Cat Tobin, Pelgrane Press co-owner, managing director, and conspyramid head, zeroes in on the bedrock technique of mystery-solving as she reveals her favorite GUMSHOE ability. GUMSHOE is the groundbreaking investigative roleplaying system by Robin D. Laws that shifts the focus of play away from finding clues (or worse, not finding them), and toward interpreting clues, […]
Search Results for: GUMSHOE
22
Apr
Apr
Bifrons. Glasya-Labolas. Marchosias. Names to conjure with – literally! This GUMSHOE Zoom takes you inside the pentacle and introduces you to the hierarchy of Hell. Historical European demon-summoning magic just got easier and more realistic. Um … yay?
From the mid-13th century to the early 20th century, Western European magicians summoned, bound, and commanded demons using the Names of God, Jesus, and various angels. Some were black magicians seeking power and poison; others thought of themselves as white magicians investigating the laws of Nature and the deeds of Man.
Their art, goëtia, is the subject of this Zoom. In goëtic magic, there are no fireball spells. If you want to toss a fireball at someone, you have to summon a demon and command it to go toss a fireball at your foe. Same thing if you want to reconcile two enemies, or learn astronomy overnight. It’s demons all the way down.
Praise for Ken Writes About Stuff,
“The content of KWAS is top-notch, as one would expect from a RPG luminary like Kenneth Hite” –Daniel D.
“ brief injection of Hite-ian awesome … they’re just about the right length to digest in a single sitting, and full of amazing ideas that will make anyone’s game into a flavourful occult gumbo” –Bill Templeton
What is a GUMSHOE Zoom?
Not everything can support a game of its own, or even a big sourcebook. For those things, we present the GUMSHOE Zoom, a sort of supplement focused on a key game mechanic and its possible applications. In general, Zooms are interesting potential hacks, or intriguing adaptations of the main rules. Some apply to one specific topic or sub-sub-genre. Others cross all manner of GUMSHOE turf; you can slot them in and adapt them to tales of Cthulhuoid investigation, mean superpowered streets, or alien colonies alike.
Zooms are experimental. That does mean that they haven’t been playtested, necessarily. (If something in here is really really broken – and it’s not, as this ain’t our first rodeo – we’ll fix it in post.) But that also means we encourage you to experiment with them. Changing the cost, or prerequisites, or point effect, or other mechanical parameters of a given Zoom changes how often it shows up and how much drama it drives. The dials are in your hands.
Zooms will change the focus of your play if you use them. Putting a mechanic on the table puts it into your game. Adding a Zoom means more actions, possibly even more scenes, using those rules. Since the Zoom mechanics are intended to encourage specific actions or flavors, to force a card in your storytelling hand, they aren’t “balanced” against “normal” actions or rules. In general, if you don’t want to see more of it, don’t Zoom in on it.
Zooms are optional rules. You can and should ignore them if you don’t want them, or change them at will. After all, if a given Zoom turns out to be crucial to an upcoming GUMSHOE game, we’ll change it to fit that specific genre or form of storytelling.
GUMSHOE Zoom: Goëtia is the eleventh installment of the second Ken Writes About Stuff subscription.
22
Apr
Apr
GUMSHOE Zoom: Voodoo 2: The Invisibles
The Invisibles, more than spirits and a little less than gods, can fit inside stones, trees, and their servitors’ heads — but not into just one issue of KWAS! Whether you call them Loa or Orisha, these mighty beings demand your attention and your sacrifice, but give you hidden knowledge and awaken your interior fires. This second issue of our two-issue Voodoo series gives you plenty of Invisibles to summon, battle, invoke, and ally with whether you’re hunting Dagon in Haiti or rogue programs on your starship.
GUMSHOE Zoom: Voodoo 2 – The Invisibles is the third installment of the second Ken Writes About Stuff subscription.
Praise for Ken Writes About Stuff,
“The content of KWAS is top-notch, as one would expect from a RPG luminary like Kenneth Hite” –Daniel D.
“ brief injection of Hite-ian awesome … they’re just about the right length to digest in a single sitting, and full of amazing ideas that will make anyone’s game into a flavourful occult gumbo” – Bill Templeton
What is a GUMSHOE Zoom?
Not everything can support a game of its own, or even a big sourcebook. For those things, we present the GUMSHOE Zoom, a sort of supplement focused on a key game mechanic and its possible applications. In general, Zooms are interesting potential hacks, or intriguing adaptations of the main rules. Some apply to one specific topic or sub-sub-genre. Others cross all manner of GUMSHOE turf; you can slot them in and adapt them to tales of Cthulhuoid investigation, mean superpowered streets, or alien colonies alike.
