Pine Shallows - Actual Play #1 - A Murder Most Foul
A weird connection turns up! Kickstarter in the final 48 hours!
The Kickstarter for Pine Shallows is now live and in the final 48 hours!
My plan was to have this episode follow the session 0 a bit sooner, but I misjudged how much time getting the Kickstarter out in time would take me. Like I said in the previous post, 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.
A short one today, it’s a busy week this final week of the Kickstarter!
Pine Shallows now on Kickstarter
Welcome to Pine Shallows, a small coastal town. A sunny and cheery tourist destination in summer, Pine Shallows empties when autumn’s chill comes. Strange things keep happening in the town’s off season, but local adults are so focused on preparing for next summer 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.
What is Pine Shallows?
Pine Shallows is a tabletop roleplaying game inspired by The Goonies, Stranger Things, Gravity Falls and middle grade adventure book series like The Legends of Eerie-on-Sea in which you portray small town kids going on adventures and solving mysteries.
Quick recap
In the session 0 we created our character: Lewis.
Lewis, a mysterious orphan
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.
Brawn: 0
Heart: 2
Brain: 2
Other stats & counters:
Max Morale: 4
Current Morale: 4
Plot Points: 1
Connections:
Gertrude ‘Big G’ Willington, the guide at the local Aquarium
Jacques Estorel, bestselling thriller writer, cryptid enthusiast & husband of Archibald Smithee (the manager of the Grand Pine Hotel)
For a complete re-read check:
The mystery : a CRIME was committed by a VILLAIN.
We rolled up a murder mystery.
French teacher Jean du Loupe di Loupe was found murdered in the local closed cannery. He taught French at the school of Lewis. He dressed like a fashionable dandy, and, if you looked good enough, you could spot strange symbols tattooed on his arms and legs.
For good measure I’ll also rolled 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!
Story clock
To keep this campaign a bit short, we use a story clock with 6 segment. With the current rules we need at least 3 segments filled in to resolve the Story Clock. We get a +1 bonus for 4 or 5 segments, and a +2 for a completed clock.
The current rules have a specific number of filled segments to gain +1 or +2 bonuses based on the size of the Story Clock. I’m thinking of simplifying this to always being able to resolve the clock when your 3 segments short, with each of those last segments filled in giving you an extra +1 on the resolve roll.
Scene 1
We know what happened, and where it happened. Let’s roll for which Lewis starts. I start with a simple question: is Lewis at school when he finds out about the murder. I’ll use the Yes/No oracle. I rolled a 3: a simple Yes.
To spark some extra ideas, I’ll roll on the Action/Subject spark tables: Entertain and Class. Ok, class is fitting, but not very helpful.
I imagine Lewis being in class, but Jean, the French teacher, didn’t show up. They just threw on a French movie in class to keep the kids entertained. Lewis sees some teachers talk outside of the class. They look shocked and seem to discuss something frantically. Lewis walks to the door to eavesdrop. Is he successful? I could use the Yes/No oracle but as this requires some stealth I’ll make a Brawn roll. Lewis has a 0 in Brawn, so that’s a straight 2d6. I rolled an 8. That’s a success with a complication. We could decide on the complication, but to test out the tables I’m rolling on the Complication table (not part of the currently published version yet, but available in the updated version later this year): 64, that’s An unexpected connection is made.
Ok, Lewis snuck to the door, but still couldn’t understand what the teachers were saying. He tried to open the door slightly. They don’t notice. The staff talking are the biology teacher and the school librarian, she is holding a book.
The librarian says, ‘I heard Jean was found in the old cannery in the harbor, surrounded by weird glyphs and candles, with a large symbol around his body.’
Buddy Witherflor, the biology teacher looks shocked, ‘what? I knew he was up to something, with these weird tattoos and all.’
The librarian holds up the book to show the cover, ‘it was this symbol .’
Lewis is shocked. It’s a book written by Jacques Estorel, one of his fathers, showing a strange glyph on the cover: A History of the Cryptid Cults of Pine Shallows.
Next time...
Does Jacques Estorel know more? Are the tattoos of Jean related to these symbols? Will I have more time to do more then a single scene?
Do check out the Kickstarter, I’d love for more people to get their hands on the game!
See you next time!
Peter