Anyone try this?  Opinions?  

I'm playing a multi-session one-off adventure of it now.  I find that the point-spending and other mechanics are highly counter-intuitive.  I'm pondering pushing to change that core mechanic if we go ahead with the rules.  

(Also, minor annoyance:  It looks like the rules define weapon ranges, but never mention any modifiers to hit for range, so 100 yards plus has the same hit threshold as point-blank.)

It's one of those systems that really takes a while for everybody to get the hang of. The point spend thing is definitely worth hanging on for but if I was more bothered about combat rules I'd get rid of them.

I do love the point spend thing though.

Quote from: Garry G;483774It's one of those systems that really takes a while for everybody to get the hang of. The point spend thing is definitely worth hanging on for but if I was more bothered about combat rules I'd get rid of them.

I do love the point spend thing though.

I find the spending out of individual pools to be frustrating, personally.  

In particular, the common situation seems to be this:  I've got a gun, and if I'm fresh, shooting is my best skill.  However, I've done a bunch of shooting, so I'm better off rushing up and clubbing the guy with my loaded gun because I've got unspent points in Scuffling.

That just feels really weird to me.  My GM made the argument that it encourages using a variety of skills, but I still feel like there should just be a few general pools of points (like Investigative, General, and maybe Active) rather than each individual skill being its own pool.

I read this as Trial of Cthulhu at first.

That would be an interesting trial.  And perhaps a short one.

The game's alleged selling point is its Achilles heel.

The idea of the Gumshoe system is premised on a solution in search of a problem. Even if the problem did exist, Gumshoe would not be a very convincing solution at that. Players like to find clues as much as to figure out what to do with them. To pretend otherwise doesn't make more of a game, but less.

However. I'd trade away my entire D&D collection (which is vast) if I could have that British GM back who ran a campaign for us two years ago, and have him run a Trail campaign unto the end of my days. Trail is that great a game, in all seriousness. It's perhaps the greatest RPG there is. It's certainly the best RPG I know of. However, it requires a great GM, and will be absolute shite in the hands of a moderate one. I wouldn't trust myself to run it.

So why is Trail so great? Because of Ken Hite's take on the mythos. Because of setting the game in the 1930s, which works really well, and is really well done. Because the modules that have been released for Trail are top notch. Google Book Hounds of London, Collectors Edition. (You may regret that.)

Buy some of that stuff. You don't even need to change systems to run it. Stay with what you like, CoC or whatever. Remember, system does not matter.

I absolutely adore the Trail of Cthulhu line of books, as a massive HPL and mythos nerd. The rules look like a fascinating take on mythos gaming -- even more of a breath of fresh air than the D20 CoC rules were. But, admittedly, I've not yet had a chance to play or run the game. I suspect Windjammer is quite correct in his assessment that it's not a game that a mediocre or poor GM could run effectively.

Played it once, Mutant City Blues to be specific. It was okay but I do have on major reservation. For a system the claims to have been created to "fix" investigative roleplaying, we seemed to struggle with the clues just as much as in any other game.

I should say up front I've never run or played a GUMSHOE game, so take this for what it's worth.

I have, however, run a large number of mystery/investigation plots in various RPGs, and after reading through several GUMSHOE games I get a similar impression to many of the other posters on this thread: I'm not convinced the game is solving the problem it claims to be solving.

The explicit problem GUMSHOE is supposed to solve is players not finding the clues, but it seems to me that all they're doing is punting the problem downfield: just because the players have the clues, this doesn't mean that they have any idea what to do with them.  If the players have the metagame skills to know what a discarded shell casing or torn manuscript page means, they probably have the metagame skills to know how to look for them.  And if they don't, and we're relying on skill rolls and point spends to interpret the clues, aren't we right back to "what if the players botch their roll/run out of tokens" ?

I personally think objective mystery/investigation scenarios just don't work very well in a TTRPG format; there's just too many ways information can be corrupted or lose vital context when passed from the GM's notes to the players' (or from one player to another), and any attempt to prevent this with mechanics just devolves into "make a roll to see if the GM tells you where to go next".

I've read it and didn't care for the system... nor it's claim to fixing something I never found to be a problem.
The TOC stuff IS however great fodder for CoC... it's great to have alternative takes on the Mythos to draw from, so I've bought the books as mines for inspiration and ideas.

