• What is the CoCGMS?

    What is the CoCGMS?

    The CoCGMS or Call of Cthulhu Game Management System is an app developed on the FileMaker platform.  Thousands of businesses and developers create amazing systems using FileMaker.

    The CoCGMS is a game management system intended to give Call of Cthulhu gamers a complete set of tools needed to create both characters and scenarios as well as provide a wide range of other features like catalog tracking, combat utilities, table creation, dice rolling abilities, and much more.

    Scroll through the showcase here to see some of the system features.

     

     

  • Character Creation

    Character Creation

    The CoCGMS features a great character generation system allowing you to create templates from which you can quickly roll out dozens of randomized NPCs, Monsters or Player character records; each one having a unique blend of stats, skills weapons and equipment you set the ranges for.  The system is highly customizable to give you the ability make nearly any option just what you want.

    Each character record can have any number of character images assigned to it and built in dice rolling tools let you use a character record interactively to speed up the pace of running a CoC game.

  • Scenario Creation

    Scenario Creation

    Many gaming applications focus only on character creation and dice rolling utilities.  But, there's more to a game than just characters and rolling dice.  There has to be something for the characters to actually do!

    The CoCGMS has a powerful scenario development side which will help you create the other half of a role playing game.  You can store any number of scenarios in the system and have all of your content in one place, ready to reference instantly.

    Write your scenarios just like you would a book with chapters breaks to separate things into chunks.

  • Scenario Tools

    Scenario Tools

    Scenarios can be packed with a huge amount of data such as the actual narrative content of each part, images, character links, dialog, combat groups for rapid fighting resolution and even sound boards.

    Load your scenarios up with sound bytes to play for your players to spice up the flavor of a game or even pre-record dialog spoken by an NPC they might encounter at some point to make sure you get the tone just right.

  • Scenario Parts

    Scenario Parts

    In the CoCGMS, scenarios are built by creating parts of the whole.  This allows the keeper to compartmentalize his or her content into easily found and referenced chunks of information.  Major parts of the scenario are broken down into chapters and within those chapters are parts like events, group references, historical information, etc.  These part types are customizable by the keeper to be just what he or she needs them to be.

    Order your parts in the logical order you need and move sections easily if necessary.  Attach images, notes, dialog, printable items and more to each part.

  • Catalogs Galore

    Catalogs Galore

    Use the CoCGMS to store customized catalogs of anything you may need to reference or assign to characters.  Each package in the system can be loaded with catalogs of melee items, range items, spells, skills, print templates and much more.  Organize things by era or any other logic you see fit to use.

    Nearly all entries can store an image helping you flesh out the feel of all items.  Attach catalogs to packages, scenarios and/or directly to characters themselves to provide a base selection of available items.

  • Table Concatenation

    Table Concatenation

    Give your brain a break!  Let the CoCGMS create unique things for your game but concatenating up to 7 tables of things into truly interesting outcomes.  Leverage features that let you build just the right thing generator.  Build interesting names out of syllable strings, generate new insanities, describe people your PCs meet on the street at the click of a button, and more.

    It's amazing what you can come up with by letting the system string together a few random possibilities.

  • The Players Window

    The Players Window

    The CoCGMS is both a behind the scenes development tool set AND an interactive gaming utility designed to be used as you game.  One of the best interactive features is the Players Window which displays things for the players to see as you game like images, dice roll results, table selections, GM jotted text and more.

    Using a third party utility like "Actual Multiple Monitors" you can mirror the contents of the Players Window to a dedicated monitor facing your players.  Turn off the mirroring of content when you need to or clear the Players Window at will to keep the players from seeing too much!

  • Print It!

    Print It!

    Print characters the way you need to.  Print full character sheets for the players, 3x5 quick reference cards for NPCs, tack sheets of just names and occupations to give to players as help sheets for knowing each other or NPCs, tent cards to stand up in front of players, and more.

    Print out your scenarios to have a paper copy handy or print Print Items attached to scenario parts such as journal entries, found telegrams, doctor's prescription orders, etc.  Install a free PDF print driver like PrimoPDF and send everything to PDFs to keep on your computer outside of the system.

  • Many More Features

    Many More Features

    The system is packed with many more features than covered here in the showcase.  Download a copy and give it a try!  The CoCGMS is completely free.  No nag-ware, no ads, no in-app purchases, no donation requests, no charges at all.  Just free to have fun with.

  • Multiplatform

    Multiplatform

    The CoCGMS can be installed on Windows, Mac and iOS (iPad) platforms.  For Windows and Mac versions of the app, just download the correct zip file to your system, unzip and run.  No installation needed.  Just run CoCGMSv2.exe (Win) or the CoCGMSv2 app (Mac) and you're off and running.  Make additional folders to hold multiple copies of the app if you'd like.

    For iPads, download FileMaker Go from the app store (free) and then download the raw database file from MPConnection.com and transfer to FileMaker Go on your iPad using iTunes and run the database from within the FM Go app.

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System Options

System Options are accessible from the Main Menu.  Here you can control several aspects of the CoCGMS.

The system can be locked to prevent changes.  This is useful if you'd like to post your database file for download for others to use but would like to preserve the content as-is like commercial content might be protected.  You specify the unlock password when the system is locked and that is required to unlock it in the future.  Certain fields and areas will remain editable such as character damage/san/power trackers, money trackers, etc.  But all other content cannot be changed until the system is unlocked.

In conjunction with locking the system, you can specify an opening splash image and text to be displayed when the database file is opened.  This lets you give an intro image and text to anyone who opens the system and can add a level of presentation that can snazz up the content.

The Window Limiter is a feature in the system (on by default) that keeps you from having too many windows open.  If the feature is on and you open a window that is already open in the background, that existing window will jump to the foreground.  However there are times when you do want the same window open multiple times and this option lets you control that.

The roll skew and threshold options allow you specify a "cheat" value that will be added or subtracted to d100 rolls made by the system.  If you want to make system rolls go easier on the players, specify a positive number making d100 rolls generally higher and failing more often.  Since the keeper will be making the dice rolls for the NPCs and monsters of a game, this essentially makes the luck of the roll go more in favor of the players.  A negative skew makes d100 rolls lower and more successful for the keeper.  The threshold is the floor or ceiling of the natural d100 roll where the skew will be applied.  For instance, a threshold of 80 when the skew is 10 means that only natural d100 rolls made by the system that are AT OR BELOW 80 will have the skew added to the roll.  A threshold of 40 when the skew is -15 means that only rolls AT OR ABOVE 40 will have the skew subtracted from it.  This keeps the roll outcome from being out of a d100 range and clearly showing the keeper as tweaking the rolls.