Play-by-Post for Gumshoe One-2-One
From October to April, I’ve been running the Gumshoe One-2-One scenario Alteregomania in a play-by-post style.
I wanted to write up how I approached this, what worked, what didn’t and feedback from the players.
Firstly, a big thanks to Ian, Jerod, Alex, PT, and Jana for playing through this scenario and giving it their all in the quest to get the big scoop!
+++ Please note there are spoilers in the below +++
What is Gumshoe One-2-One?
Gumshoe one-2-one utilises the Gumshoe system, designed by Robin D. Laws, but for one GM and one player. So far, it has been used for the Cthulhu Mythos in Cthulhu Confidential, occult espionage with Night Black Agents: Solo Ops, Superheroes with Alteregomania, and soon to come swords and sorcery as part of The Paragon Blade.
Some basic mechanics: Players are presented with a scene and sometimes a challenge, related to a skill, and one or two six-sided dice are rolled with one of three possible outcomes. An Advance, the best result which usually gives some kind of benefit, A Hold, whereby the challenge is passed but no additional benefits result, and finally a Setback, the challenge fails or succeeds but with complications. If you have played any Powered by the Apocalypse games, this should be familiar to you. Next are the cards. In the simplest game, you gain Edge cards, which can help with challenges or the overall objective of the scenario and Problem cards, which provide costs that hold you back or weaken you. Each iteration of Gumshoe one-2-one gives you variations on these cards. In addition, you have sources, which allow you to broaden your investigative abilities, calling on colleagues and friends who specialise in subject matters that you don’t.
What is Alteregomania?
A setting and scenario for Gumshoe one-2-One, set in New Olympus, a fictional US city. It is a world where superheroes, known here as Superiors, rule the city, all through the company, Plutocorp, which developed the technology to give them their superpowers. You play Klara Koenig, an “Amy Archer” styled investigative reporter working for the newspaper The Pedestrian. In this scenario, your investigation begins at the scene of a fire and develops from that point, along with more stories, which you are directed to by Lawrence Finnegan, your editor.
What is Play-by-Post?
Play-by-Post (PbP) in the context of Tabletop Roleplaying games is a way to run and play a game using only the written word. This originally started as an actual letter being posted, filling in a turn sheet or writing instructions, but has now moved onto electronic forums and social media tools like Discord (Discord is a gamer support service that allows collaboration and coordination to organise games).
In simple terms, a GM posts a scene to a player or players, and then they write their response as to how they react, what actions they perform. The GM may ask for dice rolls or decisions, but essentially, it continues in this format until the scenario has concluded.
Why Play-by-Post?
There are two main attractions for me in running a PbP game.
First, it is a fantastic writing exercise, and writing is something I enjoy and want to improve my skills in. Second, time. PbP has a great deal of flexibility in terms of the time commitment needed to make it successful, much more than online or face—to—face gaming.
I know others have highlighted the narrative-rich aspects of PbP and the ability to take a pause and consider actions, which is not feasible in more interactive TTRPG games.
Why Play-by-Post and Gumshoe one-2-one?
Put simply, I wanted to run a scenario multiple times and compare how different player styles influenced the game. I was also figuring out how to do this with a busy gaming, work and family schedule.
A PbP Gumshoe one-2-one game allows the above, and with the way I set up the games (see later section), I could easily compare each run through. One of the hardest things to manage in a PbP game, and often why they fail, is when one player ghosts, i.e. fails to contribute, so a Gumshoe one-2-one, doesn’t remove this risk but severely limits it by having just a single player.
Lastly deciding to produce and respond to a turn every 24 hours, with breaks at the weekend and for holidays and illnesses, means that we really kept momentum going. Something that is likely not feasible in a longer form game, but worked over a period of 3-5 weeks for this style of one-shot.
What did I set up on Discord?
I created a Discord Forum channel for myself and all the players. I then created a forum post for each player and a series of general posts for rules, links, FAQs and the Starting scene.
By creating a tag for each player and a tag for general, I could then tag each post so that a player could select that tag and view only the posts that they needed to run their game.
After the discussion, I set out some clear rules:
Players would post within a 24-hour cycle from the last GM post.
Players could pause a game for 24 hours or coordinate with the GM if there was an extended break needed, e.g. holiday or illness.
We would not post during the weekend, giving player and GM a break.
If players did not respond for three consecutive turns, I would cancel the game.
Player Cards - Edge and Problem would be pinned in the play channel by the GM to make it easier to find these for later challenges.
At a minimum, we would use Markdown language to differentiate between IC (In Character) = no formatting and OOC (Out of Character) = ``` for code blocks, conversations. Some players extended this, e.g. using quotes for when they spoke and various internal monologues, etc.
All players were given at the same time, up front the following. The starting scene, a choice of the starting problem for Klara, the questions that help define “their” Klara.
As a GM, I would always highlight Challenges and identify the skill needed, the 1 or 2 dice they have for that skill, the Target number for the best role, e.g. Advance and any Problem that would give them an extra die.
