A slightly late April See Page XX, due in part to the May bank holiday, and our traditional dance around the yule log to ensure we have 40 days of summer; and in part because we’ve been so busy working on some seriously exciting new releases for our GUMSHOE 10th anniversary year. You can sample some of these new releases in this months’ playtesting, with new Cthulhu Confidential protagonists and the Fear Itself 2nd Edition core book adventure available to try.
New Releases
- The Many Deaths of Edward Bigsby – Who is Edward Bigsby, and why does he keep dying? Find out in this one-shot adventure for Trail of Cthulhu by Adam Gauntlett
- Coin Tricks – Give those monster-guarded piles of coins a fun twist with ghoul-stamped currency, hellhole gold, coin zombies, and more in the new edition of 13th Age Monthly!
- Seven Wonders PDF – Our anthology of story games, now available in electronic format (includes PDF, EPUB and MOBI).
Articles
- View from the Pelgrane’s Nest – Simon Rogers goes through GUMSHOE updates,Kickstarters, and TimeWatch
- Dramatic Poles of “Better Call Saul” – Robin D. Laws looks at how the DramaSystem‘s dramatic poles are played out in one of the best shows going
- Call of Chicago: What We Talk About When We Talk About Leng – Kenneth Hite examines Lovecraft’s “icy desert plateau”
- Dex and Diversity: The Lone Hero in GUMSHOE One-2-One – Simon Rogers on the evolution of the first GUMSHOE One-2-One book, Cthulhu Confidential
- If You Want to Ever Feel Your Past Again, Pay Up – A scenario hook for Ashen Stars, by Robin D. Laws
- Games Pelgranes Play: Trait Bombing, Trait Swapping and Strategic Incompetence – Simon Rogers looks at how RPG systems influence player behaviour
- A Jacobean-Era Outer Dark Manifestation – ODEs aren’t just modern problems, as Robin D. Laws shows
- The Plain People of Gaming: Refreshes as Thematic Reinforcement – Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan on bringing mechanical refreshes into your GUMSHOE narrative
- See P. XX: Organizing Your GUMSHOE Whiteboard – Robin D. Laws looks at ways players can organize the information they gather over the course of a GUMSHOE investigation, inspired by a recent KARTAS episode
- Twigs & Bones – Updates on shipping, bookshelves, offers and other administrative miscellany
- Conventions Seeking GMs – A new monthly post where we flag up conventions looking for Pelgrane GMs
- April playtesting – Playtest two new Cthulhu Confidential protagonists and adventures, along with a Fear Itself 2nd Edition one-shot
13th Age
- 13th Sage: Lightning Elementals – Rob Heinsoo tweaks Cal Moore’s lightning elemental from High Magic & Low Cunning: Battle Scenes for Five Icons.
- Telling Stories with 13th Age Icons – A guest post from Mark Morrison of Campaign Coins on 13th Age and his home-ruled Icon relationships
- 13th Age Organized Play: April 2016 Update – Wade Rockett keeps you current with the 13th Age Alliance
See Page XX Poll

More than one answer on that poll applies.
Totally agree. I have the ToC and Pathfinder rules on my iPad and use them to look stuff up during the game, plus have my adventure notes in Evernote. But having tablets/iPhones at the table makes it tempting for players to check email, surf the web etc and this can become a big distraction.
Agreed. Depending on the game and the GM tablet/chromebook use varies on our game nights. One player is always checking something on his chromebook, while other players may or may not be distracted by the shiny. In some games we have to reference rules, notes or scenario details on a tablet or phone. I guess the answer is ‘it depends’.
A mixed answer for me too. In the game I’m currently playing in, our GM uses a tablet/laptop for notes, some of the players use tablets to reference the rules, some players use their phones to look things up that are pertinent and some use their phones for things that are unrelated to the game. Sometimes, that’s okay, sometimes, it’s an unwelcome distraction.
I clicked “no” because that represents my regular group.
I have however played in one group where the rules were only available on a tablet. Felt like a handy tool.
On the other hand, in the same group there was a player who got lost in his own tablet on several occassions. That was not all that handy…