A few ToC questions

[K_Peterson]

I picked up ToC recently because I was curious to see what its take was on the Cthulhu Mythos, and how it presented the 1930s as its setting 'backdrop'. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool CoC fan - and more of an old school gamer, at heart - so I wasn't sure how I'd take to ToC's game system.

It's taken a few read-throughs of the mechanics to feel like I'm starting to get a grasp of the system. I do have some questions, though, that maybe someone could answer for me.

1). My brain did a double-take when I read the division between Investigative and General Abilities - how they're purchased on different 'scales'. Stability, Sanity, Health - their ranges, and caps, seemed intuitive. But, with other General Abilities I wasn't sure what skill levels indicated. Is a First Aid of 8 very skilled - moderately skilled - or average? Is there a General Abilities skill level cap? At what level is general competence achieved? (I guess I'm just used to CoC where a percentile skill is broken down to ranges to determine competency).

2). The special restriction... where your second highest rating much be at least half of your highest skill rating. I imagine that this rule is in place to prevent serious munchkinning?

3). With ability refreshes occurring on 2-3 session basis (or every 24 hours - or while in a safe haven), are ToC investigators generally more competent than CoC investigators? Based on how much manipulation of General Ability tests they can perform. It seems like it would be challenging to 'weaken' the investigators much over the course of a 2-3 session case.

4). I'm sure I've missed this in my reading of the core: is there a cap to the number of General Ability points that can be spent in one Test?

[WiseWolf]

I do have some questions, though, that maybe someone could answer for me.

According to my experience:
1-There is no clear answer for that. In my players and games experience, 8 had served really well. Any player with a skill of 8 has barely lose all the points before reaching save heaven. One thing that my players do and you might start seeing your players do the same, is that they discuss who will do one task based on their pools, so they do get really good at managing their "party" pools. Remember that for Investigative abilities in most cases if they have the skill they get the clue, in several ocassions they will have to expend extra points to get extra information, but in my experience, they don´t risk it too much to avoid losing points. With general Abilities, they had depleted their 3-6 pools really quickly, specially in very pulpy scenarios where there is a lot of gunfire and fights and scuffling, but 8? I don´t remember this ever happening.

2-That´s one way to see it, and it works really well.

3-Yes, they are more competent than CoC characters. And yes, it takes more to weaken their investigative abilities, but not the same with general abilities. The system ensures that the investigation keeps moving, providing the needed "core" clues, and extra clues, but adds a lot of exitement to the closure of the scenario when their general abilities pools are low.

4- No, there is not. In my games my players never know the difficulty of the test they are against. That serves to add some tension, excitement, and also, that they are very picky with the way they use their pools. A smart investigator won´t use all the points he has left on his pool at the start of the scenario, so there is no need for a cap.


Hope this helps! Pelgrane fellows are really good at answering questions, so if I got something wrong, they will correct me pretty soon.

[GBSteve]

Those answers seem pretty much on the money. A few further points:

With investigative abilities, you always get the core clue if you have the ability. Also if you spend an investigative point you always get something good. Except for the greediest players, after a spend, a player should be pleased with the outcome and view it as a point well spent.

CoC Competency is not particularly meaningful (it doesn't correspond to real world expertise in percentage terms) and ToC is not really seen that way. A high score indicates a favoured method of action. You have a 50% chance of success before any spends for just having a rating. So in CoC terms just having a rating makes you competent. With ToC you get more influence over when you want to succeed, 3pts is an automatic success, 2pts is an 83% chance. So you could view a rating of 8 as 2 automatic successes, one high chance and 50% the rest of the time. Spelled out like that, 8pts is pretty competent. In my long experience as a GUMSHOE GM, even when faced with certain death, players tend to spend one point less than an automatic success and hope not to roll a 1.

[K_Peterson]

Thanks to the both of you for the clarifications!

[csmithadair]

In my personal experience, the refresh rates for General abilities haven't really been much of an issue. It all depends on the individual scenario (i.e., how long it is in game time and how available safe havens are). But I've run numerous scenarios where there's been little to no refreshing, and there have certainly been times when their pools have gotten critically low. Though I also have players who don't spend their points as freely as they might and therefore have a tendency to fail fairly important rolls (like, say, Explosives).

I'll also say this: the way you run ToC the first few times will not be the way you run it after some experience. There may be some missteps at first as both you and the players get used to it; just acknowledge that. I also recommend running at least a couple of published scenarios to start with. I didn't, but once I started doing so, my understanding of what the game does increased dramatically. Seeing how scenarios are put together will help you create your own or even convert CoC scenarios.