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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 (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/5813/roleplaying-games/hard-system-limits-in-scenario-design) 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 (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/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 (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/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 (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/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 (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/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 (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/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.

Quote from: Imperator;483998That said, the rules for Sanity in ToC are awesome and well worth checking out.

I assume you say this as a psychologist, don't you? :)

I read it and did a review. One of the main points I took away was that the game presented itself as a solution to either a group failing to find clues or being railroaded towards them. And I think it just redefined railroading and committed itself to it wholeheartedly. It reminded me of FL Wright. He wanted Americans to throw off the shackles of European design and to voluntarily put on the shackles of Wright's design. Didn't seem like much of an offer really.

Quote from: daniel_ream;483948TL;DR: More clues doesn't solve the problem of players not being able to figure out what the clues mean on their own.

Actually, most of the time, it does.

Reading your post, I have two observations:

(1) I think you're making the common mistake of assuming that mysteries aren't supposed to be solved. It's a subtle mistake, but it will cripple you as a GM. It's like designing and running a dungeon on the assumption that the players aren't supposed to reach the next room.

(2) Most of what you're talking about is actually part of the wider issue of character expertise vs. player expertise. On the one hand, we don't make players get up and hit each other with swords. On the other hand, characters shouldn't be playing themselves. Here's how you can find the sweet spot. (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4238/roleplaying-games/the-art-of-rulings)

Everything you're saying basically boils down to: "They're in a dungeon room. They need to get to the next room in order to finish the adventure. But the only way into that room is through a secret door. There are scratch marks on the floor indicating the presence of a secret door, but what if they don't notice them? And what if they notice them and can't figure out what they mean? Clearly, dungeons don't really work well in a TTRPG format."

I think mysteries work wonderfully for the table top rpg. One of the key things though is understanding the expectations of your players. Some players want their characters to solve mysteries by rolling likes like observation, persuasion, etc. Other players prefer to handle this stuff by role playing and feeling more like they are interacting with the environment and NPCs directly. Knowing what your player's preferences are and arriving at an approach that works for everyone is part of the trick (because as another poster pointed out, mysteries tend to hilight these issues).

One thing I've found with the issue of "derailment" is simply not to worry about it. Meaning the risk of not solving the mystery is part of what makes it fun. As a GM I try to make sure the adventure will be exciting and fun no matter how far the PCs get to unveiling the heart of the investigation. And I try to keep multiple leads on the table along with an open-mind (players will come up with solutions you didn't think of).

Someone mentioned characters and I think that is important. The heart of any could mystery or investigation is interacting with characters and extracting clues through conversation. For this reason I tend to prefer RP heavy sessions with little to no social skill rolls.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;484036Everything you're saying basically boils down to: "They're in a dungeon room. They need to get to the next room in order to finish the adventure. But the only way into that room is through a secret door. There are scratch marks on the floor indicating the presence of a secret door, but what if they don't notice them? And what if they notice them and can't figure out what they mean? Clearly, dungeons don't really work well in a TTRPG format."

I tend to agree, and would just add that group preference is a big factor here. For some groups the possibility of not completing a dungeon is fine. As a player I am cool with failing and I am fine with the idea of an investigation where failure is on the table. That doesn't mean the world stops while the PCs are stumped. Things still unfold and happen that are interesting. The thing I hate most as a player is being spoon fed the adventure or playing it with training wheels. By all means, the GM should be fair and create plenty of opportunities for us to succeed. I just don't want success built into the adventure itself.

Very interesting and useful essay Justin! Thanks for sharing it.

Quote from: jhkim;483777I 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 see what you mean likesay.You're GM is wrong. A skilled character generally has a 50% chance of shooting your average squamous monstrosity in the face and if the creation is done right they should have a shit-load of points yo push that percentage up. One point pushes it up to 75%. Of course this all depends on how much the players are willing to spend their points which is dependant on the campaign style. In a pulp campaign they can be quite free as there are efresh opportunities whilst in a proper Lovecraftian thing any spen coulfd be your last.

It's not an intuitive system and I really see why peeps might not like it. I'm quite keen on it but with the Armitage Files I'm sort of playing a strange alternate version in which spends affect the story.

