Well, I've been musing for quite some time how to spice Call of Cthulhu a little - spice being the variety of life. And well, one muses better when one writes in little, self - composed messages such as posts.
Anyway, to the point. For me, the typical Call of Cthulhu game is all about discovery of mystery, investigation style - except unlike Marlowe, sometimes even a bullet from a gun that'll kill your career, won't be enough to banish those demons. I kind of like Trail of Cthulhu's Drives - not because of the railroady tool they are supposedly for a GM ( even when I played ToC, I never bothered calling upon that - it's just not my style), but because I think it was a good reminder of the fact that even in Call of Cthulhu, you aren't just Average Joe - you are an Average Joe Who Wants To Know. That's why you are called Investigator, and why the GM is called the Keeper of Secrets - He/She knows the Secrets, and you want to get them. And a good scenario and Keeper will evoke this need in the players, breaking the wall between the character and the player.
So why bother with Drives at all? Well, I thought to myself that they could be used as something akin to alignment in DnD, but without the cosmic balance thing - just a roleplaying clue for the player, to help concept why the character (after all, as I said, the player knows why he's getting to the bottom of this, but why the guy he's controlling is willing to be eaten or worse?) is investigating. And what better way to introduce such a small RP aide, with minor mechanical benefits and penalties? I got the idea from Cthulhu by Gaslight (I think?), where there were some Background/Backstory modifier checks, that were a lot of fun. Without much further ado, here are some musings of mine for now. Either a player's choice or rolled for - although I think some Drives are best left to random chance. To avoid stepping on Pelgrane's Press toes, I'll file off the serial numbers off the Drives ;). I've given the "classical" Drives higher percentage chances, but that's of course up for anyone to decide. I'll be adding dice roll percentages once I feel that the basics are covered, so to speak.
Adventurer:
You could never stay for long in one place, always wanting to go on to experience some great things. Either because of a restless, or because you read one pulp magazine too many, you always have your backpack packed and ready for another thrill as you venture into dangerous jungles or seedy underside of your city. While your experience makes you tougher than most Investigators, you prefer acquiring the dusty tomes to reading them - sitting still ain't your forte.
You get +2 HP, +10 to Constitution Checks and additional 40 points to spend on combat skills (including Dodge) during character creation. However, your Library Use skill starts at 05%, and any Mythos/Occult book you read takes you twice as long to read, and only gives you half the Cthulhu Mythos/Occult bonus. All Spells you try to learn also take twice as long, and you roll INTx2 to see if you have successfully learnt the spell, alongside any other penalties for particularly difficult spell.
Connoisseur of Old:
As you walk the halls of your collection, you can not help but sigh as you ponder how much better the past that you love so much perhaps was. Or perhaps your hobby has turned into an obsession at some point in your life. Whether you always felt somewhat alienated from society, or this has developed as you have aged, your collection of curios and books is the true family to you, and bane to any fool trying to stand in your way as you seek to add new things and knowledge to your vast repertoire. On the other hand, ages spent sitting and analysing things haven't left you in an exactly stellar condition, books make unlikely conversational partners and perhaps sometimes it is simply better to leave some things be...
You receive +10 Knowledge check bonus and your Library Use and History skill start at 45% and 30% correspondingly, you receive 30 additional points to spend on Anthropology, Archaeology, Geology, History, Library Use, Natural History and Occult. You also read any Occult/Mythos book twice as fast as normal. On the other hand, you receive -1 HP penalty, -5 Constitution check penalty, your Combat skills (excluding Dodge) start at 10% lower than normally and your Fast Talk and Persuade starts at 5% lower.
Hubris:
You consider yourself a better of most, and you will not allow the petty morality of the sheepish rabble. The world will be forced to recognise your genius, when you finally learn and master the unknown secrets of the world. The rumours of their terrible curse do not concern you, as surely your superior mind will not be broken by such meagre things. While your willpower is indeed impressive, your haughty demeanour often shows despite your best attempts, and you may be not as well prepared to tackle the secrets of Mythos as you consider yourself to be, for what if you are much more minuscule than you think you are?
You receive a bonus of +1 to Power, +5 bonus to Sanity Rolls and 20 additional skill points to distribute as you wish (except for Cthulhu Mythos, of course). You learn spells twice as fast, roll INTx4 to check if you have learned them and you only loose half the Sanity points when you cast a spell (does not apply to Sanity loss caused by effects of that spell). You get twice as much Sanity Points for having a skill advance over 90%. Fast Talk, Persuade and Bargain start at 5% lower than normally, and if you fail a Sanity Roll, you always suffer 1/1d3 additional point of Sanity loss. When you are trying to get Psychoanalysed, the therapist rolls for only half of his skill, and you only regain 1 Sanity Point. You recover from insanity twice as long.
Artistic Affectibility
You always had a certain unearthly quality to yourself, as your mind was chasing yet another cloud and inspiration. As you have matured, your sensitivity had you turn to art, whether as profession or hobby. To quench this thirst for inspiration, armed with your intuition you are willing to look into even darkest secrets of Earth and beyond. However, as you do so, your magnetic mind may indeed become a curse too heavy to bear, for it is quite hard to protect a mind such as yours of the terrible visions of horrors, both mundane and Cyclopean - though at least, you are no stranger to constant nightmares, and they are easier to tolerate.
You receive +10 to Idea Rolls, your Art and Craft skill starts at 10% and you receive 40 additional points to distribute between Art and Craft skills. You recover from insanity twice as fast, and for the better or worse, whenever you receive Cthulhu Mythos skill points, you receive additional 1d3. You start the game with 5 less Sanity Points, and you receive -5 penalty to Sanity Rolls, but psychoanalysis, institutionalisation and psychiatric medicine cure 1d4+1 points if successful.
Well, that's it for today - gonna return tomorrow to add more (at least 10 more to draw from Trail of Cthulhu itself)