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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 6755231" data-attributes="member: 177">Yeah, and that's a solution that would work well for many groups.&nbsp; Some might think of that as &quot;cheating&quot; on the GM's part, though, so we have to use that path judiciously.When a player optimizes to such a point, we should also ask that part of the game is detrimental, or at least not as valuable as we thought.GUMSHOE, for example, does this for *everyone*.&nbsp; If you have a skill, and are in the right place to use it, you get the clue.&nbsp; Period.&nbsp; No die roll necessary.&nbsp; You may spend some resource points to get even more clues, but that's a matter of choice, not chance.&nbsp; There are two basic ways to construct a mystery.&nbsp; One is to make the clues incredibly difficult to get, but have them easy to interpret (like, if you don't think to mention that your character is searching the legs of chairs in the room, you will not find the hidden compartment that hides the scroll detailing the Evil Duke's plan to an underling).&nbsp; This will tend to stall if the clue isn't found, though.&nbsp; The other is to make the clues fairly easy to get, but no one clue is definitive, and the players must assemble the clues like puzzle pieces.&nbsp; The player may be effectively saying that the task of searching for clues is not interesting to them.&nbsp; If the folks at the table don't *like* that style of mystery, optimizing to get past it quickly is not detrimental to the game.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 6755231, member: 177"] Yeah, and that's a solution that would work well for many groups. Some might think of that as "cheating" on the GM's part, though, so we have to use that path judiciously. When a player optimizes to such a point, we should also ask that part of the game is detrimental, or at least not as valuable as we thought. GUMSHOE, for example, does this for *everyone*. If you have a skill, and are in the right place to use it, you get the clue. Period. No die roll necessary. You may spend some resource points to get even more clues, but that's a matter of choice, not chance. There are two basic ways to construct a mystery. One is to make the clues incredibly difficult to get, but have them easy to interpret (like, if you don't think to mention that your character is searching the legs of chairs in the room, you will not find the hidden compartment that hides the scroll detailing the Evil Duke's plan to an underling). This will tend to stall if the clue isn't found, though. The other is to make the clues fairly easy to get, but no one clue is definitive, and the players must assemble the clues like puzzle pieces. The player may be effectively saying that the task of searching for clues is not interesting to them. If the folks at the table don't *like* that style of mystery, optimizing to get past it quickly is not detrimental to the game. [/QUOTE]

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