Review: Modiphius Entertainment – A Quick Trip to France (Acthung! Cthulhu)


A Quick Trip to France
A Quick Trip to France is the Quickstart set for Acthung! Cthulhu 2d20, written by Brad Bell and John Houlihan and published by Modiphius Entertainment.
By Aaron T. Huss

Learn more about A Quick Trip to France here
Download A Quick Trip to France here (paid link)
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A Quick Trip to France is the quickstart release for the new 2d20 version of Acthung! Cthulhu. It contains a small introduction to the game setting, enough rules to run the included adventure, pre-generated characters, and of course the adventure A Quick Trip to France. It is an all-in-one release, but you would never be able to run additional sessions of the game without upgrading to the core rulebook. Of course, that is the goal of most quickstart products and it effectively gives you enough of a tease to make you want more.

The Cthulhu Mythos as birthed by HP Lovecraft was weird fantasy with the inclusion of cosmic and psychological horror in an investigative fashion. It was set in the decades around the turn of the 20th century and sticks to the horror themes of the times. Since becoming Public Domain, the Cthulhu Mythos has taken on a whole new life through the words of hundreds of authors and game settings. Acthung! Cthulhu is one of those game settings and definitely does not fit within Lovecraft’s mold of the Mythos in terms of period-specific weird fantasy. Instead, it is a game set within the action of World War II, features a number of active military-like and intelligence organizations, and is geared more toward the action side of the Mythos. With that said, the life of what makes Acthung! Cthulhu its own setting do not really come to fruition using the Call of Cthulhu or Savage Worlds game systems. Call of Cthulhu is more horror and investigation and less action and adventure. Savage Worlds is more fast-paced resolution and less cinematic and dramatic. 2d20 provides that happy medium combining a rules-medium system with character growth, cinematic resolution, and plenty of opportunities for action and adventure.

In my honest opinion, 2d20 is a much better system to represent the type of gameplay Achtung! Cthulhu has always felt like it was designed for. The system is meant to be flexible and setting-specific to marry the setting with the game mechanics. If you’ve never seen one of the 2d20 incarnations, this quickstart guide is a great place to start and does a great job introducing the player to the setting. The adventure is brilliantly designed to present the players with encounters that cover the major types of resolution and setting themes – combat, investigation, time-dependent decision making, cultists, the war, and the Mythos. If you don’t like this adventure, you won’t like Acthung! Cthulhu because it literally wraps up the entire game into a nice introduction.

I for one am very excited to see how the core rulebooks turn out!

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