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I have the Gumshoe SRD and Mutant City Blues. I'm really grooving on it lately, but I'd like to know how others feel. Would you run it, or run it again?

Nope.  

Foundational reason for the system (delivery of clues) wasn't ever a problem in the first place with a good GM.

Approach to using skills is too OOC for my tastes.

I picked up Trail of Cthulhu because I was interested in Ken Hite's take on a mythos based game. A nice read and a good source of ideas, but I've never actually used the system. Like CRKrueger, I find that Gumshoe sets out to solve a problem I never had.

I've played it several times in its Trail of Cthulhu incarnation. The gameplay is swift and fun. I feel like the resource management of your skills gives each character moments to shine, and is quite satisfying.
Now would I like it as a GM? Not sure about that.
Something in my gut still likes Call of Cthulhu better. It feels more authentic. Just old associations playing in there probably.

We played out an arc of Night's Black Agents, and I had mixed feelings about it. I really liked the conspyramid, but that's a GM prep tool the players don't encounter directly.

The investigative skills economy is very meta; you're occasionally in a situation where you want to do something your character knows how to do, but you're out of points.

I find the right headspace is to think of it as a highlight reel of investigative drudgery. It's not that you've used up everything you know about Budapest, it's just that, when all was said and done, your knowledge of Budapest didn't happen to contribute.

It works at sharing the spotlight, both between players and between their favored and less-favored skills. Dropping your tommy gun and drawing your knife as you close in for the kill is kinda badass, but it's a bit mechanically bald to do it just because you're out of gun skill points.

Recharges and so on are a nice idea, but the GM has to notice that your 'technothriller monologue' is a disguised request for points, and that doesn't always happen in the heat of battle.  After saying something thematic, "Hey, can I have a point for my role-playing?" is really lame.

NBA's combat system strikes me as a pile of house rules in dire need of an edit. I usually prefer a hard copy of a game, but this game was built for Ctrl-F'ing your way through the PDF trying to remember how depleted uranium rounds work since every weapon and ammo has a totally different mechanic (and DU ammo has three) for no reason I can discern.

Frustratingly, most of the heavy options don't have any intrinsic value, but are instead opportunities to spend points to do more damage.. except for flamethrowers. For some reason, flamethrowers are completely cheaty and bypass the point economy entirely. Always carry two.

Apart from that, it's whiffy, and reminds me of a bunch of 1HD characters rolling d20 and missing a lot. It seems to be designed to give everyone a chance (just a chance, mind you) to shine, rather than being particularly deadly or decisive.

Frankly, I'd rather scrap the whole combat system and treat it like investigative points spent in the style of Amber stats, treating weapons like force multipliers. You're a martial artist with a pen knife? Great, spend a point and you can kill that guy. Have an SMG? Well, you can probably take out two or three of them. Trapped in an elevator with only your bare hands, surrounded by the kingpin's thugs? Spend big, or you're going to wind up on life support.

By the time we got to the end of the arc, we'd advanced enough to do some serious damage, but this translated into insane head-kill burst shots on round one, and then slappy fights with the remaining mooks as we flailed around without any points.  (The system wants you to save your points instead of doing this, but anyone who lets a vampire run around for more than one round when they don't have to is just asking for death.)

All in all we really enjoyed the campaign, but the system isn't my cup of tea.

That's interesting. Sounds like combat is a big hole in the system. The games I played in had almost zero combat, but I can see how it would work out very counter intuitively with an early point-spend ...

Quote from: CRKrueger;888340Nope.  

Foundational reason for the system (delivery of clues) wasn't ever a problem in the first place with a good GM.

Approach to using skills is too OOC for my tastes.

This.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888340Nope.  

Foundational reason for the system (delivery of clues) wasn't ever a problem in the first place with a good GM.

Approach to using skills is too OOC for my tastes.

This was my reaction too. That and the first few pages for the "Great Revelation!" of why Call of Cthulhu sucked and thus needed "fixing" came across as 'pretentious twattery' as someone else put it so eloquently.

Their setting books like Ashen Stars and Esoterrorists were interesting though.

I've actually GMed about 40 - 50 sessions in Trail of Cthulhu. My thoughts?

Yay and nay.

Investigative system? Very yay, not as OOCly as most would here post. In practice, almost not at all, though my players actually enjoyed the narrative possibilities of spending points to introduce, for example, an NPC or a new subclue that'd provide the answer. The approach as described definitely helped develop me as an investigation - running GM.

The big nay?

As mentioned before - combat, and any sort of checks that could be failed...well, for me it was a reason to move back to CoC and just use ToC's mentality while running it (and might move soon to 7e as I have a bit of money for new books, because to me 7e seems like a perfect blend). The combat was simply bland and emotionless, and generally the General Abilities (no pun intended) just feel badly designed, much less elegantly than simple percentages of CoC.

So, to summarize - for me the perfect blend'd be to take Investigative Abilities, and General Abilities in those systems with separate, percentile based mechanics.

Quote from: markfitz;888349That's interesting. Sounds like combat is a big hole in the system. The games I played in had almost zero combat, but I can see how it would work out very counter intuitively with an early point-spend ...

It is - very odd, clunky, unemotional and rather distracting from IC.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888340Nope.  

Foundational reason for the system (delivery of clues) wasn't ever a problem in the first place with a good GM.

Approach to using skills is too OOC for my tastes.

Count me as another person who agrees strongly with this.

I've got Ashen Stars and there are parts I like, but I really didn't care for skills. And clues have just never been a problem when I ran investigative games before. When I run Cthulhu games I actually use Realms of Cthulhu (though I may soon try using Silent Legions), and I think Savage Worlds is a much better system overall.

I think it is definitely worth checking out. For me it resolves a problem with investigations that I don't have, but it produces a lot of interesting mechanics and ideas toward that end. There are some aspects to it that, if you run it completely as written, could muck with certain styles of play or GMing. But it is a very light and easy system, one with a few tweaks can easily fit to another style and it has that 'fades into the background' feel when it does fit.

Also, from what I've gathered from others, Gumshoe has evolved a lot in each version of the system. Most of my experience with it is from Esoterrorist (which is a pretty rudimentary form of the game). The game feels very scene focused, which tripped me up initially, since I don't think in terms of scenes. But another GM who runs it a lot helped explain other ways of thinking of the system to me and that shed some light on running it in a way that fit my style better.

One thing I have seen with this game is that for people that it clicks with, it works great. I know people and have spoken with people for whom it has really made a big difference.

I've played two sessions of Esoterrorists and about a dozen of Trail of Cthulhu.

The telling point with skill point spending that turned me off was this:  A character has a loaded gun, but their best choice is to club an enemy with it because they are out of Firearms points, but still have Weapons points for boosting. This happened several times, and seemed utterly nonsensical.

I also agree that the investigative skill issue is a solution to a problem I don't have. In Gumshoe, you don't know what you're buying when you're asked to spend a skill point, so it isn't really a useful choice at all. I'd prefer to just roll dice rather than make an arbitrary choice.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;888364The game feels very scene focused, which tripped me up initially, since I don't think in terms of scenes. But another GM who runs it a lot helped explain other ways of thinking of the system to me and that shed some light on running it in a way that fit my style better.

That's one aspect in which adventures produced for Trail of Cthulhu seem to have improved over time. When I first started checking out material produced for ToC (for running with CoC rules) the way everything was presented in little pre-digested "scenes" really grated on me. It felt like I was reading someone's unfinished screenplay rather than an RPG product. I've noticed that more recent material has backed off of that presentation a bit, which, for me, makes for easier use.

I'm not entirely sold on the system... but on the other hand, the sourcebooks and settings that have been produced for it have been pretty great.  I'm a big fan of Bookhounds of London as an idea, for instance.

Nay.

I started reading Trail of Cthulhu and stopped when I saw the writer/editor can't or won't use English pronouns correctly.

Quote from: AaronBrown99;888384I started reading Trail of Cthulhu and stopped when I saw the writer/editor can't or won't use English pronouns correctly.

How did they use pronouns?

Quote from: Bren;888387How did they use pronouns?

They used "she" as a default pronoun. When I read an RPG that uses "she" as the pronoun for a non-specific person, I stop reading.

