The Alien Roleplaying Game mixes together the claustrophobic feeling of the Alien movies with an intuitive rules system. As the tension of the scenario rises, your characters can increase their chances of success. But it also increases their chance of panicking, which is when the fun begins.

Alien, the Roleplaying Game, does more than recreate the scenarios presented in the movies. It also establishes the larger universe (pun intended) operating as the backdrop of the Alien movies. This world-building allows you to run longer campaigns, where you’re the crew of a vessel or a squad of Marines. Or maybe your a team of scientists and operatives trying to stop the weaponization of the xenomorphs.

Conflict Resolution, aka Rules System, aka How Do I Keep that Face Hugger Off of Me?

When creating characters, it is important to understand the rules on conflict resolution. In other words, what does it mean for my character to be competent? Is that even possible at first level? This means you’re creating within that context. It also means there will be less fiddling with your character after your first session. Or it means you’ll make a better 2nd character after that incident with the face hugger!

Alien uses a dice pool mechanic, with six-sided dice. Your dice pool is a combination of your ranks in an attribute and skill. Each skill is linked to a specific attribute, but there is no reason why you couldn’t use another one if that’s better for the situation. There are four attributes and twelve skills. Your ranks in each can range from 0 to 5.

This means that in “normal” situations your maximum dice pool is ten (10) six-sided die. It is recommended that those ten six-siders all be the same color. This is because of the Stress mechanic.

Stress

If you fail a role, but you really want to succeed, you can re-roll. But when you reroll, your Stress Level goes up by one and you add a Stress Die to your pool. This increases your chance of success, but you can only do this once per check. But that’s not all, if you roll a one (1) on any of your Stress Dice, your character has the chance of panicking. Therefore, it is recommended that the Stress Dice be a different color than your regular dice.

When you increase your Stress Level, that is persistent until your character has an opportunity to rest or take some other action to decrease their stress. This means until your stress level returns to zero, you’re adding at least one Stress Die to all future skill rolls. Generally, that is a ratchet upwards as the danger increases, with a very slow release.

There are three primary ways to relieve Stress:

1. Spending 10 minutes resting in a secure (to your knowledge) location, making no rolls, will reduce your Stress Level by 1.
2. Certain medications can also relax you, reducing your Stress Level
3. Once per Act in Cinematic play (one-shot) or once per Session in Campaign play (on-going game) interacting with your Signature Item (more on that later) will reduce your Stress Level by 1.

But its important to note there is no maximum Stress Level. You can keep adding Stress Die after Stress Die.

Don’t Panic

When (not If) you roll a one on your Stress Die, you must make a Panic Check. You’re also not allowed to push (re-roll and add another Stress Die) your skill check. Other events that make provoke a Panic Check are:

• Watching another friendly character (Player Character or Non-Player Character) suffering their own panic attack, because panic can spread in stressful situations.
• You are pinned down by ranged fire.
• You suffer a critical injury.
• You’re attacked by a strange alien creature you’ve never encountered before.
• You witness a truly horrifying event.

To see what happens, you roll a single d6 and add your current stress level to the die result. Compare that total to the table on page 105 of the book. If the total is between 1-6, you keep it together. But from 7 to 15+, your character loses control. That ranges from a nervous tic, dropping what is in your hands, screaming, fleeing or going catatonic. If your total is 13 or higher, then you suffer a permanent mental trauma and must roll on the table on page 101.

Succeeding Where Others Have Failed

As in other dice pool games, like Vampire the Masquerade (read more here) and Shadowrun (read even more here), you roll your pool (ranks of attribute + ranks of skill) and compare successes against a difficulty number or target number. In Alien the Roleplaying Game, successes are a six (6) on the die. You only need one success to succeed at a check. If you get extra successes, you can use those to do Stunts associated with the skill.

However, some tasks are aided by gear, situation, or help from an ally. Other times, the situation may impose penalties upon the skill check. These do not change the number of successes needed (only 1), instead they add to or subtract from the dice pool.

Making your Xenomorph Host . . . erm Character

Character creation, in the book, is broken down into ten steps, but several of those are personalizing and fleshing out character details. These have some mechanical role (such was your Signature Item), but are mostly fleshing out your character’s personality. With some of those steps combined, creating a character has the following steps:

1. Choosing a career
2. Spending points on Attributes
3. Spending points on Skills
4. Picking a career Talent
5. Name and Appearance
6. Deciding on your Personal Agenda, your Buddy, and your Rival
7. Pick your gear (including your Signature Item).
8. Rolling for Cash (Campaign Play)

Careers

In Alien, your Career choice is both mechanical and cosmetic. The main mechanical heft of your career is the Key Attribute, Key Skills, and Career Talents. During character creation, Attributes are capped at Rank 4. But you can take your Key Attribute to 5. Skills are capped at 1, but your Key Skill are capped at 3 at Character Creation. I’ll address the Talents later.

On the cosmetic front, the game suggests potential names, appearances, personal agendas, signature items, and gear. But these very short lists are merely suggestions. Only the Gear selections are required. For example, Colonial Marines pick two of the four suggested starting items. But each of the four is an either-or selection:

• M41A Pulse Rifle OR M56A2 Smart Gun
• M314 Motion Tracker OR 2 G2 Electroshock Grenades
• IRC MK.35 Pressure Suit OR M3 Personnel Armor
• Signal Flare OR Deck of cards

Whereas the Scientist picks two of the four options:

• Digital video camera OR Hand radio
• Seegson P-DAT OR Neuro visor
• Seegson System Diagnostic Device OR Personal Data Transmitter
• M314 motion tracker OR Personal medkit

There are ten different careers to chose from:

The Key Attributes and Skills are much as expected. For the Marines and Roughnecks its Strength. The Marines’ key skills are close combat, ranged combat, and stamina. For Roughnecks, its close combat, heavy equipment, and stamina.

Attributes

There are only four Attributes in the game: Strength, Agility, Wits, and Empathy. Strength is your raw physical strength. Agility is your bodily control and speed. Wits is your sensory perception, intelligence, and sanity. Empathy is your charisma, force of personality, and ability to motivate or manipulate others.

You have 14 points to spend, but you’re required to sink 2 points into each Attribute. They should have written that each Attribute starts at Rank 2 and you have 6 points to spend. You can only go up to Rank 5 in your Career’s Key Attribute.

Your Strength score is also your starting health score. Your Attributes cannot be increased with XP and Advancement.

Skills

There are 12 skills and you have 10 points to spend. You can only put one point into any skill. However, you can spend up to 3 points on a Key Skill. This means that if you maximize your Key Attribute and Key Skill at character creation, you’ll have an eight (8) dice pool. But for your “off” attributes and skills, you’re looking at a 3-dice pool.

Here are the twelve different skills:

Stunts: Most skills allow you to get a +1 die on your next check with the same skill check. You might be able to do it quietly or with extra craftsmanship. Or if you have to take the exact same action twice in a row, you can automatically succeed on the next attempt.

New skills can be learned and existing skills can be increased with XP and character advancement, which is covered below.

Talents

Talents are similar to Feats in Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder. It is something your character gets to do that is special. You do not have to roll to trigger them. Each Career has three Talents, there are also General Talents available to all characters.

For example, Colonial Marines have Banter. When resting in a safe place, Banter can let you and everyone within short range reduce 2 levels of Stress. If more than one character has this Talent, it still only works once.

Colonial Marshalls have the Authority talent, which allows them to use Command instead of Manipulation to “bend someone to their will.” Medics have Field Surgeon, which gives them a +2 to their dice pool when treating critical injuries.

Personal Agenda

Personal Agendas are something your character wants or needs to accomplish. These Agendas may coincide with a “successful” outcome to the mission or they may not. Let’s say, hypothetically, you’ve been assigned to get a xenomorph back to Earth to study. So let’s say, for example, you trap a non-combatant advisor to your Marine Expeditionary Force in a room with a face hugger. You can then put that host in stasis for transport back to Earth.

In Cinematic Play (One-Shot), the Mother (Game Master) creates the Agenda that is connected to the scenario. Cinematic games are divided into 3 Acts and you get awarded a Story Point, if you pursued your Agenda during an Act. A Story Point can be spent to automatically add a success to a roll.

In Campaign Play, pursuing your Personal Agenda during a session will result in an additional experience point. More on Advancement soon.

Buddies and Rivals

There is not any mechanical rules assigned to the Buddy and Rival system. The idea is there is one person that you’d walk through a room full of hatching face-hugger eggs to rescue. There is another person who you would undermine and make them look bad in front of others. This is to start play with interpersonal intrigue.

In Campaign mode, the players pick their buddies and rivals. In cinematic mode, those are assigned by the Game Mother. Personally, I would likely impose +1 Stress if a character deliberately abandoned their buddy or witnessed their (often messy) death. Putting yourself in danger to rescue or help you buddy might relieve stress. Similarly, undermining your rival would relieve stress. Watching your rival get one over on you would increase your stress.

Advancement

At the end of each session, assuming any characters are alive, the group runs through a list of questions. If their character can answer yes, per question, they get one experience point. Example questions are:

• Did you participate in the game?
• Did you risk something to advance your personal agenda?
• Did you risk your life to save your Buddy PC?
• Did you stand up to your Rival PC?
• Did you make a Panic Roll?
• Did you overcome a dangerous event?

The book is clear, you only get one XP per question. The number of questions you ask is up to the Game Mother. This lets the Game Mother modulate how much XP is gained per session. For myself, I’d have a set number of around 2-3 questions each session.

To learn a new skill, you must spend 5 XP. To increase an already known skill, you must have succeeded at the skill during the prior session or be taught by an instructor for one shift, which also costs 5 XP. You can also learn a new talent for 5 XP, but it takes a day of practice a successful wits roll, once a day, until you succeed. If you have an instructor, you automatically succeed.

There is no way to increase your attributes.

Combat

Aliens Roleplaying Game uses a gridless combat system. Areas on the map are divided into zones, which can vary in size and density, but generally not more than 25 meters. Zones can have a blocked border, eliminating line of sight, or can be open. A large loading bay may be divided into two zones.

Zones will have different descriptors associated with them, along with mechanical effects. The book gives three examples, but the Game Mother is free to make their own:

• Cluttered: Roll Mobility when entering the zone, a failure means you fall down and probably cause a racket.
• Dark: Observation rolls have a 2 dice penalty. Ranged attacks also suffer a 2 dice penalty. Targets outside of the zone cannot be seen.
• Cramped: You can only Crawl, which means you can’t take a second move action in a round. Also, you cannot shoot past creatures who are next to you.

Instead of a grid, combatants are in different range categories:

• Engaged — Right next to you
• Short — A few meters away, but in the same zone
• Medium — up to 25 meters away, in an adjacent zone
• Long — Up to 100 meters away, which is about four zones
• Extreme — Up to about one kilometer

The other concept the Players and Game Mother must track is time. They are not precise measurements, but thematically appropriate:

• Round — 5-10 seconds, primarily used in combat
• Turn — 5-10 minutes, used in exploration
• Shift — 5-10 hours, used in Recovery or Repairs

Stealth Mode

Let’s be honest, if you’re playing Aliens RPG, you’ve probable watched at least one of the movies. That means you know that when you’re exploring the empty colony or spaceship, you’re going to try to be as stealthy as possible.

The Player Characters will need to roll Mobility against the Xenomorph’s Observation. If this is a group check, then its the Character with the lowest Mobility against the Xenomorph with the highest Observation. Then the reverse is true if the Xenomorphs are trying to sneak up on the Characters.

But when in Stealth Mode, the Game Mother must decide if the enemies are in Active or Passive mode. Most Xenomorphs are going to start in Passive Mode, which means they are not yet aware of the Player Character’s presence. Characters will automatically detect Passive enemies in their zone or if in a different zone, within their line of sight.

Active enemies are aware of the Character’s presence and are stalking the characters. They will try to sneak up and ambush the characters. Characters cannot spot Active enemies who choose to remain hidden/don’t attack, unless you detect them with technology or if it becomes obvious.

Motion Trackers

If the characters possess a motion tracker, they can use it once per Turn. Each time its used, the character must make a Power Supply Roll. The larger M314 has a Power Supply of 5, but the smaller M316, which fits atop a pulse rifle, only has a Power Supply of 3. A Power Supply Roll means you roll dice equal to its current supply rating. Each 1 rolled, drops the current Power Supply by 1 point. Indoors, they can detect movement up to 4 zones away.

Ambushes

Sometimes, Xenomorphs attack when you least expect it! This is an opposed Mobility versus Observation check to determine if the Sneak Attack is successful. The closer the range, the bigger the penalty on the Mobility check:

• Engaged Range (Close Combat): -2 Dice Penalty
• Short Range : -1 Dice Penalty
• Medium: No Penalty
• Long: +1 Dice Bonus
• Extreme: +3 Dice Bonus

An Ambush is where you’re staying put and the enemy is coming towards you. It is still an opposed Mobility versus Observation check, but there is a +2 dice pool bonus because you’re staying still. However, the range penalties or bonuses still apply.

If this is a group operation, the opposed rolls are made by the team member with the lowest Mobility dice pool against the other side’s highest Observation dice pool.

Initiative

Like Savage Worlds, initiative uses a card deck. But it’s just a deck of 10 cards, Ace through Jack of the same suit, if using a deck of playing cards. You can buy a custom deck of cards for the game, which includes gear cards, character cards, and the 10 initiative card.

Lowest number (1) goes first. Unlike Savage World, you do not redraw your initiative each turn. However, I see no reason why you cannot use that rule. Players, at the start of the Round, can exchange their initiative cards but only if they can hear each other.

Actions

Characters can perform either one slow action and one fast action or two fast actions in a round. Slow actions are listed on page 88 of the Core Rulebook. They include Crawling, any attack action, reloading your weapon. Essentially, this means doing anything that takes a little bit of time, concentration, and luck.

Fast Actions are generally movement actions, but also includes drawing a weapon, blocking a a close combat attack, shoving, aiming, and taking overwatch. Speaking of movement, Running means you are moving to a neighboring zone or between Short Range to Engaged. Crawling is the same as Running, but it is a Slow Action. If you’re prone, standing enemies get a +2 dice pool bonus to all close combat attacks against you.

When you are in Engaged Range with an enemy, you cannot simply walk away. Instead, you have to use the Fast Action Retreat or Shove before you can Run away. Closed doors and hatches require a Fast Action to open, assuming they are unlocked. Otherwise, you’re going to have to spend a Slow Action shooting it open or making a Comtech roll to hack it.

Attack Actions

When you attack, you’re either using your Close Combat skill or your Ranged Combat skill. For each skill, there are stunts you can use for each extra success you get on your roll. There are also specific reactions players can make if they reserved a Fast Action from their prior turn.

Close Combat

If you get a single success on your Close Combat check, you hit. The damage you do is based upon your weapon’s damage rating, This is mitigated by your Armor, if any: roll a number of dice equal to your armor rating. Any successes subtract one from the damage you take. However, your successes do not prevent the stunts from occurring.

The defender can use their reserved Fast Action to try and block the attack. This must be declared before the attacker rolls. To block, the Defender rolls their Close Combat skill, for each success you can choose one of the following effects:

• Decrease Damage: This acts like Armor, reduce one point of damage for each success.
• Counterattack: You deal damage equal to the damage rating of your weapon. You do not get to spend additional success to increase this damage.
• Disarm: you take away your enemy’s weapon, unless it is a natural weapon of a Xenomorph.

Note, if you get enough successes you can do all three. If you are not carrying a weapon, then you can only block attacks from other humans. If a Xenomorph is attacking you, then you need to be wielding a sturdy weapon or tool.

The Core Rulebook suggests the following stunts attackers can do if they get extra successes:

• Inflict additional damage.
• Trade your initiative card with the defender.
• Disarm or knock free an object the defender has on them.
• Knock your opponent prone, which does not work against Xenomorphs
• Pin your enemy in a tight clinch, which does not work against Xenomorphs

Grappling

If you choose the grapple stunt, then you both fall prone and your defender drops any weapon being held. The defender can only use a Close Combat roll to break free on their turn. The attacker, on their subsequent turns, can make an unarmed attack as a fast action, which cannot be blocked.

An unarmed attack only does 1 damage. If the defender is wearing armor, then they roll twice their armor rating to reduce damage.

Ranged Combat

Most combat by PCs will be ranged combat. Getting up close and personal with a Xenomorph does not promote a long life. Shooting a firearm is a Slow Action. At its most basic, make a Ranged Combat roll and see if you get a success. However there are a lot of modifiers.

Firing at large objections, like vehicles or a Queen, gives a +2 dice pool bonus. Shooting at smaller targets like a hand-held item, a face hugger, or chestburster is at a -2. This is further modified by Range and lighting conditions. But Aiming, which is a Fast Action, provides +2 dice pool bonus, provided your very next action is shooting (even on your next turn, unless you’re injured). The table of modifications is at page 95 of the Core Rulebook.

As with Close Combat, extra successes allows you to perform additional Stunts:

• Inflict additional damage.
• Pin down the enemy. NPCs miss their next slow action, PCs must make a panic roll.
• Trade initiative cards with your target.
• Target drops something they are holding
• Opponent is knocked prone or pushed backwards (let’s say through an airlock).

Full Automatic Fire

Some weapons have the special property that allows for full automatic fire. This increases your dice pool by 2, if you use it. But you immediately add a stress level, that is included in your roll. Getting more than 1 success allows you to distribute the weapons’ damage rating to additional targets within short range. Additional successes can be used as stunts against the primary or secondary targets.

Ammunition

Most ranged weapons have an ammo rating. This is the number of reloads or new magazines it comes with. Rather then counting individual bullets, the game uses the Stress Dice to determine when you run out of ammunition. When you fire a weapon and any of the Stress Dice show a 1, you have emptied your magazine. In addition, you must also make a Panic Roll. Reloading costs a Slow Action.

Cover

Taking cover is a Fast Action. It provides you an armor rating, depending on what you’re hiding behind. Shrubbery has an Armor Rating of 2. A door is a 4. An inner bulkhead is a 5. In short, it doesn’t make it harder to hit you, but allows you to resist damage.

Overwatch

With a Fast Action, you can take an Overwatch position in a zone, looking in a specific direction, with a ranged weapon. If any enemies are within Engaged range of you, then you cannot take an Overwatch position. If you see a target in the direction you’re looking, you can fire at it, so long as you saved your Slow Action. Your shot is resolved before the enemy acts. You can only shot once before your next turn.

You lose your overwatch if you are injured or attacked in close combat.

Damage

Your character’s starting health is their Strength score. This means your maximum health is 5. Weapons have the following Damage Ratings:

• Pistols: 1-3
• Rifles: 1-4
• Heavy Weapons: 2-4 (Grenade Launcher has a Blast 9)

Needless to say, combat in this game is lethal. Once you drop to zero Health, you are Broken and must roll for a critical injury. For a critical injury, roll a regular and a stress dice. Do not add the numbers, but count them as a two-digit number. Snake Eyes is an 11; Double Boxcars is 66. Critical Injuries range from Winded (non-fatal), to gouged eye, leg artery cut (death in one turn).

If no one comes to your aid, then you must make a Death Roll, which is your Stamina. Failure means death. Success means you linger on, making a new roll once time has passed.

Another character can use their Medical Aid skill as a Slow Action, that gets you back up. Your Health is equal to the number of successes. However, any penalties associated with your critical injury remain. Each type of injury has a healing time listed on the table on page 100. A successful Medical Aid check on each day will cut the recovery time by half.

Coup De Grace

You can kill any Broken character. But if its a human being, then you must first fail an Empathy roll (no Stress Dice). Regardless of whether you succeed or fail at your Empathy roll, you gain one Stress Level. The Merciless Talent allows you to kill defenseless enemies without repercussion.

Miscellaneous Items

The Aliens Roleplaying Game has a lot of other sections that include rules for environmental hazards, vehicle combat, and gear. The Game Mother section provides helpful tips on how to run Campaigns. Finally, there are game world sections on the Aliens universe, governments, corporations, and planetary systems.

Final Thoughts

I really like this game and system. It is very evocative and gets the tone right for an Aliens RPG. Death always feels imminent and the setting is tense. The dice pool mechanic, with limited skills and attributes, with a 10-die cap (not counting stress dice) keeps things simple. It also means, in campaign play, its quick to reroll a new character.

While these statements are all true for Cinematic play (one shots), they feel a lot less true in Campaign play. In Cinematic play, the point of the story is encountering and surviving the Xenomorphs. You know exactly what’s going to happen, just not how.

But what is the point of Campaign play? Space Piracy or Long-Haul Space Trucking? Maybe you can have some corporate infighting with some interpersonal tensions on the ship with the Buddies and Rivals system. But the Xenomorphs become the spice to your dish. They are something out there that could show up at any time; but if they do show up every time……. *yawn* more screaming, yelling, running away, and dying.

I could be wrong about this. I might not have a good story line or overall plot to fit into this universe. But compared to the tension of xenomorphs showing up, isn’t every other conflict ho hum?

I am absolutely planning on running a cinematic game for a friend’s birthday.

Swords of the Serpentine is a pulp-action Swords and Sorcery setting. It adapts the modernist Gumshoe Investigative system, for a fantasy world evocative of Ffahrd or Conan, not Tolkien or the Forgotten Realms. While keeping Gumshoe’s core systems, it adds several new systems evoking its setting.

Swords of the Serpentine (SotS) is set in the City-State of Eversink. Built on a river delta (e.g. swamp) over 1,000 years ago, the city is literally sinking into the wet, swampy soil. They buildings sink, on average, about 8 centimetres a year, meaning the first floor becomes the basement after fifty years. The other defining feature of Eversink is its canals. Think of Venice at its Renaissance heights.

The official Goddess of Eversink is Denari. Her priests and priestess teach the city is literally her body. She is the patron of commerce and civilization. Taxes are simple tithes to the church. The church teaches the founders of Eversink entered into a 1,000-year contract with Denari. She would keep the city safe and maximize the merchant’s profit, so long as its citizens pay their taxes . . . erm . . . tithes.

Every coin exchanged is a prayer, and every transaction a sacrament.

Swords of the Serpentine, Chapter Nine: The City of Eversink

Within the City are several different factions. Players can be allies or enemies of these factions. Allies can be called upon to help your investigation. Enemies can throw problems that make your investigation harder. Even without being a full ally or enemy, your actions in the city can help or spoil the plans of various factions. This will build Favor or Grudges that you can spend for smaller boons and burdens.

The City’s Factions are:

Character Creation

If you want a detailed explanation and analysis Gumshoe’s character creation process over four of its setting books, then you’re in luck! SotS further evolves Gumshoe character creation:

1. Choose a Profession
2. Write down a few Adjectives describing your Hero and their three favorite things in life.
3. Assign Investigative Build Points
4. Assign 2 ranks to Allies and 1 rank to an Enemy.
5. Assign General Build Points
6. Assign Health and Morale Points
7. If taking ranks in Corruption, pick a Sorcerous Sphere per rank and decide if your sorcery targets Health or Morale.
8. Write down at least 5 minor, iconic gear that defines who you are.
9. Take 1 rank of Grit (it reduces Morale damage).
10. Name your Hero.

Professions

There are four Professions in SotS. Like in Night’s Black Agents, professions are a bundle of specific Investigative and General Ability scores. However, unlike NBA, picking a profession does not automatically spend ranks in any of those Abilities. But as will be covered more below, if you specialize in only your profession’s Abilities, you get bonus build points. In reality, you’ll likely find yourself mixing and matching to create your Hero.

The four Professions are:

• Sentinel — Church Inquisitor, City Watch, Agent of the Triskadane’s Secret Police, Scout for a guild of Smugglers, or the Mercanti’s Inspector (Enforcer). Sentinel’s have a keen eye for illegal activity, are masters of the city’s bureaucracy, and know when something is out of the ordinary. Some Sentinel’s can even see into the spirit realm.
• Sorcerer — Sage of rare lore, mystical healer (or poisoner), prophet, and Corrupter. Tapping the full power of your Sorcery can be dangerous for you or your allies or both. It is definitely illegal to spread Corruption and there is no way to access your full powers without Corruption. Where did you get your power: ancient writings, handling an idol of the long-dead snake people, or possession by a demon or other forbidden, minor god?
• Thief — You trade in secrets as well as stolen goods. You can overcome foes with your blade, your words, or your mind. You know every good place to hide, every shortcut, and the best Fences in Eversink.
• Warrior — A Mercenary or Man-at-Arms, you know how to survive and persevere in a fight. You also know how to get around outside of the City and hunt for Trophy Monsters.

Pick a Profession based upon how, at a high level, your character views the world and is viewed by the world. Do not worry over-much about the profession-specific skills. Besides running out of skill points, there is no limitation to what skills you can pick.

What about Clerics?

An argument could be made the Sentinel is the “cleric” Profession, with their Spirit Sight ability. However, Swords of the Serpentine is pretty explicit: there is no cleric class per se. Instead, its all about flavor (or as its called in the Savage World system (read more here): Trappings).

There are gods and goddesses in this world. They are real and give power. The Investigative Ability Prophecy (Sorcery) is almost explicitly divine (e.g. divination) in its origin. Another one is Ridiculous Luck (Thief). While it could be coincidence, a person of faith calls it divine intervention.

Then there is Spirit Sight (Sentinel), which allows you to see ghosts and sense corruption. It also helps remove corruption. While that ability is definitely occult, you can flavor it as coming from a higher or lower power. The only profession that doesn’t have an “obvious” divine Investigative Ability on its profession list are Warriors.

But this is where the flavor or trappings come in. Your players can describe their use of an Investigative Ability in divine terms. Take the ability Command. While a social ability that can denote your presence and authority, it can just as easily be a divine gift. The Goddess’ influence exercised through your lips.

Or Leechcraft, which allows you to heal wounds. Rather than poultices and herbs, just straight-up describe it as faith healing. Liar’s Tell (aka Bullshit Detector) may be a divine gift where you always know when someone is lying around you. Or, Spot Frailty is the Goddess whispering in your ear telling you exactly where or how to strike down your foe.

This same rule applies, with some limitations addressed further below, to the use of Sorcery. Jumping up to the edge of the roof can be described as using your minor magical abilities. However, it is still an Athletics test.

Adjectives and Three Best Things in Life

Gumshoe games like players to add small tags or descriptors to help them characterize their Heroes. This lets them differentiate between their warrior and another player’s warrior. Other systems like 13th Age and the Cypher system, which I have not yet written about, do something similar.

The example given in the book is: Young, Fiery, Loyal, Never Forgives a Betrayal. These are traits that anyone observing your character for 30 minutes is likely going to pick up or learn about them. These traits can lead to positive and negative experiences.

The Three Best Things in Life are what drives your character. In the 1982 Conan the Barbarian movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Conan’s answer is: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!

Like the Adjectives, these answers should inspire your choices as a player when you’re not sure what your character would do. Also, these answers and descriptors are not static. Over time and play, you can and should change them. Such changes reflect your character’s growth and response to success and loss.

Investigative Abilities

If this is your first time reading about the Gumshoe system, I have an entire article explaining it. In short, Investigative Abilities always work. If a scene has a core clue in it (information necessary for your characters to solve the mystery and/or to go to a new scene) and you have the right ability to obtain it, then you get it automatically.

You get these clues simply by having one rank in an Investigative Ability. But you can get additional ranks too. The advantage of having additional ranks is Spending that Ability’s Pool Points (1 rank = 1 pool point) to learn additional information. These are not Core Clues, but information that will help flesh out the investigation. Even if you spend our last pool point, your character will still be able to obtain Core Clues from scenes.

In must Gumshoe settings, Investigative Abilities are classified as Academic, Social, or Technical. In SotS, they are instead classified as Social or Professional, which each Profession having its own list. The number of Investigative Build Points each character receives is based upon the number of regular playersL

Note that SotS, unlike the other “standard” Gumshoe Games, includes rules for one-to-one play.

