GUMSHOE SRD CREATIVE COMMONS VERSION

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GUMSHOE SRD / p. 1
Introduction
This standard reference document provides the GUMSHOE rules made available via the terms
of the Open Gaming and Creative Commons-By Attribution licenses. It is a reference for game
designers, and is not tuned to teach the game, or provide a playable game experience. If youre
looking for a playable game, seek out such Pelgrane Press titles as The Esoterrorists, Trail of
Cthulhu, Ashen Stars, Nights Black Agents, Mutant City Blues, or Fear Itself. Or watch for games
the users of this license will build with it.
Notes appearing in italics within square brackets provide guidance for designers basing their
own games on these rules. Avoid unsought hilarity (and violation of the OGL) by remembering
to cut them from your finished manuscript.
This document provides text you can cut and paste into your games. It naturally assumes that
you have acquired a fundamental understanding of GUMSHOE by reading and extensively
playing at least one GUMSHOE game. When creating core rule books, you will want to interleave
this text with examples of your own devising, which show new readers how the rules work, and,
at the same time, convey the tone, spirit and entertainment value of your setting.
This open license document does not grant rights to use the settings of Pelgranes GUMSHOE
games. You might however use it as the basis for generic scenarios GMs can adapt to their horror,
space opera, or spy thriller GUMSHOE worlds of choice.

Your Character
Create player characters by choosing your character concept, investigative abilities, and
general abilities.
Investigative abilities allow you to find the information your character needs to move forward
in a mystery-solving narrative, plus occasional additional benefits.
General abilities help you survive while youre gathering information and solving problems.
You create characters by spending build points on your characters abilities. Each ability has a
numerical rating. Every rating point costs 1 build point to purchase.
The GUMSHOE rules define your character by what he or she can accomplish in an
investigative scenario. The component elements of each ability dont matter in rules terms. The
rules dont care if your Forensic Accounting ability is one part native mental acuity to two parts
training or vice versa, although you can mention them when describing your character to others.
All that matters is how you solve cases, and overcome other obstacles arising from them.

Ratings and Pools

The number you assign to each ability is called a rating. Although you may improve them
gradually over time, ratings remain static over the course of the typical game session.
For each ability your character has a pool of points, which fluctuates over the course of each
session. You begin each case, or scenario, with pool points equal to your rating. You might then
immediately spend some of them during a prelude phase to the investigation itself. You will
definitely spend points as you conduct the investigation. At times your pool may increase,

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 2
sometimes refreshing to equal its rating again.
The distinction between ratings and pools is a crucial one; keep it in mind as you read and
interpret the GUMSHOE rules.

Step One: Concept

[Describe the sorts of mystery-solving characters the players will play in your setting, and any
preliminary creative decisions each player will make about her character.]

Stereotypes
[In some games you may wish to guide players to choose genre-appropriate concepts by
supplying a list of stereotypes as a starting point in character creation.]

Sample Stereotype: Good Girl

The good girl is an ordinary young woman. If not chaste, she's more modest and circumspect
about her sexuality than the other young women in the cast of characters. Smart and cautious,
she becomes the ultimate prize of the shadowy forces stalking the groupoften proving herself
more determined to survive than those around her.
[From Fear Itself]

Packages
[In some games you may choose to give additional mechanical heft to the stereotypes by
turning them into Packages.]
Each package sets out minimum requirements in both Investigative and General abilities.
Before spending any points elsewhere, make sure you have those covered.

Sample Package: Communications Officer (Hailer)

You establish, receive and route communications with other ships, planetary installations, and
space stations. More than a glorified space receptionist, you serve as a combination of public
relations frontperson and psychological warrior. You facilitate the decision-making process of
the crew and convey its intentions to the outside world. In crisis situations, you keep vital
information flowing to the stratco, so that the right decisions get made at lightning speed.
During space combat, you launch hack attacks on the enemys computer system, while defending
your own from penetration.
Investigative: Linguistics 1, Flattery 1, Reassurance 1, Decryption 1, Data Retrieval 1
General: Communications Intercept 6, Sense Trouble 4
[From Ashen Stars]

Occupations
[A variant of the Package sub-system, the Occupation, appears in Trail of Cthulhu. Rather than

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 3
providing minimums to qualify for a package, an Occupation provides key abilities at half-price,
and often a Special mechanical benefit as well. Future Pelgrane GUMSHOE designs will likely
stick to the faster, simpler ability minimum approach found in Packages.]
You get two rating points in Occupational abilities for every one build point you spend. For
example, 12 rating points of Occupational abilities cost you 6 build points. Left over half-points
are lost, so assign an even number points to Occupational abilities.

Sample Occupation: Private Investigator

There are things that cops cant do, and things that cops wont do, and youll take money to do
either. Sometimes you get dragged into something the cops want you out of, but you gotta stay in
it to keep the cops honest. What keeps you honest? Now, thats the real mystery, aint it?
Occupational Abilities: Accounting, Disguise, Driving, Law, Locksmith, Photography,
Assess Honesty, Reassurance, Scuffling, Shadowing.
Special: Private eyes with point pools in Disguise or Shadowing may spend points after
rolling the die for a test. For every 2 points you spend after rolling the die, you increase the die
result by 1. This only applies if you are undistracted and not directly observed. It never applies
during a contest. You must describe the thing that almost went wrong, and how you caught it
barely in time or succeeded through sheer luck.
[From Trail of Cthulhu]

Step Two: Assign Investigative Abilities

Investigative abilities are central to any GUMSHOE character; they enable you to gather
information and drive the plot forward. The number of points each player spends on
investigative abilities varies according to the number of regularly attending players, according to
the following table. The GM leads the group through the list of investigative build points,
ensuring that each one of them is covered by at least one member of the group.
[Complete this chart with values based on the total number of investigative abilities you include
in your game. That number is x. The final numbers dont have to be dead on, so fudge them
upwards if desired for a prettier-looking numerical progression.]

# of players Investigative Build Points

2 80% of x
3 60% of x
4 55% of x
5+ 50% of x

Players who can only attend every now and then get the same number of investigative build
points as everyone else, but are not counted toward the total when deciding how many points to
allocate.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 4
Free Rating
[If your setting concept assumes all characters will have a particular ability (like Cop Talk if
everyone is a police officer), indicate what it is, and that everyone gets 1 rating point in it for free.]

What Good Are Investigative Ratings?

Players used to the bumbling half-competence of their characters in other investigative game
systems may be surprised to learn how effective even a single rating point is.
Any rating in an investigative ability indicates a high degree of professional accomplishment
or impressive natural talent. If you have an ability relevant to the task at hand, you automatically
succeed in discovering any information or overcoming any obstacles necessary to propel you
from the current scene further into the story.
You may ask to spend points to gain special benefits. Sometimes the GM will offer you the
chance to spend points. In other circumstances she may accept your suggestions of ways to gain
special benefits. Use them wisely; spent points do not return until the next investigation begins.
Once all of the abilities are covered, you are permitted, if you desire, to reserve any remaining
build points to spend as situations arise during play. You may assign yourself additional abilities,
or increase your ratings in the ones youve chosen, as seems appropriate to your character and the
situations she finds herself in. When you choose to do this, you are not suddenly acquiring
abilities on the spot, but simply revealing for the first time what the character has been able to do
all along.
If you want, you can save build points from character creation to spend later. If your GM is
running an ongoing series, you will accumulate additional build points during play.

Investigative Benchmarks
When choosing investigative abilities it is better to get a large number of abilities with fairly
low ratings. Even a 1-point rating is worth having. Youll rarely want to spend more than 3 or 4
points on any one investigative ability.
You must have an investigative ability at a rating of at least 1 to get useful information from it.

Step 3: Assign General Abilities

Each player gets 60 points to spend on general abilities, regardless of group size.
General abilities use different rules than investigative ones, which allow for possible failure.
They help you survive while you investigating. When choosing general abilities, youll want to
concentrate your points among a few abilities, giving your comparatively higher ratings than you
want in the investigative category.
[To support 60 as the value for general build points, include approximately 12 broadly useful
general abilities. Some games may also support specialized general abilities on top of the 12. You
may wish to assign an additional build pool to another class of general abilities unique to your
setting.]
You start the game with 1 point [each] in Health and [any other similar ablative ability

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 5
required for the settings genre emulation, like Stability in most GUMSHOE horror games.]
Although there is no set cap on abilities, the second highest rating must be at least half that of
the highest rating.

What Good are General Ratings?

General abilities use a different set of rules and are measured on a different scale than
investigative abilities. The two ability sets are handled in different way because they fulfill
distinct narrative functions. The rules governing general abilities introduce the possibility of
failure into the game, creating suspense and uncertainty. Uncertain outcomes make scenes of
physical action more exciting, but can stop a mystery story dead if applied to the collection of
information. This division may seem aesthetically weird when you first encounter it, but as you
grow used to the GUMSHOE system youll see that it works.
GUMSHOE focuses not on your characters innate traits, but on what they can actually do in
the course of a storyline. Why they can do it is up to each player. Your characters are as strong,
fast, and good-looking as you want them to be.

General Ability Benchmarks

A rating of 1-3 indicates that the ability is a sideline. 4-7 is solid but not off the charts. 8 or
more suggests a dedicated bad-assery that will be immediately apparent to observers when they
see you in action.

0-Rated General Abilities

If you have a rating of 0 in a general ability, that is you have put no build points into it, you
cannot make a test on that ability. That is not to say you can't do the thing at all; it's only if you
want to attempt something requiring a roll that you will not succeed. You character might be able
to drive, but with a Drive rating of 0 you will not be able to deal with a car chase or potential
crash.

Investigative Abilities
The following abilities are the bread and butter of GUMSHOE characters.
Ability descriptions consist of a brief general description, followed by examples of their use in
an investigation. Creative players should be able to propose additional uses for their abilities as
unexpected situations confront their characters.
Certain specific actions may overlap between a couple of abilities. For example, you can
enhance image resolution with either Data Retrieval or Photography.
Some abilities, like Research, are broadly useful, and will crop up constantly. Others may be
called for many times in the course of one scenario, and not at all in others. When building your
character, strike a balance between the reliable workhouse abilities and their exotic, specialized
counterparts.
Investigative abilities are divided into the following sub-groups: Academic, Interpersonal, and
Technical. The purpose of the sub-groups is to allow you to quickly find the best ability for the

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 6
task during play, by scanning the most likely portion of the overall list.
[Rewrite investigative ability descriptions and example bullet points as needed for your setting.
Rename abilities for desired flavor. Create new abilities keyed to your setting. Include only abilities
relevant to your setting in your game. Some investigative abilities tie into specific general abilities
and vice versa; make sure you either include both relevant abilities, or drop the cross-references
between them.]

