Pelgrane’s forthcoming RPG Ballad Hunters — described in this Page XX article — is about the Child Ballads. They’re named for their compiler, Harvard folklorist Francis James Child. His five-volume collection, published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads in the late 1800s, is today the standard. Child did not tramp through the British countryside […]
Tag Archives: GUMSHOE
by Tristan Zimmerman Pelgrane’s forthcoming RPG Ballad Hunters — described in this Page XX article — is set in 1813 England and Scotland. This is the Regency era of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, of the Napoleonic wars, and of the Luddite revolts. It’s called the Regency because the reigning monarch, George III, is incapacitated […]
In a hole in the ground… they found a body. I know! Here in our beautiful, bucolic village, with its neat hedgerows and picturesque taverns and delightful crumpet shops, we’ve got a murder to solve! It’d be unthinkable if this wasn’t the third murder this week. The bodies are just piling up. Better get cracking […]
A column about roleplaying By Robin D. Laws After a four decade restoration project, a book shrine found in a lake has gone on display at the National Museum of Ireland. Only seven others of its kind survive. Known as cumdachs, these elaborately decorated cases of metal-shod wood were fashioned to contain precious devotional […]
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Jun
Jun
A column about roleplaying By Robin D. Laws When asked what one can do to be a better player, the first thing I always say is: the mere fact that you’re concerned about this suggests that you’re probably already most of the way there. The second thing I say is: see where the ball is, […]
by Emily Cambias This Spiritualism-inspired adventure is best played with Trail of Cthulhu groups that include a Parapsychologist or Medium. Introduction New England, December, 1930. Mrs. Allsopp is a wealthy widow and avid Spiritualist. She’s hosted the medium Lewis Thrush in her home for eight months and holds regular séances with him. Everyone who attends […]
Although the rules don’t call for it, some GUMSHOE groups add a narrative wrinkle to the spending of pool points from general abilities. They call on players to justify why they’re spending the number of points they’ve chosen to add to their die rolls. “I really want to get over this fence so I’m going […]
When preparing to run a pre-written scenario, processing all the information can be overwhelming. A good scenario, after all, includes lots of alternate scenes, optional encounters, plots and subplots. (While your humble scenario writer tries to make everything as clear as possible, the scenario also needs to be entertaining to read, detailed enough to be […]
There’s a gameplay principle articulated in Burning Wheel called Let It Ride. The idea is that in most situations, when a player scores a success on a test, the player doesn’t need to roll again unless circumstances change. For example, the player’s called to make an Athletics test to climb a cliff in the face […]
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Apr
Apr
A column about roleplaying by Robin D. Laws A recent observation I’m adding to my Things I Always Say file is that when players worry about a scenario being railroaded or linear, what they really mean is not that it lacked choices or branch points, but that they didn’t get to Do Their Thing. Many […]