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Originally Posted by Damiar the Wolf
It has a few flaws (lack of setting not being among them in my opinion), but I feel that at its core, it is a really great game (and by that I mean startlingly great).
Unfortunately, it seems to be exactly the kind of game hobbyist RPG gamers at large aren't looking for.
I plan to use the investigation system elsewhere (it is exactly the sort of thing I used to work on when I wrote gaming material), and perhaps a few of the game's other ideas. I, for one, am very eager to see the GUMSHOE Cthulhu RPG.
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I for one don't have any major problems with the setting, other than that of depth. For instance, that monster section. Two or three sentences of description for each monster is not nearly enough. And I really can't take torture dogs seriously. I don't know why, I just have this image of dog-shaped swiss army knives. Anyway as I say, could have used more depth. We never really get under the skin of the Esoterrorists themselves, and even the information on the player characters' organisation is pretty brief at only two pages long (only a little over one if you take into account that those two pages contain one VERY large chapter title that fills at least a third of a page, and one half-page illustration as well as the text.) I was looking forward to information about different factions of esoterrorists, different methods or case histories. All I could really find were vague allusions to what the esoterrorists, in general, do. One thing I can't really figure out is this: according to the manual, the Esoterrorists thrive on the money and power they obtain from there activities. Just how profitable are staging hauntings and crop circles? Exactly how useful is summoning an extra-planar entity that you can't control and just wants to run around eating children and torturing people? Political motives I could understand, but I'm not really getting the concept of haunting yourself rich. Even the ritual performed in the example adventure seems to have the sole objective of making future rituals easier.
I would also like to second the point that the game's system could use a little work. The investigative system is more about how you design the adventure than how the players solve it, and boils down more or less to 'spend a point and you get a clue'. It's fine, it does what it's meant to do, but there isn't really much to it. I certainly didn't feel it justified the raving press releases, especially when considered alongside the resolution system for non-investigative actions which does indeed feel rather bitty. As a matter of fact I found the advice on how to design an investigative scenario considerably more useful and entertaining than any of the rest of the book. I wouldn't feel happy running a combat scene with these rules. Personally I'd recommend lifting the investigative part of the game wholesale and inserting it into some other system's combat and skill mechanics, something that is at least very easily done.
On the other hand, I rather like the artwork (albeit that it is repeated several times as the reviewer quite rightly points out). It is pulp comic in style and certainly not of the highest quality, but it's a lot better than many products I've seen in my time. Still, good art does not good game make.
Ash