TEXT: ASHEN STARS
  T
  hough most players find GUMSHOE simple and 
  straightforward, we’ve heard from a few folks who’ve 
  had trouble assimilating it. Usually this happens when 
  they see that it’s a little different from the roleplaying rules 
  they’re used to, and then assume that it’s even more dif-
  ferent than it really is. Here are the questions we tend to 
  get from players as they grapple with GUMSHOE, along 
  with the answers that helped them make the adjustment. 
  Use these to guide any of your players who haven’t yet 
  had the cartoon lightbulb of recognition appear above 
  their heads. 
  Doesn’t the game railroad the players down a single 
  path?
  No more so than any other investigative game in which 
  the players attempt to unravel a mystery whose answer 
  the GM has determined in advance. (Nor do you have to 
  determine it in advance, as you’ve seen from the notes on 
  improvised cases on p. 225.) If the only source of narra-
  tive branches in a scenario is the possibility that the PCs 
  will fail to understand what’s going on, it’s already a rail-
  road. For this reason, GUMSHOE actually allows you to 
  see the clue path more clearly and construct it to avoid 
  single-track plotting. You do this by ensuring that there 
  are multiple paths to the eventual solution. 
  In many instances, the feeling that players enjoy freedom 
  of decision-making matters more than the actuality of 
  your plot diagram. A story replete with chances to fork the 
  narrative in unexpected directions may feel like a railroad 
  if the players feel pressured or constrained. Conversely, a 
  single-track plot might feel free and open if they feel that 
  they’re forging ahead and you’re scrambling to keep up 
  with them. When players feel hemmed in or see only one 
  undesirable way forward, the GM may need to point to 
  their various options, showing them that they’re not being 
  railroaded. 
  Won’t the players just rattle off all of the abilities on 
  their character sheets every time they enter a scene?
  No more so than in a game where you have to roll against 
  your abilities to get information. Players who imagine this 
  happen are assuming a much greater difference between the 
  traditional style and the GUMSHOE approach than actually 
  exists. In each case, players always have to describe a logical 
  course of action that might lead to their getting information, 
  directly or indirectly suggesting the ability they use to get it. 
  In the traditional model, there’s a roll; the GM supplies the in-
  formation on a success. In GUMSHOE, this step is skipped—
  but it’s the only step skipped. 
  Traditional style:
  Player: I scan the area for unusual energy signatures. 
  GM: Roll Energy Signatures. 
  Player: I succeed. 
  GM: You detect a harmonic anomaly on the quantum level—
  a sure sign that Xzar technology has been used here, and 
  recently. 
  GUMSHOE style:
  Player: I scan the area for unusual energy signatures. 
  GM: [Checks worksheet to see if the player’s character has 
  Energy Signatures, which she does.] You detect a harmonic 
  anomaly on the quantum level—a sure sign that Xzar tech-
  nology has been used here, and recently. 
  In neither style do you see players grabbing their character 
  sheets as soon as they enter a new scene and shouting out 
  “Anthropology! Archaeology! Botany! Cybe Culture! Evi-
  dence Collection!” They don’t do this because it would be 
  weird, boring, and stupid—and because in neither case does 
  APPENDIX II: 
  tROUBLESHOOTING gumshoe
  3
  
  ASHEN STARS
  4
   
  ►
  [Industrial Design] “Maybe it’s the engineer in you, 
  but you can’t help thinking there’s something about 
  that schematic you missed the first time around.”
   
