Gumshoe and Pelgrane Virtual Con 2024, Part 3
Gumshoe and Pelgrane Virtual Con 2024, Part 3
We come to the final games and start with a cracker, Timewatch from Paul Baldowski, a scenario called Sink or Swim. Not only did Paul take us back 300 years and then another few billion, but he also provided us with memorable PCs Ambrose Bierce, Theo Burr, and Louis Le Prince plus, the debatable star of the show Kwasi Kwarteng. Paul graciously made these available for free see here.
A complex plot across just a few scenes and a few NPCs shows how much you can fit into a Timewatch one-shot! Much thanks to Paul for taking time out of a busy schedule to run this game, do check out his brand new game SANCTION, universal rules for challenge-driven games, like The Dee Sanction.
Onward, to The Yellow King RPG, it's my go-to campaign game at the moment, I'm running the yet-to-be-released Cassilda's Song campaign from Robin D. Laws. We've made it through 1890s Paris and are now into the Continental War of 1947.
For this game we had the pleasure of another game designer, Paul Mitchener, they of Liminal and Out of the Ashes fame, to name a few. The scenario was also set in The Wars (there are four settings for the Yellow King RPG) and it was named The Order of St. Cassilda.
The Reclamation War has raged across Europe for ten years, made even more bloody by the introduction of strange Carcosan weaponry. You are soldiers in that war, with orders to send supplies and weaponry to the besieged Great Cathedral of St. Cassilda in the Alps.
But a surreal and horrifying betrayal is soon to leave you with a dilemma, in even more trouble.
One of the players highlighted it was a great advert for militant vegetarianism, and they suffered with some of the things they had seen.
Okay, this is becoming an epic post, so we are going to have to produce a Part 4. Finally for this post, is Moon Dust Men, a Gumshoe setting from Kenneth Hite. GM Carl had pulled this out of the Gumshoe archives and it was immediately very popular. Carl called his scenario Deiform and here is how he pitches it.
Residents of Bisbee Arizona have reported sightings of 'beings of light' in the hills around the town. The state governor claims these sightings are most likely related to gases being released from old mine workings or people adding peyote to their tequila. And yet the medical examiner of Cochise County has reported an increase in unusual deaths in the town to the FBI. However the proof rapidly disappears as the bodies are quickly removed by 'government agents'.
As FBI agents you work out of the basement of the J Edgar Hoover building and often get passed down the odd jobs no one else wants, you are the custodians of the X Files.
Whilst Carl admits it wasn't quite the campaign frame he thought it was, it seems everyone had a great time, Hector putting together some fantastic spoilerific details in his play report. It's worthwhile if you know Carl, grabbing a beer with him and delving through his thoughts on this setting and the scenario he put together. He's got some fantastic insights on what it is, what it isn't and the trials and tribulations of putting together this scenario.
Okay, once more unto the breach, we will finish off the final two games - The Esoterrorists and Fear Itself - along with a few thoughts on Gumshoe season and ... will I run it in 2025!?