Clues

[OlderNick]

We used dice rolls to highlight clues when players missed them, or explain what a clue suggested if the player didn't see the implications. If a player picked up on a clue and drew the proper inferences without a roll, hey, fine. If they didn't, the Keeper would ask for an appropriate skill roll and, if the player made it, would draw attention to the clue and, if necessary, explain what it meant. If the player failed the roll, well then, they'd be on their own. They had the clues (just like a reader of a mystery story), it was up to them to do something with them.

And this is where I'm getting confused with Trail of Cthulhu. The players don't have to roll to get the clues. Okay, fine, been playing that way for ages. But what happens if the players miss the clues? Or don't get the implication? What mechanism does the game use to deal with that? Because it seems a bit harsh to just give the players the clues and leave them to it. The characters they're playing may be brilliant detectives, but generally the players aren't. I figure the game needs to give them some sort of mechanical support, essentially a way of giving them the answer because their character would have worked it out, even if they didn't.

If a player misses a clue in a game of CoC, you solve the problem with dice rolls to highlight the clue (just like you said above). In other words, the player's character uses one of its skills.
If the clue is missed in ToC, the problem is solved in exactly the same way. The character uses an ability. The only difference is, you don't have to roll any dice. The ability always works.

In other words, play exactly the way you have been playing before. Except when you would ask a player to roll a dice to find/understand/hightligh a clue: Simply assume that the dice roll was succesful and then help the players in excactly the same way as you would've done in CoC.

Example:
The investigators are searching a lab to find out who might have created a strange poison. Since none of my players are chemists, I know well in advance they won't understand the chemist lingo I've cooked up. So they will have to rely on their character's skills/abilities.

This is how this would play out in CoC
1. Keeper describes the scene (a lab)
2. A player asks to use the Chemistry skill
3. The player rolls dice (for this example, we assume that the roll succeeded)
4. The Keeper (who has been reading about poisons on wikipedia) presents information that a chemist would be expected to understand, in such a way that the player also understands.

And this is how it would play out in ToC
1. Keeper describes the scene (a lab)
2. A player asks to use the Chemistry ability
3. The Keeper (who has been reading about poisons on wikipedia) presents information that a chemist would be expected to understand, in such a way that the player also understands.

As you can see, there is very little difference. The only thing ToC adds here is to make sure that

If the player failed the roll, well then, they'd be on their own.

can't happen.

If the information was a core clue it wouldn't cost the player any points, he would just get it for free.
If however the clue contained "only" supplementary information, the Keeper would ask the player for a spend before revealing the information.

[PelgranePress]

It's quite common for CoC players when introduced to ToC to overthink or be concerned. In short, you deliver information in exactly the same way as you do in CoC, except you don't ask for a roll. For example, if you are giving information in CoC which is obvious to all without asking for a roll - do the same in ToC. ToC (and CoC) investigative abilities are generally specialised, so you'd use them if the clues require interpretation.

Essential information costs 0 points, as does any other minor information; anything else costs points, although in most cases point spends give you special benefits rather than just extra information - see the side bar on Special Benefits for examples. Also, core clues are a way of making certain the investigation doesn't stall - it shouldn't stop whatever improvisation you already do. If a player suggests another way of getting the information - go with it.

Also, a clue does not need to be a simple lead to another location, but can be an ancient document which needs decoding by the players, a newspaper fragment, an overheard cryptic conversation which requires the player to figure it out. In other words, the work isn't succeeding in the percentage roll, it's in figuring out what the clue means. GUMSHOE is neutral as to how hard the interpretation of the clues is - that's up to you and your players.

If you just get the core clues, you can end up stumbling from location to location getting into deeper and deeper trouble without really understanding what's going on. The non-core clues you have to work for are the ones which can make the difference between success and failure.

In any case, I can recommend the following articles:
On giving out clues
From Call to Trail Part One
From Call to Trail Part Two

[csmithadair]

I'm trying to figure out how Trail of Cthulhu deals with the elements of one of the more common types of investigative story. You can find it in books, films, television, even comic strips.

I'll simply agree with an important point that both OlderNick and PelgranePress made. The main thing that GUMSHOE does is remove random chance from the equation of finding clues. While there are other mechanical aspects to it, that's the heart of it. There are a variety of ways you can run mysteries and dispense clues, and they should all be possible in GUMSHOE. So if you have a particular style and want to retain that, that should be achievable in GUMSHOE, with some adjustments. It seems your main concern is that you know you won't have the dice rolls to fall back on for that nudge. If I'm understanding you, if everyone fails the rolls, they have a meta-game realization that there's something they've missed, and they'll think harder about it and possibly figure it out. What happens if they still don't? Anyway, the simple solution is to present the information, see if they pick up on it, and if they don't, give them the information the same way you would if they'd made their rolls, referencing their abilities as desired.

