Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Why Aren't Designers Using The GUMSHOE System?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="lyle.spade" data-source="post: 7688714" data-attributes="member: 30042"><p><strong>Combat's the weakness, and one other thing</strong></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I agree completely. I'm running NBA/Dracula Dossier right now and I think combat, even the special NBA adaptations, is weak. One of the problems evident in combat, and mirrored across the system, is the high level of player understanding of the many options associated with various skills, such as cherries and special uses of skills seemingly out of their regular context. Yes, a player only needs to know these things related to his skills, but in a 4-player group each character has a ton of skills, which makes for a long list of special circumstances and potential uses. Add to that the fact that the system, mechanically, does not offer much for detailed combat, if that's what a group wants at a given point in a game.</p><p></p><p>The combat mechanics work, but at times they feel flat, and require a great deal of description on our part. That's cool, of course, but for players who seek a little more detail provided by the system, it's lacking.</p><p></p><p>My other point with GUMSHOE, and maybe this is more a function of my group and how I'm running it, is that our table talk and narrative is very different from that in other games. For example, one of my PCs is a hacker extraordinaire, and thus relies on figuring out virtually everything via the Web. And so that PC rarely interacts with any NPCs - he just sits and asks questions and then riffs on my answers and repeats. Instead of either dropping into gamespeak and acting out a dialog, talk around the table is more along the lines of "my PC finds out this, then does this based on it, then finds out that, then goes to this place and finds out X, and Y, and Z...." It's all 3rd-person narrative, and very much told as a summary rather than as being in the moment.</p><p></p><p>This is very different for me, as I have typically run and played games in which 1st person speech between PCs is the norm, with 3rd person used to describe physical movement, placement, and the like.</p><p></p><p>Our GUMSHOE sessions tend to feel more like Cliff's Notes summaries of such activity rather than the activity itself. I think this is in part a function of the deluge of clues that the system promises players, and their expectation of having and wanting to work through them. Sessions feel more like brainstorming meetings at work than stories-in-the-making. I think it's also due to my relative inexperience running the system - perhaps if I push the players to interact more as characters rather than them using their characters more as pawns, this would change. Still, the guarantee of clues, and the need to work through them, changes the focus of activity around the table.</p><p></p><p>In truth, after running the system for several months, I think it's okay - not great, nor outstanding, nor "meh." It has a lot of potential, and it works famously as an idea, and unfortunately a little less well in practice. Maybe the fact that it's so different from most other systems in its core assumptions and the mechanics that seek to actualize them is what makes it a challenge to run, and thus makes it less attractive as a system of choice for designers.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="lyle.spade, post: 7688714, member: 30042"] [b]Combat's the weakness, and one other thing[/b] I agree completely. I'm running NBA/Dracula Dossier right now and I think combat, even the special NBA adaptations, is weak. One of the problems evident in combat, and mirrored across the system, is the high level of player understanding of the many options associated with various skills, such as cherries and special uses of skills seemingly out of their regular context. Yes, a player only needs to know these things related to his skills, but in a 4-player group each character has a ton of skills, which makes for a long list of special circumstances and potential uses. Add to that the fact that the system, mechanically, does not offer much for detailed combat, if that's what a group wants at a given point in a game. The combat mechanics work, but at times they feel flat, and require a great deal of description on our part. That's cool, of course, but for players who seek a little more detail provided by the system, it's lacking. My other point with GUMSHOE, and maybe this is more a function of my group and how I'm running it, is that our table talk and narrative is very different from that in other games. For example, one of my PCs is a hacker extraordinaire, and thus relies on figuring out virtually everything via the Web. And so that PC rarely interacts with any NPCs - he just sits and asks questions and then riffs on my answers and repeats. Instead of either dropping into gamespeak and acting out a dialog, talk around the table is more along the lines of "my PC finds out this, then does this based on it, then finds out that, then goes to this place and finds out X, and Y, and Z...." It's all 3rd-person narrative, and very much told as a summary rather than as being in the moment. This is very different for me, as I have typically run and played games in which 1st person speech between PCs is the norm, with 3rd person used to describe physical movement, placement, and the like. Our GUMSHOE sessions tend to feel more like Cliff's Notes summaries of such activity rather than the activity itself. I think this is in part a function of the deluge of clues that the system promises players, and their expectation of having and wanting to work through them. Sessions feel more like brainstorming meetings at work than stories-in-the-making. I think it's also due to my relative inexperience running the system - perhaps if I push the players to interact more as characters rather than them using their characters more as pawns, this would change. Still, the guarantee of clues, and the need to work through them, changes the focus of activity around the table. In truth, after running the system for several months, I think it's okay - not great, nor outstanding, nor "meh." It has a lot of potential, and it works famously as an idea, and unfortunately a little less well in practice. Maybe the fact that it's so different from most other systems in its core assumptions and the mechanics that seek to actualize them is what makes it a challenge to run, and thus makes it less attractive as a system of choice for designers. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Why Aren't Designers Using The GUMSHOE System?
Top