Tag Archives: GUMSHOE

GUMSHOE Whodunnits: Assess Honesty

Of all GUMSHOE abilities, perhaps the most confusing is Forensic Etymology. Wait, no, it’s Bullshit Detector. Or Assess Honesty in the more genteel environs of Trail, or Liar’s Tell in Swords. The tell-when-they’re-lying ability. The customary use of Bullshit Detector is to confirm when a witness is being truthful so the investigators don’t need to […]

GUMSHOE Whodunnits: A Bunch of Suspects

The classic murder mystery: a bunch of eccentrics gather, often at a remote house or other confined location, and then – thump! One of them’s murdered. In most roleplaying scenarios, red herrings aren’t needed. The classic advice is that the players create enough confusion as they maraud and blunder towards a conclusion that adding distractions […]

GUMSHOE Whodunnits: One Little Clue

It’s a staple of the detective genre that the heroic investigator picks up on some tiny clue, some inconsistency that unravels an otherwise perfect crime. They spot that only one dinner guest could have passed through the kitchen in the two-minute window to poison the bride’s champagne glass, or that the mystery turns on whose […]

The Plain People of Gaming: eight questions for adventure design

It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these Page XX pieces. In the intervening months, I’ve been working on a whole host of different adventures, ranging from classic Cthulhu mythos to epic fantasy to political drama to different flavours of weirdness. As part of the process of adventure writing, there are ten questions […]

Paddling around with temporary pools

Some GUMSHOE scenarios give players the opportunity to pick up small temporary pools. In Trail, for example, reading the collected letters of a crazed physicist might give a 2-point temporary pool that can be spent on Occult, Physics or Astronomy. The players can use these points as they would regular points from their character sheets. […]

Free RPG Day 2023

We’re happy to announce we were once again part of Free RPG Day 2023 on Saturday, June 24th, 2023, and this year’s free Pelgrane giveaway was an adventure for Swords of the Serpentine, which you can find with all previous years’ Free RPG Day adventures. Swords of the Serpentine is a game of daring heroism, […]

A Taxonomy of Investigations

GUMSHOE, as we always say, is the game system where you always find a clue. If you’ve got the right Investigative Ability, you get the information. When designing scenarios, however, it’s useful to divide those pieces of information into different categories. My usual mental breakdown (building on the Clue vs Lead division) Leads: A piece […]

The Raspy Raven’s GUMSHOE season

Ever thought of playing in a 60s cold war version of Night’s Black Agents? Traversing The Gaean Reach modified for Charles Stross’ Laundry Files? Perhaps a Byzantian take on Swords of the Serpentine set in Constantinople is part of your gaming wish list? If so, then look no further. After successful seasons of games for […]

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