It Came From My TTRPG Collection! Fear Itself 1e
Channel: Carpe DM
Date: 2023-02-09

Entry 2. I discuss my reading of Fear Itself 1st edition, a 2007 TTRPG by Pelgrane Press and Robin D. Laws. Fear Itself is a generic horror-themed rule-set with light references to the setting of another Pelgrane product, The Esoterrorists. #ttrpg #gumshoe

00:00 Omnipotency Issues
01:40 Introduction
03:45 Art
04:12 Rules
19:20 Lore
21:36 Miscellaneous
27:06 TLDR
27:44 Outttake

The GUMESHOE System Design Document is available through the Open Gaming License 1.0a and Creative Commons By 3.0.
https://pelgranepress.com/2013/10/24/the-gumshoe-system-reference-document/

*Criticism1:* Varying degrees of difficulty are not captured EXCEPT for General Abilities (Athletic, Sense Trouble, Scuffling, Shooting, etc). 

*Criticism2:* Jumping off from point 1, some Abilities are clearly much more valuable for PCs to have but cost the same as others.

*Criticism3:* I don’t like that you can spend Stability on Stability tests. It seems like a mechanic 100% designed to make you feel like an idiot when you sacrifice 1 Stability to get +1 to the test and then roll a 6 (already a success) or roll a 1 (a failure anyway). 

*Suggestion1:* Instead of Non-General Abilities (“History,” “Law”, “Flirting,” etc.) having ‘points’, I would just make them True/False tags. The guy/gal/NB with the “Streetwise” tag is the one that speaks with the informant? Then they get [Clue+] instead of just [Clue]. 

*Suggestion2:* Offer a selection of archetypes instead of the listed ‘concepts.’ Place a cap on starting Abilities and give each archetype 2 Abilities that start above the cap. Include a couple of all-purpose archetypes that you can have more than 1 of in a group (like ‘investigator’) but limit the rest to 1 per group. I don’t love how this solution adds a lite class structure to the game (I’m not always a fan of classes), but the game already started down that road with separating out the “investigative / combat concept.”
_Examples:_ Determined (Stability, Bullshit Detector), Investigator (Investigative Procedure, Research), Killer (Scuffling, Shooting), Occultist (Occult Studies, Sense Trouble), Psychic (psychic abilities), Sneak (Filch, Infiltration), Talker (Flattery, Negotiation), Tough (Athletics, Health), etc. Easy to make up new ones.

*Note1:* The GUMSHOE SRD, being published ~6 years after Fear Itself 1e, seems to have cleaned up some of the terminology around ability ratings and pools of points. There are probably other improvements, but I was just skimming.