Spinning the Investigator portion of the Call of Cthulhu rules off into its own volume makes room for a significant expansion of material.

There’s always been a significant amount of attention dedicated to player-facing historical material in Call of Cthulhu – the 1920s is at once much closer to the modern world than a medieval setting, but also subtly removed. The problem with previous 1920 sourcebooks is that they largely feel like history books first and hooks for player integration of the material few and far between.

With the 7E Investigator Handbook, just about everything is contextualized for game purposes. It’s a toolkit and it does an excellent job of encouraging players to want to dig in and use those tools.

Also of great import are sections on best practices for investigations. Call of Cthulhu is very much a mystery game (until it isn’t) and what works in other RPGs would be disastrous here. It is lovely to have a book tell players that things like setting up long stakeouts and interviewing NPCs multiple times are good strategy. If I tell you that as the person running the game, you’ll take it as a hint or a command – having it plainly laid out in the rules encourages a shift in behavior without the Keeper having to mandate it.

I’d also like to mention the cover art, which depicts a group of unlucky investigators coming upon the Great Old One known as Chaugnar Faugn. I am not super familiar with Sam Lamont, the artist responsible, but he certainly captures the feeling of menace and mystery I hope most Call of Cthulhu games convey.