Adept Play
Adept Play
Category: Detective/Mystery
This content includes “investigation,” “procedural,” “cozy,” “murder,” and “noir,” among others, many of them incompatible. Play procedures vary greatly regarding methods for asymmetrical information and prepared backstory.
-
Para Int’l and so many beetles
InSpectres! Real play, not just a convention one-off. Here’s my preparation, in this case useful for discussion because I wrote content from play directly onto them. The core content, or backstory, or “what the hell is going on,” of a given situation is not prepared. It is stated into play in bits and pieces whenever…
-
Finding that purpose
I wanted to follow up on my previous post regarding my reflections on Inquest to go more in depth into the Inquest session that I played on the first of the year. It was a planned session with three other friends (Alessio, Benedetta, and Daniele) over a New Year’s gathering. I was playing as the…
-
Arkham City, NY
I’m sharing this actual play experience from 2013 as part of an ongoing discussion of the Gumshoe RPG system and whether it can support real play. I agree that the game text of Trail of Cthulhu, for example, which uses the Gumshoe system, is full of non-play advice to the GM about writing a plot…
-
Realizations about Inquest: people, secrets, and clocks.
As some people around here already know from conversations on the Adept Play Discord, I’ve hit a bit of a burnout phase regarding roleplaying, mostly self-inflicted. I’m sharing this bit as a warning to everyone to not forget to keep focus on your own enjoyment of play rather than helping other people with their enjoyment.…
-
First attempt at an investigation scenario
The following is a transcript of a one-on-one play-by-post session of my Wolves Upon the Coast campaign, Reavers. Wolves Upon the Coast is a combined fantasy iron-age setting and ruleset based on early D&D (ostensibly OD&D but it bears more resemblance to Basic played only fighters.). At the time, the campaign had been running for…
-
The Salvation of Saint Barbara
Sam and me just finished a game of The Hour of Dog and Wolf and reflected on our experience. This is a discussion about the themes/shared experiences, and the use of plot points. Sam played Angelo Scabo, a disorganized killer with visions of Saint Barbara in the small ex-industrial town of Charleroi, in Belgium. It…
-
Murder Most Fowl!
Art by Jennell Jaquays from The Legendary Duck Tower Over the weekend, my spouse (Adrean) and I had some free-time, and we played a one-off of Hero Wars. I already had a character made, a beer drinking Humakti Duck, and Adrean was down to play as Duncan McQuack, Initiate of Humakt. I sat back and…
-
Whodunit/whydunit
Claudio is working on Inquest, his notion of actually playing an invesigation and maybe, even investigating. A lot of people reading this have sweated over the fundamental contradiction: that the fictional “mystery” is no mystery at all to its author, and therefore how may role-players experience a mystery. So I’m hoping for some real discussion…
-
We Both Fail
This weekend I started a one-on-one Dirty World game with Robbie. Dirty World is a noir mystery/crime thriller game using an unusual variation of the One Roll Engine (ORE) created by Greg Stolze. I happen to like ORE quite a bit having played both Wild Talents and The Dreadful Secrets of Candlewick Manor previously. The…