In the latest episode of their sturdily constructed podcast, Ken and Robin talk creating protagonists for Page Turners, architect Julia Taylor, Ballad Hunters with Tristan Zimmerman, and Sam Phillips’ Cuba diplomacy.
Page Turners, my game of dramatic interaction for one player and one GM, enables you to create stories resembling the character-driven narratives of films and literary fiction. Unlike the GUMSHOE One-2-One line of one player one GM games, it doesn’t focus on solving external problems. Instead it centers the protagonist’s journey from one emotional state […]
You are terrifyingly invited to test a scenario—or two if you and your group have the time—for Sudden Frights, an upcoming anthology of Fear Itself one-shots. In Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s “Faust Blood,” a college camping trip goes horribly wrong—or horribly right—when the students stumble across the home of infamous occultist John Tradowski. What secrets does he […]
By Jason Kraus Electronic games have popularized in-game achievements, while apps have seized that idea to drive user engagement. Pelgrane Press’s ENnie Award-winning Night’s Black Agents by Kenneth Hite expanded the use of achievements for TTRPGs by awarding immediate Ability refreshes during play. What follows is an effort to add Achievements to The Fall of […]
Pelgrane’s forthcoming RPG Ballad Hunters — described in this Page XX article — is about the Child Ballads. They’re named for their compiler, Harvard folklorist Francis James Child. His five-volume collection, published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads in the late 1800s, is today the standard. Child did not tramp through the British countryside […]
In the latest episode of their grandmasterly podcast, Ken and Robin talk introductory adventures, a 4th century Saracen vampire, the disapproving father character, and magical chess.
a column about roleplaying by Robin D. Laws As reported in November, Polish archaeologists recently found a spiked iron tool establishing that druids local to the area, as they did elsewhere, once practiced trepanation. Until around the 19th century, cultures spanning historical and geographical boundaries did what they could to treat apparent brain ailments, by […]
In the latest episode of their smoothly informative podcast, Ken and Robin talk providing clues to players, the saint with the highest body count, and Ken’s previously undocumented raid on NYC’s Strand Books.
Every year, Pelgrane Overlord Simon Rogers runs a 13th Age game for his long-running group, and every year, he commands me to come up with some distinctive custom monsters. Here’s this year’s mushroom-themed crop of horrors. They’re designed to behave as a monstrous ecology, moving gobbets of fungus magic called Mycorrhizal Pulses around. These pulses […]
In the latest episode of their double-pupiled podcast, Ken and Robin talk Mr. Johnson and why he is bad, a weird ancient beliefs quiz with guest stars Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan and James Wallis, writing compelling exposition, and a murder case ghost.