Game Description
The United States of America - 1957
The year is 1957. Eisenhower is President, Leave It To Beaver portrays the ideal American family on television and Elvis Presley is quickly becoming the face of Rock N' Roll.
A year ago, the naked body of a dead woman was found floating down a river through northwestern Maine, stuffed in a burlap sack. Some kind of pictorial tableau, of unknown significance or meaning, had been carved into her chest. It shed some light on a cold case dating several years back in that region, where the remains of an unidentified female floated up to the surface of a lake in a burlap sack, apparently having been weighted down with rocks until the sack deteriorated and came open. An investigation was launched and, eventually, the search grew region-wide as many more sets of female skeletal remains, all in burlap sacks, turned up, having been dumped in various rivers and lakes around that part of the country, obviously many years before that. The Bureau collected all of the information uncovered by local police investigators into a single file and the unknown perpetrator was classified as the “Yankee River Killer”. Details of the case were kept secret from the public in the hopes of catching the culprit, almost certainly a resident of the area, unaware.
The FBI agent sent to investigate, however, went missing in the field and the clues he detailed in his report all led to dead ends. The case went cold again.
Until now.
The body of yet another young girl, still in high school, has been found, killed just yesterday. Likewise stuffed in a burlap sack, she has another mysterious tableau brutally carved into her chest. As this bizarre calling card was never made public, it can only mean that the poor girl is a fresh victim of the heinous Yankee River Killer. Your superiors at the FBI field office in Boston, Massachusetts are determined to seize this opportunity and follow the trail in the hopes of putting an end to these brutal crimes and uncovering any information regarding the missing federal agent.
System: This game will actually be using the
Trail of Cthulhu rules from the
GUMSHOE system (
not the misleading
Call of Cthulhu listed in the system box, but that was the closest analogue). I'm looking for around a maximum of 4 players. The story begins as a multiple murder investigation that’s quickly going cold, and can branch out from there in an “investigative sandbox” type scenario depending on the choices of the players.
Setting: The story will be set in 1950s America, in a small town with big secrets in northwest Maine. So black and white movies, pinup girls, jukebox rock n' roll, greasers, station wagons, beatniks, the atomic scare and the American dream triumphing over the spectre of Communism. As well as, of course, rampant racial prejudice, under attack by Dr. King's civil rights movement, and sexual discrimination, which is just another day at the office for the working woman.
Warnings: Due to the time period, unfortunately, things like racial prejudice, sexist discrimination and political conservatism are the very real order of the day, with exceptions being ahead of their time or well-traveled. This is a part of the setting atmosphere to keep in mind, and not an invitation to indulge in gratuitous hate but it is a roleplay consideration in how your characters would look at the world and act. Also, being based on an investigative horror system, the game involves some very dark subject matter such as gruesome crime scenes, sexual deviancy, deadly violence and madness. That said, in keeping with the rules of the site, this will not be
too explicit. But if even the implications of anything like that would be a trigger for you or make you uncomfortable, I'd err on the safe side and steer clear.
Play Style: There will be a heavy focus on investigation and roleplay; so if you do not like mysteries, gathering clues, talking to NPCs etc, then you will not enjoy this game. Large scale combat or action sequences will likely be rare and a potential deadly matter without careful preparation and execution. Additionally, the characters will be expected to act within the purview of the law as agents of the FBI or face the legal consequences. Unless they can cleverly hide their actions.
Characters: All character applications must be for relatively new members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), each of whom can fill a specialized, complementary role (so detective types, forensics specialists, medical experts, psychological profilers or any other skill set appropriate to the Bureau and conceivable with prevailing 1950s era technology and social conditions) in a small team of investigators sent to assist the overwhelmed local Sheriff's Department and take lead on the case. Your characters should work together to gather clues, examine evidence, interview suspects and follow the trail wherever it leads until the guilty party or parties can be brought to justice and the mystery solved.
To get into the spirit of the 1950s FBI,
this video may be informative (and unintentionally funny).
Special Considerations:
One of the best things about GUMSHOE is that you never have to roll for investigative abilities and potentially stall the game from advancing because of a bad roll; if you are in a location and have the appropriate skill, you automatically find the clue. For my purposes, however, I ask that you describe specifically
how you find the clue--in other words don't just say you use such and such Ability and ask for the result, describe the
specific actions you take
with that Ability and I will reward you with the clues. You'll only be rolling dice for things with tension and uncertainty. And when you do need to make a roll, I ask that you please use the dice tag (not the roll tag) for ease of play on mobile browsers.
A condensed version of the rules for the
Trail of Cthulhu game can be found, for free,
here if you wish to read up on the system.
To preserve the sense of mystery and isolation, the game will be to private once everything is ready to start. I have an advertisement for players to see and put in character applications. After assembling an effective team of well-rounded characters, I will invite the selected players to the game.
Full disclosure: I have never GM'd or played
Trail of Cthulhu before, so I ask that you bear with me as I try to work out the system mechanics for the first time.
Trail of Cthulhu: The Yankee River Killer