There's another option that I didn't go over in my last post. The comic strip you posted directly after it made me think on it some more. You could also break up the description. Note that the detective sees a dead body, is told that it's an accident, and says he'll be the judge of that. Not because he already knows the answer, but because it needs to be investigated. (Though you could make the case that he does when he sees the ski sizes; he just needs the proof.) When the Investigators arrive at the scene, they see the deceased hanging, the stool nearby. The commissioner doesn't have to make a wry comment about robbers hanging their victims (though you could hold that in reserve). They then have the opportunity to ask questions about what they see, bring their abilities to bear, etc. It may also help them focus on the discrete elements rather than sift through everything provided. Some clues may be found by different Investigators, giving all of them the opportunity to participate and then to piece the information together.

So, it could go something like this:
Investigator One: "I want to make sure that the cause of death is what it seems to be and determine the time of death." (This Investigator has Forensics, but it's not necessary for either of you to mention that in this instance.)
Keeper: "You don't find any unexpected bruising. The rope is behind her left ear." (Maybe you wait for them to suspect that she would have to right handed, or you allow or offer a point spend immediately, or you wait for more information to come to light.)
Investigator Two: "I know she won't have a wallet, but I want to see if she has anything on her person."
Keeper: "She is dressed nicely, and she has an expensive wrist watch on her right wrist. Oh, and her shoes have traces of mud on them. (Maybe this Investigator has the Evidence Collection skill, though a Simple Search would probably be fine here.)
Investigator Three: "Okay, I'll take a look at the stool. Does it look like it would have been knocked over by her during her death throes?"
Keeper: "Yes, it certainly could have been. It's still in good shape, and its well-polished surface gleams in the light."

This is, of course, just one possibility of both the kinds of actions and their order that could take place. It's very possible that no one's going to focus on the stool unless they pick up on the significance of the mud, so you might need to draw their attention back to it if the handedness clue proves insufficient.

The clues I included in the example are so routine and hackneyed in the genre that they're regarded almost as cliches. There are people I know and play with who would just pick them up automatically, but they're not the ones I'm worried about. I also know and play with people who would miss them entirely and I'm trying to figure out how the game deals with people within that group.... In a game...the detective-protagonist and the audience are the same people, so you need a way to tell them that they've missed something and, if they can't figure it out, they need to ask for the answer. In Trail of Cthulhu I understand that's done by asking if the player's want to spend a point. It's just that I think players will need a lot more points.

Even if the clues in your example don't strictly need specialized knowledge, they can still be presented as if they do. If nothing else, expertise can turn suspicion and supposition to assurance and conclusion. The investigative engine of the game also allows you and your players to manage spotlight time. If some of your players are skilled armchair detectives and others aren't, you need to make sure the latter don't feel like they're superfluous. Their abilities give them the chance to look cool. And, of course, you're bound to have clues that will absolutely require expertise or sifting through dense material (say, a huge tome) that the players aren't going to do.

As I pointed out in my second post, don't be too concerned about the pool points. It takes planning and management, but believe me, the game provides plenty. Remember, they can ask for the answer, but it doesn't necessarily require a spend. It definitely doesn't when it's a clue that is required to get them to the next scene of the scenario. Point spends are for benefits; they should never be required.

And if you're worried that this makes things too easy, don't be. My players still find themselves momentarily stumped, still go off on tangents, still make wild suppositions, still create red herrings where none are intended, etc. At least they know the problem isn't failed rolls, and they eventually figure things out (sometimes with some subtle or not-so-subtle prodding).

[roguelettuce]

I suspect that the OP is right and that there is some misunderstanding about the nature of clues going on here, amid any actual disagreement or misunderstanding about the rules. Perhaps it would help if you outlined a general definition of what you would consider a clue (not an example, but an explanation of 'what a clue is') and see whether this is different from how people with more experience think that the game defines clues.

I had a similar kind of problem when I first started reading the rulebook (I've not played CoC or ToC yet, but I plan on Keeping ToC in the future). After reading reviews and blurbs about how the Trail system worked, I expected that I would be provided with a detailed and structured account of the different types of clues, thorough advice on how to construct an investigative scenario, etc. I didn't feel like I got that from the rulebook, although I did really enjoy it in other ways and I do think it's a significantly original and exciting contribution to RPGing. It's not that the rulebook didn't aim to provide those things, necessarily - more that I didn't think it was clear or thorough enough in explaining them. Maybe that's just me expecting too much, though.

