Hi. I would like to share some experiences we had playing Fear Itself. Specifically, here are some thoughts on picking pillars of stability on FI. Ghosts of Fukushima was the first miniseries we played. Unlike previous one-shots, players had plenty of time to explore their own PCs. During session zero, while writing the PCS, two players proposed to be married, and then, spontaneusly, one chose "the emotion of infidelity" as the treat for stability pillar. We had not discussed It before, but that decission triggered amazing personal arcs for the PCs. Now, when that PC needed to restore stability, had to seduce other PC. She chose a PC whose treat was "Respect and honour". The contradictions boosted the personal experiences and stories, while the paranormal events pressed their sanity. If she restored stability, her lover wouldn't, and viceversa, if he just refused to date and cheat his friend, he recovered stability but she didn't.

Since then, we try to pick as treats those "human defects" we should not be doing. It is part of human nature to live and manage such kind of contradictions, weaknesses and misbehaviours, and, the key factor, that affect people around us. In the novel "The parfum", when Jean Baptiste tries to mix a parfum to provide himself human scent, he has to add cat excrements to the récipe. I think It is a perfect metaphore for us, humans. The group adds that bit of "cat excrement" to their PC and, pfiuu, I've run episodes with only a handful of notes. They have made the 90% of the story.

So, that's It. My advise, add "cat excrements" to.your PC as stability pillars, mainly the ones that require interaction with other PCs, let it stink around and enjoy.

Hi there. I´ve recently found this gumshoe community. I´m glad to be here. I´ve been running gumshoe games since 2024 and this system has boosted our games. During these months I´ve written a lot adventures, and I´ve recently started to share them. Here is the first I´ve uploaded to drivethru in the gumshoe community. Silt crowns

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/es/product/589370/silt-crowns-english-version

Silt crowns are a very talented grunge band playing in Seattle in 1990. Players are the members of the band except their lead, Eric Bleiven, a man with a very special talent and dark secrets, that create, but also destroy, everything around him. They might be finally getting a contract with "Reffen Records", but, will they survive the road to sucess?

Hope you like it. It worked very well when I ran it.

I´ll be uploading some more material in the following weeks. I´m working in the translation of my first miniseries, "Ghosts of Fukushima", which made my players love Fear Itself forever!

Well, a quiet sunday morning allowed me to conclude the file revision. Here it is, the first miniseries I wrote and that made us love Fear Itself.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/es/product/590700/ghosts-of-fukushima

In Ghosts of Fukushima, the players will play Fukushima nuclear power plant workers during the previous days if the unfortunate accident. The death of the core of matrix of misery´s suicidal partner triggers a series of paranormal events full of dark omens. I planned it in four chapters.

Looking at building a character who is that classic strongman style, demolitions expert, big guns (those are biceps, not machine, Peter from Abigail comes to mind), that sort of thing. The background in the core book is relatively straightforward, but what if you wanted to do something like roll a car onto its side? (Thinking about car flipery as making barricades, or other strong guy type tactics.) Athletics seems to be the general ability, but at the same time doesn't feel like a prefect fit.

What are people's thoughts on this / how would you handle the request at the table?

I can find so little information on Paragon Blade. No reviews, no actual plays, but it seems like it was released earlier this year?

Would be great to hear some more detailed opinions.

Also, I'm wondering if the Pelgrane has said if they will release more adventures for it in the future?

I'm away from my book right now so please accept my apology in advance if this is a dumb question. Do you make a distinction between merely having a character with a specific investigative ability in the scene and having the player actively mention that they want to use the ability? For that matter does it depend on the version of GUMSHOE? I am mostly using SotS but with the pyramids stolen from NBA.

A situation came up where an NPC with conflicted loyalties entered the scene. All of the information that he gave was truthful and he was actively interested in helping. On the other hand the PCs gave him some information that I had not expected them to give out quite so freely. Information that he will act on to their detriment. Because two of the PCs have vigilance I mentioned his particular attention to the pertinent info when they mentioned it but I didn't point out that it was a clue gained via the investigative skill. Should I have been more explicit?

I've read but not played the other duet games, I was wondering if there was any system innovation with this release.

Hello, I'm brand new to Gumshoe, I'm looking for players. I'm going to be up front, This is a homebrew built from the SRD. The mechanics for finding clues if you have the correct investigative skill is intact, and it's still a d6 roll system for everything else with changess. If you are interested in playing but have questions please send me a message and I'll let you know what is different.

Synopsis: "Bogeyman" Yet another bump in the night, and another grisly murder ignored in Eagleland, Americana. But, perhaps there is a chance for justice: Freshly Green Private Investigators got a tip - will they solve the mystery?

Game Content: What you'd see in a slasher flick, but I don't go into gory display and have no problems toning it down on request.

About Me: San Antonio raised. I'm a fairly new DM, 4 years this christmas. Most of my experience is in 5e and Mothership. I have a module in playtesting, and currently taking a break from a system I am creating.

If you are interested, I'll be at the Dice Drop Tavern (320 Blanco Rd, San Antonio, TX 78212) Red/White Plaid Longsleeve, Blue Jeans. 7pm tonight.

Not sure this'll be relevant to most people here, but I've translated selected portions of the GUMSHOE SRD into Russian and built a beginner's guide around them. I added examples and rules clarifications, and put the whole thing together as a standalone site with search and navigation.

I got some of Gar’s scenarios (his were the best of the line) and I was thinking that gumshoe would work well for the setting. What’s the best resource for psychics like the teeps in this setting? I have KWAS if there’s any suggestions in there.

There appears to be a distinction between general abilities and investigative abilities given they appear to have a different amount of build points you can distribute for them. But there is no sectioned off list of investigative abilities. My two points of confusion are:

Does 12 points for investigative abilities mean that those are the only points you can spend on investigative abilities?

And

Are we supposed to just infer which abilities are investigative?

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

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

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

(not an affiliate or referral link)

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

Dan - GM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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