Now if you spend all of your Build Points on Social and Profession Abilities from your Profession, then you get 1 bonus build point you can spend on any Social or any of your Profession Abilities.

Here is the list of Social Investigative Abilities:

• Charm
• Command
• Intimidation
• Liar’s Tell
• Nobility
• Servility
• Taunt
• Trustworthy

The Sentinel’s Investigative Abilities are:

• Felonious Intent
• Laws & Traditions
• Spirit Sight
• Vigilance

The Sorcerer’s Investigative Abilities are:

• Corruption
• Forgotten Lore
• Leechcraft
• Prophecy

Here are the Thief’s Investigative Abilities.

• City’s Secrets
• Ridiculous Luck
• Scurrilous Rumors
• Skulduggery

And finally, the Warriors Investigative Abilities:

• Know Monstrosities
• Spot Frailty
• Tactics of Death
• Wilderness Survival

Allies and Enemies

Next, you get 3 Investigative Build Points that can only be spent on Allies (2) and Enemies (1). These are in addition to the Build Points already spent on the other abilities. You can spend your Allies points on the same or two different factions. You can even spend your Enemy point on an Ally faction. That just means there are elements within that faction that love and hate you.

These Alliances and Enemies are permanent for your character. As an Investigative Ability, using the Alliance allows you to get core clues because of your training in the Thieves Guilds or a bureaucrat in the Triskadane you once told you something important that you just now remember. The Enemy Ability can work in a similar way. You spend so much of your time thinking about your Enemy Faction that you can tell when their agents have been in a scene.

As mentioned above, these are different than the Favors and Grudges. Favors and Grudges are temporary points gained based upon actions taken during an adventure. They can be spent to make life easier or harder for a Hero, but once spent they are gone. They do not refresh (regenerate) like your permanent Allies and Enemies Ranks.

General Abilities

All characters get 30 points to assign to General Abilities. These are different than Investigative Abilities because they have a chance to fail. Whenever such a chance arises, the Game Master will call for a test of a General Ability.

The player rolls a single d6. They can spend however many Pool Points they have available in that General Ability. Each point spent adds a +1 to the die roll. Most tests have a Target Number of 3 or 4. This means spending 2 or 3 points usually guarantees success. But those points refresh slowly, if at all.

In prior Gumshoe games, going above the Target Number was meaningless. But as will be addressed further below, SotS has critical hit rules if your total roll exceeds the Target Number by 5.

I generally tell my players the Target Number before they roll, so they can judge for themselves how many points they want to spend. Unlike other systems, Gumshoe assumes all characters are hyper-competent. This would include having a good sense of how difficult a task is. Also, given how hard it is to refresh General Ability points, letting players waste them is a jerk move.

If you have 8 or more ranks in any General Ability, then you gain that Ability’s Talent. This is a little extra boost or maneuver you get to perform by having dedicated expertise. The General Abilities are:

What is notable about this list of General Abilities is the “standard” Ability not present: Sense Trouble. In the Esoterrorists, Sense Trouble is rolled into Surveillance. But SotS follows the lead created by Time Watch: the Ability that lets you do something covertly is also the ability that lets you observe someone else’s covert actions.

It takes a thief to catch a thief. Or it takes a Stealth Test to catch someone sneaking up on you and a Burglary Test to see whether you were the target of a pick-pocket attempt.

Health and Morale

In addition to the 30 General Ability Build Points, you get 18 additional Build Points that you can only spend on Health or Morale. You must spend a minimum of 3 in each. This is another departure from prior Gumshoe games that let characters start with zero Health and zero Stability.

But to get the Health or Morale Talent, you must spend at least 10 points. This makes it harder for Health or Morale attacks to hit you. To get both to 10, you’ll have to spend 2 of your 30 General Build points.

As with all Gumshoe games, your Health or Morale track does not end at zero, it actually ends at -11. Once either gets below 0, then you must make a Health or Morale test to either stay conscious or inactive. Once your Health or Morale is at or below -1/-6 then you are Hurt or Seriously Wounded (Health) or you are either Unstable or Panicked (Morale). Each status imposes penalties on your character.

-11 Health is death. -11 Morale means you’re Broken. Being Broken means you’ve developed a significant quirk or mental illness that is permanent. It also makes you more susceptible to possession by ghosts.

Minor, Iconic Gear

Generally, in Swords of the Serpentine, gear has little mechanical weight. At best, a weapon will give you a +3 to damage, but that is a large powerful one like a claymore or halberd. Armor may also give up to 3 points of damage reduction. Also, gear is less important to have listed out where the Preparedness Ability lets you just say you have something on a successful Test.

What is important is what your gear says about your character. Pick at least 5 items that are iconic or meaningful for your character. It could be a named weapon or a special shield. But these are the tokens, mementos, trophies that help define you.

in a sword & sorcery game, those come and go. We mean the small and personal trinkets that help define your life. The things in your pockets, around your neck, on your feet. The things that you hold dear and that would tell someone investigating your corpse what kind of a person you are. Feel free to name signature gear, particularly weapons. . . . You’ll know you’ve done a good enough job when a friend can look at your Gear list and be able to tell you what makes your Hero tick. 

Swords of the Serpentine, Chapter Two

You can write down more than 5 such items. But so long as you have at least 5, then you get 1 point of Grit. Grit gives your character damage reduction to Morale attacks. Like your Adjectives, these can change over time and with play too. Gear you’ve found or purchased can be added to this list too. But if you write down too much stuff, it may increase the Target Number for Athletics Tests.

Combat

Combat in Swords of the Serpentine is a little more complex than in other Gumshoe games. While prior games had several different attack Abilities, they all had the same core mechanic:

• Decide how many points you’re spending
• Roll a d6
• Determine if you hit
• Roll a d6 for damage
• Add damage bonuses
• Reduce the target’s health

This is true for SotS too, but with rules for Critical Hits, two different damage pools (Health and Morale), Manuevers, and Sorcery shenanigans, there are more moving pieces for everyone to keep track of during combat. But first, we must address Refresh Tokens

Refresh Tokens

In Gumshoe, Refresh refers to regenerating your pool points. Each rank of an Ability grants you a point you can spend during play. Investigative Abilities rarely refresh during play. They, instead, completely refresh when you finish an adventure arc (which may take one or more Sessions).

Then there are General Abilities. These points can refresh mid-adventure. In other Gumshoe settings, your characters typically have to rest, or take some action to pause and regroup. But in SotS they have introduced Refresh Tokens.

A single Refresh Token allows a player to refresh one pool point in a General Ability. When a Refresh Token is earned, it goes into a communal pot (they suggest literally point a token into a bowl) available to all players. But the Refresh Tokens go away at the end of a scene (use them or lose them). Refresh Tokens are earned as follows:

• Defeating Foes: Mooks are worth 1, Named Adversaries 3, Big Bads 5, Epic Foes 7.
• Solving Non-Combat Challenges
• GM Discretion: At the end of a scene, placing 2-3 for good, creative play, especially if players leaned into their drives and quirks.
• Off-Duty Time: Spending at least 8-hours doing character-appropriate activities such as sleeping, studying, carousing results in 5 Tokens, per Hero, added to the Bowl. This is not 5 per 8-hours. If the players take a week off, is still only 5 per Hero.

In Combat, these Tokens can be taken a used at any time. If a player really needs another 2 points for a +2, then they can grab two tokens. Tactically, this rewards focusing on getting rid of multiple Mooks early in a fight. This provides a bunch of tokens that can be used to take out the more powerful foes.

Initiative

Swords of the Serpentine uses a popcorn system. Each player and each adversary (use groups of mooks as one) can take one turn in a round. At the start of Combat, the Game Master decides who goes first under the circumstances.

Then whoever goes first decides who goes next. And so on, until everyone has had a chance to act. Then whoever is last in a round decides who goes first in the following round. I like this approach because it pushes narrative to the forefront of starting combat. It also adds chaos in combat, similar to Savage World’s Action Card initiative system (read more here).

Which isn’t to say all tactics are removed. If the players get the drop and it makes sense to let a player to go first, they have a choice to make. Do they all go in order before any adversary acts? They get to nova and try to wipe out as many enemies as possible.

But if they are the victim of bad rolls, then all of the enemies get to go at the end of the round. This mean, they can decide to go first at the start of the following round. If the Game Master wants to emphasize the tactical brilliance of this veteran team of mercenaries, then it’s a double nova back at the players.

Gear in Combat

There are two types of gear most relevant in combat: Weapons and Armor. Weapons have a range, a damage modifier, and maybe a property.

Weapons

For example, a simple club is range Point-Blank (more on range shortly), +0 Damage, and no property. But a Crossbow is Range Long, Damage +2, and has the properties: Obvious, Reload, and Armor Piercing 1. Weapons can have the following Properties:

• Armor Piercing: Ignores Armor’s Damage Reduction up to its ranks.
• Loud: Creates a significant amount of noise.
• Obvious: increases the difficulty of Stealth tests to conceal.
• Reload: An action is required to use the weapon again.
• Stun: Weapon invokes the Daze Maneuver, increasing its difficulty by its ranks.

Ranges

Taking a page from Pelgrane’s other Fantasy RPG: 13th Age, SotS uses range abstractions rather than tactical, gridded combat. The distance between any two people are denoted as follows:

• Point-Blank
• Close
• Medium
• Long
• Very Long

Moving between each range increment can be done as part of your action for your turn. But going between Long and Very Long may take two or more actions instead.

Point-Blank is where up-close and personal fighting happens: punching, grappling, shivving. Using ranged weapons, like bows, against targets increases your Health Threshold (the target number you must meet to hit a target) by 2. But if a foe at Close Range moves into Point-Blank against a foe holding a loaded ranged weapon, the person holding the ranged weapon gets a free attack with no penalty.

Close Range is approximately up to 10 meters away from each other. You have room to maneuver and attack with weapons like swords. This is about as far as you can throw irregular throwing weapons (like a mug).

Medium is being about 30 to 40 meters away. This is a fair distance, definitely requiring ranged weapons. This is the maximum you can throw items like a spear or rock, but the Health Threshold target number may be increased by 2.

Long is around 100 meters (the length of an American Football field (pitch)). This is close to the limit of longbows and crossbows. Health Threshold target numbers can be increased beyond this range.

Very Long Range is 500 meters. This is out of range of everything, unless you are using a very specialized weapon.

Armor (and Grit)

Protective items like Armor gives you damage resistances. They can also increase your difficulty for performing Athletic Tests for swimming only. There is a sidebar explaining the Developers found situational athletic penalties too finicky at the table. For example, Chainmail gives 2 armor and increases Athletic Tests by 2 if you’re swimming.

Shields can give Armor, up to +3, but it also increases your difficulty to hit your opponents. In other words, for each point you hide behind your shield, your target’s Health Threshold increases by the same amount.

The other way in which shields help is if you have the Dodge Talent by taking 8 ranks in Athletics. If you have a shield or buckler equipped, you only have to meet your opponent’s roll, instead of exceeding it, to Dodge the attack.

Remember, if you have described on your sheet at least 5 pieces of iconic gear, then you get 1 rank in Grit. Grit is armor against Morale Attacks.

Attacking

There are three General Abilities to attack and damage your foes in combat:

• Sway
• Sorcery
• Warfare

Sway Attacks

Sway attacks the morale of your adversaries. You are using words to undercut their will to fight. Sway attacks can be done at Point Blank to Medium range. But a Medium, the 30-40 meters distance may make it harder for your enemies to hear you or care about you, increasing the Morale Threshold by 2. If you hit, Sway always does 1d6+1 Morale damage.

Sorcery Attacks

Sorcery attacks go reach up to Long Range, but their Thresholds also increase by 2 at Long Range. You cannot attack with Sorcery unless you have at least 1 rank in Corruption. Without Corruption, your Sorcery is weak. With each rank of Corruption, you pick a Sorcerous Sphere (more on that later), and whether your spells attack Health or Morale. If you hit, then you do 1d6+1 Health or Morale damage.

Warfare

The range and damage modifiers for weapon attacks vary depending on your weapon. But these always target Health, unless you’re performing a Daze Maneuver. The damage is a 1d6 plus your weapon’s damage modifier.

Minimum Damage

Another addition to Swords of the Serpentine that I’ve not yet seen implemented in other Gumshoe settings is minimum damage rules. Your minimum damage is always the number of points spent on your attack roll, assuming you hit, plus your damage bonus. If you spent 3 Sorcery Points to ensure you hit, then your minimum damage is 4 (3+1). If you’re attacking with a Crossbow and spent 3 Warfare Points, your minimum damage is 5 (3+2) because Crossbows have +2 damage.

Extra Damage

There are several ways characters can do extra damage when they hit. The first is a Critical Hit, which is anytime your total hit roll exceeds the Health or Morale Threshold by 5. When you get a Critical Hit, you roll an extra d6 damage. Your minimum damage rules do not apply to extra damage dice.

If you have the Talent (by buying 8 ranks) in Warfare, Sway, or Sorcery you can have your attacks damage multiple targets. This occurs if you exceed the original target’s Threshold by 3 or more. For every additional 3 points, you can add an additional foe.

If the target’s Morale Threshold is 3, you spend 6 Sway points, then roll a 3, you can add two additional targets. Those additional targets take 1d6+1 damage, with no other modifiers allowed. Please note, that you must either choose to Critically Hit or damage additional foes, you cannot do both.

The third way you can cause extra damage is by spending an Investigative Ability Pool Point to gain an additional d6. You’ll need to explain how that Ability leads to more Health or Morale Damage. You can also spend that Pool Point after hitting, but before you roll your regular damage. This d6 is not subject to the Minimum Damage rule.

The final way to boost damage is Teamwork attacks. Let’s say you’re fighting a creature that has high Armor and your primary attack is Warfare or your Sorcery only damages Health. Even if you hit, the damage is greatly reduced. Or maybe you’re out of range.

You can, instead, target an ally that is in range who will benefit from your help. In the above example, it is an ally who uses Sway as their method of attack. Describe how you’re helping that ally in a way your Game Master will accept. Roll your Warfare attack against the Adversary’s Health Threshold.

On a success, your Ally gets an extra 1d6 damage (with no other modifiers). If you Critically Hit or Spend an Investigative Ability, then you can hand those bonus die to your Ally. Your Ally must hit target before the end of their next turn or all of those bonus die are discarded.

Maneuvers

Maneuvers are attempts to do impose a condition or non-damage dealing effect on an adversary. For example, you hold a weapon to the chest of a bandit, demanding they surrender. You cast a spell that commands that your foe flee. You try to disorient a foe by screaming at them, so they have a -2 to their Tests on their next turn.

Like your attacks, you roll your Sway, Sorcery, or Warfare against their Health or Morale Threshold. If you hit, you still roll your damage dice (including any Critical Hits or Investigative Spend dice). The Minimum Damage Rule applies to your primary dice roll.

Your opponent then has a choice to make: do they accept the maneuver or do they take the damage? In the surrender example above, let’s say the damage roll was 4. If that Adversary surrenders, then they throw down their weapon and raise their hands. If they do not surrender, then you’ve stabbed them with your sword, doing 4 damage (assuming no Armor).

The example Maneuvers given are:

• Blind
• Daze
• Disarm
• Unseat or Dismount
• Drag or Restrain
• Persuade
• Strangle
• Trick
• Trip or Knock Back

The book is clear these are merely examples, not an exhaustive list. When we get to Sorcery, you’ll see a similar mechanic for spells that do not just damage adversaries. This is a good spot to cover the rules regarding the various Hazards in Swords of the Serpentine, because these can go hand-in-hand for creative maneuvers, especially with Sorcery Attacks.

Sorcery & Corruption

Evoking its Sword & Sorcery source material, the use of true magic is an act of perversion. It breaks cause-and-effect, tearing at reality, and your soul. This is why you cannot attack with Sorcery unless you take at least one Rank in Corruption. For each Rank, you can choose a Sorcerous Sphere that flavors your magic. There are a lot of suggested spheres, which include:

But before you pick your Sphere, you must decide if you’re attacking your enemies bodies (Health) or Soul (Morale)? Then you must decide how you learned sorcery: Ancient, forbidden texts? Or have you accepted the possession of a demon, small god, or spirit?

As a Sorcerer, you can flavor minor magical effects ala Fantasia. But that is just flavor. The power comes from when you spend Corruption Pool Points to fuel your Sorcery. Despite being an Investigative Ability, Corruption spends to find a clue may be anticlimactic compared to what happens if you spend it in combat. With a Corruption Spend you add +3 to your Sorcery attack roll and you can:

• Trigger exceptional damage
• Trigger area of effect damage
• Create unique spells
• Create special Maneuvers
• Level a Curse
• Create Sorcerous Glyphs and Traps.

For exceptional damage, in addition to the standard 1d6+1 Sorcery Damage, for each point of Sorcery Spent, the damage increases as follows:

1. 1d6+3
2. 2d6+3
3. 3d6+3
4. 4d6+3
5. 5d6+3

If instead, you want to do area of effect damage, you have to decide how big of an area you want to effect: Enemies within Point Blank, Close, Medium, or Long Range of the target. The wider the range, the higher the minimum amount of Corruption spent and the less overall damage.

At Point-Blank Range, a 1 point Spend only causes 3 damage to all enemies. At 2 points, it goes to 1d6+3. It then follows the same pattern as Exceptional Damage. As the Range widens, you have to spend one more point to have the 3 damage minimum.

The unique spells are just that: unique. Players will need to talk through with their Game Master what they want to do, the mechanical effects, and the appropriate amount of Corruption to spend to achieve it. Curses and Glyphs are considered an Advanced Rule, which I won’t cover here.

Corruption Effects

Corruption does not just cause damage to your foes, it distorts everything around you. When you Spend Corruption, you have to decide whether the effects of that Corruption are Internalized or Externalized.

Internalized Corruption

When you hold the Corruption inside of you, it changes you. First you must make a Health Test, whose difficulty is 3 + 1 per Point of Corruption spent. If you Succeed, then you must write down on your sheet one small thing that has changed on your body:

• A new wart
• A small patch of scales
• A vein on your hand turns black

These have no mechanical effect, but they are permanent. At first they may not be noticeable to others, but over time you are obviously changed by your Sorcery.

If you Fail the Health Test, then the change is larger and noticeable to anyone observing you in the moment. Again, this does not have any specific mechanical effect, but it makes your Sorcerer’s visage and presence unnerving.

Externalized Corruption

If you decide to Externalize your Corruption, it effects your environment and your Allies. All Allies within Medium Range of you must make a Morale Test, difficulty 3 + 1 per Point of Corruption Spent. A success has no effect. A fail means they lose 4 Morale.

Then there is the effect on your environment. The Corruption lingers in the area. Those with Spirit Sight can see it and possibly heal it. But each Sorcerer’s Corruption has a signature. This allows Inquisitors see and track Sorcerers.

The level of Corruption in an area is measured in Stages. The more Corruption Spent, the higher the stage. The higher the Stage, the worse the area’s effects. Each higher stage includes the lower stage’s effects:

1. Denari’s Blessing is suppressed, cows in the area give sour milk. It takes a month for the Corruption to dissipate on its own.
2. No one wants to linger in the area and if they do for an hour, they suffer a 1 point of Morale loss. It can take up to a decade for the Corruption to reduce.
3. Building foundations are weakened, sinking more quickly or falling down entirely. Those passing through experience significant fear, immediately losing 2 Morale (4 at night). Ghosts can easily pass through from the Spirit Realm. It takes a generation to reduce.
4. Entering the area causes an immediate 4 Morale Damage. Those living nearby become paranoid or homicidal. The area is a beacon to Evil. It takes a Century to heal.
5. Entering the area immediately subjects you to a Possession Maneuver: either become possessed by a Ghost or take 6 Morale damage. This level of damage never heals.
6. A rift in reality is created that slowly spreads unless sealed.

These are effects that can be created a Player Character by doing a big Corruption Spend!

Final Thoughts

I’ve covered about 2/3rds of the rules and subsystems presented in Swords of the Serpentine. While SotS is less finicky in its Rules than systems like Pathfinder or 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons, it has more of these fiddly bits then other Gumshoe Games.

I’ve not read deeply in the underlying Swords & Sorcery fiction (primarily the Moorcock oeuvre), so I may not be as in love with the fiction this book is trying to evoke. But amongst the things I like about Gumshoe games are the relatively simple rulesets.

The lighter rules approach allows the Game Master and Players focus on play and the story. This Setting has a lot of moving parts. The good news, is many of those parts are not core or necessary to running this Game.

I personally love fantasy stories and roleplaying. Having this setting and ruleset allows me run a Fantasy Gumshoe experience. Also, the Game Mastering Advice and tips on how to construct your own Mystery/Adventure is top notch. Their advice should be used in any Gumshoe game you run. Even if you’re not interested in the setting per se, the GM Advice section is worth the purchase price.

If you want some links on where to buy Gumshoe books, it can be found over here.

If you want to explore the wilder (and wider) world of tabletop roleplaying games go there! If you want to start to learn on how to paint miniatures, click already! Or maybe you want to read more of my posts about Dungeons and Dragons, then click away here!

Start by writing bullet points of the crime from start to completion. Next, write your core scenes, with the six journalistic questions and five senses. Then, create your alternate and antagonist reactions scenes. Remember, the players start at the completion of the crime and work backwards.

Before we get much farther, its important to define some core terms or concepts for Gumshoe mysteries. But first, if you do not know what is the Gumshoe roleplaying game system, then click here to read all about it. The example mystery scenario I will be creating will be Esoterrorist themed, but these principles apply to any of the Gumshoe games. To learn more about the Esoterrorist setting, click here!

The first term is Core Clue. Core clues are pieces of information your investigators can obtain from a scene simply because they have at least 1 rank in an Investigative Ability. The question is not whether the Investigators get the Core Clue, but what they do with that information.

The goal of a GUMSHOE scenario is often not to complete the puzzle but to make sense of the image before the figure it reveals gets out of reach — and away with a crime.

Will Hindmarch, No Clues Without Consequences, Part 3

Clues are facts, they are not meaning. There are five distinct set of fingerprints is a clue. Who they are is another clue gained when those are later compared to a database. Or maybe only 3 of the 5 are in the database, but that’s a clue itself.

The Game Master should only give meanings if the Players are stuck on what they should do next: “You have two options. You can take the fingerprint evidence you just gathered into your police contacts, but then they’ll know what you know. Or, you can go talk to the victim’s daughter who discovered this scene, which you know from the police report you borrowed, that she is staying with friends 1/2 mile away.”

The second term is Pipe Clues. This comes from screenwriting jargon, where the clue is not immediately relevant, but relevant later. When writing scenes, you want to do so within a framework. Which scenes lead into it and which scenes does it lead too? Pipe Clues do not immediately lead you out of this scene to another one. They are laid to be used several scenes later. But Pipe Clues can be Core Clues or gained from a Spend.

It is important that you follow that framework when writing down your scenes. First name the scene. Identify the type of scene. Then list the lead-ins and the lead-outs.

Mrs. Goodsen’s Corpse
Scene Type: Core
Lead-In: The Police Station; Detective Ricky’s Apartment
Lead-Out: The Crime Lab; Lana Goodsen’s Friends

As a table aide or prop, you may even want to use 4×6 Index Cards. Write the name of each of your scenes on a card, but not the other pieces (too inside baseball). Write each core clue factoid on another index card. As the players enter the scene, throw the card into the middle of the table. They can take notes. Then hand out the clue cards.

I would definitely do this for new groups. Then over time, only do the scene cards, but have blank 4x6s ready. The players can write down their own clues. If you want to be really fancy, get some corkboard and push pins. Let them pin and arrange the cards to understand the evidence.

The Six Questions of Journalism

Journalists are detectives. They are taught to ask six questions: Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why. As you write your mystery overview, you should try to include answers to each of the six questions. This will give you a good sense of the broad strokes and themes of the mystery. You may never explicitly reveal the answers from your outline, but helps put your mind within the world of your game.

As you write your individual scenes and create your clues, do so within the context of these six questions. Don’t overdo it. Not every scene needs to have clues that answer each of these questions. If your struggling to create at least a small handful of clues in a scene, come back to these questions.

What the features of The Esoterrorist setting is a game master’s ability to rip stories from the headlines, then adapt them into a Mystery scenario. As I was writing this article, one such headline came across my news feed, “U.S. soldier plotted with a satanic neo-Nazi cult to stage ‘murderous ambush’ on his unit.”

Reading this story from The Washington Post further, this US Soldier became involved with a UK group called Order of Nine Angels (O9A). The Anti-Hate group, Hope Not Hate, has an article about O9A here (warning: the descriptions of O9A activities show they are an extremely perverse, transgressive group). From the Hope Not Hate article, it describes O9A as follows:

In brief, O9A seeks to harness supernatural forces and overthrow the alleged “Nazarene/Magian” (Jewish) influence on society, reduce the population of “mundanes” through acts of extreme barbarism, and usher in a new imperial aeon (age) ruled by a race of Satanic supermen who would colonise the solar system. 

Hope Not Hate

Consent

Esoterrorist Mysteries can be dark. The write up by Hope Not Hate of the O9A describe many dark, transgressive acts done by this group. I strongly recommend that you do not describe these scenes on-camera. Describing on-going scenes or murder, sexual assault, and torture is going to be traumatic for you and your players.

My current player group includes 5 teens and pre-teens. I am not sure I would play the Esoterrorists with this group as its themes are too dark. If I wanted to play a Gumshoe game with them, then Bubble Gumshoe or Timewatch are lighter themed settings.

Prior to playing any Esoterrorist game, you should talk with your players about which themes they can and cannot tolerate. You should also discuss which themes they are ok with off-camera versus on-camera. Do not ask any player to explain why they are not OK with certain themes. You are not their therapist. Just accept it and move along.

Then during play, have an “X Card” on the table (or several) within reach of the players. If you’re describing or moving into a topic that is triggering a player (something they did not previously realize would be triggering), the player can simply tap or hold up the “X Card”. It is literally a 4×6 Index Card with a large black X drawn on it.

When it is tapped, you stop and find a different way of moving forward. Only if 100% necessary, take the player aside and inquire what was triggering. Finding a different way forward will not necessarily be easy, but it is necessary. If it is tapped in response to another player, then that player needs to do the same thing. If that player persists, pull that player aside (not the X-Card Tapper) and talk to them about finding a different path.

Playing roleplaying games is supposed to be fun for everyone at the table. There are many different ways to have fun. But we should be protective of that fun, to ensure each and every one of us are having fun. No theme, story element, or player action is more important than triggering a player. If you need to read more about the very important topic of Consent in Gaming, click away.

Operation Ambush

The Mystery almost writes itself from here. To keep things geographically simple, we’ll transplant O9A into the US from the UK. Let’s start with the Chronological bullet point overview:

• PFC Ethan Melzer is stationed at Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas.
• About 1 year prior, he starts reading white supremacy literature and becomes radicalized.
• 6 months ago, he searches local white supremacist groups and finds the O9A. He meets with Anton Long, the local cell’s leader. Long is an alias for David Myatt.
• Long works with (for?) an Outer Dark Entity called a Returner who appeared as part of a ritual sacrifice. The Returner is promising magical powers to Long.
• Three months ago, Melzer is inducted into O9A through committing a ritual sacrifice.
• Since then, Melzer has participated in culls with other members of the O9A committing acts of predation and terror in the rural communities along the New Mexico-Texas border.

• Mezler has tried to recruit members of his squad, but they have resisted and ostracized him. Fearing he would be turned in, he then conspired with Long to have his squad ambushed by O9A members while they were doing a patrol exercise/training on Fort Bliss.
• Mezler’s electronic communications of these plans were done on-base. This allowed federal authorities to intercept and arrest him 7 days ago. When reviewing his reading and web history, the occult nature of the O9A resulted in activating The Ordo Veritatis.
• 3 days ago, Mezler committed suicide (hanging) inside of his jail cell, despite precautions.

