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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ratskinner" data-source="post: 6425628" data-attributes="member: 6688937">IME, the greatest problem with investigations is the players not being very good detectives. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> That is, nowadays I usually double the number of clues available from what I think would be necessary, and I've gotten into the habit (from Gumshoe) of signaling when they've dug what they can from a scene. I can't tell you how often my scenarios have gotten derailed when the PCs go charging off after information that was just color. Don't be afraid to help players along with their characters' impressions, either. It can be very hard for a player to construct an impression of a scene from just a sensory description.If investigations are coming up during play, man that's a tough one. I can't think of something more difficult to improvise scenario-wise. Maybe give yourself a chart or deck of very general clue types that might be in your gameworld and start drawing from them as inspiration when they get into these scenes: "hmmm... Damning Paperwork ah maybe they'll notice a shipping manifest on his desk that points to the warehouse." or "Strange Vibes ...as your walking around the warehouse, you all start to feel uneasy, like you're repeatedly running into cobwebs that aren't there." ...heck maybe somebody has something like that on RPGnow or something.As others have mentioned, start with the perpetrator's side. Then ask: what did they overlook? What did they just miss? What disturbance did it leave when they tried to cover their tracks? What went wrong? Who else got involved or is putting pressure on them?  Often times, its those little connections that help your investigators put the pieces together.I hope that helps some.</blockquote>

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