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Or Lucifer isn't real. Why is "Freedom" capitalized? *facepalm* - Right in that sentence you demonstrate that you've ignored the history of a particular divine character in favor of picking a single use of it and making it absolute. "Archangle Lucifer" -- as a proper noun complete with a...

As far as mining worldviews held by occultists for the creation of fictional cosmologies goes, I'm all for it. As far as the selection of this particular "anthroposophical science" being the one to choose, I'm not for it. The main problem with late 19th century and early 20th century occultism...

I forgot about that. You don't get very far disintegrating people you need to talk to. Also people will be a lot less likely to be happy to see you arrive on their world if you have a reputation of killing people. I primarily play/run Trail, but have been tempted by Ashen Stars. I really...

It's definitely worth tweaking based on genre. But even then, I still don't like the idea of an AK-47 getting the best possible hit and the highest damage roll possible and it still needing to be dismissed as either actually being a miss or some sort of graze. I'd probably make everyone's...

First of all, one of my players is an EMT. When he read the justifications for the non-lethality of gunfire on page 62, he objected rather strenuously. including pointing out that even with 21st century medicine and rapid ambulance response, gun shot victims die over 30% of the time and twice...

What I don't like about Gumshoe: The combat system is very abstract and often very safe for participants in what should be dangerous situations. Health levels are very high relative to weapon damages. This is solved by the optional rules presented in Trail of Cthulhu. I cap health at 4-6...

I don't think the author actually engaged with the content of the quote in question. Laws is basically saying that the mystery story emerges from play and that the trail of clues is not the story but simply part of it. As the investigators engage with the information, their conversations...

I think you may need to reread your sources. The Trail of Cthulhu section (which is analogous to the poor section on scenario design from The Esoterrorists) talks about constructing a linear spine, but also about free floating core clues, changing the order of scenes, improv and a variety of...

Solved by auto-successes on all investigation skills in which your character is a professional. These are all player skill issues. You seem to think that automatic success at the investigation is the goal of the Gumshoe system. It. Is. Not. Gumshoe is all about moving the skill test from...

It wasn't the best written advice, but I do think that's an oversimplification about it. A properly constructed Gumshoe scenario is more of a sandbox than most traditional RPG play. If one is designed that clue A leads to be scene B where you get clue B so you know to go to scene C and get...

There are basically two criticisms that one can level against investigation rules sets and if you solve for one, you open yourself up to the other. Gumshoe tries to avoid both pitfalls. The first is: This game falls apart if you fail a roll and don't get a clue you need to solve the mystery...

I'm definitely opposed to this. It's basically lying to people about what the game is about in order to sucker them into playing something else. Maybe it'd be better just to present your actual idea and see who's interested? "The agency you work for is about to be taken down. You thought you...

If you spent all your investigation points, you still get the core clues related to that skill. You don't ever miss out on a critical piece of information because you over spent. For non-investigation skills you can still do everything you did before, you just can't guarantee success. Say you...

"Gathering clues is simple. All you have to do is: 1) get yourself into a scene where relevant information can be gathered and 2) have the right ability to discover the clue and 3) tell the GM that you’re using it. As long as you do these three things, you will never fail to gain a piece of...

The key to running Gumshoe (even the earliest instances of it) is to simply treat the investigation skills like ones you roll, but you always automatically succeed, so you don't roll. So when a player describes her character searching the book shelves for books that don't belong, you don't roll...

I also wouldn't mind a bit of a return to historical accuracy when it came to weapons. A longsword is a bastard sword. They're the same thing. The shorter one handed sword was often called an arming sword or a knight's sword. Warhammers were not mauls with huge heads. I guess I'm just tired...

I think I might start running all my games with "hidden hit points" where all player HP and damage done to them is handled by the DM and the individual wounds, injuries, windings, bonks, driving attacks and misses are described in words rather than than numbers.

My point in bringing it up was to show what you can do with a 3.x style approach once you strip out all the elements that are part of class, spell or other subsystem design. I'm not advocating D&D Next should be Microlite20, but that 3.x OGL does provide a very simple core framework that can be...

There is a reason people think there is a scale though. We may not like the reason, or agree with it, but it's still there: The vast majority of published RPGs over the last 40 years including the majority of D&D versions start with a general approach of tying the mechanics directly to the...

Another person who likes Rocket Tag. I think the hybrid methods show just how easy it is to make this modular as well.