old ogl, you might be wanting to boycott them go play other games for a bit.

Now Im not a die-hard expert on all the ttrpgs out there, but there are a few that I particularly like and recommend if you dont know where to start:

• Ryuutama

I love Ryuutama so much. Its a lot simpler than dnd and really gives older japanese rpg video game vibes. Its very cozy fantasy with a heavy focus on adventuring and story telling than on battling. The english translation was actually a kickstarter thing, and it’s also in dire need of more homebrew content because there was supposed to be a translation of the supplement but thats probably never gonna happen anytime soon, if ever.

• Call of Catthulhu

No, I did not spell it wrong. Put simply, Call of Catthulhu is Call of Cthulhu but with cats. You all play cats. Dont let that fool you though, it can get surprisingly tense and gruesome if you play it right. You’ll probably love it if you were a warrior cats kid.

• Delta Green (and CoC in general)

“Modern” (1980’s) setting for (actual) Call of Cthulhu. The CoC games are fun if you like mysteries, conspiracies and yknow. cosmic horror stuff.

• Traveller

A scifi rp where you play a dude in space (an explorer, traveller, soldier or trader). This one is fun because character creation is VERY extensive and is part of the gameplay, but before the story starts. You make roles to determine all of the things that happened to you prior to the adventure like, did you go to university, have you suffered any life-altering injuries to your mind or body bc of some terrible accident, did you accidentally get aged 50 years older by getting zapped through a wormhole? Fun stuff like that. My friend calls it the existential crises rpg.

• Pathfinder

I mention it obligatorily because people tell me its the most like dnd without technically being dnd but I havent played it.

Anyway there are definitely so many more games but those are the ones I’ve played (other than pathfinder) and enjoyed. Feel free to reblog with your own additions to the list.

[twiggies-draws]

I want to look at more TTRPGs. What other ones do yall enjoy? Sell me on them. Bonus if they have a nice pretty book to read through. bonus bonus if they're easy to GM for (ie in Pathfinder 2e the CR rules actually work. This is more relevant in ones with more stats like pathfinder and DnD as examples).

Some ones I've played/GMd for:

- DND 5e (severed all ties, fuck DnD and fuck WoTC and if you don't know why search up the ogl fiasco and all the layoffs. Also imbalanced, builds are shallow and looked like heck to build encounters for)

- Pathfinder 1e (fun to play but the minmaxing powergaming gets too intense after a bit and it looked like hell to gm for)

- Vampire: The Masquerade (too depressing)

- City of Mists (Seems fun but the group I played with we never really touched the mechanics much before we moved on to another system, would be nice to give it another go some time)

- Pathfinder 2e (what I'm currently actively playing and gming for. My favourite so far with actually balanced and tight numbers meaning you can't just yolo solo stuff and have to strategies and work with ur friends)

- Wilderfeast (GMd 3 one shots with the beta demos. Fun concept and I late pledged for the book and am looking forward to playing more when it's released)

I also have Monster Care Squad and the art is so pretty but I haven't dug into the rules deep yet. And eyeing up Cats of Catthulhu cuz cats funni and the 10th anniversary Kickstarter book looks pretty

[fengtianshi]

That's a wonderful perspective to bring into "Cats Of Catthulhu" rpg!!!!

[tristanoberon]

La de años que hacía que esperaba ver los dados de Cats of Catthulhu bien de precio en algún lado... ¡Gracias @dungeonmarvels por hacer que los sueños de un niño se hagan realidad! #CatsofCatthulhu #CthulhuMythos https://www.instagram.com/p/CqDTEZ-NaTE/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[andsotheuniverseended]

played a cats of catthuluhu one shot last night and my character went out in a (literal) blaze of glory bc a) im a dramatic bitch b) the cult leader was trying to sacrifice his brother and most importantly c) the dm (my sister) really wanted to kill someone for the fun of it and i live to serve

[residentmedieval]

‘Call of Catthulhu: Night of the LOLcats’! Illustration for Role-playing Public Radio. Based on this game.

This one was really fun to do. The game, as run by Ross, is such a heady stew of memes and weird concepts, that I had no other choice but to get a little experimental with it.

[aliceundrground]

Offline a lot lately but still working hard and getting things done ;u; More of our December orders going out.

[callofcatthulhu]

[prokopetz]

very seriously; have you a game system specifically for playing a group of kittens? or what's adaptable to that?

There are a fair number of tabletop RPGs specifically about playing as kittens or cats – it really depends on what kind of game you're looking for. For example, if you're aiming for hidden-world fairy tale shenanigans, Steffie de Vaan and Elizabeth Chaipraditkul's Kitten Witches might be the ticket. Conversely, if you're interested in running a magic boarding school romp (where the school happens to be for kittens), Stentor Danielson and Cheyenne Grimes' Laser Kittens may be more your speed. Cosmic horror where kittens fight Cthulhu? Joel Sparks' Cats of Catthulhu. OSR-style dungeon crawling, as cats? Kirt Dankmyer's The Cat Hack. Like, pick a genre, basically!

(This is where I usually give folks the gears for giving vague criteria, but given how you asked, I suspect the fact that "tabletop RPGs where you’re a cat" is a whole genre comes as a surprise to you.)

[darksaphire2002]

CatThulhu

Octopussy

Cat-O-Pus

My latest creation.

[appendingfic]

what's Pets Face Supernatural Horrors Except Maybe Nothing Supernatural is Happening?

It's an homage to Bunnicula. The original book series was about a cat who read too many mystery and horror novels who believed the new albino rabbit adopted by the family was a vampire. But unlike the cartoon adaptation, there was no concrete evidence of that fact.

The concept would be very much the same as the original book, but with the thematic basis of the sort of cosmic horror captured in the rpg Cats of Catthulhu. I've got sadly nothing more than vague ideas about the animal characters.

[trans-mouse]

If you’re looking to pick up a new tabletop RPG, cats of catthulu is available for free rn on drivethrurpg. It’s real good and very simple

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/128633/Cats-Of-Catthulhu-Book-I-THE-NEKONOMIKON

[applesforhela]

Full moon eclipse, good day to start a blog, right?  Here we go.

Current list of things that keep my hands and mind busy:

sewing face masks for friends and family and teaching a few coworkers to do the same (yay for hand stitching, and may I keep my patience when we start teaching the kids to sew these)

making a little open vessel for Loki to rest in when he comes to visit

tending my home altar

writing up my own Cat Herder’s manual to run the rpg game Cats of Catthulhu in the hopefully near future

and of course, chasing after the small child in my own home

Hopefully I’ll be adding more muse writing to the list, even if it’s using proxy muses.  I always need to do more writing...

[somewanderingsouls-blog]

ooc; I just want everyone to know that I found a game called Call of Catthulhu where you play as cats that fight off eldritch horrors

dnd who????? this is my jam now