Ms. Verity’s Briefing

From this outline, the Game Master can then prepare the briefing that leads to the introductory scene(s) of the Investigation. Once Ms. Verity activates the OV team, what does the OV know about the situation? What makes the OV think this is something that requires their attention, not just something for local, federal, or military law enforcement?

• Web history shows him reading occult sites known by the OV as passive recruiting opportunities for a well-entrenched Mother Cell of Esoterrorists.
• Transcripts of interviews with his squad members that Mezler was into occult topics and engaged in magical thinking. But the local FBI did not spend much time asking follow up questions on those lines of inquiry.
• Tattoos on Mezler’s body, but any attempts to photograph them results in corruption of the file.
• An uptick in missing person cases in the region.

Each of these clues from the briefing will point to several Core Scenes for the Investigators:

• The County Morgue to inspect Mezler’s corpse and those tattoos.
• FBI Field Office, El Paso, Tex. to talk to the special agents and review their evidence files.
• County Jail to talk with guards, inmates, and inspect the jail cell.
• Fort Bliss to talk with his squad.

Introductory Scenes

You should also decide how widespread the O9A is in El Paso. Obviously, Mezler didn’t hang himself. Therefore, someone at the jail or who had access to the jail is a member of the O9A. But the Returner needs a fresh corpse to feed on, is Mezler’s corpse missing now too?

As an aside, in the Esoterrorist book, they have an example Mystery. For each scene, they write out several column-inches of expository text. If you’re so inclined, you could do the same. But, that is a tool for communicating information from a writer to a reader who are not the same person. I don’t think you need to do the same level of detain in your write up. Instead, focus on the six journalistic questions.

El Paso County Jail
Scene Type: Core
Lead-Ins: The Briefing
Lead-Outs:

For now, I have the lead-outs blank, because I haven’t figure that out yet. Once you’ve written the Core Clues, then that will suggest to you lead-out scenes. Of course, there should be some sort of link between The Morgue and the County Jail as there should be an obvious local law-enforcement connection:

El Paso County Jail
Scene Type: Core
Lead-Ins: The Briefing, The Morgue
Lead-Outs: The Morgue

The next step is to either write your Core Clues or list the Investigative Abilities relevant. I prefer to write the Core Clues and list the likely Investigative Abilities that will reveal those clues. Now just like with the over-arching plot, I write a basic narrative of what happened at each scene that is the crime or the cover-up:

• Lieutenant Grayson (I’m terrible at names) is a member of the O9A and has been for several years. He feeds information of newly released inmates to the O9A for recruits or victims.
• In additional to being a satanic neo-nazi, Lt. Grayson is also a misogynist who doesn’t like Officer Eaton, because he doesn’t think women should be Sheriff Deputies.

• The night of the murder of Melzer, he entered the IT office, saved the clip of Officer Able’s patrol. Emailed it from the Technician Feliciano’s personal gmail account (he left it up) to a technically savvy O9A member, who altered the time stamp.
• Lt. Grayson then spliced it over the video of that hour, hiding the fact that he entered Melzer’s cell between the two patrols.
• Lt. Grayson tore out the page or took the log book and planted it in Officer Eason’s locker.

Here are some What Happened Core Clues, which also give When Did It Happen clues:

• Lights out is at 10 pm. Guards start their patrol to ensure lights are off starting at 10:15 pm. It takes 45 minutes to patrol the entire jail. The patrol happens again at 11:15 pm. After that, it’s every-other hour until 7 a.m. Shifts are changed at 11 pm and 7 a.m. Cop Talk, Bureaucracy, Flattery.
• For prisoners on suicide watch, their cells are checked every 30 minutes if they are awake, every hour once they are asleep. Cop Talk, Bureaucracy, Flattery.
• There is a log book signed after each patrol that verifies the patrol was done. The log book for that night is now missing (or maybe the page for that night is torn out). Cop Talk, Bureaucracy.
• The log book or missing page is in Officer Eaton’s locker. Evidence Collection.
• Closed Circuit video records all areas outside cells. It shows an officer checking Mezler’s cell at 2:25 a.m. and walking by. It shows the same officer checking at 3: 29 a.m. walking by. It shows a different officer walking by at 4:22 a.m., stopping, pulling out a radio, opening the cell door, and a minute later several more officers running into the cell.. Cop Talk, Bureaucracy.
• The video has been altered. The 3:29 a.m. check in is a loop of the 2:25 a.m. check in, but the date stamp has been altered. Photography.

There are several more What Happened clues that could be given here. None of these suggest that a spend will get anything more. The possible exception is a Photography Spend to get more details about the alteration. The next important piece is the Who Was Present or Who Had Access to the log book and video. Most of these are Cop Talk Core Clues.

• Officer Able (Did I mention that I’m terrible at names) is seen on the 2:25 a.m. and 3:29 a.m. check-ins.
• Officer Baker is the one who discovered Mezler’s body hanging by sheets tied into a rope.
• Captain Charlie is responsible for the log book, but each book covers one month. The practice has been to leave it out, unsecured, in the duty room. Anyone has access to it. The duty room camera has been broken for a month or more.
• Sgt. Durango was in the Command Center that night watching the feeds. He doesn’t remember seeing anything unusual from the cameras. Cop Talk Spend: It was Officer Eaton’s turn to do the suicide watch patrol at 3:29 a.m.
• All of the camera feeds are recording and kept for six months. They are stored in Technician Feliciano’s office. He’s their IT guy. The Captain and Lieutenants all have keys to get into the IT Office.
• Lieutenant Grayson was not on duty that night. It was Lieutenant Howard, who denies entering the IT office. Cop Talk, Flattery, Reassurance, Bullshit Detector.
• Cop Talk, Interrogation, Intimidation or Bullshit Detector Spends will reveal that Sgt. Durango was covering for Lt. Grayson. Durango also doesn’t like Officer Eaton and thinks women shouldn’t be on the force. Lt. Grayson stopped in saying that during Eaton’s next patrol, he was going to play a practical joke on her locker.

The level and breadth of detail is up to the individual Game Master. If they are not good at improve, then obviously more is better. A more improvisational Game Master needs less prepared in advance.

The other thing the Game Master must decide is whether most of these clues are actually Pipe Clues or Core Clues. In other words, are the Investigators being given enough to draw conclusions that it was definitely Lt. Grayson and not Officer Eaton in this scene? If yes, then these are core clues and more needs to be added to make Lt. Grayson a person of interest at the conclusion of the scene.

If the Game Master wants to keep the question of Lt. Grayson or Officer Eaton or Technician Feliciano as the real perpetrator, then these are more Pipe Clues. But you will have to lay out parallel pathways of what each person was doing or trying to do that appears suspicious and subject to a Bullshit Detector clue. It is only when they find a clue in later scenes where they have the possibility of figuring out who is the red herring.

Remember, your later clues do not have to be definitive that these are red herrings. It is not your job as the Game Master to help the Players interpret the clues. The tricky part is Bullshit Detector. As written it is a binary ability (lying or not lying), with the possibility of false negatives:

This sense doesn’t tell you what they’re lying about, specifically, or see through their lies to the truth. . . . Certain individuals may be so adept at lying that they never set off your bullshit detector. Some people believe their own falsehoods. 

Bullshit Detector Description, The Esoterrorists, 2nd Ed. p. 11

Where you can get into trouble is if you have two many Non-Player Characters (NPC) and do not have well organized notes. But not all scenes are going to have so many people as a County Jail.

The Five Senses

The other piece to not just clue writing, but any writing, is to include the five senses in your clues: sight, smell, touch, taste, and hear. Sight will be the go to sense. You should also combine the sense with a journalistic question. The trick will be varying the Investigative Ability.

• As you talk to Officer Eaton in her living room, you notice the perfume that she is wearing. It matches the unsigned letters in Mezler’s Go Bag. Evidence Collection.
• As you enter the room, the small of of fear, sweat, and unwashed bodies nearly overwhelms you. You also notice an external lock on the door, with no door knob on the inside of the door. Evidence Collection.
• As you inspect the symbols drawn on the wall, you reach out to trace it with your finger. That’s why you release the ink is still wet and unusually hot. Occult Studies.
• As you walk around the room, something seems off with dimensions of the room. As you tap on the on the drywall, you can hear a difference in the echo/sound of the West Wall. Architecture. Spend: As you walk around the outside of the house, you’re pretty sure there is a secret space or room behind that wall.

As you craft and connect your scenes, keep in mind the three act structures of these stories: Beginning, Middle, and End. However, pacing and structure can be difficult to maintain as Players take unanticipated actions. The Esoterrorists book identifies additional scene types:

• Alternate: These scenes flesh out the world of your game and mystery, they may help the Investigators draw additional connections, but are not necessary to solve the mystery.
• Antagonist Reaction: These are scenes where the Antagonists, aware of the Investigators on their tail, take actions against the Investigators. This could be a fight scene, the planting of evidence where local law enforcement targets them, or rumors that turn the locals against them.
• Hazard: This is a scene with an environmental hazard, traps, and dangers requiring General Abilities tests.
• Conclusion: Obviously the end or maybe just the beginning of the end. These are scenes where the final moves of the chess game occur. Either the Investigators solve the Mystery and capture their subject or they disrupt the cell, whose members scatter.

Insights from Other Games

Gumshoe is a very different system. It is important to understand it on its own terms. But that doesn’t mean we can’t use concepts from other systems or advice for other systems in preparing your Gumshoe Mystery.

Dungeon World Fronts

Dungeon World is a Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) game. If you want to learn more about PbtA as a system, come click away. One of the best concepts from Dungeon World that is importable into any other game system is the idea of Fronts.

Fronts are designed to help you organize your thoughts on what opposes the players. They’re here to contain your notes, ideas, and plans for these opposing forces. 

Dungeon World, p. 185

At their core, Fronts are what the bad guys in your story are doing so long as your players don’t bother them. It’s identifying what their next 2-3 moves or actions will be and what signs (evidence) are created when they achieve those goals.

By writing the story of your mystery from the start of the plot to the culmination of the plot, the Front is what your antagonists are doing next and again after that. This creates the tension for the Investigators as they’re entering the middle of the story, but then must work backwards and forwards.

Generally, in most Mysteries or scenarios there is only one group of bad guys. In Dungeon World, they suggest having 2-3 Fronts (groups of bad guys) to create tension for the players: all these bad things are happening and we can only stop one, but which?

For Gumshoe, I still think there should be 3 Fronts, but 2 of them are red herrings. Just because they aren’t criminal, it doesn’t mean these other individuals or groups can’t do something that interferes with your Investigators. They have stories that are running parallel or perpendicular to your main story.

The Lazy Dungeon Master: Secrets and Clues

Two of my favorite Dungeon Master advice books are The Lazy Dungeon Master and Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master by Mike Shea. The former was written for 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, the latter for 5th Edition. In Return, he talks about this concept of creating Fantastic Locations and a list of 10 Secrets and Clues.

This sounds a lot like creating Scenes and Core Clues. What is different is that in Return, there is no direct connection between the Fantastic Locations and the Secrets/Clues. Instead, these are used improvisationally, by letting the game happen, following player choices. You then drop the secrets whenever and wherever seems appropriate.

But in Return, you do not need to use all 10 of the clues in a session or any of the locations. You are simply preparing to improvise. Furthermore, you are advised to get rid of the unused locations and clues at the end of the session, writing a new set before the next session. If the clue is important or enduring enough, you’ll think of it again and write it down again.

Gumshoe has a similar type of clue, the Floating Core Clue. These are not tied to a particular scene, but is information that can be gleaned in a number of different ways. I think of it has information, maybe even important, mystery-defining information but stripped of its context. It is a clue without a pre-defined set of Investigative Abilities set to it.

Above, I used the clue where there is a secret, interior room built into the house. I used the sense of hearing and Architecture as a way of giving that clue. But if that secret, interior room is an important scene, then the existence of secret room could be found in any number of scenes:

• A member of O9A has been captured and that secret room is discovered using interpersonal skills like Reassurance, Interrogation, Intimidation, or Flattery.
• An Investigator is trying to infiltrate the O9A or finds one of its members drunk at the bar, using Flirting to obtain it.
• An Investigator goes into the County’s records department, using Bureaucracy, obtains the original blueprints filed to get the building permit. In the alternative, you hack into their database using Data Retrieval to obtain the blueprints. A later trip into the house makes is quickly clear the interior has been remodeled with Architecture.
• After determining two members of the O9A, you infiltration and plant bugs in their home or establish a wire tap on their phones. Electronic Surveillance picks up the two of them talking about the secret room.
• An Investigator Impersonates someone from the IRS. They obtain the tax returns of the homeowner from their CPA. Forensic Accounting shows they used the expenses of constructing that secret room as a tax write-off.

The bare, necessary information was the existence of the secret room. Maybe that is where the Outer Dark Entity, the Returner, nests. Therefore, it is essential the Investigators discovery the rooms existence.

Moving and inventing clues, informed by the backstory as the GM knows it to be true, is where adventure or scenario design meets play and the adapted, remixed story unfolds through collaboration.

Will Hindmarch, No Clues Without Consequence, Part 4

But as a Floating Core Clue, just like in Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master’s Secret and Clues, you decide when to give them that information. Most Investigators, if they find out about a secret room inside a suspect’s house, will make a beeline for it to find what they’re hiding.

Who knows what sort of “fun” they’ll encounter. Maybe the ODE has friends? Those friends love new playmates like the Investigators.

Read-Aloud Text

Finally, one of the concerns I’ve read a lot online about Gumshoe Investigations is that players will just “spam” their investigative abilities each scene. This is a valid concern as it can break immersion and the 4th-wall of the game. For new players, they may be tempted to do this as they don’t yet have a feel for the flow the of the game.

One way of channeling that impulse is to prepare read-aloud text for each scene. For those who don’t know, in many if not most Dungeons and Dragons pre-published adventures (modules), they have read-aloud text for a dungeon, room, or area:

The entrance to the cave ends here at a 10-foot drop-off. To your right, broad steps are roughly hewn into a natural stone ramp. The cavern below is carpeted with a profusion of fungi ranging from a few inches high to nearly as tall as a human adult. Two paths lead through the fungi: one on the right and one on the left.

Horde of the Dragon Queen, Wizards of the Coast.

We can take a similar option for Gumshoe scenes. The first step is using Pelgrane’s excellent resources, which include this handy worksheet for keeping track of your player’s investigative abilities. Write read-aloud text with those Investigative Abilities in mind:

As you enter into the backroom the first thing you notice is the smell of old blood and feces. The second is the sound of bugs. Madeline, with your Forensic Etymology, you immediately know the body you see against the back wall has been dead from somewhere between 48 to 72 hours. Bill, with your Forensic Pathology, you can quickly see the cause of death was likely blunt force trauma to the skull, but it never hurts do a more detailed autopsy.

I wouldn’t pick more than 2 or 3 Abilities for the read-aloud. You’re inviting them into the scene and placing their investigative abilities within the context of the scene. You can also use this invite a spend, e.g. autopsy, to gather more information. There may be other Core Clues, but let them explore and you’ve invited them into the scene.

I also like to place the Investigative Abilities or Spends in bold, to draw my eye while I scan and read mid-game. But you knew that, because I’ve been doing that throughout this Article. It helps me draw associations between what players are saying on the table and my notes.

In brief summary, writing a compelling Mystery can be fun. It’s like putting together a clock, with all of its interlocking gears. But that can also be overwhelming if you make it too complicated. If you find yourself overwhelmed, use the Rule of Three:

• No more than three core clues per scene
• No more than three Lead-Outs from a scene
• No more than three speaking, clue-giving Non-Player Characters per scene.

While harder to precisely map out, I would not have more than three scenes at the same stage of the investigation. Also, try not to have more than six (2×3) to nine (3×3) scenes from the Introductory to Conclusion scenes, assuming the Investigators go in a straight line. Don’t make it so complex that you or your players lose track of where they are.

If you want some links on where to buy Gumshoe books, it can be found over here.

If you want to explore the wilder (and wider) world of tabletop roleplaying games go there! If you want to start to learn on how to paint miniatures, click already! Or maybe you want to read more of my posts about Dungeons and Dragons, then click away here!

In Gumshoe’s The Esoterrorists, you’re elite occult investigators uprooting cults who seek tear the membrane and rewrite reality. These cults can expose you to strange Outer Dark Entities (ODE). Stop cultists from summoning the ODE, sending it back through the membrane, before you’re driven insane.

For those who don’t know much about the Gumshoe RPG system, the basic conceit is that you play hyper-competent investigators. If your character has a specific investigation ability, like Ballistics, and you’re investigating the scene of a shootout, then you automatically receive a Core Clue. No roll is needed, you just learn the information if you invoke your Investigative ability. Click here if you want to learn more about the Gumshoe system.

Creating a character starts with picking a character concept, such as detective, scientist, archaeologist and who you are when not investigating dangerous cults. Depending on how many players, you get points to select Investigative Abilities and buy additional ranks. Next, you have a set number of points to buy General Abilities, these are skills that have the risk of failing like Shooting. Click here if you want to learn more about creating Gumshoe characters.

With these basics out of the way, let’s delve deeper into the world of The Esoterrorists. Let’s start with the Membrane and the Outer Dark

The Outer Dark

The Outer Dark is a realm of subjective chaos where nothing is real and simultaneously everything is real. The only thing that matters in the Outer Dark is your will. If you want something to be true, it is true. That is, unless something with more power, with a greater will to dominate comes along. In the Outer Dark cause and effect is broken. The only truth that matters is your truth.

Outer Dark Entities feed off of dark emotions: terror, fear, and strongly held irrational beliefs. Events that provoke strong emotional reactions in large groups of people can tear openings in the membrane: terrorist attacks, school shootings, police killings, violent demonstrations. ODEs and their Esoterrorist allies (servitors?) then use tools of mass media to use these events to spark new, irrational or conspiratorial beliefs.

Such irrationality, the 9-11 Truther Movement then leads to the irrationality of Birthers followed by Pizza Gate. This then culminates with some unhinged follower then commits an act of terrible violence, unless stopped in time by the Ordo Veritatis. That act of terror and psychic horror then spawns another sequence of irrationality like autism being caused by vaccines.

The other source of Outer Dark Entity influence is more localized, deep, specific heinous acts: serial killers acting alone or in a group, religious cults like the Branch Davidians, or rich sociopaths such as Epstein. These depraved minds attract ODEs like moths to a flame. These deliberate, deeply horrible, personal atrocities will also rip a hole in the membrane allowing the ODE to communicate with its burgeoning Esoterrorist.

The Ordo Veritatis has seen ODEs exert various levels of operational control over specific Esoterrorist cells. The fact that any particular Outer Dark Entity is competitive with its fellows reduces the chances of well-organized, persistent command-and-control structures developing to systematically break down the Membrane.

In rarer circumstances, Ordo Veritatis analysts have documented networked ODEs who appear to serve a more powerful Entity. When this occurs, the OV is put on high alert and this network must be dismantled, stem-and-root. One of the few advantages the OV has over the ODEs is their failure to cooperate in bringing down the Membrane.

Some ODEs have a high degree of operational control over their specific cell. Sometimes the ODE is in direct control of the members of the cell, almost as if they were meat puppets. Other ODEs act as the mob boss or ring leader. The cell members have a degree of autonomy, but report back to the ODE and receive new commands.

Lesser ODEs are sometimes summoned and used by the cell as a weapon or guardian. Or it is even possible the cult is aware of the existence of Outer Dark Entities, may communicate with them, but maintain a healthy distance because they have goals or a purpose to spread esoterror without the need of an ODE.

The Membrane

The Membrane is the thing that separates our rational, objective, causal world from the irrational, subjective, acausal existence of the Outer Dark. Humans anchored in objective reality, if they know how to poke holes in the Membrane, can access the power of the Outer Dark. The ability to harness that power, to make things happen despite the laws of physics is called magic.

However, no one has yet been able to sufficiently access the power of the Outer Dark to manifest true magic or sorcery. Minor mind powers (ESP, telekinesis, mind reading) may have been manifested by cultists, but it is not clear if that was before or after their exposure to the Outer Dark. The fear is that once enough holes are punched through, then a powerful cult leader would be able to manifest true sorcery with dire consequences for objective reality.

What if a large hole is poked into the Membrane? A hole large enough to summon an entity, a creature of pure will, through into our objective reality? There are two problems with this idea. First, you have to have enough people with enough will and concentration to summon that entity into objective reality.

Second, you have to think up a biological body for that entity to inhabit. In the Outer Dark existence is anchored in will and thought. In our reality, existence is anchored in chemistry, physics and biology. If the summoners are not concentrating hard enough on a physical body that works, no matter how bizarrely, the ritual fails.

A failure of will, imagination, and understanding internal fluid pressure means the Outer Dark Entity never materializes or its newly material form catastrophically fails. The best case scenario is the newest initiate has a lot of viscera to clean up. The worst case scenario is Brad suddenly thought it would be cool if the ODE had acid for blood and everyone ends up in the hospital with burns.

While not appropriate in tone for this game, think of summoning the Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man in the original Ghostbusters. Regardless, the difficulty of creating such a creature is so difficult, most Esoterrorist cults use established designs known to work rather than freelance.

Types of Outer Dark Entities

As mentioned above, summoning ODEs is not easy. So most cells use existing texts that have demonstrated viable entities. With this repetition, the Ordo Veritatis has been able to compile data on these more common entities.

While some ODEs can be killed the old-fashioned way, these tend to be lesser ODEs. More powerful Outer Dark Entities have Special Means of Dispatch (SMD). Or in occult volumes they have banes: certain substances or weapons, which are the only way they can be terminated. But if the cell managed to summon an variant ODE, its SMD may be different. Agents must then discover the variant’s SMD.

The following is a brief list of known ODEs. Investigators should consult with their operations officer, Mr. or Ms. Verity, for SMD information about the suspected Outer Dark Entity they will be facing.

Blood Corpses

Zombies, but with more razor blades and spikes. They consume human blood through their holo claws. These are not the leader-type of ODE, more of the shock-trooper Outer Dark Entity.

Brutalizer

The eggheads at Ordo Veritatis HQ like to name Outer Dark Entities by using words that are both adjective and verb. These are the psychopathic bullies on the ODE playground. The specialize in dominating human bullies; turning them from doms into subs. They feed off of violence.

Corpsejabber

These Outer Dark Entities like to take over the recently deceased. But not just any stiff, they are drawn to people with complicated, unresolved relationships with loved ones. When the loved one dies, the ODE then puppets its corpse. They communicate telepatically with their victim, who almost always digs up the corpse and takes it with them. If the corpse is not available, then it inhabits an emotionally-connected object or cremated remains.

Disincarnate

Those not read into Order Veritatis briefings, think Disincarnates are your standard ghosts or poltergeists. But well-briefed Investigators know this is an Outer Dark Entity who has been linked to an area, but not summoned. This permits the ODE to manipulate objects, electronics, and complex machinery.

Glistening

The Ordo Veritatis analysts have a healthy dispute whether these are a manifested ODE, an ODE influencing causal reality from beyond the membrane, or a pathogen (viral, bacterial, fungal, parasitic). But the infected, go through some normal stages such as feeling unwell, nausea, and elevation of body temperature. After full infection, the Glistening will take control either permanently or temporarily to spread esoterror. Lets hope your Investigators do not encounter a Glisten Queen.

The Host

These Outer Dark Entities are most often encountered in areas of intense religious fervor or frenzy. These predatory ODEs seek and devour individuals experiencing intense spiritual agitation (guilt). They hope these disappearances will intensify the religious mania (e.g. the Rapture has begun!). If the fervor reduces, they will attempt to give religious visions (analysts debate whether this is a psychic phenomenon or actual manifestations) to juice the fervor.

Kooks

These are feral children look-a-likes with over-large heads and shark teeth. They prey on the young. These are an example of a simplistic ODE.

Man In Black

Analysts have been collecting reports about this type of Outer Dark Entity, but have not had success in getting solid evidence. At first they thought this was just the urban myth of government agents, in black suits, who appear, cause a disturbance, than disappear. Younger generation of analysts now think this phenomenon is a psychic phenomenon.

But even within that group they are split between those who see this as a new ODE, where others posit this is a cry of the Membrane itself. If the latter is true, then that requires the Ordo Veritatis to completely reimagine its theoretical understanding of the Membrane as a being with sentience.

Nester

The uninitiated might think these a small grey alien, except for the long razor-sharp hooks at the end of the their upper extremities. Oh, and their beak-like mouths dripping green spittle. Unlike birds, they like to nest in the abdomens of sleeping humans, but will take any available large mammal. The analysts do not know how Nesters are able to fool modern medical imaging, but they do. Once established, they will reemerge from their hosts to reproduce, laying tiny eggs, then return to their sleeping host.

Returner

When manifested, these Outer Dark Entities appear like a human heart, except it is a quivering mass of tissues. Also, there are those cartilaginous tendrils. Returners host in the recently deceased, reanimating them. Despite the pop cultural view of zombies, Returners are fiendish masterminds.

Scauler

These flying, eyeless lampreys are manifested in polluted, dead water. After manifesting, they must feed for awhile until they are full-grown, about 2 meters. These ODEs have tremendous regenerative powers and can be trained by Esoterrorists. Analysts have also documented spontaneous manifestations of Scaulers, which is a sign of the ill-health of the Membrane in the area.

Shamebeast

Another parasitic Outer Dark Entity, they are attracted to strong emotions generated by sexual scandal or hysteria in areas with strong societal sexual repression and shaming. Like Scaulers, these have been known to spontaneously manifest. Once it finds its victim, it burrows up through the urethra. Analysts are working out its incubation period. Once fully incubated, its victims turn into what is commonly referred to as a nymphomaniac. Intercourse with the victim either spreads the parasite or results in a quick, hemorrhagic fever-like death.

Torture Dogs

Its hard to top the analysts description of these ODEs: giant mammalian cyborg weevils. They literally use power drills from between their mandibles to inject psychotropic toxins into their victims. These toxins inflame nerve endings, making their torture even more exquisitely painful.

Skin Crabs

Yet another parasite of the Outer Dark who also prey on the recently deceased. They look like clawless crustaceans, starting around the size of a man’s hand, but with two digging appendages. These ODEs burrow through the mouth and into the skull of the dead, where it then consumes the internal structures. What is left is a loose flesh bag with an intact skull.

Through methods based kept for eyes-only briefings, the Skin Crab inflates its host, digging itself out, and infiltrates the edges of human society (homeless camps). They are capable of speech of sort. The analysts are still trying to sort out the motivations for these ODEs. Do they have sentience or do they just operate on a lesser, instinctual level.

Esoterrorists

The Esoterrorists are individuals or small cells of individuals who are either seeking the power of the Outer Dark or have inadvertently stumbled across it. Most cells have a leader, who falls into a couple of different deviant personality types:

• Dominants — Seeks of power and influence. No matter what organization they belong to, they are always gunning for the top spot. They lord their power over their underlings.
• Sadists — Power is not an end to itself. Power is used to inflict suffering on others.

The rank-and-file of an Esoterrorist cell tend to have exhibit the following personality types:

• Attention Seekers
• Ciphers
• Exofetishists (seekers of aliens)
• Hedonists
• Quislings (nihilists)
• Avengers
• Submissives

In short, the typical cell is full of dysfunctional personality types, which makes them susceptible to failure and discovery by agents of the Ordo Veritatis.

What differentiates run-of-the-mill sociopaths from Esoterrorists is their magical thoughts inspired by the Outer Dark Entities (either manifested or communicating through the Membrane). It is the lure for true magical power or sorcery that drives Esoterrorists forward, which means finding ways to deliberate tear and thin the Membrane.

