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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
One of the tools available during scenario creation is a simple charting feature that lets you see where the majority or minority of your work has gone. The Chart button at the top of the Scenario layout lets you chart the top or bottom 10 or 20 scenario parts by word count. This can let you see where the large or small parts in your scenario can be found.