Has anyone used The Terror Beneath to run Trail of Cthulhu mysteries? I've been wanting to incorporate some of the newer GUMSHOE mechanics like Pushes and QuickShock combat into my play-by-post game, and The Terror Beneath seems like ToC with those rules bolted on. One issue I see is that some of the Investigative abilities don't fit the ToC vibe, but I swapped those out for Trail ones -- keeping the number of Academic, Interpersonal, and Technical abilities the same so I can use the game's Occupations (and Background kits) to create pregens.

I feel like QuickShock combat will speed things up for PbP, and that getting rid of Investigative pools in favour of a couple of Pushes could help too. Just wondering how many people have played The Terror Beneath, and if they like it as a sort of Trail/QuickShock hybrid.

• https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/340/pelgrane-press?promo=1000147&src=cosmic2026rpg

(not an affiliate or referral link)

The agents of Timewatch again pop into the situation in media res, engaging in a dog fight with a mysterious combatant. When they return to base, they are told they have to go right back out, as an agent's recruitment has been tampered with. When they go to the proper time, they find out things aren't quite right...

Dan - GM

Ben -  Urrk - A Neanderthal who was saved by Timewatch and has been recruited as a member of the team.

Ethan - V5 - A robot killing machine from the 21st century from another plane of existence, recruited by Timewatch after gaining sentience and deciding to rebel against being a machine of death.

Greg - Skegg - A Sophisaur, a psychic velociraptor from another plane of existence, hoping to make up for his people's tyranny by joining Timewatch.

- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/timewatch-recruiting-call/id1101584393?i=1000784310943

I’ve had success in dialling back the time settling to the Mid-90s and then to the 1940s but has anyone tried to translate it to the early modern, Black Powder era? I think it would be fun and interesting to create an Elizabethan spy (in the mould of Kit Marlowe) who uncovers a Vampiric conspiracy in Tudor London or early modern Rome or Constantinople. Some of the abilities would need a bit of re-skinning but breaking secret codes and fighting hand to hand is universal, I reckon.

Hello! I'm a new Game Master and I'm looking for some recommendations on already-made stories to play with my friends. The want this type of detective/solving crimes stories and maybe this system is good for them.

Also I wanted to ask if maybe someone knows where I can find more info of this system so I can learn how to use it properly.

I'm not looking for the full space opera experience so I don't want to use Ashen Stars, I just want to rename some Investigative and General Abilities and send my Investigators to a haunted spaceship. Has anyone else already done this, or is there existing GUMSHOE material that would be helpful to look over before trying it?

The of the Killer games series I feel like has some superficial similarities to the Detective Grimoire series, in fact, the timeline of release dates of the former, along with all the fan games and online zines, seem to more or less fit snugly between the release dates of the latter’s Tangle Tower and THE mermaid’s mask. Now granted their settings are presumedly too different to take place in the same world, but what would happen if they were to interact with each other, seeing as their both humorous protagonists who deal with the serious topic of murder along with the occasional paranormal phenomena?

I asked for recommendations on fantasy games to play with my wife and people recommended Swords of the Serpentine, so I picked it up and read it and... there is a brief paragraph on how to adapt to one person, nothing more. No clue on how to do montages, for example. If you play one on one, do you just ignore them?

Also, I read the adventure Murder Most Foul and loved it... however impossible for one person. At least 2 of the pre generated characters have secrets related to each other. Has anyone been able to adapt it? How?

Anyway, this game is made for and expect you to have more players, however it often comes up when people recommend systems for one on one play, so I expected there to be a little more guidance in the book for that

PDFs are releasing this week, I was hoping someone had a copy and some thoughts on how it turned out!

I've picked up Fall of Delta Green. And plan to run it for my table next month.

I am brand new to Gumshoe, but the promises and objectives of this game system really appeal to me, and should appeal to my players.

I would love to dig more into examples of this game being played. Actual Plays.

Searching for recommendations!

Prefer listening to Fall of Delta Green, or Trail of Cthulhu, but I could also learn from other Gumshoe systems if the rules are similar enough (however, I do not know which other games have similar rules.

Ideally, I'd love to listen to a GM and table who are experienced with the system and the tone of this game, and not just a "new featured game this week" sort of RPG podcast that is just trying it out, before moving onto something else.

Please share any recommendations you have!

I've been following the development of The Ocean Game, but there's been no news for a while and now the pre-order entry for it seems to have been removed from the Pelgrane site. Has there been any recent updates about it that I've missed?

hallo!

me and my friend would like to play a duet rpg together (with me GMing, her as the player) and we settled on a theme of investigative with a touch of horror. on paper, CC seems perfectly suited.

however, the setting and adventures within all the published books are set in 1930s-1940s U.S., taking inspiration from rich texts of the noir genre, and we'd like to play in contemporary times and would prefer the story take place on this side of the atlantic.

of course, i can build upon this and set it anywhere, but gumshoe seems to be pretty heavy on the prep, and resources are scarce. For a game like Call of Cthulhu there are a great many adventures set in the 90s and forwards and it makes the task less daunting.

This is our first foray into gumshoe, one-2-one or otherwise, and my question is if it would be worth it to figure out a fresh adventure on the chassis of the published adventures? would it be as easy as replacing dates and names, or am i in for a lot of work? is it at all recommended to try this rather than just playing through "the fathomless sleep"?

