Interesting. I'm working on an article for Gametime NZ at the moment which addresses some of the issues I see surrounding investigative games and the way they are handled. Once it's posted up, I'll throw the link in here as well.

Cheers
Malc

Contested Ground Studios

Check out Dirty Secrets. It solves the investigation problem rather nicely.

Per
http://darkplaces.squarespace.com

...I played Dirty Secrets at GenCon and it just didn't grab me at all.

I've read the iteration of the Gumshoe system used in Esoterrorists and I have to agree that I don't like it one bit. In fact though it's not the rather odd investigation rules that really stick in my craw, but the total lack of any kind of structure during combat scenes. Without that structure, any fight is likely to be won by the person with the biggest mouth, or to devolve into a shouting match.

The investigative rules do seem a little off though. Maybe you could convert it to some kind of points-spending mechanic?

Ash

I'll speak from a 'person who has never read the system' p.o.v. but I detest investigation games with a passion. Whats the point? If the games are all about the investigation then play a logic game or Cluedo. If the games are about the interplay between the characters then what does it matter about the investigation - its the backdrop to the interplay. (e.g. CSI). Investigative games where the players have to solve the problem are back to the days of the fantasy game and the spiked pit - on the other side of the pit is the Death Lord they have pledged to destroy and campaigned for months to face, but if they cannot get over the pit....

Pah to investigative games (rant over, resume informed comment)

Neil

Take the King's shilling at http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour/

Answers to everyone. I'm happy to field all kinds of GUMSHOE questions.

The players can get it wrong in GUMSHOE. What they find through core clues just has to go somewhere else. It doesn't have to be the right place.

Robin Laws has written about this in Page XX. I can't find the original article so I'll have to quote it.
Red Herrings
From the investigator's point of view, any mystery can be seen as a set of possibilities, which through probing, legwork and the occasional confrontation with interesting danger, is eventually narrowed to the truth. It is a process of elimination. In any investigative scene, the characters separate what might have happened from what did. Especially in the opening scenes of a scenario, they'll be busily ruling out suspects, motives and methods.

From the players' point of view, it is the various competing possibilities that make the mystery into an interesting puzzle.

To create a mystery, first decide what it is that the characters are investigating: a murder, theft, kidnapping, mysterious apparition, whatever. GMs enjoy an advantage over mystery writers. They often don't need to create red herrings, because the players create them for them. Players love to speculate, frequently generating wildly off-base explanations to connect what little information they have available to them. Sometimes this slows the action down, and you'll have to remember to rein them in and suggest that they collect more facts before attempting to reconstruct events.

However, sometimes you'll find yourself wanting to add complexity to the storyline, rather than subtracting it. There are two ways to build red herrings into your adventures.

The first is preplanned, as you create the scenario. After you work out what really happened, look at the facts that will be available to the investigators in the first scene or two. Take these and construct plausible (but wrong) alternate theories that connect these clues. Then prepare scenes in which the investigators pursue these avenues. In these scenes, the clues they gather rule out the false possibility, allowing them to move back onto the right track.

The second method of red herring generation is improvised, as a response to player speculation. Players will often seize on an alternate theory of the case that you would never have considered in a million years. Rather than see these theories as annoyances to be dispelled, capitalize on them. Invent evidence which seems on its face to support their theory, leading them into scenes in which they eventually find the counter-evidence forcing them to go back to the drawing board, and move toward the actual solution to the mystery. (Especially flexible GMs may decide that the players' bizarre theory is more entertaining than that given in the scenario and adjust to make that retroactively true. Because it's hard to assemble an airtight clue trail on the fly, this is recommended only for talented improvisers who breathe story logic like oxygen.)

