Okay. So they still haven't fixed the problem they claim to fix unless the players run through the complete skill list in every encounter. Which I guess isn't that surprising; it's a fundamental shortcoming of the system. (It's also not the end of the world; although it is rather problematic that all their adventure-building advice depends on the "problem" being fixed even though it isn't is.)
The early Gumshoe products have rather small "how to" sections. The Esoterrorists has what? 6 pages that mostly talk about how to avoid railroading.
I vaguely recall a friend of mine who played a Trail of Cthulhu game, about which he complained that the party would run out of points and be unable to do anything interesting. Never having read the rules myself, I assume there's some sort of guideline to the GM saying, "If the PCs have X points available, split your adventure into 3 acts and try to wrap up an act every time the party hits one-third of their total."
Basically, yes. The rulebooks tell the GM to periodically do "pool refreshes" for longer scenarios, but don't actually give you any meaningful guidelines on how often those pool refreshes should happen.
The rules for refreshing non-investigative pools vary. (In Esoterrorists and Mutant City Blues it happens every 24 hours. In Trail of Cthulhu you can refresh 3 skills by taking an hour-long rest.) But no real guidance is given for how much the PCs should be able to accomplish between pool refreshes, so a new GM is basically flying blind.
My guess is that after a few sessions a GM will probably start getting a general feel for what the right balance is. Or they'll just fudge things while running to make it work.
Not really. It doesn't actually accomplish anything, after all.
If you're just generally looking to get rid of dice rolls in D&D, of course, you could just turn all skills into a binary state: If you've got it, you succeed on tasks related to that skill. If you don't, we might give you a roll.
Sure they have. "Players running through the complete skill list" is really hyperbole. The correct skill is usually self-evident, and players are smart. There are guidelines for "if the GM wants, check his master skill list and tell the right player the information," but in 15 Gumshoe games I haven't ever found that to be necessary.
Not really. It doesn't actually accomplish anything, after all.
If you're just generally looking to get rid of dice rolls in D&D, of course, you could just turn all skills into a binary state: If you've got it, you succeed on tasks related to that skill. If you don't, we might give you a roll.
Um, yeah, it solves a very specific problem that I see (as in me, not you) with murder mysteries in D&D. Having discussed that genre a lot on this forum, this is a fresh idea to me on the problem.
As to why not to make it binary, because that would screw up the entire skill system that D&D 3.x uses.
I don't need swim and horse riding to be binary. You might fail and get hurt, hence a skil check.
But it is useful to consider that clue finding be automatic, so that the game can move forward with the players THINKING about the clues, rather than STRUGGLING because the skill system failed to find the clues.
GUMSHOE apparently solved it that way.
I gather you don't like the GUMSHOE system. I've never seen it. My goal is to take the enthusiams [MENTION=2]Piratecat[/MENTION] has for it and glean useful ideas for my own purposes.
You could do that for non-essential clues, if you like, but I wouldn't recommend it for core clues. Core clues are the clues that you *must* have to progress or solve the mystery. For example, if you can't solve the mystery without finding the secret room in the basement, then at least one clue that allows entry to the secret room should be a "core clue." The whole idea behind the core clues is that they're essential and there are no "hard barriers" that would prevent their discovery, if only the players look in the right place or in the right manner.
So the game is never stopped or blocked because the PCs failed a Search check. Or because the player with Search 8 got killed. Et cetera.
Balance shouldn't be an issue with core clues. With non-core clues, or other tasks and checks, sure. Core clues transcend the idea of balance.
You could do that for non-essential clues, if you like, but I wouldn't recommend it for core clues. Core clues are the clues that you *must* have to progress or solve the mystery. For example, if you can't solve the mystery without finding the secret room in the basement, then at least one clue that allows entry to the secret room should be a "core clue." The whole idea behind the core clues is that they're essential and there are no "hard barriers" that would prevent their discovery, if only the players look in the right place or in the right manner.
So the game is never stopped or blocked because the PCs failed a Search check. Or because the player with Search 8 got killed. Et cetera.
Balance shouldn't be an issue with core clues. With non-core clues, or other tasks and checks, sure. Core clues transcend the idea of balance.
that might be solved with the assumption that the "clue" skills effectively count as taking 20. So any DC from 10-20 would automatically be found by virtually any PC. At the moment, I can't think of an example as to what clue would require a DC25 or higher to find based on the original D&D rules.
