Review: Trail of Cthulhu

Continuing with my plans to review some of the games I played at GenCon this year, we begin the first of three GUMSHOE game reviews with Trail of Cthulhu.

The GUMSHOE system

Trail of Cthuhu has become the flagship product for the GUMSHOE system so first I want to weigh in on the merits of that system, isolated from the specifics of this particular game.

The core feature of GUMSHOE is the idea that finding a clue should never be left up to chance. As such, investigative skills, which form the bulk of a character's stats, automatically return any important (or Core) clues to be found in a given scene. If it's there, you find it, assuming you have any applicable skill.

Players can spend points they've placed in an investigative skill to learn more about a clue or situation. This acts as a sort of awesomeness currency. A spend allows you to make later scenes easier (by knowing a foe's weakness, skipping encounters, or otherwise giving you an advantage) and/or put the spotlight on your character.

The other, less discussed, half of the system are the general skills. These work on a similar concept, where you spend points from the skill to represent your level of ability. For these skills however you roll a d6 and add that spend and compare the result against some difficulty set by the game master.

It roughly models how a character is slow ground down over the course of a story, weakening as their resources and endurance is used up (as opposed to good until last HP systems like D&D). It shows the more narrative bent of the system and works well at keeping some tension in the game. The question is less can you succeed and more will you have enough points to succeed later on.

Health in this system is just another skill, except you are allowed to go below zero, with varying levels of consequences. Below zero a character must make tests to remain conscious and eventually reaches a point where they just die.

Having used the mechanics in three different settings, I'd say the GUMSHOE system works well. I was surprised that the general skills remained as flavorful as they did. I thought such a simple mechanic would feel flat but the tension of deciding how much to spend (which matters once you move past mooks to vampires, shoggoths and worse) keeps it feeling fresh. Plus as I mentioned eventually you will run out of points so the question of whether to hold back points for later adds to the strategy.

The health system also works well, creating a nice (but simple) effect where you are hurt and woozy but not serious hurt (basically from 0 to -5) while still keeping it scary (from the threat of unconsciousness).

As for Investigative abilities, I've written about them before but it greatly streamlines play for no real cost.

Trail of Cthulhu: the Mechanics

So let's discuss how Trail of Cthulhu adapts this system to Lovecraftian horror in the 1930s.

Character creation starts with choosing a profession. I'm uncertain of the balance of this system. Basically you get a discount for buying certain skills, a minor bonus ability and a base Credit Rating. I much prefer how later games just provide package of abilities without adding distortion to the purchasing price of skills.

The skill list is designed to cover the arts and sciences of the 1930s so if you plan to run the game in a different era you will likely need to adjust the available skills.

Key investigative skills you'll want to keep regardless include Credit Rating, Cthulhu Mythos, Fleeing, Sanity, and Stability.

Credit Rating covers both relative wealth and social status. I like that the professions include bands to indicate normal minimums and maximums for credit rating (there are not many Credit rating 6+ Hobos for instance).

Cthulhu Mythos, of course, covers knowledge of the monsters and gods that your investigators uncover and likely get eaten by. Your level of Mythos caps your maximum Sanity. You can only gain it through study of forbidden books and encounters with the creatures of the Mythos.

Fleeing basically exists so everyone doesn't need high levels of Athletics to get away from monsters. It's sold cheap (though with an annoying complexity depending on your level of Athletics) and lets you get away from the horrors unharmed. At least physically.

Sanity and Stability cover the mental damage of dealing with the Mythos. Stability handles short-term shocks, both Mythos related and not. Sanity deals with more permanent damage and only goes down. The pair can add a nice level of complexity to characters. You can build fragile but highly sane innocents or mentally resilient but nearly mad investigators depending on which ability you favor.

Stability works like Health with characters becoming unbalanced once they drop below zero (which also begins to damage their Sanity). The madness rules seem pretty interesting but I have yet see how they play out. As a further nod to the source literature, you can choose to faint to reduce Stability loss, blacking out rather than take in the full horror.

I'd say of the GUMSHOE systems I own (with the exception of Fear Itself) this game is perhaps most in need of revision. There a lot of well designed rules that appeared in later games that this game could benefit from.

Trail of Cthulhu: the Setting

If you've played Call of Cthulhu or read Lovecraft's work, you might think there isn't much new here to see. Yes you get stats for all of your classic Mythos monsters, tomes, spells, and sanity loss for seeing any of the gods.

But Trail of Cthulhu also provides numerous alternate takes on each gods. Is your Cthulhu a giant squid headed monster or an infra-dimensional entity existing only within the most primitive parts of our brain. If you want to see more like that for the monsters and alien races, you should check out Ken Writes About Stuff.

Other Stuff

Pelgrane has since produced a wide variety of new products for Trail of Cthulhu including adventures, campaign frames (such as Bookhounds of London), rules supplements, and an entire improvised campaign (the Armitage Files). And of course you can adapt Call of Cthulhu adventures to the system fairly easily.

Though I'm not going to comment on most of that, I would say if sorcery is going to be a big part of your game, particularly if PCs will wielding it, you should try to pick up Rough Magicks. It provides some interesting takes on magic within the Cthulhu Mythos and systems for governing spellcasting.

Conclusion

Overall Trail of Cthulhu is a great game that benefits from GUMSHOE investigative system and delivers both pulpy investigators and fragile protagonists with minimal rule changes. It also brings some well needed new ideas to the Mythos.