I get the impression (and I may be wrong due to lack of play experience) that clues are defined and categorised functionally in ToC. Something is a core clue if it performs the function of moving the game along by suggesting a new course of action, providing something (eg. a location) that the investigators needed to follow a previous course of action, etc. A core clue therefore need not a 'clue' in the sense of providing the answer to the mystery at all. In fact, a core clue could even be a complete red herring, so long as it performs the function of leading on to the next stage.

For instance, if the investigators are trying to discover the location of the cultist magic ritual before it is too late, they may find a set of coordinates or a marked map, a pamphlet for a nature reserve, etc. Any of these things would be likely to set a trail for the investigators to follow to the next scene - it need not be the actual location, though. It may instead be the location of a cache that provides new information, or of a recently exhumed grave in which the corpse is missing a left hand (which may itself be a core or supplementary clue pointing to the fact that the ritual requires a hand of glory).

Something is a supplementary clue if it is not a core clue but it instead provides some kind of insight (which may not be immediately apparent) into the true solution to the mystery, or eliminates some possibilities, or otherwise provides useful information or suggests new courses of action which are not necessary in order to reach the conclusion of the scenario but somehow aid the investigators in resolving the mystery.

For instance, if the investigators have been led to suspect 3 people of the diabolical crime, a supplementary clue may be the fact that one of the suspects was in fact dead before the crime was committed (something which forensics or medicine or similar abilities may be able to establish by gauging decomposition). If the investigators have this information, it helps them resolve the mystery. If they don't, they simply find out that the suspect hasn't been seen around lately, which may lead them to think that they did a runner after committing the crime. A well-constructed Trail scenario would be prepared for this eventuality and would drop clues that he may have hidden at [location of next scene] or the investigators, in pursuing the character, would stumble across further information subtly setting them back on track (like more incriminating information about another suspect, etc).

I hope that provides some illumination and goes some way to resolving the conflicting intuitions here... Please set me right if you disagree!

PS: Hi, this is my first post.

[Beedo]

I get the impression (and I may be wrong due to lack of play experience) that clues are defined and categorised functionally in ToC. Something is a core clue if it performs the function of moving the game along by suggesting a new course of action, providing something (eg. a location) that the investigators needed to follow a previous course of action, etc. A core clue therefore need not a 'clue' in the sense of providing the answer to the mystery at all. In fact, a core clue could even be a complete red herring, so long as it performs the function of leading on to the next stage.

You may be right - we're using the term "clue" in a couple of different contexts. Coming from a D&D background (gasp!) I like to think of scenes as rooms in a dungeon, the core clues are the "doors" that get you to another room/scene. They may or may not have nothing to do with the solution to the scenario. "Spends" for investigative abilities are the chance to do something extra while in a room/scene.

Unlike a dungeon, the characters are obviously free to follow any course, but it's helpful ensuring there are paths through the clues that lead on to the important scenes.

Still, interpreting the facts and coming to the right conclusion should be on the player's shoulders - this is a game, after all.

[WiseWolf]

To answer your question on how ToC deals with clues.
1-During design of the scenario, the Keeper needs to identify the core clue. The investigators in this scene will notice it was not suicide, it was murder based on either one of the following two clues:
a-Stool clean | mood on shoes.
b-Right wrist watch | knot on left side.

2-Keeper presents the scene, exactly the text you hand out without the details on: knot, stool, shoes and and wrist watch.
3-Players: Go around the scene.
4-In CoC you will call for a spot hidden to highlight one of the pair of clues. In ToC you call for evidence collection or forensic.
If one player has it either, you mention to that player with no need for a spend:
a-Evidence Collection: You notice that the stool is shinny, however there is mood on her shoes.
b-Forensic: You notice that the knot is behind her left ear, however, the watch on her right wrist suggest she is right-handed.

5-End of scene. You accomplished the goal to suggest it was murder through one of the two possible core clues. The investigation continues to the next scene with a similar design.

[Winter Smoke]

Hi Zoran - I'm pretty much new to RPGs and have spent ages going through ToC over the last 6 months in the hope of running a game towards the end of this year (I'm planning well in advance!). I've found a lot of things very difficult to get my head around as I'm so new to RPGs in general but here's my take on it (if I'm way off the mark, I'd love to be corrected on this):

- Firstly just to re-phrase what's been said before core and non-core rules. Someone gave the example of a series of werewolf attacks that were actually committed by cultists. Say for instance this adventure has 3 scenes and 2 core clues:

Scene 1: A bloody murder scene with at the victim's home - he's horribly torn apart (core clue: you find dog hair in the wounds and large animal tracks leading into the woods, it's a full moon)
Scene 2: The woods at midnight you stumble upon a cave (core clue: In the cave you find torn clothing, some more of the wolf hair and some form of identification for a John Smith, giving his home address)
Scene 3: Go to the home address, prepared for a showdown with a werewolf but you actually find group of 20 cultists who jump you. They are dressed in shamanistic clothing made from wolf hair. You realise your mistake as they brutally tear you apart, biting into your flesh.

