a column on roleplaying by Robin D. Laws When characters in DramaSystem want to accomplish something practical, external to their emotional goals, the full procedural system seen in Hillfolk allows you to narrate a detailed scene around that. It determines not only what ultimately happens, but lays down a series of suspense beats along the […]
As the dog days of summer approach, thoughts turn momentarily from game publishing to the quaffing of celebratory cocktails. When Pelgranes gather for their winter summit in London, host and Pelgrane co-honcho Simon Rogers plies us with wines as sweet as our plans for the coming year. But in the the summer heat the cosmos […]
Carnivals have always exuded a faint fetor of menace. Itinerant strangers come to town, some of them dressed as clowns, and try to trick you or exploit the basest depths of your curiosity. They exist to break down boundaries, give you permission to indulge, and then move on, leaving you, the seemingly innocent townsfolk, to […]
In a previous post I laid out the basics of Shock and Injury cards in The Yellow King Roleplaying Game (now on Kickstarter.) Let’s now dive in a bit more detail into the way certain of the cards evoke the sense of a multi-step recovery. Like anything in GUMSHOE, they emulate the way things work […]
As those who’ve read the preview draft of the Yellow King Roleplaying Game (available to all backers of its Kickstarter) already know, its iteration of GUMSHOE takes a new approach to the emotional and physical wounds horror characters suffer in the course of their exploits. When something debilitating happens to your character you receive Shock […]
The elements of The Yellow King Roleplaying Game Game currently exciting folks who’ve read the preview version are its new, quick, player-facing combat system and the alluring status effects of its Shock and Injury cards. What players who take part in your campaign will most remember about are the interconnections their different characters experience between the […]
…or so concluded Melissa Gay, artist for The Wars, one of the four books conjuring the interwoven, skewed realities of The Yellow King Roleplaying Game (now on Kickstarter.) Technically I asked Melissa to draw not an ornithopter but an odanathopter, as this aircraft from the weird battle zones of Europe’s 1947 Continental War is called […]
A scenario seed for The King in Yellow Roleplaying Game As heroes of the revolution that deposed the Castaigne regime you’ve been invited to take center stage at the first 4th of July celebration in 97 years. In 1920, backed by the King in Yellow, the Imperial Castaigne dynasty took over the US. Six months […]
See Page XX A column about roleplaying by Robin D. Laws Since Cthulhu Confidential’s arrival in foyers and post office boxes worldwide, a couple of folks have asked me how one might go about combining GUMSHOE One-2-One with Trail of Cthulhu’s standard multiplayer format. The short answer is, uh, I didn’t design them to fit […]
In 1895 Paris, young Erik Satie has already written his most haunting pieces and plays piano for seekers of mystical awareness. The world’s most famous can-can dancer, Louise Weber, has decided to strike out on her own. Painter Odilon Redon paints spiders with weeping human faces—like the one you saw in your studio. Auguste Rodin […]
