Skills in Esoterrorists

[jeregenest]

I’ve been thinking about the Gumshoes system a lot since playing Esoterrorists. Mostly I‘ve been thinking about the skill and resolution system. Or rather systems.
For those who haven’t read it, Gumshoes has two skill systems. One for investigation (where you always succeed) and another for other stuff.

Mostly my thoughts have to do with skills and what skills exist. For investigation skills this is crucial. Every investigation skill basically demands a certain type of adventure. And when you have clusters of skills, you tend toward very specific types of adventures. For example the nexus of Anthropology, Archaeology, Architecture, Art History, History, Languages, Textual Analysis and Document Analysis lends itself to a very specific style of game. And when these 8 skills are 38 (21% of the total skills) that really influences the types of stories that are to be told. I actually think this is one of the weaknesses of Esoterrorists as there is no real guidance on running stories where these are the investigation skills that are most important, nor have I seen any of the published adventures that focus on this.

Actually I find Esoterrorists, which comes across very much as FBI meets CSI kind of weak and vague in its skill set. The skills really need to be revised to more accurately reflect the chosen genre, mood, style and themes of the game. Trail of Cthulu does a better job of this, though I tend to think it needs more investigative skills that reflect antiquarians and their interests.

In my opinion the most important part of coming up with a Gumshoes game will be the skill list. A lot of balancing needs to happen to reflect the stye of investigative game. Marlowe has different investigagtive skills from Sherlock Holmes which is different from police procedural which is different from a legal thriller.

My second major observation is about the General Abilities, those skills that aren’t investigative. My first impression is that several of them belong in investigative (Filch, Infiltration and Surveillance are really just two ways of gaining clues) and the second is that there really needs to be more logic applied to them.

Basically once you get beyond Robin Laws tendency for goofy names (something you see in many a Robin Laws game) you basically have four groups of abilities: those to avoid obstacles or to escape (Athletics, Drive, Preparedness), those to overcome obstacles by beating people up (Scuffling, Shooting), those that cover damage from Obstacles (Health, Stability) and those that recover damage from obstacles to keep you going (Medic, Shrink).

I’ll be honest that I think there are too many of these (and thus too many points). I think, again, that depending on the game these should be majorly trimmed down. Driving for example is only really important if you want car chases. So unless your playing Starsky and Hutch, Chips or James Bond you can probably get rid of it. The same for Athletics.
There are two doing damage, but both reflect only one of the damages. Not sure if I want a skill for Stability dealing damage (we are playing the good guys) so I can accept that. Though I might distill scuffling and shooting to one skill.

Health and Stability are about right, though I think variants like Trail of Cthulu’s Sanity can work. Also I like how both of these really represent plot immunity for damage. You don’t really get hit by a bullet until your health drops below zero, and then your out. So I’d probably change that name.

So again, the skill list is crucial here, and probably didn’t get nearly enough thought in Esoterrorists or the other Gumshoe games I’ve seen.

My final thought is about game master advice. There is an awful lot scattered between the various books and online. I really wish there was a master document of Gumshoe investigation planning, with a nice index, it would make my life as a gamemaster much easier to have one toolkit document so I can draw on all the various advice and suggestion bits out there.

Soon I’ll actually post an idea for a gumshoes campaign I have brewing.

Comments

[bluegargantua]

The Mutant City Blues art teasers have me way interested.

later
Tom