Ironically, as mentioned above, no Esoterrorists has yet been documented to have true magical power. This permits the careful Investigator or Agent to track down objective reality, cause-and-effect clues to the Esoterrorist cell.

Esoterrorist Cells

Cells have been documented forming in a few distinct patterns. One is spontaneous formation. This is where a depraved mind or minds are approached by an ODE. The Outer Dark Entity then inspires or teaches them how to further weaken the Membrane.

A cell can also spontaneously form where someone discovers information or lore about Esoterror. This incipient cell leader then gathers others around her to seek greater knowledge or power. This will often culminate in summoning a known type of ODE.

Another way a cell forms is an esoteric awakening. Whether alone or with a small group, occult knowledge is sought. This could be harmless scholarly study or purposeful uncovering of lost knowledge. Eventually, they come across a ritual for summoning an ODE. Thinking it is either harmless fun or a path to greater enlightenment, the ritual is performed.

The manifested ODE will start making demands for a cell to form. Anyone present who disobeys or resists is brutalized and murdered. That transgressive act binds the remaining members into a new Esoterrorist cell.

The final three ways a new cell forms is from an existing cell. If there is schism within a cell, it my separate and form two distinct cells. This can lead to conflict between the cells, which leaves clues for the Agents to find. Other times, the cells split as part of some larger strategic purpose. This expands the geographic reach, but lowers the oversight of the powerful cell leader.

Another cell-split is called a Daughter Cell. The Daughter Cell is made of entirely new recruits, with a shadowy leader. They never learn of the Mother Cell. Daughter cells are used as cut outs or expendable patsies for the Mother cell. Once a specific mission or task is accomplished, the Mother Cell burns them literally or figuratively.

Finally, there is the remnant survival cell. This is when a cell is terminated by the Ordo Veritatis, but a cell member remains alive or free. That cell member uses their knowledge and compulsion for power to form a new cell.

Operational Security

Esoterrorist cells that do not maintain operational security, do not exist for very long. This means the Mother-Daughter Cells, Fissioned Cells, and Remnant Cells tend to be the most careful with communications. They restrict access to cell phones or the internet to avoid leaving digital fingerprints. Instead, they use techniques of modern spycraft such as dead drops, signalling, and face-to-face meetings.

Spontaneous or Awakened cells will use some operational security, but are not as adept at those methods. They may be unaware of OV’s existence, so they use no operational security measures at all. Or the ODE has warned them of OV’s “meddling” but the cult members are just not skilled in Tradecraft.

Opportunists

Well-led Esoterrorist cells both create opportunities and take advantage of opportunities to spread esoterror. When strange or unusual phenomenon occur, the Ordo Veritatis analysts have to quickly figure out whether its just coincidence or a plot created by an Esoterrorist cell to spread irrational beliefs. Even if its coincidence or an explainable phenomnon, the analysts must still monitor these stories to ensure a cell doesn’t take advantage of the free media.

Investigators should remember that cells with a smart, intentional leader operates on two different levels. Spreading mass irrationality weakens the Membrane. The weaker the Membrane, the easier it is for rituals to pierce it. Their hope is to achieve actual magical powers from the Outer Dark.

It is whispered the upper echelons of the Ordo Veritatis are actively trying to determine if the founders and CEOs of various social media companies are Esoterrorists or have been indirectly co-opted by them.

The Ordo Veritatis

The Ordo Veritatis or OV is a secret, multi-national organization whose sole goal is to thwart the Esoterrorists to save causal reality. The OV is effectively an intelligence and para-military agency. Like the Esoterrorists, they use a dispersed cell structure. Separate from the field agents are the analysts. Finally, unlike the Esoterrorists, the OV has a centralized command-and-control who strategically manage resources to reduce or eliminate this threat to our current reality.

Cell Structure

Each cell is comprised of a select group of Investigators, pulled from diverse occupational backgrounds. Each Investigator is fully read-in on the the basics of the Esoterrorist cells. Investigators operate under a clandestine identity, a nom-de-guerre. Revealing your true identity violates the basic tenets of operational security, placing yourself, your family, and your colleagues at extreme risk of retaliation.

Most cells do not operate in a single location, as that degrades operational security and increases the risks to their field agents. Instead, agents spend most of their days performing their normal, civilian jobs. They are securely contacted to meet at a random location or safehouse.

Cells typically consist of the same members. While this may lead to fracturing of operational security due to familiarity and naturally inquisitive minds, its better than the alternative. The OV has experimented with randomly assigning team members, the analysts measured a statistically significant degradation of operational outcomes.

After Action Debriefings found that veteran cell members expressed a high level of distrust of team members with whom they had not worked with or had not worked with in some time. A known hazard of prolonged work as a field agent is justifiable paranoia. These randomly assigned teams were over-cautious, leading to adverse results.

Some cells are assigned to a specific location or area, referred to as Station Duty. Leadership makes the difficult trade off between the degradation to operational security and the advantages of deeper knowledge of the location’s geography and social fabric. Stations are set up in locales where the Membrane has persistently thinned or the analysts suspect there is an Esoterror super-cell.

When a cell is activated, they first rendezvous together at a location, then proceed to a second location for their briefing. This two-step process helps minimize any well-connected Esoterrorist cell from using Traffic Analysis to back tracing Investigators. At the second location, they meet with an anonymous Senior Field Agent, always referred to Mr. or Ms. Verity for their operational briefing. Afterwards, they travel to their operational location.

Analysts

Generally, analysts rarely become field agents. With their risk of capture and interrogation, the Ordo Veritatis, is concerned that an entire support station will become compromised. However, they will sometimes permit analysts to work in the field or allow field agents to spend time in a support station. This cross-training is useful to ensure analysts are creating useful product for the field. It is also helpful for field agents to know what types of intel are most useful to the analysts.

Besides the normal security precautions used for any secret operation, Support Stations have some unusual precautions. First, the exterior and interior decor must be extremely drab and boring. With the esoteric, a-causal, magical-thinking intelligence being analyzed, it is important to keep analysts emotionally grounded.

Analysts perform several functions:

• Media Threat Analysis
• Electronic Traffic Sifting
• Surveillance and Deep Cover Analysis
• Informant Reports

When a support station identifies a situation requiring a field agent cell to deploy, then they prepare a briefing. The Mr. or Ms. Verity assigned to the mission will thoroughly review the briefing and ask the analysts for more information or clarification. Very rarely are field agents given written briefing product as it is too easy to intercept. The Ordo Veritatis has discovered that field agents have better outcomes with a verbal briefing, which allows for questions and answers.

Ordo Veritatis Leadership

The precise nature of the upper echelons of the OV are not known. Given the nationalities of field agents and global reach of operations, it is assumed the OV is a joint covert operation of several nations or of a multi-national organization like NATO. It is rare for Field Agents to be given any insights into management, again because of the risk of their capture and interrogation.

However OV leadership does require all field agents to adhere to a code of ethics. Agents shall:

• Protect human life and dignity
• Protect civilization and the values of civil society
• Enhance order, rationality, calm, and tranquility

Agents shall not (except if given specific permission by Mr. or Ms. Verity):

• Assassinate human enemies, except in extreme circumstances
• Use excessive force
• Use torture
• Foment public confusion, distress, or disorder
• Commit Treason (willfully cooperate with Esoterrorists or affiliated groups).

Field agents may always kill Outer Dark Enemies. If a human has been fully compromised via irrevocable possession or parasitism, then they may be eliminated with extreme prejudice. These ethical codes assist in healing or strengthening the Membrane and prevent tearing holes or that weaken it.

The other important task that OV leadership insists all field agents undertake is the Veil Out. The Veil Out is the cover story for all of the weird events that took place prior to and during the field operation. It is important the cover story be more than merely plausible, the story must be broadly disseminated within the local community.

The citizenry must believe that normal, causal events took place that are completely explainable by science. The Veil Out is the Field Agent’s primary method to heal or mend the wounded Membrane after stopping those actively seeking to destroy it.

OV Leadership is also responsible for monitoring Readiness Maintenance. Field Work is taxing on the Investigators body, mind, and soul. However, the primary focus is on their emotional or psychological readiness. If there are signs of breaking, then leadership sharply intervenes to get the Investigator counseling. Sometimes a review board must be commissioned to determine the Investigator’s mental health and recommend solutions.

Given the taxing nature of the field work, OV Leadership is always looking for new recruits. Maintaining that pipeline of replacements is essential for the continued operation of the Ordo Veritatis.

Operational Structure

All operations have a structure to them. Some of these events take place out of sight of the Field Agents or occur before they are activated.

1. Case Evaluation
2. Deployment
3. Briefing
4. Investigation
5. Counter-Operations
6. Neutralizations
7. Veil Out

The bulk of an operation are steps 4, 5 and 6. This is where the Investigators determine whether or not there is an Esoterrorist cell, resist attempts of retaliation by cell members, and then neutralize the cell without violating the Code of Ethics.

Final Thoughts

While there are several, obvious similarities between the fictional world of the Lovecraftian-Cthulhu Mythos and Esoterrorists, there are several differences that make the latter more accessible. First, it is easier to understand a mavelovent antagonist who has a specific outcome and goal like the Outer Dark Entities and Esoterrorist cells.

Whereas, the bizarre creatures and cults of the Cthulhu Mythos are so alien in their mentality and goals it is hard to establish any pathos. Their goals can be simplistic: the indifferent ending of human existence. It is harder to make the cults understandable too beyond they’re crazy.

The Esoterrorist 2nd Edition book does a really good job of showing what it is your Investigators do. The episodic, ripped-from-the-headlines, nature of these investigators means the Game Master can get inspiration by reading the news. The Esoterrorist can work as a one-off system when you can’t get your full group together or as an on-going campaign.

If you want some links on where to buy this Gumshoe setting, it can be found over here.

If you want to explore the wilder (and wider) world of tabletop roleplaying games go there! If you want to start to learn on how to paint miniatures, click already! Or maybe you want to read more of my posts about Dungeons and Dragons, then click away here!

In this version of Deadlands, things have changed in the Weird West. The timeline has been altered by nefarious and dark powers. What you once thought was true, is no longer. But don’t worry, this timeline still has Hucksters, shoot-outs, ghost rock powered trains, and zombies.

The history of Deadlands is not our history, not completely our history. Our timelines diverge in the Civil War. General Lee did not surrender at Appamattox, at least not in 1865. Instead, the war continued on through Lincoln’s second term. Malevolent spiritual forces entered our world, corrupting it. North America is not United, but fractured in many different ways.

Your characters are ex-soldiers, deserters, lawmen, bounty hunters, merchants, gamblers, native shaman, servants of the Almighty, mad scientists and keepers of ancient Eastern traditions. Your purpose and mission is up to you and your Marshal (Game Master).

Please note: I’m working off of the Pre-Release Version here given to higher-pledge level Kickstarter Backers. As of the time I’m posting this Article, I’m working off of Pre-Release version 2.0. If you have the released version and your book is different then what I have here, use the book you’ve got!

The Weird West

With the Civil War stretching on, it was interrupted by the Great Quake of 1868 that shattered California, letting the Pacific ocean flood its interior. It is now a maze of sea canyons.

The Civil War did not end until 1871 after a Northern victory at the Battle of Washington. The Confederate States fall soon after General Lee surrenders to General Grant at Appamattox later in 1871.

However, in the power vacuum created by the war of the North and the South, new republics and nations arose in the Americas. Rev. Grimme established a theocracy in the city-state of Los Angeles. However, his rule ended in 1880 when a great flood ravaged the City and he was last seen in his black-granite temple as the floor waters rose over its spire.

The Nation of Deseret was declared by the Brigham Young, Prophet of the Mormons in Utah Territory in 1866. Their new nation was protected by its remoteness as the inventions of the ghost rock engineer Dr. Hellstromme, headquartered in Salt Lake City. More on Ghost Rock later.

Native Americans re-established several nations: The Sioux Nations in the Northern Plans and the Coyote Confederation in what is now Eastern Oklahoma. They must struggle to keep their independence as they play the Union and the Confederates off one another.

In this edition of Deadlands, the year is 1884. For the residents of the Weird West, they don’t know anything different about their timelines. What they know is different is nature has gone awry.

After Gettysburg, something strange started happening on the battlefields: the dead rose, attacking former allies and foes alike. It wasn’t a one-off either, it kept happening battle after battle.

This phenomenon recurred at the site of other battles and killings. With the war settled down, President Grant promised lucrative contracts to the first company to build the transcontinental railroad. The Railroad Barons started hiring mercenaries to help ensure their victory. Things got violent, people were killed, only to rise again.

If you want to create characters that are more heroic, with more of a mission than just survive then they have several options: The Explorer’s Society, The Pinkerton Agency, and the Territorial Rangers.

The Explorer’s Society bills itself as a quasi-scientific organization. They seek to understand and catalogue the strange new flora and fauna sprouting in the West. Its members get sent to areas to locate and study these creatures. There are whispers of an inner-circle that pursues a higher mission.

The Pinkerton Detective Agency, now known as The Agency, was charged by the North of figuring out why dead were rising and other strange events happening. Some say they found the answer. Their agents use “irregular” methods of investigation, but are only allowed to operate in officially recognized states.

While The Agency was tasked with figuring things out in the North, in the South that job was given to the Texas Rangers. The Rangers, part lawmen, part para-military, were reknown as the toughest, meanest, and most disciplined force in the South. They can only operate in a US Territory.

Southerners who speculate about the dead rising have no doubt the Rangers figured out what was happening. They also have no doubt it was dealt with lead. They are given a level of independence to deal with these threats using methods of extreme prejudice.

Character Creation

Character creation follows standard (mostly) SWADE model. However, you skip picking a Race because in Deadlands, we’re only human.

1. Figure out your character concept.
2. Pick your hindrances.
3. Buy your attributes.
4. Buy your skills.
5. Calculate your derived statistics.
6. Pick your Edges
7. Buy your Gear
8. Background
9. Your Worst Nightmare!

Character Concepts

Picking your character concept is not necessary. If you have an idea who your character is or will be, then skip right over this step. But if you’re not sure or need some inspiration, the following concepts are suggested:

Hindrances

Hindrances are what makes life interesting for your character. They give them a flaw or quirk. If you lean into that flaw in game play, the Marshall will reward you with some Bennies. If you don’t know about Bennies, I suggest you read my article on the Savage Worlds system.

You can take up to 4 points worth of Hindrances. Minor Hindrances are worth 1 point, Major are worth 2. You then get to spend those points as follows:

Rules as written, you can take additional Hindrances, but you do not get any points. These means that you have to choose between increase the die type of skills or attributes or getting more starting cash or getting additional Edges.

Your characters can pick any of the Hindrances available in the core SWADE rulebook. This does mean that you’ll need both books to fully create a character. There are some setting-specifics Hindrances in the Deadlands book, here is a flavor of them:

Buying Attributes

Everyone starts with a d4 in each of the five attributes. You have 5 points to spend, but cannot raise an attribute higher than a d12. It costs 2 Hindrance points to raise an attribute by one die type.

Buying Skills

One of the important differences in SWADE, compared to prior editions, is the addition of Core Skills. All characters start with a d4 in each of the Core Skills, which are:

• Athletics
• Common Knowledge
• Notice
• Persuasion
• Stealth

Just remember that raising a skill higher than its associated attribute costs double. So if your Agility is a d8 and your Shooting is a d6, raising it to a d8 costs one point. Raising it again to a d10 costs 2 points.

Deadlands does remove two standard Savage Worlds skills: Electronics and Hacking. Neither skills are relevant to 1884. There is a new skill Trade. It covers running a business, operating a trade, negotiations, and bartering.

While it is assumed everyone speaks English, if your character takes the Outsider Hindrance, then they natively speak a different language. It will then be necessary for your character to sink a few points into Language (English) to converse with your party. Be sure to check with your Marshal and fellow players before you choose to play a character who can’t converse at all. That’s a heavy lift for everyone to accommodate.

Derived Statistics

Not much to see here, you’ve got to figure out your Pace, Parry, and Toughness. Your Pace is 6.

Your Parry is 2 + 1/2 your Fighting Die (rounded down). If you don’t have Fighting, your Parry is a 2. That means if someone tries to shank you, they must roll a 2 or better to hit. Giving yourself a d4 in Fighting means your Parry is now a 4.

Toughness is like Parry, but its 2 + 1/2 your Vigor Die + Armor Rating. Now everyone has a d4 in Vigor, so that means everyone has a default Toughness of 4. If that some cowpoke shanked you, with your 4 Toughness, and they roll 3 damage, you laugh it off. If they roll 4 damage, you’re Shaken. If you take 8 damage, then you’re Shaken and have one Wound. If you want to know what that means, click on my article here.

Edges

Edges are the those little (or not so little) perks to your character. With every character being human, all characters get one free Edge. Then with 4 Hindrance points spent above, you get two more Edges.

Like Hindrances, most of the Edges in the SWADE book are available. But the following from the SWADE book are NOT allowed in Deadlands:

• Arcane Background (any)
• Mentalist
• Soul Drain

These are out because Deadlands has its own Arcane Backgrounds and Edges designed for its setting. Each Arcane Background in the Deadlands book has its own prerequisites, usually, but not always, an Attribute and a Skill. For example, Blessed requires a Spirit d8+, Faith d4+. You can only select one Arcane Background Edge. These are the Available Arcane Backgrounds:

Each Arcane Background has its own set of Edges, but they are not listed with the rest of them towards the front of the Book. Instead, in a later chapter, the book goes into greater depth about each Background and lists the Edges there. I’ll follow that format and cover them below.

Other general Weird West Edges are Gallows Humor and Veteran O’ the Weird West. The latter one, if taken, may mean that you’ve had a mishap in your past that still haunts you to this day.

Like in the SWADE book, the additional Edges are grouped by type. Combat Edges include Quick Draw and Fan the Hammer. Then there are the Professional Edges. These can have high pre-requisites, so if you want one of these at Character Creation, you may need to go back and fiddle with your Traits. These Edges are:

After Professions are the Social Edges, which are Card Sharp and Reputation. Then there are the Weird Edges:

After Weird are the Legendary Edges. Unless you’re starting at a higher level, it’ll be awhile before you qualify for one of these.

Gear

All characters start with $250 to buy gear: weapons, ammunition, and equipment. If you want to start with more money, then you can spend 1 Hindrance Point for an additional $250.

Background

This is your standard area where you fill in some of your backstory. I strongly recommend that you and the Marshall have a conversation about your backstory details. While this is your character, the Marshall uses the backstory to tie your character into the story she is going to be leading. If your character has no personal stakes in the outcome of the plot, then why is he risking his life?

Beyond whether or not your parents/siblings are alive (don’t overly lean on the orphan trope), this is your opportunity to work out how your character made a living before now. Did they have rivals or a nemesis? You should establish where they grew up and how or why are they in whatever starting location is the milieu for the first session.

I always recommend that you establish some sort of connection or bond with at least two other players at the table. You will need a history or connection. While you may have answered the question why your character is risking her life, you also need to answer why she is letting the other characters risk her life. If your character cannot answer that question, then a rationale person would get out and leave.

Your Worst Nightmare

Deadlands’ character creation asks that each character determine what really scares their hero and why. After that, write down what is the recurring nightmare that character has about their worst fear(s). There is no reason why you can’t have two or three of these things.

If the players ask the Marshall why they’re doing this, the book gives the best answer, “No reason, really. Trust us.”

Life and Death in the West

Now that we have a broad understanding about the Weird West setting of Deadlands and character creation, I want to do a deeper dive on some of the specific setting pieces that flesh out and give texture to this game world.

Ghost Rock

Ghost Rock was discovered in what became to be known as the California Maze or simply the Maze. This was the area of California that sunk into or was flooded by the Pacific ocean after the Great Quake of ’68. Ghost Rock looks like coal, but with cloudy white veins running through it. It burns a lot hotter than coal, so its industrial uses where immediately evident.

A one-pound unprocessed nugget will burn for a week, creating a slow steady flame that reaches about 800 F. When burned, Ghost Rock emits this high-pitched wail or scream like the sound of the dead. This is where it gets its name from: it’s like your burning a ghost or the souls of the dead. Whether that’s literally true is something for your Marshall to determine and your players to find out.

Ghost rock fresh out of the ground can be burned. But if refined and shaped into a core, it will burn hotter (1,500 F) and longer then the raw ore. Ghost Rock vehicles use the refined stuff. Their fire boxes are designed to get that core even hotter, 2,500 F. Of course, it takes Ghost Steel to contain that heat with its 3,000 F melting point. The raw ore can still be burned in them, but you lose half of your maximum range.

As an example of its worth, 1 oz of gold ore (not refined) is $20 and 1 oz of silver ore is $1.50. 1 oz of Ghost Rock ore is $6.25 or $100 a pound. Refined Ghost Rock cores weigh 1 pound and sell for $150.

Devices that use Ghost Rock are called Infernal Devices. If your character took the Mad Scientist (Weird Science) Arcane Background, Infernal Devices are your stock and trade. Ghost Rock engineers have found other uses for this rock other than refining and burning it. Powdering it and mixing it with other chemicals can produce interesting effects whether its a drink or a salve. Others will burn it a mixture of other items and use the smoke or vapor for good effect.

But these new-fangled contraptions aren’t necessarily easy to use and they can be a bit finicky if conditions aren’t just right. This means when you roll a Trait check (Skill or Attribute role) to use an Infernal Device and you critically fail (Snake Eyes) that roll, then the device Malfunctions. If you’re wearing Ghost Rock Enhanced armor, I’d recommend against rolling Snake Eyes on your Soak Roll.

Some items specify what happens when it malfunctions. But if it does not, then you have to roll on the Malfunction Table:

This table is for regular folk using an Infernal Device. If you’re a Mad Scientist, you’ve got your own Malfunction Table. You roll on that table if you get Snake Eyes on your Weird Science roll:

After Ghost Rock was discovered in the Maze, veins were found elsewhere. The Black Hills of the Sioux Nation has a lot if it. It is peppered throughout the Rockies, Cascades, and Sierra Nevadas. If you spend time in a frontier town near a Ghost Rock mine, you’ll likely hear stories of miners or prospectors getting sick with Ghost Rock Fever.

If you’re a follower of the Old Ways though, especially if you’ve taken that Hindrance, Ghost Rock is an anathema to you. It represents the spiritual disease or cancer that is at the center of West.

Arcane Backgrounds

While I briefly covered the Arcane Backgrounds specific to this setting above, the book goes into some greater detail including edges available. What should be worked out by the Marshall and the Players is how acceptable these different Backgrounds are in society.

Implied in the setting as written are that Hucksters are out-of-bounds. Maybe not lock-em-up illegal, but if you’re discovered you may be run out of town if not burned at the stake for witchcraft. This is true in the US territories, the Nation of Deseret, and the Native American Nations.

Shamans are a different story. They are known and knowable within the Native American Nations. They are probably not seen as threats to Americans outside of the Native American territory. But if there has been a local “uprising” lead by a powerful Shaman, your Shaman character may be locally viewed with hostility.

But what about the Blessed? There is a fine line between miracle worker and heretic, ask Joan of Arc. Chi Masters probably blend the line between Shamans, Blessed, and Hucksters. Within the Asian communities of the West, they are accepted and known. But do they run the line of creating fear among the European majorities if discovered?

Mad Scientists operate in the open and are accepted within the States and Territories of the United States. But within Native American Nations, who follow the Old Ways, they are viewed with suspicion, if not outright hostility.

Blessed

To take the Blessed Arcane Background, you need Spirit at least at d8 and the Faith skill at least at a d4. Faith (Spirit) is your Arcane Skill and is used to activate your Powers, so getting it above a d4 is a good idea. If you roll Snake Eyes on a Faith roll, then you take a level of Fatigue and all maintained powers stop.

When you take this Background you start with the Protection Power (adds armor) and two other powers of your choice. There are only specific powers you have access to as a Blessed, they include:

• Blind
• Confusion
• Deflection
• Healing
• Light
• Smite

To get more powers, you have to take the Edge. Blessed start with 15 Power Points. Attempting to Activate a Power uses up Power Points, they regenerate over time or you can spend a Benny to get back 5. The suggested Trappings (appearance) of these powers are subtle, not flashy.

Blessed Characters are true believers of whatever Faith guides them. This means they have a code of conduct, actions, or behaviors that are good and those that are bad (sins). Its up to the Player and Marshall to figure out that code. Committing a Minor Sin means your character has a -2 to Faith rolls for a week. Major Sins means no powers at all for a week. Mortal Sins means you’re foresaken until you accomplish a great penitence or atonement.

Blessed is Deadlands’ version of SWADE’s Arcane Background (Miracles), so any edges for that Background in the SWADE book are available to these characters. Here are the new Edges in Deadlands for the Blessed:

Chi Masters

This Background requires that you have at least a d6 Agility and a d8 Spirit, plus you must take the Edge Martial Artist. This means you’ve got a two-Edge tax to be a Chi Master. Your Arcane Skill to activate powers is Focus (Spirit). Snake Eyes on a Focus roll means you take a level of Fatigue and all currently active powers are stopped.

You only start with 1 power and 15 power points. Amongst your available powers are:

• Arcane Protection
• Boost/Lower Trait
• Deflection
• Elemental Manipulation
• Healing
• Mind Link
• Resurrection
• Telekinesis
• Warrior’s Gift

Trappings for these powers are scene as part of their Martial Arts fighting style. However, out-of-combat uses of these Powers will have a Meditative trappings.

It is unlikely that your character, if you take this Background, is young. It is suggested that this takes a long time to learn, as even becoming a Martial Artist (Edge) requires years of training. But you must have a Master who taught you your ways, which is an essential element to your Backstory. Your Master may only teach one disciple at a time or taught at a school.

Like with the Blessed, Chi Master is the substitute for SWADE’s Arcane Background (Gifted). So any Edges in the SWADE book for that Background are available for these characters to take. These are the additional Edges found in the Deadlands Book:

Hucksters

For this Background, you will to have Gambling at least at a d6 and at least a d4 in Spellcasting. Spellcasting (Smarts) is used to Activate your powers. Like with the other Backgrounds so far, Snake Eyes means you suffer a Fatigue level and all active powers end.

You start with 10 Power Points and know 3 powers. The list of available powers includes:

• Ammo whammy
• Barrier
• Bolt
• Damage field
• Disguise
• Havoc
• Mind rider
• Puppet
• Summon ally
• Wall Walker

Your Trappings are more obvious and open then with the Blessed or Chi Masters. The effects are flashier and a mystical hand of playing cards materialize in your hands when casting.

One of the major differences between Hucksters and the other Arcane Backgrounds is they have a very specific method for getting more power points on the quick. They cannot Short (use less power points but have a penalty on their Activation roll (see page 151 of SWADE)) and they cannot spend Bennies to regain 5 power points.

Instead, they must Deal with the Devil. In Fiction, this is a battle of wills between the Huckster and the evil Manitou who is granting these powers. But the Huckster envisions this battle as a game of cards. Dealing with the Devil is a Free Action and grants two bonuses:

1. She may cast any power in her available powers list, even if she doesn’t know it and even if it is above her current Rank (e.g. must be a Veteran to learn). But if its above your Rank, Activating that spell is a lot harder.
2. If she has a really good hand, there may be leftover Power Points that can be used to boost her Spellcasting Roll when trying to Activate or you can save them by increasing your personal power pool.

Dealing with the Devil is its own mini-game or system with a specific sequence:

1. Ante Up: Spend a Benny
2. Choose a Power: Tell the Marshall which power you’re trying to cast and the total Power Points needed, with any modifiers, to cast it.
3. Gamble: Make a gambling roll then draw five cards from the shuffled deck. For each success and raise, grab an extra card. A failure has no effect, you still get 5 cards. Snake Eyes means you get 4 cards.
4. Make a Poker Hand: Table on Page 66 gives the details, but an Ace High (one Ace card) is only 2 Power Points, a Straight is 8 points, a Five of a Kind is 15 Power Points plus a lot of other goodies.
5. Cast the Spell: Make a Spellcasting roll, but take a -2 Penalty for each rank above your own. If you came up short on Power Points, its a -1 Penalty for each point you’re short. But if you came up long, you get a +1 to that roll for each point spent. Left over points go to your personal pool for use later. Try not to roll Snake Eyes though.
6. Resolve the Hex: Your power then resolves per normal rules. But if you used one or more Jokers to make your hand, the Marshall still rolls on the Backfire Table (page 88) for each Joker. Your power happens, but at a cost to your character.