Zooms are experimental. That does mean that they haven’t been playtested, necessarily. (If something in here is really really broken – and it’s not, as this ain’t our first rodeo – we’ll fix it in post.) But that also means we encourage you to experiment with them. Changing the cost, or prerequisites, or point effect, or other mechanical parameters of a given Zoom changes how often it shows up and how much drama it drives. The dials are in your hands.
Zooms will change the focus of your play if you use them. Putting a mechanic on the table puts it into your game. Adding a Zoom means more actions, possibly even more scenes, using those rules. Since the Zoom mechanics are intended to encourage specific actions or flavors, to force a card in your storytelling hand, they aren’t “balanced” against “normal” actions or rules. In general, if you don’t want to see more of it, don’t Zoom in on it.
Zooms are optional rules. You can and should ignore them if you don’t want them, or change them at will. After all, if a given Zoom turns out to be crucial to an upcoming GUMSHOE game, we’ll change it to fit that specific genre or form of storytelling.
22
Apr
Apr
The first of a new series of GUMSHOE Zooms looking at historical magic traditions — and giving you the tools and rules to evoke these puissant powers in your own game! This first issue in a two-issue series examines sympathetic magic and zombies, and Zooms in on the Afro-Caribbean magical-religious complex encompassing Vodoun, Candomble, Santeria, Obeah, and Palo Mayombe. The loa ride in May!
GUMSHOE Zoom: Voodoo 1 – Magic is the second installment Ken Writes About Stuff volume 2.
Voodoo 1 – Magic includes,
- 29 new spells, including Curse with Nightmares, and Enter Dreams
- Full voodoo mechanics, from preconditions, to power and resistance, with full GUMSHOE statistics
- Considerations for Trail of Cthulhu, Mutant City Blues, and Night’s Black Agents
- and more!
Praise for Ken Writes About Stuff,
“The content of KWAS is top-notch, as one would expect from a RPG luminary like Kenneth Hite” – Daniel D.
“ brief injection of Hite-ian awesome … they’re just about the right length to digest in a single sitting, and full of amazing ideas that will make anyone’s game into a flavourful occult gumbo” – Bill Templeton
What is a GUMSHOE Zoom?
Not everything can support a game of its own, or even a big sourcebook. For those things, we present the GUMSHOE Zoom, a sort of supplement focused on a key game mechanic and its possible applications. In general, Zooms are interesting potential hacks, or intriguing adaptations of the main rules. Some apply to one specific topic or sub-sub-genre. Others cross all manner of GUMSHOE turf; you can slot them in and adapt them to tales of Cthulhuoid investigation, mean superpowered streets, or alien colonies alike.
Zooms are experimental. That does mean that they haven’t been playtested, necessarily. (If something in here is really really broken – and it’s not, as this ain’t our first rodeo – we’ll fix it in post.) But that also means we encourage you to experiment with them. Changing the cost, or prerequisites, or point effect, or other mechanical parameters of a given Zoom changes how often it shows up and how much drama it drives. The dials are in your hands.
Zooms will change the focus of your play if you use them. Putting a mechanic on the table puts it into your game. Adding a Zoom means more actions, possibly even more scenes, using those rules. Since the Zoom mechanics are intended to encourage specific actions or flavors, to force a card in your storytelling hand, they aren’t “balanced” against “normal” actions or rules. In general, if you don’t want to see more of it, don’t Zoom in on it.
Zooms are optional rules. You can and should ignore them if you don’t want them, or change them at will. After all, if a given Zoom turns out to be crucial to an upcoming GUMSHOE game, we’ll change it to fit that specific genre or form of storytelling.
22
Apr
Apr
GUMSHOE Zoom: Mind Control
You are growing very interested.
This is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful GUMSHOE Zoom I’ve ever known in my life. Presenting detailed rules for brainwashing, memetics, telecontrol, and brain hacking, and for gear from the Microwave Auditory Effect gun to subliminal flashers to tinfoil hats, it brings the fight inside your head.
