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Review of the Trail of Cthulu - 7th July 2008
My Father recently bequeathed to me these notes from the papers of my Great-Grandfather, an academic anthropologist of some note who vanished without trace in the early 1930s. My Grandfather had apparently suffered some form of mental breakdown upon return from Australia in 1928 where he had accompanied the Dundee-Hutchence-Ramsey-Minogue expedition to New South Wales, searching for evidence of lost Aborigine settlements. The notes were in a cryptic shorthand which had defied interpretation for 80 years but fortunately recent improvements in the on-line translation service Babelfish indicated that the notes were in fact written in Enochian, the language of the Angelic Host first bought to European attention by the famed Elizabethan mystic Dr. John Dee. A translation was procured just as soon as my Vista PC would boot (about 45 minutes).
From a detailed examination of the translation of these notes I have determined that they are in the form of a rhetorical question and answer session and relate to some form of improvisational role-play methodology, perhaps a popular parlour game of the 1920s. Footnotes (not included here) seem to suggest that the answerer of the questions is my Great-Grandfather but that the asker of the questions is in fact a unknown figure, communicating only via inscriptions upon metal plates found in Australian ruins of impossible antiquity. A curious fancy and perhaps one showing early signs of his later mental collapse.
Edited excerpts follow
Q - What is Trail of Cthulhu?
A - Trail of Cthulhu is a new RPG from Pelgrane Press, intended for RPG-ing in the world of the Cthulhu Mythos. While this is nominally the area of expertise of Call of Cthulhu, ToC doesn't attempt to supplant the original Chaosium set but offers a new approach using a rules-light gaming engine known as GUMSHOE.
Q - What is GUMSHOE and how does it differ from Chaosiums' Basic Role-Playing engine (BRP)?
A - GUMSHOE is an engine aimed purely at an investigative style of play, whereby the scenario is based around the understanding of clues and arriving at a conclusion. BRP is more of a general role-playing system and while more complex, is also suited to other types of game sessions within the same milieu. So Iwhile feel CoC could handle a survival horror or Indiana Jones type game, ToC probably couldn't. It is very tightly focused upon one style of play.
Q - What's all the controversy with GUMSHOE?
A - GUMSHOE rules that clues are found automatically, it dispenses with the Spot Hidden and Library Use dice rolls that CoC players are familiar with. This has led to some accusations that a ToC scenario will always be railroaded to some degree since the players can't (apparently) fail to get a clue. If the players are in the right place and use the correct skill they will always get the clue
Q - Surely that takes the skill out of it?
A - Actually, no. It takes the _luck_ out of it.
Much of GUMSHOE's raison d'etre is that too many CoC scenarios flounder when a dice roll to find a vital clue fails. Then the GM is either forced to wing it to move the clue elsewhere so that the scenario doesn't breakdown mid-flow or just 'fudge' the roll and declare it successful. And that is rather the exception that proves the rule since if the clue is too important to allow the dice to fluff it why not just make discovery automatic?
There is a slightly more subtle element to this manner of play. ToC points out that detective fiction, from Holmes through Poirot to CSI:Wherever is never about the will they/won't they find the clue. The clues will always be found, what matters is what conclusions are drawn from them and where they lead the investigation. ToC wants the clues to get the PCs thinking so that they use their brain, rather than a dice roll revealing a unsubtle clue that says "Mr X. murdered Professor Horowitz as he was too close to uncovering the secret of the Tcho-Tcho Ritual" or revealing nothing if the dice roll is failed.
Q - So how does this work in practise?
OK, fictional examples time.
Investigating the disappearance of the paranormal researcher Professor Mordecai Horowitz, the Keeper tells the Investigators that the Horowitz residence is a large detached house in Enfield with a separate garage. The Investigators enter the garage and are told that the garage is empty, there are tyre marks on the floor and a oil drip-tray. As far as the Keeper is concerned the Investigators got themselves to the right place and the presence of the tyre marks and drip tray are obvious enough not to require specialist skills. Some CoC Keepers would have demanded a Spot Hidden to see these items.
The onus is now on the Investigators to ponder what this means (clearly that a car is normally parked here but isn't here at present) and as to what that implies - in other words why is the car not here now, where is it, and who was responsible for moving it?
The Investigator knows that the missing car is a Bentley Lagonda and that the Professor took it to a dealership in Finchley for a service, but never collected it from the dealership. He also knows that Horowitz made a note of this appointment in his desk diary, but that he kept his diary in Hebrew.
When the PCs go to Horowitz's study any examination of his papers will reveal that they are in Hebrew. If a PC with skills in the Hebrew language examines them he will find out about the appointment with the Bentley dealership automatically - under CoC, the Keeper might have insisted upon a Library Use roll to discover the desk diary or an Other Language (Hebrew) roll to understand the entry. ToC assumes that since the investigator is in the right place (Horowitz's study) with the right skill (Language - Hebrew) the clue is discovered automatically.
If none of the Investigators can read Hebrew then perhaps they will have to go and beg a favour of their old friend Rabbi Jacobs who helped them with the Curious Clue of the White Tindlosi Hound a few years back. The Rabbi has Hebrew so he will discover the clue automatically.
Alternatively the game system allows an Investigator to be created knowing several other languages but without needing to state these at creation time – therefore the Investigator might be able to use on these “slots” up and declare that “I picked up a smattering of Hebrew serving in Allenby's army in Palestine in the Great War”.
Then, once the clue is discovered the onus is on the Investigators to put two and two together, realise that the absence of the car is important and that it's last known location was probably the Bentley dealership and follow the clue to the dealership...
