Public Access House Rule: The Cell Phone Move

26 Apr, 2026

I got my first cell phone in 2005. My dad had one before that, provided by work, in like 1998. My current campaign, which I am trying to plan around my imminent parenthood, is set in 2004, and I realized that since the player characters are splitting up all the time during mysteries, communication might be important - and an important source of friction.

I took a quick straw poll on discord to determine when the users got their first phones, and I know this is at least partially a measure of the relative age of people but I wanted to get a sense of the ubiquity of that technology and the numbers do trend up over time. So, I crunched the numbers and determined that about 40% of people had phones at the time of or before the campaign. This maps pretty nicely to the odds of rolling a 7 or greater on 2d6-1. Therefore, I introduced the following house rule to my campaign:

The Cell Phone Move

It's 2004. You may or may not have a cell phone. The first time this is important to know, make THE CELL PHONE MOVE. You make this check at -1. on a miss, you do not have a cell phone. On a 7-9, you do, but it has some problem¹. Choose or make one up:

• drops calls when there are other electronics around
• shit battery life
• you really don't have any minutes that aren't nights and weekends.
• you can receive texts but you can't send them.

10+: You're good, brother, call and text away.
12+: hell dude, you got a camera on that thing!

Cell phones do not react well to supernatural phenomena. You may be called on to make this check again (modified by Sensitivity) when it applies.

Modifiers for my campaign

MIKE, as the youngest and least employed character, will take an additional -1 on his first check.
CAL, as the only one with a real job, takes a +1 bonus on the first check.
LARS's player immediately said "I know for sure Lars ain't got a phone." He was awarded 1 XP.

Corner of the House

Obviously a character who has a cell phone in their corner of the house just has one. That's on their sheet. They can use it for advantage as normal. This is a check for when it becomes important.