Anthropology (Academic)
You are an expert in the study of human cultures, from the stone age to the Internet age.
You can:
identify artifacts and rituals of living cultures
describe the customs of a foreign group or local subculture
extrapolate the practices of an unknown culture from similar examples

Archaeology (Academic)
You excavate and study the structures and artifacts of historical cultures and civilizations. You
can:
tell how long something has been buried
identify artifacts by culture and usage
distinguish real artifacts from fakes
navigate inside ruins and catacombs
describe the customs of ancient or historical cultures
spot well-disguised graves and underground hiding places

Architecture (Academic)
You know how buildings are planned and constructed. You can:
guess what lies around the corner while exploring an unknown structure
judge the relative strength of building materials
identify a buildings age, architectural style, original use, and history of modifications
construct stable makeshift structures
identify elements vital to a buildings structural integrity

Art History (Academic)

Youre an expert on works of art from an aesthetic and technical point of view. You can:
distinguish real works from fakes
tell when something has been retouched or altered
identify the age of an object by style and materials

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 7
 call to mind historical details on artists and those around them

Astronomy (Technical)
You study celestial objects, including the stars, planets. You can:
decipher astrological texts
plot the movement of constellations
study and debunk UFO reports

Ballistics (Technical)
You process evidence relating to the use of firearms. You can:
identify the caliber and type of a bullet or casing found at a crime scene
determine if a particular gun fired a given bullet

Botany (Academic)
You study plants and fungi and can:
identify the likely environment in which a plant sample grew
identify plants which might be toxic, carnivorous, or otherwise dangerous
spot the symptoms of plant-derived poisonings

Bullshit Detector (Interpersonal)

You can tell when some people are lying. You must usually be interacting with them or
observing them from a close distance, but sometimes you can spot liars on television, too.
Unfortunately, nearly everyone lies, especially when facing possible trouble from the authorities.
Sometimes you can infer why theyre lying, but its hard to reliably discern motive or get at the
facts theyre working to obscure. This sense doesnt tell you what theyre lying about, specifically,
or see through their lies to the truth.
Not all lies are verbal. You can tell when a person is attempting to project a false impression
through body language.
Certain individuals may be so adept at lying that they never set off your bullshit detector.
Some people believe their own falsehoods. Psychopathic personality types lie reflexively and
without shame, depriving you of the telltale tics and gestures you use to sense when a person is
deceiving you. Sometimes you need leverage to get information out of people who you know are
lying re-interviewing suspects in the light of additional facts is a genre staple.

Bureaucracy (Interpersonal)
You know how to navigate a bureaucratic organization, whether its a governmental office or a
large business concern. You know how to get what you want from it in an expeditious manner,
and with a minimum of ruffled feathers. You can:
convince officials to provide sensitive information

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 8
 gain credentials on false pretences
find the person who really knows whats going on
locate offices and files
borrow equipment or supplies
Bureaucracy is not a catch-all information gathering ability. Bureaucrats wish to convey the
impression that they are busy and harried, whether or not they actually are. Most take a
profound, secret joy in directing inquiries elsewhere. When players attempt to use Bureaucracy
to gain information more easily accessible via other abilities (such as Research), their contacts
snidely advise them to do their own damn legwork.

Camping (Technical)
You are familiar with working and living outdoors and in the wild. You might be a farmer,
cowboy, or logger, or an amateur (or professional) fisher or hunter, or work for the Park Service.
Perhaps you were merely an Eagle Scout, grew up in the back of nowhere, or served in a military
unit with sufficient patrol experience in country. You can:
tell when an animal is behaving strangely
tell whether an animal or plant is natural to a given area
find edible plants, hunt, and fish
make fire and survive outdoors at night or in bad weather
navigate overland, albeit more easily with a compass and a map
track people, animals, or vehicles across grass or through forests
hunt with dogs, including tracking with bloodhounds, assuming you have friendly dogs
available

Chemistry (Technical)
Youre trained in the analysis of chemical substances. You can:
among a wide variety of other materials, identify drugs, pharmaceuticals, toxins,
and viruses
match samples of dirt or vegetation from a piece of evidence to a scene

Craft (Technical)
You can create useful physical objects, working with materials like wood, metal, jewelry, and
so forth. Although the resulting cabinets, kettles, or rings may be beautiful, your focus is utility,
not art. Like the Art ability, you may focus on one craft (blacksmithing, cabinetry, coopering, etc)
or diversify into many; the same rules apply.
You may be able to use your Craft ability to specific investigative ends: discover a secret drawer
in a desk if you are a cabinet-maker, and so forth.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 9
Comparative Religion (Academic)
You study religions in their various forms, both ancient and modern. You can:
supply information about religious practices and beliefs
quote relevant tags from the major scriptures
recognize the names and attributes of various saints, gods, and other figures of religious
worship and veneration
identify whether a given religious practice or ritual is orthodox or heretical
fake (or in some traditions, officiate at) a religious ceremony

Cop Talk (Interpersonal)

You know how to speak the lingo of police officers, and to make them feel confident and
relaxed in your presence. You may be a current or former cop, or simply the kind of person they
immediately identify as a solid, trustworthy citizen. You can:
coolly ply cops for confidential information
get excused for minor infractions
imply that you are a colleague, authorized to participate in their cases

Cryptography (Technical)
Youre an expert in the making and breaking of codes, from the simple ciphers of old-school
espionage tradecraft to the supercomputer algorithms of the present day.

Data Retrieval (Technical)

You use computer and electronic technology to retrieve and enhance information on hard
drives and other media. You can:
recover hidden, erased or corrupted computer files
increase the clarity of audio recordings, zeroing in on desired elements
miraculously find detailed, high-resolution images within a blurry video image or
blurry JPEG

Document Analysis (Technical)

Youre an expert in the study of physical documents. You can:
determine a documents approximate age
identify the manufacturer of paper used in a document
tell forged documents from the real thing
identify distinctive handwriting
match typed documents to the typewriters that produced them
find fingerprints on paper

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 10
Electronic Surveillance (Technical)
Youre adept at the use of sound recording equipment to gather evidence. You can:
trace phone calls
plant secret listening devices
locate secret listening devices planted by others
make high-quality audio recordings
enhance the quality of audio recordings, isolating chosen sounds

Evidence Collection (Technical)

Youre adept at finding, bagging and tagging important clues. You can:
spot objects of interest at a crime scene or other investigation site
note relationships between objects at a crime scene, reconstructing sequences of
events
store objects for forensic analysis without contaminating your samples

Explosive Devices (Technical)

Youre an expert in bombs and booby-traps. You can:
defuse bombs and traps
reconstruct exploded bombs, determining their materials, manufacture, and the
sophistication of the bomb-maker
safely construct and detonate explosive devices of your own

Fingerprinting (Technical)
Youre an expert in finding, transferring and matching fingerprints. This includes expertise in
the computer software used to compare sample fingerprints against large databases of criminal
defendants and government personnel.

Flattery (Interpersonal)
Youre good at getting people to help you by complimenting them, as subtly or blatantly as
they prefer. You can get them to:
reveal information
perform minor favors
regard you as trustworthy.

Flirting (Interpersonal)
Youre adept at winning cooperation from people who find you sexually attractive. You can get
them to:

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 11
 reveal information
help you in small ways
date you
Its up to you whether a high rating in Flirting means that you are physically alluring, or simply
exude a sexual magnetism unrelated to your looks.

Forensic Accounting (Academic)

You comb through financial data looking for irregularities. In the words made famous during
Woodward and Bernsteins investigation of the Watergate scandal, you know how to follow the
money. You can:
tell legitimate businesses from criminal enterprises
spot the telltale signs of embezzlement
track payments to their source

Forensic Anthropology (Technical)

You perform autopsies on deceased subjects to determine their cause of death. In the case of
death by foul play, your examination can identify:
the nature of the weapon or weapons used
the presence of intoxicants or other foreign substances in the bloodstream
the contents of the victims last meal
In many cases, you can reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the victims death from
the arrangement of wounds on the body.
You also perform DNA analysis on samples found at crime scenes, matching them to samples
provided by suspects.

Forensic Entomology (Technical)

You specialize in the relationship between corpses and the legions of insects who dine on
them. By studying eggs and larvae in a decomposing corpse you can:
determine approximate time of death
identify a crime scene, in the case of a dumped body

Forensic Psychology (Academic)

You apply psychological insight to the solving of criminal cases. From the details of a crime
scene, you can, based on past case studies of similar offenses, assemble a profile detailing the
perpetrators likely personal history, age, habits and attitudes.
You can also glean useful information from simple observation of certain individual, especially
as they react to pressure.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 12
Geology (Academic)
You are an expert on rocks, soils, minerals, and the primordial history of the Earth. You can:
analyze soil samples, crystals, minerals, and so forth
determine the age of a rock stratum
date and identify fossils
evaluate soil for agriculture or industry
identify promising sites for oil or water wells, mines, etc
anticipate volcanism, seismic events, avalanches, and other earth phenomena

High Society (Interpersonal)

You know how to hang with the rich and famous, and how to chat them up without getting
security called. You are comfortable with old money aristocracy, with the Davos elite, with the
televised chattering classes, and with the crassest of nouveau riche vulgarians and celebutantes.
Yachts, Gulfstreams, and three-star restaurants are your seeming natural habitat. You can:
dress fashionably for any occasion
get past the velvet rope at exclusive clubs and parties, or past the concierge at a four-star
hotel
drop brand names, allude to current trends, and generally blend in culturally with rich
scenesters of all types
identify the best wine, liquor, food, jewelry, and other luxury goods
successfully schmooze for an introduction to, e.g., a celebrity, elected official, or financier
recall specific or relevant gossip or news about the tastes, lifestyles, or sordid behavior of a
rich or famous person
know where and when the best parties, most culturally important openings, or other gala
events in any city are due to happen
score drugs or otherwise find the seamy side (if any) of high-society functions, happening
nightclubs, etc.
interact with the rich and famous as an accepted equal
Note that this ability does not necessarily convey any actual wealth or fame. The Director can,
if she wishes, allow an agent to use family connections or a liberated Company slush fund to
explain it.

