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First, the adventure is very tight, streamlined and very conducive to the horror setting of Fear Itself. It brought in some of the horrors from the Book of Unremitting Horror and gave them a perfect setting. The setting is that of decaying County Hospital with all the usual horror clichés which masquerades the true horror leaking in from The Beyond. The players play patients recovering from surgery at the said facility. Action is balanced with investigation with the emphasis upon the latter, as per the purpose of Gumshoe. Clues are nicely spread out in a sandbox fashion for the players to discover the true horror. Ample red herrings have been created to lead the characters from not discovering the mystery too early. Nevertheless, as with the problem with all sandbox play, it does require a Keeper/GM to remain vigilant and have the players keep their eye on the prize of solving the mystery, as opposed to merely escaping the horror. This balance was hard to achieve in the One-Shot playtest and regrettably was not corrected in the final version. A simple heuristic, like the inclusion of flowchart would eliminate some of these problems or NPCs being listed in the back as well in the body of the text. Also, the NPCs were described in words not art which I found a major drawback to the adventure.
Gumshoe’s innovation of providing the clue through the expenditure of points was marvellously executed in this adventure. The doom that awaits them in the conclusion can be avoided but only by hairline. Players used to playing the investigative game as a Monster Hunt (or even Run Away from the Monsters) will be severely punished in this adventure. This is kind of troubling because the player character sheets provided do not contain enough information (drives, skills, characteristics are just stats) even visual cues like a character portraits are absents. The problem with stats is that newbies and veterans often need more to really bond with a character and nowhere is that more true than in a horror/investigative game, as it grounds the deeds and gives them a motivation. While Gumshoe is brilliant at giving players drives often these fall into disuse as the dominant personality (that of the player him/herself) emerges. Invasive Procedures does do a good job with keeping the players on track but without these cues the tendencies toward drifting are greater. Thus, it reinforces the need to have heuristics that were mentioned above. If the gloom and doom are not your players cup of tea, it would be very hard to get them into Fear Itself which as this is basically an introductory adventure requires much more introduction than merely stats filling in a comprehensive back story with each character. In the playtest, I did provide those details and character portraits and it helped move the story along faster.
What else is wrong the adventure? Other than the fact, it requires that the Keeper/Gamemaster must commit to reading the scenario two or three times to get “it”. But, I did find the absence of a floor plan of the hospital in the final version, a poor decision. When it was the playtest, Pelgrane supplied one from the public domain. Again, it is a visual cue to make the life of the Keeper/GM easier. Also, there was not alternate suggestions expenditure of points. My reading of Gumshoe rules including the Fear Itself rules is to allow multiple attempts trying different avenues which I found a tad confining. For if the players have depleted their points or fail to use the correct points; it leads the way for more a feeling of personal failure by the players – exactly what Gumshoe was designed to avoid.
One the positive side, the art contained within is absolutely extraordinary. It is done by Jérôme Huguenin who rightly deserves a credit as illustrator-author. For his images make all of Pelgrane Press’ products come alive in a ghoulish and fiendish manner. The art perfectly sets the mood and feeling of dread and shadow. Pelgrane did throw in a section from their Book of Unremitting Horror for the Terrors from Beyond which is extremely generous of them and speaks to the fact, this is a company of gamers for gamers. They don’t give a tidbit but a whooping large portion – more than enough to run the scenario instead of directing a gamer back to another book. That alone deserves my respect. The scenario despite its drawbacks does achieve a feeling of claustrophobic horror and that alone makes the scenario worth its weight in silver. Why not gold? Well, before it gets hardcopy publication (if it ever does); it needs to improve by tightening up of its style. However, none of the style shortcoming warrants any demerit points – as far as I am concerned the positive features outweigh any negative.
Trail of …or instead of a conclusion
As I said earlier this adventure does come as Trail of Cthulhu version (separate PDF, stats, skills, characteristics, etc. are all adjusted accordingly). And, the appropriate Mythos referents put in. Sadly, the translation into Trail of the Cthulhu especially the addition of the Mythos belittles the scenario and actual does some harm to the Trail of Cthulhu line. For one of the great achievements of Trail of Cthulhu is to bring the investigation and more especially the horror back into Cthulhu. The throwaway line that is commonly used is: “How can Cthulhu have Hit Points?” when it is a supernatural and extraterrestrial creature of unimaginable power and wisdom. Too many Cthulhu games ended up like Godzilla rather than cosmic horror. All Trail of Cthulhu adventure games have played more into a notion of cosmic horror by suggesting something lies beyond the gauzy veil of perceived reality and Fear Itself does achieve this. By linking the Horror from Beyond to a Mythos explanation makes a poor fit. So, Keepers buy the Fear Itself version and leave the investigators guessing unless they die in the process (as mine did). And, even then why spoil the scare…
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