If you don’t make a poker hand at all, or if you rolled Snake Eyes on your Spellcasting roll, or if you used any Jokers in making your hand, then the Marshall rolls on the Backfire Table found on page 88.

Huckster replaces SWADE’s Arcane Background (Magic), so you can take any of those Edges from the SWADE Book. Deadlands has five new Edges for your Huckster:

Mad Scientists

To be a Mad Scientist, your character needs a d8 Smarts, a d6 Science, and a d4 Weird Science. Weird Science is used to Activate your powers. Snake Eyes means your Marshall is rolling on your special Malfunction Table, see the Ghost Rock section above.

You have 20 Power Points to start with, but only 1 Power. Your list of available Powers include:

• Barrier
• Bolt
• Burst
• Entangle
• Fly
• Shrink
• Teleport
• Zombie

I find the Trappings of Mad Science the most evocative. These are not spells you cast, but things you have invented. Healing might be a salve you create. Fly may be a pair of wings. When selecting your power, you will transform it into a specific device and application. You can play your Mad Scientist as a tinkerer, a scientist, or engineer.

While you have access to all of SWADE’s Arcane Background (Weird Science) Edges, Deadlands four new Edges:

Shamans

As a Shaman, you will need a d8 Spirit and a d4 Faith. Faith is used to Activate your powers, with a Critical Failure resulting in a level of fatigue and cancellation of your active powers. Also, part and parcel with this Background is you get the Old Ways (Major) Hindrance for free!

You have 15 Power Points with 2 Starting Powers. Your available powers include:

• Banish
• Beast friend
• Drain Power Points
• Farsight
• Holy Symbol
• Shape Change
• Wilderness Walk

Your Trappings are the performance of rituals. These rituals can be performed outside of combat to make your soul open to instantly access powers in combat. But a key part of all of your Trappings is Chanting. If you are Silenced or try to Activate silently, you take a -2 Penalty to your Faith roll.

As a mandatory follower of the Old Ways, you cannot use mass-produced items and definitely no Infernal Devices. Violating the Old Ways causes a level of Fatigue. Using an Infernal Device means you suffer the effects of that Fatigue for 24 hours.

Like with the Blessed, Shamans have access to all of the Edges for Arcane Background (Miracles) from the SWADE book. Deadlands also provides 2 new Edges:

New Powers

Deadlands also presents a handful new Powers for your characters. I will detail their basics here, but each has various upgrade effects that you’ll find in your copy of Deadlands.

Monster Hunters

As noted above, there are two Professional Edges for custom built for Deadlands: Agents and Territorial Rangers. These are official Monster Hunters of the US Government. Agents are supposed to restrict their activities to the 37 States and Rangers to the 7 Territories. Like with Arcane Backgrounds, they have pre-requisites, but come with burdens and advantages.

Agent

To become an Agent, you’ll need a d8 Smarts, d6 Fighting, d6 Occult, d6 Research and d6 Shooting. But you start with a Gatling pistol, a badge, a monthly stipend. As an Agent, you are tasked with fighting the supernatural plaguing the US. While you have some rivalry with the Rangers, your Agency recognizes you’re on the same side.

As an Agent, you try to keep things on the down low. If the officials or citizens in the area know you’re operating nearby, then something bad is going on, which can increase the Fear Level (see below). So its better to keep quiet and infiltrate.

As a new Agent, you start at Grade 0 and earn $40 a month. As you complete missions, the Marshall will roll a d20, with some bonuses based upon mission difficulty. An 18 or higher means a promotion; a 22 or higher means a medal or commendation, which grants you an extra favor. Ranks go up to Grade 5 and an increase in pay.

Depending on your Rank, you can also call in a Favor from the Agency. This represent some additional intelligence, man power (firepower), or quietly removing an official whose been corrupted by the Reckoners.

Once you hit Rank 3, you get a Mnemomizer. It’s an Infernal Device that lets you alter the recent memories of nearby locals. It helps them forget the awful thing that just attacked, lowering the population’s Fear Level.

There’s also two Edges available only to Agents:

Territorial Ranger

To become a Territorial Ranger, you need a d6 Vigor, d6 Fighting, d6 Intimidation, d6 Riding, d6 Riding, and a d4 Survival. But you can start with an Armored Duster, a long-armed rifle, a horse, and a badge.

Where the Agents are more like spies, the Rangers are more para-military. Most of you are Field Rangers, patrolling to look for trouble, assigned to track down specific outlaws, or escorting groups.

Their pay, ranks, and favors are just like the Agents. The promotion mechanic works the same. Rank 2 has the title of Sergeant, with Rank 3 Lieutenant, then Captain, followed by Major and then Colonel. At Lieutenant, the Ranger is read into the secret occult history of the US since the Civil War, giving them a +2 to occult rolls.

Like with Agents, there are two Edges available only to Rangers:

Harrowed

Your character can either start the game Harrowed by taking the Edge or by taking a dirt nap and waking back up again. But you’ll need at least a d6 Spirit. If you are Harrowed, you are Undead which gives you a +2 to your Toughness and Spirit rolls for recovering from Shaken. You also ignore the extra damage from called shots, except for head shots. You don’t breathe or eat, and you cannot become diseased or poisoned. You do not bleed out. Death can truly only happen if your brain is destroyed.

If you take a dirt nap, the Marshal draws a card for each one of your ranks (Novice, Seasoned, Veteran, etc.). If she draws a Joker, you’re back amongst the world of the living, sort of. You’re back, so is the Manitou that is animating your body.

That Manitou wants full control and you don’t want it. But sometimes, you need the power of the evil spirit. By letting the devil out, you can add a d6 to all Trait and Damage rolls for the next five founds. But the Marshal gets to roll on the Dominion Table to figure out how much control that Manitou keeps. Once the Manitou takes full control, your character is permanently turned over to the Marshal.

When fighting supernatural critters, if your Harrowed is closer to it then the creature’s Spirit die in inches, then the Harrowed can Count Coup when the creature dies. Your Harrowed is literally absorbing part of the weaker Manitou powering the beastie and you gain some of its powers.

Being Harrowed gives your character access to a whole bunch of Edges:

Fear

While creatures, events, or powers may cause a fear reaction in Characters, Deadlands has a separate mechanic for regional or local Fear Levels. This represents the effects of unchecked forces of Supernatural Darkness in the area. As the the Characters beat back these forces and word spreads of their heroics, then the Fear Level goes down.

Fear Levels go from 0 to 6. At Fear Level 3, all Fear checks (Guts roll) have a -1 Penalty. That goes up by one until at Fear Level 6 it is a -4 Penalty. Fear Levels also have visible or at least perceptible to the Characters and locals:

Former Battlefields automatically have a Fear Level 1 rank higher than the surrounding region. If a Wild Card dies on a battlefield, they get additional cards equal to that Battlefield’s Fear Level to see if they come back Harrowed.

Also, enemy practitioners of Black Magic get a boost to their spellcasting if their in a region with a Fear Level of 4 or higher. At a Fear Level 4-5, they get a free reroll for any failed Spellcasting roll. At a Fear Level 6, they get a free reroll on all Spellcasting rolls.

To lower an area’s Fear Level the characters first have to complete a heroic act against a supernatural threat, defeats a group of outlaws plaguing the area, or rescuing missing children. They must then tell the story of their heroism to a large gathering of the locals or get their story to be printed in the local press.

The lead character must make a successful Performance or Persuasion roll, modified by the Fear Level penalty. Other characters can take Support Actions to give bonuses. A success reduces the Level 1 by one, Snake Eyes increases the Fear Level by 1.

If the Storyteller has the Tale-Teller Edge and succeeds, she and each character who Supported her gains a Conviction. In the SWADE book, a Conviction means that your character can add a d6 to any Trait or Damage roll. This d6 can ACE (Explode) too. You can only have one Conviction and it persists between sessions, unlike Bennies.

Dueling

You can’t have a Western without a duel between two quickdraws on Main Street in front of the Saloon. There are special rules for these duels that last exactly 3 rounds. The first step is each duelist gets a Hole Card, one playing card dealt face down. You can look at your card, but don’t let your opponent see it. There are Edges that let you get more than one Hold Card.

Then on the first round of the Duel, each duelist is dealt an Action Card, dealt face up. With their Action, the duelist can Test the other or cast a spell. Bystanders can try to Support or Test the duelists, but it is bad form to so do openly or to be caught.

If you succeed in a Test, making your opponent Distracted or Vulnerable, that condition ends to the end of the duel (after the third round). A raise cannot Shake your opponent. A raise lets you draw a new Hold Card and add it to your stash or force your opponent to randomly discard a Hold Card, unless he only has one.

A Critical Failure during a test means your opponent can draw an additional Hole Card. A second Action card is dealt and you can then perform another Test or Cast a Spell.

No Action Cards are dealt at the start of the Third Round. Instead, both duelists reveal one Hole Card of their choice. This is your Action Card, so you’ll want to pick carefully. This is because drawing first and killing your opponent is considered murder. But drawing second and killing your opponent is an act of self-defense.

If you decide to play the highest Hole Card but don’t want to draw first. Instead, you can go on Hold and attempt to Interrupt the duelist. This is an opposed Agility Test, but having the higher Hole Card means you get a +2. A success means you shoot first, even if you didn’t draw first.

If you get hit, you cannot make a Soak roll. However many wounds you take is what you take. The Grim Reaper loves a duel. If neither duelist is killed, you leave the Duel rules and just start normal combat (unless they both stand down).

Racism & Slavery

One of the most important setting changes to this version of Deadlands is the South, the Confederate States of America lost the Civil War. In prior versions (timelines) of this setting, the North and the South fought to a draw, with the British entering the war on behalf of the South. The nation remained divided with a race to the Pacific and a Cold War across the plains.

Those prior editions tried dodge the literal Cornerstone issue of the Confederacy’s existence: Slavery. It posited a timeline where the South, in 1864 offered to free any slaves who would fight for them. This is what helped bring the British onto their side (the Brits had outlawed slavery several generations earlier).

Frankly, the prior edition’s timeline and attempts to elude the problem of Slavery stunk. In 1864, General Grant was enlisting former slaves into the Union Army. During his Virginia Campaign, several black regiments faced off against Southern troops. Seeing African Americans with guns enraged the Southern troops and they went on bloodthirsty rampages against these Regiments who bravely held their own.

Short of using the deus ex machina of magic to change the hearts and minds of the South, General Lee would have never even imagined or thought of putting rifles into the hands of former slaves. He certainly had that option in the real 1864 and did not.

This current version is better all around. The Slave-Holding Confederate States of America lost the Civil War, nearly a half-of-a-decade later then in our timeline. Slavery is formerly ended. President Grant now has the chance to begin Reconstruction later then in our timeline.

This means Reconstruction, with all of its civil and civic benefits for the former slaves, is still alive and well in 1884. There is no doubt that prejudice exists in 1884 North America. But this timeline, Deadlands’ new timeline, allows you to play without paying too much attention to those prejudices. It allows you to play a game where African Americans are voting landholders in the South. They may be a minority in many sates, but they can still be a powerful voting block in local and regional elections.

This version of the Deadlands timeline allows the Marshal to clearly and unmistakably place the KKK on the side of injustice and banditry. President Grant took extreme measures to incarcerate and kill members of this domestic terrorist organization.

It would be quite easy for a game set in the South to put the KKK in control of the Reckoners. Your team of heroes are tasked with rooting out its members and supporters among the local elected officialdom. You can play as Nazi hunters nearly fifty years before the Nazis.

Final Thoughts

This version of Deadlands is an evolution of the setting, not a revolution. It changes and modifications are often too subtle to notice. But this follows the theme of the latest version of Savage Worlds, the Adventure Edition, and its updating from the Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition.

I do not mind an evolutionary approach over a revolutionary approach. It means that source material and adventures from prior editions can work as written in the current one. Sure there may be a few tweaks as Powers work differently and the Edges may be modified. But for the 3-5 rounds your enemy is going to be breathing, that’s not a big problem.

I am very happy that I backed the Deadlands Kickstarter. I strongly recommend that you pick up your own copy from Amazon or directly from Pinnacle Entertainment Group.

If you want some links on where to buy Savage Worlds, they can be found over here.

If you want to explore the wilder (and wider) world of tabletop roleplaying games go there! If you want to start to learn on how to paint miniatures, click already! Or maybe you want to read more of my posts about Dungeons and Dragons, then click away here!

Marshalling in Savage Worlds should follow its motto: Fast! Furious! Fun! The combat rules can get weedy, but remember the average difficulty is a four. Figure out the right skill, have the player role and if its a four or higher, let them do something cool. The rule of cool rules!

In this article, I am going to explain the 10 things that will help you run a Savage Worlds game, especially if your new to the system or new to game mastering! Let’s break it down.

1. Pick Your Genre

The great thing about Savage Worlds is its a generic ruleset. That means you can run Savage Worlds in multiple different genres: Fantasy, Superhero, Sci-Fi, 1920s Adventure Pulp, Horror, Modern, Historical. These all can work using the Savage Worlds system.

The terrible thing about Savage Worlds is its generic ruleset works with any genre! This can lead to analysis paralysis as you try to pick your genre and setting. If you have a strong vision in mind, then go with it. But I ascribe to the Lazy Dungeonmaster theory of game prep by taking a more improv approach to game mastering.

This means spending less time on game prep and more time rolling with the punches at the table. But, you also have to prepare to improvise, which is why I look to use pre-published adventures and settings. I can fall back on what’s written if my improv gets me, and it does, too far over my skis.

But there is more to this then just picking your genre, especially if you’re going to Marshal a long-running campaign. You have to feed your well of inspiration and ideas by consuming media in that genre.

For example, since I’ve backed the latest version of Deadlands, that is a blend of Western and Weird Horror genres. While “immersing” yourself in the genre may be too much to ask, you could spend a few hours each week watching a Western movie. It will give you a feel for the narrative structure, visual style, etc. of the genre.

The Internet is full of opinions about the best Westerns on film. I personally like any of the Clint Eastwood films, especially the “spaghetti” westerns like A Fistful of Dollars, A Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. But your mileage will definitely vary.

If you’re going for a Superhero game, are your characters going to be high-powered, Avengers or Justice League supers? Or are they going to be lower-powered, less flashy like in the movies Unbreakable and Glass? The former is pulpier with the heroes happening to the world like adventurers in Dungeons and Dragons. In the latter, your characters are learning about their one super-power and how to survive in a grittier style of play.

Also, don’t pick just one genre. Pick two and mash them together, like Deadlands: Western & Horror. Take some inspiration from Shadowrun and mash together Science Fiction and Fantasy. While it may take a little adaptation, nothing stops you from using the Shadowrun setting with the Savage Worlds rules system. Just remember, with the Pulp style of game play, the types of things your characters are doing will be different.

2. Decide How To Handle Spells & Powers

Savage Worlds uses a power-point system for its spells and powers. At character creation, your players may select an Arcane Background Edge. If you don’t know what an Edge is, go read my article providing an overview of the Savage Worlds system. The available Arcane Edges are:

• Gifted — A lesser boon or a minor superpower, a touch of the supernatural.
• Magic — ‘Yer a wizard Harry!
• Miracles — Divine power.
• Psionics — Bend the spoon with your mind.
• Weird Science — Alchemy to Steampunk to Cyberpunk

Generally, you can only pick one of these without permission of the Marshal. If you’re running a Supers game, then maybe that rule will get broken.

After your Arcane Background, you get to pick between 1 to 3 starting Powers, depending on your Background. Powers are your spells, but as listed in the book they are all mechanics and no flavor. This is where Trappings comes in for your players.

In my Dungeons and Dragons campaign, when a player casts a spell for the first time or the first time in a long time, I’ll ask them what the spell looks like. That is its trapping. In Savage Worlds if you want to cast a bolt of fire at your enemy, then you’ll select the Bolt power, which does 2d6 or 3d6 on a raise and costs 1 power point, if you activate the spell.

That’s basically it from the book. The Marshal and the Player will need to agree on the name of the power and the trappings: is it fire, is it ice, is it a swarm of beetles? But if you only have 10 power points, then you’re out of juice after 10 castings in a day.

Maybe I’ve become too use to the gonzo magic of Dungeons and Dragons, but 10 castings in a day of a basic bolt spell doesn’t feel very special. If you go rules-as-written, your magic-types are going to need some back-up firepower.

This is because the power points do not regenerate very fast: 5 points per hour so long as the character is “resting.” This is what I’m getting at when I say you’ll have to decide what to do about spells: how strict or generous will you be with power point regeneration?

But remember, by turning in a Benny, the character can regenerate 5 power points. If you’re generous with Bennies, as I discuss below, then you may not need to house rule your away around this problem. You just have to remind players about turning in a benny for 5 power points.

Being super-strict may impose an Edge-tax on the magicians who will almost have to take the Edge that gives them more power points. Too loose and you’ve greatly increased the power of the mage character at the expense of the other characters. If you’re going to allow your characters to use magic, you’ll need to be prepared to decide whether to use the power point rules as written or to turn the dial up or down.

3. Running Combat

While Savage Worlds promises its system is Fast! Furious! Fun! its combat can bog down. Its Combat rules are 18 pages long. Most of these rules are about imposing various +/- 1 or +/- 2 penalties. Keeping track of each of these situational rules can be difficult to keep track of, even for an experienced Marshall.

I recommend that you create a quick-reference rules sheet for the most used rules. Here is a list of some of the situational rules that can bog down combat:

• Aim
• Deviation rules if a grenade missing its target
• Bound & Entangled
• Called Shots
• Cover
• Defend
• Disarm
• Distract
• The Drop
• Etc.

Notice these situational rules are in alphabetical order, which is how they are listed in the rule book. These can make for a very tactical experience, but they come, in my experience at the expense of Fast! and sometimes even Fun!

Of course, you know your table and players. They may enjoy a gritty, tactical combat. I do in games like Dungeons and Dragons where ranges are short and personal (generally 12 squares or less). In Savage Worlds, ranges are listed in inches, with each inch represent 2 yards. On a standard, 1-inch square battle map, each square is 6 feet.

Most modern firearms in Gumshoe have ranges of 12/24/48 (short/medium/long). This means firing up to 12 squares away is at no penalty. 13 to 24 squares is at only a -2 penalty. For outdoor situations, it is foreseeable that you’re operating in a 48-square diameter battle map. That requires a lot of table top space and tactical details to make interesting.

I find myself using abstract or theatre-of-the-mind combat at least half of the time in Savage Worlds. I will take a page out of the Fate rules system or 13th Age and simply designate the Short, Medium and Far zones and what’s in each zone. It takes 2 movements to get from Far to Medium and 1 movement to get from Medium to Short range. These combats are more often live up to the Savage Worlds’ Motto Fast! Furious! Fun!

Doing it this way turns your combats into a cinematic experience. As the players move, act, and try cool things reward them with +2 bonuses. If they try and fail, then give them a -2 penalty (or the enemies a +2). The only exception to this is if they have an Edge designed for a specific combat maneuver. Don’t punish the player for taking that Edge if you don’t let them shine using it.

4. Multiple Action Penalties

In Savage Worlds combat you have a Move and an Action (plus a Free Action). However, you can take multiple actions on your turn. For example, shooting at two different targets. For each additional action your character takes, she suffers a -2 cumulative penalty to all actions on that turn. You may think this means:

• Action 1
• Action 2 (-2)
• Action 3 (-4)
• Etc.

That is incorrect. For each additional action, it is a cumulative -2 penalty. This means if your character is shooting at two targets in a round:

• Action 1 (-2)
• Action 2 (-2)

If its three targets (assuming your weapons’ rate of firm can do it), then your multi-action penalty is:

• Action 1 (-4)
• Action 2 (-4)
• Action 3 (-4)

If you need a 4 or better to hit, that is a significant deficit to overcome. But as a Marshall, this way of implementing the penalty means that each player must declare all of their actions at the start of their turn:

I am going to move from behind cover and when I get out in the open of the street, I am going to fire at the cowhand down the street. After that I will keep moving across the street. When I get t to the next building, I will then pistol-whip the guy stabbing Jimmy.

“Deadeye” Sally

This describes a movement and two actions, so the shot and the melee attack both have a -2 penalty. If the player says that she is moving out, shooting at the cowhand, then move to the next building. That is a move and an action for no penalty. Once at the building, if she realizes there is another assailant, she cannot just add another action to that turn. She cannot because that would have impose a retroactive -2 to the first action.

The more complicated piece is if the player has a contingent action:

I need to get a better angle to flush the sniper out of cover. So I am going to move, then run to that large rock that is just outside of my pace. When I get there, I am going to drop prone and fire. But first, I am going to pray the Lord will protect me from my enemies by putting up a Barrier around me!

Sister O’Leary

Running is a -2 penalty to all other actions that round. Activating a power is an action. Shooting is an action. This means Sister O’Leary has a -4 to all of action rolls (-2 Running, -2 for taking 2 Actions), even though praying occurs prior to running.

What if she doesn’t roll high enough on her Running check and doesn’t make it to the boulder? She has a choice to make, drop prone and fire anyway, give up on the shot to not alert the enemy to her change in position? Even if she gives up the shot, she must still accept the -4 from her earlier roll.

5. Initiative

You are going to want two to three decks of cards ready to go. Remember, initiative is determined by dealing a card to each player, each group of Extras, and each enemy Wild Card. Initiative starts with Ace, then King and then down the line. Where there are two of the same value card, the order is suites in reverse alphabetical order: Spades –> Hearts –> Diamonds –> Clubs.

You keep dealing from the same deck until a Joker is dealt. The rest of the players get cards from that deck for that round. But when that round is over, you are supposed to shuffle the deck and deal again. Waiting to shuffle 3-4 times can slow down the game, especially if you’re not great at shuffling.

Instead, just move along to your 2nd shuffled deck. Give the to-be-shuffled deck to a player to shuffle. That way you can focus on keeping the combat moving along.

Remember, there are Edges that allow players to obtain additional cards and pick the best one. This is like getting advantage on your initiative rolls in Dungeons & Dragons. Hopefully those players will remember those own Edges and remind you how many cards to deal to them.

The 3rd deck is mostly necessary if you have a Huckster in a Deadlands Game. The Huckster plays a hand of poker against the Devil to cast their spells. This means dealing them a hand, then shuffling the deck for the next time. You could decide the same rule applies: Keep dealing from the same deck to the Huckster until a Joker is dealt.

Finally, players can Hold their action when their card comes up. They signal this by turning their card sideways (think tapping mana in Magic the Gathering). If the character is Shaken or Stunned while Holding, they lose their turn. (SWADE p. 102). If they want to interrupt an enemies turn (go before them), then it is an opposed Athletics test. Failure means they go after the enemy. A tie means the turns are simultaneous.

6. Bennies

Buy a good set of poker chips. You don’t need a lot of them unless you have a lot of players. You can use other things like glass stones, beads, etc. as your tokens. Each player starts the session with 3 Bennies and discards all bennies at the end of the session (use them or lose them). The Marshal starts the session with 1 Benny per player and each Wild Card NPC has 2.

As the Marshall, be generous in giving out Bennies to players. This will show they can spend them and not horde them for the “right” time. Savage Worlds encourages you to especially hand them out when your players lean on their hindrances.

Also, if any player is dealt a Joker in combat (whether at initiative or a Huckster playing a hand with the Devil) then all players get a Benny. But if the Marshall draws a Joker, then a Benny gets put in the pool and all NPC Wild Cards get a Benny.

If you find yourself too distracted by the many things that must be done running a session, delegate the handing out of Bennies to a player. If the player gets a little too generous, find ways to up the challenge. You may also want to rotate which player has that job each session.

Bennies can be used for the following benefits:

• Reroll a Trait check
• Recover from Shaken
• Make a Soak roll to prevent one or more Wounds
• Draw a new initiative card
• Reroll Damage
• Regain Power Points (5 per Benny)
• Influence the Story

Now in prior editions of Deadlands, each poker chip color had a difference effect. The newest edition is being made after a successful Kickstarter, so we will have to wait and see what it does. But in Deadlands Reloaded, the poker chips, 20 white, 10 red, and 5 blue were put into a bag and mixed. Each player drew 3, unless an Edge allowed them more.

White chips worked as normal. Red chips can be used as a white or you can use them to add a d6 to your roll. But if you do that, the Marshall gets to draw a chip from the bag. Blue chips work like Red chips, but the Marshall does not get to draw from the bag.

7. Running Enemies

Non-Player Characters and Monsters come in two flavors: Extras and Wild Cards. The primary difference is that Extras go down if they take even a single wound and they do not get that Wild Card dice to their rolls. Wild Cards are built like characters, get Bennies, take 3 wounds to put down, and get a Wild Card dice.

The tricky part is remembering all of their Traits and Skills. Was the Agility a d6 or a d8? The official stat block just lists a handful of central skills for the creature. But if the antagonist is a human, don’t have to worry too much about the stat block, especially if they’re an Extra.

Average competency is a d6, with above average a d8. So if you think about any particular skill or trait roll that Extra is going to make, they probably only have one skill and/or trait at a d8. If your characters advance to Seasoned or Veteran status, then maybe a particularly powerful Extra will have a d10 in their top skill with a few more d8s.

The same is true of Wild Cards. At the Novice level, maybe a major lieutenant will have a d10 in something, but it still mostly d6s and d8s. You may decide to have few, if any d4s. In other words, once you’ve studied a handful of the human NPC/Monster stat blocks, you can probably wing most fights and opposed rolls.

Monsters are a different story. Many, if not most, have some type of special ability or rule. The start of the Bestiary section has several pages of these various special rules or abilities: Invulnerability, Horns, Tentacles, Low Light Vision, etc.

The stat block for most creatures are simple, especially compared to some Dungeons and Dragons stat blocks. More monstrous opponents (like Dragons or Supernatural Beings) have a longer block. You are not going to be able to just wing it with these blocks.

I know I come back to the Fast! Furious! Fun! motto a lot, but I really try to lean on the Fast! element. The Furious! piece is taken care of by exploding dice (Acing) that can lead to a lot of damage fast. Fun! is what you make of it. But Fast! demands action and pace. It is the foundational element. Think of ways of speeding up combat while still keeping it feeling like Savage Worlds, not some other game system.

8. Taking Damage

The first level of damage in Savage Worlds is Shaken. To become Shaken, you have to take damage that meets or exceeds your Toughness score. Toughness is 2 plus half your Vigor die plus your armor rating. Armor piercing weapons ignore the armor.

If your Vigor is a d4, then your Toughness is 4 (assuming no armor). If you are hit and take 4 to 7 points of damage your character is Shaken. This means that on your turn you can only take Free Actions. Moving is not a Free Action. Running is a Free Action, which means when Shaken you can only move a d6 inches.

Your character has two options to remove the Shaken status on their turn. First, they can spend a Bennie and can take the rest of their action. The other is to succeed on a Spirit Roll, which means rolling a 4 or higher on your Spirit Die or your Wild Card die. If you succeed you can act normally on your turn.

It is always better to just try and make your Spirit Roll, as you can make multiple Free Actions on your turn if you fail (up to a point, the Marshall may impose some limits). If you fail but really want to act, then spend a Benny. Remember, if you’re holding your turn and become Shaken, you lose that turn.