History (Academic)
Youre an expert in recorded human history, with an emphasis on its political, military, and
economic and technological developments. You can:
recognize obscure historical allusions
recall capsule biographies of famous historical figures

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 13
 tell where and when an object made during historical times was fashioned
identify the period of an article of dress or costume

Impersonate (Interpersonal)
Youre good at posing as another person, whether briefly misrepresenting yourself during a
phone call or spending long periods undercover in a fictional identity.
Successfully disguising yourself as an actual person known to those youre interacting with is
extraordinarily difficult. Brief voice-only mimicry requires a spend of at least 1.
Face-to-face impersonation requires a spend of at least 2 to 3 points for every five minutes of
sustained contact between you and the object of your impersonation. Especially wary or
intelligent subjects cost more to hoodwink than dull-witted walk-on characters.

Inspiration (Interpersonal)
You convince reluctant witnesses to supply information by appealing to their better selves. After
a few moments of interaction you intuitively sense the positive values they hold dearest, then
invoke them in a brief but stirring speech.

Interrogation (Interpersonal)
Youre trained in extracting information from suspects and witnesses in the context of a
formal police-style interview. This must take place in an official setting, where the subject is
confined or feels under threat of confinement, and recognizes your authority (whether real or
feigned.)

Intimidation (Interpersonal)
You elicit cooperation from suspects by seeming physically imposing, invading their personal
space, and adopting a psychologically commanding manner. Intimidation may involve implied or
direct threats of physical violence but is just as often an act of mental dominance. You can:
gain information
inspire the subject to leave the area
quell a subjects desire to attempt violence against you or others

Languages (Academic)
For each rating point in Languages, you are verbally fluent and literate in one language other
than your native tongue. You may specify these when you create your character, or choose
opportunistically in the course of play, revealing that you just happen to speak Javanese when
circumstances require it. You are not learning the language spontaneously but revealing a
hitherto unmentioned fact about your character. You may elect to be literate in an ancient
language which is no longer spoken.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 14
Law (Academic)
You are familiar with the criminal and civil laws of your home jurisdiction, and broadly
acquainted with foreign legal systems. At a rating of 2 or more, you are a bar-certified attorney.
You can:
assess the legal risks attendant on any course of action
understand lawyerly jargon
argue with police and prosecutors

Linguistics (Academic)
You are an expert in the principles and structures underlying languages. You can probably
speak other Languages, but that is a separate ability that must be purchased separately. You can:
given a large enough sample of text, decipher the basic meaning of an unknown
language
identify the languages most similar to an unknown language
identify artificial, alien and made-up languages

Locksmith (Technical)
You can open doors and locks, and disarm alarms, without benefit of the key. (You can also
find convenient windows to jimmy or coal-cellar doors to force, if need be.) Many locks require
specialized tools, possession of which without a locksmiths license is a criminal offense in most
jurisdictions. Very complex or tricky locks may require spends to open them speedily, to avoid
noise or damage, or to relock afterward.
Using Locksmith is, in other words, a way to gather clues. A lock that wont open is like a
witness that wont talk or a bloodstain you cant find: antithetical to mystery-solving,
investigative-adventure design. Only safes, bank vaults, and the like locks that exist to drive
drama or conflict, rather than locks which merely hold clues require actual tests against
Difficulty.

Natural History (Academic)

You study the evolution, behavior, and biology of plants and animals. You can:
tell when an animal is behaving strangely
tell whether an animal or plant is natural to a given area
identify an animal from samples of its hair, blood, bones or other tissue
identify a plant from a small sample

Negotiation (Interpersonal)
You are an expert in making deals with others, convincing them that the best arrangement for
you is also the best for them. You can:

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 15
 haggle for goods and services
mediate hostage situations
swap favors or information with others

Occult Studies (Academic)

Youre an expert in the historical study of magic, superstition, and hermetic practice from the
stone age to the present. From Satanists to the Golden Dawn, you know the dates, the places, the
controversies, and the telling anecdotes. You can:
identify the cultural traditions informing a ritual from examining its physical
aftermath
supply historical facts concerning various occult traditions
guess the intended effect of a ritual from its physical aftermath
identify occult activities as the work of informed practitioners, teenage posers, or
bona fide Esoterrorists
Your knowledge of the occult is that of a detached, even disapproving, outsider. This ability
does not allow you to work magic or summon supernatural entities. Doing either of these things
is bad, the work of Esoterrorists. It weakens the fabric of reality and warps the practitioners
psyche. You can, at best, fake your way through a ritual while attempting to pass yourself off as a
believer. Even in this situation, your actions do not evoke supernatural effects. Your covertly
hostile presence may, in fact, be enough to prevent an Esoterror ritual from achieving efficacy.
As mentioned earlier, all characters built for the Esoterrorist setting get Occult Studies 1 for
free.

Oral History (Interpersonal)

You can find sources willing to talk, win their confidence, and gather (usually lengthy) oral
testimony about historical events, local traditions, folklore, family legend, or gossip. This is an
excellent way to do research in illiterate or semi-literate societies, and in rural or small-town
communities in general. This ability also covers taking shorthand notes or making recordings
without spooking your sources.

Pathology (Academic)
You are trained in carrying out medical examinations of living human subjects and forming
diagnoses based on your findings. You can
diagnose probable causes of sickness or injury
identify the extent and cause of an unconscious person's trauma
detect when a person is suffering from a physically debilitating condition such as drug
addiction, pregnancy or malnutrition
establish a person's general level of health
identify medical abnormalities

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 16
 If you have 8 or more points in Medic you get Pathology 1 for free.

Photography (Technical)
Youre proficient in the use of cameras, including still and video photography. You can:
take useful visual records of crime scenes
spot manual retouching or digital manipulation in a photographic or video image
realistically retouch and manipulate images

Reassurance (Interpersonal)
You get people to do what you want by putting them at ease. You can:
elicit information and minor favors
allay fear or panic in others
instill a sense of calm during a crisis

Research (Academic)
You know how to find factual information from books, records, and official sources. Youre as
comfortable with a card catalog and fiche reader as with an Internet search engine. The contacts
file on your personal digital assistant brims with phone numbers of exotic and useful contacts.

Respect (Interpersonal)
Your knowledge of social rituals allows you to gain information and favors with a culturally
appropriate show of respect for a subject. This ability applies to subjects who consider
themselves figures of authority, or who hold real or imagined power over you. By showing
respect, you preserve your status as well as the subjects.

Streetwise (Interpersonal)
You know how to behave among crooks, gang-bangers, druggies, hookers and other habitus
of the criminal underworld. You can:
deploy criminal etiquette to avoid fights and conflicts
identify unsafe locations and dangerous people
gather underworld rumors

Tradecraft (Interpersonal)
You know how to utilize the techniques of conventional espionage agents, and how to talk to
them if you must hold a meet. You can:
set up and check a dead drop
spot or conduct a brush pass or car toss
determine which agency trained a covert operative by examining his tradecraft,

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 17
 surveillance methods, etc.
identify good places for recognition signs, cleaning passes, etc.
recall notorious or relevant episodes of spying, covert ops, etc.
gather rumors in the covert ops world
make contact with operatives without scaring them off
convey information or threats elliptically without tipping off eavesdroppers

Textual Analysis (Academic)

By studying the content of texts (as opposed to their physical characteristics of documents)
you can draw reliable inferences about their authorship. You can:
determine if an anonymous text is the work of a known author, based on samples
of his work
determine the era in which a text was written
identify the writers region, and level of education
tell a real work by an author from a false one

Traffic Analysis (Technical)

You know how to boil down a mass of data probably raw signals intel, a tranche of phone
records, or possibly a whole lot of surveillance tapes and extract its meaning and patterns.
Given the data, you can:
determine which numbers in a set of phone records are calling who, when, about what
determine which cars in a citys traffic pattern are driving where, when, and how long
theyre staying there
find patterns in the data flow, e.g., more murders in August, or the same museum guard
on duty during all the incidents
work out the daily (and weekly, monthly, etc.) routine of an office, military base, museum,
etc. and answer questions like: When is payroll made? Who takes delivery of parcels?
When does the cleaning staff arrive?
find anomalies in the data flow, e.g., missing records or dogs that didnt bark
find weak spots in security that follows a regular pattern
identify the source of information (or disinformation) by tracking its route through the
system
assemble a communications or organizational picture of a social network such as a
criminal conspiracy, academic email list, or division of border guards

Trivia (Academic)
Youre a font of apparently useless information that would stand you in good stead as a
contestant on a quiz show. Youre especially good in the following spheres of interest:

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 18
 celebrities and entertainment
sports records and statistics
geography
arts and letters
names in the news
This catch-all ability also allows you to know any obscure fact not covered by another
GUMSHOE ability. (In moments of improvisatory desperation, your GM may allow you to
overlap with abilities which none of the players at the current session possess, or which no one is
thinking to use.)

Exotic Investigative Abilities

[Evocation of your setting and genre may prompt you to introduce general abilities allowing
characters to glean information via means, inherent or technological, unavailable to nonfictional
characters. Here are two examples.]

Analytic Taste
Your sense of taste is superhuman, and you have, by trial and error, trained yourself to use it as
a precision instrument. You function as a walking, talking chemical analysis lab, able to instantly
detect the composition of nearly any object you can touch your tongue to. By distinguishing fine
gradations of taste, you can, for example, match a sample of heroin to the precise batch it came
from, or conduct a comparative analysis of soil samples. Although you may for good reason be
reluctant to do so, you can even identify blood types from small samples, or derive similar
identifying or typing information from other bodily fluids.
Some individuals with analytic taste suffer from high revulsion thresholds and can only enjoy
the purest, most perfect foods. Others become inured to traditional pleasures associated with
the sense of taste, or become passionate connoisseurs of substances ordinary people consider
inedible.
When using this sense, you consume, at most, only trace quantities of the substances you test.
Analytic taste grants no ability to digest inedible matter.
Although this power grants no poison immunity, only the most toxic of substances will harm
you in the tiny trace quantities required for analysis.
{From Mutant City Blues]

Aura Reading
To those with the sight to see, every living organism is surrounded by a nimbus of energy. By
studying the color and movement of this energy, you gain insight into people and animals.
When you read a persons aura, you can:
examine the subjects general emotional state, determining which of the following
adjectives best fits his current condition:
joyful, depressed, angry, amused, confused, frightened, or relaxed. (Costs 2 points per

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 19
 attempt.)
tell whether the subject is healthy or determine if the subject is under the influence of a
spirit or other supernatural being. (Costs 4 points per attempt.)
[From Fear Itself]

General Abilities
[Rewrite general ability descriptions as needed for your setting. Rename abilities for desired
flavor. Create new abilities keyed to your setting. Include only abilities relevant to your setting in
your game. Some investigative abilities tie into specific general abilities and vice versa; make sure
you either include both relevant abilities, or drop the cross-references between them.]
Almost every General ability has a cherry, a feature that kicks in when the character has 8
rating points or more in it. Agents can always use that special benefit, even if their pool in that
ability has dropped to 0.
Some GUMSHOE iterations, including Nights Black Agents, permit the following:]
Many General abilities also function as Investigative abilities, either when used to gather a
clue (rather than to overcome opposition) or to interact with people devoted to those abilities
use: Hand-to-Hand, for example, can be used investigatively to infiltrate a dojo or gymnasium,
and to gather information or gossip from the clientele or managers.
[Some GUMSHOE games, like Ashen Stars, maintain a tighter separation between investigative
and general abilities, so that the general Business Affairs ability, used to keep a crews finances
humming, doesnt garner you the clues you get from the investigative Forensic Accounting ability.
To use this more restrictive approach, omit the above paragraph.]