The GUMSHOE Zoom: Mind Control is intended to model the sorts of stories in which mind control – and especially the contest in and over human minds – takes center stage. This might be a single novel such as George du Maurier’s Trilby or Dan Simmons’ Carrion Comfort, or a film like Scanners, Push, Inception, Videodrome, or Invaders from Mars. Mind control is a powerful, core trope in science fiction, fantasy, and horror; specific aliens, wizards, or monsters might use these rules even if the player characters aren’t psionic. Individual mind-controllers might be malevolent, like Dracula or Rasputin, or heroic, like Dr. Xavier or Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Hite introduces the Mental Battlefield system, presenting a single mind as the battlespace. With this system, the host mind struggles against the invading mind (or minds) through the Superego, Ego, and the Id. Full GUMSHOE statistics included.
It’s usable in any GUMSHOE setting, and includes styles for Trail of Cthulhu, Ashen Stars, Gaean Reach, Fear Itself, Night’s Black Agents and Esoterrorists.
Praise for Ken Writes About Stuff:
“The content of KWAS is top-notch, as one would expect from a RPG luminary like Kenneth Hite” – Daniel D.
“ brief injection of Hite-ian awesome … they’re just about the right length to digest in a single sitting, and full of amazing ideas that will make anyone’s game into a flavourful occult gumbo” – Bill Templeton
GUMSHOE Zoom: Mind Control is the tenth installment of Ken Writes About Stuff Volume 1.
What is a GUMSHOE Zoom?
Not everything can support a game of its own, or even a big sourcebook. For those things, we present the GUMSHOE Zoom, a sort of supplement focused on a key game mechanic and its possible applications. In general, Zooms are interesting potential hacks, or intriguing adaptations of the main rules. Some apply to one specific topic or sub-sub-genre. Others cross all manner of GUMSHOE turf; you can slot them in and adapt them to tales of Cthulhuoid investigation, mean superpowered streets, or alien colonies alike.
Zooms are experimental. That does mean that they haven’t been playtested, necessarily. (If something in here is really really broken – and it’s not, as this ain’t our first rodeo – we’ll fix it in post.) But that also means we encourage you to experiment with them. Changing the cost, or prerequisites, or point effect, or other mechanical parameters of a given Zoom changes how often it shows up and how much drama it drives. The dials are in your hands.
Zooms will change the focus of your play if you use them. Putting a mechanic on the table puts it into your game. Adding a Zoom means more actions, possibly even more scenes, using those rules. Since the Zoom mechanics are intended to encourage specific actions or flavors, to force a card in your storytelling hand, they aren’t “balanced” against “normal” actions or rules. In general, if you don’t want to see more of it, don’t Zoom in on it.
Zooms are optional rules. You can and should ignore them if you don’t want them, or change them at will. After all, if a given Zoom turns out to be crucial to an upcoming GUMSHOE game, we’ll change it to fit that specific genre or form of storytelling.
22
Apr
Apr
From Muay Thai’s ruthless “eight-point” technique, to swift and deadly Aikido, or plain-old pugilism, GUMSHOE Zoom: Martial Arts features new rules and options for any GUMSHOE setting. This Zoom includes nine styles of martial arts, both armed and unarmed, rules for customization, and The Way Of The GUMSHOE.
GUMSHOE Zoom: Martial Arts is intended to model the sorts of stories in which martial arts combat takes center stage in at least one scene. In addition to straight martial-arts films like Enter the Dragon or Ong-Bak, you can see such martial arts foregrounding in hybrid thrillers such as Raid: Redemption, The Matrix, or Haywire, or even as a set piece in a “straight” spy thriller like The Bourne Supremacy.
It’s usable in any GUMSHOE setting, and includes styles for Trail of Cthulhu, Ashen Stars, Night’s Black Agents and Esoterrorists.
GUMSHOE Zoom: Martial Arts is the second installment of Ken Writes About Stuff Volume 1.
Praise for Ken Writes About Stuff:
“The content of KWAS is top-notch, as one would expect from a RPG luminary like Kenneth Hite” – Daniel D.
“A brief injection of Hite-ian awesome … they’re just about the right length to digest in a single sitting, and full of amazing ideas that will make anyone’s game into a flavourful occult gumbo” – Bill Templeton
What is a GUMSHOE Zoom?
Not everything can support a game of its own, or even a big sourcebook. For those things, we present the GUMSHOE Zoom, a sort of supplement focused on a key game mechanic and its possible applications. In general, Zooms are interesting potential hacks, or intriguing adaptations of the main rules. Some apply to one specific topic or sub-sub-genre. Others cross all manner of GUMSHOE turf; you can slot them in and adapt them to tales of Cthulhuoid investigation, mean superpowered streets, or alien colonies alike.
