Contemporary-Era Trail Ability List

 

Ken’s upcoming Fall of Delta Green will get Trail of Cthulhu as far into the modern era as it’s likely to go for a while. In the meantime, here’s a quick and dirty ability list with which GUMSHOE investigators can learn too much about the Mythos in 2015 and beyond.

With its forensic procedural vibe, The Esoterrorists has a few too many technical abilities. So you’ll see Forensic Anthropology and Forensic Entomology merged into Trail’s more general Forensics ability.

Modern characters needn’t show New England restraint, so I’ve added in a few interpersonal abilities that appear in other games.

Where the general abilities are concerned, I dropped Disguise as a thing that seems less realistic out of the pulp era, replacing it with Impersonate, which is more oriented toward identity theft.

Riding also went, as something that will come up less in contemporary games. Fold it back in if you expect the characters to chase serpent folk on the range.

In my own games I’d drop Weapons, collapsing it into Scuffling, but that’s about how much you want to evoke Call of Cthulhu’s look and feel, not a time period issue.

Academic

Accounting

Anthropology

Archaeology

Architecture

Art History

Biology

Cthulhu Mythos

Cryptography

Geology

History

Languages

Law

Library Use

Medicine

Occult

Physics

Theology

Trivia

Interpersonal

Bullshit Detector

Bargain

Bureaucracy

Cop Talk

Credit Rating

Flattery

Flirting

Inspiration

Interrogation

Intimidation

Oral History

Reassurance

Streetwise

Technical

Astronomy

Ballistics

Chemistry

Data Retrieval

Electronic Surveillance

Explosive Devices

Evidence Collection

Forensics

Locksmith

Outdoorsman

Pharmacy

Photography

General Abilities

Athletics

Conceal

Driving

Electrical Repair

Explosives

Filch

Firearms

First Aid

Fleeing

Health

Hypnosis

Impersonate

Mechanical Repair

Piloting

Preparedness

Psychoanalysis

Sanity

Scuffling

Sense Trouble

Shadowing

Stability

Stealth

Weapons

# of players	Investigative Build Points
2	34
3	26
4	24
5+	22

 

General Ability Points: 60

UPDATE: Thanks to Chris Huth for wrangling the above into character sheet form.

 

---

Trail of Cthulhu is an award-winning 1930s horror roleplaying game by Kenneth Hite, produced under license from Chaosium. Whether you’re playing in two-fisted Pulp mode or sanity-shredding Purist mode, its GUMSHOE system enables taut, thrilling investigative adventures where the challenge is in interpreting clues, not finding them. Purchase Trail of Cthulhu and its many supplements and adventures in the Pelgrane Shop.