Recent content by Piratecat

Thank you! Incredibly honored and more than a little bit awed. Swords of the Serpentine was a book we wrote because we loved it, and we hoped others would love it just as much. Got lucky. :)

Google and grab my "GUMSHOE 101" one page cheat sheet. Also, check out the short PbP encounter I ran here called COUNTDOWN. It makes for a great fast tutorial on mechanics and tone. Mostly, I think it's useful to remember that you're running a movie, so skewing to cinematic logic over...

Come bid on the Pelgrane Press entry. We can trade snarky gaming gossip and laugh our asses off!

I am flabbergasted and INCREDIBLY honored. The setting for Swords of the Serpentine is Eversink, which first saw light here on the EN World forums back in my story hour, in... what? 1992? And now it's nominated for best setting thanks to my co-author Emily Dresner. So excited.

Goodbye, plummeting shattered rock-troll. Goodbye.

I let players decide pronouns, and typically create a 50/50 or 66/33 mix.

I love it! My total numbers are pretty large thanks to the RPGA and then EN World gatherings, I've run for somewhere between 2000 and 3000 strangers at gaming cons etc., spread out over the last 25 years. On average at each table there's one person I don't want to game with again, four people...

I'm glad we were able to jump in at the last minute to emcee! And wow, thank goodness I brought actual trousers to the con.

I sure can -- I've been told it'll go on sale September 1.

Looking forward to meeting whoever bids on the Pelgrane package!

Ask yourself: is it fun for everyone at the table? Is it fair? If we're talking main enemy, a boring confrontation isn't in anyone's best interests. There's probably combat involved here, either Morale-based or Health-based. A Maneuver wouldn't do it because a Maneuver says "do what I say or...

As far as I know, your FLGS can order it right now. The distributor in the US is IPR. If you buy a hardcopy, make sure you get a free PDF through the Bits & Mortar program as well!

I find it's worth it under some very specific circumstances: 1. I'm out of Sway points and I want to succeed (such as if my team members gave me their damage via Teamwork, and it's all wasted if I don't hit) 2. I really want to make sure this Maneuver is likely to succeed! The latter is most...

Hey, co-author here! Social investigative abilities always work to get clues and leads -- no spend or die-rolling needed. So if you ask the NPC to collaborate and that's what makes sense to get you deeper into the adventure, woo hoo. You're all set. Investigative spends are meant to get you a...

That’s definitely by design. Creating Professions helps encourage classic adventurer templates and reduces analysis paralysis, but I wanted it to feel more like a suggestion than a requirement. I like the final result!