Thank you for such a long and helpful response :) I would like to present some ideas for my hacks and homerules for the game and possibly get your feedback if you think it's gonna work or is it going to break the game.
I feel like it's a good rule of thumb to say that travel and fishing take one action, having three actions during day in total (and one action at night I feel, which you would probably want to use for resting). I would also add that Mythos Events take at least one action (as you described you encounter them IN PLACE of fishing spot if MG rolls specific number on d10), and possibly they can spark the whole long encounters, lasting who-knows how many hours or days.
I think the three action per day rule could work with the idea of traveling to deeper sea - you can either stop at every step (so you go from port to costal waters and than you go to sunlit oceans) but every step takes one action, OR you can rush it and try to make it from port to sunlit ocean in only one action but it would force you to meet TN20 in a single roll, etc.
And then I have a question - rules state that when you want to visit a depth where you have already been the TN is halved. So Do I understand it correctly that if you had already been to sunlit ocean, and then you returned to the port and the next day you want to sail to sunlit ocean again, then your TN changes from TN20 to TN10 forever?
Second point - so every angler can roll once for fishing at given spot (and this whole process takes one action during day), but I was thinking about creating a profession trait called "fishing" or smth and communicate to players that "as anglers you have one point in it for free during the character creation, and you can add points to it as normal rules states," And maybe you could spend some kind of EXP to advance that skill during the game like "if you spend at least 3 actions, learning fishing from somebody with experience, you can add one point to your fishing trait up to three points"?
Personality traits I guess could work kinda well with the RISK vs Fish, and then drives probably always fit because you most likely fish in these waters SO YOU CAN achieve whatever goal you have. And dark traits will fit as well of course.
What do you think about that? My motivations are that I feel like getting high TNs for rolls connected to fishing would force us to really stretch the idea of character's traits to fit within the roll. Like "hmmmm I'm a dentist so how can I describe it in such a way that it would make sense to help me with RISK vs fish roll.." Like, the whole Unspeakable system works awesome when it is the players who come up with ideas of how to deal with threats they face. The process of fishing on the other hand feels very 'mechanical', it is a quite straighforward action in my mind. You throw your baits, your fishing rods or nets and than you wait (and possibly struggle with the fish that are bigger and fight for their lifes). What matters the most is your skills connected to fishing experience, your gear and that's it I feel. That's where the idea of specific 'fishing trait' comes from
Speaking of gear I'm thinking about creating a price list for more things in port (stuff like a bed in a motel, price of a flat, food and things like that) and I'm also considering adding a possibility of buying better fishing rods or stronger nets, so the gear that would add dice to the fishing checks and that would fit with the idea of "tackle trait" of the player's boat.
And one more thing for now - I would love to see (or maybe create one myself) a list of possible encounters/problems/sightings/omens or smth in the game. It would be very helpful when you get failed checks while sailing or fishing or doing some other stuff. Or you can go more storygame's style and create more of a inspirational, bit more abstract list of simmilar things and then GM could ask players of what went bad etc. (with the rule that players can't invoke supernatural stuff which is available only for GM and the Mythos Events and what comes from them).
Hmmmmm :)
Anyway I'm not expecting that you are going to read through all of that, it's just that I became quite passionate about the project (it hits all of my sweet spots if you know what I'm saying) and I'm already set up with my players to play a few games of the Shadows Beneath. So I'm going to come back with some feedback and thoughts afterwards for sure :)
Again - very orignal and awesome and interesting game. Can't wait to play it!
I think your action economy would work just fine. None of that sounded too outrageous to me.
Your read on how halving TNs work for traveling out is correct, but don't forget that Mythos Events "reset" the waters. The goal is to drive the players further out so they encounter more and more horrifying events.... Then do it again!
I don't think there is a big issue if you want to create a free one point Fisherman Profession that everyone is given for free. Especially with my recent update, where I reduced the number of starting Profession points. I'd be careful with allowing players to improve their traits, though; the game is intentionally designed so that the only "improvements" come from losing Sanity and gaining Dark Traits. You don't want to take away that carrot too much.
And you're spot on, if you only have a single Profession trait and it's "Dentist"... you're not going to be very good at fishing. You're reliant on your Personality, Drive, and Tools at that point. The Risk vs Fish mechanic is intended to be a lot more mechanical than narrative. It's just an excuse to get the players out to sea to experience spooky stuff. I didn't want to encourage the game to dwell too much on it.
Creating price lists for more things at Port is a fantastic idea. It's something I wanted to include but ran out of room. I gave myself a strict 40-page limit so the book could be easily saddle-stiched if printed. I print copies at home and bind them for my friends and playtesters, and going over 40 pages makes the booklets bind poorly.
I'm thrilled you're excited about it. When I wrote this, I assumed it was too niche to appeal to many people. It was just me making something I wanted. haha