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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Numidius" data-source="post: 7868445" data-attributes="member: 6972053">I'm running the introductory adventure for a Trail of Cthulhu game, provided in the core manual, which actually revealed itself being a proper scenario of Cleveland, summer of 1938, based on real life murderous events. Pcs have chosen their own basic drives during char gen, for the explicit purpose of solving the mistery, and, pretty much, that was it. We took a spontaneous relaxed approach, and instead of focusing on the main investigation, the Pcs delved on the many side story elements of the scenario and I improv/prepped new linked situations from those detours, to a point in which, instead of those rather two dimentional Pcs, I've seen how the Npcs are becoming recurrent and developing their own motivations and willingness to follow closely and interact with the players' main line of investigation, as the supernatural mistery slowly unfolds; such as to act in the interest of an affiliation, for personal political advantage, forbidden lore, redemption, vengeance, disinhibition after exposure to Mythos, self awareness... And the like. We're into half a dozen sessions, and still navigating in deep waters, regarding the core clues examination and comprehention. From my perspective the above is unexpected and welcomed. The scenario is inspiring enough that I want to spend a long time in it and have the chance to develop my Npcs thru a prolonged play, while, hopefully, fostering the same mentality among the players.I soon abandoned the actual rules for action/combat resolution, in favor of a full player facing style, using the non-combat/investigative ruleset as guideline, meaning less dice rolling and a lot more interactive roleplay with the Npcs, punctuated by resource spending on the Pcs side. They are only recently experiencing the blandness and ineffectiveness of their characters, the need to take back the reins of the investigation itself in a setting in which the Gm's characters are more nuanced and proactive, than just mere info givers and clue donors. I may ask them to (re)consider the drives and pillars-of-sanity of their Pcs as the basis on which to chose courses of action in the story, and, eventually, build a personality that they will enjoy playing and also risk losing, along with their Sanity <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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