Athletics
Athletics allows you to perform general acts of physical derring-do, from running to jumping
to dodging falling or oncoming objects. Any physical action not covered by another ability,
probably falls under the rubric of Athletics.
If your Athletics rating is 8 or more, your Hit Threshold, the Target Number your opponents
use when attempting to hit you in combat, is 4. Otherwise, your Hit Threshold is 3.

Business Affairs
You know how to run a profitable business.

Conceal
You can hide things from view and conceal them from search. Your methods might include
camouflage, holding items out on your person, snaking things into drawers unobserved,
building secret compartments, or even altering a things visual signature with paint or plaster.
This ability also allows you to discover things intentionally concealed.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 20
Disguise
This is the skill of altering your own appearance, posture, and voice to be unrecognizable.
Disguising others in anything more complex than a baseball cap or false mustache is good only
for brief periods, as posture and body language are vital components in any successful disguise.
This ability also covers selling yourself as a different person: vocal mannerisms, altered body
language, dress and motion sense, and realistic-seeming reactions.
Successfully disguising yourself as an actual person already known to those youre interacting
with is extraordinarily difficult. Brief voice-only mimicry pits you against a Difficulty of 4. Face-
to-face impersonation requires a successful roll against a Difficulty of 7 for every five minutes of
sustained contact between you and the object of your impersonation.

Driving
Youre a skilled defensive driver, capable of wringing high performance from even the most
recalcitrant automobile, pick-up truck, or van. You can:
evade or conduct pursuit
avoid collisions, or minimize damage from collisions
spot tampering with a vehicle
conduct emergency repairs
For every additional rating point in Driving, you may add an additional vehicle type to your
repertoire. These include: motorcycle, transport truck, helicopter, or airplane. You may choose
exotic types, like hovercrafts and tanks, although these are unlikely to see regular use in an
investigation-based game.

Explosives
Youre an expert in bombs and booby-traps. You can:
defuse bombs and traps
handle nitroglycerine or other dangerously unstable materials with relative safety
given time, blow open safes or vaults without damaging the contents
mix explosive compounds from common chemicals
safely construct and detonate explosive devices or booby-traps of your own
Explosives doubles as an investigative ability when used to:
reconstruct exploded bombs
for any bomb (exploded or unexploded), determine the method and materials of the
bomb-maker, and deduce his sophistication, background, and skill

Filch
Your nimble fingers allow you to unobtrusively manipulate small objects. You can:
pilfer clues from a crime scene under the very noses of unsuspecting authorities

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 21
 pick pockets
plant objects on unsuspecting subjects

Fleeing
Although you are not a strong overall athlete, you can boot it like a bat out of hell when
chased by dangerous people, beings, or moving objects.
If your Fleeing rating is more than twice your final Athletics rating, you can buy rating points
in Fleeing above the value at a reduced rate, getting 2 rating points for each build point spent.
Hence, if your Athletics rating is 0, all your Fleeing is half-price.

Gambling
You are conversant with the rules and etiquette of all forms of gambling, from Texas hold em
and roulette to horse racing and numbers rackets. To win (or strategically lose) at a game of
chance or sporting flutter requires a Gambling test, or a contest if played against an NPC with
the Gambling ability. In addition to playing by the rules and winning, you can:
spot cheating, either by the house or by another player
stack a deck, rig a horse race, load dice, or otherwise cheat
Palming cards, tiles, or dice is allowed as a Gambling test; anything else requires Conceal or
Filch.
Gambling doubles as an Investigative ability when used to:
calculate the odds of events ruled by probabilities
use Bullshit Detector on professional gamblers despite their poker faces
interact with gamblers and blend in at casinos

Health
Health measures your ability to sustain injuries, resist infection, and survive the effects of
toxins1. When you get hit in the course of a fight, your Health pool is diminished. A higher
Health pool allows you to stay in a fight longer before succumbing to your injuries.
When your Health pool is depleted, you may be dazed, wounded, or pushing up the daisies.
For more on this, see Exhaustion, Injury and Gruesome Death.

Hypnosis
This ability represents medical hypnosis as depicted in pulpy genre sources; it is not psychic
mesmerism or Dr Caligari-style mind control. You can only hypnotize a willing subject, and only
one subject at a time. Using Hypnosis requires a Test against a Difficulty Number that varies
depending on what you are using it for.
Simple hypnotic state: To place a patient in a hypnotic trance, you must succeed against
Difficulty 3. During this trance, she is calm and placid.
1

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 22
 Establish analytic rapport: Once you have successfully hypnotized a patient, your
Psychoanalysis pool increases by 3 during any future use of Psychoanalysis on them. Your
Psychoanalysis rating must be at least 3 to gain this benefit, and the 3 points must be spent on
the patient.
Recover memories: The patients fragmented or buried memories, as of dreams, traumas, or
murky monster attacks, can be called to the surface and relived. This is a Difficulty 4 test.
Reliving an experience that cost Stability will cost the patient the same amount again, although
you may practice immediate Psychological Triage to minimize the patients shock. The GM is free
to provide false memories if she feels you are leading the witness.
Post-hypnotic suggestion: Upon lifting the trance, you may cause your patient to perform a
single action without apparent thought. You may require a trigger phrase or simply specify a
time: (When you get home, youll leave the book on the desk.) Spells and other complex
activities cannot be post-hypnotically induced. The patient will not accept a suggestion contrary
to her normal behavior. This is a Difficulty 4 or higher test; the GM may increase the Difficulty
based on the suggestion.
Ease pain: You can relieve symptomatic pain in a patient. This removes the mechanical
penalties for being hurt and lasts until the patient is wounded again. This is a Difficulty 4 or
higher test; the GM may increase the Difficulty depending on the pains severity. This does not
work under battlefield conditions.
False memories: You can purposely implant false memories in the patient or bury real ones.
This is extremely unethical without a direct therapeutic benefit (such as easing a remembered
trauma). This is a Contest between your Hypnosis and the patients Stability. Your Difficulty
Number is 5; the patient resists with Difficulty 4. Again, the GM may increase your Difficulty
based on the severity of the memory change. At the GMs discretion, if the patient suffers a
further trauma (such as her Stability dropping below -5 again), she may suddenly recall the
truth.

Infiltration
Youre good at placing yourself inside places you have no right to be. You can:
pick locks
deactivate or evade security systems
move silently
find suitable places for forced entry, and use them
Despite its name, Infiltration is as useful for getting out of places undetected as if its for
getting into them.

Mechanics
Youre good at building, repairing, and disabling devices, from classic pit-and-pendulum traps
to DVD players. Given the right components, you can create jury-rigged devices from odd bits of
scrap. Mechanics doubles as an investigative ability when used to:

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 23
 evaluate the quality of workmanship used to create an item
determine the identity of a handmade items maker by comparing to known work
by that individual
[You may wish to maintain the flavor of certain settings by splitting this into multiple
disciplines, each specializing in its own particular subset of technology.]

Medic
You can perform first aid on sick or injured individuals. For more on the use of this ability, see
Exhaustion, Injury, and Death.
If you have 8 or more points in Medic, you get 1 point in Pathology.

Piloting
You can fly one or more airborne vehicles. You can:
evade or conduct pursuit
anticipate bad weather
avoid collisions, or minimize damage from collisions
spot tampering with a vehicle
navigate by compass or the stars, read maps, and maintain a sense of direction
conduct emergency repairs
[You may require the player to specify a particular type of craft, gaining 1 vehicle per 2 rating
points. Rewrite to reflect the air vehicles prevalent in your setting. In some settings you might
include water craft in this ability.]

Preparedness
You expertly anticipate the needs of any mission by packing a kit efficiently arranged with
necessary gear. Assuming you have immediate access to your kit, you can produce whatever
object the team needs to overcome an obstacle. You make a simple test; if you succeed, you have
the item you want. You neednt do this in advance of the adventure, but can dig into your kit bag
(provided youre able to get to it) as the need arises.
Items of obvious utility to a paranormal investigation do not require a test. These include but
are not limited to: note paper, writing implements, laptop computer, a PDA with wireless
Internet access, mini USB drive, cell phone, various types of tape, common tools and hardware,
light weapons, flashlights of various sizes, chem lights, batteries, magnifying glasses,
thermometer, and a no-frills audio recording device.
The utility of traditional anti-supernatural accoutrements such as crucifixes, holy water, and
silver bullets is a matter of great debate within the Ordo Veritatis. Whether you choose to include
them in your basic kit reveals your attitude toward the supernatural. Is it purely the work of the
Esoterrorists, or are there other unnatural forces out there? Decide for yourself, and pack wisely.
Other abilities imply the possession of basic gear suitable to their core tasks. Characters with

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 24
Medic have their own first aid kits; Photographers come with cameras and accessories. If you
have Shooting, you have a gun, and so on. Preparedness does not intrude into their territory. It
covers general-purpose investigative equipment, plus oddball items that suddenly come in handy
in the course of the story.
The sorts of items you can produce at a moments notice depend not on your rating or pool,
but on narrative credibility. If the GM determines that your possession of an item would seem
ludicrous or and/or out of genre, you dont get to roll for it. You simply dont have it. Any item
which elicits a laugh from the group when suggested is probably out of bounds.
Inappropriate use of the Preparedness ability is like pornography. Your GM will know it when
she sees it.

