San Check..or How I Learned to Love Cthulhu

For the better part of 20 years, I've been a fantasy gamer, a fantasy GM specifically. I've dabbled in Sci-Fi, Modern, and other genres along the way, but the focus has always been low-magic low-level fantasy. I have fond memories of my first foray behind the shield, sending the drunken warrior, stupid ranger, busy mage, and Charles' half-elf backstabbing with a bardiche through the Temple of Elemental Evil. Despite my desire to run Recon, Rifts, of dozen or so other games for mini-campaign, the player pool for fantasy was always ready and able to play.

Call of Cthulhu could finally supplant fantasy as my go-to game.

After reading post after post on yog-sothoth.com (the go-to CoC site) of people wishing to become new Keepers,and the difficult transition they are having, it's certain that CoC is a different animal than traditional (re: fantasy) role-playing.
Horror, even hiding in the distant shadows, usually conflicts with the average gamer's desire for role-playing. They want larger than life, might is right games of actions. Everyday people finding out the thought-bending secrets of the universe with investigation and role-playing? No so much

There are people who have written about the differences between fantasy and horror (D&D vs CoC, specifically), so I won't go that route. I will cover the major differences for me as a Keeper, however:

1 Game Prep: Fantasy (outside of 3.x/4th edition) is way easier. Perhaps I've run too many modules or memorized the books, but I could run a passable fantasy game on the fly. CoC has me reading over sections, outlining story progression, and ensuring proper PC/NPC interaction. The graph paper focus of the fantasy (Area 5, Room 12 B - 3 goblins looking to exact a toll for access into 12-c) versus story driven focus of Cthulhu drives me to perfection.

2 The personal touch. This may be true for most modern games, but Cthulhu characters are more fleshed out at the start than most 8th level fighters. Granted, in our game, the investigators are 1920's versions of themselves, but the players have even shown strong attatchment to the replacement characters.

3 Material: I've noticed an online argument over which edition brings more back for the buck. It's immaterial to me, since CoC books present weeks, if not months of play time in a campaign book. Let's see: Spawn of Azathoth - 6 sections, Escape from Innsmouth - 8 sections, Day of the Beast - 12 sections. And we're not talking about dungeon levels, or steps of a quest. We're talking about open-ended city scenarios that ENCOURAGE independent action. Hell, Masks is broken down into six sections, yet I never see anyone finishing the campaign in six sessions. There's just that much stuff. In addition to that, I'm much more possessive of my CoC books, than the Hackmaster books I've devoured and used for years. The times, they just might be a-changin in regards to preferences.