I used a Google Sheet tracker to track which scenes a player had covered, as well as a skill tracker for both Klara and her sources, against each of the scenes, e.g. Source A has skill B and it is relevant to scenes D, E and F.
See the link at the end of this article.
I initially, madly, thought I would run all five players in parallel, but this proved to be unworkable and would have lowered the overall quality of the responses as well as my sanity, so the run was sequential. A new player started as the old one ended.
What did the players think?
Consistently, players seemed to enjoy the experience; they highlighted the difficulty in calling out mechanical versus narrative elements of the turn, coupled with the right “voice” to use for their Player Character and when to “stop” narrating. Each character was given a series of questions to answer and a starting problem, in an attempt to make them unique, but this didn’t seem to massively influence the player’s interpretation of Klara, though by their actions and narration, they then did. So, maybe subconsciously, this got them thinking about Klara, her motivations and her background.
A tool comment was that a consolidated single view of Problem and Edge cards would have been more useful when it came to figuring out when and how to use them or try to remove them.
At times, people felt they were being guided during interviews, e.g. a series of questions and answers were written up by me based on some general investigative approaches from the player. Some players wanted to play out each question and response, but others enjoyed this, having felt they’d made their intentions clear to me and wanting to keep the pace up.
This brings up a fundamental difference between players at two ends of a spectrum, one that wants to explore the world and the characters, versus one that wants to solve the case or get the next dopamine hit from overcoming a challenge. There were, of course, variations to this throughout the players who took part.
Players all felt they took time to develop an approach to this style of game, and I purposely left the style up to the player, responding in kind to whether they left me bulleted lists of terse actions or gave me a wall of text with character thoughts and conversations with Non-Player Characters (NPCs). My default position as a player and GM is to focus on the story and add in a little bit of everything for everyone; some combat, some role-playing, some puzzle solving, but ultimately, the aim is to solve the mystery and tell a story as you do.
There were a few challenges related to the story itself, with some scenes that were avoided as being seen as too high risk, e.g. heading to a police station to interview a suspect in what had been uncovered as a corrupt and lethal city. Also, some players felt that the insurance fraud was not a big enough focus for the background presented, looking all the time for something more epic.
Players did, though, love the authenticity of the character and their sources. These comments come from the final player, when I had honed what had worked and was prepared to improvise more around the core threads of the story. This turned a source into a “Best Friend Forever” who would respond with memes and generally help but also hinder Klara, until there was a great emotional payoff in the concluding scenes.
Overall, whilst the players enjoyed the game, they also talked a lot about the possibilities of PbP and what more they could have got out of it. I had no preconceptions going into the game, so I also wanted the players to have the same. On reflection, it may have gone more smoothly if I had level set expectations up front so that I could have leaned into the player’s wishes from the beginning, rather than developing it through play.
What did I think?
As a GM, I did enjoy running this style of game; it’s low preparation and low commitment, though, for the 24-hour turnaround, I knew I had to be consistent in writing up responses - helped by technology in that I could do this via Discord at home on my PC or on the move on my mobile with the Alteregomania doc on google sheets (offline mode) and an easy method to then screenshot cards to add to posts in Discord. Somehow it worked!
There were times when it was a little robotic, during challenges, when I had little time, it was simply a copy-and-paste job. But when I did have a bit more leeway and as I gained more familiarity and confidence with the scenario, I could riff off of scenes and NPCs, as well as introduce new scenes, new cards and NPCs. This aspect was what was most rewarding for myself, that and the interaction with different players to collectively come up with our own story for Klara.
Would I do it again? Would I do it differently?
Firstly, yes, I do plan to run this style of game again. I’m looking at three styles of games I want to try out.
Running the same with a new scenario
The Paragon Blade would be my chosen scope of scenarios, as before, with 4-5 players, or whoever signs up! But with the lessons learned from Alteregomania. a. A session zero to determine the style of play most comfortable for the player. b. A better toolset to manage cards and handouts. c. New ways to make it unique, this would come in the form of hacks to the scenario with the introduction of different scenes, extended scenes or new NPCs to meet with.
Running an open, multiplayer improvised campaign
A multiplayer game starting with all players’ session zero that uses Microscope to define the world and its history, then creating and dropping characters into the world to explore events with a near 100% improvisational and open-ended development of a campaign. So no turns, just respond and riff off of that.
Running a narratively rich scenario
Selecting a Cthulhu Confidential scenario that allows us to focus more on the narration and character development than progressing through the case, and primarily a purer joint creative writing task that generates an emotionally charged story.
Hopefully, I can get one of these up and running before the end of the year.
Once again, a big, big thank you to the Raspy Raven players and Michael Duxbury for the brilliant Alteregomania and, of course, Pelgrane Press & Robin D. Laws for putting together such a wonderful system.
I would finish by saying I 100% recommend the above approach to help develop RPG writing and written improvisational skills, and if you struggle to get the time to meet with a face-to-face group or run or play games online. In addition, at least one of the players, who’d been scared off by the “intimacy and burnout” of a one GM and one player game, felt that this was the perfect, safe introduction to this style of game.