Public Relations
You manage the public image of your team or others. You unruffle feathers, burnish
reputations, downplay failures, and trumpet successes.
When keeping the locals onside during a case, the GM may allow you to spend Reassurance or
Respect points on Public Relations tests.

Riding
Although staying on a tame, untroubled walking horse (on flattish terrain, anyway) is
relatively easy once one gets the hang of it, and staying on a mule or burro even easier, you are a
gifted equestrian. You can gallop even recalcitrant or spirited horses, donkeys, and mules past
distractions and across the countryside. You can:
evade or conduct mounted pursuit
care for, groom, shoe, and stable mounts
take care of, prepare, and use riding gear such as saddles and bridles
calm a nervous mount
drive a horse-drawn wagon or cart
wield a weapon while riding
For every additional 2 rating points in Riding, you may add an additional riding animal: camel,
water buffalo, or elephant.

Scuffling
You can hold your own in a hand-to-hand fight, whether you wish to kill, knock out, restrain,
or evade your opponent.
[To preserve the flavor of certain settings you may wish to break this out into two abilities, for
armed and unarmed close combat.]

Sense Trouble
Keen perceptions allow you to spot signs of potential danger to yourself and others.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 25
Information gained from this ability might save your skins but doesnt directly advance the
central mystery. You might use it to:
hear someone sneak up on you
see an obscured or hidden figure
smell a gas leak
have a bad feeling about this
Players never know the Difficulty Numbers for Sense Trouble before deciding how many
points to spend, even in games where GMs generously inform the players of other Difficulty
Numbers. Players must blindly choose how much to spend.
When more than one player is able to make a Sense Trouble test, the group decides which of
them makes the attempt. Only one attempt per source of trouble occurs, conducted by the
chosen PC.

Shrink
You can provide comfort, perspective and solace to the mentally troubled. You may be a
therapist or counselor, a priest or pastor, or just a empathetic and intuitive individual. You can
restore panicked characters to a state of calm, and treat any long-term mental illnesses they
accrue in the course of their investigations.

Shooting
You are adept with firearms.

Stability
Jarring or stressful events can exert a damaging long- psychological toll. Your Stability rating
indicates your resistance to mental trauma.
You get Stability 1 for free.

Surveillance
Youre good at following suspects without revealing your presence. You can:
guide a team to follow a suspect for short periods, handing off to the next in
sequence, so the subject doesnt realize hes being trailed
use telescopic viewing equipment to keep watch on a target from a distance
find undetectable vantage points
hide in plain sight
perceive (either with sight or other senses) potential hazards to yourself or
others.
8 or more points in Surveillance grants you 1 free point of the investigative ability Electronic
Surveillance.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 26
Exotic General Abilities
[Fidelity to your setting and genre may prompt you to introduce general abilities allowing
characters to perform fantastical actions impossible in our world, or to interact with imaginary
technologies. Here are some samples.]
It costs 5 build points to gain a rating of 1 in any [exotic general ability] and 1 build point for
each additional build point after 1.

Mutant Power: Blood Spray

You can perform a ranged attack in which you send a high-pressure spray of your own blood
gushing from your mouth. You hit your target on a successful Blood Spray test. If you hit, the
opponent must make an Athletics test, the Difficulty of which equals 4 plus any Blood Spray
points you spent on the attack. If he fails the test, he is knocked over and must, in lieu of his next
attack, make an Athletics test (against the same Difficulty) in order to regain his footing. If he
fails, he continues to slip on the blood, losing further attacks until he finally succeeds.
A blood spray attack inspires instinctive revulsion. Anyone within direct visual range must
make a Stability test or suffer the urge to flee. Victims with the Olfactory Center power add your
Blood Spray pool to the Difficulty of this test.
Characters who do not flee suffer ill effects while they remain able to see and smell your
blood: their Hit Thresholds decrease by 1, and the Hit Thresholds of anyone theyre attempting to
attack effectively increases by 1.
In addition to any Blood Spray points you spend, each use of this power costs you 3 Health
points. Health points lost to Blood Spray use can be refreshed with a large meal of red meat,
washed down with large quantities of orange juice or a similarly sugary drink, followed by an
hours nap.
[From Mutant City Blues]

Pathway Amplification
You can heighten another minds ability to recall, process and interpret information. Once per
episode, you may designate a PC recipient and an investigative ability that character possesses.
The PC adds your Pathway Amplification rating to his pool in that ability. The pool refreshes to
normal at the cases conclusion.
[From Ashen Stars]

Viroware Enhancement: Dominator

You emit pheromones provoking the instinct of intelligent beings to obey high-status individuals
in a social hierarchy. When an interaction with a supporting character has turned against you,
spend 4 points from your Bureaucracy, Cop Talk, Downside, Interrogation, and/or Intimidation
pools. The GM then plays the character, subtly or overtly, as if you have gained the upper hand.
The subject must be within 4m of you when you first initiate the effect.
[From Ashen Stars]

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 27
Cherries
[In some games, you may wish to trick out general abilities with the following fillip:]
Almost every General ability has a cherry, a feature that kicks in when the character has 8
rating points or more in it. Agents can always use that special benefit, even if their pool in that
ability has dropped to 0.

Example Cherry: Crackers Crypto

If your Digital Intrusion rating is 8 or more, you get 1 free rating point in the Investigative ability
Cryptography. You can also encrypt your teams electronic communications against all but
government-level (NSA, GCHQ, MID, DGSE, GRU, Unit 8200, etc.) cracking.
[From Nights Black Agents]

Potential Points
[Useful in some settings; best when restricted to one, or a few, abilities you wish to highlight.]
Some abilities are more abstruse, difficult, or complex than others, enough so that they cant
simply be bought from scratch during character improvement. They require a prerequisite:
teaching by a master, learning from an ancient text, or some other specific in-game experience.
That prerequisite experience conveys potential points in the ability; when the character spends
build points from experience on that ability, she can only do so up to her potential.

Drives
[In some games you may wish to require players to select drives for their characters, ensuring
that their characters are well motivated to get into the kinds of investigative trouble the genre
demands.]
Each PC follows a drive, a personal motivation giving him, her or it good reason to act
heroically and curiously. By following your drive, you keep the story moving and ensure that your
behavior is in keeping with the [insert name of genre] genre.

Sample Drive: Altruism

You instinctively act for the benefit of others, especially when theyre unable to help themselves.
As far as youre concerned, the fees the crew earns for its cases are just a means to an end. They
keep the ship operational and the group sufficiently equipped to go out and do good in the
world. If the Combine were still active, you might well have signed on with them as a patrol
officer. Without them, the need for strong men and women to act selflessly is greater than ever.
This sector of space has taken some hard knocks, and people are scared and discouraged. But if
enough folks put the common good over their own petty interests, somedaymaybe someday
soonthe Bleed will go back to what it was before the war.
[From Ashen Stars]

The GUMSHOE Rules System

This section describes the basic GUMSHOE rules system and is addressed to players and GM

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 28
alike. But first bear with us for a little explanatory theory.

Why This Game Exists

GUMSHOE speeds and streamlines the time-honored form of the investigative roleplaying
game. The central question a traditional RPG asks is:
Will the heroes get the information they need?
Assuming that they look in the right place and apply appropriate abilities to the task,
GUMSHOE ensures that the heroes get the basic clues they need to move through the story. The
question it asks is:
What will the heroes do with the information once theyve got it?
If you think about it, this is how the source materials we base our mystery scenarios on handle
clues. You dont see the forensic techies on CSI failing to successfully use their lab equipment, or
Sherlock Holmes stymied and unable to move forward because he blew his Zoology roll.
You dont see this because, in a story failure to gain information is rarely more interesting than
getting it. New information opens up new narrative possibilities, new choices and actions for the
characters. Failure to get information is a null result that takes you nowhere.
In a fictional procedural, whether its a mystery novel or an episode of a cop show, the
emphasis isnt on finding the clues in the first place. When it really matters, you may get a
paragraph telling you how difficult the search was, or a montage of a CSI team tossing an
apartment. But the action really starts after the clues are gathered.
Investigative scenarios are not about finding clues, theyre about interpreting the clues you do
find.
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. Thats when the fun part begins, when the
players try to put the components of the puzzle together.
Thats hard enough for a group of armchair detectives, without withholding half the pieces
from them. Every investigative scenario begins with a crime or conspiracy committed by a group
of antagonists. The bad guys do something bad. The player characters must figure out who did it
and put a stop to their activities.
When you do see information withheld from characters, its seldom portrayed as a failure on
the part of the competent, fact-gathering heroes. Instead the writers show an external force
preventing them from applying their abilities. In a space opera show, you might get the
proverbial ion storm that prevents the crew from scanning the planet before they go down.
Information is only withheld when it makes the story more interestingusually by placing the
heroes at a handicap while they move forward in the storyline. In GUMSHOE terms, theyre not
trying to get an available clue and failing; theyre using an ability for which no clue is available.
Historically, story-based roleplaying, of which investigative games were an early if not the
earliest example, evolved from dungeon-bashing campaigns. They treat clues the same way that
dungeon games treat treasure. You have to search for the clue that takes you on to the next scene.
If you roll well, you get the clue. If not, you dontand the story grinds to a halt.
However, treasure gathering isnt the main event in a dungeon game. There, the central

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 29
activity is killing the monsters and enemies who live in the dungeon. The treasure-finding phase
comes afterwards, as a mere reward. If you dont get all the treasure in a room, you lose out a bit,
but the story keeps going, as you tromp down the hallway to the next monster-filled chamber.
Imagine a dungeon game where you always had to roll well to find another room to plunder, or
sit around feeling frustrated and bored.
Many of our favorite roleplaying games use the traditional roll-to-get-a-clue model. You may
have been lucky enough to play in them without ever seeing your game ground to a halt after a
failed information roll. Perhaps your GM, or the scenario designer, has carefully crafted the
adventure so that you never have to get any specific clue to advance the story.
More likely, your GM adjusts on the fly to your failed rolls, creating elaborate workarounds
that get you the same information by different means. When you think about it, these
runarounds moments are essentially time killers. They bring about a predetermined, necessary
result while giving you the illusion of randomness and chance. GUMSHOE cuts out these filler
moments in favor of scenes that actually advance the story. With the time saved, you can
construct more detailed, compelling mysteries for the players to sort out. Thats where the
streamlining comes in.
If youve never had a game stop dead on a missed clue, you may naturally figure that it never
happens to anyone. Having run GMing seminars at conventions for years, I can assure you that
this is not the case. People come up to me all the time to share their horror stories of games that
literally go nowhere on a blown spot test. This should not be surprising. GMs are doing what the
rules tell them to do, and failing to see the unwritten rule that they should then spend five to
twenty minutes of game time introducing a workaround.
GUMSHOE gives you the rules you should actually use as written, and skips the workaround.
But even if youve never noticed this problem, 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.

