The next offering for the awards is published by Innsmouth House Press
and written by Adam Gauntlett. It’s a
scenario for Trail of Cthulhu that starts out with the players assisting
someone with with the setting up of a Long Con. For those not familiar with the
work of Grifters and their ilk, a Long Con is any form of confidence trick that
is set up not with the aim of getting small amounts of money from many people,
but with getting a lot of money from one particularly rich target.
This of course requires that the players are open to a little Grand
Larceny...
Which of course we all know that players are usually up for...
So, philosophical quandaries notwithstanding, and without giving away
anything of the scenario, what’s to be said about the book?
It’s well written, there’s been a good level of research into the areas
details, the characters are three dimensional, and there’s good reasons why
everyone is doing what they’re doing, so from a story point of view, it holds
together very well. There’s a number of
ways to get the characters more involved in the plot and there’s a lot of
thought gone into what might cause problems for the GM and how to get around
them. This makes the scenario very easy
to use, especially for GM’s just starting out on the path.
In terms of layout and artwork, the book is in landscape format and
comes spiral bound, allowing easy use of the book at the table. This divided
the judges, with some liking the ease of use and some preferring a more solid
feel to a book. The layout has a lot of
white space in it, with some pages being laid out in full page format but most
pages being laid out in two columns.
Artwork is minimal and there is a note in the back of the book indicating
that all the artwork in the book (with the exception of the cover) has been
sourced through archive images or other free sources. While the images chosen are appropriate to
what is being described at the time, there are a few instances where original artwork
would have made a huge difference. That
said, there were a number of very well produced handouts included with the scenario,
all of which helped to set the scene for the players.
And with that, on to the judges comments
I liked the scenario, good mix of misdirection and subterfuge from all
angles, the front cover does give things away a little though...
Rare to find something in Landscape format, I think it might have been
better as an A5 book, felt a little insubstantial even though there was plenty
of material inside...
Good scenario, excellent handouts, I’ll be looking for the next one...