Whether preplanned or made up as you go along, a red herring should either be extremely interesting in its own right, or so boring that it can be dispensed with quickly. In the first case, the scene makes no contribution to the actual story, and therefore justify its time in the spotlight by being entertaining and memorable in its own right. Invent a crazy character. Vividly describe a unique setting. Inject some social commentary or fun topical references. Parody absent friends or obnoxious public figures.
In a supernatural or fantastic setting, you can use a red herring scene to enhance the apparent reality of your world. Do this by taking a familiar situation or type of behavior and place it within your outlandish boundaries of your chosen reality. In a police procedural set in a superhero world, you might, for example, include an encounter with an enraged citizen wondering how to track down insurance information for the masked crusader who totaled his car while using it as a weapon against a rampaging mutant.Red herrings can also justify themselves by shedding contrasting light on your story's themes and images. First, you'll need to identify your scenario's themes and images, if you haven't already done so. These are often inherent in the crime itself. The underlying crime behind The Esoterrorist example scenario, "Operation Slaughterhouse", is abuse of power. The scenario in the upcoming GUMSHOE horror supplement, Fear Itself, is about madness, and the random nature of its onset.

Suitable red herring scenes should throw a different light on these themes. If abuse of power is the theme, the players might meet a witness (who turns out not to know anything) who has been the victim of shenanigans by high officials. Or he might be an apologist for government corruption.

You can also find imagistic inspiration for red herring scenes. If much of your scenario is set in a forest, a red herring encounter might be shaded with images of wilderness of vegetation. Maybe it takes the players to a hunting lodge, its walls festooned with mounted taxidermy specimens. Or inside a greenhouse, where a frail non-witness pours all of her life energy into her precious forest of rare plants.

As for design flaws, I'll think you'll find that the system does what it says it will. That you don't like it more about personal preference than design flaws. But that's fine, you don't have to like every game.

Combat has been kept relatively simple in GUMSHOE to avoid moving the focus away from what the agem is about, i.e. a trail of clues that leads characters to some kind of confrontation and possible a moral decision. That's what you get from the demos I run which are in these forums somewhere.

The combat that I have run has gone pretty smoothly, possibly because it is so very straightforward, about on par with what happens in Cold City although you do get a few more hit points in GUMSHOE.

There are plans to bring out more complicated combat options at some point, if there's enough demand for it. I've even written a idea of what this might look like but it's not very high on the agenda at the moment.

I think this is another personal preference issue. My experience of GUMSHOE and that of many playtesters is that combat usually works fine. On the distribution of answers we get one or two people saying it's not deadly enough and one or two saying it's too nasty. This is taken to mean that the game is a happy medium for most people who play it.

Also, the investigative rules are some kind of points spending mechanism.

Finally, I've written a piece for Pelgrane on how to run improvised GUMSHOE games. It should be up by Xmas and might make the game interesting to those worried about some of the issues discussed above.

Are we discussing Iain's fix for investigation games or problems with Gumshoe or investigation games we know and love or what?

Graham

Good call young Iain, sounds good.

Esoterrorists smells of wee. Not only is the investigative but ultimately rather pointless mechanics wise, the rest of the so-called "system" is tacked on and amateurish.

I'd argue that (see point 1 above), the players don't necessarily need to have a the idea that they've successfully got all the answers. Depends on what you're going for though. If you want discreet CSI episodes then the investigators always "win", so fair do's. If you're opening it up for extended play however, odd loose ends that need tying up help add continuity to some games ("there's something just not right about his confession... its just doesn't add up. Call it a hunch").

Games should always have a result of actions, whether on a granular level (I try to punch him in the face), or overall (you catch the bad guy and learn something about yourself). Is this what you mean by "fallout"? The word itself seems negative, but I'm assuming this left-field indie talk for "result of actions"...? ;)

Point 3 is good - interplay between characters. Especially if what happens in their personal lives could affect the job. Ace.

Point 4 - Word. A satisfying conclusion and game on the whole doesn't necessarily mean the players hit the GM's solution, but a target to aim for and a firm "what actually happened" is right down my strasse.

Point 5 - sounds interesting. Not willing to comment more at this stage.

I'm actually excited about all that Mr McAllister.

Gaz

All of those at once it seems.

Trying to fix GUMSHOE is a Fantasy Heartbreaker kind of situation. It actually does what it sets out to do as far as I can tell, based on running it.

But that doens't mean it does what everyone wants from an investigative game. That's fine but I think it's unfair to blame GUMSHOE for that.

But stepping away from that, Iain's ideas which are interesting, how do you do 1) and 4) at the same time. That is make players think they've come to the right solution, regardless of whether it is or not, and only reward them if they are right?