Mystery Structure
[Alter as needed for your genre.]
Every investigative scenario begins with a crime, conspiracy, or other act of disorder
committed by a group of antagonists. The bad guys do something bad. The player characters
must figure out who did it and put a stop to their activities.
Your GM designs each scenario by creating an investigation trigger, a sinister conspiracy, and a
trail of clues.
The investigation trigger. This is the event, that attracts the attention of investigators.
The discovery of a murder victim, obviously slain during a ritualistic killing.
The discovery of a corpse slain by supernatural means, perhaps by a creature.
Sightings of supernatural creatures or phenomena.
The sinister conspiracy. This sets out who the bad guys are, what theyve done so far, what

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 30
theyre trying to do, and how the investigation trigger fits into the overall scheme. The GM also
determines what has to happen to prevent the plot from going forward. This, unknown to the
players, is their victory condition what they have to do to thwart the bad guys and bring the
story to a positive conclusion.
Once the GM has the logic of the story worked out from the villains point of view, she then
thinks in reverse, designing a trail of clues leading from the investigation trigger to an
understanding of the sinister plot and its players, sufficient to get to work destroying it.
Optionally, the GM may also plan a series of antagonist reactions. These lay out what the
bad guys do when they find out that theyre being investigated. The GM determines what
conditions trigger them, and what the antagonists attempt to do. These may include further
crimes, giving the team more to investigate. They may try to destroy evidence, hinder the
investigation by planting false leads, or to intimidate or dispose of potential witnesses, including
accomplices they no longer trust. They may attack the investigators. Foolish, overconfident or
risk-taking antagonists may take them on directly. Clever antagonists will strike from a distance,
taking great pains to cover their tracks.
Ordinary crime dramas may call for a simpler structure. The bad guys could still be furthering
a sinister plot, or they may be doing nothing after committing the triggering crime other than
hoping that the investigators dont catch up with them. In this case there is no ongoing
conspiracy to disrupt. To achieve victory and bring the scenario to a successful conclusion, the
investigators need merely prove their case against the criminals. The climactic scene might
involve wringing a confession from the wrongdoer, or provoking him into revealing the crucial
bit of evidence which will ensure his conviction.

From Structure To Story

The GMs structure notes are not a story. The story occurs as you, the team of players, brings
the structure to life through the actions of your characters. The story proceeds from scene to
scene, where you determine the pace, discovering clues and putting them together. Your
characters interact with locations, gathering physical evidence, and supporting characters run by
the GM, gathering expert and eyewitness testimony.
The first scene presents the mystery you have to solve. You then perform legwork, collecting
information that tells you more about the case. Each scene contains information pointing to a
new scene. Certain scenes may put a new twist on the investigation, as the initial mystery turns
out to be just one aspect of a much bigger story. As clues accumulate, a picture of the case
emerges, until your characters arrive at a climactic scene, where all is revealed and the bad guys
confronted. A wrap-up scene accounts for loose ends and shows the consequences of your
successor, in rare instances, failure. (Why is failure possible at all? Its possibility creates
urgency and suspense.)
To move from scene to scene, and to solve the overall mystery, you must gather clues. They
fuel your forward momentum.
[[[BEGIN SIDEBAR]]]

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 31
Tip For Players: Containing Speculation
Investigative scenarios often bog down into speculative debate between players about what
could be happening. Many things can be happening, but only one thing is. If more than one
possible explanation ties together the clues you have so far, you need more clues.
Whenever you get stuck, get out and gather more information.
[[[END SIDEBAR]]]

Gathering Clues
Gathering clues is simple. All you have to do is: 1) get yourself into a scene where relevant
information can be gathered and 2) have the right ability to discover the clue and 3) tell the GM
that youre using it. As long as you do these three things, you will never fail to gain a piece of
necessary information. It is never dependent on a die roll. If you ask for it, you will get it.
You can specify exactly what you intend to achieve: I use Textual Analysis to determine if the
memo was really written by Danziger.
Or you can engage in a more general informational fishing expedition: I use Evidence
Collection to search the crime scene.
If your suggested action corresponds to a clue in the scenario notes, the GM provides you the
information arising from the clue.
Some clues would be obvious to a trained investigator immediately upon entering a scene.
These passive clues are provided by the GM without prompting. Scenarios suggest which clues
are passive and which are active, but your GM will adjust these in play depending on how much
guidance you seem to need. On a night when youre cooking with gas, the GM will sit back and
let you prompt her for passive clues. When youre bogging down, she may volunteer what would
normally be active clues.

Core Clues
For each scene, the GM designates a core clue. This is the clue you absolutely need to move to
the next scene, and thus to complete the entire investigation. GMs will avoid making core clues
available only with the use of obscure investigative abilities. (For that matter, the character
creation system is set up so that the group as a whole will have access to all, or nearly all, of these
abilities.) The ability the GM designates is just one possibility, not a straight jacket if players
come up with another plausible method, the GM should give out the information.
Some clues would be obvious to a trained investigator immediately upon entering a scene.
These passive clues are provided by the GM without prompting. Scenarios suggest which clues
are passive and which are active, but your GM will adjust these in play depending on how much
guidance you seem to need. On a night when youre cooking with gas, the GM will sit back and
let you prompt her for passive clues. When youre bogging down, she may volunteer what would
normally be active clues.

Special Benefits
Certain clues allow you to gain special benefits by spending points from the relevant

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 32
investigative ability pool. During your first few scenarios, your GM will offer you the opportunity
to spend additional points as you uncover these clues. After that its also up to you to ask if it
theres anything to be gained by spending extra time or effort on a given clue. You can even
propose specific ways to improve your already good result; if your suggestion is persuasive or
entertaining, the GM may award you a special benefit not mentioned in her scenario notes.
Each benefit costs either 1 or 2 points from the relevant pool, depending on the difficulty of
the additional action and the scope of the reward. When asking you if you want to purchase the
benefit, the GM always tells you how much it will cost. Additional information gained provides
flavor, but is never required to solve the case or move on to a new scene. Often it makes the
character seem clever, powerful, or heroic. It may grant you benefits useful later in the scenario,
frequently by making a favorable impression on supporting characters. It may allow you to leap
forward into the story by gaining a clue that would otherwise only become apparent in a later
scene. On occasion, the additional information adds an emotional dimension to the story or ties
into the characters past history or civilian life. If you think of your GUMSHOE game as a TV
series, an extra benefit gives the actor playing your character a juicy spotlight scene.
The act of spending points for benefits is called a spend. The GMs scenario notes may specify
that you get Benefit X for a 1-point spend, or Benefit Y for a 2-point spend. Sometimes minor
non-core information is available at no cost.
GMs of great mental agility who feel comfortable granting their players influence over the
details of the narrative may allow them to specify the details of a special benefit.
If you wish to make a spend in a situation where the GM has no special benefit to offer you,
and cannot think of one that pertains at all to the investigation, you do not lose the points you
wish to spend.

Inconspicuous Clues
Sometimes the characters instinctively notice something without actively looking for it. Often
this situation occurs in places theyre moving through casually and dont regard as scenes in need
of intensive searching. The team might pass by a concealed door, spot a droplet of blood on the
marble of an immaculate hotel lobby, or approach a vehicle with a bomb planted beneath it.
Interpersonal abilities can also be used to find inconspicuous clues. The classic example is of a
character whose demeanor or behavioral tics establish them as suspicious.
Its unreasonable to expect players to ask to use their various abilities in what appears to be an
innocuous transitional scene. Otherwise theyd have to spend minutes of game time with every
change of scene, running down their abilities in obsessive checklist fashion. That way madness
lies.
Instead the GM asks which character has the highest current pool in the ability in question.
(When in doubt for what ability to use for a basic search, the GM defaults to Evidence
Collection.)
If two or more pools are equal, it goes to the one with the highest rating. If ratings are also
equal, their characters find the clue at the same time.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 33
Simple Searches
Many clues can be found without any ability whatsoever. If an ordinary person could credibly
find a clue simply by looking in a specified place, the clue discovery occurs automatically. You,
the reader, wouldnt need to be a trained investigator to find a bloody footprint on the carpet in
your living room, or notice a manila envelope taped to the underside of a table at the local pub.
By that same logic, the Investigators dont require specific abilities to find them, either. When
players specify that theyre searching an area for clues, theyre performing what we call a simple
search.
Vary the way you run simple searches according to pacing needs and the preferences of your
group. Some players like to feel that their characters are interacting with the imaginary
environment. To suit them, use a call-and-response format, describing the scene in a way that
suggests places to look. The player prompts back by zeroing in on a detail, at which point you
reveal the clue:
You: Beside the window stands a roll-top desk.
Player: I look inside!
You: You find an album full of old photographs.
At other times, or for players less interested in these small moments of discovery, you might
cut straight to the chase:
You: You find an album full of old photographs in the roll-top desk.
In the first case, the player who first voices interest in the detail finds the clue. In the second,
it goes to, at your discretion:
the character to whom the clue seems most thematically suited (for example, if youve
established as a running motif that Agent Jenkins always stumbles on the disgusting
clues, and this clue is disgusting, tell his player that hes once again stepped in it)
a player who hasnt had a win or spotlight time for a while
the character with the highest Evidence Collection rating

Die Rolls
All die rolls in GUMSHOE use a single ordinary (six-sided) die.

Tests
A test occurs when the outcome of an ability use is in doubt. Tests apply to general skills only.
Unlike information gathering attempts, tests carry a fairly high chance of failure. They may
portend dire consequences if you lose, provide advantages if you win, or both.
Even in the case of general skills, the GM should call for tests only at dramatically important
points in the story, and for tasks of exceptional difficulty. Most general ability uses should allow
automatic successes, with possible bonuses on point spends, just like investigative abilities.
There are two types of test: simple tests and contests.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 34
Simple Tests
A simple test occurs when the character attempts an action without active resistance from
another person or entity. Examples include driving a treacherous road, jumping a gorge,
sneaking into an unguarded building, binding a wound, shooting a target, disconnecting a
security system, or remaining sane in the face of creeping supernatural horror.
In the game world, expenditure of pool points in this way represents special effort and
concentration by the character, the kind you can muster only so many times during the course of
an investigation.
The GM does not reveal Difficulty Numbers beforehand. This rule is meant to force players to
decide how much they want to commit to the situation, with the gnawing emotional dissonance
that comes from the possibility of making the wrong move.