Okay, so the above would happen with no spends whatsoever. It's the plot of the novel and ToC means this information has to be given out. It's the keepers job to present this in an organic manner however he is comfortable. Here's how it may go with spends though:

Scene 1: It's the first day of a full moon and you are at bloody murder scene with at the victim's home - he's horribly torn apart (core clue: you find dog hair in the wounds and large animal tracks leading into the woods, it's a full moon) Non-core clues:
- Spends from forensics, outdoorsman, evidence collection on the wider scence: Show that they are bear tracks and are in fact a few weeks old - this is a rural mansion so there would be a lot of wildlife, also the body is actually about 2 days old
- Spends from biology & outdoorsman on the body: These don't look like wolf bites, they are too small, also you'd expect it to be torn
- Spend from credit rating: You know this gentleman and he was part of high society and a world renowned hunter - he wouldn't have been caught unaware like this.

Scene 2: The woods at midnight you stumble upon a cave (core clue: In the cave you find torn clothing, some more of the wolf hair and some form of identification for a John Smith, giving his home address)
- Spends from evidence collection or outdoorsman: You realise there are no animal tracks but there are faint signs of human feet in the cave, also for outdoorsman you'd know there's never been and wolves in these woods! You find stranger 'random' scratch marks on the back wall of the cave partially hidden in the darkness.
- Spend from occult: Those 'random' scratches on the cave wall aren't random, you recognise them from a journal report on shamanic tribes - if you recall it properly, they were part of a brutal sacrifical ritual where they dressed in animal furs and paid homage to something called 'Mordiggian'.

Scene 3: Go to the home address on the identification, prepared for a showdown with a werewolf but you actually find group of 20 cultists who jump you. They are dressed in shamanistic clothing made from wolf hair.
- Because of you spends you went prepared for humans rather than a possible werewolf. You stop the ritual, but whether you survive or not is still down to a fight.

Now obviously this is a massively simplistic one but I think it gives an idea of the clues work and how the game can change. Obviously there could be side scenes where you go research the markings, etc.

Now it's up to you how you present the core clues in your description but it's your responsibility as the keeper to make sure they get them and are clear on them. As for the non-core clues, you approach it a number of different ways, bearing in mind that there are 3 different possible spends in this scene - evidence collection, outdoorsman, occult.
1. They are at the enterance of the cave with the identification, clothing and wolf hair. You can actively ask your players if they want to spend outdoorsman or evidence collection at the outset. Outdoorsman would give you spotting the tracks and that wolves aren't in these woods. Tell them that the cave should be safe as you know it wouldn't go far back and anything that wanted to attack you by now would have done already, also those scratch marks don't look like anything an animal would make. Evidence collection would show up the tracks and that the scratch marks on the wall maybe worth looking into. The occult spend would only show up the scratches but alert the player something more is going on here.
or, 2. Don't actively alert your players, but if any of them with eivdence collection, outdoorsman or occult start checking the scene in more detail (i.e. 'I want to look around the cave a bit more') you can prompt that player that there is something they may want to look closer at; For instance with the cave markings:

Player: 'I want to look around the cave a bit more'
Keeper: 'Okay, you start looking around, the walls are damp with lichen growing over in part and a mossy smell in the air. As you start rooting around you notice that there are some strange scratches on the wall. You want to spend an outdoorsman or evidence collection point?'
Player: 'Outdoorsman'
Keeper: 'Those scratch marks definitely weren't made by an animal' - the keeper could give a hand out with the scratch marks on at this point which the players could use to research later on.


I suspect when you start playing ToC it'll start more with 1 but eventually veer more to 2.

My impression is that the key thing to remember is the term 'collabortive story-telling'. Go with whatever you players need and tailor it to individuals - some may need a little more prompting than others. With ToC, one way or another they'll end up at that house in scene 3, it'se just what they'll know (& how they'll be armed) when they get there. If you are not happpy with how something is going as the keeper, change it, make the decision to let them stumble on the extra info for free or prompt them more. But if you think it'll be funnier to tear the player apart in the last scene and they've made no real attempt to stop you from doing that, well, happy eating!

