A GUMSHOE core clue can be seen as a key, giving the PCs access to a door, behind which more of the story waits. With the key, they can interact with, change, master, and adjust that story. Sometimes a core clue can be a literal key. Literal for the characters, that is, and imagined by […]
Category Archives: Gumshoe
GUMSHOE general category
See P. XX A column on roleplaying by Robin D. Laws The surrealist films your player characters help to create as the Dreamhounds of Paris one day wind up on YouTube. The ones fit for human observation, at any rate. In 1928, expat American photographer and painter Man Ray and French poet Robert Desnos […]
In the latest episode of their ENnie-winning podcast, Ken and Robin talk holy ashes, Mary Sues, a GUMSHOE fallacy and Immanuel Velikovsky.
Continuing Ken’s theme of looting 13th Age for GUMSHOE twists, let’s talk about monsters. In 13th Age, monsters have a sort of rudimentary AI – instead of the GM deciding to use their special abilities in advance, they’re triggered by the result of the attack roll. So, for example, if a ghoul gets a natural […]
Have you ever noticed that having one really beautiful set of mechanics next to another really beautiful set of mechanics leads to lots and lots of friction and unforeseen attraction between them? It’s like the set of a CW show up in this Pelgrane design space, sometimes. Here’s how to take the wonderful Relationship rules […]
NASA’s Cassini probe has detected any icy object in Saturn’s rings that may be a nascent moon. The small object may already be falling apart, making for a story less less impressive than the “baby moon” headlines suggest. So let’s fix that by ripping it from the science headlines for Ashen Stars. The lasers snag […]
A Calgary dentist who bought John Lennon’s tooth at auction says that he looks forward to cloning him in the near future. After finding a jurisdiction with loose bio-ethical regulation, he intends to raise the child in a music-friendly environment—though without exposure to drugs and cigarettes. Rip this story from the headlines for Mutant City […]
In the various mystery sub-genres, suspects shadow, spy upon and track the detectives at least as often as the investigators stake them out. Yet roleplayers react to being watched with less sang froid than do their fictional counterparts. Like imprisonment, enemy surveillance falls into the category of plot elements that players resist, because they seem […]
By now Looking Glass: Mumbai has dropped, in the Ken Writes About Stuff series. We’re right on top of things here. We’re so on top of things that it might still be called Secrets of Mumbai, even though it doesn’t really give away any secrets. I like Looking Glass as a series title for city […]
As a result of the Hillfolk Kickstarter, GUMSHOE is now available under the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution Unported License. The document is a reference for game designers, and is not tuned to teach the game, or provide a playable game experience. If you’re looking for a playable game, seek out such Pelgrane Press titles as […]