While Dungeons & Dragons dominates the tabletop RPG market in the USA, DnD cannot compete with Call of Cthulhu in Japan, where the horror game based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft is more popular. Call of Cthulhu’s English-language publisher Chaosium and its partner for localization in Japan, Arclight, both confirmed that CoC is Japan’s leading TTRPG, and has remained the “most played” system since 2011. Michael O’Brien, Vice President of Chaosium, told Screen Rant, “While in the United States and UK, ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ is something of a generic term for tabletop roleplaying games in general, in Japan it's ‘Call of Cthulhu.’ That attests to Call of Cthulhu's popularity in Japan.”

Many fans aiming to run perfect spooky tabletop RPG games are already familiar with Call of Cthulhu, as Chaosium’s storied horror game has a more than 40-year publication history and is now on its seventh edition. While CoC has maintained steady popularity over those decades it has never surpassed DnD in the USA. The player base differs from English territories, since roughly two-thirds of the CoC player base in Japan are women between the ages of 17 and 35, according to O’Brien. Arclight’s spokesperson, Asai, noted other ways the Japanese "Table Talk RPG" market (the regional term for tabletop RPGs) differs from the West.

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Actual Play Call Of Cthulhu Videos Helped Its Popularity In Japan

A promotional booth of Arclight, the Japanese-language publisher for Call of Cthulhu, showing multiple banner ads for the tabletop RPG.

The Japanese market is not as large,” Asai said. “[Arclight is] slowly introducing digital platforms to the market, but physical books are still dominant.” Asai noted that the pandemic has led to an increase in digital sales, as well as the more significant impacts of technology on Call of Cthulhu in Japan. Where Critical Role teaches DMs how to handle death meaningfully and has certainly aided the success of DnD in English-language regions, similar actual play videos have helped popularize Call of Cthulhu’s unique approach to horror in Japan. “The largest impact was created by a video sharing service called Nico Nico Douga,” Asai told Screen Rant.

"This service was largely popular [with a] young audience, and some of [that] audience started to post videos of their gameplay. [The Cthulhu Mythos was] already known in Japan, but many did not know the existence of the CoC RPG," Asai said, noting that the audience for actual play videos began purchasing rulebooks, which in turn lead to others familiar with The Cthulhu Mythos becoming interested in the TTRPG. Japan’s TTRPG market was formerly supported by Replays, written transcripts of gaming sessions that predate shows like Critical Role by many years. Asai said, “Due to the rise of video sharing service like Nico Nico Douga, the number of Replays sold are steadily on a decline. The Replays nowadays are not as notable.”

Although there can be long-running CoC campaigns, the fatalistic nature of Lovecraft’s works tends to support shorter games and episodic investigations. Also seen in the way the Call of Cthulhu video game focused on madness,The Eldritch Horrors of Call of Cthulhu are not monsters to be defeated, and the more a character learns about the truth of the universe the further they slip towards insanity. This naturally leads towards more truncated stories, but in Japan that is to CoC’s advantage. “In Japan, the long campaigns games are not as popular as short session games,” Asai said. “Even the players who prefer to use the same character over and over tend to use them in separate, small sessions.”

Call Of Cthulhu Has Adventures Set In Japan

Cover art for the English language release of Call of Cthulhu seventh edition, showing the tentacled head of the titular monster emerging from stormy clouds over the spired roofs of a city.

Asai also told Screen Rant that in Japan, Call of Cthulhu includes a combination of translated core rulebooks and adventures from Chaosium alongside others produced specifically for the region by Arclight. Both the English- and Japanese-language official Call of Cthulhu adventures delve very deep into Lovecraft's creations, but Dungeons & Dragons once tried to co-opt the Mythos' monsters with stats in the Deities and Demigods supplement. The early DnD book contained copyrighted Cthulhu Mythos content used without permission, nearly leading to a lawsuit. Though the original stories were typically set on the east coast of the USA, more recent adventures go beyond places like Arkham and Dunwich.

However, the classic 1920s New England setting that often appears in Lovecraft's short stories and novellas remains popular in Japan. Asai noted, “One of the largest contributors to the success of [the] Japanese market is the module that allowed players to play in the setting of Japan.” While the typical Cthulhu adventure is an investigation into bizarre phenomenon and occult activities linking back to the Great Old Ones, or other unfathomable horrors, the widespread popularity of the RPG has caused its scope to expand in unexpected ways in Japan. "Interestingly, some CoC [sessions do] not have any cultists nor eldritch horrors. This is because these RPG sessions are enjoyed as good conversation tool," Asai said.

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Since the DnD OGL leak prompted fans to cancel subscriptions to D&D Beyond, many current Dungeons & Dragons players are now looking beyond DnD to the multitude of alternatives in the tabletop RPG space. While games like Pathfinder and Warhammer Fantasy offer their own takes on heroic fantasy, the existential horror of Call of Cthulhu lets players go a different route with their tabletop sessions, offering an investigation focused game with a far bleaker tone, where every victory brings the heroes closer to madness. Call of Cthulhu has expanded outside of Japan as well, though it has yet to usurp the popularity of DnD elsewhere.

D&D Is Still Bigger Than Call Of Cthulhu Worldwide

Cover art for different Japanese editions of Call of Cthulhu, one showing a party approaching an old manor, with the other featuring the wing of some massive creature.

In recent years growth has been huge,” O’Brien said. “In 2020 on Amazon US, the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook grew to be the second-best selling core rulebook, again, after D&D... During the pandemic, VTT play surged. On Roll20, Call of Cthulhu has consistently been the #2 system played behind D&D.” CoC remains among the best horror tabletop RPGs for collaborative stories, and has inspired other RPGs like The Midnight World alongside other games based on the works of Lovecraft. “Call of Cthulhu celebrated its 40th anniversary last year, and since 1981 it's been the tabletop RPG roleplaying gamers know of after D&D, even if they haven't played it,” O’Brien said.

While CoC's status as the number one tabletop RPG is unique to Japan, O’Brien confirmed the game’s reach extends to many other regions, saying, “Call of Cthulhu is played around the world: In addition to English and Japanese, there are localized versions in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish, with several other languages in development.” For tabletop gaming fans who entered the hobby with Dungeons & Dragons, where most groups expect the heroes to defeat the campaign's monsters in challenging but winnable battles, Call of Cthulhu can be a bit of a difficult adjustment, but it has clearly found an audience in Japan.

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Source: Chaosium/YouTube