I've never found anything redeemable about this system that makes it better for anything than CoC, definitely including "investigation".

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;484226I've never found anything redeemable about this system that makes it better for anything than CoC, definitely including "investigation".

RPGPundit

Thing is, the game succeeds at one of its goals, which is present an alternnate view on playing the Mythos. And it does it very well. But it does not intend to "replace" >CoC or anything like that: after all, in the very introduction to the game it states clearly that CoC is the greatest RPG ever. Clearly, the authors love and respect the original game, as it happened with CoC D20.

I think that CoC BRP is a solid game that needs no "replacement." I find the idea that the system is "dated" laughable, but I also love CoC D20 and it doesn't bring nothing groundbreaking in terms of rules. As it happens with the BRP version, it's a game that works just fine, without wonkyness, while bringing a different experience due to differences between D20 and BRP. IMO, a solid work of great design.

And the same happens with ToC. Overall, you are playing the Mythos will all the important landmarks: there's mistery, horrible things happen and with some monsters you may have a chance and with others you are fucked in the ass. It brings an excellent Sanity mechanic, worth translating to any other version of the game. And Claudius, not only I'm saying this as a psychologist, but as a lover of HPL work: I find that ToC does the best job of reflecting how people goes nuts in HPL tales. It gives you a lot of tools as player to immerse in your PC, and it gives the GM a lot of tools to emulate the genre making PCs go insane. It is a win win.

I don't know the Savage Worlds version or Cthulhutech, but as always, I think that the more the better. There is no reason to abandon one version of the game for the other, what I'm doing is running all of them! :D I love BRP CoC but that is not preventing me from running D20 CoC or ToC. Variety is good.

What I want is that publishers take a note and start publishing all their products with stats for all versions :D

(Sorry about the delay in reply here - been busy)

Quote from: jhkimIn 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.

Quote from: Garry G;484081I see what you mean likesay. You're GM is wrong. A skilled character generally has a 50% chance of shooting your average squamous monstrosity in the face and if the creation is done right they should have a shit-load of points yo push that percentage up. One point pushes it up to 75%. Of course this all depends on how much the players are willing to spend their points which is dependant on the campaign style. In a pulp campaign they can be quite free as there are efresh opportunities whilst in a proper Lovecraftian thing any spen coulfd be your last.

I'm not sure what you're saying here.  You say my GM is wrong - so are you saying that the system does not encourage using a variety of skills?  

In my experience, damage in the game is very dangerous - with a good chance of reducing you to negative that will penalize and restrict your point-spending.  So I feel that in combat there is a strong encouragement to spend points earlier.  In the current adventure ("The Black Drop"), one PC got hit early by cultists and went negative, so has been dragging along at negative unable to spend Investigation skill points and penalized at everything else.  

Also, this doesn't seem to address my issue about trying to club someone with a loaded gun.  

Quote from: Garry G;484081It's not an intuitive system and I really see why peeps might not like it. I'm quite keen on it but with the Armitage Files I'm sort of playing a strange alternate version in which spends affect the story.

Can you say a little more about the alternate system?

Quote from: jhkim;484574In the current adventure ("The Black Drop"), one PC got hit early by cultists and went negative, so has been dragging along at negative unable to spend Investigation skill points and penalized at everything else.  

Hey, I wrote that! I hope you are enjoying it.

Are you playing pulp or purist, John? I'm not sure why anyone would remain negative in pulp mode for long or why it would be seen as problematic or inappropriate in purist mode. Either way the gradual depletion of resources is sort of built in. I'm glad the Couvreaux maniacs stuck it to you good.

If Trail of Cthulhu isn't making you and your group happy, I heartily recommend Cthulhu Dark (http://www.thievesoftime.com/news/cthulhu-dark/). You could even port a game in progress effortlessly.

Quote from: Jason Morningstar;484733Hey, I wrote that! I hope you are enjoying it.

Are you playing pulp or purist, John? I'm not sure why anyone would remain negative in pulp mode for long or why it would be seen as problematic or inappropriate in purist mode. Either way the gradual depletion of resources is sort of built in. I'm glad the Couvreaux maniacs stuck it to you good.