Quote from: jhkim;483773I'm playing a multi-session one-off adventure of it now.  I find that the point-spending and other mechanics are highly counter-intuitive.  I'm pondering pushing to change that core mechanic if we go ahead with the rules.

I have experience with GUMSHOE, but not Trail of Cthulhu specifically. My experience was:

(1) It's very restrictive in its scenario design because of the hard limits buried deep in the core mechanics. (Each scenario essentially has a points budget: If your scenario is too long/dangerous, the PCs will use up their points and then fail. If your scenario is too short, then the PCs can just splurge their points and there's no challenge.) This is manageable with sufficient experience and foresight; but it would be nice if the game actually gave you some meaningful guidelines.

(2) The game says "you'll always find the clue" on the tin, but then the mechanics don't actually deliver that. (What the mechanics actually say is "if you say you're using the right skill, then you automatically get the clue". But that means you only get the clue if you use the right skill. So either the GM just tells you what skills you're supposed to be using and then narrates the result in a railroad-fest of epic proportions. Or every scene turns into the dramatic equivalent of reading a grocery list while the group verbally checks off all 50+ skills in the game. Or the game doesn't actually do what it says it does.)

Plus the mechanical "solution" to missed clues only solves about one-third of the reasons a mystery scenario can derail. You're far better off skipping the mechanics, going straight for the Three Clue Rule, and calling it a day.

These core problems render the game pretty much unplayable, IME, without a lot of handwaving and fudging. But there are quite a few other problems with the system, too.

For example, the point buys for bonus clues. The earliest GUMSHOE books say that the players need to spend the points without knowing whether or not there's any useful information to be found (and if there isn't, they just lose the points). Later GUMSHOE books say that the GM should always tell the PCs when there's a point buy available. Both of these have huge shortcomings when you're actually playing the game. And neither addresses the underlying problem of PCs having to basically choose to make these purchasing decisions (a) with no idea what they're buying or (b) whether or not they'll need those points later. It has the illusion of a choice, but it's really just a crap shoot.

With all that being said, most of the scenario/setting material from I've seen from the various GUMSHOE lines is amazing. I continue to buy their books despite being completely disenchanted with the rules: I've used some of it in other systems and I'll almost certainly use more of it.

Quote from: Soylent Green;483800For a system the claims to have been created to "fix" investigative roleplaying, we seemed to struggle with the clues just as much as in any other game.

I suspect the misdiagnosis (or, at best, partial diagnosis) of the failure points in mystery scenario design actually ends up making the problem worse for many tables: The hype that the problem is "solved" (when it hasn't) breeds a false confidence.

Quote from: daniel_ream;483830I personally think objective mystery/investigation scenarios just don't work very well in a TTRPG format;

Speaking from lengthy experience, I can testify that they work great. If the scenario is properly designed. Unfortunately, most mystery scenarios are designed like a dungeon where everything interesting has been hidden behind secret doors.

Check out the Three Clue Rule. I may be tootin' my own horn, but it really does work.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;483855Check out the Three Clue Rule. I may be tootin' my own horn, but it really does work.

I ran out of time, but it was a good essay. Along those lines, I try to set things up where players can act on partial info; they have a chance to stop the bad guy, though they'd have an easier time with all the clues.  I also tend to have backgrounds with lots going on; if they pick up on a fraction of it, they have stuff to do along with choices of what they want to pursue.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;483855Check out the Three Clue Rule. I may be tootin' my own horn, but it really does work.

Oh, I love that essay! I've been directing people to it since I first read it a while back.
Thanks for writing it!

Quote from: Justin Alexander;483855Check out the Three Clue Rule. I may be tootin' my own horn, but it really does work.

I'm aware of and have used much of what you've written there in my own games over the years, so I think we're on the same page.  The Three Clue Rule I've seen phrased - in GURPS 2, I think - as "always make sure there are three solutions to any puzzle you present the characters: two you've thought of, and an open mind to honestly consider anything the players come up with".

Your point about body of evidence, not the clue chain, being the real way mysteries work is astute and cuts right to the heart of the matter, but it's also the reason I said that mysteries don't work well in a TTRPG format.

