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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TheDelphian" data-source="post: 9550249" data-attributes="member: 7022317">I ran it so that the players would come upon an encounter that they usually arrived at with their guide or just came across as they traveled. It may be social such as interviewing the local workers, exploration in a place where normally non aggressive creatures had attacked workers, or they had a combat with the creatures exhibiting odd behavior. In each case the Players and characters knew they were investigating for "Clues" as to what was happening. They chose skills to check things out. The difference from a skill challenge is that in a skill challenge players are encouraged to be creative and stretch the boundaries and therefore lean into their highest/best skills which makes sense. What I did instead is the players suggested skills and I knew for each encounter what skills would apply, usually 2-3.In a social one it may be Sense Motive, Persuasion, Investigation. In an exploration it may be Survival, Nature. In a combat or after the combat it may be Sense Motive, Nature, Investigation. But for all of them if the player asked can I try this ability, like a spell or use Arcana to figure something out I might allow it. Such as they used Arcana later in the adventure when one player asked did they have enough clues where they could apply that and I allowed it. Were I would not have allowed it earlier when they didn't know enough for it to apply.So there is thought for how to go about the investigation and often I gave them choices of different paths with enough information to know to what type of encounter may occur.The biggest gain from doing things this way for me was the Clues where just called clues with me adding what was the clue to add some foreshadowing and allow the players who liked to figure things it but the goal was to avoid an hour of guessing and trying to solve the puzzle.It worked sort of like Blades in the Dark that solves the issues with a heist adventure by spending 2 hours planning a heist for things to go wrong immediately and waste all that players time. I as a player love the planning and a GM love it as well but not all players do. I was trying to reach a middle ground.</blockquote>

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