I know at that point that the writers or editors are more interested in causes over grammatical correctness, and I won't support that with my time or money.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;888334I have the Gumshoe SRD and Mutant City Blues. I'm really grooving on it lately, but I'd like to know how others feel. Would you run it, or run it again?

I've only run Fear Itself as a one-shot, but overall, it was positive. Of course, it helped to visualize the skills as "tricks to turn the tables", which I explained to my players they're required to do:).
I'd probably run it again, but I've got enough games as it is:D!

Quote from: AaronBrown99;888393They used "she" as a default pronoun. When I read an RPG that uses "she" as the pronoun for a non-specific person, I stop reading.

I know at that point that the writers or editors are more interested in causes over grammatical correctness, and I won't support that with my time or money.

Same here.

The other annoying one, I forget where I read it, is scrupulously switching back and forth between he and she every time. If pronouns bother you, use "character" or "player" instead of "he".

I'm don't care for the system at all but I do think the ToC stuff makes for interesting CoC supplements/adventures. Good alternative takes on the Mythos.
Some of their other setting are cool to borrow from as well.

Quote from: AaronBrown99;888393They used "she" as a default pronoun. When I read an RPG that uses "she" as the pronoun for a non-specific person, I stop reading.

I know at that point that the writers or editors are more interested in causes over grammatical correctness, and I won't support that with my time or money.

That was part of what someone else was referring to as the 'pretentious twattery'. Glancing back through Trail a little more closely and I can see that now. Does it in Esoterrorists too.

I guess the game is playable only by women? :cool:

I've run Gumshoe, but Gumshoe is like d20, in which you have to really specify which version you're running.  Gumshoe's investigation side has evolved significantly since the first wave of books -- Esoterrorists 1e to Night's Black Agents -- and its combat and bells-and-whistles have really evolved since Night's Black Agents.

FWIW, I really enjoy Night's Black Agents, and most Gumshoe games, but they're not intuitive if you've been playing classic roleplaying games.  It took me a long time to realize how much of a shift they are.  I was playing them basically like a normal RPG with the investigative end attached, when the "procedural end", as its called -- your combat, your social stuff, etc. -- is just as unique and different.

For example, refreshes are really important to the game's action economy, but that's not obvious at the start.  Pacing the use of general skills is also important, but counter-intuitive to the way most people play until somebody explains, "Hey, this is the designer's intent."  

With that said, Gumshoe is probably an acquired taste.  If you don't like it, you don't like it, and you're not doing anything wrong.  Even if you don't like it, I think it's produced some incredible campaigns -- I'd put Eternal Lies, The Armitage Files, and the Bookhounds of London books as some of the best stuff ever released for Mythos roleplay, and The Dracula Dossier is simply an incredible work, even if you convert it to something like Spycraft 2.0 or whatever.  There's some good baby in that bathwater.

I don't care at all for the system for reasons previous posters have explained but The Book of Unremitting Horror (Their "Monster Manual" of Clive Barker-ish splatterpunk beasties) is excellant.

Quote from: Future Villain Band;888475I've run Gumshoe, but Gumshoe is like d20, in which you have to really specify which version you're running.  Gumshoe's investigation side has evolved significantly since the first wave of books -- Esoterrorists 1e to Night's Black Agents -- and its combat and bells-and-whistles have really evolved since Night's Black Agents.

Can you comment on how things have changed?

What are the changes in investigation and combat? Does the case of spending on Firearms and Weapons still apply, for example?

Quote from: jhkim;888487Can you comment on how things have changed?

What are the changes in investigation and combat? Does the case of spending on Firearms and Weapons still apply, for example?

Investigation-wise, the thinking behind how to structure adventures and clues has gotten a lot more in-depth and thorough.  The types of clue-bearing scenes and the types of clues have been better thought out.  The two games which use these expanded thoughts are Gaean Reach and Esoterrorists 2e, and I found them much more useful than in previous games.  

As far as General abilities go -- those are the action type skills -- starting in NBA really, they get a big kick.  Opportunities to refresh pools increase through the use of cinematic rules for combat and skill benefits for having a skill of 8+, which means the number of times where you come out with no points to spend is reduced.  Opportunities to use skills in inventive ways to get more benefits, like Tag Team Skill Benefits and the like, increase, which involve pairing an Investigative ability to a General ability.  

The key is that a lot of baked-in assumptions that the designers clearly had in mind but didn't explain have been fleshed out and clearly stated better.  In addition, they've had about three years of Gumshoe con-panels to get questions and think about answers, and it shows.

They're still games which are built around replicating a literary or cinematic type of story, be it a mystery or weird tale or movie thriller.  If you're looking for something where there's no metagame thought, it's not going to be your cup of tea.  They've even added more metagame mechanics, like the Preparation ability.  They're pretty out-there, design-wise, and I think as time has gone on it's become apparent that they're a little more out-there than even the designers originally thought.

Quote from: Future Villain Band;888475...There's some good baby in that bathwater.

That is a fair point.

I don't refuse to read e.e. cummings just because he chose to format his poems like a nutjob!

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;888334I have the Gumshoe SRD and Mutant City Blues. I'm really grooving on it lately, but I'd like to know how others feel. Would you run it, or run it again?

I ran the entirety of The Zalozhiny Quartet (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/108989/Nights-Black-Agents-The-Zalozhniy-Quartet) and a variety of Night's Black Agents one shots, and played a good deal of Trail of Cthulhu. Overall, the games were very good, and the system largely achieves its goals.

Which is not to say it doesn't have its weakesses. To wit:

Quote from: jhkim;888370The telling point with skill point spending that turned me off was this:  A character has a loaded gun, but their best choice is to club an enemy with it because they are out of Firearms points, but still have Weapons points for boosting. This happened several times, and seemed utterly nonsensical.

Yup. I think the investigative skill system works nicely, but I dislike the general approach of the General Abilities. Beyond problems like this, I also notice it can make players hesitant to act since they are afraid to run out of points. I sort of overcome this by slathering on extra general ability points and paying fastidious attention to the player's chance to refresh. So it can work, but I do sort of recognize that part of that is me working around the weaknesses of the system.

I've come to disdain systems that make you pay points from a pool entirely in lieu of static bonuses (which is also a big reason I disdain the Cypher system.)

I do think Gumshoe should get credit for its investigative technique. Yes, if you are a sharp GM, you can do essentially the same thing in other systems. But again, those are often workarounds, not characteristics of the system, and I think having good practices "baked in" to the system is a good thing(TM).

At the end of the day, despite not liking the way it does some things, it still makes it onto the short list of games I'd run again soon.

EDIT: I think FBV makes some good points. I can't speak to all of the Gumshoe games, but I like NBA a good deal more than ToC.

It does nothing for me, but then I have always run lots of investigative games, and they run very smoothly. I even was going to write a game called Ecce Homicide which was a police procedural game, but  while setting down the ideas, I realized there was nothing mechanical at all there and it was all about the setup and presentation so I lost interest. Gumshoe reads like someone decided to do everything backwards just so they could mechanize the process.

never played but based on every little piece of info iv seen yea

Quote from: Future Villain Band;888475There's some good baby in that bathwater.

Pretty much every single thing they put out for Trail of Cthulhu is a near must buy for anyone running any type of Cthulhu game.

Quote from: Simlasa;888449I'm don't care for the system at all but I do think the ToC stuff makes for interesting CoC supplements/adventures. Good alternative takes on the Mythos.
Some of their other setting are cool to borrow from as well.

Totally! You just have to cut out all the assenine posing. Which at least far as I have seen so far. It not super intrusive. More just a continuous mild irk.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888532Pretty much every single thing they put out for Trail of Cthulhu is a near must buy for anyone running any type of Cthulhu game.

Its a little like d20 Gamma world. There are some real gems in there. But the system is literally broken, rules deliberately incomplete. And the designers lazy, and I (more or less) quote Baugh here "Oh the players will make those rules up.", hacks.

Or Amazing Engine or Alternity or d20 where the system was not possibly the best. But alternate the setting stuff was really interesting.

