Ravenloft GUMSHOE

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NeoTiamat
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Ravenloft GUMSHOE

Post by NeoTiamat »

So, after a quite long hiatus (since the death of Hazlan: Land of Magic a couple of years back), I am returning to Ravenloft. And I am thinking that I will be trying a different mechanical system for [long complex reasons that are not important here], namely, GUMSHOE (Pelgrane Press's system for Trail of Cthulhu and half a dozen other games).

My question to the forums: Has anyone tried to run Ravenloft in GUMSHOE before, or have any applicable GUMSHOE experience? I suspect the regular Trail of Cthulhu mechanics could be made to work relatively well, just tweak a few character archetypes. Reworking magic might be trickier, but should still be doable.
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Re: Ravenloft GUMSHOE

Post by alhoon »

In my experience, especially in Ravenloft, all rulesets work. It's the atmosphere and the stories of the people that make it special. Use two d6 if you want to resolve everything from combat to skill checks to diplomacy; it will still be Ravenloft.
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Re: Ravenloft GUMSHOE

Post by Ender »

My primary experience with GUMSHOE has been through Trail of Cthulhu and Night's Black Agents. I could certainly see the GUMSHOE system being adapted to work with Ravenloft, though magic and the influence of the Dark Powers on players might be the more difficult aspects. Trail of Cthulhu's stability and sanity aspects might be repurposed to things dealing with morality (or left for sanity-breaking events in Ravenloft). Night's Black Agents is all about conspiracies in a modern age, so it's less directly usable, but the Dracula Dossier is an absolutely fantastic scenario that I feel could be made to work with Strahd. Though I have no experience with it, have you looked at The Esoterrorists or Fear Itself (both GUMSHOE games)?
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Re: Ravenloft GUMSHOE

Post by NeoTiamat »

Ender wrote:My primary experience with GUMSHOE has been through Trail of Cthulhu and Night's Black Agents. I could certainly see the GUMSHOE system being adapted to work with Ravenloft, though magic and the influence of the Dark Powers on players might be the more difficult aspects. Trail of Cthulhu's stability and sanity aspects might be repurposed to things dealing with morality (or left for sanity-breaking events in Ravenloft). Night's Black Agents is all about conspiracies in a modern age, so it's less directly usable, but the Dracula Dossier is an absolutely fantastic scenario that I feel could be made to work with Strahd. Though I have no experience with it, have you looked at The Esoterrorists or Fear Itself (both GUMSHOE games)?
Hrm. I tend not to use Sanity/Stability/Dark Powers Checks/Etc in my game very much, so that doesn't bug me. The main issues I see would be...

1) Working out careers/archetypes, since many of the Trail of Cthulhu careers have benefits that simply wouldn't apply to my campaign (obvious example: Pilot since there's no planes, but a less obvious example might be the benefits that let you get access to police records or the like, when the PCs spend all their time in Barovia).
2) Magic. The Rough Magicks book has a Magic system that could be applied easily enough, but I would need to come up with entirely new spells. Not difficult, but perhaps a bit tedious.

I'm a big fan of the Dracula Dossier -- I backed the kickstarter -- and it's definitely an intriguing work. Esoterrorists I am familiar with, don't recall anything useful, but I should look at Fear Itself and see if they handle careers differently.
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Re: Ravenloft GUMSHOE

Post by Resonant Curse »

Could the pilot archetype be reworked for say mariner and just repurpose it for a ship?
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Re: Ravenloft GUMSHOE

Post by NeoTiamat »

Resonant Curse wrote:Could the pilot archetype be reworked for say mariner and just repurpose it for a ship?
Well, it could, but since the campaign takes place entirely in Barovia it would not be much of an improvement.

Still, I suppose that if I go to all this trouble, I should make it general and a QtR article. Food for thought.
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Re: Ravenloft GUMSHOE

Post by Five »

NeoTiamat wrote:
Ender wrote:but I should look at Fear Itself and see if they handle careers differently.
There are no occupations/careers in Fear Itself, outside of player fluff. It's just Investigative Abilities, General Abilities, and Risk Factors.

However there are optional Stereotypes provided, in the One-Shots chapter. Think of these as -almost- pregen/quick grab characters from 80's B-movies: "Good Girl", "Sexy Girl", "Jock/Stud", "Brain", "Authority Figure", "Burnout', "Good Guy", and "Preacher Man".
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Re: Ravenloft GUMSHOE

Post by NeoTiamat »

Yess... Fear Itself looks like something a lot closer to what would be ideal for me than Trail of Cthulhu. Little less multi-academic, little more general. Useful thing!
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Re: Ravenloft GUMSHOE

Post by Five »

Yeah, it's very simplistic, along the lines of Call of Cthulhu D20. No classes, but if you want some standard amongst your in-game professions then it's easy enough to whip together a Profession Template.

Also, if you have quick access to Esoterrorists 2E then take a look at the chapter Station Duty. It's a great start for low-level characters (junior members with some experience/knowledge of the more supernatural aspects of RL). As an alternative, it could be a great way to start a 1st level (or 0 level) group of characters. They are all children/relatives of individuals on station duty and not until their parents/family members are massacred/missing and some of their work salvaged do they begin to open up a world of dark secrets...