Bear in mind, I just made this idea up today as an adaptation of the GUMSHOE concept. To keep it D&D compatible, there's got to be a reason to invest in Search beyond 1 rank.
An alternative, is all clues are auto-detect if you ask and have at least 1 rank.
The amount of information given by the GM varies by skill level, however (ranks + bonuses).
Thus, each clue would need a table of information to give at each skill level (maybe at increments of 5 to keep it simple).
I'd probably figure out the max-range of skill level possible/expected, write down the information bits, and set the increment for that clue by how many information bits I had.
My thinking being, each clue points in a basic direction to the killer. The information bits make that direction more clear. But the minimal information bits COULD reveal the killer if the players are smart.
Since hearing about the theory behind investigations in Trail of Cthulhu I've been interested in the Gumshoe system. For those of you who've played the Gumshoe games, is there one that you would recommend over the others?
And how easy is it to take the rules from a specific book and adapt them for a different genre or setting? (For instance, if I bought Ashen Stars how easy would it be to run a Call of Cthulhu Gumshoe game using my old Chaosium CoC setting stuff?)
If you're just generally looking to get rid of dice rolls in D&D, of course, you could just turn all skills into a binary state: If you've got it, you succeed on tasks related to that skill. If you don't, we might give you a roll.
It's interesting - but it's not also a full primer and training manual for Pathfinder - from my browsing of it.
For the somewhat doubtful about the whole premise, I liked this quote:
"Think in terms of the dungeon metaphor. Scenes are rooms.
Core clues are corridors and doorways between rooms. If you
follow the corridors, you will eventually find your way to the
end of the dungeon – but that doesn’t mean you automatically
triumph over the monster lurking there. Just blindly following
core clues without any added investigation or deduction means
the player characters will arrive at the end of the mystery
without the tools needed to actually solve it.
The purpose of core clues is to ensure that the players are
never frustrated and unable to make progress. They make sure
the players are never stuck without an avenue of investigation
to pursue. They do not solve the mystery for the players."
Okay. So they still haven't fixed the problem they claim to fix unless the players run through the complete skill list in every encounter. Which I guess isn't that surprising; it's a fundamental shortcoming of the system. (It's also not the end of the world; although it is rather problematic that all their adventure-building advice depends on the "problem" being fixed even though it isn't is.)
There are basically two criticisms that one can level against investigation rules sets and if you solve for one, you open yourself up to the other. Gumshoe tries to avoid both pitfalls.
The first is: This game falls apart if you fail a roll and don't get a clue you need to solve the mystery.
The second is: This game automatically gives you the clue so player skill doesn't matter.
Gumshue tries to solve the first without falling into the second. You won't ever fail a skill roll related to an investigation skill in which you are proficient. You don't even roll.
It solves the second by still keeping play within its normal narrative referencing structure. The keeper/gm describes the situation, the players describe what their characters are doing and the system is referenced as needed to resolve thing.
Never once have I ever heard about any Gumshoe play where players have actually answered the GM's description by starting to list off their investigation skills. You would have to intentionally abandon the procedures of play in order to do this. If a player does this at the table, they are not playing the game. You reference the system by describing your actions, not by calling out system references.
In your paragraph above, you claim Gumshoe doesn't solve the first problem because it doesn't also fall victim to the second. For some reason, you've decided that the goal of the system is guaranteed player success in the investigation. That's not it at all. This is due to the players still needing to decide how they are investigating and what they are doing with the information. Player skill is present even if characters always automatically succeed at their professional tasks.
Neither their adventure building advice nor their published modules depend on the players getting all the information without any use of their own skill as players in an investigation game. Gumshoe is not about removing the investigation game so you automatically succeed at it.
It's about making sure you don't miss information because a randomizer says you don't get it. Why does it do this? Precisely to target player skill as the focus of the game.
If you (automatically) find a piece of paper with a Dewey Decimal reference number and (authomatically) know it's a library reference number but then you as a player decide to never check the library shelves, that is not the Gumshoe system failing you.
