My original roleplaying group began 35 years ago. I received the AD&D Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide for my birthday, learned the game from there, and ran it for my friends. People left and joined the group, set in the same campaign, over the years, but none of them ever played in any other […]
Category Archives: General
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 […]
The Pelgrane Press beavers have been at work, so GenCon pre-order logjam has been entirely unblocked, and we have a flume of new releases. For 13th Age we have 13 True Ways, The Book of Loot, Shadows of Eldolan. For Trail of Cthulhu there’s Mythos Expeditions and Soldiers of Pen and Ink. For Hillfolk there […]
I’ve been asked at panels, on social media and in person about the effect of D&D 5th Edition on 13th Age. The concern is that 5e will negatively affect 13th Age sales is also averred to in this excellent review of the 13th Age Bestiary over at Geek Native. Won’t the new version of 5th […]
Coming to you live… Well, obviously not live live – while I may be writing this from a hotel room in Indianapolis, it won’t be up on the Pelgrane site for a week. And for that matter, I’m hardly alive either, after the arguably best but very definitely longest four days in gaming. Let us […]
With Gencon upon us like an amorous gorilla of fun, here are six precepts that have served me well when running games at conventions. 1. Know The Player Characters The PCs are the players’ interface with your adventure. If there’s one bit of preparation you can never skimp on, it’s the player characters. You don’t […]
The ENnies voting booth is open. Here is the Pelgrane Press slate of nominations, and we ask that you consider ranking us in your selection. Why not download our free ENnies sampler with PDFs and music here (70MB)? You can check out Page XX here, and Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff here. Best Adventure […]
Every now and again, I allude jokingly to my “patented one hour per paragraph production model.” This joke has the advantage of making Simon squirm and laugh hollowly, and the disadvantage of sometimes being true. Those little ability clues that I so thoughtlessly made standard in Hideous Creatures? Some of them, especially for the harder […]
In all GUMSHOE games, there’s a benefit for having 8 rating points in Athletics – your Hit Threshold rises by 1. Night’s Black Agents expanded this to all General Abilities – if you invest eight of your precious build points in a particular ability, you get a cherry, a special ability that shows off your […]
In the latest episode of their herb-scented podcast, Ken and Robin talk Chimeriades, plausible alternate histories, Mount Shasta Lemurians and Rob Ford in rehab.