The problem with being Shaken is if another enemy hits you and meets or exceeds your Toughness by 3 (what it takes to Shake a character), you instead suffer a wound. Being Shaken makes you much more vulnerable to subsequent attacks. Your character can spend a Benny to remove Shaken even if it’s not their turn.

If instead, the damage done to your character exceeds your Toughness by 4 (e.g. a Raise), then you are Shaken and take a Wound. So in the example where your character has a Toughness of 4 and you take 8 to 11 points of damage, then your Shaken with a Wound. 12 to 14 points means Shaken and 2 Wounds, etc.

If your character is already Shaken and on the next attack takes 8 damage (exceeds Toughness by 4), then they take 2 Wounds. 12 damage means they take 3 Wounds. All characters can take 3 Wounds without losing consciousness. But with each wound, they have a -1 penalty to all Trait rolls and their Pace. Having 3 Wounds and a -3 Penalty is significant.

Before the Character takes the Wounds, they can spend a Benny to attempt a Soak Roll, which is a Vigor Roll. With a Success (4) they can remove 1 Wound. With each Raise they can remove an additional Wound. If they manage to Soak all of the Wounds caused by the attack, then they also remove the Shaken condition, even if they were Shaken prior to the attack.

Acing damage rolls means that if you roll a 6 on a d6, you get to roll again and add them together. If you keep rolling 6s, that can add up to multiple Raises and Wounds. If, for example, you take 5 Wounds on an attack, then you must roll a 20 or higher on your Vigor roll to not take any of those Wounds. This is the Furious! part of Savage Worlds. Remember, if you already have a Wound penalty, that applies to your Soak Rolls.

Once you’ve taken your fourth Wound your character is Incapacitated. You’re still dealt a card with Initiative in case you bleed out or some other effect occurs. As soon as you’re Incapacitated, you must immediately make a Vigor roll (with the -3 Wound penalty):

The Injury Table is on page 95 of the Savage Worlds Adventure Edition rulebook. Basically, you have a lingering effect to your limbs, head, or internal organs.

Bleeding Out means that on your character’s turn (because you’re still dealt initiative cards) she must succeed on another Vigor Roll (with the -3 Wound Penalty). A failure (6 or less) means the character dies. A success (7 to 10) means they must make another roll on their next turn. A Raise (11+) the character stabilizes and no further rolls are required.

Bleeding Out can be stopped if a character makes a successful Healing Check.

9. Healing

Wounds can only be healed with a Healing Check or use of the Healing Power within the first hour after they are suffered. This is called the Golden Hour in Savage Worlds.

To heal a Wound with a Healing check, you must roll at least a 4. If the character being healed is Incapacitated, this wakes them and heals the Wound. If the character does not have a First Aid Kit or similar kit, then they suffer a -1 penalty on these checks. For each Raise, another Wound is healed. A Critical Failure causes a Wound.

The time it takes to heal is 10 minutes per Wound level. A character can only make one healing check in that Golden Hour. Another character can make a check. What this means is that a Healing Check in combat only stabilizes a Bleeding Out character, but cannot heal a wound.

Then there is the Healing Power. This a Novice Power and costs 3 Power Points. The Caster must be able to touch the target. If the caster succeeds on an Activation Check, one Wound is healed. A Raise heals two Wounds. The Power cannot heal more than two Wounds.

Additional uses of the Power can be used, so long as there are enough Power Points, to heal Wounds within the Golden Hour. If you’ll recall, spending a Benny will regain 5 Power Points. For 13 Power Points, the character can cast Greater Healing, which allows for the healing of Wounds outside of the Golden Hour.

If the Golden Hour elapses, then Natural Healing is the only other way of removing Wounds. Every five days, the character can make a Vigor roll (with the Wound Penalties). A Success removes a Wound and a Raise removes two Wounds. Additional Raises have no effect.

A Critical Failure increases the Wound level by one. If this pushes the character into Incapacitated, they must make a Vigor roll every 12 hours. A Failure means the character dies, a Success means they roll again in 12 hours, and a Raise means they stabilize. Other characters can make Healing Checks to stabilize the Bleeding Out character.

With Natural Healing, the other characters can make Support Rolls to help give wounded character bonuses to their Vigor Rolls. Of course, if those characters have their own Wounds, those penalties apply to Support Rolls.

10. Support Rolls

Marshalls should encourage players to make Support Rolls to assist other characters. The Supporting character should identify a relevant Skill and work with the Marshall to figure whether or how it would apply. To support a Healing Roll or a Vigor Roll for Natural Healing, Survival may be used to Support by finding healing herbs.

Obviously, a Healing Skill can be used to Support the Natural Healing Vigor Check. Under the right circumstances, a “You can do it!” Persuasion Roll can act as a Support Roll.

A Success on the Support Roll grants a +1 and a Raise is a +2. A Critical Failure imposes a -2 Penalty. The maximum bonus from all Support rolls is a +4.

Support can be used in Combat, to assist another character. While the narrative description can do another of things, a Support roll cannot impose a condition upon an opponent such as Distracted, Vulnerable, or Shaken. To impose one of those conditions requires an opposed test roll, which is harder to succeed on.

While a +1 or +2 does not seem like a large bonus for using an Action, most difficulties are a 4. A +1 or +2 is significant. Also, it is an Action, which means you can make a multiple Actions. Your character could Attack and Support with a -2 Penalty to both rolls.

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In Gumshoe, you never roll any dice to create your character. Instead, you are assigned a number of points to use in character creation based upon the number of regular players. Depending on the system, those points are either used for Investigation Skills or split with General Abilities. That’s it.

Too simple? Well yes, but as with most rolepaying games, there is complexity under that hood. First and foremost, players have to understand the paradigm of Gumshoe games: each character, from the start, is a highly competent expert in his or her field and often in several fields of study.

Think about that for a moment. Depending on which version of Dungeons and Dragons, your 1st-level characters can be killed by a large rat (1st Ed.) to being able to take on multiple goblins or kobolds without serious fear of death (4th Ed.). In Fifth Edition, 1st level characters are in-between. Fragile but moderately competent.

In Shadowrun, your starting character is probably proficient, but not a master, in one to two areas. The same can be said in Savage Worlds and Call of Cthulhu games. At character creation, to achieve mastery, the player must sacrifice width of proficiency or competence. This is an essential tension intended in character creation.

Here I am going to explain and explore character creation in four Gumshoe Roleplaying Settings: The Esoterrorists, Trail of Cthulhu, Night’s Black Agents, and The Fall of Delta Green. I think you will see how each of these settings, builds on the prior ones, finds new paths, but ultimately achieves a synthesis in the Fall of Delta Green.

Before diving into each of those settings, let me explain what I’ve learned is the common thread, the base Gumshoe system, to each of these settings.

Principles of Character Creation Across Gumshoe Games

With Gumshoe’s Investigation Abilities, that tension is removed. Even a single rank (point) in one of these skills means you are not just competent, but an established master in that field. Additional ranks moves you from the top 10% to the top 5% and even 1% in your field.

In game-play terms, if you have one point in a skill, you can always find “core clues” in a scene when you invoke that skill. Core clues are the necessary pieces of information to help you solve the mystery. The additional points will help you achieve additional information or give you situational bonuses when the action begins.

However, the “standard” understanding of starting character competency from other games applies to General Abilities. These are the action-items that keep you alive and safe when the antagonists act, well, antagonistically towards the investigators. These are the skills that have a chance of failure.

If you do not have at least one rank in a General Ability, you are not allowed to make a Test against it. Tests are when you roll the single d6 that is used in Gumshoe. Tests are only called for if there is a chance of failure. Driving to the crime scene does not need a test. Trying to shake a tail while driving to the crime scene does require a test.

While there is no cap to how many ranks you can acquire in a General Ability, 8 ranks is considered mastery. Also, your highest ranked General Ability cannot be more than twice your second-highest ranked ability. For example, let’s say you only have two abilities, Driving and Shooting. With a Drive rank of 3, your Shooting rank cannot be higher than 6. This rule forces players to broaden their skill sets out.

Finally, you do not have to spend all of your character creation points. Any unspent points are rolled over and noted on your character sheet. Each point allows you to buy a single rank in an Investigation Ability or General Ability. The player can then spend, even in the middle of a scene or combat, that point to add a new ability or increase their ranks in a known ability!

Let that sink in. Your character could be the “tough” of your group. You specialize in combat General Abilities and the Investigation Ability that lean on being big and strong: Intimidation, Interrogation, Cop Talk, Negotiation, etc. You’re in an investigation scene where not all party members are present and you find a corpse. You want to find the cause of death and don’t have time to take the corpse to someone who knows Forensic Pathology (autopsy). You can spend a point to give you that Ability.

But what about the in-world fiction of your character? How did you go from not knowing how to do a field-autopsy to suddenly knowing how do one? Flashback montage. It’s not that your character didn’t know how to do a field-autopsy, but that there was no reason to reveal she knew how to do one all along.

Maybe during weapons training, your character had to take anatomy and physiology in a cadaver lab? A skilled marksman or close-combat fighter needs to know exactly where specific organs are. Or you may needed to know how to kill someone to make it look like natural causes without poison. Regardless of your reason, you know how to do it and can learn core clues from that scene.

The same is true for General Abilities. Adding a new ability mid-scene uses that same training-montage-flashback idea. Increasing your ranks in an already-known ability doesn’t need that explanation. By giving you both the rank increase and pool increase, you can immediately spend that pool-point to add the +1 to your next test.

Now that we’ve covered the basic concepts of Gumshoe Character creation, let’s go through several of the books: The Esoterrorists, Trail of Cthulhu, Nights Black Agents, and the Fall of Delta Green.

The Esoterrorists (2nd Edition)

In the Esoterrorists, you play as occult investigators. You start the game as members of the Ordo Veritatis. Ordo Veritatis is a secret organization, secretly sponsored by various national intelligence agencies. Your goal is to investigate and stop occult groups who seek to change the fabric of reality. Unlike Trail of Cthulhu, your characters are knowledgeable of the existence of these occult threats.

These threats come from the Outer Dark, which is an irrational region of chaos. The Membrane separates our logical, causal world from the Outer Dark. But where sources of great psychic traumas occur or where large groups believe irrational things (e.g. conspiracy theories), the Membrane thins.

Would be Magicians or Sorcerers or Charlatans who seeking power or something else, will try to further thin the Membrane with obscene rituals. Ultimately, they are trying to summon Outer Dark Entities whose horror will further thin the Membrane.

As members of the Ordo Veritatis, you are are seeking to stop this from occurring. You are trying to protect the boring, logical, causal world we know and love. But you must be careful in your methods so you don’t further thin the Membrane.

Step One: Character Cover and Contacts

The fact that your character is an occult investigator for the Ordo Veritatis is a secret identity. You will need to figure out your character’s “day-job”, family, and colleagues. These are potential sources of information and help, but that may place them in danger from the Esoterrorists. In other words, the perfect source of help and complication every game master loves.

Once you’ve figured out your “normal” identify, you’ll then need to figure out your “secret” identity. Ordo Veritatis uses a secret-cell structure and your character, along with the other characters, are members of the same cell. Do you use your real name with the other cell members or do you have a cover identity with the other cell members?

Finally, how did you become a member of Ordo Veritatis? Somehow you discovered that the occult is real, not just some mystic belief-system. Also, you’ve learned that it is possible to misuse that power. Finally, this knowledge then lead you into agree to joining the Ordo Veritatis.

Step Two: Assigning Investigative Abilities

In Esoterrorists, players get a separate point pool for Investigation and General skills. Each Player gets points based upon the total number regularly attending players:

As you can see, if there are only 2 players, then each player gets a lot more skill points. The Esoterrorist Book emphasizes the importance of making sure that all of the various investigation skills are covered by all of the players. This game-ifies character creation that most other system avoids.

I don’t like this because it can force a player to add an investigation skill that doesn’t make sense for their character. But as my example above shows, you can justify how a character learned that skill. From a game perspective, your players can get core clues by just invoking a skill. If the players are missing several key skills, then a core clue can be missed.

The entire premise of Gumshoe games is players learn the core clues. Getting the clues is not the point. The point is for them to figure out what they mean and how they connect to the other clues. They learn and confirm that information by doing additional investigations and facing additional threats.

Investigation skills have three categories: Interpersonal, Technical, and Academic. As mentioned above, a single rank enables you to find core clues associated with that Ability. Additional ranks allows you to get additional information that is helpful, but not core (necessary).

Local Knowledge is only available if you’re playing a “Station Duty” game. More on that later. All players get 1 rank in Occult Studies for free.

I recommend limiting the number of Investigative Abilities with more than one rank to a small handful. Also, don’t put any Abilities above 3 ranks. That is a waste of points. Remember, at 3 ranks in an Investigative Ability, you’re in the top 1% in your field.

Step Three: Assigning General Abilities

Each player gets 60 points to assign regardless of group size. The list of general abilities is shorter in Esoterrorists than in other Gumshoe Games. This reflects the gameplay and story focus of the Esoterrorists: characters are investigators, not SWAT team members. Within the fiction, it is another group within Ordo Veritatis who takes out the cultists, once your characters verify them.

The Essoterrorists book has an interesting sidebar on Page 10. While most players focus on the Abilities they have to define who they are and their approach to problems, this sidebar suggests an alternative approach. The Abilities you don’t have say a lot about your character’s approach to situations.

The example the book gives is if you have no ranks in Flattery suggesting your character:

• is a lousy liar
• is too tongue-tied to let loose a flow of soothing compliments
• can’t stand to cater to others’ transparent emotional needs
• isn’t empathetic enough to tell what those needs might be
• has an ego forbidding you from shining the spotlight on anyone but yourself

With the narrower list of skills and 60 points to spend, you definitely should be adding additional ranks to the Abilities you select. The game identifies what the various rank levels means about your character’s ability

The following are the General Abilities available to your character:

Starting Health and Stability

In The Esoterrorists, like many of the Gumshoe Settings, Health (physical health) and Stability (mental health) are grouped in the General Abilities. When you are hurt in a fight, you lose health. When you come across a horrific crime scene or see an Outer Dark Entity you lose stability.

At character creation, the same points you use to buy these other General Abilities, you can spend to increase your Health and Stability. You start with one in each Ability. You should probably get each one to at least 7, if not a bit higher. The only die used in Gumshoe is a d6. With 7 points, if you take a d6 health or sanity loss, you won’t immediately drop to zero.

Speaking of zero, you can go down to a -12 in health before your character is dead. But when you drop to below zero Health (aka -1 or lower) then you must make a consciousness test. Your difficulty is the absolute value of your health score (if you have a -2, then you must roll a 2 on a d6) to remain conscious.

If you want to add a bonus to your roll, then you must spend points of your health to do so. For example, your character is at -3 health and must make a consciousness roll. She really needs to stay up to take another shot at a cultist. She can spend 2 health (taking her down to -5) to ensure she stays conscious (even if she rolls a 1, with the +2, she is ensured of getting at least a 3). Once you drop to -6, you can remain conscious but are no longer able to fight.

The same system applies to Stability: it can drop below zero. When it is between 0 and -5, your character is Shaken. The difficulty number for all General Ability tests is increased by 1. It also becomes more difficult to make Investigative Spends.

While you can still obtain core clues by invoking your Investigative Abilities, you cannot just automatically spend pool points to gain additional information if your Stability is at 0 to -5. Instead you must make a test where the difficulty is the absolute value of your current stability. Like with Health, you can spend your Stability to gain a bonus to the roll.

If your Stability drops to -6 to -11, you gain a permanent mental illness that persists even when your Stability recovers. Aside from the personality and behavioral changes, your character is permanently Shaken. Your character also loses one rank in their Stability rating that can only be regained by spending build points.

It is possible to be successfully treated/cured of this mental illness, but it takes in-game time. However, if your Stability drops to a -12, you’re incurably insane. You and the Game Master can decide how your character exits the game.

Remember, you do not need to spend all of your build points at character creation. If you have a few spare points, you can spend them on the spot to increase your pool and your current health or stability level.

Preparedness

As I talked about in my explanation of the Gumshoe System, I absolutely love the Preparedness skill. If your character has points in preparedness, that means your character thinks ahead, plans, and obtains the gear necessary to achieve the mission objectives. This is true, even if you the player are not that way.

This solves one of the potential problems with the Shadowrun system: spending hours shopping to ensure your kit has enough different items to anticipate every situation the game master throws at you. I personally find that boring as a GM and Player.

A preparedness test is called when you need a specific object for the situation (say a handy pack of shape-charged C4 plastic explosives or a flash-bang grenade). So long as you have ready access to your kit bag or tactical vest, then if you roll a 4 on a d6, you have that item. Spending points ensures access.

But as the Esoterrorist book explains, there can be some limits imposed by the Game Master:

The sorts of items you can produce at a moment’s notice depend not on your rating or pool, but on narrative credibility. If the GM determines that your possession of an item would seem ludicrous or out of genre, you don’t get to roll for it. You simply don’t have it. Any item which elicits a laugh from the group when suggested is probably out of bounds.

The Esoterrorists, p. 17

Alternate Game Play Styles

The default game-play style of Esoterrorists is episodic. Your characters do not live in an area and protect it from the Outer Dark Entities. Instead, your cell is called together by a senior member (always called a Mr. or Ms. Verity) of the Ordo Veritatis at a safe location, briefed on the mission, and then your team assembles at the first location.

This means your particular cell could be called to investigate anywhere in the country or world. You show up, find the esoterrorists, identify the Outer Dark Entity that was summoned, and end the threat yourself or by calling in the OV’s special forces. The Game Master may string these together into a longer campaign or your group may decide to maintain the episodic style.

Bu on page 79, the Esoterrorists book suggests a different campaign frame: Station Duty. Your group is assigned to a specific town where the Membrane between our logical reality and the chaos of the Outer Dark is thin. Maybe its your hometown or your a bunch of recent carpetbaggers. The book suggests a 50/50 mix of locals and out-of-town OV veterans.

Regardless, the mystery your team is unravelling spans several different investigations. For characters in a Station Duty Game, there are a few additional character choices. These choices differ if your the out-of-town veteran or a local.

Ordo Veritatis Veteran

What was your life before being assigned to live in this town? Did your family come with you? What is your cover story and cover job? What about your former “real” job? These are background questions your character should answer.

Ordo Veritatis Local, New Recruit

For the locals, the group will need to decide how they were recruited. Do you run a “Session Zero” investigation that everyone knows will end in the locals being recruited and inducted? You’ll also need to establish who your character is in the town and their web of contacts.

But as new recruits, you can only take one rank in any Technical Investigative Ability at character creation. Remember, one point still means you have a high level of expertise in that area, you’re just not in the top 1% or 5% in the field.

As compensation though, you can have a “Local Knowledge” Investigative Ability. In creating the town, the Game Master needs to identify the various area groups, regions, factions, etc. within the town. For example, the Police Department may be a faction or The Elks Club. So by taking a rank in Local Knowledge, it is specific to one of the available options created by the Game Master. This means you can take more than one different Local Knowledge.

Regardless whether your a Veteran or New Recruit, the Players and GM will need to pick a location for the Ordo Veritatis Station in the the town. You will need to decide the cover story for the location, plus the facilities and station assets. But these latter pieces require characters to spend their Investigative Build Points to acquire.

Sources of Stability

An optional feature for the Station Duty game is on page 81 of the Esoterrorist Book: Sources of Stability. This rule is borrowed from the Gumshoe Setting Fear Itself and is also used in Nights Black Agents and Trail of Cthulhu.

For every 3 Stability Ranks/Points, your character must name a Source of Stability (but not another player character) and an identifying phrase. The NPC details can be fleshed out later. A Source of Stability is someone your “character confides in and relies on, one person who makes the world worth fighting for.”

There are two ways the Game Master can use this optional rule. First, your Source of Stability is someone you can visit mid-investigation to let you refresh all or half of your Stability Pool. Or, if you do not regularly go and visit them, then you can never refresh your Stability Pool mid-Investigation or between Investigations.

If the Esoterrorists find out about one of your Sources of Stability and threatens your character with them, then your character must immediately make a Stability Test (e.g. risk loosing current Stability). If that Source is killed, then you permanently loose the ranks (and current) of Stability associated with that Source.

Final Thoughts on Esoterrorists Character Creation

As we will soon see, what sets the Esoterrorists Character creation apart from the other game settings, like Trail of Cthulhu on one side and Night’s Black Agents on the other is who your character is and what they know about the game’s primary antagonists.

The character creation methodology is very similar between all of these systems. The difference is where your character exists, what role they inhabit in the investigation. In the Esoterrorists, you are established agents who know your foe and their methods. The existence of the Esoterrorists is not the big reveal; that veil is already lifted.

Instead, the game creates tension between your teams need to solve the mystery while trying to maintain effective cover. Then at the end of the mission, you then have to decide how to do your veil out: the “rational” cover story that explains and hides what really happened. In many ways, this evokes the same sense of maintaining the Masquerade in Vampire.

Trail of Cthulhu

In contrast to the modern or current timeline setting of the Esoterrorists or Night’s Black Agents, Trail is default set in the early 1900s, maybe even up to the early 1950s. As is true with other Lovecraftian games, like Call of Cthulhu, the feel of these games is noir investigation.

At the start of the game, your characters are good at what they do, but they know nothing of the Cthulhu Mythos. They are novitiates to the mind-bending reality of Great Old Ones. But they are somehow assigned to investigate a murder, an odd occurrence, or an unusual event.

It is through that investigation they learn of strange cultists who are believed to only be mundane threats. But as their cult is dismantled, their writings searched for clues, that your investigators are then confronted by something that confirms the truth of their insane ramblings. This transforms the threat into something arcane an inexplicable.

Before you and your team of investigators get to that point, you must create your investigator.

Step One: Picking your Occupation

Unlike the freeform Investigative Ability selection of The Esoterrorists, in Trail of Cthulhu, you pick an Occupation. That Occupation provides your character with a selection of Occupational Abilities. For each build point spent on an Occupational Ability, you get two ranks. This is the list of Occupations in Trail of Cthulhu.

Not only does your occupation give you your Investigative Abilities, it also establishes your Credit Rating. Plus it identifies special abilities your character possess. For example, the Alienist can use Medicine as an Interpersonal Ability to talk your way into sanitariums and possibly hospitals.

Credit Rating describes your economic class as much as your income. This game may call into question whether you can afford to travel by ship from New York to London, but not often. Page 33 describes Credit Rating more as an Interpersonal Ability, “Credit Rating does not necessarily describe the size of your bank account, but your ability to operate within a given socio- economic bracket.”

You get the lower end of the point range listed for Credit Rating for free. You are permitted to trade those free points for ranks in a different Investigative Ability. You can also spend your build points to raise it.

Step Two: Select your Drive

Drive is what motivates your Investigator. Let’s be honest, there has to be something a little broken inside your investigator to keep pushing forward, despite the danger to your health and sanity. If your familiar with The X-Files, Mulder’s drive is based upon the alien abduction of his sister that he witnessed.

For each Drive, the book explains the possible reasons why your character has that Drive. It also suggests the Occupation that Drive may best fit with. Finally, it gives examples of fictional characters that share the drive.

Step Three: Spend Build Points

The build points you get for Investigative Abilities varies depending on the number of players. Each player gets 65 points to purchase General Abilities. The number of Investigative points for players is:

A sidebar on Page 24 provides an optional rule if you want to lower your character’s competence levels. The General Build points are only 60 with the following Investigative Build Points

The Investigative Abilities are separated into three categories: Academic, Interpersonal, and Technical.

Cthulhu Mythos is not available to be taken at character creation. It is only learned during play, at the expense of your character’s Sanity. Again, the game book suggests that players make sure each (or as many) of the various Investigative Abilities are selected as possible.

Next up is selecting your General Abilities. As mentioned above, its 65 points and if you want to feel more frail, then its 60 points. But if you want a more pulp, powerful style game, then the optional rule takes you up to 70 build points.

As you can see, the list of General Abilities in Trail of Cthulhu is longer than in The Esoterrorists. It also adds a new rule regarding the Bolded Abilities. These four General Abilities can be used as an Investigative Ability under specific circumstances.

Again, no General Ability can be higher then twice the second-highest Ability. The exception is if your Occupation has a General Ability listed.

Another difference is there is Health, Stability, and Sanity. Every player starts with 1 free point in Health and Stability, but 4 free points in Sanity. The default rules does not put any cap on General Abilities. But it suggests an optional rule if you’re running a game in “Purist Mode”: Capping Health and Stability at 12 and Sanity at 10.

Health is self-explanatory. The pool goes down to -12. From zero to -5, your Investigator is Hurt and cannot spend on Investigative Abilities and all test difficulties are increased by one. At -6 to -11, you are seriously wounded and must make a Consciousness Roll (this is different than in the Esoterrorists). Even if you make it, you’re not able to fight.

Stability is your character’s ability to keep it together, to be calm under pressure. In other games, this might be called a fear effect. Failing a Stability check means that you have lost control, that you’ve panicked, are in blind frenzy, or nearly catatonic. Failing a Stability Test can result in a loss of Stability and Sanity.

If your Stability drops between zero and -5 (Shaken), then you lose one Sanity rating. If it’s -6 to -11 (Blasted), then you lose 2 Sanity rating. You can only suffer one such rating loss once per Investigation. If your Stability reaches -12, you are incurably insane.

Sanity measures your ability to withstand the Truths of the Cthulhu Mythos. It measures your ability to sustain belief in any fundamental human concerns whatsoever. Unlike other General Abilities, there are never any Sanity Tests and you do not spend points from your pool.

For each point in Cthulhu Mythos you gain, your maximum Sanity decreases. Once you learn any Cthulhu Mythos your Sanity can never be higher than 10 minus your Cthulhu Mythos rank. Also, each time you invoke the Cthulhu Mythos ability, you lose one Sanity from your pool. If your Sanity hits zero, then your moral code has collapsed and you’ve become what you were hunting.

In short, your Stability pool measures how close you are to snapping today; your Sanity pool measures how close you are to seeing the Truth forever.

Trail of Cthulhu p. 69

While most of the General Abilities are self-explanatory, there are a few unusual options. For example, Fleeing. In Lovecraftian stories, running away is an important skill. By having this as a skill, it means you must make tests when running from Eldritch horrors.

Another is Hypnosis, which is only available to the Alienist Occupation. On page 43, the Ability has a long write up for the types of things you can do with this Ability. This includes putting people in a simple hypnotic state, establish rapport, recover memories, or even plant false memories.

Step Four: Define your Pillars of Sanity and Sources of Stability

For every 3 points of Sanity, the Character must define a Pillar of Sanity. These are abstract principles the Investigator holds dear. But these Pillars can be damaged or undermined by exposure to revelations about the Mythos. Examples of Pillars are a religious faith, human dignity, physical laws, and patriotism. Naturally, revelations that undermine a Pillar will further reduce your Sanity.

With every 3 points of Stability, you must identify a Source of Stability. This is a person that helps you stay sane in the face of worldly or otherworldly terrors. They are the motivation for you to keep pushing forward, to protect them from the Mythos. You should also come up with a phrase that identifies why or how they provide stability.

Of course, if anything were to happen to a Source, then not only must you make a very difficult Stability Test, you would permanently lose your Ranks of Stability associated with that Source. You can be sure that the Cultists you’re investigating would never do them harm if they found out their relationship to your Investigator.

Step Five: Choose your contacts and personalize your character choices.

As an established expert in your field, you have colleagues, contacts and acquaintances. These are people you know and can go to for help and information. If you want to invoke one of your Investigative Abilities to call on a professional contact, the Player must “supply the Keeper with her name, residence, and specific connection to your Investigator.” Page 31.

Spending points from that Ability will improve that contact’s attitude towards your investigator and provide additional information above the free core clues. Of course, nothing is free and your contact may demand something in return for their help.

Personalizing your character is identifying quirks, character flaws, etc. Maybe they only smoke a particular brand of cigarette. Or they are always impeccably dressed, no matter the time or occasion. These are the small characterizations that bring your Investigator to life.