Of course in a real scenario there would be several such clues around the Horowitz house and the Investigators might have several avenues to investigate assuming that they found everything that there is to be found.
Q - What about tests? You must roll the dice at least occasionally?
A - ToC uses a single d6 for all tests. It also employs a system that I haven't seen before but other gamers, who are perhaps more up to date on what is new in RPGing, might be more familiar with.
All tests have a difficulty number assigned from 2 to 8. This is the number to be equalled or beaten with the d6. So far relatively unremarkable.
Investigators have skill Rating Points, for example our Investigator might have Athletics(9). These points are actually a finite resource that can be burnt to give to a bonus to the dice roll. If the Investigator needs to leap a fissure deep within the bowels of a Dhole nest, he may burn 3 to add +3 to his dice roll. This will leave him with Athletics(6). Rating Points are only recovered after adventures, or perhaps if a long amount of time elapses during a session - for example if the Investigators catch a steamer at Southampton to follow Horowitz's trail to Rhodesia and no scenario occurs on route, the Keeper may well allow all Rating Points expended so far to be recovered when the play resumes with the investigators arrival in Rhodesia.
Q - That sounds rather harsh, losing Rating Points merely for using skills.
A - Well it does, but it does appear that dice tests aren't required very often. No clue detection ever requires a test for example. Rating Points can be burnt to boost the information given by a clue, assuming that the Keeper allows it but the rulebook is at pains to point out that a clue must never require this to be found, only to use be hinted for hints and potentially more useful information. This can be offered by the Keeper, or improvised should the Investigator request it.
For example, the Hebrew-speaking Investigator reads Horowitz's diary and discovers the car service appointment. After burning a point in his Hebrew skill, the Keeper informs him that Horowitz's written language is not really that of a Jew born in North London, but more of one who was either born in Palestine or has spent considerable time there. This could be a red herring, helpful or provide the Keeper with a means to drop a clue that the PCs have missed.
But this is optional. If the Keeper doesn't see that any more info could be gleaned he can simply refuse to allow the Rating Point burning.
Q - So is the book basically a Cut-and-Paste job on CoC with the GUMSHOE rules replacing the BRP ones?
A – Not quite. While superficially both resemble each other (it is after all, very difficult to create a hardback RPG rulebook without it looking similar in layout to a thousand other hardback RPG rulebooks) ToC's non-rules sections differ from CoC in a number of aspects.
ToC has rolled the clock on slightly from Coc. CoC's default setting is the 1920s and early 1930s (pretty much the era of Lovecraft's writings). ToC has taken the decision to default to the 1930s mainly to allow for a Pulp or Purist setting.
Purist is a low-action version where Investigators are quite weedy academics and will go mad when confronted with the horrors of an uncaring and alien universe. Pulp is high-action where Investigators are made of sturdier stuff and punching people gets results. Conventional wisdom states that Lovecraft wrote in the former sphere and his later imitators often in the latter but the rulebook points out plenty of examples of how Lovecraft actually jumped between both milieus at will.
As I like to say it, in Pulp a gun is useful for shooting goons and uppity natives. In Purist a gun is useful for committing suicide.
The 1930s setting also allows for Nazi weirdness as a good Pulp villain, especially in the shape of Ahnenerbe, Himmlers occult “research” group.
ToC also rejects the concept that CoC adopted which is that you can codify what the entities of the Cthulhu Mythos are. ToC simply lists a collection of contradictory statements and concepts about the entities, all of which are I believe draw from the source fiction, and refuses to give statistics for the major beings. I much prefer this approach as opposed to the "Monster Manual" of CoC.
Q - Criticisms? And could you use it to replace CoC?
A - When comparing to CoC, ToC strikes me as not as broad-church as it's elder (thing) cousin. In CoC a bunch of heavily-armed Investigators could have their aeroplane crash land upon an Atlantic island in a storm and then shoot down waves upon waves of zombies in Resident Evil style and this would work well. In ToC this would probably fall upon it's face as the Investigators burn lots of Athletics and Firearms Rating Points, thus passing all the early tests, run out of points and die. Likewise, dodging arrow traps, spiked boards and a giant rolling stone ball in a cobweb-covered Peruvian temple would work well under CoC but probably not so well under ToC. It's horses for courses really but perhaps too tightly focused to allow the breadth of play styles possible under CoC. As a result I'm not certain that you could take an existing CoC scenario or campaign and run it under ToC without making a few changes to the plot, encounters and clues.
Q - Time for a spurious video-game analogy?
A - I think so.
OK, If CoC is an arcade game where attempts to shoot Deep Ones and abseil down the face of Cyclopean antediluvian temples lost amongst the jungles of Burma provide the drama because They Might Go Wrong, ToC is a point-and-click adventure game whereby if you attempt the right thing It Will Work OK and the will they/won't they drama is actually created by the players trying to think their way through puzzles and grasp for flashes of inspiration. Both games might be set in the same sort of epoch and milieu but require different planning and setup.
Q - If I said you had a interesting and useful body could I borrow it for a few years? We think you live in an interesting epoch and would like to research it further.
A - Hell no! What blasphemous horrors are you proposing... what?... wait... those basalt Cyclopean cities in a primeval Australia! My God, I see them! What is this rugose conical body I occupy!? Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li....
The notes end here and the content of the rest of the papers has been obscured by damage to the fabric of the paper, apparently from the congealed mass of a curious organic slime. An attempt by the Home Office Forensic Department to ascertain the nature of the organic matter went awry with no results when the papers were left behind upon a tube train by a junior civil servant, attempts by the police to recover them have so far proved a complete failure.
By Owen Cooper