As other posters said - indeed, the supplements are really of a high quality. I heartily recommend Dying of St Margarete as one of the best "Two Shots" I've ever seen for Cthulhu. And the Big Hoodoo, while not the best adventure, is definitely worth playing at least once, for the sheer fun of Heinlein and Dick investigating a terrible occult fuckup.

The one adventure in ToC I'd steer clear off is, sadly, Repairer of Reputations, as I had really high expectations for it (Hastur and King in Yellow are one of my favourite Mythos opponents) It's bland and just tries to follow the story too hard, without building an actual adventure on it. The only good thing about it is that it provided a really wicked illustration of Mr Wilde I've been using from then onwards.

Quote from: AaronBrown99;888384Nay.

I started reading Trail of Cthulhu and stopped when I saw the writer/editor can't or won't use English pronouns correctly.

Quote from: Tod13;888436Same here.

The other annoying one, I forget where I read it, is scrupulously switching back and forth between he and she every time. If pronouns bother you, use "character" or "player" instead of "he".

Quote from: Omega;888454That was part of what someone else was referring to as the 'pretentious twattery'. Glancing back through Trail a little more closely and I can see that now. Does it in Esoterrorists too.

I guess the game is playable only by women? :cool:

Congratulations, you are just as retarded as SJWs, just on a polar spin. (http://somethingsensitive.com/Smileys/default/reagan.png)

Quote from: Rincewind1;888628Congratulations, you are just as retarded as SJWs, just on a polar spin. (http://somethingsensitive.com/Smileys/default/reagan.png)

SJW? Really? Off the meds are you? Try again please.

Quote from: Omega;888652SJW? Really? Off the meds are you? Try again please.

Yes, really. If your reason for flushing a book down is "ZOMG THEY USE SHE INSTEAD OF HE THE PRETENTIOUS PROGRESSIVES", you are just as retarded as SJWs. This isn't even a metaphor or comparison - this is literally the same level of retardation, because they are the kind of people that'll do the similar complaining in a reverse situation. Frigging D20 Star Wars used that and I didn't even bat an eye when I was 10, let alone now. They can use Porpantingulangous as default pronoun for all I care, as long as the RPG's good.

You could use some meds on the other hand - some vaseline that'll let you slide that Crusader's Broomstick out of your ass.

To be fair, I think it would be entirely reasonable to dismiss out of hand a game that uses Porpantingulangous as the default pronoun, unless there's a really good reason for it.

Quote from: Rincewind1;888654Yes, really. If your reason for flushing a book down is "ZOMG THEY USE SHE INSTEAD OF HE THE PRETENTIOUS PROGRESSIVES", you are just as retarded as SJWs. This isn't even a metaphor or comparison - this is literally the same level of retardation, because they are the kind of people that'll do the similar complaining in a reverse situation. Frigging D20 Star Wars used that and I didn't even bat an eye when I was 10, let alone now. They can use Porpantingulangous as default pronoun for all I care, as long as the RPG's good.

You could use some meds on the other hand - some vaseline that'll let you slide that Crusader's Broomstick out of your ass.

My feeling on the whole pronouns in RPGs is people should use whatever pronoun feels natural to their style or they are most comfortable with. I used to use the pronoun "he" in all cases. However I started switching it up and alternating between He and She because it 'he' feels less generic and neutral to me now (so by switching I just feel like I am speaking to both men and women when I write). But if someone sticks to 'he' it doesn't bother me. If someone uses 'she' all the time, it doesn't bother me. It is a weird area in our language because there has been a lot of change in what people expect around it in the last few decades (and there isn't a final consensus on the matter). You always have the option of 'they' to get around it, and while I've let that slip into books here or there (particularly when there are other writers involved) I personally don't like making the shift from singular to plural in my own writing even though I know it is widely accepted. So these days I tend to shift. When I work with other writers, I tell them to use whichever pronoun they are most comfortable with (the only exception here is I instruct people never to switch mid-example or mid-section, since that could be potentially confusing).

But I don't see it as a political position. It is just a pronoun and my aim is to communicate with an audience. People can put down a book for whatever reason they want, but I do kind of agree with Rincewind that dropping a potentially fun game because of the author's decisions around pronouns seems like a poor reason (whether it is because they used He exclusively or alternated, or used She, or they). It is kind of like dropping a book for using (or not using) the oxford comma.

Quote from: Rincewind1;888654You could use some meds on the other hand - some vaseline that'll let you slide that Crusader's Broomstick out of your ass.

So yeah. Just you flipping out. Good to know.

Quote from: Sable Wyvern;888655To be fair, I think it would be entirely reasonable to dismiss out of hand a game that uses Porpantingulangous as the default pronoun, unless there's a really good reason for it.

Isn't using Porpantingulangous as the default pronoun reason enough? :D

Quote from: Rincewind1;888654Yes, really. If your reason for flushing a book down is "ZOMG THEY USE SHE INSTEAD OF HE THE PRETENTIOUS PROGRESSIVES", you are just as retarded as SJWs. This isn't even a metaphor or comparison - this is literally the same level of retardation, because they are the kind of people that'll do the similar complaining in a reverse situation. Frigging D20 Star Wars used that and I didn't even bat an eye when I was 10, let alone now. They can use Porpantingulangous as default pronoun for all I care, as long as the RPG's good.

You could use some meds on the other hand - some vaseline that'll let you slide that Crusader's Broomstick out of your ass.

I agree. Making an issue of what pronoun is used is kinda overreacting. I remember a review for solipsist where the reviewer claimed he almost didn't review said game because of the use of pronouns:

Quote from: Bruce Baughhttp://baughblog.com/2013/01/29/solipsist-by-david-donachie/

I nearly didn't review this game, and my hesitation is entirely due to one throwaway line:

QuoteThroughout the text we refer to Solipsists, players and the GM using "he", "him", "his". etc. This is just a convention we've used in this book.

I will not here do a full-bore spiel about the concept of privilege as manifest in gaming writing. Nonetheless, that's an archetypal bit of privilege in action. Donachie can be flippant about it, because nobody with any clout is going to suggest that as someone with a male-sounding name and who's referred to by the publisher and others with male pronouns, he is presumptively not a gamer and should be regarded with suspicion. It's very unlikely that anyone will insist that if he games with miniature figures, they should all have enormous penises and wear bondage gear, or that his characters should expect to be subservient to all those of any other group of players. He will probably never get groped in a game store; if he does, it's very unlikely that the store owner will start by assuming that he did something to bring it on. The odds are excellent that he will never show up at a gaming session pitched to him as male-friendly only to have his character raped and enslaved. And on, and on, and on, and on.

Such a stupid thing to make an issue of. Heck, i didn't even mind that Shock made use of some made up pronouns like "hir", "ze", or whatever, as silly as I found that.

Congratulations guys, you are on the intellectual level of Bruce Baugh. In fact, worse, because he at least read the damn thing to the end.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;888664My feeling on the whole pronouns in RPGs is people should use whatever pronoun feels natural to their style or they are most comfortable with. I used to use the pronoun "he" in all cases. However I started switching it up and alternating between He and She because it 'he' feels less generic and neutral to me now (so by switching I just feel like I am speaking to both men and women when I write). But if someone sticks to 'he' it doesn't bother me. If someone uses 'she' all the time, it doesn't bother me. It is a weird area in our language because there has been a lot of change in what people expect around it in the last few decades (and there isn't a final consensus on the matter). You always have the option of 'they' to get around it, and while I've let that slip into books here or there (particularly when there are other writers involved) I personally don't like making the shift from singular to plural in my own writing even though I know it is widely accepted. So these days I tend to shift. When I work with other writers, I tell them to use whichever pronoun they are most comfortable with (the only exception here is I instruct people never to switch mid-example or mid-section, since that could be potentially confusing).

I use he or they, because I don't give a fuck either way.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;888664But I don't see it as a political position. It is just a pronoun and my aim is to communicate with an audience. People can put down a book for whatever reason they want, but I do kind of agree with Rincewind that dropping a potentially fun game because of the author's decisions around pronouns seems like a poor reason (whether it is because they used He exclusively or alternated, or used She, or they). It is kind of like dropping a book for using (or not using) the oxford comma.

