Tag: bubblegumshoe

Reminder to my playtesters…

…8:30 PM Eastern Google Hangout BubbleGUMSHOE playtest tonight. Also, it’s going to be a bit of a proof of concept for video roleplaying for me generally: if it turns out that I don’t have a problem with the format, I might consider running an online game session or two.  Might. There’s the problem of regular game dates to consider.

Update on the BubbleGUMSHOE con game I’m online playtesting.

If you showed an interest, check your email. If you showed an interest and didn’t get an email, let me know.  If you didn’t show an interest then but are interested now, again, let me know.

And if you’re going to Washingcon, hey, my game isn’t ‘sold out’ (free to play, to con goers) yet. That will be on from 5 to 9 PM Saturday, so you’ll be able to go out and drink afterward.  Or eat. Or… wow, it’s been a while since I did a con, huh? I don’t have a clue what people do at these things anymore.

Some interesting design wrinkles I’m seeing with regard to BubbleGUMSHOE.

Basically, creating pre-generated characters for a convention game is a bit more involved than normal. GUMSHOE has a sliding scale of beginning skills for characters that’s dependent on how many people are playing in the campaign. That basically means that I have to design three different character sheets for each PC: one for a five-person game, one for a four-person game, and one for a three-person game (if I don’t get three players I’m not running the game, but I can’t imagine that Evil Hat isn’t going to be good in a pinch for a player or two for their own new game line).

This is not really a problem; it’s more like a special wrinkle for running a con game.  The regular character generation system GUMSHOE uses will just eat up too much game-slot time for my liking; I’m going to want to have my players be ready to go within five minutes of showing up. Which means that I need to concentrate heavily on archetypes, and encourage my players to rely on cliches a bit.  Which also suggests that this game is going to end up being an exercise in low humor.

Ach, well, that’s how my games usually go anyway.

Update on my Washingcon BubbleGUMSHOE con game playtest.

It’s definitely still going to happen – hopefully – but the abrupt truncation of my house-to-myself holiday required me to prioritize what needed doing, and ‘prepping for a game’ took second fiddle to ‘putting the kids’ new desk, chairs, and table together.’ I will be contacting the folks who volunteered for the playtest early next week; I plan to have at least the framework for the adventure by then.  Also, I expect that a portion of said playtest will involve a rough-and-ready generation of a cheat-sheet for new players.

This is the tentative blurb for the Washingcon game:

Continue reading Update on my Washingcon BubbleGUMSHOE con game playtest.

I think I’ve got the title right for my Washingcon BubbleGUMSHOE game.

I’m going to go with Danger-prone Daphne and the Dossier of Madness. Yes… yes, the Scooby-Doo will be strong in this one. Although, obviously, this is going to be a Mystery Gang where Daphne’s running things in proper teen sleuth fashion. Fred can still do the traps, though.

I know that folks have volunteered to help me test-drive the adventure, once it’s up… well, this and next week is when I’m going to block it all out on paper, or at least pixels. I’ll have plenty of time for myself, and I can’t binge-watch Netflix all day.

…I can’t, right?  They must have some sort of safety valve installed, I assume.

Hmm. I may need to run a play-by-webcam RPG one-shot.

I’m definitely going to be running a BubbleGUMSHOE game at Washingcon now*; and I’d like to have it blocked out at least a month in advance, because I know me all too well.  So if I want to test the adventure out I should probably run it some time in August.  I believe that some of my readers would love to video-RPG a session,  so maybe we’ll do that.

Moe Lane

*One trick to doing something is to simply make sure to say that you’re going to do it, to the point where you can’t then casually back out of it.