More than most other genre, mystery stories operate at a metagame level.  The characters aren't solving the mystery, the players are.  When solving a real mystery, the context surrounding a clue is as important as anything else.  When real detectives solve real crimes (or hell, when fictional detectives solve fictional crimes) all five senses are operating and an intuitive sense of when something doesn't match up is a big part of spotting an actual clue and then interpreting it.  You really need to have players who can immerse themselves in an environment to get close to that, and the more fantastic the environment is, the harder it will be.

Say for example that The Clue is a used matchbook found in an alleyway with the address of a club on it.  If the GM has already established that the alley is rain-soaked and dingy because it's been pouring all night, then something as simple as whether the matchbook is wet is important information - it tells you how long the matchbook has been there.  The old detective trick of checking the hood of a car to see if the engine's still warm is something a player might or might not think of, but if you were standing right next to it, you'd notice right away because you'd feel the heat radiating off of it.

Now what if it's not a matchbook but a hippogriff-hide lanyard?  Is the fact that it's made of hippogriff hide important or just flavour?  How does hippogriff hide respond to water?  Does it get wet like normal leather or repel water like duck feathers?  What if it's not a car with a warm engine, but, well, a hippogriff?  How do hippogriffs behave when they've just landed, indicating that the rider's lying when he says he's been here all night? Who knows?

You can provide that detail for the players, but there's an old nugget of GMing advice that warns about giving too much detail about specific objects or characters, because that's holding up a big sign that says "EH? EH? I BET THIS THING HERE IS _A_ _CLEW_, HUH? I BET IT JUST IS, COR".  By providing the clue and its context,  you're not just holding up a THIS IS A CLEW sign, you're also holding up the AND THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS AND WHERE YOU SHOULD GO NEXT sign.

Say you have The Most Amazing Immersive Players In The World and they know the fine details of daily life in your world better than you.  Even if you put in these kinds of details, it's fine distinctions like that that tend to get lost in the hubbub of the gaming table as the GM tries to transfer information from his notes to the player's notes.  In one unintentionally hilarious example, our entire group of Changeling PCs spent much of a campaign mistakenly trying to head off a prophecy that we thought required a blood sacrifice of a fey.  The GM's handwriting was so poor that where he had written "...and shifter's kindness", someone read "...and shifter's kidney", and the error never got corrected because we all "knew" what it said and thus never talked about it explicitly again. (The look on Kevin's face when he realized what had happened is one of my most cherished gaming memories).

Information fidelity is critical in mystery stories, but it's one of the weakest areas of the traditional TTRPG format.  Whodunits are the literary equivalent of the RPG mystery scenario, but even there - where the author can go back and tune the clues and make sure everything's consistent and all the relevant info has been given and there's no contradictions &c. - there's a lot of fan bitching about how some whodunits are simply too obscure or too obvious or too predictable (cf. Any M. Night Shyamalan film).  Scaling a deductive challenge to the skills of the reader or player is freaking hard even if you know them well in advance, which is why the usual complaint about mystery RPG scenarios is that they're either trivial or impossible.

TL;DR: More clues doesn't solve the problem of players not being able to figure out what the clues mean on their own.

If you've had really great players who played really great mysteries for you - hey, man, my hat's off to you.  I wish I had players like that.  I don't think my players are inferior, but I do think they aren't detectives or experts in detective fiction, and I'd like to be able to run a mystery scenario that doesn't require them to be.  I did eventually find an approach that worked for us.

Most of the mysteries I've run usually avoided the Agatha Christie/Sherlock Holmes sort of thing where you're looking for people to recognize exotic tobacco or know that the butler's Ugandan accent isn't authentic... they were much more like the Sam Spade/Philip Marlowe style where most of the info comes from other people. There aren't as many physical clues to find/miss and more dependance on relationships and reputations built up over time... so more interactions with fun lowlife PCs... less looking for needles in haystacks.

I have run Esoterrorists and Trail of Cthulhu and overall the system is just fine, a nice lightweight system that is easy to learn and use. It's not the life changing stuff some people shout everywhere, but is nice.

That said, the rules for Sanity in ToC are awesome and well worth checking out.