Tag: One2One

How to prepare Cthulhu Confidential (Gumshoe One-2-One)?

I’m looking for some practical advice on how to prepare for a session of Cthulhu Confidential. I’m a novice GM with some dozens of sessions of other games under my belt, but this will be my first one-2-one session.

A CC scenario (specifically I’m running Fatal Frequencies) is very structured and detailed, with dozens and dozens of facts to keep in your head.

Normally when running with a party of > 2, the GM can use the space where the players are bantering/planning to reference their notes. With CC, consulting notes will result in what is essentially dead-air.

I’d appreciate some practical advice for preparing for a session, or failing that, just “this is how I do it” responses.

  • What sorts of notes on NPCs and Scenes do you write? In what format?
  • How do you remember quick details of Scenes and NPC

Modifying Gumshoe One-2-One difficulties for non-horror campaigns

Cthulhu Confidential is very clear that its Challenge Difficulty Table (p53) assumes the game wants to achieve a horror atmosphere (of the dread type as described in Nightmares of Mine). The appendices (Player Characters for Other Mystery Genres, Generic Edges, Generic Problems, pp302-319) offer good support for running Gumshoe One-2-One in other genres, but I’ve found no mention anywhere in the book about how to tailor difficulty numbers for non-horror games.

How do a challenge’s Setback/Hold/Advance target numbers influence the mood and atmosphere of a game, and what rules of thumb can I use to determine the right numbers to evoke other, non-horror, genres?