I'm not sure that being right really that important. Why not just reward solutions regardless, but also have consequences for getting things wrong?

Are (4) and (5) tending towards being mutually exclusive.

Point 4 is that the GM has an answer set in stone, so that anyone finding it perfectly will gain the maximum reward.

Point 5 says that the clues the GM throws out there (presumably to lead to the conclusion in point 4) are actually defined by the players, so that they can lead to a conclusion that is not the one the GM had.

So, either way we get an answer, right? But the GM can say it was the wrong one, veen if the clues now do not support the "right" one?

[As an aside, Iain, I think you are wrong to say that the system has "huge design flaws". Gaz, I don't believe it is "amateurish" either. I do believe that it is not a game that you enjoy and that it doesn't support the style of play you prefer. That is different from saying the game has been wrongly conceived or unintelligently constructed.]

I stand by what I said me old mucker, its not actually that its not in my play style. The GUMSHOE bit has had some thought, but in application you'd have to try really hard not to succeed in getting every clue. In which case, why have a "system" for it? Its largely advertised as an investigative system that you can't lose with.

The rest of the system is essentially rolling a d6 and maybe adding a couple of points out of a pool. That's it. Its hardly polished, doesn't gel with the Investigative mechanics, limited in scope, and far removed from the high standard I normally expect from a Robin D Laws product. So IMHO, its amateurish and definitely "tacked on". The product as a whole feels like a pamphlet and is hardly packed with information or ideas. I'm sticking to my guns.

The front cover is ace though.

GUMSHOE has a fairly traditional method of handling combat which is strictly structured. This is also a problem which has not arisen in any existing playtest or any actual play report. Can you give enlarge on this?

Simon Rogers
http://www.profantasy.com
Blog - http://sjrlj.notlong.com

This is difficult, because we're talking about it on two threads, so I'll repeat things...

"I stand by what I said me old mucker, its not actually that its not in my play style. The GUMSHOE bit has had some thought, but in application you'd have to try really hard not to succeed in getting every clue. In which case, why have a "system" for it? Its largely advertised as an investigative system that you can't lose with."

...well, yes. But that's how Call of Cthulhu works, really, in practice. You get everything the GM wants you to get. Gumshoe formalises that.

And it's still fun, because you're exploring the setting and developing the characters as you uncover the mystery.

Many criticisms of Gumshoe are very hard to answer. People say things like "You can't fail to get the clues!". And the only answer is, well, yes, that's the point.

See, to anyone else, I'd say "Well, it's not your kind of thing". But I've seen you play Cthulhu games like this, so, actually, I think you'd like it. I'm sure you'd like Trail.

I agree about the combat/fleeing/etc mechanics. They don't feel right, really.

Graham

I get very frustrated with Cthuhlu "adventures". A pointless succession of trips to the clue dispensor before going bonkers when a Dark Young turns up. The best Cthulhu games I've been in involve me and my buddies playing in character and interacting with other character, while the plot comes to light, but not as a consequence of us pushing buttons to make it happen. Barely any dice are rolled.

So I guess my point is, if you're going to get everything anyway, why have a system for it, especially in this case, where you've got more than one mechanic set? As a system in itself it all seems rather redundant. Cthulhu succeeds on the strength of the support material and in spite of BRP.

I could go on, but need beer and a good hour. I think you see where I'm heading with it? "You always win" isn't really a system. Neither is "roll a d6 and get 4+".

I get rather fed up with accumulating clues for the sake of it, but that's wandering into my personal preferences again.

...we're back to "...its not actually that its not in my play style." versus "...but that's wandering into my personal preferences again."

If cannot believe that Robin Laws woke up one morning and thoughtlessy tapped out the concepts behind the clue system. Wow, it just came to him without thinking or that it's a hugely flawed design. Does it just happen to formalise the way good GMs serve investigation games up, or was it designed that way?

Oh, and point (2) in Iain's original post is something that should come out of anything in a role-playing game. Whether that be Stuff and Nonsense changing in Best Friends, or gaining XP in D&D. There should be fallout from the actions in play.

