Excerpt 1 from the Ordo Veritatis Operations Manual. Expect this post to be removed by the pluggers at any time. Copy and paste, my friends.
Issued by the ECSC.
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The new See Page XX is up. It includes:
- The Trouble With Tasers by Robin D Laws
- The Trail of Cthulhu Theme (Audio) by James Semple
- Cosmic Ordering with Mystic Moo with Paula Dempsey
- See Page XX Interview Series, Number 2 - Luke Crane vs Jason Morningstar
- The Murderer of Thomas Fell a Trail of Cthulhu adventure by William Hindmarch
Edit: People were reporting link problems which should be fixed now.
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One caption in the Trail of Cthulhu caption competition is a clear winner, with 52% of the vote. The other three share the rest of the vote evenly.
And the winning caption is:
"Too distracted by the theatrics on stage, the audience failed to see the thing rising out of what they thought was a painted lake."
The winner has been notified.
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For Shadows Over Filmland, a new Trail of Cthulhu adventure series, Jee is working on a silver screen style with spooky lighting and dry ice. Here's an example from his blog:
Edit: As Robin points out in the comments, I mis-titled this. I'll save the "GSL Goodness" for another day.
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GM Skarka is writing the first Adamant Entertainment Trail of Cthulhu adventure, entitled The Empty Men, to be released in July. It will support both Pulp and Purist styles of play.
Based on the title, what do you think it might be about?
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Here is some detailed Esoterrorists actual play, demonstrating the strengths of the clue-giving system (and, to be fair, of this particular GM).
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A day of tons of new releases. On the Pelgrane Press store or IPR.
For GUMSHOE:
- We've released Stunning Eldritch Tales, a collection adventures by Robin D Laws for Trail of Cthulhu. Gosh, they are good, and well playtested. The street date is 13th May.
- The Trail of Cthulhu PDF. As it says. People who preordered have been emailed a voucher for a free copy. People who have ordered to date have been sent a voucher for a reduced price copy. If you haven't heard, email me.
- Trail of Cthulhu Player's Guide The ToC Player's Guide is a subset of the ToC (99 pages) and includes all non-GM material, but (and I whisper this) you can run GUMSHOE games using this alone.
- Trail of Cthulhu Game Group PDF Bundle (1 x ToC and 3 x ToC Player's Guide). The bundle is an interesting experiment in the spectrum of honesty of PDF users. If I sell lots of these, I'll be pleased but slightly surprised. The idea is, the GM gets the Trail of Cthulhu PDF, the players get three copies of the Player's Guide between them.
For the Dying Earth RPG: - We've released after a slight hiatus Tooth, Talon and Pinion :The Excellent Prismatic Spray 7/8 Double Issue. It's full of creatures which you might eat, might eat you, or there might be some negotiation involved to determine who is eaten. There are also adventures and a walking tour by the famed Grashpotel.
I've emailed all of our subscribers for updated addresses. If you are a subscriber and you haven't heard, please contact me.
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All the Trails of Cthulhu destined for the distribution are now sold. ACD swooped in nabbed the last hundred or so from Aldo while I was away. If stocks dwindle, I'll keep an eye on channels on line and highlight those retailers who still have stock. For example, Leisure Games in London and End Game in California. If you are retailer stocking Trail, you might consider posting here.
IPR and Pelgrane have 71 left between them for direct sale in the US. I've got about 50 in the UK. Chaosium have none (and I shipped them 100), which is pretty spectacular.
So, basically, woot! 2000 copies sold, pretty much.
Because the Trail printer found it difficult to deal with a foreign company (they insisted initially on invoicing me for tax and I wouldn't pay until they corrected it), the reprint won't be for a few weeks.
I've got to choose between another 1000, or else 1500 for the next print run. Tough decision. It's just south of $2 difference per copy.
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Please listen to this Trail of Cthulhu music and let me know what you think (good or bad).
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Here's a comprehensive review of Trail of Cthulhu, and some interesting comments on the GUMSHOE system.
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The excellent Edge Entertainment are developing a Spanish language version of the full GUMSHOE range, starting with Trail of Cthulhu. They've published Spanish language versions of Heroquest, Conan, Feng Shui, and the former Hogsheads New Style games, so they have an excellent pedigree.
Edit:
Here is the announcement. They are releasing Los Esoterroristas, too.
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Graham Walmsley (writer of Play Unsafe) is creating an online GUMSHOE character generator which works with all of our GUMSHOE games. It will be a commercial product, although we haven't decided how to release it. It will generate PDF character sheets, and you'll be able to optionally share your characters with other GMs. It may also do other GUMSHOE GM aid-related things.It works decently well already.
What features would you like to see?
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| 2008-04-08 16:35 |
| GUMSHOE and the meaning of Health |
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In GUMSHOE and a number of other games, characters have a Health pool. In GUMSHOE, if someone shoots at you, and they spend enough points, they will successfully "hit" the first time and every time until they run out of points. But, you are not actually significantly hurt by any kind of weapon until your Health goes below 0. Now if somebody is shooting at you and actually hitting you, this doesn't seem right. And that is because Health down to 0, at least has an abstract function, just like other pools.
The best handle I can give on this is that pools police narrative plausibility. In narratives and in rpgs if a character is in gunfight after gunfight and is never hit, it becomes less and less satisfying. Fine tuning the maximum Health for example can be used to make the difference between a Purist and Pulp game in the case of Cthulhu; in a Pulp game, your hero avoids injury when bullets fly, in a Purist game not so much.
For NPCs, the Health rating can be a measure of their combat ability, an extraordinary constitution, or their narrative importance. An unimportant NPC who happens to be a combat monkey can still start out with a Health of 0, and be killed by the first bullet which files in their direction. This method can be used for mooks, or in a horror game to kill the reassuring authority figure unexpectedly and horribly.
