GUMSHOE One-2-One is an interesting new take on the GUMSHOE system. It's a close cousin to GUMSHOE. You have your investigative abilities just like in Gumshoe, but you have a set number of Pushes which you can spend for additional information or effects.
General skill tests, called Challenges, require a die roll, but instead of spending general points and rolling as in GUMSHOE, each general point equals 1d6 and you roll one die at a time and sum your result. If you have any remaining d6s after a successful test, you gain Pushes equal to the unused dice. There are also Edges and Problems which affect your die roll, those are gained and lost through play and are listed on cards. If after rolling all your dice and you fail, you can opt to take a Setback for an extra 1d6. The Setback generally gives you a Problem. The level of success or failure gives various outcomes to the investigator's action. A really good success gains you an Edge and bad failure, a Problem. I really enjoyed this modification to GUMSHOE.
Since the game is a one-on-one game, there's no fun if the investigator dies in the middle of solving the mystery, so the investigator cannot die until the end of the scenario. During the scenario, the investigator can gain various Problems and if at the end of the scenario, the Problem such as "Bleeding Out" is not resolved, the investigator can die after solving the mystery.
Since there's only one investigator, the investigator can't have all the skills necessary to solve the mystery, so the investigator has Sources who are trusted NPC contacts with specialized investigative skills and contacts.
Each scene has various Leads the investigator can find and if there's an action scene, there's a Challenge card with the success and failure levels and their outcomes listed. Each scene also has an Lead-In and Lead-Out which helps with keeping track of the network of scenes.
The game plays like one of those Choose Your Own Adventure games, except there's a GM and character interaction with NPCs.
I ran all the games online and it worked very well. I did have to do a lot of digital cut-and-paste of Edge and Problem cards in order to play online, but once that prep work was done, running the game was easy. The Challenges are also well presented, much like a 3x5 card, listing the success / failure levels and outcomes. Each Lead also points to a specific new scene.
I play tested the three scenarios included in the book: The Fathomless Sleep, Fatal Frequencies, and Capital Colour. The play test also included other scenarios which will probably come out at a later date.
The Fathomless Sleep is set in 1937 Hollywood with the Player running Dex Raymond, a hardboiled detective. This was my favorite scenario. The background for 1937 LA was very well done and well used in the scenario. Hollywood has gangsters, power brokers, and of course, movie stars.
Fatal Frequencies is set in 1930s New York City with the Player running Vivian Sinclair, a tough newspaper reporter. There's options with dealing with sexism in the 1930s. The GM can dial up or down the sexism depending on what type of game is desired. Again the background for locations and the politics of the area are very well done.
Capital Colour is set in 1943 Washington DC with the Player running Langston Wright, a black ex-soldier. Again, there's options dealing with racism in the 1940s. The background info for locations and politics during war footing in Washington DC is also excellent. This scenario was my second favorite of the three.
Cthulhu Confidential is perfect for one-on-one games and it works for online play. All of the people I play tested the game with really enjoyed it. Even if you're not going to play the scenarios, the wealth of background information for Los Angeles, New York City, and Washington DC are useful for other period games.
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