  ►
  [Interrogation] “It occurs to you that maybe it’s time 
  to take somebody into custody and ask a few tough 
  questions.”
  The extent to which you subtly usher the players along is 
  also a pacing issue. What seems intrusive and railroady in the 
  middle of a session may feel satisfyingly efficient as the clock 
  ticks down toward the end. 
  What are the common causes of player floundering?
  Stopping to ask why players are stuck is the first step to hint-
  ing them out of their conceptual paralysis. A few common 
  syndromes lie behind most floundering incidents:
  Problem: Someone already came up with the right, simple 
  answer, but it was dismissed or forgotten. 
  Solution: Tell the group that they’ve already considered and 
  dismissed the right answer. 
  Problem: The group is stuck in endless speculative mode. 
  Solution: They need more information. Remind them of this 
  basic investigative principle. 
  Problem: The group knows what to do, but is too risk-averse 
  to proceed. 
  Solution: Tell them to nut up. That’s why they get paid the 
  bigcreds. 
  What if players over-investigate every little detail?
  Expect players to surprise you by applying their investiga-
  tive abilities to tangential descriptive details. For example, as 
  the players explore a palace on a Tudor synthculture world, 
  you might mention that a medieval-inspired tapestry hangs 
  over a wooden throne. The core clue is a residue of alien 
  protoplasm on the bottom of the throne. You mentioned the 
  tapestry simply to add another evocative detail. Now your 
  players are asking you what’s on the tapestry, whether it’s 
  antique or modern, and whether the star pattern shown in its 
  sky tells them anything. 
  A useful clue that dovetails with the episode’s central mys-
  tery might occur to you here. If not, though, you can still treat 
  this as more than a null moment to be quickly dismissed. In-
  stead, treat tangential queries as opportunities to underline 
  the characters’ competence, while at the same time signaling 
  that they have no great relevance to the case at hand. You 
  can do this simply with a “no big deal” tone of voice or body 
  it fill all the requirements necessary to get information from 
  a scene. 
  The only difference is the lack of a die roll. It has a big effect 
  on play, but that doesn’t mean you’re suddenly taking the 
  express train straight to Crazytown. 
  What if the players come up with a different way to 
  get the information than the scenario specifies?
  Give it to them. GUMSHOE always provides at least one way 
  to get clues into player hands. Reward player creativity when 
  they find others. Disallow this only where it:
   
  ►
  pushes aside another player who ought to be able to 
  use an ability he’s heavily invested in to get the info, 
  and who would be upset to see his spotlight stolen
   
  ►
  makes no fricking sense whatsoever
  In the latter case, work with the player to suggest a more 
  plausible means of using the proposed ability to acquire the 
  clue in question. 
  In some cases, an unorthodox ability use might require a 
  spend or trigger some negative consequence in the story. In 
  general, though, GUMSHOE is about allowing access to in-
  formation, not disallowing it. The default GMing style hand-
  ed down by oral tradition from the hobby’s early days trains 
  us to be on the lookout for actions to disallow. GUMSHOE 
  works best when you always look for ways to say yes. 
  How hard should I hint if the players are floundering?
  As much as you have to, and (ideally) no more. 
  The barrier we traditionally erect between player autono-
  my and GM intervention is like any other roleplaying tech-
  nique—it’s useful only insofar as it makes our games more 
  enjoyable. In GUMSHOE or any other system, frustrated play-
  ers are generally happy to be nudged back on track, even 
  if you use techniques that would otherwise seem intrusive. 
  Hint as unobtrusively as you can, but hint all the same. When 
  possible, disguise your hinting by using the mechanisms the 
  game provides you. In this case, use your Investigative Ability 
  Worksheet to find an ability that would logically provide the 
  insight needed to see past the current roadblock. Then nar-
  rate it as if the character who has the ability has had a hunch 
  or breakthrough:
   
  ►
  “Suddenly you remember the phrase your Forensic 
  Accounting professor kept hammering into you: fol-
  low the money!”
  kch-thk
  
  ASHEN STARS
  5
  that Ashen Stars mysteries can be simpler than those in po-
  lice procedurals or horror games.
  In my group, we never see the game ground to a halt 
  on a missed information roll, so why play GUMSHOE?
  Play it because it focuses and streamlines play, eliminating 
  the elaborate workarounds your GM has to use to make the 
  missed information rolls invisible to you. It replaces these 
  moments of circular plotting with more interesting scenes 
  that move the story forward. 
  Optional Rule: No-Spend
  Investigative Spends
  Although most groups enjoy the investigative spend rules, 
  a few have reported problems with them. Some players find 
  that the need to ask for investigative spends intrudes too 
  much on the illusion of fictional reality, or makes it too clear 
  that there are certain actions they ought to take during par-
  ticular scenes. 
  Here’s another method of providing the flavor clues available 
  through investigative spends, for groups that prefer it. This 
  optional rule is equally applicable to all GUMSHOE games. Be 
  aware that, like most optional rules, this imposes a trade-off 
  you should be aware of before implementation. In this case, 
  the GM takes on a greater bookkeeping burden in exchange 
  for making the system more transparent to her players. 
  Before play begins, the GM checks all character sheets for in-
  vestigative abilities with a rating higher than 1. She complies 
  a master list, arranged per ability, ranking the characters in 
  order of their ratings. 
  Graz Prister has Downside at 4. Clementine Heidegger 
  has it at 3, and Arno Black at 2. The entry in the GM’s 
  master list looks like this:
  Downside
  Graz 4
  Clementine 3
  Arno 2
  Players alert the GM whenever they add to their investigative 
  abilities, so they can keep the master list up to date. 
  Whenever the PCs enter an investigative scene in which a 
  spend is available, the GM checks the master list to see if any 
  of them could afford to make the spend. The first time this 
  language, or you can spell it out explicitly. 
   
