This is the OOC/Discussion thread for our Trail of Cthulhu game "Ritual Pursuits" written by Steve Dempsey.
Feel free to post your rules-specific questions or other OOC material here.
Amanda S. Jones dotting in (had to add an S since a user with that name already exists.)
Question regarding intro: since skin colour is not on the character sheet, and considering that that might be relevant in our interactions with NPCs, am I correct in assuming Eugene is the only black person in the car?
Question regarding intro: since skin colour is not on the character sheet, and considering that that might be relevant in our interactions with NPCs, am I correct in assuming Eugene is the only black person in the car?
Eugene is actually written as white. He is currently signed as a pitcher for the Indianapolis Indians, who are a (white) minor league baseball team. The only investigator written as a black person is Brad Heller, although if you wanted to, you could change anyone else's ethnicity to anything you wanted to. For this (very short) demo game, people's ethnicity does not impact the storyline.
Something I also forgot to mention is that I am in the GMT+10 time zone. This means that if you are in North or South America I will most likely do most of my posting when you are sleeping. If you are located in Europe, I'll generally be posting in your early to mid-morning.
Here are some wikipedia links to things mentioned in the introduction:
Indianapolis Indians baseball team
Ah, sorry, I mixed up their names and meant Brad when I had written Eugene. Thanks for the clarification and the heads up regarding the impact of ethinicity on the game.
Time zone: CEST (GMT +2)
Something which I didn't mention is that part of the character background is that Fran Tyler (the PC whose car you are traveling in) put an advert in the paper ( stating that she was looking for folks wanting a ride to Indianapolis, but you could also decide that you knew Fran (or another PC) in the car before the trip started.
There's also the question of the sidetrek to Lima that's in the background. Where in Lima did you go? What was Fran looking for, and was it even Fran who caused you to take the detour? What did you find there?
Stuff to think about ... if you like.
Ha! For some reason it didn't occur to me to check in here yesterday.
So sad, the Leica III 35mm camera wasn't introduced until 1933. It was Robert Capa's early camera of choice.
Interesting that Lima, OH is mentioned since it was a hub of KKK and Black Legion (an offshoot of the KKK) activity at this time.
So it looks like Fran is the new person in the group, with the rest of us knowing each other prior to this car trip?
So it looks like Fran is the new person in the group, with the rest of us knowing each other prior to this car trip?
I guess that's up to us. We could all know each other or it could be that we just all replied to the same newspaper ad, no? Happy to play it either way.
Doc's soft raspy voice asks. "Miss Jones. What are you on about? What crazy and wicked old man?
Sorry, might have gone off on a Ligotti-inspired tangent there. I was having fun with the idea of what the characters had seen/done in Lima, thinking they might have had an encounter with the occult and whatnot. Feel free to dimiss her memories of this as hallucination, madness (or perhaps something…spookier(;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)).
I was actually looking for black avatars before realizing that the Indianapolis Indians were not in the Negro League.
I was actually looking for black avatars before realizing that the Indianapolis Indians were not in the Negro League.
Nope, they were definitely a bunch of white guys.
Sorry for the delay in starting. Been in bed sick with the flu for the past few days.
Hope you feeling better GM!
Yup, feeling much better, thanks! Still have a cough, but at least I don't need to lie in bed all day. That got old fast!
Glad to hear you're feeling better, GM!
I'm currently on a trip. I should be able to post once a day for most of next week, but they will probably be somewhat brief.
Glad to hear you're feeling better, GM!
I'm currently on a trip. I should be able to post once a day for most of next week, but they will probably be somewhat brief.
Thanks for letting us know!
When more than one player is able to make a Sense Trouble test, the group decides which of them makes the attempt. Only one attempt per source of trouble occurs, conducted by the chosen PC.
Am I correct in assuming we're going by these rule, rather than the classic "everyone rolls so statistically the party succeeds"?
When more than one player is able to make a Sense Trouble test, the group decides which of them makes the attempt. Only one attempt per source of trouble occurs, conducted by the chosen PC.Am I correct in assuming we're going by these rule, rather than the classic "everyone rolls so statistically the party succeeds"?
In this case, no, everyone should make a separate one.
if I understand the stability test correctly:
* we need to roll 1d6;
* if roll >= 4, nothing happens;
* if roll < 4, we lose 4 points;
* we can also spend stability points to receive a similar bonus on a roll (so, if Amanda spends 1 stability point, she rolls 1d6+1).
From a rules standpoint, does this mean the safest bet would be to spend 3 stability points on this roll? As in, if one were to roll 1 and spend 3 stability points, one would still lose less stability points (3) than the actual damage (4)?
Not that I'm actually considering doing that, but just to see if I understood the rules.
Yes, you understand the rules. It's just that you have a limited amount of stability points to spend, but until they are all gone, you can spend as many of them on the roll as you wish. Just don't spend more points than you could possibly lose.