Zooms are experimental. That does mean that they haven’t been playtested, necessarily. (If something in here is really really broken – and it’s not, as this ain’t our first rodeo – we’ll fix it in post.) But that also means we encourage you to experiment with them. Changing the cost, or prerequisites, or point effect, or other mechanical parameters of a given Zoom changes how often it shows up and how much drama it drives. The dials are in your hands.
Zooms will change the focus of your play if you use them. Putting a mechanic on the table puts it into your game. Adding a Zoom means more actions, possibly even more scenes, using those rules. Since the Zoom mechanics are intended to encourage specific actions or flavors, to force a card in your storytelling hand, they aren’t “balanced” against “normal” actions or rules. In general, if you don’t want to see more of it, don’t Zoom in on it.
Zooms are optional rules. You can and should ignore them if you don’t want them, or change them at will. After all, if a given Zoom turns out to be crucial to an upcoming GUMSHOE game, we’ll change it to fit that specific genre or form of storytelling.
20
Apr
Apr
A horrific supplement for The Esoterrorists and Fear Itself
By Dave Allsop and Adrian Bott
See a PDF sample of the Book here.
The Book of Unremitting Horror was nominated in the Best Monsters/Adversaries category of the Ennie Awards.
Introduction
Players in horror campaigns are a little too accustomed to the nightmares their characters face; even the most eldritch of tentacular horrors is less intimidating when you know exactly what it is, because your PC has faced it before.
New times demand new nightmares. This, therefore, is a book of horrors, not a manual of monsters. The horrors are nightmarishly intimate, often created from human vice, or let loose by human greed. They show us the ugliness that underlies reality. They are the crawling things under the rock of the everyday, sane world. Consequently, we’ve detailed our creatures in depth.
Each one has its own agenda, its own reason for existence and its own legend. We’ve made these creatures unusual, frightening and bizarre, yet sufficiently comprehensible that they players realize they are up against something intelligent, if inhuman.
The Book of Unremitting Horror includes thirty creatures each with:
- Diary entries, articles and transcripts
- A detailed description with behaviour
- The forensic clues left behind by the creature
- Details of their history and origins
- Their special abilities
- Their GUMSHOE system stats
The Book covers using creatures with The Esoterrorists background, and another includes detailed adventure hooks for use with that setting. There are also artifacts and new GUMSHOE abilities.
Finally, the book includes two full length adventures.
Using BOUH with The Esoterrorists and with Fear Itself
In Esoterrorists, you are a highly competent investigator, tracking down creatures of Unremitting Horror. You may risk injury, madness and death, but it’s your choice. In Fear Itself, you’re just a normal person, and the creatures are after you. Let’s take an example creature, the Sisterite. She hunts down vulnerable men online, arranges a date, then kills them. In Fear Itself, the adventure would start with your techie friend going missing. In Esoterrorists, you would be part of the OV investigating the work of a peculiar serial killer.
Reviews
The Book of Unremitting Horror is our most critically acclaimed. See the complete reviews to date here.
In my option The Book of Unremitting Horror is a must-have for any GM interested in running horror campaigns, regardless if he/she is using a GUMSHOE game or not.
Excellent, atmospheric and very printer friendly. As a fan of gory, disturbing horror I can’t recommend this book highly enough. As a gamer, these monsters will show up in most of the sessions I run, and what higher review can I give this product than that?
The Book of Unremitting Horror is based on the d20 Book of Unremitting Horror already released by Pelgrane Press Ltd, and contains duplicate material from that publication.
People who bought this also bought The Esoterrorists 2nd Edition, Invasive Procedures and The Seventh Circle.
You may also be interested in GUMSHOE Starter Kit Bundle.
The GUMSHOE Community program is now even bigger! Earlier this year we launched the GUMSHOE Community program, making Ashen Stars content available to creators. We have now expanded the content available, and so the program now includes the following game lines: Ashen Stars The Esoterrorists Fear Itself TimeWatch If you’re not familiar with the Community […]
Kevin Kulp teases the upcoming Swords of the Serpentine as he reveals his favorite GUMSHOE ability. Or abilities. GUMSHOE is the groundbreaking investigative roleplaying system by Robin D. Laws that shifts the focus of play away from finding clues (or worse, not finding them), and toward interpreting clues, solving mysteries and moving the action forward. […]
Harness the power of the seemingly inconsequential with Wade Rockett as he reveals his favorite GUMSHOE ability. GUMSHOE is the groundbreaking investigative roleplaying system by Robin D. Laws that shifts the focus of play away from finding clues (or worse, not finding them), and toward interpreting clues, solving mysteries and moving the action forward. GUMSHOE […]