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To start with Trail of Cthulhu is an amazing looking game. The artwork both on the cover and the interior is stunning and sets the mood of the game beautifully. The text is presented clearly with numerous boxed asides further explaining the rules or giving background detail. Each chapter starts with a dark moody piece of artwork and numerous pictures and sepia photographs intersperse the text throughout. I found myself wishing that the original Call of Cthulhu rules were presented so well as it really adds to the atmosphere of the game and provides lots of inspiration for the would be GM.
The system though is a lot less impressive. I would admit that Call of Cthulhu's percentage system has its limits and I really wanted to find that Trail of Cthulhu was a viable alternative. However I found this rules system more comparable to something in a Host Your Own Murder Mystery game, or even the Arkham Horror board game rather than a serious RPG.
One look at the games character sheet is enough to raise concerns even before reading the chapter on character generation. Most notably there are no basic attributes or characteristics to describe a character, only a selection of skills. I've only ever seen this in one other RPG ( the Game of Thrones rules ) and it does present some problems. Skills are purchased on a points based system so all characters should have an equal number of points to spend. A lot of these are determined by a characters profession but others are chosen freely as pick up skills.
What happens though when a situation occurs which is not covered by these skills ? Breaking down a door for instance, or climbing a wall or charming a girl in a bar. There are no skills for any of these things and no basic attributes to refer back to.
Also there is no consistency in the skills presented which might help describe a character. If he has lots of skill points in Athletics and Scuffling is he a beefy jock, or is he an academic who goes to martial arts classes. There is nothing in the numbers to help define the character.
The focus of the game rules seems to be that the game play is determined more by the player and the actions he describes than the numbers on the character sheet. This becomes even more abstract when you learn how skill points are spent during play. Skill points are used up to assist with dice rolls ( usually a 1D6 vs a difficulty number ). So a scientist who is particularly good with Physics will start out with lots of skill points to spend but by the end of the day he may have run out ! Imagine if Einstein had a particularly busy day, by the end he would be no better at Physics than a high school student.
When it comes to investigation these rules continue the idea that the players descriptions are more important than any rules. Clues are given to players automatically without any rolls being made. The idea here being that investigations are hard enough without poor dice rolls making them harder. What this fails to acknowledge though is that Call of Cthulhu adventures ( the good ones at least ) are written already presuming the investigators only have half the information at best. Giving away all the clues automatically should in many cases lead to solving the case right away. In Call of Cthulhu the player characters skills help determine how good that character is in gathering the information. In Trail of Cthulhu the information is given away automatically and the question becomes what are you going to do about it ? To me this is the equivalent of taking an Agatha Christie mystery, revealing all the clues in chapter one and skipping straight to the end to see how the sleuth confronts the guilty party.
I suppose this idea might work better if the rules mechanics for action were particularly good. Unfortunately though they are not. The same rules mechanic for skill use applies, roll 1D6, add modifiers ( such as spending skill points ) and compare to a target number. Combat for example usually involves trying to get over a 3 or a 4 to hit someone, then rolling another 1D6 for the weapons damage. Although I am a strong supporter of the idea of fast and simple rules systems this is pushing it a little too far. Having skipped the investigation by giving away all of the clues I would have expected a lot more than a few simple mechanics like this to describe combat. As I said before these rules sound more like something you might find in a board game. Using this rules system a campaign like Masks of Nyarlothotep would only take one or two sessions to complete.
Beyond the rules system though this game does have a surprising amount to offer. The author obviously knows a great deal about the Cthulu Mythos and there is a lot of background information about the gods and creatures of the Mythos and how to present them, that is pure gold. Trail of Cthulhu also specifically sets itself in the 1930's ( rather than Call of Cthulhu's 1920's ) and there is a lot of background information about that era useable in any game of the period. Advice is also given for Players and Keepers on running the game which is very good, I only wish the author had chosen a better set of rules to base it on. Finally there is a starting adventure which I've never run but which probably highlights the weakness of the rules in the line "Solving this mystery should be fairly simple". That probably applies to any Trail of Cthulhu adventure !
Overall then the appearance of this game is much better than its actual content. I do find it surprising that it has the support it does, with numerous adventures and supplements having been published for it. I can only imagine that it appeals to those groups who like to forget about the rules entirely and just concentrate on an evening of dice free roleplaying. For me these rules just don't improve on the simple percentage system Call of Cthulhu players have been using for years. There is still a lot to take out of this book but the actual rules are something I'd rather leave behind.