Just to clarify, my issue with "the system being pants" is largely the "everything else except finding clues" bit - i.e. rolling a d6 and getting 4+, which didn't take much thought I'd imagine, and appears to me to be thoughtless and tacked on to the meat of the game in the shape of the Clue system. I'm obviously not a mind reader, so who know what really happened at Laws HQ, but to me at least, it reeks of "after-thought". If I'm wrong it wouldn't be the first time, but its still not very good.

The Clue system bit IIRC means, you always get the clue. In which case it doesn't matter how you dress it up, its not much of a system. The outcome is always "you get the clue". So why have a "system"?

The system of a game should give a win/lose, or fork in the road where the plot goes in different directions, consequences of one kind or another, or what have you. If the result coming out is always the same whatever you put in, its redundant.

Re:Point 2. I concur. I was merely seeking to clarify what Fallout meant to you guys and your parlance. To the uninitiated (i.e. me) Fallout sounds negative and has conertations of something bad happening (an adverse secondary effect). If by fallout we mean "a result of your actions" be that Cake or Death (or whatever) then clearly we agree.

Too many games I played where I tell the ref what I do and he just nods at me. "And then what happens FFS...?"

Yes, I think we are in agreement on that stuff.

Graham,

If you get a chance, please experiment with this:

My own feelings are that Gumshoe is actually 2 systems: the system for Investigation (which you seem quite fond of) and the system for Everything Else (which you have voiced dissatisfaction with).

Next time you run a game, why not ditch the "system for everything else" and use something else. Any other system, whatever you fancy. I'd use Savage Worlds, because that's the way I roll, but anything will do, d20, BRP, whatever. So just remove any rules for anything investigative from that game and paste the investigation rules for Gumshoe over the top.

I'd like to know how that'd work. It'd probably tell me if the two systems are as divided as I think they are.

I think you're right.

I'd use something investigative to resolve whether you beat the final monster. Say, you get a d6 for every clue you narrate into your description of how you beat it. If you roll...er...something...you win.

Graham

I submit that we don't try to fix GUMSHOE but instead fix Iain. It's probably easier in the long run.

The genetic resequencing nanovirus I slipped him at Dragonmeet only gave him a sniffle.

Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk

Anyway, that is a crap load of posts to catch up on, so let me try and break it down and then split off some things.

Firstly I am getting my info. from Fear Itself not Esoterrorists, that may cause a differnce, I don't know.

Preference vs. Flawed

Sorry Gregor I stand by what I said, the game is flawed and assuming that it is not because Robin Laws wrote it is absolutely bonkers. My problem is not that you always get the clue, rather what the game states it is about and then the system that results. I can't currently find my copy but it basically says:

We made this system to address the problem of investigative scenarios coming to a halt because of a bad dice rolls.

The investigation bit does this, but not to my satisfaction, this is indeed personal preference. However it then has a part that includes dice rolls to resolve things. What!? Didn't they just say etc. etc. They seemed to forget the purpose of the game half way through and it feels very, very odd.

Red Herrings
Robin's advice seems fine but the problem is there is no mechanical implementation of this, it is all down to GM fiat. Also his advice steers it back towards the 'proper' conclusion which is part of my problem. As I stated Graham hinted very strongly whenever we should spend investigation points and it felt like there was no possibility of us coming to our own conclusions. I don't know if that is just Graham's style or a problem with Gumshoe, I can't judge that.

Fallout
On the subject of fallout I did like the madness rules in Fear Itself but I didn't really feel any other connection to the game world. This is something I will be addressing in my own design.

My own game design
Are going to be split off as this has turned into a discussion on investigation games in general.

Neil
I agree that pure investigation games can seem a bit like a logic puzzle, what I am hoping to make is a game where the investigation is the backdrop, but still interesting, and the story is about these characters who are obsessed with finding the truth, to the detriment of everything else.

On 4 and 5
They may be mutually exclusive but I am not entirely sure. Let me think on it more and I will post the first parts of this design later tonight.

Cheers

Iain

Mob Justice now available!

'The Giant Brain':Small games, big ideas.

...is a problem with Graham, not with Gumshoe.

