Tag Archives: Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan

The Lion and the Aardvark

These confusing times of Internet trolls, one-percenters, toxic fame, and impending singularity cry out for clarity—the clarity found in Aesop’s 2,500 year old fables. 70 writers from across the creative spectrum bring their modern sensibilities to this classic format. Zombies, dog-men and robot wasps mingle with cats, coyotes and cockroaches. Parables ranging from the punchy […]

Clues vs. Leads

The core concept of GUMSHOE can be simply stated (or shouted from the rooftops) as “it’s always more fun when the players get the clue”. One could argue, though, that it’s sometimes more accurate to say that the players always get the lead. A lead is a clue that leads in to another scene. Leads […]

The Stairs To The Bottom Of The Universe

A spooky child’s drawing depicts a cryptic staircase that goes “to the bottom of the universe”, a blood-drenched skeleton, and a shadowy monster. What might it signify (other than “these parents are so neglectful they not only produce children who make such drawings, but also exploit them when they’re in need of a quick Page […]

The Plain People of Gaming: What We Did In Paris

Just before Christmas, I finished off the first part of my home campaign of THE YELLOW KING. We’re running it at a fairly fast pace (we’re alternating sessions with Warhammer in deference to the sensibilities of players who want to hit things with swords), and with only a limited number of sessions, I based virtually […]

Station Duty: Bitter Vigil

A previous article outlined an alternate campaign frame for Ashen Stars. Here’s a worked example. (The inspiration for this example, by the way, came from an episode of 99% Invisible about the Great Bitter Lake Association.) In the Ashen Stars setting, ships travel fast-than-light along translight corridors. The largest starships – massive industrial supercarriers, mobile refineries, and […]

(Space) Station Duty

The 2nd edition of the Esoterrorists includes the Station Duty campaign frame, in which a Esoterrorist team is placed on long-term assignment to a particular small town for an ongoing investigation instead of the usual mystery-of-the-week. That approach also works in Ashen Stars. (The obvious worked example: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine swapped out the […]

Four Alternate Mutant Origins

In the world of Mutant City Blues, there’s a single origin for mutant powers:  a mysterious virus called the ghost flu caused approximately 1% of the population to develop incredible abilities. In most campaigns, the ghost flu’s just part of the background, putting the focus on regular criminal investigations flavoured with tasty mutant weirdness. However, […]

Book of the Underworld Cover Story

In a perfect world, I’d work up to revealing the final cover for Book of the Underworld, telling the step-by-step story of how it came to be and finally whipping the sheet off the easel. But that’s now how the internet works. So here’s the cover as painted by Lee Moyer using some original pencil […]

The Plain People of Gaming: Core Competencies

The number one critique of GUMSHOE among those who have little or no experience of the system is that the investigative rules turn the scenario into a railroad, where the players blindly follow a predetermined series of clues – which, being an erudite regular reader of Page XX, you know is not true. Hot on […]

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