  ►
  [Astronomy] “You can recall a thousand star systems 
  from memory, and can say right away that the pat-
  tern of stars is just an arbitrary pattern chosen by the 
  artist.”
   
  ►
  [History, Human] “The images depict an idealized 
  image of Henry VIII—exactly what you’d expect from 
  someone who didn’t bother to delve into the actual 
  history.”
   
  ►
  [Chemistry] “What’s it made of? The usual synthetic 
  fibers, exactly as you’d expect.”
  What if the player actions suggest a clue that isn’t in 
  the written scenario?
  This will happen all the time. No scenario, no matter how 
  tightly written, can provide every answer to the questions 
  players will use their abilities to ask. When this comes up:
  1. 
  Using your knowledge of the scenario’s backstory, 
  think up the most logical answer to the question. 
  2. Pause to make sure that your answer doesn’t contra-
  dict either the facts needed to supply the solution to 
  the ultimate mystery, or any of the core clues along the 
  way. If it does, modify it to fit the rest of the mystery. 
  3. Supply the info. This might lead to new scenes and al-
  ternate ways of gathering the core clues. Improvise as 
  needed to keep up with player actions. 
  Doesn’t the clue structure make the game hard to pre-
  pare for, or to run on the fly?
  It’s true that good mysteries are hard to plot, in roleplaying 
  or in other media. You have to be able to plot in two di-
  rections, creating both a logical backstory that makes sense 
  when reconstructed, and (as a bare minimum) at least one 
  logical path for the investigators to follow when unraveling 
  it. However, if you keep the backstory reasonably simple, you 
  can rely on the players to provide all the complications and 
  red herrings you need. With this in mind, preparation for a 
  game session can be as easy as jotting down a few point 
  form notes sketching out the backstory and scene structure. 
  Provided you keep the basic details and story logic straight 
  in your head, this very basic structure makes plotting easier, 
  not harder. 
  In this case, you’re in luck: space opera conventions mean 
  appendix 1: sample names
  
  ASHEN STARS
  6
  ASHEN STARS
  Chapter
  bracelet indicates that he’s a timestooge—a dupe of a 
  bogus nufaith run by con artists pretending to be tem-
  poral travelers.”
  Two scenes later, another opportunity for a Downside 
  spend comes up. This is for a 2-point spend, to know 
  that the radiation scars on the arm of a witness were 
  probably put there by the notorious smuggler who loves 
  to brand enemies with a jury-rigged weapon. You check 
  the list, which now looks like this:
  Downside
  Graz 4 
  Clementine 3
  Arno 2
  Graz already has a tick next to her name, so Clementine 
  gets this clue. You then put two tick marks next to her 
  name:
  Downside
  Graz 4 
  Clementine 3 
  Arno 2
  The GM can either start fresh with no tick marks at the begin-
  ning of each scenario, or continue the existing list from one 
  case to the next.  
  happens, the GM chooses the topmost character, and puts 
  a number of ticks next to the name equal to the size of the 
  spend. During subsequent scenes in which a spend can be 
  made in the same ability, the GM chooses, from among the 
  PCs whose ratings equal or exceed the spend, the one with 
  the fewest tick marks. The tick marks do not represent ex-
  penditures; under this system it is possible for a player with 2 
  points in a particular ability to get two or more 2-point clues, 
  if no one else in the group qualifies to earn them. 
  This approach doles out the flavor clues in a way that favors 
  players who’ve invested the most points in any given ability, 
  but hides the mechanism from them, so they can’t see the 
  plot gears in motion. It also tends to result in the revelation 
  of more flavor clues. 
  The PCs are interviewing a witness, a hollow-eyed 
  spaceport hanger-on named Lou. The scenario notes 
  say that on a 1-point spend, a character with Downside 
  will know the meaning of the decorative glowing sub-
  dermal implant that Lou wears on his left wrist. You, the 
  GM, check your master list for Downside, and see that 
  no spends have been made against it this scenario. So 
  the highest-ranked character with the least tick marks is 
  Graz. You describe the implant and tell his player: “The 
  
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