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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Tinfoil hats, everyone!
We continued the perils of small business management (and confronting the possible paranormal) in our InSpectres game, playing by screen due to schedule delays. Which turned out unfortunately in a failed sound recording, so a rather excellent and important play session is not available to view. I’ve provided my summary which I hope the other…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.…
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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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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…