One final example. A weedy PC is sitting in a bar. A sniper fires at the PC. It's not going through their head in any RPG, is it? A combat veteran NPC in the same bar? Straight through the head - brains on the table.
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Here is a review for Trail of Cthulhu.
"If you are intrigued with the genre, pick it up. If it doesn't give you new ideas and new enthusiasm, read it again." And another here for Esoterrorists. I'm sure Robin must be blushing at the quote. "The best Mystery/Investigative RPG ever" Also, The Game's the Thing podcast covers Esterrorists in their latest issue. It can be found here. The Eso bit starts at about 26.50, and describes actual play. "They hit it.""It felt very natural"
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It seems everyone and their dog has a different idea about GM's screens. I haven't ever done one before. But, 7eme Cercle our French publishing partners tell me that the French are mad for them. They also prefer the traditional 3-leaf portrait model, as it's much easier to print, and the landscape version has not proved popular. In addition, Jérome hit me with this rough for the screen, unsolicited, and it's delicious, so that's what I am going with. It will be finished and coloured.
For the interior booklet I have commissioned Simon Carryer, who wrote three excellent transport articles for Page XX will be doing the interior contents - something useful for the GM. For every investigative ability, we will include some time-appropriate technology and techniques, equipment, sample clues, and some special benefits. For academic abilities, there'll be suggested societies and journal where an Investigator might submit articles. We'll have a collection of NPCs, contacts, mentors, cult leaders, thugs and cultists, and supporting cast (bureaucrats, villagers, guides, etc), each with their own three-point tell.
Valerie at 7eme Cercle is also keen to have an adventure. This will be set in Paris, and we will translate it back into English. I'm not sure if we'll have enough space for it with the screen, but I'll consider it.
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The new issue of See Page XX is now available for your reading and listening pleasure:
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As I am now listed on IPR, I thought it might be nice to get all share-y with the data, as my fellow IPR publishers often do.
From its release to the end of 2007, The Esoterrorists has sold just over 1000 copies. I'm really pleased with this - it's our best selling game (just) since The Dying Earth RPG. Nearly 20% of the sales are PDFs, and thirty-five in GUMSHOE bundles. 70% of print sales are through traditional distribution to retail channels via Impressions Advertising. 66% of the PDF sales are through One Book Shelf, that is DTRPG and rpgnow.com.
I make about three times as much on a print mail order sale as a retail sale, and there is a good chance I'd make more money if I didn't sell this book through distribution at all. So why do I do it? First, I could be wrong; I might not sell enough to make up for the shortfall. I also want to do my little bit to help retailers, which I do think helps the industry. But, it's mainly because I'd rather risk making a little less money and have more people playing the game. This is partly non-commercial, but also, the more people playing GUMSHOE games, the more they are likely to buy new ones. For example, through GUMSHOE brand recognition, it might help Trail of Cthulhu sell the much greater volume it needs to pay for my first offset litho print run for five years. Trail has had good pre-order levels in the main thanks to IPR, and these has really helped make the print run possible. I'm printing 2000 off, which I hope I can sell through in a year, although with 4e round the corner, who knows what will happen?
It's interesting that some indie designers I've spoken to (Paul Czege for example) would rather maximize their return per book, and not sell so many copies. Some (not sure about Paul) think the whole three/four tier structure is broken altogether, or there is even a whiff that it is somehow morally dubious. To be honest, unless you are selling thousands of copies and using offset litho, the economics of selling through distribution are marginal, but it's only through distribution that you can sell huge numbers. Perhaps I'm just nostalgically hoping for an enormous 5000-book hit with ToC.
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Albion's Ransom: Little Girl Lost, is now available from the Pelgrane Press Store. This Esoterrorists campaign, written by Ian Sturrock was inspired by William Blake's eponymous work. It's set in Britain, but slanted towards a team of American investigators, with an appendix for American GMs unfamiliar with the UK and Manchester in particular. One of our (US-based) playtesters described it as "I'm British, Spank Me"!
We've also released Fields of Silver, Lynne Hardy's campaign and sourcebook for Turjan-level characters. In the Dying Earth RPG, there are three styles of play, reflecting the three collections of tales Jack Vance wrote. The least powerful of the protagonists (in game terms) was the picaresque Cugel upon who, most DERPG PCs are based, and the most powerful Rhialto, who nonetheless suffer similar ignominious irritations. In the middle in power terms, but very different in terms of challenges, are driven warrior magicians based on Vance's early work - Turjan of Miir. It is these characters who will explore the campaign setting Lynne has provided. The background is more sombre and bizarre, with elements of the horror of Clark Ashton Smith. Mention of Smith brings me on to Lovecraft: Fields of Silver has some of the flavour of Chaosium's world-spanning Cthulhu adventures.
In the Dying Earth RPG Robin Laws mentions the following lists of elements for Cugel-style adventures:
Odd Customs, Crafty Swindles, Heated Protests and Presumptuous Claims, Casual Cruelty, Weird Magic, Strange Vistas, Ruined Wonders, Exotic Food, and Foppish Apparel
An adjusted list (written by David Thomas) in Turjan's Tome goes as follows:
Essential Elements - Opportunity for bloodshed
- Horror
- Ruined Wonders
- Lost Knowledge
Important Elements- Casual Cruelty
- Weird Magic
- Strange Vistas
- Odd Customs
Inessential Elements- Crafty Swindles
- Heated Protests and Presumptuous Claims
- Exotic Food
- Foppish Apparel
Lynne has hit all of the essential and important elements been unable to avoid the odd crafty swindle, exotic food and elements of dark humour. All in all, this book is more suited to traditional roleplayers than the Cugel- and Rhialto- style high jinx, and includes episodes of genuine horror.
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