We're playing in Purist mode.  It's not out of genre that a character was wounded.  However, in retrospect given the system, I felt that he should not have taken the chance of getting wounded.  Instead, he should have just spent enough points for auto-success, even though that would have depleted him.  Better to be depleted but unwounded than risk being wounded and have penalties at everything.  

This is part of my general issue with the system -- summed up by the case when a trained soldier has a loaded gun, but because he has already shot a bunch, he clubs the next opponent with it instead to be more effective.  

I'm still in the middle of the adventure - so no spoilers please.  I'm playing the French doctor.  I'm liking it reasonably, except I didn't like splitting up when the German boat arrived.  Between the Germans and my anti-Semitism as well as all of our distrust of the American, there seemed little reason to take those two along.  However, the result of being split up for a while has been much more scattered spotlight time and missed opportunities from lack of skill.

No spoilers, I promise.

Quote from: jhkim;484744We're playing in Purist mode.  It's not out of genre that a character was wounded.  However, in retrospect given the system, I felt that he should not have taken the chance of getting wounded.  Instead, he should have just spent enough points for auto-success, even though that would have depleted him.  Better to be depleted but unwounded than risk being wounded and have penalties at everything.  

Ah, OK, I see your point. You should get a chance to recover at some point though, I'd imagine. First aid, rest?

Quote from: jhkim;484744I'm still in the middle of the adventure - so no spoilers please.  I'm playing the French doctor.  I'm liking it reasonably, except I didn't like splitting up when the German boat arrived.  Between the Germans and my anti-Semitism as well as all of our distrust of the American, there seemed little reason to take those two along.  However, the result of being split up for a while has been much more scattered spotlight time and missed opportunities from lack of skill.

You guys are making some interesting choices. Let me know how it turns out - I predict hard times ahead.

Quote from: Jason Morningstar;484765You guys are making some interesting choices. Let me know how it turns out - I predict hard times ahead.

Well, duh!  It's a Cthulhu scenario.  :-)

Quote from: jhkim;484744[...] summed up by the case when a trained soldier has a loaded gun, but because he has already shot a bunch, he clubs the next opponent with it instead to be more effective.

My vibe from this rule was that it was intended as a sort of storygame mechanic: your points also represent how much you're allowed to have that skill affect the story.  IME that breaks down with players who will look at such a rule with a straight resource management approach.  I've had the same problem in games where non-superpowered people should be afraid of guns, but in an attempt to mimic the source genre (i.e., Batman never gets shot, or crippled when he does) the mechanics make guns a mild nuisance, leading to "I charge the cannons!" sort of behaviour from players who have figured this out.

Another reason to dislike this game.

RPGPundit

Quote from: daniel_ream;484792My vibe from this rule was that it was intended as a sort of storygame mechanic: your points also represent how much you're allowed to have that skill affect the story.  IME that breaks down with players who will look at such a rule with a straight resource management approach.  I've had the same problem in games where non-superpowered people should be afraid of guns, but in an attempt to mimic the source genre (i.e., Batman never gets shot, or crippled when he does) the mechanics make guns a mild nuisance, leading to "I charge the cannons!" sort of behaviour from players who have figured this out.

While I have issues with it, this doesn't seem like a "story game" mechanic in the sense of recent Forge-inspired games.  

Mechanics like gun damage appropriate to the genre have been a part of traditional RPGs for ages.  For example, Sandy Petersen explicitly said that the sanity rules in Call of Cthulhu were intended as genre emulation - to make play more like a Lovecraft story.  Toon, Ghostbusters, Star Wars, and loads of other games tailored the action to fit their genre.  While a particular implementation of gun damage might be broken, I think the general principle of mimicking the source genre has a long history in traditional RPGs.  

This spending from individual skill pools, though, doesn't have any clear connection to rules like having the player narrate their own victory or such.  It's not simulationist, but it's also not clearly related to story or narrative.

Quote from: jhkim;485101While I have issues with it, this doesn't seem like a "story game" mechanic in the sense of recent Forge-inspired games.  