Final Thoughts on Trail of Cthulhu Character Creation

When I first read through Trail’s Character Creation section, I thought it was going to be more streamlined than the Esoterrorists. It appeared as if Occupations was going to be a package of Investigative and General Abilities. By picking Private Investigator, you had all of the heavy lifting done, with maybe a few extra points to customize your character.

Instead, Occupation merely made specific Abilities cheaper (2 for 1) to acquire. This carries through Character Advancement. Also, your Occupation gave you a special ability or approach to scenes. But rather then specialize your character around the Occupation, it makes your character more of a generalist.

Remember, the game advises that you do not spend more than 3-4 points in Investigative Ability ranks. By getting to 4 ranks with 2 points, you now have 2 “extra” points to spend on other Abilities outside of your occupation. As you advance, this point saving spreads you out because there is a functional utility cap to Investigative Abilities.

The same is not true for General Abilities. Some Occupations have no or few General Abilities. Others, like Hobo, have several. While there may be a practical limit to how many ranks in General Abilities are useful, being able to add yet another +1 to a test is always nice. Of course, your highest General can’t be more than twice the 2nd highest General. But this is where that 2-for-1 bonus makes your character a specialist.

Night’s Black Agents

You play as former spies, special operation officers, or intelligence analysts. You are currently a black-op mercenary, a deniable asset, or part of a paramilitary. During a mission, your team discovers that a) vampires exist and b) they are using and being used by various intelligence agencies for . . . . reasons you team needs to find out. Your team will need to learn how to hunt vampires.

Where Trail of Cthulhu suggests there is such thing as a Purist Mode and the Esoterrorists has its Station Duty campaign frame, Nights Black Agents formally has several different “Modes” of play:

Each of these modes has an icon associated with it. As you read the book, those icons appear to suggest tweaks or changes to match that mode.

Step One: Choose a Background

The “promise” of Occupations in Trail of Cthulhu comes to fruition in Nights Black Agents with their Backgrounds. Technically, this step is optional, but I strongly recommend that you use these. With Backgrounds, you are being given more than a “bonus” to specific abilities. You are taking a package of Investigative and General Abilities, with ranks pre-selected.

You have enough Investigative Build Points to be able to take one, two or three Backgrounds. Each Background uses up 6 Investigative Build and 18 General Build points. Also, regardless of which Background(s) you pick you get 15 Network Ranks and 10 Cover Ranks for free. These represent your accumulated contacts and identities from your years of official service.

Network points are spent to create Contacts, people you know and can call upon. These contacts have specific Investigative or General Abilities that you need. Each rank the Contact has costs you one Network point. As you “access” those abilities, you permanently use them up on that Contact (they don’t refresh), unless you spend more points. A Contact without any points may be burned and at risk of being caught by your opponents.

Cover represents your stash of fake passports and national identifications. Each separate identity has a specific number of points spent on it. Depending on how much Heat (a new mechanic representing how much local law enforcement and intelligence agencies are looking for you) you have, when you present your passport at national borders, airports, or checkpoints you’ll have to make a Cover Test.

Failure means the authorities have pierced your cover. Naturally, you can spend points from that Cover to give a bonus to your Cover Test. You can spend additional Build points to add to any specific Cover.

These are the Backgrounds you can select and a brief description of each one.

Almost every Background will suggest alternate builds to achieve a different flavor to your character. The write up also suggests which other background(s) pair well with it so you can have a more coherent character concept.

Step Two: Pick your Investigative Abilities

Like all of the Gumshoe Games, Night’s Black Agents varies the number of Investigative Build Points based upon the number of active players:

Even at five players, 20 build points means you can select up to three backgrounds and have 2 points left over to spend. Personally, I would still only take two backgrounds and leave 8 points to customize your character.

Once again, you do not have to spend all of your points at character creation. You can save them for when you need them during a mission. Investigative Abilities are still split into Academic, Interpersonal, and Technical:

Comparing Night’s Black Agent’s list of Investigative Abilities to the two games I’ve already covered, it is a much longer list. Also, several Academic Abilities (like Chemistry and Astronomy) are Technical. This emphasizes the applied or practical aspects of these disciplines.

Human Terrain combines together several areas that a middle-schooler might call Social Studies. Page 22 of Night’s Black Agents says it covers disciplines of “anthropology, sociology, theology, social psychology, political science, and propaganda.”

Tradecraft starts at 1 for every character. Tradecraft refers to the specific set of skills that all spies and spooks are trained in, such as: setting up a dead drop, conducting a car toss, determining an agent’s prior agency based upon techniques, etc.

Urban Survival is like outdoor survival, but in urban settings. Except it is more than camping in a city. You are intimately familiar with the feel, pace and mood of a city. You can find your way around and are friendly with the local homeless population.

Vampirology is the knowledge and study of Vampires. You do not get to start with any points in this Ability, just like Cthulhu Mythos in Trail of Cthulhu. Unlike the Mythos Ability, taking Vampirology does not have any effect on your character’s sanity. Unlike in Esoterrorists, your Agent knows nothing about the Vampire conspiracy at the start of the game.

Step Three: Pick your General Abilities

Your Agents have 70 points to spend on General Abilities. Each Background spends 18 of those points. With two backgrounds (36 points) that leaves 34 points to customize your character. While the previous two games suggest that getting up to 8 points in a General Ability makes your character an expert, Night’s Black Agents backs that up with Cherry Abilities.

Cherries are something extra you can do by dedicating at least 8 points in a General Ability. For example 8 points in Conceal means you can hide a knife, detonator, lockpicks etc. so they cannot be found absent an x-ray or strip search. With 8 points in Mechanics, you can spend Mechanics points as if you were using Preparedness by describing how your jury-rigging a device to meet your need, McGyver-style.

The General Abilities you can choose from are:

Like with Investigative Abilities, Night’s Black Agents has a longer list than the Esoterrorists and Trail of Cthulhu. I addressed Cover and Network above.

Health and Stability works much the same way as in The Esoterrorists. Both can go down to a -12 at which point your either dead, insane, or both. If your health drops to zero or below, you’ll have to make a Consciousness test, based upon the absolute value of your current health pool. When encountering shocking events, a Stability Test, to see if you lose Stability Pool points.

Step Four: Pick your Military Occupational Speciality (MOS)

Your MOS is one of your General Abilities. You get only one MOS and you take it at character creation. The book strongly suggests that characters do not share a MOS, to avoid splitting the spotlight. Mechanically, the MOS means you can choose to automatically succeed in a test of that Ability, but only once per session.

No only do you succeed you, but you succeed with style. If you have MOS shooting, not only do you hit your target but you kill it. MOS driving means you can make a clean getaway. However, this only applies to human opponents, not supernatural ones.

Step Five: Personalize your Agent

Depending on your Game Mode, this may just be adding those small personal characterization choices as you complete the character sheet. But if you’re using one of the alternate game modes, then you’ll be choosing Sources of Stability and a Drive.

Like with the Esoterrorist and Trail of Cthulhu, your Source of Stability is the person you escape to to clear your mind. But in Night’s Black Agents there are three sub-types of Sources: Symbol, Solace, and Safety.

Symbol is a non-human representation of something you value, like a religious object, your country’s flag, or your father’s dog tags. You can refresh some Stability by handling that object. But losing it means you permanently loose 1 rank in Stability.

Solace is the person you seek out for human contact to make your stress and pain recede for awhile. To refresh 2 points of Stability with your Solace, you must be able to spend 6 hours during a mission. Spending all day will allow a complete refresh. If your Solace betrays you, you lose 2 ranks of Stability. If they are turned by a Vampire or killed, you lose 3 ranks of Stability.

Safety is the person and place you would flee too without thinking about it. You do not need to go there to benefit from you Safety, just knowing it exists and open to you is enough. At the end of any session where you Safety still exists, you can refresh one Stability point.

Drives are what motivate your Agent to keep pushing forward into danger.

Drives prevent players from making boring, cowardly choices for their characters. They don’t require foolish or suicidal recklessness, just the same degree of courage and initiative you’d expect from a heroic protagonist.

Night’s Black Agents p. 37

These are the Drives suggested by the book:

The final few steps flesh out your background. You will need to decide how you “Came In” to the life of a clandestine operator. Page 41 suggests what world or national events occurred that would have lead you into this life depending on your character’s age at the start of the game. Next, you’ll need to figure out why and how you “Got Out” of formal clandestine office. Finally, how did you and the other Agents meet up?

Final Thoughts on Night’s Black Agents Character Creation

I like Night’s Black Agents creation method. Players can go completely custom or select up to 3 backgrounds to streamline the creation process. But on the other hand, the background system is more necessary because of the longer list of Investigative and General Abilities. But with the MOS and General Ability Cherries there are more mechanically diverse choices to make, which can lead to analysis paralysis.

These choices are evocative and are tied very much into the setting, but the appeal of character creation in the Esoterrorists is simplicity and ease.

The Fall of Delta Green

The Fall of Delta Green Book starts with:

A quagmire overseas chews up American forces.

Apocalyptic cults rise in the Middle East, riots paralyze Paris, and Russia moves aggressively into Europe.

The United States wages secret war around the globe while its social fabric shreds and its cities crackle with gunfire.

New technologies, new sciences, and new music revolutionizes our lives.

The Earth’s ecology teeters at the brink of toxic ruin.

The stars are coming right.

It is 1968

The Fall of Delta Green

This setting combines together elements of the three Gumshoe settings already discussed above:

• The Esoterrorists Ordo Veritatis, but Delta Green is a Top Secret, official but unacknowledged program of the United States Government.
• Like in The Esoterrorists, your Agents have day jobs, but they are within official US Agencies: Military, CIA, State Department, Department of Defense, etc.
• Your Agents are fighting cults and monsters of the Cthulhu Mythos, like in Trail of Cthulhu, but you start knowing about the Mythos as in The Esoterrorists.
• Your Agents, as members of a Top Secret, Code-Word clandestine paramilitary agency are highly-trained operatives like the Agents in Night’s Black Agents. But you are closer to Special Forces like the Army Rangers or Green Berets, than CIA spies.

But where Trail of Cthulhu is set in the early 1900s, Esoterrorists in the late 1990s and beyond, and Night’s Black Agents in the 2010s and beyond, Delta Green is set in the late 1950s and ends on July 24, 1970 when the US Joint Chiefs of Staff official disband Delta Green.

The borrowing from these prior Gumshoe settings continues with character creation. It emphasizes that character creation should be collaborative: you’re making a team, not a bunch of solo-agents who are forced together by circumstances. As always, if that’s your fun or theme for a campaign or a one-shot, you do you.

Step One: Pick Your Military Service and Department

With the setting being right on the heels of World War II, the Korean War, and the start of the Vietnam War, the military draft is still active in the United States. Where Night’s Black Agents suggested you selected up to 3 Backgrounds, the Fall of Delta Green requires you to pick a Military Service.

Of course, you could come up with a reason why your character was drafted. There were several exemptions, including conscientious objector, being the son of a Senator, or even bone spurs in your heel. But it is strongly suggested that you pick a Department to explain your placement within Delta Green.

That choice will then give you Investigative and General Abilities and ranks in each, just like NBA’s Backgrounds. You then subtract those points from your available build points.

Military Service

These are the suggested Military Service Templates:

Unlike Night’s Black Agents Backgrounds, each of these templates cost variable points. Also, some of them have two versions, Former and Active Duty. Active Duty costs more points, but means your Agent is still enlisted or commissioned. If you’re Active Duty, then you do not pick a Department.

Also, in consultation with the Handler (Delta’s Green’s version of the Game Master or Keeper), you can assign a military rank to your Agent. This provides additional ranks in various Abilities that are subtracted from your starting build points.

Departments

Departments are your Agent’s cover assignment. They are the official US Agency that your Agent works for when not on Delta Green missions. While your Agent may have avoided Military Service, it is strongly encouraged they pick a Department. They do provide some non-Department Templates.

The Departments to choose from are:

Most of the Departments only have one or two sub-departments or templates to choose from. But, as should be no surprise, the CIA and FBI have multiple sub-templates to choose from.

Central Intelligence Agency Templates:

Federal Bureau of Investigation Templates

Other Templates

If you want to play an outsider to the bureaucracy of the US Government, then there are a few templates to choose from:

If you pick one of these, then you will need to work with your Handler to figure out how or why you are a Delta Green Agent.

Step Two: Pick Your Investigative Abilities

Like all other Gumshoe games, your Investigative Build Points are given as follows:

Most of the heavy lifting of Ability selection is done with your Military Service and Department template selections. Of course there are points left over and you are allowed to move the templated points around. Once again, Investigative Abilities are divided into Academic, Interpersonal, and Technical Categories:

Definitely a lot of returning Abilities, with several changing categories to reflect the investigatory emphasis of those areas. But there are some new ones that should be explained and returning Abilities with special rules.

The Unnatural is Delta Green’s version of Cthulhu Mythos in Trail. It is suggested that all Agents start with 1 point in this Ability for free. Just like the Mythos Ability, your maximum Sanity is 10 minus your points in The Unnatural. This means all agents start with a maximum Sanity of 9.

HUMINT and SIGINT stand for Human Intelligence and Signals Intelligence. SIGINT is your ability to operate electronic communications devices and surveill electronic communications to gather information (clues). This matches how that term is used in the real world.

HUMINT typically means intelligence you’ve obtained from a human source. In Delta Green, it instead means intelligence you’ve obtained from observing a human target/source. It replaces and expands the abilities Assess Honesty or Bullshit Detector from other Gumshoe games.

Agency is not a single Ability, but multiple Sub-Abilities. It replaces Bureaucracy as an Investigative Ability and your Agent gets 2 points for free. Your ranks are purchased for a specific government agency: CIA-2, Special Forces 1, USMC 3. Typically, you start with points in the US Agency in which you’re employed as your cover.

Furthermore, you cannot assign points to an Agency you did not previously work in. Of course, this may mean you’ve changed covers in the middle of the campaign because your cover has been blown. But your points in the 2nd Agency cost double and 3rd Agency cost triple.

Art is not only understanding Art History, but your ability to make art and to make forgeries. You can specify a medium in which you create works of art. With forgery, you actually designate points into Art (Forgery) to make forged documents. You may also need to make a Data Retrieval or another General Ability test to get those credentials into the system for the forgery to be effective.

Page 23 suggests that all Agents buy 1 point in Notice, HUMINT, and Agency if your Template doesn’t already have those Abilities. It also suggests that every Agent have at least one Interpersonal Investigative Ability. And if your Agent has several Interpersonal Abilities, then it is suggested you have one or more Foreign Languages so you’re not hampered abroad.

Step Three: Pick Your General Abilities

You have 65 points to buy General Abilities. Of course, your Templates will reduce this total. The General Abilities are:

Most of these General Abilities are similar and familiar from the other settings. One notable General Ability skill is Bureaucracy, which in Night’s Black Agents and the Esoterrorists is an Investigative Ability. This change reveals a truth about this setting.

In NBA and Esoterrorists, your knowledge of Bureaucracy merely permits you to obtain clues, with spends giving you extra knowledge. There is no suspense that your character can and will successfully navigate the bureaucracy to get what they need.

But in the Fall of Delta Green, battling the internecine, interminable government bureaucracy of the US Government is a core feature of the game. Manipulating that bureaucracy get what your Agent needs is and will remain in doubt. If there is question whether or not your Agent will succeed in a task, then a Test is necessary. Thus Bureaucracy is a General, not an Investigative, Ability.

As you can see, Fall of Delta Green brings back Sanity along with Stability and Health. These work in the same way as in Trail of Cthulhu.

Step Four: Pick Your Personalizations

There are two parts of this step: Selecting your Bonds and your Motivations.

Bonds

Start by selecting 3 Bonds. These are this setting’s Sources of Stability. You are identifying three individuals whose relationship helps you maintain your Stability.

But here, those Bonds have more mechanical heft than Sources in the other settings. Each Bond has ranks equal to your highest ranked of the following interpersonal skills:

• Flattery
• Inspiration
• Negotiation
• Reassurance

If you do not have any ranks in this Abilities, then your Bond rank is 1. As the Interpersonal rank drops (or lowers) so does the Bond rating, but its maximum is 4.

Your Bonds can be with a person, a family or a group. You and the Handler must provide some detail and substance to these Bonds. These Bonds come into focus in-between missions. During an Operation you can spend those Bond points during Stability tests. If that Bond drops to -1, it is permanently broken. They only refresh in-between missions as follows:

Each Agent is encourage to go through a vignette with the Handler on their reunion with their Bonds. Page 128 details the types of events or things these vignettes should cover or address. The Agent must make Stability tests to rebuild those bond points, spending Interpersonal points as necessary. But those spent points are not available for the next mission.

Other things you can do in-between missions, other then rebuilding your bonds are:

• One With Nature
• Establish a New Bond
• Head Games
• Stay on the Case
• Study the Unnatural

It is also possible to develop Bonds with your Delta Green teammates following collective trauma. These are detailed on page 46. If one of these events happens, you make a Difficult 4 Stability Test at the end of the mission. If you Fail, you now have a Bond with each teammate or increase your bond by 1. The Bond rating is half of your highest, non-Delta Green, Bond rating.

But you also immediately lose one point from one of those Bonds. This also applies for any Bonds you increase. This highlights how your traumatic, war-time experiences strengthens your Bonds with your brothers and sisters in arms, but at the cost of your friends and families.

Motivations

Next is Motivations, which are the substitute for Drives in the other games. Page 47 provides some advice for Players and Handlers to invoke these Motivations to explain why the Agents would irrationally run towards danger.

Mechanically, failing to follow your Motivation can cause a loss of 2 to 5 Stability pool points. But the game prefers that Handlers do not use this stick to force Agent choice. Instead, Agents are supposed to follow their Motivations. The point is they are to complete their mission no matter the cost.

The Player’s choice to have their Agent lay down, rather than get up, should come at this cost. It simulates the exhaustion and psychic drain these never-ending missions and exposure to mind-bending horror takes on Agents. There are no good choices, merely less bad ones.

Conversely, the book encourages Handlers to allow Agents who push forward on their Motivations to refresh 1 to 2 pool points in a General Ability. This is to mechanically reinforce these Motivations are closer to psychological compulsions. The list of Motivations are:

Finally, on page 49, you select and work out the more personal details of your character: name, age, background, personal habits (e.g. favorite drink, hobbies, favorite team). In addition, you should answer the following:

• Something you admire about the Agent.
• Something you dislike about the Agent.
• Why does Delta Green trust your Agent to confront unnatural threats and keep them secret?
• Why does your Agent agree that helping Delta Green and keeping its secrets feeds her Motivation?

Final Thoughts on the Fall of Delta Green

Delta Green pulls together the various threads presented by The Esoterrorists, Trail of Cthulhu, and Night’s Black Agents. While each of those build on the prior, they also take the game in different directions.

Esoterrorists puts you inside a benevolent organization from the start. Trail of Cthulhu makes your team more of a collection of lone wolves, discovering the existential horror of the Mythos. Night’s Black Agents makes you former members of an organization, with highly developed action-packed skills.

Delta Green’s mix of and variations on the Templates (Occupations and Backgrounds), Investigative/General Abilities, Bonds, and Motivations is great at evoking the specific feel of this setting: You are trying to protect the world, you believe in your mission, but does anyone else in the faceless bureaucracy of the 1960s US Government?

Also, the Bonds mechanic ties together the story of your Agent’s home front, loosely developed in Esoterrorists and explored in Night’s Black Agents, by adding in mechanical backing. It evokes the story of Vietnam, fighting for a home that is not fighting for you. Fighting for a home that you no longer care for or understand.

Final Thoughts on Character Creation in Gumshoe

Gumshoe character creation splits its emphasis between what your character does and who they are. On the latter point, it wants you to figure out not just who you are but your place in the world before the weird horror begins. As the system evolves over these four setting books, more mechanical heft reinforces that sense of person and place for the characters.

This is important for evoking the mood of weird horror. In traditional fantasy fiction and roleplaying games (Dungeons and Dragons), while there is nothing stopping you from developing that sense of your character’s person and place, the overwhelming emphasis is on what you do.

Even in grittier games like Shadowrun, your characters happen to the world. In Gumshoe, it is equal parts what reality your characters impose and the reality that is imposed upon your characters.

If you want some links on where to buy these Gumshoe settings, they can be found over here.

If you want to explore the wilder (and wider) world of tabletop roleplaying games go there! If you want to start to learn on how to paint miniatures, click already! Or maybe you want to read more of my posts about Dungeons and Dragons, then click away here!

There are three sets of gods in the Mythos. The Elder Gods are the creator gods, indifferently benign towards their creation. The Outer Gods are the first created beings of cosmic size and scope. The Great Old Ones are the progeny of the Outer Gods who rebelled and were placed in slumber on Earth.

What is confusing about these classifications is there is not a strong consensus over their accuracy. If you have ever read the foundational works of the Mythos, the writings of HP Lovecraft and others, they read like the writings of a madman. But that is the point of this fiction.

The writings do not have an omniscient narrator, but are told as the writings or journals of persons who have been exposed to the mind-bending, sanity-breaking truths of the Mythos. This means the narrator, whether first or third person, is inherently unreliable.

Later writers, like August Derleth and scholars like Robert Price have tried to make sense of these beings in their works. While there is general agreement over the Great Old Ones and the Outer Gods, it is the Elder Gods and their role in the Mythos that is controversial.

Outer Gods

The Outer Gods are truly cosmic in scope. These are the gods of the stars and the outer darkness. They influence events on earth from the void between the stars and may even exist beyond four known dimensions. One way they influence and communicate with their mortal followers is through dreams and the Dreamlands.

Azathoth

[O]utside the ordered universe [is] that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.

HP Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Azathoth is the proto-typical Mythos god, in every sense of that term. Azathoth is an indescribable being, with each mortal beholding it, perceiving its mind-bending form. It is also either the King or Co-King of the Outer Gods.

The flutes and drums are played by other, lesser outer gods for the sole purpose of keeping Azathoth in its slumber at the center of the universe. If Azzathoth were to awaken, it would destroy all existence in its hunger.

According to the writings of the author Ramsey Cambpell, Azathoth’s original followers was a race of insect creatures on the planet Shaggai. Upon destruction of their planet, they transported a temple to Azathoth to the Earth outside the town of Goatswood. With the help of human cultists, they perform obscene rites to Azathoth.

Magnum Innominandum

Also called The Nameless Mist, it is the creation of Azathoth. Along with its sibling, The Eternal Darkness, they are oldest of the Outer Gods, except for Azathoth. It is known for manipulating reality, acausation, and tampering with space-time.

Nyarlathotep

Nyarlathetop is the messenger of the Outer Gods. Also called The Crawling Chaos, it is one of the few Outer Gods to take human form and walk on Earth. It is neither exiled to the outer cosmos nor forced into the dreaming.

Where the Other Gods and the Great Old Ones have their own language, Nyarlathetop can speak many human languages. He does not serve any one deity, but assists the human cultists of any Outer God. He most commonly appears like an ancient Pharaoh, but he can take any form.

Nyarlathotep is more interested in spreading the madness of the Outer Gods than bringing about destruction. As such, he can be the ultimate antagonist of Mythos fiction or a Call of Cthulhu Campaign.

Shub-Niggurath

Also called The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young. Unlike some of the other Outer Gods, she is given a gender. Her role in the pantheon is as a fertility deity, although one of cosmic horror.

While Nyarlathotep is helping many different cults, Shub-Niggurath is worshipped by a large variety of different cultists in various places. Her cults tend towards what we would think of as dark druids or dark age cults out beyond the edge of shrinking civilization.

It is also believe that she has mated with many of the other Outer Gods to produce many vile, lesser (but still powerful) godlings.

Yog-Sothoth

Is said to be the brother or co-King to Azathoth. Yog-Sothoth is the being responsible for the establishment of time. It is omniscient because it is locked outside of the known universe. As such, many cultists call to it for knowledge.

Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth’s fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread.

HP Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror

It is the progenitor of Cthulhu and Hastur, the Yellow King. Its body is composed of thirteen iridescent globes.

Great Old Ones

These are the children of the Outer Gods. Several slumber on Earth or on other planets in the universe. They call out to people in their dreams, hoping to drive such people mad enough to wake them. Not all Great Old Ones are bound to a terrestrial planet. Some, like Hastur, travel through the cosmos and have several avatars.

Byatis

Byatis is a giant toad-like being with a single eye, crab-like claws and snake-like tentacles erupting from its face. It is claimed to be a god of forgetfulness, locked away behind a stone door on the British Isles since before the time of the Romans.

It is not clear who or what imprisoned Byatis, but maybe it was the Elder Gods.

Atlach-Nacha

A spider-god with a human-like face, it resides in the ruins of the Arctic kingdom of Hyberborea. The webs of its lair form a bridge between the waking world and the Dreamlands.

Cthulhu

Cthulhu sleeps under the Pacific Ocean in its city of R’lyeh. It appears in peoples dreams, often leading them to craft statutes, drawings and other artifacts depicting this being. These objects then become an idol or object of worship by cultists of Cthulhu.

Its cultists has cells throughout the world, but they are most often found on islands or near an ocean. They often chant “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn,” which translates as “In his house at R’lyeh dead C’thulhu waits dreaming.”

Cthulhu is of immense size, with great clawed hands, octopus tentacles around its mouth, and stubby, bat-like wings. It is believe that Cthulhu and its spawn came to earth, pre-dating the rise of man.

Dagon

The Elder Deep One, that has grown to 50-feet in size, Dagon is also Consort to Mother Hydra. Dagon then leads the cult of Cthulhu as the Deep Ones are a non-human species that worship it. This is the same Dagon worshipped by the Biblical Philistines.

Ghatanothoa

The first spawn of Cthulhu, its appearance is so disturbing that seeing it or even a replica of it petrifies the viewer. The petrification is not to stone, but into a mummy-like leather, which preserves the organs, especially the victim’s brain. The victim is aware of its circumstance, but unable to move.

Only through some form of magic or destruction of the brain (which kills it) is the victim granted a release. Such magic will not restore the creature’s mind.

Hastur

The King in Yellow, the Feaster from Afar, is the half-brother of Cthulhu. While his true form is amorphous, it will sometimes appear as a flying monstrosity with razer-tipped talons. Other times, its avatar will be a cowled, yellow-cloaked being.

He is associated with the city of Carcosa and is heralded by the Yellow Sign. Carcosa is an extraterrestial city featured in the French play the King in Yellow. Within the Mythos, this play has been banned in France and any copies of which are sought and destroyed. To even read the play is to invite madness.

Iod

Worshipped by the Antlanteans, Iod is a crystalline fungus being. It paralyzes and consumes beings, only leaving their brains behind. Those brains are then incorporated into the body of Iod.

Nug and Yeb

Born of the pairing of Yog-Sothoth and Shub-Niggurath. Nug is the parent of Cthulhu. Yeb, the parent of Tsathoggua. At 10 feet in diameter, Nug and Yeb are small for Great Old Ones.

It is not clear their role in the Mythos. Some texts suggest they are to clear the earth to make way for the Great Old Ones. Other texts suggest they keep the garden of Yig.

Rhan-Tegoth

The last Great Old One to sleep, it inhabited modern-day Alaska. It is a 15 foot medusa-like, insectoid amphibious god-being. Its body was found and placed in various museums, causing chaos and insanity in its wake.

Tsathoggua

You shall know Tsathoggua by his great girth and his batlike furriness and the look of a sleepy black toad which he has eternally. He will rise not from his place, even in the ravening of hunger, but will wait in divine slothfulness for the sacrifice.

Clark Ashton Smith, The Seven Geases

Where Cthulhu sleeps in the sea, Tsathoggua sleeps deep underground in a lost cavern. When it wakes, it will devour whatever is present. Therefore, whoever wakes it best have a living sacrifice to feed it instead.

