News, Trail of Cthulhu
The Trail to Trail
by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan
At Gencon 2023, we proudly announced the advent of Trail of Cthulhu 2nd edition.
We also, perhaps foolishly, intimated it would be crowdfunding in November.
This is, as you have doubtless discerned already, not the case. We’re currently planning a crowdfunding campaign for March of next year.
As of this writing, we’ve completed our first overhaul of the rules. The changes are conservative ones, in keeping with how GUMSHOE has evolved over the years – changing character creation to use a simpler template system, adding more opportunities and guidance for Investigative Ability spends, simplifying some of the knottier rules. In many cases, we experimented with more radical changes, but ended up reverting to the 1st edition rules.
So, what has changed? Ken’s updating the Mythos section, adding some new gods and monsters. I’m working on a sample scenario and the reams of additional Gamemaster advice (‘Keeper of Arcane Lore’ is a title we’re consigning to oblivion for Trail). We’ve both completed drafts of our new campaign frames, replacing the existing Bookhounds and Project Covenant frames. New cover art from Jerome is in progress. By the end of the year, Cthulhu willing, we’ll have a complete core manuscript (not counting stretch goals and additional content, and any other insanity).
Also in progress – quickstart rules! There’ll be a free quickstart to go with the crowdfunding campaign, of which more anon…
Lovely. Very much looking forward to trying it out, perhaps with some newbies too.
Looking forward to this! Here’s hoping we can have all the firearms rules in one place, and that the book switches to a two column layout that’s easier to read.
I’m glad that the changes won’t be too extensive (in particular, I’m glad it looks like Investigative Abilities won’t be switching to one-size with pushes).
Why get rid of Keeper as a title, though?
We’re trying to have this version of Trail be a bit more of its own thing, as opposed to consciously emulating Call.