Mechanics like gun damage appropriate to the genre have been a part of traditional RPGs for ages.  For example, Sandy Petersen explicitly said that the sanity rules in Call of Cthulhu were intended as genre emulation - to make play more like a Lovecraft story.  Toon, Ghostbusters, Star Wars, and loads of other games tailored the action to fit their genre.  While a particular implementation of gun damage might be broken, I think the general principle of mimicking the source genre has a long history in traditional RPGs.  

This spending from individual skill pools, though, doesn't have any clear connection to rules like having the player narrate their own victory or such.  It's not simulationist, but it's also not clearly related to story or narrative.

Speaking out of my ass here (i.e. with no hard knowledge of the system), if it comes down to "gunman can't fire gun because he's run out of Bail Your Ass Out Points", I'd be mighty frustrated.

For me, a big part of the fun in role-playing is, you know, playing a role. Acting out a believable character in a (mostly) believable world. Maybe that's "immersion", I don't know; I don't play the theory jargon game. But if my character has a loaded gun, and freedom of will and movement to fire it, and can't fire it because of some crazy system mechanic, I'd feel gimped.

There's probably a point at which genre emulative mechanics cross into so-called "storygaming". Which is to say, becomes too focused on generating a story, as opposed to creating and mantaining a world the players feel they can meaningfully interact with, which may break suspension of disbelief, or otherwise disenfranchise the gamer. I think that's what Daniel and a few others meant, and I can sympathize with that.

Hope that helps. I haven't actually read or played the Gumshoe engine, so feel free to correct me. My tastes run strongly towards the "trad" end of the spectre, I just don't do the "death to storygames" thing.

Quote from: The Butcher;485108For me, a big part of the fun in role-playing is, you know, playing a role. Acting out a believable character in a (mostly) believable world. Maybe that's "immersion", I don't know; I don't play the theory jargon game. But if my character has a loaded gun, and freedom of will and movement to fire it, and can't fire it because of some crazy system mechanic, I'd feel gimped.

I'd agree with that... but then I think about the various sanity systems in games which wrest some degree of control from players in the name of genre emulation... and I think those are a necessary evil because otherwise you'd have the same old thing where every altercation becomes a fight to the death... no one ever running away scared or cowering in fear... because they all want to be Action Man... because playing a horror game where players refuse to roleplay being horrified gimps the horror.
My preference would be that the 'kill them and take their stuff' guys would just opt out of the Cthulhu game to begin with.

So there's a slope there... with the usual lines drawn to account for taste.
One of mine is 'fate' points... which I usually see argued as supporting a certain sort of heroic/epic 'story'... and they mess with my immersion.

Quote from: The Butcher;485108Speaking out of my ass here (i.e. with no hard knowledge of the system), if it comes down to "gunman can't fire gun because he's run out of Bail Your Ass Out Points", I'd be mighty frustrated.

To be fair, it's not that the gunman can't fire his gun in GUMSHOE.  He can fire it, but will only have the unskilled chance to hit after he runs out of points.  That could be said to represent his being tired, since he can refresh his pool by getting rest.  

However, there are separate pools per individual skill.  So rather than getting tired in general, he gets tired of shooting, but may still be fresh in melee fighting (the Scuffling skill).  

Quote from: The Butcher;485108There's probably a point at which genre emulative mechanics cross into so-called "storygaming". Which is to say, becomes too focused on generating a story, as opposed to creating and mantaining a world the players feel they can meaningfully interact with, which may break suspension of disbelief, or otherwise disenfranchise the gamer. I think that's what Daniel and a few others meant, and I can sympathize with that.

OK, but Daniel was talking about guns not being very deadly as an example of story gaming.  Lack of realistic deadliness is genre emulation, but it has been in RPGs since the beginning.  While vanilla D&D doesn't include guns, it definitely has the feature that characters can often take an unrealistic amount of damage - like falling six stories just to dust themselves off and keep going.  

My point is that D&D may have lack of realism - but it's peculiar to call that "story gaming" - either by Pundit's usage or by the story gamers' usage.