Tag Archives: Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan

Esoterrorist Cells – The Methodology

The Esoterrorists are not a conspiracy, per se. There’s no head of Esoterrorism, no command structure. It’s not that each cell is completely independent – you can make connections, follow the money, tap the phones, build up the webs and hierarchies used by counterterrorist researchers and investigators, but it’s not a conspiracy. Don’t think cell […]

Esoterrorist Cells – The New Men

The Esoterrorists are not a conspiracy, per se. There’s no head of Esoterrorism, no command structure. It’s not that each cell is completely independent – you can make connections, follow the money, tap the phones, build up the webs and hierarchies used by counterterrorist researchers and investigators, but it’s not a conspiracy. Don’t think cell […]

Esoterrorist Cells – Invisible Lightning

The Esoterrorists are not a conspiracy, per se. There’s no head of Esoterrorism, no command structure. It’s not that each cell is completely independent – you can make connections, follow the money, tap the phones, build up the webs and hierarchies used by counterterrorist researchers and investigators, but it’s not a conspiracy. Don’t think cell […]

I Know A Guy – Integrating Player-Generated Characters Into Adventures

Several GUMSHOE games offer the players the power to retroactively add contacts and allies into the story. Night’s Black Agents has the Network ability, there’s Correspondents in Trail of Cthulhu, and the GM might offer a contact for an Investigative spend or push. Some tips on using such characters: Start with the scenario If you’re […]

The Mystery & The Problem

In most mysteries, the investigator’s discovery of the crime restores the world to rights. The detective figures out that the butler did it, and the police arrest the murderer. The crime and its cover-up are an aberration, and uncovering them means the laws and morality of wider society can reassert themselves. The Cthulhu Mythos doesn’t […]

A Reappraisal of Th’rygh

For the last, er, twenty-five years or so, I’ve run a Cthulhu game every year at Warpcon. In recent years, they’ve been playtests or first drafts of material intended for publication – scenarios like A Cigarette, a Blindfold and You or, for that matter, Cthulhu City began life as con scenarios. But the early scenarios […]

The Manticorn

Over on my twitter, I sometimes post entertaining or suggestive errors as typos of the day. Yesterday, I accidentally typed “manticore” as “manticorn”, which prompted… The Manticorn According to rumour, the Manticorn was once a fearsome manticore, an ancient and especially cruel creature. In time, he came to repent of his dreadful habit of hunting […]

Don’t Panic! Alternate Fear rules for Fear Itself

Fear Itself and most other GUMSHOE games use a Stability system that’s inspired by the classic Call of Cthulhu ‘mental hit points’ approach – your character has a big pool of Stability that gets ablated over time by horrific encounters, until you’re eventually forced to ‘heal’ or get taken out. This approach works well for […]

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Roll For Initiative

One of my favourite techniques for livening up a campaign is to hand out a bunch of disposable characters for the players to play for a single session. It’s certainly not original to me: Ken’s often spoken of the genius of the Raid on Innsmouth scenario for Call of Cthulhu, which gives the players command […]

Time, Dracula and Investigations

Dracula Daily emails you once a day with the text of whatever elements of (the redacted) Dracula happened on that date. So, a day’s email might be a single entry from Jonathan Harker’s diary, or some pieces of correspondence between Lucy’s suitors. Or nothing at all, if no letters or diary entries are dated that […]

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