Quote:
Originally Posted by 2097
I should've singled out Stunning Eldritch Tales and Shadows Over Filmland instead of making a sweeping comment over the line. From the title and the cover, they look like joke books. I know Hite and Laws can be good and I guess the books deserves a second look, but for now they don't really appeal to me. When I first saw the cover to Shadows Over Filmland, I went "What? No!" with a disappointed voice. I really like Jérôme's art for the cover and internals of the main Trail of Cthulhu book. The problem is the typography and the sarcastic-sounding pulp titles. Take a look at a thirties cover of "Weird Tales". Silly, sure, but it comes across as straight-faced. If it doesn't take itself seriously, why should the readers?
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Your thus-far unique take on the titles and covers is why I recommend you actually look at the the books. The sarcasm and humour is something you have inferred, not something we intended.
You say
"I had planted an artifact for a character that I thought had received too little "stage time" to discover and use, but another player (who'd gotten plenty of "stage time" already) used a two-point archeology spend to be the hero yet again."
Investigative points are specifically designed to ration spotlight time, and if you found that somehow the opposite happened in yours session, I'd guess something went wrong. I would in future refer to the Investigator Matrix before assigning clues, to prevent this happening - and it's certainly part of the system for you to mention to a particular player that their ability has found particular clue before anyone else jumps in (passive clue acquisition).
However, it sounds like you managed to work around your issues with the system, and give the players an enjoyable time, which is the main thing.
"I know, but it seems easy enough to do with the rules and notes in the book. I really loved how they had the guts to just say "Ignore STR, CON, SIZ, INT, POW, DEX, APP and EDU". That kind of brave minimalism is to my taste."
No bravery or guts; it's simply that GUMSHOE doesn't have stats, and instead, you look at the stats as a guide in conjuction with your skills as to where to distribute your points.