Sell me on/off these Gumshoe RPGS

[yipwyg2]

I was wondering if people could tell me about these systems. I read the reviews, however since more time has gone by, you might have a different view now.


The Trail of Cthulhu
Mutant City Blues

Thanks

[akfu23]

I have both but have not actually ran or played MCB, only Trail of Cthulhu...

Trail is a very good game IMHO for several reasons:

1. The Gumshoe clue mechanic itself. This was an effective yet elegant solution to a problem that plagued well over 50% of all the Call of Cthulhu games I ran. Where the whole investigation would be derailed by a single missed skill roll. While I would just fudge it anyway if necessary to move the story along this mechanic both works & feels better to me.

2. Character generation rocks. Don't get me wrong, I love Chaosium's BRP but ToC characters come together in a fraction of the time. Plus the Sources of Stability & Pillars of Sanity mechanics are not only cool they make for good roleplaying opportunities.

3. The fluff is just awesome. Ken Hite's multiple possible takes on all the various Mythos incarnations are really well done & inspiring.


I also have MCB and have read it (only). I like the Quade Diagram idea/mechanic a lot. The only problem I can see is I can't really think of any adventure ideas for it on my own. That might be because I have never ben a fan of the cop/police proceedural genre. I do have Hard Helix also but haven't read it yet, maybe after some examples this problem will go away I just don't know...

[gatharion]

I like the idea of the resource management style to information gathering that I've heard about, but I've heard that all other conflict resolution is handled by rolling a single d6. Is that true?

[AndrewTBP]

Yes, it is. You spend points from your pool to add to your 1D6 roll and you have to equal or exceed the target number set by the GM. Hand-to-hand combat uses your Scuffling pool. Sword-play uses your Weapons pool. Gun-play uses your Firearms pool. If you use up those you'll use your Athletics pool or Fleeing pool to escape.
I'm running my group's first Trail of Cthulhu now and our second session should be tomorrow. The first session was fun.

[wormmonda]

I like the system since the character creation is soooo simple. I managed to help my 3 person group create all thier MCB character in around 40 minutes, and only one of them had any experience with RPG. It's amazing.

[akfu23]

Originally Posted by AndrewTBP

Yes, it is. You spend points from your pool to add to your 1D6 roll and you have to equal or exceed the target number set by the GM. Hand-to-hand combat uses your Scuffling pool. Sword-play uses your Weapons pool. Gun-play uses your Firearms pool. If you use up those you'll use your Athletics pool or Fleeing pool to escape.

Just to add a little more detail...

The difficulty numbers range from 2 (trivial) through 8 (nigh impossible, unless you spend points from your pool). The Keeper may or may not reveal the difficulty number to the players before they roll/spend depending on the style of play, you must declare a spend (or not) before you roll.

There are Simple Tests where one person is trying to meet or beat a target DN. Then there are Contests which are like opposed tests between two parties with the first person to fail to meet a target DN (usually 4) loses. An example of this is a chase scene. A is running away from B, both would make Athletics tests (or A might make a Fleeing test if he had that skill). The one with the lowest rating acts first, in the event of a tie NPC's go first (you don't want to go first as you'll see...)

Let's say A has Athletics 5, and B has Athletics 4. B would roll first, if he fails then A gets away without even having to roll for it. If B succeeds then A rolls, if A fails then he gets caught up to by B.

If however B succeeded and then A succeeded also, then it repeats until one of them fails. At any point either of them could spend some of their Athletics pool to add to their d6 roll, but once it's gone they don't 'refresh' for a while.

Fighting is a specialized form of Contest. It is Scuffling vs. Scuffling (for fist fights), Scuffling vs. Weapons (for fist vs. knife for example), Weapon vs. Weapon (knife fight), or Firearms vs. Hit Threshold (for ranged combat).

Hit Threshold is usually 3 (4 if you have really good Athletics) modified by things like cover.

[Bailywolf]

Both are excellent (and the cover to the Trail book Rough Magic deserves an award), but I'm more familiar with Mutant City Blues.

MCB is basic cop-drama with super-powers. It's situated at the nexus of CSI, Law and Order, The Wire, The Shield, Hill Street Blues, and Heroes.


Cops with powers.


There's thousands of hours of source material for this one available on DVD or Hulu. It's cop-drama. Mix in the superpowers, perhaps another gimmick, and you're good.

It'll do pretty much any variation on the TV cop show/procedural... with superpowers.


I have some house tweaks for the Gumshoe system (for clues and investigative spends), but broadly the mechanics are simple and lovely.

[Calculon]

A couple comics I've been reading that are great inspiration for Mutant City Blues:

1. Powers. A cop with a tie to the Supers community investigates superpowered crime.

2. The Boys. A CIA-sponsored team of "powered individuals" rein in "Supers" that go over the line. A massive, surprisingly believable conspiracy may also be at work, relating to the nature of superpowers in the setting.

3. Planetary. Three "Epic-Level" supers take an forensic-archaeological approach to The Weird Stuff, along the way tracking the fates of the superheroes in their world - and others.

4. Wanted (the offensive comic, not the execrable film). It's a world where there are no superheroes, only supervillains. And as we're introduced to the protagonist, he learns more and more about the world and how it got that way.

[tete]

I really want to like trail of cthuhlu... but I don't like the clue mechanic and the rest of it is just kinda meh. I guess my biggest problem is I feel the clue mechanic just isn't as fun as trying to figure out whats going on through roleplay. Maybe I'm just lucky and have great GMs though.

Originally Posted by akfu23

Where the whole investigation would be derailed by a single missed skill roll.

Not trying to be mean, but I just don't see this problem. If they missed a roll, find it some other way or move the clue to a new location. I have very rarely experienced this problem and in the couple cases that did happen the GM wasn't good with on the fly situations as a whole.

[selfcritical]

You'll have to explain that last bit more. I don't see how the mechanic in trail prevents you from using roleplaying to figure out what happened- in fact that seems like the entire point of the mechanic.