I never said anything about politics. I said using something other than "he" as a generic pronoun bothers me. Pronoun use should mean something. Using "she" from a female point of view makes perfect sense or if the writing is supposed to be an excerpt from a matriarchy. But using "she" 'just because' is non-standard and mis-communicates, since use of "she" as a generic pronoun is not standard. Switching back and forth is even more unclear and makes my parser mess up, because switching pronouns *should* mean something, but in the generic context does not.

Using something other than "he" or switching obviously fails to communicate to some of your audience properly, because use of "she" or switching is not considered proper grammar by many (if not most).

For example, APA 6th recommendations to avoid male pronouns (because in scientific terms, you want to be clear about who you are talking about) are:

• Rephrase the sentence
• Use plural nouns or plural pronouns - this way you can use "they" or "their"
• Replace the pronoun with an article - instead of "his," use "the"
• Drop the pronoun - many sentences sound fine if you just omit the troublesome "his" from the sentence
• Replace the pronoun with a noun such as "person," "individual," "child," "researcher," etc.

The use of "she" or switching is especially egregious because a perfectly legitimate method exists to avoid the whole issue--using nouns or names instead. (In fact the APA excerpt above gives several alternatives.) This is how I usually write. Writing via the noun/name method is also generally more clear, because no issues of indeterminate pronouns arise.

ETA: TL;DR - Not reading stuff writing with non-standard pronoun usage isn't necessarily a political statement, but often a reaction identical to not wanting to read stuff written with incorrect grammar and rampant misspellings (did I spell that write? LOL). Reading non-standard usage is more effort than I want to put into a hobby. I can read crap grammar at work (scientific journals) and get paid for it.

I can certainly respect preferring to use 'he' (like I said, it used to be my preference in writing), but I really don't see how 'If the GM wants she can ask for a Perception roll' impedes understanding. I can see not liking it, but putting down a book over it seems an overeaction.

The APA is just a style guide. If I were writing for that field, I'd follow it (just like I followed the AP style guide when I wrote freelance for local papers). In the world of RPGs though there is no real standard guidebook (every publisher has its own guidelines). I've relaxed our guidelines over the years. Now it allows writers to use their preferred approach to pronouns. Lately I've proffered to alternate. It is the option I like most when writing. I also think using she is becoming more standard, whereas strictly using he less so. But I don't hold it against people if they take another approach.

Quote from: Rincewind1;888693I use he or they, because I don't give a fuck either way.

And that is cool with me.

Quote from: Tod13;888694I never said anything about politics. I said using something other than "he" as a generic pronoun bothers me. Pronoun use should mean something. Using "she" from a female point of view makes perfect sense or if the writing is supposed to be an excerpt from a matriarchy. But using "she" 'just because' is non-standard and mis-communicates, since use of "she" as a generic pronoun is not standard. Switching back and forth is even more unclear and makes my parser mess up, because switching pronouns *should* mean something, but in the generic context does not.

I see no more reason for "she" to be an excerpt from matriarchy, than the default "he" being an excerpt from patriarchy - it's grammatical tradition, not a mark of oppression. Perhaps originally coded so, yes, but nowadays, if you care too much about pronouns on either side, as far as I am concerned, youi need to remove a stick from your arse. Especially if you think that pronouns are some sort of heavy artillery in Kulturkampf, and RPGs need to be their main field.

QuoteUsing something other than "he" or switching obviously fails to communicate to some of your audience properly, because use of "she" or switching is not considered proper grammar by many (if not most).


For example, APA 6th recommendations to avoid male pronouns (because in scientific terms, you want to be clear about who you are talking about) are:

• Rephrase the sentence
• Use plural nouns or plural pronouns - this way you can use "they" or "their"
• Replace the pronoun with an article - instead of "his," use "the"
• Drop the pronoun - many sentences sound fine if you just omit the troublesome "his" from the sentence
• Replace the pronoun with a noun such as "person," "individual," "child," "researcher," etc.

The use of "she" or switching is especially egregious because a perfectly legitimate method exists to avoid the whole issue--using nouns or names instead. (In fact the APA excerpt above gives several alternatives.) This is how I usually write. Writing via the noun/name method is also generally more clear, because no issues of indeterminate pronouns arise.

ETA: TL;DR - Not reading stuff writing with non-standard pronoun usage isn't necessarily a political statement, but often a reaction identical to not wanting to read stuff written with incorrect grammar and rampant misspellings (did I spell that write? LOL). Reading non-standard usage is more effort than I want to put into a hobby. I can read crap grammar at work (scientific journals) and get paid for it.

If having "she" instead of "he" is "rampant misspelling", then, well, I am surprised you can tolerate any RPG at all, since they are plagued with editing errors far more serious than "she" instead of "he."

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;888711And that is cool with me.

I know, and that's why I respect you.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;888692k, i didn't even mind that Shock made use of some made up pronouns like "hir", "ze", or whatever, as silly as I found that.

That I'd actually consider pretentious - as I said, making RPGs some field of cultural war that it's entirely unsuited for. If the game was good however, I'd not care.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;888710I can see not liking it, but putting down a book over it seems an overeaction.

Setting the book on fire in the bookstore while screaming "FEMINISM DELENDA EST!" is an overreaction.

Not rewarding virtue-signaling modernist prats with my money is making a choice in the marketplace of ideas.

Quote from: AaronBrown99;888729Not rewarding virtue-signaling modernist prats with my money is making a choice in the marketplace of ideas.

I think assuming that the only reason people would use alternatives to 'he' is they are 'virtue signaling modernist prats' is itself a bit of an over reaction. But even if they are; why deprive yourself of a potentially fun game over something that is probably only going to impact the pronouns? When I buy an RPG book, I don't make my decision around the writer's ideology/pronoun use/etc. I just base it on whether I want the game or not. I am not interested in voting out/vote in certain ideas through my RPG purchases (except ideas that relate specifically to RPGs).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;888731...why deprive yourself of a potentially fun game over something that is probably only going to impact the pronouns?

It's a reasonable question, and I said as much on page 3 of the thread, in response to FVB's "bathwater" comment.

I just find it particularly grating and jarring when I'm reading something and I have to "autocorrect" an incorrect pronoun (or it's <--> its, et. al.) it in my head and then keep going.

Maybe that's why I give FFG a pass on the fiddly bits in WFRP 3rd ed, and on Star Wars: Edge--their writing is correct!

At first glance, I like the way investigative skills are used, but was fairly unimpressed with the way general skills work. However, the whole system works better when realize that investigative skills can be spent to gain more points in pool either for a general skill or relating to dealing with a particular issue.

If you blow all combat skill points, you need to think of away to apply an investigative skill to the situation, gain some points and use those for your next attack. Running out of general skill points means your current situation isn't working. Use your characters knowledge and observational powers to find a new approach.

The system definitely operates at a slight meta level, and works best for the games that can take the most advantage of this. Ashen Stars works great as a Star Trek game. Being able to make an investigative spend to whip up a technobabble solution fits the genre well. Nights Black Agents also makes good use of the resource mechanic as an agents uses up covers and contacts. These are both games where the system really started to come into its own.

Trail of Cthulhu is fine, but I agree it doesn't have a truly compelling reason to pick it over Call of Cthulhu, although Call of Cthulhu GMs really should have it on their shelf along with its supplements just to harvest for conversion.

Quote from: AaronBrown99;888729Not rewarding virtue-signaling modernist prats with my money is making a choice in the marketplace of ideas.

As someone utterly bored by both sides of the Pronoun Wars of 1992*, let me thank you for taking the time to signal your virtuous stand on this issue.

*Seriously, seeing people still ranting about this reminds of the old cliche Japanese soldier left on island that thinks the war is still going on decades later.

Quote from: Baulderstone;888735*Seriously, seeing people still ranting about this reminds of the old cliche Japanese soldier left on island that thinks the war is still going on decades later.

Your definition of ranting is clearly in need of refinement.

There was no war, no winners or losers, just people writing and other people buying or not buying.

Unless it's really compelling otherwise (Pathfinder's Wayne Reynolds art, for example), I choose to not buy.

Quote from: AaronBrown99;888736Your definition of ranting is clearly in need of refinement.

There was no war, no winners or losers, just people writing and other people buying or not buying.

