CoC for total noobs

Hi all, we are an experienced group of 5e players, I am the GM for the group.  We usually play Strahd Must Die for Halloween but are now actually playing the campaign and so want to do something new.  Played Camp Clearwater and this year thought we'd go CoC.  I have d/l the Basic Rules from Chaosium Inc but see there is a Basic Rules on Roll20 too.  What is the difference (apart from the pdf I have has The Haunting as a module, the Roll20 version has 2 different ones)? Players want to make their own investigators, no pre-gens. I have heard Viral and St Margaret's are both excellent, but may be too much for a new CoC table? Any tips for CoC on Roll20?  At this stage we are dipping toes in waters and so want to stick to free rules or very low cost What is the difference in those basic rules? EDIT Please ignore - I must have also looked at the full rules, which has another 2 adventures.  The basic free rules on Roll20 has the same adventure and outlines for creating the investigators Any recommends for a Halloween game of say 4-5 hours? Avoid Pulp at this stage as we are looking more for the horror? I have read that new groups should ditch SAN and magic, any thoughts? I have a pro sub, so any APIs that you would recommend (for example we use Kurt's Token Action Menu for 5e and it is like a wee Swiss Army Knife for DnD)? Thanks in advance

I haven't looked at those two supplements but can problale help. Chaosium have produced a ruleset generally called Basic Roleplayintg - emphasis on generic. This is a set of rules you can use for any kind of roleplaying. Chaosium has also produced the game Call of Cthulhu, and while its rules are inspired by Basic Roleplaying, they have become their own thing. CoC also has specific setting etails, monsters, etc, that aren't in BRP. If you know you are playing CoC (which seems to be the case), you should definitely get the CoC rules.

Simon G. said: Any tips for CoC on Roll20?  At this stage we are dipping toes in waters and so want to stick to free rules or very low cost What is the difference in those basic rules? EDIT Please ignore - I must have also looked at the full rules, which has another 2 adventures.  The basic free rules on Roll20 has the same adventure and outlines for creating the investigators Any recommends for a Halloween game of say 4-5 hours? Avoid Pulp at this stage as we are looking more for the horror? I have read that new groups should ditch SAN and magic, any thoughts? These questions specifically do not belong on this forum, which is not about any particular game or campain, but it is specifically about roll20. - things that can help, issues that come up, how to use it, etc. These questions (apart from any about the specofic supplements made by roll20) are more the kind of things you should be asking in CoC roleplaying communities.

Thanks Gigs, fair comment - I wasn't really thinking just Roll20 as I was rattling that out before diving out the door, but I take your point about keeping it Roll20 specific.  I have already downloaded and read the basic rules, so now it is only the API bit I need some clarification on if there is anyone out there that can signpost?

I don't use the API much, so I'm sure others will have more numerous suggestions. But I do strongly recommend token-mod - you can do a lot of stuff very quickly with tokens, and chatSetAttrs which allows you to change character attributes en masse (if you know their names) without opening the character sheet. API scripts will vary depending on exactly how you run the game, but token-mod is always useful.

thanks GiGs, yeah, I've used token-mod a lot before getting in to Scriptcards, our DnD games are so much faster with just a handful of APIs, leaves more time for the RP : )  The basic rules for this look so straight foward