14: Trail Of Cthulhu
And after Call Of Cthulhu, the same character in the GUMSHOE love letter Trail Of Cthulhu.
(Bias note: I know one of the publishers.)
GUMSHOE was created for investigative games, to avoid the bottleneck of somebody missing a vital clue. Skills are divided into Investigative and General, and PCs always find the key clues.
Jerome Talbot Jr.
Professor of History
Let’s assume no major rules changes due to the campaign framework.
Occupation
Professor
Still working rather than abandoning it to battle the Mythos full time as he can still use the university’s resources.
This gives three specific skills, an Interpersonal one and three Academic ones at half price - I’ll mark them with an asterisk. It also provides a starting Credit Rating of 3, and special abilities based on it access to private archives with Credit Rating 3+ and protected tenure with 5+.
Drive
Duty
(Although several knowledge-seeking Drives are particularly suited to professorial types, Dr. Talbot cares enough to go into danger knowingly.)
Abilities
(Build Points for Investigative Abilities vary with number of players - all the way to one in the GUMSHOE One-2-One single-player variant - but I’ll go with an imagined 4+ game, giving me 16. Everyone gets 65 points for General Abilities as standard too. There are also some free points in credit Rating, Sanity, Stability and Health, and a discount for Fleeing if it’s better than Athletics.)
Academic
Accounting 1
Anthropology 1
Archaeology 1
Architecture
Art History 2*
Biology
Cthulhu Mythos
Cryptography
Geology
History 4*
Languages 2*
Law 1
Library Use 3*
Medicine
Occult 2*
Physics
Theology 1
Interpersonal
Assess Honesty 1
Bargain
Bureaucracy 2*
Cop Talk
Credit Rating 3
Flattery
Interrogation
Intimidation
Oral History 3*
Reassurance
Streetwise
Technical
Art
Astronomy
Chemistry
Craft
Evidence Collection
Forensics
Locksmith
Outdoorsman
Pharmacy
Photography 1
General Abilities
Athletics 5
Conceal
Disguise
Driving 2
Electrical Repair
Explosives
Filch
Firearms 2
First Aid 2
Fleeing 9
Health 6
Hypnosis
Mechanical Repair 2
Piloting
Preparedness 8
Psychoanalysis 2
Riding 2
Sanity 9
Scuffling 2
Sense Trouble 8
Shadowing
Stability 9
Stealth 2
Weapons 2
Pillars Of Sanity and Sources Of Stability
(Another area where Trail differs from Call, with Sanity defined in more mechanics, similar to Unknown Armies.)
Pillars: value of the intellect, moral principles, love of the old alma mater
Sources: department head Professor Wilkins, his mother Evelyn, his TA Joshua Park
Contacts
(Named when using certain interpersonal skills, and can be created on the fly, but I’ll make one now.)
Walter at the club (Credit Rating)
Background
Much as the Call version.
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