It's a different calculation when you are doing a one-shot versus when you are playing in a campaign, because although Stability points regenerate, it's not like HP in D&D or Pathfinder; Stability points tend to only refresh between adventures.
Helllooooo? Everyone still here?
I am. I've been waiting partially for others to post who haven't yet, and partially because I'm a little stuck on what to do.
If I understand correctly there are some clues to uncover before we move on from where we're at, but I don't have any skills that seem applicable at all to finding anything of them at this scene.
I was hoping someone else would do something clever. :)
In order to speed things up, I can tell you that you found all the main clues in this scene. There are secondary clues present, but they are not necessary to the main storyline.
I didn't want to hog the spotlight, so was waiting for the others to post their actions.
Will post something later today, hopefully leaving a hook for louise and/or whoever shows up.
I think that I had hidden the notification for new messages, because I only just noticed the new posts. It's sort of late now where I am, I'll read and post tomorrow.
Sorry, I couldn't post yesterday and I'm travelling until Monday. I'll be back, but please bot me in the meantime (I guess I can be catatonic).
I'm currently in hectic work project mode. I'll be back in action on the boards Thursday. Please bot as needed.
Thanks for letting us know, rdknight.
Quick announcement to everyone in this game. I will be moving on September 1st and would REALLY like to finish this game before then. Could we possibly pick up the pace of posting (to 1/day at minimum) so that we could finish by then? It's really not a long adventure and I believe that we could make it by then if we speed up just a little bit. Thanks.
OK!
FYI, I will be out of internet range beginning next Friday 8/23 through Monday 8/26 in the GMT+10 time zone. For those of you in the US, that roughly means I will log off early evening 8/22 and will return late evening 8/25. We will hopefully be done with the demo by then, but I wanted you to know just in case.
Does the flying creature care that she's responsible with money?
I'm Dying.
Also, the creature totally should, it would be a sound investment on its part.
Question: for Amanda's next action, I want to position her very close to the copper things, goad the monster to dive for an attack and jump away at the last moment, forcing it to go right into that purple energy (and hoping something similar to what happend to the stick will take place). What is the skill to use for that? Fleeing? Scuffling? Credit rating? I want to know how many points I can spend on that.
Also, does it change anything if we spend more points than necessary in an action? For instance, would Amanda get any benefit from using all her 8 points of fleeing in one go, potentially reaching a 14 and thus 10 points more than needed for a success?
To the first question, what you are talking about is called a "Contest" in the GUMSHOE game. The way it works is that both of you make tests, and the first one to fail would lose. In this case you would be making Fleeing tests and it would be making Scuffling tests. It would go first, and if it lost, it would dive too close to the copper plating. If it won and you lost, then it could attack you normally. If you both won, you would repeat the order until the first person lost. Does that make sense? These would be standard Difficulty 4 tests.
It terms of spending more points than needed in order to get a really high roll, that's not something you do in GUMSHOE, at least not in Trail of Cthulhu. You can spend points in your Investigative abilities to get more clues if you succeed, but with General Skills, a win is a win. The game tries to intentionally stay simple mechanically. There are versions of the GUMSHOE game (such as Night's Black Agents, where you play black ops types facing off against vampires) that are more combat focused, and where you can do all kinds of fancy stuff, but Trail of Cthulhu intentionally has simple combat.
Hope that all makes sense.
Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for taking the time to explain and sorry if my understanding of GUMSHOE is a bit lacking.
I'll post once Fran's action has been resolved.
Ok, new plan, new question/questions. Can Amanda:
* run to the car, shouting for the others to jump off;
* take the wheel;
* wait until the thing is on top of it;
* accelerate towards one of the copper plates;
* jump off before it hits one of the plates, with the monster still on top of it?
Sorry if I'm pushing the system too much (if you prefer me to default to shoot the thing, I'm fine too, just feels like it would take a whole army to get that thing).
Amanda, the circumstances have obviously shifted since you last posted. Do you want to do something different?
Did everyone else just leave?
I think I've kind of lost the plot. Louise is in the car but I'm not sure what the car is currently doing?
Actually, Fran's last action was what made me have the idea of driving the car against the copper plates, but from your reply I believe it's not possible to execute that plan. I will post my action later today.
I think I've kind of lost the plot. Louise is in the car but I'm not sure what the car is currently doing?
Read THIS LINK to catch up. I'm happy to answer any questions about who is where and what is happening.
Hmm, seems that this game fell apart, so I'll end it here as the adventure was almost at its end in any case. Thanks to everyone who participated and let me run my first GUMSHOE game!
Oh, bummer =(
We were so close. Sorry about any part I may have played in it falling apart and thank you for running this. It was an interesting introduction to the system! Hopefully we'll bump into each other in the future.