[Zoran]

First, allow me to apologise for not participating more in this thread, but work and other commitments have kept me busy for most of the past week. Still, it's the weekend now...

I suspect that the OP is right and that there is some misunderstanding about the nature of clues going on here, amid any actual disagreement or misunderstanding about the rules. Perhaps it would help if you outlined a general definition of what you would consider a clue (not an example, but an explanation of 'what a clue is') and see whether this is different from how people with more experience think that the game defines clues.

This seems a sensible suggestion.

My understanding is that a clue is a bit of information which, when interpreted correctly, reveals more information than it seems to on the surface. If you will, it's something like an iceberg; ten percent of it is obvious, but ninety percent that's hidden beneath the surface. To put it another way, a clue has a denotation (what it simply states) and a connotation (what it means in the context) and the art of investigation is seeing past the denotation to the connotation.

I know you didn't want an example, but I think the best way to explain what I mean is with an example.

From "Silver Blaze" in the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:

I could see that Holmes was extremely pleased, for he chuckled and rubbed his hands together.

"A long shot, Watson; a very long shot," said he, pinching my arm. "Gregory, let me recommend to your attention this singular epidemic among the sheep. Drive on, coachman!"

Colonel Ross still wore an expression which showed the poor opinion which he had formed of my companion's ability, but I saw by the Inspector's face that his attention had been keenly aroused.

"You consider that to be important?" he asked.

"Exceedingly so."

"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"

"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

"The dog did nothing in the night-time."

"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.

Now, this is probably one of the most famous passages in detective fiction. I would say that the curious incident is a clue and that Doyle has quite neatly underlined and drawn the reader's attention to it.

The denotation of the clue is that the dog didn't bark — quite simply what it says.
The connotation of the clue is why the dog didn't bark and what that means in the context of the situation described.

Further, the Sherlock Holmes stories defined what a clue is with exchanges like the following (from "The Greek Interpreter", also in Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes):

"To any one who wishes to study mankind this is the spot," said Mycroft. "Look at the magnificent types! Look at these two men who are coming towards us, for example."

"The billiard-marker and the other?"

"Precisely. What do you make of the other?"

The two men had stopped opposite the window. Some chalk marks over the waistcoat pocket were the only signs of billiards which I could see in one of them. The other was a very small, dark fellow, with his hat pushed back and several packages under his arm.

"An old soldier, I perceive," said Sherlock.

"And very recently discharged," remarked the brother.

"Served in India, I see."

"And a non-commissioned officer."

"Royal Artillery, I fancy," said Sherlock.

"And a widower."

"But with a child."

"Children, my dear boy, children."

"Come," said I, laughing, "this is a little too much."

"Surely," answered Holmes, "it is not hard to say that a man with that bearing, expression of authority, and sunbaked skin, is a soldier, is more than a private, and is not long from India."

"That he has not left the service long is shown by his still wearing his ammunition boots, as they are called," observed Mycroft.

"He had not the cavalry stride, yet he wore his hat on one side, as is shown by the lighter skin of that side of his brow. His weight is against his being a sapper. He is in the artillery."

"Then, of course, his complete mourning shows that he has lost some one very dear. The fact that he is doing his own shopping looks as though it were his wife. He has been buying things for children, you perceive. There is a rattle, which shows that one of them is very young. The wife probably died in childbed. The fact that he has a picture-book under his arm shows that there is another child to be thought of."

I began to understand what my friend meant when he said that his brother possessed even keener faculties that he did himself. He glanced across at me and smiled. Mycroft took snuff from a tortoise-shell box, and brushed away the wandering grains from his coat front with a large, red silk handkerchief.

Again, the details the brothers point to — the bearing, the suntan, how he wears his hat, the items he's carrying — are all clues. The denotation of those clues are what Watson sees — that the man is a small, dark fellow, with his hat pushed back and several packages under his arm. The connotations are what Sherlock and Mycroft infer from those clues — that the man is a recently discharged artillery officer formerly stationed in India and a widower with young children.

Passages like this are common throughout the Holmes canon and, to me, they define what a clue is.

The features of a clue are:

1. A clue is a detail, generally readily apparent — that is, if it's a visual clue, it's in plain sight, if it's an auditory clue, everyone can hear it, and so on;
2. It is often swamped by surrounding details and so can be missed — or, to quote Sherlock Holmes again: "It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognize, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which vital." (from "The Reigate Puzzle" also in Memoirs);
3. Sometimes it's not missed, but misinterpreted — "I ought to know by this time that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of deductions it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation." (from A Study in Scarlet).