Graham

I never assume.

I hope I did not offend gregor. I don't think Robin woke up and designed a game at random that is deeply flawed either. I just think he designed a game that is a bit confused and has problems that I have already covered.

You are right that it does model a traditional investigative scenario and removes some of the barriers those systems provided. However it just forgets about the players, in my opinion, making it feel unsatisfying to interact with and play.

I think we should bring this to a close or we could go round and round forever. I have said my piece and have lots of things to think about. I don't like the game for a variety of reasons, some of which are personal preference, some of which are actual design problems, as far as I am concerned. Others enjoy it and that is fair enough, they are welcome to it.

Cheers

Iain

Mob Justice now available!

'The Giant Brain':Small games, big ideas.

No worries, Iain, no offence. I guess I was meaning that to "assume" makes an "ass of u and me".

:-)

But, yeah, this thread might be done. So, do post a thread where you start to develop and refine your own system (when you get around to it, of course).

We can disagree over Gumshoe and that's fine by me.

So this is the thread that kicked off our discussion around investigatory rpg's before our last Cold City session.

Ultimately, all investigatory games have to pick one of two starting points.

1) The players cannot fail to solve the mystery. One way or another, the GM will ensure that they won't.

2) The players can fail to solve the mystery if they don't get the right clues or put them together properly.

From them you can plan out your session and account for the downsides of each.

The downsides of option 1 are that the players may as well not bother actually investigating anything because they'll solve it anyway.

The downsides of option 2 are that it can lead to an immensely frustrating session for all involved if they players can't figure it out and, in my experience, when this happens, the session normally reverts to the other style of play anyway as the GM will start giving more clues or making the players take some kind of investigation rolls to figure it out.

The main problem with option 2 is that when writing an investigatory campaign, what seems obvious to you as the GM may not seem so obvious to the players. So unless you make it so obvious that you wander into option 1 territory, wherein the players cannot fail to put it together, then you're always going to encounter this problem. Indeed, at the last Cold City session, the words 'you've missed something obvious' came out of Andrew's mouth on two separate occasions. What he actually meant was 'you've missed something that is obvious to me', clearly it wasn't obvious to us.

All of which means that I generally stay away from option 2 campaigns.

But then you still have the problems of option 1 to overcome. This is actually really straightforward, you just have to make the journey entertaining. Make the NPC's well-rounded, make the scenes enjoyable, make the revelations surprising without being completely irrelevant to what's come before. Allow the players as much wiggle room as possible, allow them to find their own way to the conclusion.

Many types of investigatory fiction do this anyway, the protagonist doesn't so much figure things out as have it fall into place as he goes along.

The other type, wherein the protagonist does astound his sidekick, and through us the reader, with his deduction of an impossible crime, still takes us on the journey. If it didn't then everyone would just read the set-up and then skip to the end. Your players have virtually no chance of putting the clues together of an impossible crime unaided so don't even bother trying. The protagonist in the fiction has the advantage of being an extension of the author, the players aren't extension of the GM, it doesn't translate.

So accept the fact that you're going to have to drip-feed the players the clues and build that into your story, allow them to come up with their own way of finder the clues, don't be rigid with them (to find out that someone was seen leaving the house at 2am the players MUST speak to the gardener) and make the journey as entertaining as possible. Above all, don't make them roll dice to figure it out.

There is, I think, an option 3 - the players will always solve enough of the mystery to get them to the final scene, but if they haven't picked up or understood all the clues, then they won't make the correct decision in that scene.

I agree that option 1 is frustrating, but an investigative game should challenge the players to put clues together and make meaningful deductions.

The problem with option 3 is the same as option 2. It's really just an extension of it. The only real difference is that , instead of a dead-end, failure to put the clues together leads to an alternate ending.

The chances of your players putting the clues together unaided (by GM or dice rolling, which are the ultimately the same thing) are very low, unless the clues are so obvious that they cannot fail to, which is option 1.

Or alternatively, you establish a format for your investigatory games which means the players can just go through them like they're ticking off a sheet. Which, again, is option 1 territory, only, instead of making the clues obvious, you make the ways the players get the clues obvious.