Maybe ranting wasn't the right word, but when you have five posts in a thread for a game system you haven't read that all have to do with your feelings about pronouns, it is still kind of sad.

Quote from: Baulderstone;888738Maybe ranting wasn't the right word, but when you have five posts in a thread for a game system you haven't read that all have to do with your feelings about pronouns, it is still kind of sad.

Your grasping protestations aside, I'm quite happy to discuss my reasons for a "nay" vote in a thread entitled "yea or nay?"

Quote from: AaronBrown99;888741Your grasping protestations aside, I'm quite happy to discuss my reasons for a "nay" vote in a thread entitled "yea or nay?"

Like AB says, it is perfectly proper feedback. The fact half a dozen people feel the need to argue with us doesn't make it any less valid. We aren't saying such books should be banned, just that we're not going to purchase them. Given the ease of avoiding the issue altogether, and the narrowness of RPG margins, I'd think writers and publishers would be interested in such feedback.

The fact neither side stops posting simply means we're on the internet. :D

I certainly like information like this before paying money for a system, which is why I don't buy anything I can't preview. (Other than maybe DwD Studios, since I'm familiar with their quality standards.)

And it's no sillier than the 100 other discussions going on.

Of course, we could argue about the whole player skill versus character skill thing, but that's already happening in the "player needs" thread.

The he/she thing doesn't bother me at all, BUT there are some other games that I'd actually like except for quirks of their authors that FUCKING ANNOY me on every page.
Imagine if Pundit's ridiculous online persona came through in the rules he writes... that would surely put me off them.
It's not rational but it's there, and if I'm going to be gritting my teeth every time I read it... or am forced to go through the thing with White-Out, it might not be worth the hassle.

Personally I'd rather hear about the mechanics, traditionally what is in a review.

Quote from: dragoner;888749Personally I'd rather hear about the mechanics, traditionally what is in a review.

Check this thread from a while back. http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=13883 (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=13883) I read it when I was looking at different systems. The mechanics aren't for me, but are very popular and come up a lot for investigative RPG rules.

Quote from: Tod13;888752Check this thread from a while back. http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=13883 (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=13883) I read it when I was looking at different systems. The mechanics aren't for me, but are very popular and come up a lot for investigative RPG rules.

Thanks. I have been looking at Ashen Stars. I might have read that thread before after searching about GUMSHOE, or maybe just similar replies in later threads, where the system has been discussed. Still undecided.

Quote from: dragoner;888771Thanks. I have been looking at Ashen Stars. I might have read that thread before after searching about GUMSHOE, or maybe just similar replies in later threads, where the system has been discussed. Still undecided.

A lot of the differences in people who like it seem to revolve around the "automatic" discovery of clues. I like rolling on skills or attributes and making sure one way or the other dead ends don't happen. Others like more player skill/knowledge (as opposed to character skill/knowledge) to matter more.

Quote from: Tod13;888781A lot of the differences in people who like it seem to revolve around the "automatic" discovery of clues. I like rolling on skills or attributes and making sure one way or the other dead ends don't happen. Others like more player skill/knowledge (as opposed to character skill/knowledge) to matter more.

I suppose it is one way of avoiding "the secret door", which if not found, stops the campaign. Each group is different, while some will poke around to find the smallest clue, others will just blunder forward.

Quote from: AaronBrown99;888736Unless it's really compelling otherwise (Pathfinder's Wayne Reynolds art, for example), I choose to not buy.

And as much as I find the use of 'she' as a gender neutral pronoun annoying, one way to sell me off a book is any that uses Wayne Reynolds' art.  That man has no sense of perspective and I wish he'd lay off using wererats as his facial inspiration.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;888789And as much as I find the use of 'she' as a gender neutral pronoun annoying, one way to sell me off a book is any that uses Wayne Reynolds' art.  That man has no sense of perspective and I wish he'd lay off using wererats as his facial inspiration.

Are you an artist or engineer or something like that? Just curious, as I don't think most people would really notice the perspective. I think I understand there wererats--the people with little space between their lips and chin, right?

Quote from: Tod13;888795Are you an artist or engineer or something like that? Just curious, as I don't think most people would really notice the perspective. I think I understand there wererats--the people with little space between their lips and chin, right?

I draw, well sketch, but I'm not pro quality, however, I notice little things.  Like the pinched faces and the perspective thing.  Mr. Reynolds definitely knows how to use colour though.  He can make the figures pop, but not enough to distract from the other issues he has.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;888797but not enough to distract from the other issues he has.

Like weird females without hips?

http://orig09.deviantart.net/434b/f/2011/013/c/c/seoni_by__wayne_reynolds_by_cyderak-d3745tk.jpg

Quote from: Anselyn;888833Like weird females without hips?

http://orig09.deviantart.net/434b/f/2011/013/c/c/seoni_by__wayne_reynolds_by_cyderak-d3745tk.jpg

And 80-year-old knees where her shinbones should be.

But yeah, given that this is supposed to be cheesecake those hips are baffling. They seem detached and abstracted from every other part of her somehow.

To me that just looks like a bit of a stylistic choice (like he is going for an anime feel or something).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;888875To me that just looks like a bit of a stylistic choice (like he is going for an anime feel or something).

Last thing I'll touch on this:

The problem is that even 'Anime/Manga' knows how anatomy works, limb lengths (even when creating monsters), facial shapes and position of facial features so on and so forth.  And then there's the issues with perspective that he needs learn, desperately.  A good artist takes these tools and makes them their own.  Mr. Reynolds hasn't grasped that.  But like I said, his colour work is amazing, though.

Wayne Reynolds grasps anatomy just fine, all his excellent work for Osprey Publishing is proof of that.  For Wizards and Pathfinder, he's specifically using the DungeonPunk aesthetic.  Whether that was his idea or theirs, who knows, but it's not all he's capable of.

I played the Mutant Blue one. I tried it twice and two game-days. It was tedious. The skill system feels terribly artificial. The whole thing just jarred me out of immersion until I felt like I was playing "procedural, the party game".

I appreciate the problem, but GMing is the solution. Check out GURPS Mysteries for much better approaches to addressing this.

Quote from: trechriron;888902I appreciate the problem, but GMing is the solution. Check out GURPS Mysteries for much better approaches to addressing this.

Amen!

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;888334I have the Gumshoe SRD and Mutant City Blues. I'm really grooving on it lately, but I'd like to know how others feel. Would you run it, or run it again?

Personally, I find the "automatically find the clue" mechanic to be more of a bane than a boon. It can be worked around in scenario design (and this is increasingly evident in many of the published adventures from Pelgrane), but it's a solution for a problem that doesn't actually exist which also creates a host of unfortunate tack-on problems.

For example, Trail of Cthulhu spends nearly half a page saying, "Wouldn't it be great if we hadn't modeled all social interactions with the auto-success clue-finding mechanics? That's really awkward when you want to resolve a social conflict that isn't about finding a clue. So... uh... I dunno. I guess let the PCs always auto-succeed in social conflicts. Or, uh... umm... I guess if you want a different outcome, just railroad 'em."

This is counteracted, to some degree, by the truly excellent list of investigative skills and the character creation system which spreads the investigative spotlight around without making anybody into a one-trick pony. Running the system extensively and then swapping to other games made me aware of how much an investigative scenario can be enhanced by a system that has a rich skill selection for it (as opposed to a system where everything investigatory gets shoehorned into just one or two skills).

The biggest problem I had with the system, however, was combat. The combat system is absolutely dreadful: The 1d6 vs. difficulty 3 base test for NPCs attacking PCs is deeply problematic. The balance of the game (and the longevity of the NPCs) doesn't make it feel like I'm actually just playing the opposition and seeing how things work out; it feels like I'm deciding on any given turn whether or not I'm going to auto-hit my target. It doesn't feel like playing a game; it feels like imposing my creative agenda. (And if I choose to just opt out, suddenly NPC skill ceases to matter.)

I'm also confused by a system that has really explicit mechanics for attacks at different ranges, but then lacks any sort of movement mechanic to govern those ranges. (I'm thinking about lifting the range-change mechanics from Numenera Something like: Point-Blank/Close can be traversed as part of another action. Close to Near or Near to Long is an action, but you can also make an Athletics test to go from Close to Long (or vice versa) in a single action.)