On this last point, I would also quote from Isaac Asimov's afterword to "The Three Numbers", collected in More Tales of the Black Widowers:

I am sometimes asked where I get my ideas; in fact, I am frequently asked that. There's no big secret. I get them from everything I experience, and you can do it, too, if you're willing to work at it.

For instance, I know I've got a possible Black Widower story if I can think of something that can be looked at two or more ways, with only Henry looking at it the right way.

Etymologically, the word "clue" comes from "clew" — and, indeed, I've read books from the 1920s that still spell it as "clew" — meaning a ball of yarn or thread. The idea evokes Theseus using a line of thread to find his way out of Labyrinth. So a clue is a detail that is one end of a thread which, when followed, will lead to something else. This certainly fits the idea of a clue as something that guides characters from one scene to another as in Trail of Cthulhu.

One of the difficulties I'm having is that since the nature of a clue is that it's readily apparent, the idea that it should be openly presented to the players rather than hidden behind dice rolls strikes me as less a radical insight than a statement of the obvious.

The difficulty with clues isn't that they are hidden, it's that they are overlooked and misinterpreted.

Never mind that your assumptions are flawed - I wear my watch on my right wrist, and I'm right handed, for example - and that flaws like those are one of the biggest problems with the old-fashioned detective yarns.

Well, if you don't like fair-play mysteries, that's fair enough. Lots of people don't. But, by the same token, lots of people do and it's a legitimate sub-genre with a long history and a number of highly-regarded practitioners.

No doubt someone could come up with any number of reasons why the dog didn't bark in the night-time, but the nature of the genre is that it's probably the simplest and most straightforward explanation. You may argue that this is somewhat artificial and you'd be right, it is. However, it's the assumption that underlies the stories in the genre; if you aren't willing to go along with the assumption, you probably won't enjoy either the game or the genre.

However, part of the point of mysteries is that any given inference isn't conclusive. If it turns out that the Mrs Donaldson is right-handed but prefers to wear her watch on the right wrist as you do, that knocks down that conclusion. But the only way to find that out is by investigating — and the goal is to get the players to do that. Along the way, they will discover all sorts of other things — some of which will be valid, some not.

However, if you don't like these sort of assumptions, may I suggest you read "The Yellow Face" also in Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. You might also like Trent's Last Case by E. C. Bently and, for a much ontological approach to the same idea, The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett. Actually, the last is just worth reading for the interaction between Nick and Nora Charles.

This is the bit of the rules you ought to bear in mind [p52]:

Figuring out the puzzle is hard enough for a group of armchair detectives, without someone withholding half the pieces from them. GUMSHOE, therefore, makes the finding of clues all but automatic, as long as you get to the right place in the story and have the right ability. That’s when the fun part begins, when the players try to put the components of the puzzle together.

[emphasis mine]

No-one's withholding any of the pieces; telling me that the problem is that someone is withholding some of the pieces when they're all there in plain sight is just disingenuous. If people miss some of the pieces, it's because that's the nature of mysteries and clues. Or, as another famous quote puts it (this time from "A Scandal in Bohemia" in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes):

"You see, but you do not observe."

A large part of the joy of the genre lies lies in spotting the clues and working things out for oneself. That's why some people would play an investigative game.

Regards,

Zoran

[The_Tatterdemalion_King]

That's a bit hard. It's like saying if you aren't an expert swordsman, you have no business playing a Jedi Knight in a Star Wars game.

I think it's a fair statement if it's a full-contact Star Wars LARP. The question is whether or not the players want to 'play detectives' or 'play archaeologists' or detect and unearth things in a fictionalized context. One is a matter of plot coupons in a particular costume; the other is a puzzle the same way sudoku or Monkey Island is. If you have a player in your group who wants to do the former, the system can probably accommodate them—or rather, you as GM can accommodate them by making the actual clues easy and giving them the in-game gloss of competence. And, structurally, most Trail scenarios aren't that complicated, so your armchair detective will probably not find them overtaxing.

That said, the game also has an 'advice for players' section, should they want a checklist of things to do next...

[Zoran]

It's quite common for CoC players when introduced to ToC to overthink or be concerned.

It's not just Call of Cthulhu. It also comes from the experience of playing games like:

221B Baker Street: the Master Detective Game



The only chance in this game is the players roll a dice for movement around the board. Investigations are handled by substituting simpler mysteries (which the players can solve) for the actual mystery. For example, by going to various locations, the player would get the following "clues":

KILLER CLUE (Four Parts)
I. A wise bird that hoots.

KILLER CLUE (Four Parts)
II. The alphabetical letter after W.
III. The opposite of east.