Its will is carried out by its formless spawn, a black goo. The spawn can take any shape and are very resilient. They can be found in basins of vases within Tsathoggua’s temple reading to kill the non-believers.

Yig

The Father of Serpents. Worshipped by Mesoamericans and the Native Americans of the Southern Plains, it sees itself as the protector of its children. It is believed that it would enter a frenzy of feeding every fall.

Elder Gods

As mentioned above, who the Elder Gods are, the relationship to the Outer Gods and Great Old Ones is not well developed within the Mythos fiction. The early authors simply had god-like beings that were helpful or protective of the story’s protagonist. Later authors used that to write additional beings who were not indifferent to human existence.

However, the purpose of the Elder Gods, beyond just reducing the influence or stopping the cults of the Outer Gods, is not well understood. In that way, they are as inscrutable as the other powerful beings in the universe. It is equally possible they are also Outer Gods, but who merely acknowledge humanity’s existence and wish for it to continue.

A common theme of the Elder Gods is they were worshipped by various human cultures through the millenia. This suggests their oppositional purpose to the Great Old Ones and Outer Gods. The Elder Gods at least wish to protect their worshippers, but these other beings simply destroy because of their indifference to their human worshippers.

Bast

The ancient Eyptian goddess of cats is worshipped by all cats, everywhere, on all planets and in the Dreamlands. She is also associated with ghouls, because cats also eat the dead.

If you want to create fiction or a roleplaying game scenario, cats could protect the protagonists. They could scare off supernatural entities or creatures. Or they could lead the party away from danger.

Hypnos

The Greek god of sleep and dreams. Hypnos is depicted in HP Lovecraft’s story of the same name as a god who educates the protagonist about the dimensions beyond space and time within the Dreaming. Hypnos can be a being who helps protagonists in the Dreamland. He may even teach them how to get around while dreaming.

Nodens

Within the Mythos, Nodens eventually became the leader or the head of the Elder Gods. He is master of the night-gaunts. These are creatures of the Dreamlands, with smooth, whale-like skin, an elongated faceless skull, and bat wings. Nodens, like most of the Elder Gods, helps those in the Dreamlands as depicted in the HP Lovecraft work Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. His purpose for doing so is inscrutable.

On Earth, he was a Nordic and Celtic deity of the hunt. But there was more of an element of catching or trapping.

Final Thoughts

Of course, my primary focus and thoughts on researching and describing the gods of the Cthulhu Mythos is how to use them within a game. If the player characters directly interact with any of the Outer Gods or Great Old Ones, you’re either at the culmination of the story arc, your player characters made some poor choices (maybe in a fit of insanity), or they rolled really badly.

The other problem is that these various gods are largely interchangeable with each other. They either have a describable form (usually an amalgam of other creature) or an indescribable form. But trying to describe the various indescribable forms may cause the players to mix them together.

Also, with notable exceptions, these beings are without purpose. They are indifferent to your party’s existence. Like all great nihilistic horrors, humanity’s death is brought about by cosmic indifference like us stepping on bugs, rather than cruel intention. This makes it hard to use these ineffable beings as our antagonists.

The exceptions are those with at least some personality: Nyarlathotep Hastur are the two examples, but maybe only because they at least have some semblance of human form.

The real stories here are the stories of the cultists. What lead them to worship such vile, ineffable beings indifferent to their existence? What do they hope to achieve with their rituals? Power? Aren’t there better ways, less dangerous ways of getting that power? Are they so desperate within their society, so downtrodden that this is the only way out?

Finally, they may just hate existence so much that they do want these beings to snuff it out. Performing these rituals is a cruel and complex method of suicide by cop. When telling these stories, it is the human element that will draw in your readers and players. It is the hard choices of using the mind-bending power of these beings to stop the other beings. But you risk your own sanity and becoming your own cult leader seeking power and destruction.

Here are some links to where you can get games that play in this universe, and others, which can be found over here.

If you want to explore the wilder (and wider) world of tabletop roleplaying games go there! If you want to start to learn on how to paint miniatures, click already! Or maybe you want to read more of my posts about Dungeons and Dragons, then click away here!

PbtA uses a simple dice mechanic combined with evocative system that allows you to play any type of story. As Players describe what they do in a scene, the Game Master calls them to do a Move, which requires a 2d6 dice roll. Even an average roll means a partial success or success with a cost.

The crazy, mind-blowing feature of a PbtA game is the Game Master never once rolls any dice. She is 100% focused on the story, keeping the narrative moving, and sharing spotlight between the players.

While Players will call out which “Moves” (powers or abilities) they are using, these games try to keep the players focused on the awesome things their characters are trying to do. The Game Master then calls for a Move when the outcome is uncertain.

Each Playset has its own Moves and Playbooks. The Playset may provide for additional character statistics or modifiers that are applied to rolls. There is not much more to the mechanics of PbtA games.

Playbooks

PbtA uses a class-based character system, which is unusual for an Indie game system. Class-based systems are the canonical, old-school RPG design starting with Dungeons and Dragons. Whereas point-buy systems allow you to mix-and-match powers and skills without the boundaries and niche protection of class systems.

The character system is called Playbooks. Each Playset will come with a handful or more of Playbooks. What makes PbtA different from class systems is no two Players will use the same Playbook.

Character creation is a highly curated process. After picking your Playbook, the first page generally runs you through character creation from top to bottom of the page. The backside is where you track leveling and getting more Moves. There is nothing else you need to refer to for completing your character other than the Playbook.

At each choice you either write in an entry or check a box to represent your choice. What is important is the Special Moves only available to that one Playbook. The Playset I am most familiar with is Dungeon World, so that will be the primary examples I will be drawing from.

For example, the Warlock Playbook from Dungeon World gives that character the following Special Move:

Soul’s Price
When you spend time getting to know someone, roll +Wis. On a 10+, your servants whisper to you one thing that person truly desires. On a 7-9 you learn of one thing they truly desire, but they sense something of your true nature.

Getting to know someone is a general Move. That means when your Warlock chats up a patron at the Inn, the Game Master may tell them something juicy about that person.

Advancement

To understand how advancement or leveling up your characters, you need to know more about the dice mechanic. As mentioned above, every Move requires a 2d6 roll plus a modifier if that is part of your Playset’s system:

• 10+: Success, what you were trying to do happens the way you want it
• 7-9: Partial Success or Success with a Cost, you got what you wanted, but you also got more than you bargained for.
• 6-: Failure with a Cost.

Every time your character fails (rolls a 6 or less on a move), they make a mark or check on their character’s xp box. Each Playset will determine how much XP (how many failures) you need to level up. In PbtA, your characters only learn by trying and failing. This is starkly contrasted to Call of Cthulhu where your skills only have the possibility of advancing if you succeed on a check.

Moves

Moves are what characters do. Moves are what Game Masters invoke as the player describe their character’s actions.

Game Master: As the party fiddles with the depressed pressure plate, 10 goblins rush into the room from a secret side passage to your left.

Fighter: I bang my shield with my sword as I run straight at them yelling like a madman.

Game Master: Are you trying to swing with your sword or do something else?

Fighter: I am trying to get their attention and keep it focused on me while the Thief figures out the pressure plate in the middle of the room.

Game Master: Then it sounds like you’re Defying Danger, please roll your +CHA as you are trying to keep all eyes on you.

Again, each Playset will have its own general moves that all characters can access. In Dungeon World, those include:

• Hack and Slash
• Volley
• Defy Danger
• Defend
• Spout Lore
• Discern Realities
• Parley
• Aid

Each of these are self-explanatory if you are at all familiar with Fantasy Roleplaying. These can and should be used at any time. Dungeon World also has some Special Moves for more specific situations. These include:

• Encumbrance
• Last Breath
• Carouse
• Recover
• Recruit

Then, as I covered above, each Playbook has its own Moves only available to that character.

Combat

In PbtA games, combat is a free-flowing affair. There is no turn order, no initiative, not even an action economy. If you’re not sure what I mean by an action economy, let us use Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition as an example.

In Combat you have three actions that you can take. A move action allows you to move your speed and do a free action like unsheathing a weapon or opening an unlocked door. A bonus action is usually a small action that is quick that your class is especially good at. Then an Action can be movement, casting a spell or attacking. Once you’ve used your Actions your turn is over.

With PbtA games, all of that is thrown out the window because the monsters or enemies in combat do not have their own turns! While each monster has a damage value associated with them, they do not have a to-hit bonus or anything like that. They may have a range to show how close they have to be to do any damage or have an effect on the players.

Remember, the Game Master never rolls dice in PbtA games! When a Character is acting aggressively towards a monster or foe and invokes a Move, they must roll. Remember a 7-9 is a partial success or a success with a cost. On a 6-, then it was a Failure with a cost.

If it was a Hack and Slash Move, they hit but maybe did less damage. However, maybe the monster hit them too! The player not only rolls their damage, but also the monster’s damage to them. A failure means only the Character is taking damage from the Move.

This is why an action economy is irrelevant in PbtA Games. Combat is literally handled in the same way as the rest of the game. It is just more likely that a failure or partial success will result in physical harm to the Character.

Bonds

The other mechanic that Powered by the Apocalypse uses is Bonds. Bonds are statements that connect two players together. Playbooks usually include several bonds with fillable blanks. You are generally supposed to fill in the names of the other characters in those blanks. Sometimes it is more of a Madlib style of fill-in.

As an example from Dungeon World, these are examples of suggested Bonds:

• I must hide my true nature from ___________.
• ________ thinks me a charlatan, I’ll show them!
• I study at _________’s feet and learn their secrets.
• I respect the beliefs of _______, but hope they will someday see the true way.

It is expected that through play your bonds will be resolved and replaced with new ones. Some bonds do require the consent of the other player. The second one above is an example of this. But mostly they govern how your character relates to the other characters.

Bonds are not suppose to be just passive things on your Playbook. They should inform your play and character choices in scenes. They should then result in some sort inter-character conflict and resolution.

Again, the second example above means that one character thinks your character is a fake. The other player should find opportunities to make snide comments whenever your character uses their powers. At some point, the two characters are going to need to talk it out.

At the end of each game session, each player is encouraged to review their active bonds. A bond is resolved when it no longer describes how your character relates to the other character. If you and the other character agree that bond has been resolved, then you get to mark an XP. You must also write a new bond.

Dungeon world suggests the following when writing a new bond:

Pick something relevant to the last session—maybe a place you traveled together or a treasure you discovered. Choose a thought or belief your character holds that ties the two together and an action, something you’re going to do about it. 

Dungeon World page 33

Bonds encourage intra-party drama, but also resolution of that drama by awarding XP.

Playsets

With the open licensing rules and light mechanical heft, it is easy for game designers to make their own Powered by the Apocalypse Playsets. This means there are a ton of different PbtA games to choose from. This also means the quality of those Playsets can also be varried.

If you want to listen to Actual Plays of various PbtA Playsets, I recommend the Happy Jacks Podcast. The following are their PbtA games:

• Idolon Academy: Masks
• Seventh Vale: City of Mists
• Monsoon: Demigods
• Vault 818: Apocalypse World
• Carefree High: Monsterhearts
• Revelations: Demigods
• Just Us Heroes: Masks
• Various Oneshots using PbtA Playsets

Links to where you can get these games, and others, can be found over here.

If you want to explore the wilder (and wider) world of tabletop roleplaying games go there! If you want to start to learn on how to paint miniatures, click already! Or maybe you want to read more of my posts about Dungeons and Dragons, then click away here!

Modern roleplaying games are beginning to support one to one roleplaying. Dungeons and Dragons added support for this play style with its Essential Kit. Gumshoe now has two products that support this play. Finally, any of the Powered by the Apocalypse Games will support such play.

Dungeons and Dragons’ Sidekick System in the Essentials Kit is an elegant way of handling one-to-one play. It allows your player to pick a Robin to her Batwoman. The sidekick doesn’t overshadow you, but compliments your weaknesses. But there is still a problem with encounter balance, especially at higher levels.

Gumshoe’s two products: Cthulhu Confidential and Night’s Black Agents: Solo Ops are specifically designed for one-to-one play. In essence, they give your one character about twice the normal investigative and general abilities, with a few other tweaks to their system. This works well in practice as it draws its inspiration from the lone investigator or lone-wolf spy fiction.

Powered by the Apocalypse games are narrative-first, rules light games. While there are “classes” in PBTA games, the mechanics (even combat) are about pushing the story forward. One-to-One play is not officially supported by these rule sets, but this play style could be easily done with this system.

An honorable mention for one-to-one play is Vampire the Masquerade. The source fiction has the solo vampire. Characters are powerful, damage resistant, and can learn other clans’ disciplines. A game focused mainly on the social intrigue could work with this system.

Why most RPGs do not officially support one-to-one play.

Next, we should cover the difficulty of just using any roleplaying system off the shelf for one to one play. Most roleplaying games assume that you are playing with a group large enough to support one game master and three to six players. While less of an issue in social and exploration scenes, combats are attuned to having this many players.

This is because balanced combat is all about action economy. The game assumes a certain balance in power between the players and the enemies. This is not just in chances to hit and average damage, but how many actions (especially attack actions) can be taken in a player’s turn. Player characters also tend to be more powerful as the heroic protagonists of the story.

In Dungeons and Dragons, this problem is often felt in boss monster or solo monster encounters. When players can focus fire and deny turns (stun) to the boss, the encounter becomes easy. This is why boss monsters have lair actions: to even out the action economy.

This problem is magnified when the player group gets above six. Combats because large, tedious affairs, to even out the action economy between the players and the monster. Otherwise they roll through every fight.

But when you have three or less players, not only is there an action economy problem, there is a role problem. Ever since the advent of modern MMORPGS, we have though of characters falling into specific roles: healer, tank, DPS, controller. In 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, these roles were made an explicit part of the game.

But when you only have one to three players and no one is playing a healer (cleric, paladin, bard, druid), then every combat becomes very swingy. The characters have no reserve capacity, especially at lower levels. Also, the action economy favors the Dungeon Master, because it would be too obvious if every encounter had four or less enemies.

This role-fulfillment or niche protection problems becomes even worse in one-to-one play, especially in class-based systems. It is just assumed you will be playing in a class-diverse party. In a point-buy classless system, you can simply given the characters more starting points so they can buy out more skills and abilities. But then you run into the Mary Sue character problem.

Even if you just load your player up with healing potions and a wand of fireballs, they are one failed hold person saving throw from death or capture. With even crunchier systems like Shadowrun, if you were running a shaman, you would be constantly exposed to matrix threats and vice versa.

One-to-One Dungeons and Dragons

The Essentials Kit uses sidekick rules to enable one-to-one play. Sidekicks come in three flavors:

• Expert: an agile, jack-of-all-trades character (rogue)
• Warrior: a strong, stout-armed soldier (fighter)
• Spellcaster: a healer (cleric) or damage dealer (wizard).

Sidekicks have their own quirks (the Essentials Kit gives you nine to choose from) with their own Personality, Ideal, Bond, and Flaw. This system is also used in character creation with Backgrounds. This gives the Dungeon Master some hooks on how to roleplay them.

Mechanically, each type (Expert, Warrior, Spellcaster (healer or mage)) has a stat card for levels one to six. The adventure included with the Essentials Kit takes characters from first to sixth level. 1st level spellcasters have 2 cantrips and 2 first-level spell slots, but only knows one spell.

Compared to first-level clerics, they get 3 cantrips and only 2 first level spell slots. However, they can prepare spells equal to their wisdom modifier plus their cleric level. This provides a greater amount of versatility compared to the sidekick.

As mentioned above, in class-based systems the problem with one-to-one play is that characters are carefully defined and designed not to step on the toes of other classes. With this system, you can have two out of three (technically four because Spellcasters are two different options). The Dungeon Master will then need to compensate for the missing roles.

Nothing stops the Dungeon Master from running two sidekicks, but at a certain point that places a lot of load on the Dungeon Master, who is already juggling a lot of elements. It is important that this style of play be fun for both the Dungeon Master and the Player. Also, some Dungeon Masters are tempted to turn a party Non-Player Character in a protagonist Game Master Player Character. Game play often stops being collaborative.

Tips for Adjusting Dungeons and Dragons for One-to-One Play

The simplest advice for solo play is characters should just start at 3rd level. 1st and 2nd level characters are susceptible to being knocked down with a critical hit. Solo play makes characters more susceptible in combat too because of the action economy problems discussed above.

The two biggest barriers for solo play in Dungeons and Dragons are healing and traps/locked doors. Healing is the bigger problem especially if the player character is a fighter and they picked the mage spellcaster sidekick. While you could just have very few traps or locked doors, they are a common trope of the fantasy genre and it needs to be addressed.

Healing in Solo Play

Assuming the Player Character does not have access to Cure Wounds, then the Dungeon Master should be more willing to hand out healing potions through level 5, greater healing potions through level 12, and superior healing potions after that.

By “handing out,” I mean that quest givers give the player one or two such potions at the start of a quest-arc. Also, they should either be more available for purchase or cheaper than their list price. Another option is if the player or sidekick are proficient with herbalism kits, then they could brew potions.

You may want to change the action for drinking potions to a bonus action rather than a full action. For classes without many bonus actions, this is trivial and effectively makes it a free action. In that case, maybe you allow them to instead use a reaction to drink a potion after taking damage. They give up opportunity attacks or certain spells, which means they have to make a meaningful tactical choice.

Alternatively,they could be used as part of a move action. This could mean either substituting a move action for drinking a potion. But this could lead to less dramatic fights as the character just stands in one place. As with drawing or stowing weapons, you could allow them to drink a potion only if they do so during a move. If they just stand there, they must use a different action.

This could force the player into interesting choices: do I move and risk an opportunity attack so I can get the benefit of this healing potion? Or do I give up a full action to drink this potion? That can feel like a trap option, which is why I prefer the Bonus Action rule instead.

In addition, you should add healing potions more commonly to the possession of defeated foes. If your player tends to forget to loot, you can have the leader of a fight drink a potion as a bonus action to signal they may have more. If you know a boss fight is coming, then you’ll want to plant them on the fight just before and as loot from the boss fight.

In addition to potions of healing, there are other protective potions you can hand out to the player. Potions of Acid Resistance can be given by a quest giver if everyone knows that the boss monster they are going up against breathes acid (e.g. a Black Dragon). If handing out healing potions becomes too rote or expected, this can mix it up.

Another option are items like a ring of regeneration (very rare!) or custom items like wands. But these can be overpowering and runs your game in the opposite direction: too plentiful healing. Remember, they only have themselves and a sidekick to consistently heal.

Charges should be low, around three, with the option to use more charges to power-up the cure wounds spell. Again, they have a tactical choice to make between how much healing should be given out. Such wands should have attunement and regain a randomize number of charges.

A less obvious and more subtly beneficial option is a wand of Aid. Aid increases a character’s maximum and current hit points by five. It lasts eight hours and does not require concentration. If cast at higher levels, it adds an additional five hit points. At first through third levels, five hit points is a significant increase.

Aid is a 2nd level spell, but the wand would still only use one charge for the 2nd level casting of it. If it starts with three charges, then the player can choose to give themselves the 3rd level version for 10 hit points and their sidekick the 5 hit point version. Again, the wand should require attunement and regain a variable number of charges each day.

Then as the player advances in tiers, have a powerful cleric ally empower the wand to give it more charges, five, enabling up to fifth level cure wounds. Do not go past five charges. Also, once empowered the wand is now more “brittle” and if all of the charges are used, the player must roll a d20. On a one (or maybe even a four or less if you want to up the danger), the wand shatters.

Traps and Locks

Detecting traps is a simple perception or investigation roll. That is not necessarily the issue (although if it is, then a magic item that casts Detect Traps might be a solution). The issue is that disarming them or unlocking them requires thieves tools or maybe a slight of hand check.

Obviously, if the sidekick is an Expert, then that is the solution your player has chosen. If the character has a high Dexterity score, then this is not as big of a problem. They can still make the check (maybe they start with or are given a set of thieves tools), but they just loose out on the proficiency bonus.

A character with a lower Dexterity or even a Dexterity dump stat (they have a negative modifier), then you have a tougher choice. If the player is experienced with Dungeons and Dragons, then they know what they were doing when they assigned a low Dexterity score. The Dungeon Master should be more conservative in the use of traps and locks, the character’s inability to deal with them may be a fun recurrent theme. But always have a work around ready.

For inexperienced characters, let them feel a bit of that frustration by sprinkling in the rare locked door and trapped chest. But then offer them “training” in Thieves Tools. This could be a full feat-tax to get full proficiency by using the Skilled Feat. Or you could just allow them to use half of their proficiency bonus on such checks. This is similar to the Bard’s Jack-of-all-Trades class feature.

Also, many traps also require a dexterity save. This is to emphasize to a rogue-less party that they need one. It also gives the Rogue character a second chance if they failed to disarm or spot the trap. But this is a double-punishment for the low-Dexterity solo player.

Instead, mix up the saving throw types of your traps. A low or dump-stat Dexterity Player may be more likely to have a higher Constitution or Wisdom save. A Constitution Save is often used in poison attacks.

Even with just a swinging blade trap, the Constitution Save represents the fact the character is getting sliced up, but they are just gutting it out and fighting through the pain. In many respects, the Wisdom Save can represent the same story. The character is so focused on their mission they are ignoring the pain caused by the trap.

Remember, hit points do not represent purely physical damage. Spells that do “psychic” damage are not attacking the body, but the creature’s mind. As stated in the Basic Rules:

Hit points represent a combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck. Creatures with more hit points are more difficult to kill. Those with fewer hit points are more fragile.

Chapter 9 Combat, Damage and Healing (emphasis added)

Not every trap should have a Saving throw that plays to the character’s strength. But if detecting or disarming the trap plays to the character’s weakness, then having a more powerful save will keep story moving forward. In these situations, the save should only reduce the damage by half.

Story Changes

Finally, the types of stories that you tell in Dungeons and Dragons may have to change too. Again, this is primarily a function of the action economy. You should not avoid combat and you should not manipulate things so the player never has a chance to fight more than 3 opponents. But, your character should think carefully on alternate “win” conditions when facing a large room full of bugbears:

• Sneaking away
• Impersonating a bugbear
• Challenging the Chieftan to an honorable duel
• Negotiation

In some ways, this is the hardest part for a Dungeon Master who primarily sets his players to solve problems with their swords and spells. You have to think through what it means to “win” and ways the character can fail forward.

This probably means the types of stories being told are smaller, more personal tales, especially at low to mid level play. If you’re lucky enough to have the game continue through high-tier play, then the scope and scale can broaden.

Boss fights remain a challenge though. The Dungeon Master should not use lair actions, unless she is sending a squad of NPCs with the solo PC as support. Instead, these fights are intimate affairs where the lair may have environmental effects that may hinder both protagonist and antagonist.

Gumshoe One-to-One

A lot of digital ink has and can be spilled on ways to hack or modify Dungeons and Dragons in any number of ways. But that’s not necessary with Gumshoe’s One-to-One system. As of this writing, Gumshoe has two products in this system: Cthulhu Confidential and Night’s Black Agents: Solo Ops.

Cthulhu Confidential tells stories in the style of Trail of Cthulhu or Call of Cthulhu. Confidential includes three adventures with three different investigators. Like other Gumshoe games, investigators have Investigative and General Skills.

When using an Investigative skill, the character gets the necessary information. But instead of “spending” points to gain additional information, the character spends a “push.” Characters have a limited number of pushes, which are spent over all investigative abilities.

General Ability Tests

General skills also do not have points or levels. They either have one or two dice associated with each one. Tests are staged with a several potential outcomes:

• Advance: you succeeded and sometimes gain an Edge Card
• Hold: did not succeed, did not badly fail
• Setback: you fail and gain a Problem Card
• Extra Problem: take a Problem Card to roll an additional die.

For each item above, it has an associated number. If the character rolls equal to or above the Advance Number they are awarded the Advance condition. The character can only roll the number of dice associated with the test skill. The Extra Problem feature is for when they really want to succeed at a cost.

Edge and Problem Cards

One of the biggest difference between Gumshoe One-to-One compared to standard Gumshoe (and most other roleplaying games) is characters do not have a health track (hit points) or a sanity track. Instead, the game uses a system of Edge and Problem Cards.

Edge cards allow the character to spend a push in investigative scenes. Or they can use the Edge Card to gain an extra die in making general ability tests. Finally, the Edge Card may be used (depending on its language) to cancel a Problem Card. Generally, once an Edge card is used, it is spent. But that is not a hard rule in the system.

Problem Cards impose a penalty to the player. Whether explicitly or implicitly, these are wounds or what would otherwise reduce a health or sanity track. But some of them are given at the start of play, these are more of a character quirk such as: Broke, Lonely, or Vice Hound. These are denoted as “Continuity” problems that are persistent through play.

But other problem cards impose some type of behavior or mechanic penalty. Some examples are:

• Sourpuss: Until you haul off and clock someone, you can’t spend Push- es on Interpersonal abilities.
• Paranoia: -2 on your next Stability test, then discard.
• Pulled Muscle: Take a -2 penalty to your next General/Physical test and -1 to the one after that. Then discard this card.

Each one also has a story explanation tied to the scenario in which the character gained the card.

Telling Stories in Gumshoe One-to-One

I love the Gumshoe One-to-One system. It is simple, elegant and keeps the focus on the story and mystery. But I can’t imagine creating my own custom story or adventures. I prefer a less planned or improvisational game style.

This system does not appear to fully support this style. If it does, then I would like to see some examples of how. With the included adventures, the various scenes are linked into a story web with specific intro and outro connections. Each scene has a test which have specific Edge, Problem, or Added Problem cards.

It certainly is possible to improvise these cards. You play with a blank set of 3×5 or 4×6 index cards. As situations come up, you create a test on the fly, set difficulties, then create Edges and Problems depending on the outcome. I guess I would need to play this system a few more times before I was comfortable freestyling a one-shot or campaign.

Powered by the Apocalypse Games

Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) rule set itself is not covered in any great depth here, but I have covered it over here. In short, PbtA games are a class-based narrative, rules light game system. There are many, many PbtA games, all with their own slight tweak on the core system.

PbtA takes roleplaying down to its most basic elements. The Game Master sets the scene. The Player describes her character’s actions in that scene. The Game Master narrates the reaction by creatures, people, and the world to those actions. Conflicts or actions whose outcome are uncertain use 2d6 to determine whether the action Succeeded (10+), Partially Succeeded or Succeeded with a Cost (7-9), or Failed (6-).

Character actions are called Moves. For every Playset (what PbtA calls the various settings or games), there are general Moves that are evocative of that Playset’s theme. Each Player has a Playbook (what PbtA calls the character sheet) that describes special moves only that character can perform.

In gameplay terms, the player is just narrates their character’s action or reaction to events. In the process of that narration, the game master then invokes the Move that matches what the player is doing. Again, this is only done if there is uncertainty in the success of Move.

That’s it for the core mechanics of the game. The Game Master calls on different characters to keep the narrative feel and flow going. There is no combat turn order or action economy because it is the players taking the actions and the game master responding to them on behalf of the world and the dice.

If a player fails a hack and slash move to chop a goblin in half, then it was the goblin who successfully counterattacked. The player then rolls the damage caused by the goblin to their character. The game master should never rolls dice in PbtA games!

If you haven’t figured out why this can make for solo play, it is simply this: there is no turn order, there is no action economy. There are just scenes, narrative actions taken by the player, reactions by the game master, setting up the next scene and player actions. The good and bad that happens to the player is governed by their own dice rolling.

So if you find a PbtA game setting that you just love and want to play or game master, then all you really need is one player. Each additional player brings their own Playbook and story to the game, but there is no need to find balance, protect niches, etc. Within the various moves, generic, custom and Playbook specific, should be more than enough to fuel solo play.

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