Even if core clues are automatic, there's still an incentive to invest in Search beyond 1 rank because not all clues are core clues. Higher Search skill would still be used for non-core clues, for non-clue situations, and could be used for revealing more information, in addition to the bare minimum "gimmee" of the core clues.
An alternative, is all clues are auto-detect if you ask and have at least 1 rank.
It wasn't the best written advice, but I do think that's an oversimplification about it.
A properly constructed Gumshoe scenario is more of a sandbox than most traditional RPG play. If one is designed that clue A leads to be scene B where you get clue B so you know to go to scene C and get clue C and so on, that's poor design.
Most of the scenarios of I've run and played in have been that in Scene A, you'll get clues 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Then you decide what leads to follow and what additional information you get based on that. The different locations and people may have set information that they have to give, but the order they are approached and the conclusions the players arrive at are certainly not set in advance. And the outcome is certainly not predetermined.
Spoiler tagged examples from published modules follow. If you quote my post, please maintain the tags or remove the text entirely.
In The Kidnapping, from Arkham Detective Tales,
an infant has gone missing. In one running of it, the players choose to run it as a by-the-book missing person's investigation and prioritized rational leads over mythos/occult related ones. They ended up at the baby's location well before the child was going to be sacrificed and was basically totally surprised by the supernatural elements they encountered there. They ended up siding with the cultists and abandoned the child to be sacrificed for the good of the world. In another running of it, different players pursued every weird clue as a priority and actually got a good idea what was going on beforehand. They had time to weigh the matter in advance and decided that the child must be saved as they could not justify harming a child for something it potentially might do in the future.
Very, very different play experiences, different decisions, different results.
In The Dance in the Blood by Graham Walmsley,
one group of players ended up turning on one another with guns and knives. Another sided with their new identities as monsters and carried out the sacrifice. Another found Geoffrey before discovering their own past and outright disbelieved it when it came up later, leaving Geoffrey to die in a hospital.
Again, very different player experience, different decisions and very different results.
In Profane Miracles by Leonard Balsera (for The Esoterrorists) the scenes are numbered Scene 1, Scene 2, etc., as if they go in an order, but if you look at their lead and clues,
Scene 2 does not lead directly to scene 2 and then to 3, but actually gives you potential clues to lead to Cassandra or the hospital. Given the pseudo-religious nature of the case, the group, either from talking with Cassandra or their own initiative, eventually the group needs to get a lead connecting an occult purchase to Grace, who then gives them the means of finding the missing person via GPS tracker. So he starts out sandbox, but then unfortunately has a little "only one way" approach but then leaves the next part wide open. Then there's sort of an obstacle course of traffic, studio security and the like which is quite linear.
While Balsera is usually a solid writer, he has designed a partial railroad with Profane Miracles. It's not completely there as it can end, very, very differently based on player choices, but it is certainly more of a traditional module than other Gumshoe products.
So as you can see, railroading is not an inherent property of the system whatsoever. It can be present in varying degrees just like other games. Even rereading the how-to sections in The Esoterrorists, there actually is a lot of advice about not only providing the appearance of freedom, but actual freedom.
The advice on Leapfrogging though, is potentially railroady. It's a band-aid solution to the problem of the GM not prepping properly or not having the improv skills to do it on the fly and still wanting the game to fill a certain amount of time. It's to address a pacing issue.
Unfortunately the paragraph about leapfrogging finds its way into Trail of Cthulhu and Ashen Stars as well. Here though, it represents a much, much smaller proportion of the overall advice.
In all these instances though, it is talked about as a pacing issue rather than a GM control of plot issue though. In Trail of Cthulhu and Ashen Stars, it's a much smaller part of the overall advice. That said, I think blocking player success because you want to prioritize pacing over player skill is a very poor choice to make for anyone running Gumshoe. If they figure it out, let them succeed and if your improv skills aren't up to snuff, take the opportunity to practice and do the best you can.
As far as developing the Gumshoe system away from railroad type play, I think things get better and better in the later works like Trail of Cthulhu and Ashen Stars. Dead Rock Seven (for AS) has no numbers on the scenes and even has alternate scenes you can use based on what the players do. The Armitage Files (for ToC) is a giant sandbox where not even the Keeper knows what the real solution to the mystery is beforehand. It's as opposite from a railroad as you can get.
