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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rogue Agent" data-source="post: 5796270" data-attributes="member: 6673496">I ran a session of Esoterrorists.In doing so, I ignored the questionable adventure design advice and designed the scenario the way I normally do (and which later GUMSHOE games apparently advise): Lots of redundant clues. Under those conditions, I found that the "auto-find clue (if you use the right ability)" mechanic had no real impact on how the scenario played out.Mechanically, I thought the game was basically sound and fairly interesting. The lack of guidelines on how much activity the PCs could manage between pool refreshes made things a little rocky at times. That can be adjusted for, but will ultimately always be a significant limitation in how scenarios are structured (short of the GM just handwaving it).The conflicting advice over multiple supplements over how point buys should be handled was also problematic: Do you let the players ask if there are point buys? Do you force them to spend the points to find out if there even is a point buy? Do you tell them there are point buys available? If so, do you tell them what it is they're buying before they buy it? Depending on where you look in the rulebooks and supplements, all of these are given as rules and/or guidelines. And all of them are problematic from a design standpoint, IMO: Either you're leading the players around by the nose, or you're asking them to place blind bids on brown paper bags without any idea how many bags they're going to be bidding on before their pool of points refreshes.The limitations on scenario design (which appear to become more severe as you move towards a non-linear design), the pointless division between investigation and non-investigation skills (if you use a non-linear design with redundant clues), and the unfinished design of the point buys ultimately made me decide that GUMSHOE wasn't worth coming back to.</blockquote>

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