Welcome, and Introduce Yourself

[PelgranePress]

Trail of Cthulhu is a new roleplaying game produced by Pelgrane Press Ltd and written by Kenneth Hite. It is based on the GUMSHOE system by Robin D Laws, and published by arrangement with Chaosium. It focuses on the investigation of the Mythos by the PCs.

This forum is for the discussion of the Trail of Cthulhu RPG, supplements and adventures. Also open for discussion is using ToC material with other systems.


Why not introduce yourselves and talk about your gaming?

[GBSteve]

Hi, I'm Steve Dempsey, gamer and dilettante games designer. You may remember me from such scenarios as Trumpton Riots or ...

I've written an enormous number of words about Mythos gaming across many boards as well as the webzine I used to edit: Places to Go, People to Be. However I've hardly managed to publish any of it, including the ten or so games I've designed, hence my dilettante status. I'm also a Pelgrane Press hanger-on and in this capacity I run games at conventions, usually my own (un-published) scenarios, and occasionally take muffins round the Pelgrane office. I also moderate this board.

I'm a regular at Pelgrane Mansions where every week we drag back the heavy stone cover from the oubliettes to let out Graham Walmsley for a game of Trail of Cthulhu. The rest of the week he's chained to his typewriter creating disturbing scribblings (Don't be fooled by the Graham you've met, that's an actor who is paid to be the charming, if somewhat creepy, public face of Graham).

Recently I've finally managed to get a few things into some Pelgrane publications, coat-tail riding on Robin Laws' award winning Armitage Files with a short article on improv gaming as well as making a couple of contributions to the forthcoming Occult Guide.

When I'm not gaming or writing or wasting my time on webgames, I'm a government statistical analyst which helps with calculating dice roll probablilites.

[akenol]

So now I finally sat down and did this presentation of me.
I am Åke Nolemo. A teacher in web programming, a freelance programmer, roleplayer, larp organizer, and something as unusual as a swedish cricket fan.

I have done a few Lovecraftian larps, among them "Aurora borealis"; the Swedish expedition that was to follow in Starkweather-Moores footsteps. This was done in 2003, and I am now planning to do it again, hopefully in 2012. But the plays I do nowadays are mostly contemporary social realistic dramas for just a handful of players.

Apart from that I play Trail of Cthulhu regularly with a group here in Stockholm, and irregularly with a group in a small town called Nora. I try to play as many of the published games as possible, and I love Graham Walmsley's series of purist scenarios and have a dream to some day be able to come up with an idea as great as his. When we play we are having a big focus on the character play, much more than the investigative play. This means that we have huge problems in finishing short scenarios even in one session. But the most important thing for us when playing is to enjoy ourselves and enjoy the characters, rather than solving the mystery.

I hope I will be able to play rpgs and larps for many years to come. And maybe I might be blessed enough to play or act against some of you in some scenario or larp sometime.

[boysmithers]

'Ello, new to ToC. Just purchased the book & pdf package. Currently reading the pdf while waiting for the book in the post, it looks very interesting, I like the idea of "drives"
I'm new to roleplaying so I'm thinking maybe that would help me do the "role" bit...

[Arthur]

Hi there

My name is Christian from Uppsala and have played RP games for many years now but must admit that it did not present itself any time before 2007 that I started to undertake the interesting world of H.P Lovecraft. At this point Ive started with a small group of 6 players to guide them thru the Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep with the rule set of gumshoe and trail of cthulhu. I choose it becouse it fits my narrative style as GM so I hope it will be some very interesting years ahead. I this point I only have an idea of the trail system and not from the call of cthulhu system, much becouse I believe that the gumshoe system is a more suitable system for horror narrative storytelling.

[mummykitty]

Hello,

I'm Dan Owsen. I've been interested in Lovecraft since I was a teen and have played Call of Cthulhu on and off since the first edition box, which I still have my childhood copy of in pretty decent shape. Recently I've been getting interested in indy RPGs and picked up Trail of Cthulhu. And, I'm finally gearing up to run it this weekend with my usual gaming group (we usually play Delta Green CoC when we RPG). It will be interesting to see how it goes, both because I haven't been a keeper for a while, and to see how these guys take to the more story-gaming oriented mechanics of Trail. This forum and story-games.com have given me a lot of great examples of play that should make things go smoothly!I will try to post a session report about how it goes here and on RPGGeek.

Overall I really like the look and feel of the Trail materials. They seem really well done.

-dan

[Hauptmann]

Hi

I'm Gavin Moore and have run (very) occasional CoC one off sessions since, um, 1985. I've really just got back into being a Keeper in the past 3 years using the ToC system which I think really transforms the game.

After playing a couple of one-offs, I've run the old Keith Herber campaign "Spawn of Azathoth" under the ToC system, and we had an absolute blast. My group is going to have a go at the Gaslight/Sacraments of Evil combo over the next year or so, again using ToC, and we're really looking forward to it. Our group is based in Forest Hill, SE London, so I'm going to make sure I work in Mathers, the Golden Dawn and the Horniman Museum in somehow.

Gavin

[Sweeper]

Heya,

Name's Josh Brumley and I'm a long-time gamer who's just recently became interested in Call of Cthulhu. I really didn't have much of an interest in Cthulhu RPGs until a friend of mine loaned me the very well written and vastly under-rated D20 Call of Cthulhu book.

