Gen Con Day 1
A day of meetings and booth weaseling. That breakfast meeting sure sounded like a good idea when we planned it a couple of days ago...
At the Pelgrane both, new Trail Of Cthulhu products Arkham Detective Tales and Rough Magicks both arrived in time and found their way into purchasers' hands. Jerome Huguenin is here this year and graced the last few limited edition copies of ToC with gorgeous pencil sketches. I believe the Mi-Go is still available.
Response to the GUMSHOE line in general has entered another stage. For the debut year of Esoterrorists, we had to lure folks over to explain the shot to them. Last year, with Trail up for several Ennies, people knew about it but still needed the rundown on the rules and how they interface with Cthulhu. This year, folks seem to know the drill. If there's explaining going on, it's one booth peruser giving a friend the basic briefing.
I've had no time to hall trawl but was nonetheless presented with a couple of choice items.
For sheer delightfulness of presentation and concept, it will be hard to beat Epi Ravachol's Time & Temp, in which you play temp employees of an agency dedicated to protecting / interfering with the timestream. The folder-bound package comes with introductory agency letter, employee manual, and the rules set provided on unbound pieces of cardstock. Thus the issue of organization is puckishly sidestepped. The system for accumulating temporal anomalies is hilariously recondite. My favorite detail is the session wrap-up, in which each PC undergoes and employee evaluation and is measured for the attainment of ongoing professional goals. It's at the Design Matters booth and will eventually, I am told, show up at IPR.
Jeremy Keller's Chronica Feudalis is a rules lite historical medieval RPG in digest format. In a move that will warm the hearts of Earthdawn fans, it puts all the polyhedrals to work in a step die system. Appearing in digest format, it gives you your Ars without the Magica. It's at IPR.