 Goto [ Index ] |
Big mistake. The main appeal of this book is definitely Hite's take on the old gods and other titans. Conflicting, chaotic post-modern tidbits of horrible and mundane information that makes them so much more than just "big alien monsters". Let them be diseases, states of mind, memetics, and monsters all rolled up in one, and more so! (I also recommend Hite's GURPS Horror as a a companion piece to this.)
As for the racism problem present in much lovecraftiana, it's not really dealt with in a way that's satisfying to me. There's a reasonably well-written rant on why running a "Nazis for Nyarlathotep" campaign is a bad idea (basically, depicting human cruelties as games of folly on Earth's dustspeck in space can be more interesting than just having the safe idea that "oh, don't worry about those bad people, the demons made them do it"). Overall, I'm sick of lovecraftiana using nostalgia as excuse for racism (what's the name of that man, coal black, with blood on his hands?) or xenophobia, and since the latter is part of the point of the setting, maybe I better just stick with Kult and other anthropocentric horror settings.
This book's layout and style is nice, especially the consistent and beautiful artwork. It's not as gorgeous as, say, Coriolis or Everway, but it's subtle and it looks like I'd want a thirties Cthulhu game to look. The only flaw is the flashy green-gradient cover typeface. (One thing that I really missed was that the "Keeper's Investigators Matrix" at the end of the book didn't have the general abilities listed.)
There's a very good chapter on creating scenarios, building on the work in Feng Shui and Robin's Laws.
Throughout the books, there are little icons separating so-called "pulp" rules and tropes from so-called "pure" ones. I happily ignored this and found my own mix. I'm a bit disappointed that the other announced books for Trail of Cthulhu seem so silly, almost parodic, but converting from BRP/Call of Cthulhu is easy and fast with the included guidelines so there are plenty of old adventures available if I were to continue playing Trail of Cthulhu.
The rules, the Gumshoe system by Robin Laws, also features in other recent games such as The Esoterrorists and Fear Itself. They're much more "gamelike" than I'm used to, emphasizing resource management, strategy and player choice. Players get "points" to "spend". Investigative abilities are automatic successes, but spending points from those "pools" allowing shortcuts, extra spotlight time or extra information. General abilities are those you use to keep from going mad and dying, i.e. you can fail. They work by beating a number (often four) on a six-sided die (regardless of whether you're the Hulk trying to lift something, or if you're a weakling) but you can (before the roll) spend points to add to the die roll. The combat system is very simple and well thought out—an abstraction of the classic roll-to-hit idea—and there's a system for chases that's way easier but just as exciting as the one in the second edition of Unknown Armies. The latter is only for car chases but the system in Trail of Cthulhu would work for almost any contest (and with any action resolution rule—lift it for Fudge if you want—but the resource management system adds tension). Both the combat system and the idea for chases come across as "certainly nothing special" (and nowhere near as elaborate as the genius "shot counter" from Laws' previous work, Feng Shui) but that's the beauty of them; they're just so obvious and easy-clean.
The system is designed with a will to be minimalist that really appeals to me.
This is severely hampered by the very poorly organized book. There's plenty of odd little tidbits and exceptions strewn all over the text, such as that you get free points in Sanity, Stability and Health (and, reversedly, that these have caps), that Fleeing and Credit Rating is bought differently than other abilities, that Sanity, Stability and Health don't refresh like other general abilities, the odd choice for a difficulty level for conciousness rolls (inconsistent to other difficulty level choices), and how the combat/chase rules break the premises set out in a sidebar on "player-facing", among many other things. This is clearly a first edition text. I would've appreciated some clear summaries and maybe special indications on the character sheet for all of the "odd" abilities. There are for some—Languages, for example, which does work differently—but not for all the other exceptions, even as vital ones like Health. Some rules are poorly explained, like how the "drivers" (a carrot/stick rule that rewards/punishes characters with sanity gain/loss for going against the story and the character's pre-written motivation) really work in practice.
There's a stability/sanity dual meter system that I feel is simplistic—these are "horror fiction" rules, not the DSM–IV. I don't like them but they're pretty much standard fare. I prefer them over the rules in BRP/Call of Cthulhu, CthulhuPunk and Unknown Armies.
Personally, I'm torn over this system. This was the first time, as far as I can remember, that I ran a game with rules as "visible" as these. After the playtest session, one of the players suggested a finger gesture system for spends to alleviate the very attention-consuming number juggling that were taking place. I don't think that would help much. (I've got a background of Everway and Fudge).
Exciting as a game? Sure, and since I do play and enjoy other board games and card games all the time, there's nothing that says that I won't be able to enjoy a more "gamelike" RPG. Getting in the way of the story? In my opinion, yes. Less so than BRP from Call of Cthulhu (which, Hite's assertions in the preface to the contrary, this game all but obsoletes) and perhaps less so than Feng Shui but more so than I'm used to running.
I'm not even sure how well this game works, balancewise, in the longer run. The book mentions adding some extra encounters to keep player's pools low near climaxes.
I discussed this with the players after the session, and some of them had really liked the game, how it forced them to make strategic retreats when their pools were depleted and how the game mechanics of their characters breaking down mentally and physically acted as cues for their role-playing. It was an interesting lesson for me and I'm not done experimenting with the school of "gamelike" roleplaying yet, but for now I need to go back to my roots for a while to regain my sense of wonder and adventure.
Good luck!