KILLER CLUE (Four Parts)
IV. The season after summer.

If there is a character named Alex Westfall mentioned somewhere in the story, you now know that he is the killer.

A bit simplistic, perhaps, but it captures the figuring-it-out aspect that defines an investigative game.

Then there's Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective and Gumshoe, both from Sleuth Publications.



These were a little more demanding, with no element of chance whatsoever. The clues were scattered among a series of faux documents — copies of The Times in Consulting Detective, copies of the San Francisco Call-Bulletin, a Fingerprint File, Mug Shots and Rap Sheets, Autopsy Reports and police Laboratory Reports in Gumshoe — as well as a Clue Book with numbered entries that detail what can be found at various locations in London and San Francisco respectively. Players would get a description of the case, go to the various locations and get the appropriate documents and information, have to extract the clues from the surrounding detail and put the clues together to solve the case.

Just as an aside, there was a connection between Chaosium and Sleuth Publications (I know Tadashi Ehara worked for both) and I suspect Sleuth Publications may have been one of the sources for Call of Cthuhu's whole faux-documents-as-handouts thing. Of course, all that goes back to the Crime Dossiers put out by Dennis Wheatley and J. G. Links back in the 1930s (the first was in 1936, I believe).



These of course went further than just faux-documents, including all manner of physical evidence:



Now, that's hardcore investigative gaming!

None of these hid the clues or made them difficult to get. You went to the right location, you got the information.

In any case, I can recommend the following articles:

Thanks for the links. I shall peruse and contemplate them directly.

Regards,

Zoran

[Winter Smoke]

A large part of the joy of the genre lies lies in spotting the clues and working things out for oneself. That's why some people would play an investigative game.

Interesting post, I learnt some stuff from that! I'm not entirely sure if I understood what you were getting at overall but I think that there maybe a few key points worth bearing in mind. As I say I'm new to rpgs so sometimes a fresh pair of eyes can be a hinderance as well as a help.

Technically RPGs are a sandbox world. The Keeper may have a 1 session game planned that starts in Brooklyn and and finishes in Queens, but the players could drag it out to be a 50 week long campaign taking in China, Australia, Africa, Russia, etc. So the question has to be why do you want them to follow a certain path? The answer in this game is because the story would have no focus and lose momentum.

This is going to get a bit meta now, but in the example of 'The Greek Interpreter' you gave, we were denied the initial view of the subject that Mycroft & Holmes were examining. The reason? If we had the text would have been forced to give a huge amount of details so that we could have drawn our own conclusions. Each bit of this information would have fallen into 1 of 3 catergories: 1. Background/setting/mood information 2. Clue or 3. Red herring. The reader could feel smart if they latched onto all the clues, but say for instance they latch on to all red herrings and, to exagerate, they end up in China? The notion that Holmes & Mycroft examining this man and giving outstanding observations is a myth. Every single detail of the man is important to their observation of him. There was no extra detail. Their ability to solve the mystery of who he is, is dictated by the page count. Say there are 25 pages to that story. That's how long Holmes has to solve the mystery, so he simply has to meet certain story beats on the way that are forced on him. He may think he is solving the mytery but really Doyle and the page count is capping the limits of the mystery. And in the same way it caps the amount of information we can give in relation to the mystery. So in the example of the woman's suicide they could have spent 2 sessions by incorrectly investigating the type of rope she was hanging from, identifying the manufactuerer as Finley's Fine Twine (hats off to anyone who gets the reference). Why would you want your player to though? And why would Doyle want Holmes to spend 25 pages talking about the type of tabacco debris that the man has left behind?

Basically this goes back to definitions which is something you and another poster hit on. The core clues aren't 'clues'. They are props for the plot. You know from his shopping habits that his wife is dead, he is supporting two kids because of the childrens book. Want to spend an occult point now? Yes, you say? Why the hell is he also carrying a second book that appears to be made of human skin?? There is a mystery but it's there to be experienced as much as investigated.

[GBSteve]

I see core clues as something slightly different. I don't see them as individual pieces of evidence but I see a core clue more as a lead. It's something that gives the characters something else to do. So discovering that a murder has been covered up as a suicide is not a core clue. To me it's even a supplementary clue, unless it gives another lead. The thing with GUMSHOE is that you should be able to follow the core clues without necessarily understanding the mystery.

