Quote from: jan paparazzi;807790Gumshoe let's you find clues automatically? No rolling for clue searching?

If you've got the relevant investigative ability, and you're in the place where the clue is and doing something that would logically get you the clue, bam, you get it. You can spend points from investigative pools to get more detailed clues, but that's it.

Of course, if you're not there, no clue. If you just turn up and look around, without trying to interact with anything, no clue 4 u. If you interpret the clues wrong, tough shit, dumbass. But what can't happen is that you do all the right things and fail to see the clue because of a bad die roll.

It's much simpler to implement common sense and The Three Clue Rule. No need for extra mechanical widgetry.

Quote from: Ladybird;807792You can spend points from investigative pools to get more detailed clues, but that's it.

To me, this point-spending mechanic seems very metagamy and anti-immersive. So, what happens if I for some reason I decide to spend all my points at once? What does this investigative pool emulate? Why would you bother using it at all if you know you're already going to get all the clues necessary for following the investigative trail? How does the GM manage to come up with more detailed clues every time I decide to spend some points? What happens if you run out of points? What does this emulate? You're too tired to do more research?

Also, misinterpreted clues can still lead to dead trails, so the "problem" has only been shifted.

Quote from: Simlasa;807815It's much simpler to implement common sense and The Three Clue Rule. No need for extra mechanical widgetry.

tl;dr only skimmed - I'm sure this works pretty well, but the number three seems kind of arbitrary. It would also imply you can never have less than three clues, even if they're impossible to miss and can't be misinterpreted.

Quote from: Simlasa;807815It's much simpler to implement common sense and The Three Clue Rule. No need for extra mechanical widgetry.

I'm partial myself more to Gumshoe's GMing advice none the less, which had a great influence on how I run my CoC games. The emphasis on not rolling for things that should be relatively easy found (and rolling to give additional information that helps solve the mystery ahead, but is not necessary if players are smart enough) was good advice.

Quote from: 3rik;807816So, what happens if I spend all my points at once? What does this investigative pool emulate? Why would you bother using it at all if you know you're already going to get all the clues necessary for following the investigative trail? How does the GM manage to come up with more detailed clues every time I decide to spend some points?

1) Well, just like if you'd drink all your health potions at once, you're now resourceless to pursue a better path? You just get the core clues if you can.

2) The difference is between say, discovering green slime and getting a clue from using a Chemistry point what the green slime is composed of. Or perhaps spend a Mythos point to realise that this is no earthly green slime.

3) Same as when the players go left rather than right as he expected.

Ultimately, I myself find best to play with a certain Gumshoe inspired mindset and advice, but take mechanics that I more prefer - as I said countless times, I really dislike the General Abilities mechanic.

Quote from: 3rik;807816So, what happens if I spend all my points at once? What does this investigative pool emulate? Why would you bother using it at all if you know you're already going to get all the clues necessary for following the investigative trail? How does the GM manage to come up with more detailed clues every time I decide to spend some points?

Here's the SRD.

Quote from: Rincewind1;807820I'm partial myself more to Gumshoe's GMing advice none the less, which had a great influence on how I run my CoC games. The emphasis on not rolling for things that should be relatively easy found (and rolling to give additional information that helps solve the mystery ahead, but is not necessary if players are smart enough) was good advice.

I guess that's what I meant by 'common sense'... not making folks roll for easy/obvious stuff. Rather than buying into the propaganda that CoC/BRP demands that people can't see their feet if they fail a 'spot' roll. That advice isn't new or peculiar to Gumshoe.
A lot of times we don't ask for any rolls at all... just 'Where do you look and how long do you want to spend doing it?'

I don't think The Three Clue Rule so narrow in its intent as to be locked to the number 3... it's just arguing for having multiple paths to a solution... avoiding bottlenecks like 'The PCs MUST speak to the old man on dock 3'.

Quote from: Simlasa;807826That advice isn't new or peculiar to Gumshoe.

Maybe not, but the fact that it keeps getting repeated evidently means it hasn't sunk in yet, it's still evidently a common GM mistake.

Quote from: Ladybird;807831Maybe not, but the fact that it keeps getting repeated evidently means it hasn't sunk in yet, it's still evidently a common GM mistake.

Yeah, it's almost like they ENJOY rolling dice.

I am partial to Streets of Bedlam for Savage Worlds. The Crime Scene rules therein assume that characters will always find something - they just might find the wrong thing, or draw the wrong conclusions from it, but either way the game gets going.
What is also nice is that a Crime Scene can be set up on the fly, just based on a skill roll and a few card draws. So when the PCs do something nasty, and you need to know if and how close Johnny Law will get to them, you can use the same rules for your copper NPCs to see what theories they come up with.

What makes this interesting is that other than that system (and some sort of "social combat" system for interrogations) it stays a bog standard trad game, except for some pieces of advice on investigative adventures. It's a tool for helping with pedestrian tasks, not a stick to force the GM.
I plan to plug it into my next cyberpunk game to determine what corps and coppers find out when PCs pull off their usual shenanigans.

Streets of Bedlam was already on my wishlist and I will certainly buy it.

I am still a bit in doubt wether or not I like an automatic clue find mechanic like Streets of Bedlam or Gumshoe has. I guess I have to try it to find out.

I've done a lot of thinking about running investigative adventures. I think the roadblock that hit people is that they end up treating them as either railroads or slideshows of events. Gumshoe, for all it does, hasn't quite cracked the adventure creation issue, because they're attempting to mimic the form of mystery novels. A mystery is a dungeon.

Think of it like this: you walk into a dungeon room with three doors. Those doors might be trapped or they might have monsters behind them. But you, as the player know that if you interact with one of those doors something will happen. The same goes for a hex crawl: the players can see the map and know that if they go north or south, something will happen, because they have the visual cues that *there* are mountains and *there* is a swamp.

It's not quite so obvious with a mystery setting, but it has to be. When the players find the body, there has to be several obvious paths they can take, and akin to the doors in a dungeon, the player has to know that this action will lead to more options. I see a mystery adventure as a series of interconnected nodes that the players can Clue Crawl through.

I honestly find it funny that Gumshoe gets poopooed a lot.

Honestly, it is actually very OD&D like on investigation: You ask the right question, you get the answer. The only difference is that you have binary skills in the middle that are "do you have the right skill to thoroughly investigate that question"

Gumshoe puts a lot of emphasis on the roleplaying part, you don't automatically give someone a clue because they show up, they have to ask the right question first.

Personally, I'm a fan of Gumshoe. Specifically Mutant City Blues, because I think its a neat setting.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;808183I honestly find it funny that Gumshoe gets poopooed a lot.

My main issue with Gumshoe (specifically ToC) is that it claimed to 'fix' things that weren't broken in the first place by adding extra mechanics.
Most games let you ask questions and get answers... use Skills/Backgrounds or whatever to suggest why you should have the more difficult to find answers. No rolling for the obvious stuff. I don't see any huge revelation.

Quote from: Simlasa;808199I don't see any huge revelation.

That's because you like Roleplaying.