On the other hand, the point-spend mechanic seems to create a pleasant back-and-forth dynamic in actual play if you tell the players when spends are available. (Which is what Trail of Cthulhu, unlike earlier GUMSHOE games, tells you to do.) I also think that with a little more practice the structuring of NPC conversations around the use of specific abilities can provide an interesting improvisation structure for clue-gathering/interrogations.

Final verdict? I would never voluntarily select GUMSHOE as the system for anything.

HOWEVER: I'll almost certainly end up running it again, because the published scenario material is so goddamn awesome.

Ken Hite is also doing some amazing stuff with game structures: The Stability/Sanity mechanics from Trail of Cthulhu (including the metagame methods of playing out long-term madness). The Conspyramid and Vampyramid scenario structures from Night's Black Agents.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;888710I can certainly respect preferring to use 'he' (like I said, it used to be my preference in writing), but I really don't see how 'If the GM wants she can ask for a Perception roll' impedes understanding. I can see not liking it, but putting down a book over it seems an overeaction.

There's a few places in Pelgrane books where they swap pronouns while referring to the same person performing an action (i.e., stuff like "If a player attempts an action, he should roll the dice. If the roll is successful, then she will do whatever."). It's rare enough that it's clearly a proofreading failure, but it's nevertheless confusing every time it happens.

And this seems to happen in every book I've ever read that tries to use the alternating he/she "solution" to the pronoun "problem". (The actual solution is to use the gender neutral pronoun "they", which has been used as gender neutral pronoun in English longer than the word has existed. All you have to do is ignore the prescriptivist grammarians who keep trying to ban it, and you're ignoring them anyway with your alternating he/she in any case.)

In this, it's actually much like the clue-finding mechanics in GUMSHOE: It's a "solution" to a problem that doesn't exist, and its implementation actually creates new problems that didn't exist before.

(As a result, I do tend to roll my eyes whenever I see an RPG rulebook attempt to implement it.)

Quote from: Christopher Brady;888900Last thing I'll touch on this:

The problem is that even 'Anime/Manga' knows how anatomy works, limb lengths (even when creating monsters), facial shapes and position of facial features so on and so forth.  And then there's the issues with perspective that he needs learn, desperately.  A good artist takes these tools and makes them their own.  Mr. Reynolds hasn't grasped that.  But like I said, his colour work is amazing, though.

I'm pretty sure I've seen plenty of anime that disregards anatomy, but even so, I think this is basically a stylistic choice (whether it is anime, cartoon, or something else he is going for not sure, but it clearly looks like he is aiming for a style there---and it looks fine to me for what it seems he is trying to do). Can't comment on perspective though.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;888947(As a result, I do tend to roll my eyes whenever I see an RPG rulebook attempt to implement it.)

Rolling your eyes doesn't bother me. There are things that make me roll my eyes as well when I read. We all have things that irk us as readers or just get under our skin for whatever reason. But that is different from tossing a potentially good RPG book in the bin because of one of these things (which at worst is a questionable stylistic decision in most cases). It's the tossing the book over something like this that I don't quite get (I think 5E switches for example and I think if a person refused to read it or play based soley on that, they're likely missing out).

Definitely mixing them up mid-example would be confusing, and I do think that is a risk with swapping. I've tried using 'they' and it just doesn't feel right to me (I know it isn't incorrect and widely accepted, I just don't prefer it when I am writing---though I did just do it in the above paragraph). I stuck with 'he' for quite some time but after a while, it just felt like I'd be addressing more of my audience if I swapped it around (though I do worry about the mid-example issue you raise). Again, I don't hold it against anyone if they choose to go with the male third person. I defended it for years, and I still don't think there is anything wrong with it.

Quote from: Tod13;888795Are you an artist or engineer or something like that? Just curious, as I don't think most people would really notice the perspective. I think I understand there wererats--the people with little space between their lips and chin, right?

To me alot of the faces look very "flat". Not pug flat like some others do faces. But theres a notable lack of contour or nose half the time. The opposite would be Yoshihisa Tagami who tends to draw very prominent noses.

To me its simply a style and is neither good nor bad in and of itself.

This thread reminds me of an old cartoon (which coincidentally also dealt with representation issues concerning duck and rabbit) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e1hZGDaqIw). Just wait till you're deeper down the rabbit hole and people want you to start using 'fae' as a pronoun because they gender identify as Fae and think it's pretty.

But that's not the problem.

The problem is that as a writer you can't ignore this. Pronouns have become political, and any pronouns you decide to use, not use, or use 'wrong', will alienate some portion of your audience, if not create genuine hostilities. As a reader I don't give a fuck which pronouns are used when gender doesn't matter (like in RPG examples), but there is a contingent out there who believes gender always matters. And if you're the kind of person who will stop reading because of the pronouns used, well then good riddance. I have enough actual BS in my life to deal with.

We are in desperate need of a good gender neutral pronoun (besides 'they') in this political climate, because expanding them to cover the entire spectrum of human sexuality is just not an option.

#BitterMuch

Quote from: Tod13;888795Are you an artist or engineer or something like that? Just curious, as I don't think most people would really notice the perspective.

Perspective (which is related to proportion) is one of the first things people notice. Being an Artist or Engineer just means you can spot why it looks wrong and do something about it.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;889024Perspective (which is related to proportion) is one of the first things people notice. Being an Artist or Engineer just means you can spot why it looks wrong and do something about it.

Do you have an example of the bad perspective? (I actually think Christopher actually did mean proportion, not perspective, but I may have misunderstood. The other people responding seemed to actually mean proportions too. Too me, the proportions are "style" which seems reinforced as the historical paintings have a bit less of the chinless pug-face style.)

I asked the question because in the paintings I looked at, I don't see anything egregious about the use of perspective. Perspective in the paintings I looked at is not 100% accurate, but, as an artist, sometimes you don't want 100% accurate, you want impressive or to bring out some detail. (That's why some people paint instead of render or photograph things.) I had to look for something with bad perspective specifically ignoring the rest of the painting to even see something wrong.

But I might not have looked at enough paintings. There was a sea scene painting with bad design. But...

This painting of a wizard with a dragon behind his chair http://www.waynereynolds.com/Fantasy%20Art%20gallery%201/gallery%20images/17%20pathfinder%20game%20masters%20guide.jpg (http://www.waynereynolds.com/Fantasy%20Art%20gallery%201/gallery%20images/17%20pathfinder%20game%20masters%20guide.jpg) was really the worse I found. And I don't really see anything wrong with it as a finished artistic piece.

Quote from: Tod13;889058Do you have an example of the bad perspective? (I actually think Christopher actually did mean proportion, not perspective, but I may have misunderstood. The other people responding seemed to actually mean proportions too. Too me, the proportions are "style" which seems reinforced as the historical paintings have a bit less of the chinless pug-face style.).

All right.  Picking on that image, the book shelf on the left of the image and the table on the right, nothing seems off to you?

And then there's this one:

(http://static1.paizo.com/image/content/PathfinderRPG/PZO1132-Wallpaper.jpg)

The background book shelf, where's the vanishing point(s)?  It looks like an almost flat wall, almost.

And then there's this one.

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SxqwjFA2bxI/UmgCUrANFiI/AAAAAAAAArc/bGcxUZnjBXg/s1600/npc+codex.png)

And I want to clarify, his perspective issue is what affects his anatomy and proportions.  They're all tied together.

Last image, the blacksmith, he's got the proportions of a human until the waist then his legs are alike 30 inches long.  And his hands will rest at his knees.

Then, I'm assuming, the central focus of the image (another issue, what are you meant to look at?) the fighter, wizard and rogue (I'm assuming that's what they are, Pathfinder has a huge amount of classes) The Wizard behind the Fighter seems to be on the kids' high chair.  There's very little sense of height.

Which again, goes back to his lack of actual perspective skill.  And that's ignoring the entire Inn's common room...  Where are the vanishing points?

