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.
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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…
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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…
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Hero Wars: 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…
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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…
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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…
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A Session of Squamous
So I got the chance to run a Lovecraftian-style scenario at this past weekend’s con, using the rules-light system Squamous. The scenario was inspired by some actual events around an oil company building a pipeline through indigenous land, but I changed the location, and changed the name of the tribe involved to something fictional, so…
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Investigation Based Traits
I’ve recently started my first game of The Pool with a few friends in a tabletop Discord. The setting we all decided on was very mystery focused, with a supernatural influence in the background, and source of many colourful descriptions from people I’ve described the game to. One of my players made a detective kind of character,…
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Neck and neck
This is a joint post for the fourth and upcoming fifth sessions of both Väsen and Godsend Agenda. The first is being played very much rules-as-written with a published scenario, and the second is very much the GM’s personal version of the game, somewhat different from Jerry’s (the author; the game is in development). The…
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Skräck i gamla Sverige
In English-phonetics, that’s “skreck ee gamlah svair-ee-eh.” The Spelens Hus group is playing Väsen, which is a great title. It doesn’t mean horror or monsters, but the entity, essential being, or the term I used in Sorcerer & Sword for the exact concept, imminent. Viewers will notice that Max is taking time off (work stuff),…