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ricky rail
Indonesia
North Carolina
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Call or Trail, what should i buy?
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Paul Baldowski
United Kingdom
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Creating adventure for Trail generally a little more involved than Call. You could probably improvise a Call game with a few basic concepts in your head, but you need to at least have a high level map of plot/clues to make Trail 'work'. It isn't a great deal more effort.
Call is default set in the 20s, Trail in the 30s - though, either could be quickly adapted (possibly more quickly with Call).
Because of the Trail 'map of clues' and that players will always find the clues they need (just not necessarily single clue there is), it avoids the problem Call occasionally has of leaving characters stuck for a way to go forward.
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ricky rail
Indonesia
North Carolina
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so which one i should?
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Jordi B. V.
Spain
Ripollet (Vallès Occidental)
Barcelona - Catalonia
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I've been playing CoC for years, and I've never tried Trail of Cthulhu, though I've read it and I think it's a good game. You should try the classic game, so Call of Cthulhu. You'd also enjoy hundreds of sourcebooks, campaigns, modules...
It is the oldest game I play with my rpg group, and it keeps fresh as the first day!
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Matthew McHale
United States
Audubon
New Jersey
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I have never played Trail but I am a big fan of CoC.
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Paul Baldowski
United Kingdom
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black white wrote: so which one i should?
That's a decision you have to make. We can't possibly know what sort of game you'd like!
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DMSamuel
United States
Ithaca
New York
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If you aren't a seasoned RPGer and/or you don't have experience setting up investigation plots, and/or you don't have lots of experience getting players all the way through an investigation type scenario, then Trail will teach you an easy way to set it all up and make it work. The game is fun and though it is a lot of work to do the structure of the investigation as the book shows you, it is rewarding and plays easily.
If you have experience in all of those, then Call may be the better choice. It is more old school in terms of structure - and by that I mean that it assumes you can play through a scenario using your role-playing skills, helping the players when they get stuck, making rulings based on your experience and common sense, and being able to sometimes make up new clues or point players in the right direction without having to out-right give them the clue they missed.
In terms of investigation set-up, Trail is more structured and Call is more free-form. They are both excellent games.
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Dan Owsen
United States
Redmond
Washington
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Both are great games in my opinion. Personlly, I like running Trail a bit better, and honestly don't think it's any more difficult to improvise in TOC than it is in COC. Trail lends itself to investigation.
Obviously Call is better established, and you'll have access to more materials, including translations into a many languages.
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DMSamuel
United States
Ithaca
New York
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mummykitty wrote: Both are great games in my opinion. Personlly, I like running Trail a bit better, and honestly don't think it's any more difficult to improvise in TOC than it is in COC. Trail lends itself to investigation.
I agree, and didn't intend to say otherwise.
What I meant was that, since investigations are more structured in Trail, you get good instruction on how to do that successfully, but on the other hand, it is a bit more work than in Call. I am only talking about the planning stages.
Improvising is equally do-able in either Trail or Call, but in Call it is more expected that you will improvise while running the game. In Trail, there is less need to improvise with respect to clues because the investigation is planned out from the beginning.
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Freelance Police
United States
Palo Alto
California
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black white wrote: so which one i should?
What you should do is go to the Chaosium site and download the free CoC Quickstart *and* the free CoC adventures.
CoC's strengths are the adventures, not the game system. If you can write your own Cthulhu adventures, no need for CoC.
Might as well plug my "Cthulhu Dice: The RPG". It's free one-page RPG lite ruleset for Cthulhu adventures. It does use the Steve Jackson Games Cthulhu Dice die and counters.
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Eric Dodd
New Zealand
Martinborough
Wairarapa
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Another thumb for downloading the quick-start rules and adventure from Chaosium. Read it and play it, then see what your friends say. If they felt lost or overwhelmed then Trail of Cthulhu may be better for them. Since there are no links to be missed in this adventure it plays much like a Trail of Cthulhu adventure i.e. The Investigators do not need to Research anything might to complete the adventure, but if they do not they will miss the colour and detail of the adventure.
Trail of Cthulhu is a great product, that I'm glad I've bought, but Call of Cthulhu is my first and truest love. Trail also has some excellent adventures, though it should be noted that the style of play is different than in Call of Cthulhu, requiring more player input and looser but final control from the Keeper.
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ricky rail
Indonesia
North Carolina
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i chosen Trail and i will play Call after Trail. I love modern. i love tradition,too.
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Jordi B. V.
Spain
Ripollet (Vallès Occidental)
Barcelona - Catalonia
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black white wrote: i chosen Trail and i will play Call after Trail. I love modern. i love tradition,too.
Great idea! I've got both in my colection.
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