Over the last couple of installments (here and here) I discussed structure as something that mostly takes care of itself if you manage the dramatic rhythms of your roleplaying session on a beat-by-beat basis. Now it’s time to break that down a bit. Our first step is to nail down what we mean by a […]
Last time I talked about allowing the structure of a session or campaign to arise organically, as opposed to imposing it in advance. Let’s drill deeper into that idea with some techniques and examples. Organic structures are built on disparate story threads that eventually converge. The best source of story threads are your players. These […]
When we elect to play RPGs in story-driven mode, we have an array of different narrative forms to draw inspiration from. All of them, from drama to fiction to comic books and movies, offer different lessons. Like magpies, we can steal the most applicable ideas and techniques from each form. By synthesizing these with techniques […]
A set of Guidelines for running mysteries in the style of Robert van Gulik’s “Judge Dee” stories using the Trail of Cthulhu rules The Judge Dee stories are a series of mystery novels and short stories written in the 1950’s and 1960’s by Dutch diplomat and Sinophile Robert van Gulik. Based on traditional Chinese stories […]
Ralf Schemmann produced this schematic map, a snap shot really, of the translight corridors connecting The Bleed, the “region” of space where the PCs – lasers – undertake their contracts in the Ashen Stars game. From Ashen Stars: Translight corridors are not fixed in space. They orbit through the universe, just as the rest of […]
Pelgrane Press acquire the rights to publish an RPGs based on the Dying Earth and Gaean Reach Books By Jack Vance. LONDON, ENGLAND: Pelgrane Press Ltd, a UK-based company, announced today that it has acquired the rights to produce games based on Jack Vance’s seminal Dying Earth stories and The Gaean Reach series. Pelgrane Press […]
As I discussed in Pelgrane Biz Part 1, it’s expensive and risky to print books by offset litho, even though the results are gratifying, and the rewards, if the sales are high enough, are excellent. But there is every chance that Trail of Cthulhu is a one-off success, and won’t be repeated. That said, I […]
As an Ordo Veritatis team dedicated to uprooting the occult menace of the Esoterrorists, the PCs are dispatched to investigate a series of strange mailings. Prominent intellectuals suffering from life-threatening illnesses receive packages from an untraceable group called the Hope Bombers. They promise to pray for the health of the recipients, who tend to be […]
Brad Harmer, on the wonderfully-named Emotionally Fourteen blog, gives The Watchers In The Sky 8 out of 10. The Watchers In The Sky is a truly grim, nasty and Lovecraftian horror adventure. It is, simply, Trail of Cthulhu doing what it does best.