“It was the Ides of March, and a woman was the author of the deed—or was she? It was a classic locked room mystery. The doors were sealed and a man was dead… witnesses claimed to see a woman walking away just after the murder… beyond the window of the fourteenth floor. The events of March 15, 1977, were impossible. Impossible, and yet, they happened.”

Yes, Kolchak will be back in North Texas in 2025. The convention runs from Thursday, June 5 through Sunday, June 8. I’ll update this post with the exact details once the schedule is finalized, but at the moment I’ll be running Kolchak: The Tall Sister on Saturday morning at nine. It’s a four-hour session as normal.

I’ll have pregenerated characters for all of the familiar Kolchak guest stars, as well as Kolchak and the other office staff at International News Service.

We never really got to see just how International they were. They seemed to be mostly the New York News Service, with a tiny branch in Chicago. Kolchak, however, was very international. His horrors came from Mexico, Peru, Greece, Eastern Europe, Mesopotamia, India, and even London! As well as above and below the world of mortal man.

We will continue to use the Daredevils RPG rules for the game. It’s fairly simple. I’ll explain it of course at the game, but basically you have abilities and you roll d20 against them. The only complicated bit is that abilities are rated on a 1-100 scale; if, during the course of the game, your score hits a zero or a five, your score for rolling against increases by 1. That is, if you have an Anthropology of 54, you’ll be rolling d20 against 10. If you increase it to 55, then you’ll be rolling against 11.

Skills potentially increase if you make a successful roll against them and it materially helps the party. It’s based on the talent that skill falls under. Anthropology is a Scientific talent. So, for example, Dr. C. Evan Spate has an Anthropology of 54 and a Scientific Talent of 10. When he makes an Anthropology roll that materially helps the party, the player can roll d20 against Dr. Spate’s Scientific Talent of 10. If the player rolls 10 or less, Dr. Spate’s Anthropology is now 55.

It’s a neat little system that acknowledges the roll of talent without relying on it.

For combat we will continue to use the Daredevils Action Cube. Daredevils has a nice combat resolution mechanic. Everyone chooses the kind of action their character is going to perform. There are six kinds of actions, so they place their Action Cube with that kind facing up. Then, we go around the table and everyone chooses an actual action from that kind. You might choose to operate a vehicle as your kind of action; then, when your turn comes up you would choose to throw something, choose a short function inside the vehicle, choose to hip fire a weapon, to defend, to speak, to observe, to strike, or to drive the actual vehicle.

Again, it’s a neat little mechanic that combines the idea that you start the round knowing what you’re going to do, but may have to change your mind. But if you started the round planning to drive a vehicle, you’re not going to be able to take a carefully aimed shot. You weren’t prepared for that.

There is no initiative in Daredevils. There are two phases per round; each phase is simultaneous. This means that even if an opponent disables you during the phase, you’ll still be able to perform your action during that phase—and vice versa. Daredevils rounds are approximately six seconds, making phases even less approximately three seconds. While I am less and less a fan of short rounds the more I play games that use them, Daredevils does a very good job of taking advantage of the possibilities of short rounds in a roleplaying game.