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.

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! 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

(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. 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.