Just a quick note on the mechanical bits for my Dracula Dossier campaign. It is written for Night’s Black Agents, which is a Gumshoe game. I tend to dislike some aspects of Gumshoe though, in particular the spending of general abilities, and only rolling a single d6 (which just feels dull compared to rolling either more dice or fancier dice). So, here is the basics of the system we are using:

We keep the default sources of stability from NBA: Symbol, Solace, Source of Stability. Again, as usual, PCs are (former) agents of some or other intelligence agency active in Europe or otherwise plugged into the shady underworld there. Take the ability lists from Night’s Black Agents (I used the Solo Ops version, but it is pretty much the same). Use the normal guidance for the investigative abilities (so smaller groups get more points to assign).

The main departure is in the general abilities: we only award 15 or so points, capping abilities to 3 at most. This allows us to use Traveller-style rolls: 2d6 + ability rating > target number. Usually this is going to be 8, but we have some flexibility.

That is pretty much it. Keep the normal Gumshoe advice about giving core clues freely, possibly using rolls to award extra insights if players are not doing stuff that would get them. Combat uses Mongoose Traveller-style effect: whatever you roll over the target you apply as damage. Melee stuff is an opposed roll, loser taking the difference. Ranged combat uses mostly fictional positioning: if you are hiding behind something, you get harder to hit, that sort of ‘common sense’.

The rest is done via the conversation and convention. After a few sessions, it seems to be working fine. I will have a look at what to do for advancement, but it has not come up yet.