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Message: <blockquote data-quote="nnms" data-source="post: 5793804" data-attributes="member: 83293">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,[spoiler] 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.[/spoiler]   Very, very different play experiences, different decisions, different results.In The Dance in the Blood by Graham Walmsley, [spoiler]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.[/spoiler]  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, [spoiler]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.[/spoiler]  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.</blockquote>

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