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A Question Of Agency?
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<blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 8171010" data-attributes="member: 85555"><p>I think it is about goals going in. If the fun for the players is the solving of the mystery, the finding of clues, and the possibility of failure (because the game is the mystery), the traditional approach with structural approaches like the three clue rule are a good approach (I like adding a ticking time clock to my mysteries to make sure things stay exciting even if they bog down: works well for counter terrorism mystery adventures). If failure to solve is a problem for the group, Gumshoe has a good approach for getting around that issue (and even if you don't use Gumshoe, some of its advice is still helpful: for example while I don't take the Gumshoe approach it has prompted me to realize some clues, due to their nature, simply don't need to be rolled to obtained). </p><p></p><p>My approach to clue finding is: big obvious clues need no roll. Less obvious clues need to be searched for actively (in which case specific types of searches like "I look in the drawer" would yield the clue without needing a roll). Basically I try to use skill searches when players are not actively engaging the environment but doing so more passively. Also, spending an hour to search through everything in a room can turn it up, unless it is particularly well hidden. Also the same clue can often be found in multiple places, and I always consider whether an action taken by the PCs would reasonably yield a given clue, even if I hadn't thought of it before the game----this happened for instance when a group of players did a phone records search that I never considered when I was making the mystery. </p><p></p><p>One technique I use is having some looming disaster that triggers if the players don't solve the mystery by a certain point. I like this because it also means the outcome is very different depending on what the players spend their time doing (I have had supernatural adventures where monsters are unleashed if the mystery isn't solved, and I have had adventures where a terror attack takes place at a festival if the mystery isn't solved. Both these outcomes still gave the players something to do, even something to investigate, in the adventure. They just kind of kick it into high gear and show the players how high the stakes are (and you can have multiple tiers of these kinds of events).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Bedrockgames, post: 8171010, member: 85555"] I think it is about goals going in. If the fun for the players is the solving of the mystery, the finding of clues, and the possibility of failure (because the game is the mystery), the traditional approach with structural approaches like the three clue rule are a good approach (I like adding a ticking time clock to my mysteries to make sure things stay exciting even if they bog down: works well for counter terrorism mystery adventures). If failure to solve is a problem for the group, Gumshoe has a good approach for getting around that issue (and even if you don't use Gumshoe, some of its advice is still helpful: for example while I don't take the Gumshoe approach it has prompted me to realize some clues, due to their nature, simply don't need to be rolled to obtained). My approach to clue finding is: big obvious clues need no roll. Less obvious clues need to be searched for actively (in which case specific types of searches like "I look in the drawer" would yield the clue without needing a roll). Basically I try to use skill searches when players are not actively engaging the environment but doing so more passively. Also, spending an hour to search through everything in a room can turn it up, unless it is particularly well hidden. Also the same clue can often be found in multiple places, and I always consider whether an action taken by the PCs would reasonably yield a given clue, even if I hadn't thought of it before the game----this happened for instance when a group of players did a phone records search that I never considered when I was making the mystery. One technique I use is having some looming disaster that triggers if the players don't solve the mystery by a certain point. I like this because it also means the outcome is very different depending on what the players spend their time doing (I have had supernatural adventures where monsters are unleashed if the mystery isn't solved, and I have had adventures where a terror attack takes place at a festival if the mystery isn't solved. Both these outcomes still gave the players something to do, even something to investigate, in the adventure. They just kind of kick it into high gear and show the players how high the stakes are (and you can have multiple tiers of these kinds of events). [/QUOTE]
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