John

Fair. And it’s fine if you’re playing a character less intelligent than yourself (but I’ve heard too many people saying “my character wouldn’t think of this but …”)

But it’s very difficult to play someone much more intelligent than you are - so what then? (Generic you rather than Andy you, obvs)

And pre Gumshoe, failing the dice rolls needed to move the story forward lead to GM fudging or the end of the story.

But are you “playing your role” or are you using your OOC skills and knowledge to help you with the answer? Pretty much every rpg mystery I’ve played in relies on the players making the connections, not the characters. As @wulfboyraff.bsky.social said - it’s puzzle solving.

Gron-yard? :-) (I served at Waterloo but only in the McDonalds there …)

What? Helen?

100% agreed. Sometimes it’s Molotov cocktails.

The other thing I have always taken from Sturgeon is that he never says “which” 90%. It’s not a universal statement IMO. So your 90% and mine might overlap, but what you think is crap I might not. And that’s fine. De gustibus non est disputandum :-)

Twice. Mainly because Barry Norman (best known UK film critic at the time) ran the sword fight on his show, and the following week ran it again because “there’s nothing that’s released this week that’s better than me showing this sword fight again”.

Gonna say - I’m pretty sure I learned to drive in that thing. :-)

Ahh - thank you! I shall compare and contrast. :-) for me there’s a massive value as a GM just to have a framework for talking about “what is this instance of this game about” so I will almost certainly mix and match from you both.

Spent the afternoon yesterday rereading Brindlewood Bay and it’s also laid out in there explicitly as part of the “First Session” chapter that @jasoncordova.bsky.social wrote.

Also - if I were in your position and running my own games, I would definitely put a QR code on each sheet linking to the game on DriveThru or wherever. If I played in an author run game and enjoyed it I’m very likely to want to get a set. So make it easy for me? :-)

Starting to look at building a repertoire of one shot games (thus reading your experience / advice avidly). My gut is yes - either as the logo on the standard sheet or added in if I’m going to homebrew. But then I’m also looking at different coloured document folders to keep all one game together.

We drove through France last August for summer holidays. The standard coffee machine at most of the motorway services we encountered offered a bewildering array of choices - all self service.

Superstar. Thank you. (And that letter O is why I wasn’t finding anything useful. :-))

Prepping a very old adventure - The Snowbird Mystery from White Dwarf 41 - and I really want to intro it the way @burnafterrunning.bsky.social did for the Stay Frosty adventure I played with him at Grogmeetish. But I can’t remember the acronym! Guy - was it COTS? I know theme was in there somewhere!

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Holly Foxcroft is a very strong speaker on the first half of what you’re looking for. I don’t know about the second. I know her more in the cyber security field. www.linkedin.com/in/hollyfoxc...

I have several of your books close to hand and they are comfort reads for me - currently part way through “With a single spell” for the umpteenth time. :-)

For me it’s the “some of us are old enough to remember the Corbyn era” and I’m “you mean 10 years ago?” I know a week is a long time in politics but we’re hardly talking of times immemorial.

Fair :-)

The before 7:30am is the real positive for me as I have a small child who is resistant to being awoken any time, but especially resistant if we try to do so before sun up. :-)

I love that your go to is lilacs rather than leeks (even when I know you know the leeks came first :-))

You don’t have to explain anything. That’s your choice. But my reading of what you wrote wasn’t “huh”. It was “aggressive”. I post a quote relevant to a thread and your tone is “charlatan, conman, fraud”.

I’m no Edison fan but your statement was negative, reductive, and irrelevant to what I posted

I honestly don’t see agreement in what you wrote.

Not a hurry. And no. Not off putting at all.

Just listened to your Smart Party interview and ordered one of your back issue bundles because of it. Very much looking forward to reading them.

Does that make the quotation less true? Or less relevant to this discussion? Or your interjection less pointless?

I also like Edison’s “genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration”.

The hilarious thing I’ve just realised as when you did the two box score you /never/ found out what was in the second box. :-)

4 index cards with notes for scores in the game Blades In The Dark. One is just a clock called “How do boxes even?”

Chatting with @nickbradbeer.bsky.social and others last night as we were playing Traveller and I mentioned Blades in the Dark being a favourite of mine for being low prep. As proof, this photo shows 4 index cards that were responsible for about 20-30 sessions of roleplay and scores.