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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ratskinner" data-source="post: 6135592" data-attributes="member: 6688937">Without going into too much detail my experiences and the GUMSHOE advice is...<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">In addition to a "Core Clue" about the actual mystery, each area needs to have at least one blantantly-obvious/automatic "lead" or "nosering" clue that will send the ever-attentive PCs after it. (These can be the same as the Core Clue.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">There is no such thing as "too many clues". If possible, plan about twice as many clues/areas as you think you need. If the PCs figure it out with only 5 of 10 clues, great. But if they need 8 of the 6 you planned, the adventure stalls. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!    :eek:"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" /> IME, PCs cling to red-herrings and their epileptic-tree theories with tenacity beyond any reason. Also, as the dude who knows what is going on, it can be very hard to guess how many clues will actually be needed.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Speaking of Red Herrings (and having thought about it more), they should be scattered right alongside the main clues, not the results of bad rolls. That let's you "hide" them in plain sight when the Players are bouncing the dice. High rolls should yield bonus information, still.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Also speaking of Red Herrings, its not a bad thing to have clues send them down a side-path to foreshadow a bigger plot than the current adventure.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">GUMSHOE suggests a "scene" card to wave when they have uncovered all the clues in an area. IME, its utility depends greatly on the group, but when you need it, man do you need it.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The rule of thumb for the investigators is "If you have too many theories, you have too few clues." Which plays into what I was saying above.</li> </ul>Anyway, good luck. Sounds like fun.</blockquote>

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