Gumshoe and Pelgrane Virtual Con 2024, Part 4
Gumshoe and Pelgrane Virtual Con 2024, Part 4
Here we are on to the final games and some thoughts on how it went and what's next.
So, to Fear Itself Mr. Hector "Fiasco" Trelane tried to gather as many victims as he could to try this sometimes ignored, but brilliant iteration of Gumshoe. He'd picked out the classic scenario Ocean in the Forest from the 1st edition of Fear ItselfFear Itself
Players were gamers themselves, attending a LARP camp where there was a competition for a sizeable prize. But the enthusiasm started to boil over into naked aggression, the players showed ingenuity and won a few team games, before the whispers began and the horror descended!
Fear Itself brings out real fear, given you are essentially an everyday dweeb, therefore any horror - real or imagined can have a terrible impact. As a GM it's often best to play this down, to lull unsuspecting players into your devious webs!
Next up and last in the season was The Estoterrorists, I was running this, adapting it from Robin D. Laws Arcimboldo Syndrome. It was called Four Seasons in One Head.
As mentioned, it was a hack of Arcimboldo Syndrome a 2022 Fear Itself scenario hook from Robin D Laws, I kept the setting in Florida, the Everglades and changed the system to Esoterroists, then used a bit of Outer Dark flavour, The Glistening and a Drugs Cartel floating around the area for more chaotic opportunities. A lot of fun was had researching the Everglades, the EPA, the Miccosukee tribe and their heritage.
The group sensibly called in the final assault and as a result, apart from Koenig, with a nasty, persistent cough - those spores get everywhere don't you know - they managed to escape unscathed, at least physically, but maybe memories of the old Miccosukee curio shop may come back to haunt them unless Pootles gets to them first (Pootles was a "handbag dog" that had gone missing at Flamingo Campground, one of the players was roped into looking for it by their elderly owner, but who knows what ghastly pollutant Pootles may have swallowed in the Glades).
After running this, I managed to convince one player to purchase The Esoterrorists, so hopefully, I did something right.
Gumshoe & Pelgrane 2024 Thoughts
In 2023 I ran 16 games across 5 weeks. This time was different, we'd move to mini-seasons in the intervening period, 7 games across 7 days, this was from the school of thought of taking your medicine all at once, and spreading games out over a month or more was... draining!
This year we made a few changes, we moved our sign-up to Warhorn, we cut the games down to 12 games in 12 days and we made the sign-up first come, rather than the previous lottery.
Overall I think Warhorn worked really well, it integrated well with Discord, 70 people registered and with some initial work on setting up the Discord channels per game, we were then able to just manage the delta between Warhorn and Discord.
First-come sign-up was a little problematic, I'd made it clear that I'd ask people to step down from games if they signed up for too many. The big question is always, what is too many, now that depends on how many people register, with 12 games there were around 40-50 spaces, so with 70 registered, I felt maybe 2 games max was fair. Anyway, not everyone saw it that way, but 99% of people understood and were happy when I asked them to give others a chance.
We also lost one GM along the way, but these things happen, I'm hoping I can reschedule that game, but it's proving difficult, with just a month to go before the next season starts!
But overall, I'd say it was a success, in 2023 we had around 3 people per game, some folks played 2, 3 or even 4 games. In 2024 we had around 6 people per game - most people playing just one game. Now not every GM wanted to run for 6 people and some games were more popular than others, but on a broad basis, it shows the popularity and reach is increasing.
So what about Gumshoe 2025?
It's a good question, running the seasons takes it out of you.
I'm trying to line up a season per quarter on The Raspy Raven. Spring - Gumshoe, Summer - Seven Wonders (Cthulhu Dark), Autumn - Liminal and Winter - Cold War (mix). Apart from Gumshoe other people will be helping or organising these seasons for me.
I've not begun to think of 2025 yet (shivers). I think Gumshoe will be back, possibly we'll stick to a 7-day, 7-game season, but what I would love to see is a move to a global timezone, especially in the US, but it ultimately depends on GMs and Players. To help, I'm busy gathering feedback, as I did last time, hopefully, we'll get a good view of what people want to play or run in a year's time!
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