Of course if travel is key to your group then the second option, or a variation thereof, would probably be a better fit. The "station" is destroyed and the search for answers are revealed through caches and acquaintances.

And the Membrane, should you use it, could very well be the thing that is (barely) keeping the Dark Powers (Masters of the Outer Dark)from completely entering RL. On-screen or off-screen is, of course, your choice.

I think Fear Itself/Esoterrorists would be an easy fit for Ravenloft. Use the former for the start of their careers (normal blokes), the latter for when they're more established (something akin to Ordo Veritatis).
"A very piteous thing it was to see such a quantity of dead bodies, and such an outpouring of blood - that is, if they had not been enemies of the Christian faith."

- Jean Pierre Sarrasin, "The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville"
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Re: Ravenloft GUMSHOE

Post by NeoTiamat »

Well, campaign-wise, I have my plans pretty well laid out. Here, let me put the campaign blurb I wrote...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Professor Lupescu's Travelling Ghost Show!
Everyone is always excited when the Ghost Show pulls into a Barovian village. Marvel before the Dementlieuse photography! Gasp at the Werewolf Skin! Shudder as the Ghost-in-the-Jar makes ghastly and ghoulish faces at you! Professor Lupescu offers entertainment, sells useful charms against all manner of ills (scientifically proven by the University of Dementlieu, of course), and if necessary, can deal with any irritating spooks or spirits that might trouble your fair community... for a fee, of course.

For Barovia is rich (the most fertile earth in the Core), Barovia is superstitious, and especially in the winter, Barovia is very, very bored. Professor Lupescu and his crew make out like bandits. Ninety percent of the time, a bit of fluff and mummery are all that you need, since there's no ghosts to be had. Of the remainder, nine times out of ten, it's a cold spot, a face in the window, a whisper in the attic, no more....

The hundredth time? That's when it gets interesting...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So basically, Old West Medicine Show meets Ghostbusters, all set in gloomy pseudo-Balkan villages. It's just that while I am normally a 3.5/PF GM, I don't really have the time in my life to prepare D&D-style combats (this is a quick campaign done on top of my normal gaming schedule). So I wanted to try something more streamlined and less prep-intensive, and I've always been an enormous fan of Pelgrane Press and their work (I will read anything by Kenneth Hite, period).

Anyway, let's see... current task is to cobble together a suitable skill list, probably culled from Fear Itself. And then put together a magic system, which will likely work broadly like Trail of Cthulhu, just replace 'Summon/Bind Byakhee' with 'Entice Satyr'.

(Also, Station Duty is an awesome setting book and I hope to one day run a game like that -- though not this time).
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Re: Ravenloft GUMSHOE

Post by Five »

One thing that will (might) need to be addressed would be Investigative Abilities. The various Cultural Levels of Ravenloft will most definitely put a spin on things. To make things fair I'd simplify things by giving each technical and academic ability a relevant CL. If the players want to upgrade that ability then they're obviously going to have to study in a more advanced domain. Interpersonal abilities should probably be good the world over once language barriers are surpassed. Streetwise, off the top of my head, might be an exception, depending on how tight you want your game to run.

Of the General Abilities, Driving and Mechanics are the only ones that I can think of that are or may be dependant on CL. Driving because of the conveyance involved, Mechanics for obvious reasons.
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Re: Ravenloft GUMSHOE

Post by NeoTiamat »

I've always been relatively blase regarding CLs -- I tend to treat it as less 'difference in century' and more 'backwoods pseudo-Balkan nowhere and advanced, near-steampunk Western Core'. Anyway, since the PCs are going to be in Barovia 90% of the time differing CLs aren't going to be a huge issue.

I think I'll refashion Drive/Piloting as a 'you can ride a horse really well, drive a wagon or carriage, etc'. Mechanics might be downgraded to be less engineering and more stuff like blacksmithing and carpentry, i.e., "Can you fix a broken wagon wheel."
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Re: Ravenloft GUMSHOE

Post by Ender »

Hey NeoTiamat, did you ever explore more of a GUMSHOE conversion for Ravenloft? I recently created and ran a mystery adventure for my Curse of Strahd game that I wrote up for D&D 5E using the general outline of GUMSHOE scenarios and found it to work quite well. Mind you, I was still just using D&D 5E with a different adventure design paradigm, but it reminded me of this thread and I thought I'd see if you'd done anything.

Tangentially related, I've been thinking of taking the interior text of I, Strahd (that is, minus the framing story) and writing notes in the margins as though the stolen copy had found its way through the hands of Van Richten, Azalin, Baba Lysaga and one or two other high-profile NPCs. It could serve as a sandbox guide for an expanded (and altered) Curse of Strahd in the same way that Dracula Unredacted works for the Dracula Dossier.
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Re: Ravenloft GUMSHOE

Post by NeoTiamat »

I did indeed! I'm actually running the game right now -- I ended up taking the advice further up-thread and basing it on Fear Itself rather than Trail of Cthulhu (dumped the occupation abilities). Also cooked up a fairly modest magic system (really just the Trail of Cthulhu/Rough Magicks thing with somewhat more basic spells). We're about five sessions in (playing every two weeks), and it's going quite well.
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