News, See Page XX
See Page XX – May 2025
See Page XX: The Pelgrane Press webzine
May 2025 Edition
SEE PAGE XX: WHO DOES THE TALKING?: Robin D. Laws breaks down GUMSHOE’s interpersonal abilities into positional, emotional, leverage, and improvisational groups, giving players a simple decision guide for choosing who steps up to talk to NPCs.
KEEPING YELLOW KING PCS ALIVE: Robin D. Laws offers practical advice for helping player characters survive the horrors of The Yellow King RPG without dulling the game’s sense of dread and escalation.
CALL OF CHICAGO: ROSE MACKENBERG, GHOST-BREAKER: Kenneth Hite explores the life and legacy of Rose Mackenberg, Houdini’s top “ghost breaker,” who exposed fraudulent mediums in 1920s Chicago.
SMOKE AND MIRRORS: Emily Cambias presents a Spiritualism-inspired Trail of Cthulhu adventure featuring a fraudulent medium, a sinister obsidian mirror, and unsettling séances in a haunted New England mansion.
ROBIN JOURNEYS INTO THE SHADOWLANDS FOR A GUMSHOE TELL-ALL: Robin D. Laws reflects on the creation and evolution of the GUMSHOE system in this candid interview with the Shadowlands podcast, sharing design insights, inspirations, and behind-the-scenes stories.
THIS MONTH’S PREVIEW
Page Turners Preview: Addison’s Shadow
Page Turners, the game of dramatic interaction for one player and one game moderator, allows you to explore any story that revolves around interpersonal conflict.
Some scenarios supplied in the book mix familiar genre tropes with the game’s character-driven storytelling structure.
Sarah Saltiel’s “Addison’s Shadow,” brings the contemporary fantastical imagery of the weird tale into family drama.
Since she wrote her piece, Steven Soderbergh helpfully provided a point of reference for this unusual combination with Presence, his recent family drama told from the perspective of a ghost.
Here the player takes on the role of Addison Marten, who at the start of the tale is a precocious seven year old vaguely aware of the tension pulling her family apart. Complicating the brewing conflict between gruff, put-upon father Clint and overworked mom Kaya are the visits of an otherworldly entity.
In Store!
Hamlet’s Hit Points
Hamlet’s Hit Points presents a toolkit that helps make storytelling in any RPG easier and more fun by classifying story beats and letting you track their ups and downs from hope to fear and back.
ORDER NOW!Beating The Story
The most compelling stories move us emotionally. Up and down, between hope and fear, in ways we don’t always expect—but that you can harness as a writer, editor, and critic. This book shows you how to track, map, and understand the rhythm of a story. Whether you’re writing or rewriting, editing a manuscript or dismantling your favorite television episode, Beating the Story helps you understand how stories get hammered into shape.
ORDER NOW!
Friendly Local Game Store
Build the Store Your Community Deserves
Tabletop gaming is on the rise. If you love games like Catan, Magic: The Gathering, or Dungeons & Dragons; like the sound of being your own boss; and are willing to dive deep into what it takes to build a successful business, then this is a book for you.
ORDER NOWThe Bones: Us and Our Dice
The Bones gathers writing about fandom and family—about gamers, camaraderie, and memories— and ties them together where they meet: our dice. These are essays and anecdotes about the ways dice make us crazy, about the stakes we play for and the thrill we get from not knowing what the next roll will bring.
ORDER NOW!
Things We Think About Games
Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball think a lot about games. At their commentary website, Gameplaywright.net, they think out loud about what it means to play games, make games, sell games, and love games. They are gamers.
Here, with fellow game designers and notable game players, they think out loud on paper in the first Gameplaywright book.
ORDER NOWThe White Box Essays
The White Box is a learning, planning, and prototyping tool for tabletop game designers.
The White Box Essays is a book of 25 essays on game design and production. It covers subjects like where to find a great concept, how to use randomness, what to ask playtesters, whether you should self-publish, how to crowdfund wisely, and what to do at game conventions.
ORDER NOW!
Threat Profiles
This sourcebook for Night’s Black Agents does for vampires and their ilk what Hideous Creatures did for the Cthulhu Mythos, offering a ravening pack of new monsters as well as reinterpretations and variants of existing horrors to catch even experienced Agents off guard. Each threat’s write-up gives potential clues and investigative vectors, as well as a sample lair, potential minions, a Conspiramid node or three – and Vampyramid responses and tactics. Status: Being written.
Page Turners
First Edition is the game of personal storytelling for one player and one GM. Incorporating new rules by GUMSHOE One-2-One and DramaSystem designer Robin D. Laws, First Edition features an accessible framework for creating compelling solo protagonist narratives.STATUS: In Layout.
Cassilda’s Song
A massive scenario series by Robin D. Laws for The Yellow King Roleplaying Game, which spans all four of its core sequences.Its overarching plot turns on a contest between the two daughters of the King in Yellow, Cassilda and Camilla, who race with one another to destroy the timelines, winning the favor of their pallid father. Camilla seeks a cataclysm of blood and fire. Cassilda intends to dissolve reality into hallucinatory delirium.STATUS: Art is being commissioned.
A Poison Tree
A campaign for Trail of Cthulhu, a generational saga that spans the globe and 350 years of history as the players take on different roles across five chapters and three interludes. The campaign culminates in world-changing events in the present day, as the players correlate all of their findings, and decide on the destiny of humanity itself!A Poison Tree was originally conceived and written by Matthew Sanderson, Paul Fricker and Scott Dorward, and has been developed and updated by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan.STATUS: First draft manuscript done and in editing.
Boundary of the Darkness
The Lunar Society are a dining club of natural philosophers, industrialists, and radical intellectuals, the embodiment of the Enlightenment. They have wealth, knowledge, and principles. Simultaneously, members of the Bluestockings Society, who meet to discuss art, literature, and politics, have—in their most secret meetings—formed Friends of Blue, a private organisation set up to protect the world from the devastating knowledge of the Mythos. Boundary of the Darkness is an 18th century campaign frame for Trail of Cthulhu by Phil Masters and Sarah Saltiel.STATUS: In Playtest
Crowdfunding News
Fear Itself: Shattered Veil Edition
We successfully funded a Gamefound campaign for Fear Itself: Shattered Veil Edition, featuring a hardback cover, improved art, and The Ocean Game expansion. Late pledges available!
Eternal Lies Reprint Crowdfunding
We’re excited to announce plans for a crowdfunding campaign to reprint Eternal Lies! This edition will feature exciting improvements, which we’ll reveal soon. While no exact date is set, we’re aiming for late August or early September. Stay tuned for more details!
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