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;888515Yup. I think the investigative skill system works nicely, but I dislike the general approach of the General Abilities. Beyond problems like this, I also notice it can make players hesitant to act since they are afraid to run out of points. I sort of overcome this by slathering on extra general ability points and paying fastidious attention to the player's chance to refresh. So it can work, but I do sort of recognize that part of that is me working around the weaknesses of the system.

I've come to disdain systems that make you pay points from a pool entirely in lieu of static bonuses (which is also a big reason I disdain the Cypher system.)

So true. With resource management of pools, I just can't bring myself to spend now because it'll leave me worse off when I need those points in the future. I really like the setting and idea of Mutant City Blues, and want to like the Cypher games, but limited pools of resource points that are at least as important as the base ability or the roll are, for me, just an absolute psychological breaking point. I just can't.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;889115
Last image, the blacksmith, he's got the proportions of a human until the waist then his legs are alike 30 inches long.  And his hands will rest at his knees.

The "blacksmith" is the guy with dark hair and the cut across his nose? That one is a bit clunky. I think the attempt was to have the guy bent down to the other's level. That and trying to fit in a view of the sword messed up the proportions a bit.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;889115
Which again, goes back to his lack of actual perspective skill.  And that's ignoring the entire Inn's common room...  Where are the vanishing points?

Actually, he's using multi-point perspective. I had my wife and her sister look at all these too. Her sister said she didn't see anything wrong or anything that needed comment, until I told her we were discussing perspective. She immediately popped out with "He's using multi-point perspective".

I don't think there is anything "wrong" with the perspective from an artistic point of view. But I don't think everything needs to be done photorealistically.

At least I see/understand what bothers you about it now. It doesn't bother me.

First things first...Spoiler Tag the pictures.

Ok, the Sinbad Library...it's a mess, but pretty clearly intentionally a mess, a hazy backdrop meant to suggest a large, ancient, stacks-of-crap-everywhere-built-up-over-time fantasy library.

Working as intended.  (Well aside from how the supposedly Socially Just Paizo decide to have "Occult" adventures be those done by Sinbad Persians and Indians.) :cool:

The tavern...well what I see is...

• The orc/half-orc whose about to get some...
• Nope, the blonde gypsy assassin chick (is that Seoni?) is just using him as distraction while she's watching the guard.
• An asian half-elf, she's kinda hot.
• Holy Shit that Owl's looking right at me isn't it!
• That halfling's gonna steal everything before the night is over.  I ain't buying the "innocent kid watching stuff" routine.
• I don't know about you, but I wouldn't trust that barmaid as far as I can throw her.
• That Wizard's not fooling anyone with that map, he's totally checking out the LesbianStripperNinjaElf.
• Oh, yeah I forgot Pathfinder has the Islamic Cleric chick, she's probably my favorite Iconic, her or the kickass Paladin.
• Now that you think about it, having a Mongoose keep track of a key is probably a wise move, nothing on earth can catch it.
• Holy crap, the original cisheterowhitebogstandardfighter is still alive.  Good Times.

Get my point?  

Focus is completely on the characters.  

Reynolds Pathfinder work is not "Reynold's Style" it's "Reynold's Pathfinder Style".  It's focused on the characters, the iconic PCs and NPCs that make up Golarion.  I'm not a big fan of DungeonPunk, but the style is consistent and it does aesthetically capture the Pathfinder setting.

As far as the other criticisms...
Why would you expect a vanishing point where there is nothing there that would show one?  The far walls are too far and indistinct, and most importantly, the walls and ceiling that would give you linear perspective are outside the shot.

The blacksmith guy...ok yeah something weird going on there, but is he even human or is he half-dwarf or something?

Ezren (the Wizard)...well I mentally draw a line along the table edge, take that line and draw it along their heads, ok, then draw that line across where their asses should be and...yeah you're right, Ezren is sitting on a baby chair and he's taller than Valeros (the fighter).

Since I'm of course checking out Merisiel's (LesbianStripperNinja) waist and ass, I see that the empty stool next to her is fucked up too.

So yeah, definitely some angle issues, regardless of whether you like DungeonPunk, but I'm not schooled enough for them to scream out at me.

Dwarven Blackbeard FTW.

EDIT: I just realized something...how the hell did we get into an analysis of Reynold's art in a fucking Gumshoe thread?

Yeah the perspecta odd in that big tavern piece. Its not anything blatant. But like the Rules cyclopedia there are notable little moments where things dont quite connect. A certain lack of initial depth for one as noted before.

There is depth there. But its all arranged such that it blends in too much. Like the Library piece. Theres depth there too. But it gets a little lost in the tones. I think Krueger is right that it is a intentional style.

Ok, you guys have me looking at this picture, now something is downright disturbing me.

Merisiel, the white-haired LSN Elf.

What in the name of all that's holy is that pinkish patch underneath her left row of knives?

Is that a cutout hole in the side?  If so, the flesh beneath looks mottled and diseased.  Maybe just scars I guess, Valeros is pretty chopped up too, which is cool, showing all the characters growing over time.  The wizard looks pretty road-weary as well.

Heh, and I hope they're the ones who drew the magic circle under their table, otherwise things are gonna go south pretty quick.  Guard coming in, barmaid acting weirdly, magic circle under the table.  This is about to turn into a Vulgar Unicorn or Maul in Shadizar level barfight.

Quote from: CRKrueger;889164Merisiel, the white-haired LSN Elf.

What in the name of all that's holy is that pinkish patch underneath her left row of knives?

Is that a cutout hole in the side?  If so, the flesh beneath looks mottled and diseased.  Maybe just scars I guess, Valeros is pretty chopped up too, which is cool, showing all the characters growing over time.  The wizard looks pretty road-weary as well.

That is what it looks like to me. Like that patch was cut away and theres scar underneath. If you zoom in you can see what may be ragged edges on the hole.

Quite a few are sporting scars. So doesnt surprise.

Quote from: CRKrueger;889164What in the name of all that's holy is that pinkish patch underneath her left row of knives?

Is that a cutout hole in the side?  If so, the flesh beneath looks mottled and diseased.  Maybe just scars I guess, .

That's one of the ugly little facts of dungeon-crawling that they don't show you in the Elmore paintings. Those cheap healing potions? The ones they sell to newbies right out of the 5e Player's Handbook? They leave scars. Bad.

That's why the experienced  'crawlers never touch 'em.

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;889176That's one of the ugly little facts of dungeon-crawling that they don't show you in the Elmore paintings. Those cheap healing potions? The ones they sell to newbies right out of the 5e Player's Handbook? They leave scars. Bad.

That's why the experienced  'crawlers never touch 'em.

Oh, I like that - for every cheap potion you down, you have a 25% chance of getting a -1 to your Charisma as nasty scars are left (which can't easily be covered by clothing or armor).  By GM's discretion, this can also be a bonus to checks to threaten or intimidate.

The pics very much say Pathfinder, I don't see how they could change them now; I like them for what they are (not a Pathfinder player).

Quote from: Tod13;889146Actually, he's using multi-point perspective.

I know about multi-point perspective, I've used it to varying effects (Not that good an sketcher anymore, sadly), I'm saying he's only got one vanishing point, and it's off to the left of the page (which is fine, vanishing points don't need to be on the art's page, just noticeable.)  If he's using others he's fooled me.

But that's the end of that.

My point is, for ME, it's the art that throws me, rather than the style of language used.

Although I personally wish more writers used They, Their, Them as neutral singular pronouns.

Going back to the thread topic, since combat seems to be a sticking point, what are some quick-fixes you'd suggest that aren't in some other splat book I don't want to pick up?

Honestly I don't mind combat being on the simpler side since the whole point of the system is to replace combat as the central activity with investigation, right? So what if combat gets relegated to the lesser development that skills usually get in other RPGs?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;889239Going back to the thread topic, since combat seems to be a sticking point, what are some quick-fixes you'd suggest that aren't in some other splat book I don't want to pick up?

Well, Lorefinder - the GUMSHOE Pathfinder mashup - has Investigative skills for investigating and all the normal PF stuff for combat. With that sort of idea, it would be quite easy just to swap to CoC for combat scenes, driving or anything else where you think it's important that characters don't spend down their ability to succeed. The ToC book has CoC-to-ToC conversion notes so I guess they could be reverse engineered.