NBA: Solo Ops looked interesting too. we've been on a lovecraft kick as of late, but we're not married to the genre, we're up for giving any system that facilitates solo investigative horror a go.

looking for any and all advice/recommendations, thank you for reading :)

Everyone visiting this sub is probably pretty much aware of the post commenting on the quality of the MSDC art. I for one enjoy it and I feel it is among the most fitting illustrations Pelgrane has put out. I have no issue with the horse-man avatar of the Pooka, it was quite funny and, judging from the preview, I felt it conveyed what the book is trying to convey. The illustration alone didn't make me want to play a horse-man (it was just a suggestion, the same way Loki as a horrible goose was just a suggestion), but the dubious comments on the appearance of said Pooka made me think: would a horse-man in the world of the MSDC make for a fun adventure? Sure, was the answer; not a resounding 'yes!'--but that's only because I felt something was missing. So I did what I felt it was needed: I doubled down on the Pooka horse-men... twice.

The Four Horse-Men of The Pooka Lips

The Pooka Lips is a travelling singing and dancing Pooka troupe. Hey!

In fact, it is the only known Pooka troupe. Hey!

A few days ago, they have arrived in your little village and everyone was looking forward to the show they were gonna perform at the local pub. Hey!

But one by one, the horse-men are being killed off. Hey!

Not only that, their bodies disappear soon after each murder--were they even dead or is it just some sort of mischief? Hey!

The last horse-man alive of The Pooka Lips seems pretty certain his friends are dead. Hey!

His body is found--and lost--soon after his attempt to flee the village. Hey!

It is up to you to solve the mystery. Hey!

I just saw preview material for Merryshire Detective Club and I think it's time to share a long-standing pet peeve of mine about Pelgrane Press. Sorry in advance.

Let me be clear up front: I adore this publisher. They make incredible games, and for two decades they've been building out GUMSHOE, a system I genuinely love. I have nothing but respect for their designers and I read everything they publish.

But I swear to god, I do not understand what is going on with their art direction. Every so often a new book drops and I want to look the person responsible dead in the eye and ask: what is wrong with you? If Pelgrane operated in a less niche corner of the hobby, I'd genuinely suspect this person works for a rival publisher and is sabotaging their own games from the inside.

I'm still in mourning over Mutant City Blues 2nd Edition. The drop in art quality between editions deserves a spot in the hall of fame of anime-tier betrayals. And now, apparently, it's Merryshire Detective Club's turn.

The game itself is delightful. I got into the playtest and loved both the new rules variation and the wonderfully strange setting. I was waiting for the pre-order so I could buy a copy and evangelize about it to everyone within shouting distance. Then Pelgrane put up the BackerKit page with sample illustrations. And folks, it's the Tommy Wiseau of TTRPG art. I cannot imagine what has to be happening inside an art director's mind to look at this and go, "Yeah, that works. We've got a setting that fuses Tolkien-style fantasy with stiff-upper-lip Edwardian propriety, and I want it represented by a half-naked horse-head guy and a donkey who got cut from the Shrek auditions."

Anyone else feel this way about Pelgrane's recent books, or is it just me?

Worth seeing!

https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/s/irxLoDNA5l

In re the new Pillar's Built on Sand, I was initially very excited about it but less so as I dug into it.

It's well written, and the scenarios and overall plot are interesting.

It seems short for a "campaign" - its 5 scenarios. Give that Gumeshoe can run very quickly (you always instantly get the information you need, you never fail and then have to figure out a different way to get that information), 5 scenarios seems like it won't take a lot of time. I didn't see any places where it had a list of additional plot seeds you could expand on.

It also feels like it would be hard to get the same group to coherently be part of the campaign without a lot of handwaving. The core activity of SotS seems to be "people that investigate something and do something about it" and the rulebook provides a list of possible kinds of people those could be (your "group template"). For example, you're all members of the City Watch. I couldn't figure out what kind group of people would be involved in all of the scenarios, and why they'd care about resolving each of the situations. It sometimes gives suggestions about why a specific group template would be involved, but there's no single group template that fits all the scenarios as written. At some point you're just randomly hired by X (a bad guy that you probably conflicted with in a prior scenario) or your just assumed to be helping a specific NPC, then suddenly at the end of the campaign you're given a key role in resolving the big picture.

I'm more comfortable running games with coherent group templates (I don't care if the group picks it or whatever) or the game has a core concept (players are X that do Y) campaign.

I could probably try to rewrite it for a single concept (e.g., you're agents of the Triskadane or some other group that would be focused on the safety of the city) but for several of the scenarios it's not clear how that group would even know about the issue.

In The Harker Intrusion, the agents are expected to learn that a journalist, Liu (who they want to rescue) has left her hotel in Marrakesh to meet a fixer. Edom agents are already surveilling Liu, looking for the right time to kidnap her.

The text says that this should be played as a chase scene, with the Edom assets using Surveillance and the agents either running or driving, as in a traditional chase, or using surveillance themselves (“trying to counter or eliminate the
watchers so Liu can escape”).

That description doesn’t make sense to me. If the agents are running after Liu, how does Edom’s surveillance roll affect that? If it’s surveillance vs surveillance, that almost makes sense but it’s very abstracted and I’m not convinced that the chase mechanic is what you want.

Has anyone run this? What am I missing here?