Pine Shallows - Actual Play #0 - A Murder Most Foul

Starting a Pine Shallows solo campaign - Solo Actual Play Report

The Kickstarter campaign for a physical release of Pine Shallows starts coming April 2nd. Most of the game has been playtested, but I’d like to get some extra miles in the solo rules before sending them to being finalized and edited.

Join me as I start a new solo campaign for Pine Shallows. I’ll try to follow the rules-as-written as much a possible, I am play testing after all. The part I’m least happy about are the current rules for the Story Clock, so they will get extra focus.

I will let the dice speak whenever I’m not sure, using as much of the provided random tables as possible.

Pine Shallows?

A rules lite game inspired by Gravity Falls, the Goonies and middle grade adventure books. Pine Shallows is a sleepy sea-side town where strange things keep happening, but local adults are so focused on their busy lives that they simply ignore or write off these strange occurrences. That’s why it’s up to you kids to get to the bottom of things.

Mockup of the Pine Shallows game book

Campaign Setup

We start with some basic steps: character creation & a first adventure hook.

• Create your character(s).

• Roll on the Random Adventure Generator tables to create an initial hook & setup a Story Clock

Character Creation

I’m even letting the choice for character background be let by dice. There’s 10 character backgrounds so I’ll roll a d10.

I rolled a 1, that means my character will be a mysterious orphan. They get the following three abilities:

• Finally it makes sense! - You can spend a Plot Point to establish a way the current plot is connected to your mysterious background. State something: it’s now true.

• Mysterious Aura - People in town still remember the day you arrived in Pine Shallows. Start with +1 Heart.

• Responsible Adult? - Add your guardian as your Connection. Either create your guardian from scratch or pick from the supporting cast presented in this book.

The Mysterious Orphan as found in the book

Next is dividing up 3 points between the main stats (with an extra +1 in Heart because of the background). I’ll make my character a smart and courageous kid. Morale starts at the regular 4.

• Brawn: 0

• Heart: 2

• Brain: 2

Other stats & counters:

• Max Morale: 4

• Current Morale: 4

• Plot Points: 1

We still have to flesh out the character by adding their name, age & pronouns, and think of some basic other background ideas, but let’s first create their Connections, maybe they’ll spark some ideas. We have one Connection due to the Responsible Adult? ability, and because we play solo with a single character we get another one. Let’s roll these up!

Connections are relationships our kids have with some adults. While they won’t go on adventure with us, they might be able to help out with advice, the right tools, and an alibi whenever we arrive home late!

I’ll roll twice on the Known Character table from the Pine Shallows Guide to Adventure, the supplement with all the random tables. This is a table with 12 entries (at the moment). First I rolled a 2 and 5, which results in Gertrude ‘Big G’ Willington, the guide at the local Aquarium. Next I rolled a 5 and 2, which points to Jacques Estorel, bestselling thriller writer, cryptid enthusiast & husband of Archibald Smithee (the manager of the Grand Pine Hotel).

This already sparks some ideas. I’ll roll a name first and they I think I know enough to create some background information. I rolled a 3 and 6, my kid is called Lewis. I tried rolling on the nickname tables, but I didn’t feel like the results fit my character idea. There isn’t a table for last names at the moment, if I feel that’s lacking, I might add that later. For now ‘Lewis’ will suffice.

Twelve nicknames might not be enough.

My idea so far: Lewis was found as a baby on the beach by some fishermen after a storm, between debris and broken cargo. Whenever the fishermen find anything out of the ordinary they bring it to Gertrude at the local Aquarium. While she is very knowledgeable about any sea creature, a small human is not in her area of expertise, so she went to her friend Archibald at the Grand Pine Hotel. Together with his very busy husband he has been raising Lewis since he was found. They have proven to be very loving, but also very unconventional parents. Gertrude still drops by every week to check on Lewis, she might even have picked some things up about tiny humans.

Setting the scene

Now we have to start the adventure. First we roll on the Random Adventure Generator. I rolled a 5: a CRIME was committed by a VILLAIN.

For results with a villain there are three options:

• sometimes you might know the culprit and the adventure is about how to catch or defeat them

• leave them a mystery for now, and discover it through play

• roll multiple suspects.

I’ll first roll for the crime. Then we can decide if we want to already roll the villain, roll multiple suspects or if we want to discover the villain during play. Oh, exciting, I rolled a 3: A foul murder. Guess we’re running a murder mystery. I think I’ll keep the villain a mystery for now. But who got murdered? There is tables for known characters, but I want to keep these alive for now, as they are the defined NPCs of the setting. Luckily there is also a way to generate a random madlib style adult: person-adjective occupation with mannerism.

This results in: foreign teacher who has a tattoo with strange symbols. I don’t have name tables yet, but I like give them regular first names, with stranger last names. Let’s make this a French dude: Jean du Loupe di Loupe. He taught French at the school of Lewis. He dressed like a fashionable dandy, if you looked good enough, you could spot strange symbols tattooed on his arms and legs.

For good measure I’ll also roll up a story complication and weird event. The weird event is that Bones are found that aren’t of any known creature, and the story complication is that everyone’s attention is on the major game at the end of the week. Ok, we can roll with that!

As a starting location I rolled the closed cannery. Hm, let’s say that’s the location the body of Jean was found.

Wrap up of session 0

I think this is a very nice starting point! I’ll let these results and rolls sink in a bit, and next up is an actual session. Keep your eyes peeled for that!

If you want to have your own adventures in Pine Shallows, you can find the current version on here on itch.io (if you supported on of the big chariry bundles, you might already own it!). And be sure to follow the pre-launch page of the upcoming Kickstarter campaign.

To be continued...

First playtest thoughts.

My first conclusions are that some of the tables might need a bit more entries, and name tables for adults might be a nice addition too.

In the main game first the stats are assigned before picking a character background. To be honest, while this has never come up during playtest sessions, it felt more natural to first pick a character background.

What are your thoughts so far?