Difficulty Numbers and Story Pacing

Just as the GUMSHOE system keeps the story moving by making all crucial clues accessible to
the characters, GMs must ensure that tests and contests essential to forward narrative
momentum can be easily overcome. Assign relatively low Difficulty Numbers of 4 or less to these
crucial plot points. Reserve especially hard Difficulty Numbers for obstacles which provide
interesting but nonessential benefits.
For example, if the characters have to sneak into the cannibal campground in order to stage
the final confrontation, assign the relatively low Difficulty Number of 4 to the task. If it seems to
the characters that they ought to have a tougher time of it, insert a detail justifying their ease of
success. The cannibal assigned to patrol duty might be found passed out at his post, say.
Where it is essential to overcome a General obstacle in order to reach a core scene, allow
success whatever the result, but give a negative consequence other than failure for the test. For
example, the PC climbs a fence, but receives an injury. This rule never protects characters from
Health or Stability loss.
The test represents the characters best chance to succeed. Once you fail, youve shot your wad
and cannot retry unless you take some other supporting action that would credibly increase your
odds of success. If allowed to do this, you must spend more pool points than you did on the
previous attempt. If you cant afford it, you cant retry.

Piggybacking
When a group of characters act in concert to perform a task together, they designate one to
take the lead. That character makes a simple test, spending any number of his own pool points
toward the task, as usual. All other characters pay 1 point from their relevant pools in order to
gain the benefits of the leaders action. These points are not added to the leaders die result. For
every character who is unable to pay this piggybacking cost, either because he lacks pool points
or does not have the ability at all, the Difficulty Number of the attempt increases by 2.
In most instances a group cannot logically act in concert. Only one character can drive a car at
one time. Two characters with Preparedness check their individual kits in sequence, rather than
checking a single kit at the same time.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 35
Cooperation
When two characters cooperate toward a single goal, they agree which of them is undertaking
the task directly, and which is assisting. The leader may spend any number of points from her
pool, adding them to the die roll. The assistant may pay any number of points from his pool. All
but one of these is applied to the die roll.

Continuing Challenges
For tasks where drama, verisimilitude or suspense call for a feeling of repeated effort, assign
the obstacle a pool representing the base Difficulty of doing it all at once unaided: this will
generally be 8 or higher, often much higher. The tests per se use the standard Difficulty of 4.
The players may take turns, cooperate on each action, or use any other means at their disposal
in a series of tests: Athletics to batter down a door, or Digital Intrusion to penetrate a firewall, for
example. The points they roll and spend accumulate; when they have enough points to overcome
the initial Difficulty, the task is done. No points or rolls spent on a failed test add to the total.
Characters cant render an impossible task possible just by applying the continuing challenge
rules.

Zero Sum Contests

A zero sum contest occurs when something bad or good is definitely going to happen to one of
the PCs, and you need to find out which one takes the hit. Each player makes a test of a general
ability. A zero sum contest can be positive or negative. In a positive contest, the character with
the highest result gets a benefit. In a negative contest, the one with the lowest result suffers an ill
consequence. When embarking on a contest with an open Difficulty, inform the players that this
is an open Difficulty, and whether this is a positive or negative test. They then decide in advance
how many points to spend to modify their rolls, keeping this number secret from other players
by writing it down on a piece of paper. They then roll the dice, reveal their expenditures, and
announce their final results. You can cap the maximum spend.
Be cautious when treating events with negative outcomes as zero sum contests. Because they
guarantee that something bad will definitely happen to one of the PCs, make sure that the
negative consequence is distressing but does no permanent harm to the character.
Worse results of zero sum contests are acceptable if the characters have had some other fair
chance to avoid exposure to the bad situation.
If players are tied for best result (in the case of a positive test) or worst (in a negative test), the
tied players may subsequently spend any number of additional points from the pool in question,
in hopes of breaking the tie in their favor. Should results remain tied after additional
expenditures, the GM chooses the winner based on story considerations.

General Spends
Occasionally youll want to create a task at which there is no reasonable chance of failure, but
which should cost the characters a degree of effort. To do this, simply charge the character(s) a
number of points from relevant general ability pools. Where tasks can be performed by

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 36
cooperative effort, multiple characters may contribute points to them. 1 or 2 points per character
is a reasonable general spend.

Making General Tests Without Abilities

[Decide whether you want your game to be unforgiving (grim settings, horror atmosphere) or
heroic (upbeat settings featuring omni-competent protagonists), then choose your options from
the two choices below.]
[Forgiving]:
You can always make a test of any general ability, even when you have no points in its pool, or
even if you have a rating of 0.
[Unforgiving]:
You can always make a test of any general ability if your rating is 1 or more, whether or not you
currently have points in its pool. You can never test a general ability when your rating is 0.

Lucky Shots
[Forgiving settings only.]
In a desperate situation, you may be called on to use an general ability you don't have. Once
per episode, a character with a rating of 0 in a given ability may attempt a lucky shot. The other
players must grant unanimous permission for the character to try a lucky shot. They have a
vested interest because the once-per-episode rule applies to the entire cast. If they let you use the
lucky shot, none of them will be able to try it later on.
If allowed to go forward, you spend up to 4 points from your highest current general ability
pool, and add it to your roll.
Should you succeed, you get the result you wanted, but are required to describe the outcome
as somehow fluky or embarrassing. Thus you preserve the sense that the players who invested
real points in the ability are the real masters, and you succeeded through sheer happenstance.
Alternately, you can succeed with a straight face, but then explain how the victory really belongs
to the PC with the highest rating in the ability. Maybe she taught you a few tricks between
episodes. Or perhaps you remember something bad-ass she did earlier, and are simply aping it
now.

Toll Tests
[First seen in Ashen Stars, you might find this rule worth including in settings where the
investigators regularly build things, or encounter other situations more about cost-benefit than
pass-fail.]
In a toll test, your success is assured, if you want it enough, but the cost of your effort is not.
The GM informs you of the Difficulty; you roll the die without announcing an expenditure. Once
you see the die result, you then decide whether to spend the points needed to bridge the gap
between die roll and Difficulty, or to allow yourself to fail. The base Difficulty of a toll test is 6,
which may be modified upwards as circumstances warrant.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 37
Contests
Contests occur when two characters, often a player character and a supporting character
controlled by the GM, actively attempt to thwart one another. Although contests can resolve
various physical match-ups, in a horror game the most common contest is the chase, in which
the investigators run away from slavering entities intent on ripping them limb from limb.
In a contest, each character acts in turn. The first to fail a roll of the contested ability loses.
The GM decides who acts first. In a chase, the character who bolts from the scene acts first.
Where the characters seem to be acting at the same time, the one with the lowest rating in the
relevant ability acts first. In the event of a tie, supporting characters act before player characters.
In the event of a tie between player characters, the player who arrived last for the current session
goes first in the contest.
The first character to act makes a test of the ability in question. If he fails, he loses the contest.
If he succeeds, the second character then makes a test. This continues until one character loses,
at which point the other one wins.
Typically each character attempts to beat a Difficulty Number of 4.
Where the odds of success are skewed in favor of one contestant, the GM may assign different
Difficulties to each. A character with a significant advantage gets a lower Difficulty Number. A
character facing a major handicap faces a higher Difficulty Number. When in doubt, the GM
assigns the lower number to the advantaged participant.
Throughout the contest, GM and players should collaborate to add flavor to each result,
explaining what the characters did to remain in the contest. That way, instead of dropping out of
the narration to engage in an arithmetical recitation, you keep the fictional world verbally alive .

Fighting
Fights are slightly more complicated contests involving any of the following abilities:
Scuffling vs. Scuffling: the characters are fighting in close quarters.
Shooting vs. Shooting: the characters are apart from one another and trying to hit
each other with guns or other missile weapons
Initiative: Determine whether the character who attempts to strike the first blow seizes the
initiative and therefore gets the first opportunity to strike his opponent, or if his intended target
anticipates his attack and beats him to the punchor shot, as the case may be.
As GUMSHOE is player-facing, how this works depends on whether the PC in the situation is
the aggressor or the defender.
In a Scuffling contest, the PC gets to go first if his Scuffling rating equals or exceeds that of his
target.
In a Shooting contest, he gets to go first if his Shooting rating exceeds that of his target.
Otherwise, the opponent goes first.
In the rare instance where two PCs fight one another (when one of them is possessed, say), the
PC with the higher applicable rating (Scuffling or Shooting) goes first. If their ratings tie but
their pools do not, the one with the higher pool goes first. If both are tied, roll a die, with one

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 38
player going first on an odd result and the other on even.
A contest proceeds between the two abilities. When combatants using the Scuffling or
Shooting abilities roll well, they get the opportunity to deal damage to their opponents.
Hit Thresholds: Each character has a Hit Threshold of either 3 (the standard value) or 4 (if
the characters Athletics rating is 8 or more.) The Hit Threshold is the Difficulty Number the
characters opponent must match or beat in order to harm him. Less competent supporting
characters may have lower Hit Thresholds. Creatures may have Hit Thresholds of 4 or higher,
regardless of their Athletics ratings.
Dealing Damage: When you roll on or over your opponents Hit Threshold, you may deal
damage to him. To do so, you make a damage roll, rolling a die which is then modified according
to the relative lethality of your weapon, as per the following table:
Weapon Type Damage
Modifier
Fist, kick 2
Small improvised weapon, police 1
baton, knife
Machete, heavy club, light firearm 0
Sword, heavy firearm +1
For firearms, add an additional +2 when fired at point blank range.
Supernatural creatures often exhibit alarmingly high damage modifiers.
Characters may never spend points from their combat pools to increase their damage rolls.
The final damage result is then subtracted from your opponents Health pool. When a
combatants Health pool drops to 0 or less, that combatant begins to suffer ill effects, ranging
from slight impairment to helplessness to death; see sidebar.
Unlike other contests, participants do not lose when they fail their test rolls. Instead, theyre
forced out of the fight when they lose consciousness or become seriously wounded.

