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| Les Annees Folles boxed set |
We continue our celebrations of Call of Cthulhu 40th anniversary turning our sights to an outstanding product from France, the very first country that got a translated edition (by Jeux Descartes in 1984), the country where the game is among the most successful ever (and for a period it seems it was the most successful) and the country that originated a lot of wonderful original products or complete reworkings of original US ones (one example: the amazing French edition of Beyond the Mountains of Madness by the now bankrupted Editions Sans Detour): this time we talk of Les Annees Folles, a French campaign setting from Jeux Descartes published in 1988 and rightly considered one of the more outstanding products for the game - not just in French.
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| Les Annees Folles boxed set (back) |
Les Annees Folles is a campaign setting set in the Roring Twenties era, the years from 1920 to 1929 when the Great Depression will erase all the 'excesses' and the dreams of an ever better life for (almost) everybody and it's of course set in France. And what a stupendous product it is: almost double the size of the 'regular' Chaosium boxed sets of the time (for example Spawn of Azathoth), it contains three books, a 'localized'Keeper Screen and a big poster map with Mysterious France (similar as a concept to the World Map of the first Call of Cthulhu boxed sets) on one side and a map of La Belle Epoque Paris on the other. Production values are high: all books have 'true' full colour covers, artwork is of fine quality, images from the epoch abound and are very evocative, the poster is printed on nice laminated paper. Only the Keeper Screen is printed on somewhat light cardboard, but it's really a minimal quibble.
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| Panorama Des Années Folles |
The first book, Panorama Des Années Folles (Overview of the Roaring Twenties), gives us a complete description in 112 (!) pages pf the '20s France, everything needed to understand the period and set adventures there: France after the First World War, politics, social mores, daily life, transportation and communication means, the penal code, the police, citizen's rights and - of course - a good (32 pages) guide to Paris itself.
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| Regles Optionelles & Scenarios |
After absorbing all the infos containted in Panorama Des Années Folles, the second book Regles Optionelles & Scenarios (Optional Rules & Adventures, 48 pages) gives us some rules for creating French investigators (including traumas and wounds from the First World War that saw France losing over 1,3 million soldiers and 600.000 civilians, a huge shock for the country) and rules about Spiritism, not exactly perhaps in the Cthulhu Mythos orthodoxy but very popular at the time and not just in France. The rules cover just 14 pages, the rest is for two adventures: the first, "Deauville", centers around spiritism and it's quite short (9 pages), while the second one, "Paris, Réve or Realité" ("Paris, Dream or Reality") is a a short campaign where the investigator will confront a new Old One in the City of Lights.
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| Guide Des Paris Des Annees Folles |
The third book, Guide Des Paris Des Annees Folles (Guide of Paris in the Roaring Twenties, again 112 pages!) is a huge (for the time) sourcebook about La Ville Lumiere with an in depth descriptions of its twenty arrondissements (boroughs, you could say). Every arrondissement description contains infos about its administration, police presence, place to visit, interesting location, how to move there and inside (metro, autobus), museums and virtually everything a Keeper would need to make Paris feel 'real' for players.
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| Keeper Screen |
The 'localized' Keper Screen is a four panel accessory containing, besides essential infos such as the Resistance Table and a listing of phobias, French specific information such as a big price list for goods and services (from a newspaper to a flight to London) and new weapons. It's of course useful for France - centered campaigns and it's nicely llustrated.
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| Map of La France Mysterieuse |
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| Map of Belle Epoque Paris |
The last item in the boxed set is the double poster with a large map of the Mysteries of France with interesting locations (there are a lot of them, including Sacred Forests, Gallic Druidism, Windmills and of course Menhirs) and a nice map, reproduced from a '20s original, of the central part of La Ville Lumiere. Again, the quality is impressive.
As you can guess, we consider Les Anneés Folles a great product for Call of Cthulhu and one who would have most surely deserved an English translation that alas was never done. The in depth treatment of France and Paris is extremely interesting ang gives all the infos needed (and much more) for running French centered Call of Cthulhu campaigns. When it was released, the boxed set had a price of 219 French Francs (roughly equivalent to $ 37 in 1988, a high sum for a RPG product at the time), quite costly, but the quality and quantity of materials is worth every cent. Today Les Anneés Folles is a rare and highly sought for piece, usually selling for around 170 - 200 euros for a complete boxed set. A pity that Les Anneés Folles was never reissued again, it would be a great addition to Call of Cthulhu.