Ken’s upcoming Fall of Delta Green will get Trail of Cthulhu as far into the modern era as it’s likely to go for a while. In the meantime, here’s a quick and dirty ability list with which GUMSHOE investigators can learn too much about the Mythos in 2015 and beyond. With its forensic procedural […]
Tag Archives: robin d laws
A Fear Itself Scenario Premise Start by designing high school age characters. Confine the Worst Thing You Ever Did to the sorts of transgressions ordinary teenagers might get up to. You all hang out together, regarding yourselves as semi-outsiders. You aren’t bullied, nor are you bullies. But neither are you the insider kids. A random […]
Frustrated in your hunt for Quandos Vorn, the arch-criminal of the Gaean Reach upon whom you have sworn vengeance dire? Rather than seek him directly, you and the rest of your rag-tag band of righteous grudge holders may find it fruitful to follow the trail of an item he has stolen. Yes, perhaps in some […]
Your freelance law enforcement crew may have formed and then found a ship with which to ply the justice trade out in the Bleed. Or perhaps you joined an existing laser gang that already had a ship. Whether or not you had a say in the class of ship you crew on, it has an […]
A column on roleplaying by Robin D. Laws A while back in the Alma Mater Magica series I’ve been running we came across an unusual situation not covered by the DramaSystem procedural rules. A wizardly confrontation pitted at least three player factions against each other. I polled the players to find out what their characters […]
When I start a new series, I always intend to keep it separate from the last one. Certain factors inevitably continue from one game to the next. At the top of this list appear the habits of individual players in creating and portraying their characters. The way any two players tend to riff off one […]
See P. XX A column on roleplaying by Robin D. Laws Lovecraft specialized in tales of cosmic horror, in which the insignificance of mere personality pales when confronted with the utter indifference of a materialistic universe. His heroes go mad or are destroyed by monstrous stand-ins for a reality that takes no note of human […]
Antioch, CA, a city of about 100,000 in the San Francisco Bay area. Mr. Verity meets the team in a sleepy old-fashioned coffee shop catering to truck drivers and retirees. He lays out your next assignment as follows: “A local medical doctor and hobbyist paranormal investigator named Randy Harb has been raising awareness of a […]
A Mutant City Blues Scenario Premise Backstory: The local chapter of the Genetic Action Front has long been a lightning rod for tension between the city’s enhanced and unaltered communities. The Crime: When a recent recruit to the organization is found murdered in its offices, slumped over a photocopier, its enemies exult in the scandal. […]
In my recent piece on the necessity of kicking out incorrigibly disruptive players, I briefly mentioned geek culture’s fear of ostracizing behavior. JS3’s comment on the post has me wanting to consider that in a little more depth. The idea that geeks don’t separate themselves from fellow members of the sub-culture due to their own […]