Do I want to play this vs. regular CoC? Opinions please.
Do I want to play this vs. regular CoC? Opinions please.
~Clangador (Reader of things by H.P. Lovecraft)
Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal... H.P. Lovecraft, "The Tomb"
You're posting on a Trail forum, so yes, of course you want to play Trail. The things in Trial that I like are (in no particular order):
- relatively little dice rolling. You only roll dice in action scenes.
- no dead ends. The game was designed so that there is always a lead to follow.
- shared spotlight time. The game gives everyone a chance to shine.
- drives. The characters have strong reasons to investigate.
- more involved madness rules linked to the character's background through pillars of sanity and sources of stability.
- player creativity is encouraged through the use of benefit spends.
Plus there's Ken Hite's interpretations of the Mythos as well as some seriously scenarios and campaign frames (including the stuff my wife didn't write).
Last edited by GBSteve; 5th February 2012 at 10:08 PM.
The Armitage Files, now with added Ennie Award.
Trail is choc full of great ideas, and has some of the best writing around in its rulebook and Supplements. ( including the stuff wot Steve's wife wrote )
Trail /gumshoe has a great approach to gaming, but i'm somewhat less enamoured of the exact system. Its a reasonable system but not my favourite.
In particular, The benefit spends have their fans, but i must say i've found with the (five or six) groups i've played with, the spends mechanic met with at best indifference, while liking the basic concept of having core and non core clues.
ToCs approach to the mythos and roleplaying in general is great.
What i would say is that the best of its ideas can be ported across to CoC with little ( and in some cases no) effort. ToC has definitely changed my GMing approach for the better, across all game systems.
I play both - i tend to run highly modified published scenarios, so i run using whichever system the published scenario is in. however if i had to pick, i'd choose Brp CoC, and convert some of trails excellent ideas across (and indeed did so in my recent Beyond the Mountains of Madness campaign).
Pelgranes supplements have all been excellent as well - the armitage files, bookhounds of london, and the apocalypse machine are all fantastic . Not only that, but pelgrane have several excellent Esoterrorists ( modern non-lovecratian horror) supplements that can be easily converted across or mined for ideas.
Last edited by Tigger_MK4; 5th February 2012 at 11:57 PM. Reason: Corrected syntax caused by ipad typing
Our group ended up switching to Trail after we had a few Call sessions where a missed roll derailed things and left the Keeper (gm) to choose between everything falling apart in an anti-climactic failure or just giving us the information anyway and rendering the game system irrelevant.
So we switched to a system where you don't fail at the areas in which you are a professional investigator. We've been switching being Keeper between scenarios and everyone who's ran it so far has found it easy to run. Most of the session will be talking back and forth with very little rolling of dice.
And while there are some good Call of Cthulhu modules, the Trail of Cthulhu ones are just excellent.
We tried Trail of Cthulhu but prefered Call of Cthulhu for a few different reasons. The main one being, d100 is more flexible and intuitive for the GM.
Buti agree with Tigger_MK4, it is still very interesting to read through it and give it a try, especially for a GM.
Because there are, like GBsteve, pointed out, very interesting concepts and ideas in Trail of Cthulhu that if you apply them in Your Call of Cthulhu sessions, will dramatically improve play.
Drives,
floating clues,
automatic success to find core clues important to the story, aslong as you have the skill of course (or a fair amount of points in one skill for Coc (30%? 50%?)).
Interpretation of the Mythos.
The concept of scenes.
Even if you end up prefering Coc, Trail will be great inspiration for any GM and good source for intersting house rules.
What i now do in CoC is borrow the concept of core clues from trail, and treat skill rolls as spends... If they pass the skill roll they get the advanced clues, if they fail they just get some very basic info. Works pretty well.Originally Posted by frozen
Now if we can just get this into 7th ed...
Great idea. Probably the best house rule for CoC I've ever heard of.
I've run a number of one-shots of Trail, and the published adventures by Pelgrane line up nicely for one-shots (I say one-shots, but with our 3-4 hour game night, they often stretch to two nights). They come with pregens, and in the purist tradition, usually everyone dies or goes bonkers by the end. I'd highly recommend Trail and some of the short adventures in this way.
I recently wrote a review to articulate the differences I see between COC and Trail because I'm discussing it with my regular group for an upcoming campaign. Choosing when to spend during conflict (and controlling your own destiny) is a big mental switch from rolling and praying. One thing I don't like is the variability in pool refreshes - I think if you know all your investigations take 2-3 sessions, then people will adjust to budgeting their spends to last.
Investigative spends shift some narrative control to the players, and I prefer to use them as a way to encourage improv and co-design of the game world - players can come up with creative shortcuts and helpers via quick thinking and a spend. If your players like that kind of stuff, they'd probably like having that extra control.
I agree with the other posters, even if our future campaign ends up not being Trail, I'll still be using Trail techniques pretty heavily behind the screen.
If interested, my review is here: Trail of Cthulhu Review.
You might like the BRP rules modifications the new DeltaGreen rulebook may be including. In a recent episode of the unspeakable oath podcast the designers mention aspects of gumshoe that may influence their new design.
This is not a Trail or BRP question, both have plenty of scenarios to support each corresponding systems. I recommend you Trail with my eyes closed and I think you played BRP already with CoC. Pelgrane has a strong line of supplements and keeps working on it, BRP has (mainly) MRP working on new releases. I like both systems, and I run both type of games.
So, I say, get the book, get the supplements, and play Trail scenarios as much as CoC BRP scnenarios. To pick one over the other is not very wise, and you will miss a lot of fun.
PS: You don´t want to miss the Eternal Lies campaign by any reason.
"For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack”
Listen to us playing in Skype of Cthulhu
The experienced Call of Cthulhu players in my face-to-face group liked playing Trail of Cthulhu. I offered it as a way I could put back into our games without stepping on their toes. It ended up being our default game because they enjoyed it and I enjoyed running it.
The new things ToC brings to the table, like Drives and the Mythos, are fantastic. Although the idea of automatic clues is not new, it is nice to see a system that incorporates the idea into the rules instead of applying it as a fix to missed skill rolls.
Happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes.
-Ibn Schacabao
As a complete newbie & having yet to play either system I've been reading through both in the last few months in the hope of setting up my own group. Simply in terms of how easy they are to learn I have found ToC inifintely easier, it seems more inituative as a collaborative storytelling system. Plus, as everyone has said, the Mythos descriptions are brilliant (they are so good that it's what prompted me to get ToC, they fired my imagination).
ToC gave me and my team:
- More roleplaying less rolling
- Faster adventures (when you play MoN it is important)
- Players started to think "How to use the skill" instead of "Hope I roll good"
- Smoother gameplay
In short ToC is a very good system.
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