The Nailsuit Variations: Frag Man

Various Pelgranes have written mini-posts inspired by a different filtered image of a mysterious man in a suit of nails. Gareth’s contribution is a scenario hook for Fear Itself. We received a request to reset your password. If this wasn’t you, you can safely ignore this email. If this wasn’t you… What if it was? […]

An Automatically Sent Email About a Basement

Hey guys – Hope all is well with you in these crazy times. You haven’t heard from me for a while. I’ve had a bit of a problem lately and I’ve been trying to handle it myself without bothering anyone else. Especially you guys, since you did kind of warn me off but in my […]

View From the Pelgrane’s Nest – April 2024

I’m delighted to start off with a shout-out to our  estimable Patreon backers! Thanks to Peter, Bryan, Clark, Jim, Emma, Craig, Phil, Bryant, P. Troilus, Michael M, ScottKey, Michael B, Andreas, Ranting John, Samwise, Michael H, Andy, Mark R, Daniel F, Jiří K, heartdoc32, Marcus, and Cena!! NEW RELEASE: The Ocean Game pre-order Way, way […]

See P. XX: Payoff Interludes for GUMSHOE

A column about roleplaying by Robin D. Laws A recent observation I’m adding to my Things I Always Say file is that when players worry about a scenario being railroaded or linear, what they really mean is not that it lacked choices or branch points, but that they didn’t get to Do Their Thing. Many […]

Playtesting: the Serpentine (Non-Human Heroes) in Swords of the Serpentine

By Kevin Kulp This is the eighth in our series on non-human heroes which has so far covered the spider-like Arakene, the Considerata (humans whose souls are contractually linked to gods), Constructs, the fungal Drowned, fey Hidden Folk, Intelligent Animals, and Unsleeping Advisors (secret undead). This month’s Ancestry is inspired by the Conan story The God […]

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 […]

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