Reading it made me wonder just what I've been missing out on, so I get Trail of Cthulhu and Call of Cthulhu books. I'm still reading the ToC book in order get the GUMSHOE system down. CoC looks pretty straight forward in play.

I've neither run nor played in a Cthulhu game and wouldn't mind playing it at least once.

[Epistolary Richard]

Hi

I'm Richard Williams. I found this forum looking for advice on running with the GUMSHOE system and constructing ToC scenarios. I was looking to run a more 'realistic' RPG than the usual D&D fare and came across the Cthulhu games. ToC caught my interest because of its focus on the investigation, deduction and puzzles. In particular I appreciate the "it's not about finding the clues, it's about how they fit together" approach. I don't have a lot of experience in RPGs and haven't acted as Keeper before, but I have a background in writing, theatre directing, devising plays and collaborative story-telling so I'm hoping that some of those skills are transferrable.

My gaming I suppose is a little unusual. It's remote play (we're in different countries) for a single player who's running several investigators in a party, so I'm really building the adventure for their particular tastes. They're fine with supernatural, but dislike horror, so I'm planning a mythos-lite with extra pulp & weird menace adventure. It's a shame to exclude the background, but I figure that they might be more amenable to something without a human explanation once they get comfortable with the gaming system.

Apologies in advance if I accidentally resurrect a dead thread, I'm just going through them all now and I'm finding a lot of stuff helpful from the earlier days when everyone was learning the system.

[Tigger_MK4]

Welcome aboard Josh & Richard - always nice to see a new face.

Please feel free to ask questions- this is a very friendly forum, and we all like to help each other out and share ideas ....
...no matter how experienced we are, we're all still learning...

and especially feel free to ask "dumb" questions as we were all beginners once ... people here really are helpful and polite as a rule, its why I love the forum so much.

As for me, well, I'm a long term gamer based in the UK,and I guess you'd call me a "forum regular".
I'm not involved in running the site, but I do tend to post rather a darn lot

I've been RPGing for over 30 years (eek !) and GMing all sorts of stuff for all of that time.

Call of Cthulhu & Trail of Cthulhu are my favourite games, and I'm currently running a CoC campaign...although I've also run a number of ToC scenarios , and also play/run just about any other system that crosses my path.... I tend to play/run alot of "Classic era" (1920-30s) stuff, but I'm not too well up on other eras.

.... although I do have a large library of almost everything produced for CoC and ToC ...some of it is getting a bit dog-eared mind you (rather like me !)

[jeffx]

Hello. I'm Jeff. My friend Richard (ristarr) told me about the site while at GenCon this year.

My first Cthulhu RPG product was Realms of Cthulhu for Savage Worlds. I've used it to run a few scenarios and, while I normally love Savage Worlds, it wasn't giving me the game I wanted. Richard is the CoC guy so I was on the lookout for something else. My first introduction to Trail of Cthulhu was with the pdf of the Player's Guide (I think I got it from the Haiti Bundle). I went on to grab the pdf of the rule book and finally the hard back this past weekend at GenCon.

I'll be running my first Trail of Cthulhu game soon. Looks like it will be The Big Voodoo.

[GBSteve]

Hi Jeff, thanks for joining us here. Did you play in one of my demos? I seem to remember someone talking about having played Realms.

If you've got any questions about the game, or want to share you experiences, please do start a new thread.

Cheers!

[Tom Mueller]

Hi, Tom Mueller here. Decided on Trail for an RPG adaptation of Arkham Horror boardgame - it's popular among my gaming circle, and has an RP feel with all the flavor text. Flipped through the rulebook at GenCon on 6 August, then was enticed by the "buy 3, get 1 free" deal. I want a simple mechanic, like Arkham Horror, and a strong storytelling structure; my goal is a complete adventure in one 4-5 hour session. My players are not big horror fans, so I expect a more pulp style game. My pitch line is "X-files meets the Great Gatsby"

[GBSteve]

Hi Tom, it's good to have you on board.

If you're a Gatsby fan then you might like to have a look at Paul Fricker's monograph for Chaosium, Gatsby and the Great Race. It is a game for 32 players but might be adaptable to less.

[Frosty]

Hello everyone.

I've been a rpg fan since I was a kid growing up in the 70s. Natually I'm a big Lovecraft fan and have enjoyged horror rpgs for as long as I can remember. I've ran CoC games years ago, but it's been some time since I've role played.

I've been following ToC for a bit and I've gotten excited when I saw that Robin Law wrote the core rules. I do not like complex rules. For me, the magic is in the story, not the tables. I don't care about realism as long as the story is sound, exciting, and fun for everyone. Being an Over the Edge fan of Robin's how could I go wrong?

So, I've picked up ToC and have been going through the rules. I plan to run a game in a few weeks with just a couple of players. Ease into it. So far it seems quite simple, makes sense, but there are confusing bit and I think I'm just going to have to use it for a bit until I get comfortable.

I was excited to see the combat example posted here and I'd love to see more "official" examples of play to help new folks like myself come up to speed.

Regardless, I'm happy to be part of the ToC community, and look forward to having fun and learning from everyone.

Frosty