Pelgrane Press just posted the Enchiridion of Elucidation (http://www.pelgranepress.com/trail/files/Enchiridion_of_Elucidation.pdf), which sounds like a Gygaxian magic item but is actually a collection of player and GM advice (and some house rules, several of which are inspired by later GUMSHOE games) for Trail of Cthulhu.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;888692I agree. Making an issue of what pronoun is used is kinda overreacting. I remember a review for solipsist where the reviewer claimed he almost didn't review said game because of the use of pronouns:

QuoteIt's very unlikely that anyone will insist that if he games with miniature figures, they should all have enormous penises and wear bondage gear

Such a stupid thing to make an issue of. Heck, i didn't even mind that Shock made use of some made up pronouns like "hir", "ze", or whatever, as silly as I found that.

And I almost started laughing, because I immediately thought of Warhammer Dark Elves:D!

Quote from: Christopher Brady;889115All right.  Picking on that image, the book shelf on the left of the image and the table on the right, nothing seems off to you?

And then there's this one:

http://static1.paizo.com/image/content/PathfinderRPG/PZO1132-Wallpaper.jpg

The background book shelf, where's the vanishing point(s)?  It looks like an almost flat wall, almost.

And then there's this one.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SxqwjFA2bxI/UmgCUrANFiI/AAAAAAAAArc/bGcxUZnjBXg/s1600/npc+codex.png

I agree with your points about the artist, but can you spoilertag those, please? You know, the square icon next to the one that says "php"?

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;889176That's one of the ugly little facts of dungeon-crawling that they don't show you in the Elmore paintings. Those cheap healing potions? The ones they sell to newbies right out of the 5e Player's Handbook? They leave scars. Bad.

That's why the experienced  'crawlers never touch 'em.

I like that. But how many people would you use such a houserule?
I mean, I would, but in my games you're lucky to even find a healing potion;)!

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;888664...dropping a potentially fun game because of the author's decisions around pronouns seems like a poor reason (whether it is because they used He exclusively or alternated, or used She, or they). It is kind of like dropping a book for using (or not using) the oxford comma.

I agree. Even though the Oxford comma is the only logical choice, I can easily ignore the minor irritation of people who make the illogical (though grammatically acceptable) choice to forgo the comma before the "and" in a list.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;888664I started switching it up and alternating between He and She because it 'he' feels less generic and neutral to me now (so by switching I just feel like I am speaking to both men and women when I write).

Personally, I like rules that include examples of play. And in that case, I prefer examples that include both male and female players using the appropriate pronouns. Chaosium had this method down by 1979-1981.

Quote from: Baulderstone;888735*Seriously, seeing people still ranting about this reminds of the old cliche Japanese soldier left on island that thinks the war is still going on decades later.

While it is a bit cliche due to TV shows like Gilligan's Island, it is also a real thing. The last documented instance of such a survivor was 1974.

Quote from: AsenRG;889368I agree with your points about the artist, but can you spoilertag those, please? You know, the square icon next to the one that says "php"?

OH!  I never saw that, my bad.  I apologize for that.

On topic, I agree with those who say that GUMSHOE tries to solve a problem that doesn't exist.  It's why they lost me.

Quote from: Rincewind1;888654Yes, really. If your reason for flushing a book down is "ZOMG THEY USE SHE INSTEAD OF HE THE PRETENTIOUS PROGRESSIVES", you are just as retarded as SJWs.

You're right, but there's so much baggage with things like this now.  When I see somebody leaning heavy on the 'she' as a generic pronoun, there's a voice inside me that says "Oh, it's THESE assholes again". It's not something I'd toss a book in the trash over, but it gets me about halfway there.  Once upon a time, I would have thought nothing of it as well.

Quote from: Agkistro;889481You're right, but there's so much baggage with things like this now.  When I see somebody leaning heavy on the 'she' as a generic pronoun, there's a voice inside me that says "Oh, it's THESE assholes again". It's not something I'd toss a book in the trash over, but it gets me about halfway there.  Once upon a time, I would have thought nothing of it as well.

This is my view too. Its pretentious and not the best of rules writing styles. But not something to dismiss the book over. Far as I can tell Gumeshoe does not crank it up to offensive levels. It is just... there. An affectation. Passively pretentious.

Seen so much worse than that. Oh so much worse.

But I can definitly see someone using that as a simple guage to pass on a purchase. There is only so much cash to spread around and so much time to devote to learning a new system. A simple "this doesnt feel right. I'll pass" is as good a reason as "The cover art turns me off. I'll pass."

Quote from: jhkim;888370The telling point with skill point spending that turned me off was this:  A character has a loaded gun, but their best choice is to club an enemy with it because they are out of Firearms points, but still have Weapons points for boosting. This happened several times, and seemed utterly nonsensical.

This issue has really been bugging me. I can normally figure out elegant personal solutions to such things, but I'm a bit stumped here. I wonder how the designers get around this.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;889521This issue has really been bugging me. I can normally figure out elegant personal solutions to such things, but I'm a bit stumped here. I wonder how the designers get around this.

No more bullets?

"He would have finished him off then and there, but pity stayed his hand. It's a pity I've run out of bullets."

Quote from: Bren;889526No more bullets?

"He would have finished him off then and there, but pity stayed his hand. It's a pity I've run out of bullets."

That's a good one, but it's kinda one-time-only, and it doesn't address the larger issue of being out of relevant points and coming up with absurd justifications just to use another set of points.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;889535That's a good one, but it's kinda one-time-only, and it doesn't address the larger issue of being out of relevant points and coming up with absurd justifications just to use another set of points.

You could also look to the old George Reeves Superman TV shows. Superman doesn't flinch from bullets, but throw the gun at him and he ducks.

Quote from: AaronBrown99;888733It's a reasonable question, and I said as much on page 3 of the thread, in response to FVB's "bathwater" comment.

I just find it particularly grating and jarring when I'm reading something and I have to "autocorrect" an incorrect pronoun (or it's <--> its, et. al.) it in my head and then keep going.

Maybe that's why I give FFG a pass on the fiddly bits in WFRP 3rd ed, and on Star Wars: Edge--their writing is correct!

A couple questions, because I am seriously amused that this is an issue for anyone, at all.

First: in the second sentence above you suggest it's a sort of OCD issue for you. I know how this feels (certain needlessly elaborate fonts trigger a "printing glitch" feeling in my mind and stop my ability to read the text cold). Do you think it's more along this line than the idea that the feminine pronoun is in use? That is....if a standardization came to accept feminine or mixed gender pronouns (on rotation) as correct form, then the issue would go away for you?

Second: do my choppy, flow-of-thought-grammar-be-damned sentences also trigger a problem for you?

I'm thinking maybe this is the real issue here...and use of a specific gender pronoun is not the actual issue?

Quote from: Omega;889517This is my view too. Its pretentious and not the best of rules writing styles. But not something to dismiss the book over. Far as I can tell Gumeshoe does not crank it up to offensive levels. It is just... there. An affectation. Passively pretentious.

Seen so much worse than that. Oh so much worse.

But I can definitly see someone using that as a simple guage to pass on a purchase. There is only so much cash to spread around and so much time to devote to learning a new system. A simple "this doesnt feel right. I'll pass" is as good a reason as "The cover art turns me off. I'll pass."

I can only see one case where use of feminine pronouns would give me a reason not to purchase a book: if the pronoun was in use in cases where it was painfully in appropriate. EX: "George Morrison was investigating the crime scene, when she noticed that there was a bloodstain in the north corner." In such a case that is willful subversion of the language in a manner that I would consider weird/inappropriate/pretentious/agenda-driven (or just stupid, whichever). (unless the text clearly identified that George was actually a woman, I suppose....but the idea of the example is one where its an identifiably male figure, except in pronoun use).

You have to dig pretty deep into some strange territory online to find cases like the above. I'd consider "cis" terminology to be an example of such agenda-driven subversion in action, too.

To me. More importantly is the theme or subject interesting?

I've slogged through ten times worse affectations or and outright pretentiousness with Fantasy Wargaming and 4e D&D GW and my main irk was that for all that attitude. They failed to deliver.

Gumshoe delivers what it says it will. A very different system for resolving clues.

a thousand times Nay.