[Zoran]

This is going to get a bit meta now, but in the example of 'The Greek Interpreter' you gave, we were denied the initial view of the subject that Mycroft & Holmes were examining. The reason? If we had the text would have been forced to give a huge amount of details so that we could have drawn our own conclusions. Each bit of this information would have fallen into 1 of 3 catergories: 1. Background/setting/mood information 2. Clue or 3. Red herring. The reader could feel smart if they latched onto all the clues, but say for instance they latch on to all red herrings and, to exagerate, they end up in China? The notion that Holmes & Mycroft examining this man and giving outstanding observations is a myth. Every single detail of the man is important to their observation of him. There was no extra detail. Their ability to solve the mystery of who he is, is dictated by the page count. Say there are 25 pages to that story. That's how long Holmes has to solve the mystery, so he simply has to meet certain story beats on the way that are forced on him. He may think he is solving the mytery but really Doyle and the page count is capping the limits of the mystery. And in the same way it caps the amount of information we can give in relation to the mystery. So in the example of the woman's suicide they could have spent 2 sessions by incorrectly investigating the type of rope she was hanging from, identifying the manufactuerer as Finley's Fine Twine (hats off to anyone who gets the reference). Why would you want your player to though? And why would Doyle want Holmes to spend 25 pages talking about the type of tabacco debris that the man has left behind?

You're absolutely right. Actually, most of the deductions in the Holmes stories fall into this pattern. Holmes presents the conclusion, Watson (or someone else, but it's usually Watson) says something like "How could you possibly know that?" and Holmes proceeds to present the details that led to the conclusion. And they fall into that pattern for pretty much the reasons you describe. I was offering the quote as more of an example of where my idea of what a clue is comes from than as an example of a fair-play mystery.

However, as I mentioned in a previous post, there is an entire school built around the notion of the fair-play mystery in which all the pertinent clues are presented to the reader before the denouncement and the reader has a chance to solve the case through their own efforts. Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr, S.S. Van Dine, Ellery Queen and so on.

I guess a simpler definition of what a clue is to me is: something that needs to be figured out. The joy of mystery fiction and investigative gaming is in the figuring out or the surprise when the solution is presented in realising that the answer is perfectly logical, you just missed it. Both are equally enjoyable, though in different ways. There is a game aspect to reading these books — something recognised by any number of authors, critics and readers.

One of the things that occurred to me as I was reading your werewolf scenario example was that it seemed more of an adventure game than an investigative one. Or, at least, there didn't seem to be much investigation in it, by which I mean there didn't seem to be anything for the players to figure out.

This shouldn't be taken as a slam, I think as a scenario outline it's quite solid and would make for an enjoyable evening's gaming. However, much as I enjoy adventure gaming, that's not quite the flavour I'm looking for in investigative gaming.

Regards,

Zoran

[daedalum]

Interesting thread. I remember an article for Gumshoe in White Dwarf. Caused me some confusion when I discovered ToC as I thought there was a direct connection

Though I too am unsure what to conclude other than the Fair Play/Role Play nuance.
I don't see how ToC wouldn't allow you to run Fair Play games, perhaps a Clew mode to compliment Pulp etc.
Isn't this a social contract issue between keeper and the expectations of what the players will spend their sessions doing?
Although once the deductions you expect your players to make stray far far from reality into the occult, mythos, paranormal and lala dreamlands and maddness induced insight...what reasonable assumptions should the players build their clever deductions from in order to puzzle the horror out?

[csmithadair]

Interesting thread. I remember an article for Gumshoe in White Dwarf. Caused me some confusion when I discovered ToC as I thought there was a direct connection

Though I too am unsure what to conclude other than the Fair Play/Role Play nuance.
I don't see how ToC wouldn't allow you to run Fair Play games, perhaps a Clew mode to compliment Pulp etc.
Isn't this a social contract issue between keeper and the expectations of what the players will spend their sessions doing?
Although once the deductions you expect your players to make stray far far from reality into the occult, mythos, paranormal and lala dreamlands and maddness induced insight...what reasonable assumptions should the players build their clever deductions from in order to puzzle the horror out?

Even without deductions that have to rely on esoteric knowledge or knowledge of the unreal, many Investigative abilities rely on specialized knowledge and are used to analyze evidence and the like. In an average GUMSHOE investigation, Investigators may need to break out the chemistry equipment, use their interpersonal abilities to successfully question persons of interest, recall or research relatively obscure facts on theology, read through a massive book, etc. Even if no one is intentionally hiding the information (and the perpetrators may very well be), the players simply aren't going to be able to do all these things, nor is the Keeper going to set them up.

That doesn't mean that there can't be clues that can be reasoned and puzzled out by careful observation and general knowledge, nor that an individual Keeper can't make them the majority. As Zoran stated, one of his concerns is what to do when a clue that is intended to be analyzed this way is not picked up on.