The following article originally appeared on an earlier iteration of See Page XX in February 2008. Find James Semple’s stings for Trail of Cthulhu here, and you can also find the soundtracks James composed for Trail of Cthulhu and Night’s Black Agents. A column on roleplaying by Robin D. Laws Sting, Sting, Sting A GUMSHOE issue […]
Tag Archives: robin d laws
The following article originally appeared on an earlier iteration of See Page XX in December 2007. A column on roleplaying by Robin D. Laws The GUMSHOE system focuses primarily on investigation and by default assumes that moments of interpersonal conflict will be handled through roleplaying. As such it lacks an equivalent of the Persuasion/Rebuff system that […]
The following news items and diary entries originally appeared on DyingEarth.com in 2001 and 2002. You can find the entries for 1998-2000 here. You can find the entries for 2006-2009 here. ☀ Editor’s note: A few of these news items were not categorized by month or year – I have done my best to approximate their […]
The following news items and diary entries originally appeared on DyingEarth.com in 2000. You can find the entries for 2001-2002 here. You can find the entries for 2006-2009 here. ☀ Editor’s note: A few of these news items were not categorized by month or year – I have done my best to approximate their chronology, and have […]
He’s written several books and more than one chapter on the subject. In this Pelgrane Press video dispatch, GUMSHOE and DramaSystem designer Robin D. Laws distills it all down to his top game mastering tip.
The following article originally appeared on an earlier iteration of See Page XX in October 2007. A column on roleplaying by Robin D. Laws Mixing and Matching With GUMSHOE In addition to its primary goal of rethinking the way we run investigative scenarios, GUMSHOE is also an ongoing experiment in rules modularity. Along with whatever […]
The following article originally appeared on an earlier iteration of See Page XX in October 2007. News from Pelgrane Press Since the last missive, we’ve attended GenCon, released three new books and playtested the first pass of Trail of Cthulhu. Three new manuscripts have been laid out and are queued for printing, one awaits layout […]
The following article originally appeared on DyingEarth.com in September 2006. Updates Gomoshan’s Tomb QuickStart Rules GUMSHOE and Esoterrorists Rhialto Update Corrections and Clarifications Gomoshan’s Tomb This month brings the release of Gomoshan’s Tomb, a scenario in the well respected tradition of exploring and looting ancient ruins – though with suitably distinctive Dying Earth twist to […]
GUMSHOE divides abilities according to whether failure at that ability can drive narrative. Because it is never interesting to fail to get information, you never fail with your investigative abilities. General abilities, on the other hand, do offer the possibility of something interesting—if often horrible—happening when you fail a test. You can fail to run […]
This post originally appeared on DyingEarth.com between 2004 and 2007, but could prove useful for the many subsequent GUMSHOE systems. A column about roleplaying by Robin D. Laws On a fundamental structural level, RPG sessions are their own beast, and are unlike movies, TV, and books. However, these related storytelling forms are always worth looking […]