Category Archives: Gumshoe

GUMSHOE general category

The RPG Geek One Sheet GUMSHOE Contest 2015

by Yohann Delalande [Editor’s Note: Yohann ran the the One Sheet GUMSHOE competition on RPG Geek, which had an extraordinary 18 entries. Congratulations to all the entrants .You can download all the entries here.] One of the recurring obstacles every GM has met at least once concerns time vs preparation work. After all, it is […]

See Page XX: Adjusting the Circuitry

See Page XX A Column about Roleplaying by Robin D. Laws When we of the Pelgrane-Industrial Complex write and test GUMSHOE scenarios, we take care to avoid short circuits—moments that, early in play, could conceivably allow the investigators to abruptly move to the end of the story. The dissatisfactions of short-circuiting are various. The players […]

“Something Wonderful Has Been Created”, Dracula Dossier Review

Karloff reviewed the backer-PDF copy of the Dracula Dossier. You can find the full review here. Thanks, Karloff! Karloff says, “This improvisational Night’s Black Agents campaign setting, complete with the unredacted print copy of Stoker’s first edition Dracula and a massive Director’s Handbook, is beyond huge. It’s one thing to write up Stoker’s Dracula with little […]

Interpersonal Abilities as Personal Traits

The most vivid GUMSHOE investigative abilities in play are the Interpersonal ones. They allow your characters to get information through extended dialogue with Game Master characters, requiring a touch more player skill than the Technical or Academic categories. They also show, in the game’s imagined on-screen space, who your character is and what attitudes she […]

See P. XX: Seamless GUMSHOE

Page XX A Column about Roleplaying by Robin D. Laws Clue-gathering in GUMSHOE differs from previous investigative games in one very minor way. Its central tweak isn’t even an extra step to the process players may already be familiar with. GUMSHOE removes a step from the standard approach. Anyone who’s played nearly any trad RPG […]

Otherworld (3 – Icons of the Otherworld)

Even if you’re not using the 13th Age rules, these ten icons demarcate and imply the Otherworld setting. (And you can plug Icons into, say, GUMSHOE or the game system of your choice with ease – Ken did it for Night’s Black Agents here). Player characters in Otherworld are assumed to start off in ignorance […]

Improvising With GUMSHOE

Improvising With GUMSHOE by Steve Dempsey This article discusses an improvised variant of the GUMSHOE rules. It can be just as easily used for Fear Itself, Esoterrorists, or any other GUMSHOE game. Most games of GUMSHOE are played using a scenario that the GM has written. Not only does she introduce each scene and play […]

Toy GUMSHOE – Part One

This toy version of GUMSHOE introduces you to the basic concepts of the system which powers Trail of Cthulhu, Esoterrorists and Night’s Black Agents. Note, I’m not a game designer (whatever wikipedia says), and this version of GUMSHOE really is just for demonstration purposes. GUMSHOE was designed to power games which feature some investigative elements. […]

Call of Chicago: Bram Stoker’s Pre-Gens

In The Dracula Dossier, one of my favorite campaign frames — inserted at Simon’s insistence, and written mostly by Gareth — is “Unto the Fourth Generation,” in which you play the whole saga of Operation Edom from 1894 to 1940 to 1977 to now. That’s right, you begin as the original 1894 heroic band — the cast […]

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