Exhaustion, Injury and Death

Unlike most abilities, your Health pool can drop below 0.
When it does this, you must make a Consciousness Roll. Roll a die with the absolute value 2 of
your current Health pool as your Difficulty. You may deliberately strain yourself to remain
conscious, voluntarily reducing your Health pool by an amount of your choice. For each point
you reduce it, add 1 to your die result. The Difficulty of the Consciousness roll is based on your
Health pool before you make this reduction.
If your pool is anywhere from 0 to 5, you are hurt, but have suffered no permanent injury,
beyond a few superficial cuts and bruises. However the pain of your injuries makes it impossible
to spend points on Investigative abilities, and increases the Difficulty Numbers of all tests and

2
In other words, treat the negative number as a positive. For example, if your Health pool is at
3, the Difficulty of the roll is 3, and so on.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 39
contests, including opponents Hit Thresholds, by 1.
A character with the Medic ability can improve your condition by spending Medic points. For
every Medic point spent, you regain 2 Health pointsunless you are the Medic, in which case
you gain only 1 Health point for every Medic point spent. The Medic can only refill your pool to
where you were before the incident in which you received this latest injury. He must be in a
position to devote all of his attention to directly tending to your wounds.
If your pool is between 6 and 11, you have been seriously wounded. You must make a
Consciousness roll.
Whether or not you maintain consciousness, you are no longer able to fight. Until you receive
first aid, you will lose an additional Health point every half hour. A character with the Medic
ability can stabilize your condition by spending 2 Medic points. However, he cant restore your
Health points.
Even after you receive first aid, you must convalesce in a hospital or similar setting for a period
of days. Your period of forced inactivity is a number of days equal to the positive value of your
lowest Health pool score. (So if you were reduced to 8 Health, you are hospitalized for 8 days.)
On the day of your discharge, your Health pool increases to half its maximum value. On the next
day, it refreshes fully.
When your pool dips to 12 or below, you are dead. Time to create a replacement character.

Bigger Fights
Combat becomes more chaotic when two groups of combatants fight, or a group gangs up
against a single opponent.
If one group of combatants is surprised by the other (see sidebar), the surprising side goes
before the surprised side.
Otherwise, determine initiative as follows.
Close-up fight: if any PC has a Scuffling rating equal to or greater than than any combatant
on the other side, the PCs act first.
Shoot-out: if any PC has a Shooting rating equal to or greater than than any combatant on
the other side, the PCs act first.
Shoot-outs may devolve into scuffles; this does not alter the already-established initiative
order.
The time it takes to go through the ranking order once, with each character taking an action,
is called a round. When one round ends, another begins.
In the course of each round, either the PCs or their enemies go first, as already established by
the initiative order. Then the other side responds. The order in which the two sides act remains
unchanged from round to round.
During the portion of the round devoted to the PCs, each participating PC makes an attack in
sequence, according to the players seating order, from left to right. Sequence becomes
irrelevant, obviously, when only one PC is participating (or still standing) in the fight.
In their portion of the round, opponent(s) respond with their own wave of attack attempts,

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 40
ordered by the characters theyre targeting, again using a left to right player seating order. Where
multiple opponents attack a single PC, the GM determines their order of action in whatever
manner she finds convenientusually the order in which shes tracking them in her rough notes.
The order of action can therefore change slightly from round to round for the PCs opponents,
but not for the PCs.
Some beings may strike more than once per round. They make each attack in succession, and
may divide them up between opponents within range, or concentrate all of them on a single
enemy. GMs order these attacks in whatever order they find convenient, so long as they fall
within portion of the round devoted to enemy attacks. Usually its easiest to have them act
against multiple PCs at once, starting when they reach the first target in the seating order
When called upon to act, each character may strike at any opponent within range of his
weapons.
Creatures may choose to use their actions to deal additional damage to downed or helpless
opponents rather than engage active opponents. They automatically deal once instance of
damage per action. Only the most crazed and bestial human enemies engage in this behavior.
Characters who join a combat in progress come last in order of precedence. If more than two
characters join during the same round, the GM determines their relative precedence using the
rules above.
The fight continues until one side capitulates or flees, or all of its members are unconscious or
otherwise unable to continue.

Surprise
Player characters are surprised when they find themselves suddenly in a dangerous situation.
Avoid being surprised with a successful Surveillance test. The basic Difficulty is 4, adjusted by
the opponents Stealth Modifier.
Player characters surprise supporting characters by sneaking up on them with a successful
Infiltration or Surveillance test. The basic Difficulty is 4, adjusted by the opponents Stealth
modifier.
Surprised characters suffer a +2 increase to all general ability Difficulties for any immediately
subsequent action. In a fight, the penalty pertains to the first round of combat.

Armor
Armor may reduce the damage from certain weapon types. If youre wearing a form of armor
effective against the weapon being used against you, you subtract a number of points from each
instance of damage dealt to you before applying it to your Health pool. Light body armor, as worn
by police officers, reduces each instance of damage from bullets by 2 points and from cutting and
stabbing weapons (knives, swords, machetes) by 1 point. Military-grade body armor reduces
bullet damage by 3 points.
Light body armor is heavy, hot, and marks you out as someone looking for trouble. All of these
drawbacks apply doubly to military-grade body armor. Investigators cant expect to walk around
openly wearing armor without attracting the attention of the local SWAT team. Armor and heavy

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 41
weapons may prove useful in discrete missions conducted away from prying eyes.
In choosing to make contemporary body armor highly effective against firearms, were
drawing on the portrayal of Kevlar vests in cop shows and movies. We make no claims for any
resemblance between these rules and real life. The rules also favor close-up physical
confrontations, which are more in keeping with the horror genre than firefights. GMs using the
GUMSHOE rules in more realistic, horror-free investigative settings may wish to reduce the
effectiveness of body armor against gunfire.
Creatures often have high armor ratings. They may possess hard, bony hides or monstrous
anatomies that can take greater punishment than ordinary organisms. Most supernatural
creatures are more resistant to bullets and other missile weapons than they are to blunt force
trauma, slashes, and stab wounds.
[Delete or modify references to supernatural creatures as needed for your genre.]

Cover
In a typical gunfight, combatants seek cover, hiding behind walls, furniture or other barriers,
exposing themselves only for the few seconds it takes them to pop up and fire a round at their
targets. The GUMSHOE rules recognize three cover conditions:
Exposed: No barrier stands between you and the combatant firing at you. Your Hit Threshold
decreases by 1.
Partial Cover: About half of your body is exposed to fire. Your Hit Threshold remains
unchanged.
Full Cover: Except when you pop up to fire a round, the barrier completely protects you from
incoming fire. Your Hit Threshold increases by 1.

One Gun, Two Combatants

If your opponent has a gun well in hand and ready to fire, and you charge him from more than
five feet away, he can empty his entire clip or chamber at you before you get to him, badly
injuring you. You are automatically hit. He rolls one instance of damage, which is then tripled.
Yes, we said tripled. And, yes, the tripling occurs after weapon modifiers are taken into account.
This is why few people charge when their opponents have the drop on them.
If your opponent has a pistol but it is not well in hand and ready to fire, you may attempt to
jump him and wrestle it from his grip. If he has a pistol well in hand but is unaware of your
presence, you may also be able to jump him, at the GMs discretion. The characters engage in a
Scuffling contest to see which of them gets control of the gun and fires it. The winner makes a
damage roll against the loser, using the pistols Damage Modifier, including the +2 for point
blank range.
If you jump an opponent with an unready rifle, a Scuffling combat breaks out, with the
opponent using the rifle as a heavy club.

Ammo Capacity
The Esoterrorists sets aside the loving attention to firearm intricacies characteristic of most

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 42
contemporary-era RPG systems. For example, characters need reload only when dramatically
appropriate. Otherwise, theyre assumed to be able to refill the cylinders of their revolvers or jam
clips into their automatic weapons between shots.
When reloading is an issue, GMs may request a Shooting test (Difficulty 3) to quickly reload.
Characters who fail may not use their Shooting ability to attack during the current round.

Range
The effect of range on firearms combat is likewise simplified nearly out of existence.
Handguns and shotguns can only be accurately fired at targets within fifty meters. The range
limit for rifles is one hundred meters.

Non-Lethal Weapons
In GUMSHOE, non-lethal attacks never take an opponent out faster than standard combat.
Otherwise players will have their characters simply knock their enemies out and kill them in cold
blood, which is unsympathetic and out of genre. Thus tasers and stun guns work less effectively
in the game than in real life.

Fighting Without Abilities

A character with a Shooting rating of 0 is not allergic to guns. Anyone can pick up a revolver
and empty it in the general direction of the foe. Likewise, a character with no Scuffling ability is
not going to just ignore the fire axe sitting on the wall when a blood bursts through a partition
wall.
However, such characters will use their weapons ineffectively and hesitantly. Using a weapon
(including fists or feet) without ability has the following drawbacks:
You automatically do an additional -2 damage
You must declare your action at the beginning of each round and cannot change it if
the tactical situation alters.
You automatically go last in each round.
If you are using a firearm, a roll of 1 means you have accidentally shot yourself or one
of your allies, as selected (or rolled randomly) by the GM. Do damage as normal
(including your automatic -2 penalty).

Called Shots
[Use only for especially combat-oriented GUMSHOE games.]
In certain situations simply hitting an enemy isnt enough: you need to get him in a particular
spot. When taking a called shot, specify the desired location of the strike and any additional
intended effect other than injury to the opponent. The GM decides whether this is a likely
outcome of such a hit. If it is clearly not a likely outcome, and your character would logically
know this, she warns you in advance, so you can do something else instead.
The GM then adds 1 to 4 points to the targets Hit Threshold, depending on the additional
difficulty entailed. Use the following table as a guideline. Body locations assume a human of

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 43
ordinary size. Hit Threshold modifiers for ordinary body parts of extraordinary creatures are left
as an exercise for the GM. Vehicle locations are in italics.

Modifier to
Desired Location Hit Threshold

Large carried object (rocket launcher, +1

laptop computer, backpack)
Torso, windshield +1
Chest (if attacker is facing target) +2
Gut, specific window, tail rotor +2
Head or limb +2
Hand or foot, joint, tire +3
Heart, throat, mouth, or face +3
Weapon or other hand-held object +3
Eye, headlight +4
Chest (if target faces away from +4
attacker)

With the new Hit Threshold determined, you then make a combat ability test, as per the
standard rules. If you succeed, your specified effect occurs as desired.
If you struck an ordinary person in the head, throat, or chest with a weapon, add +2 to the
damage; hitting the heart adds +3 to the damage. Neither can be combined with a point-blank
gunshot, which is already assumed to hit a vital location.
If you struck an ordinary person in a joint (wrist, knee, etc.) or throat with an aimed hand-to-
hand blow, lock, or kick, add +2 to the damage; hitting an eye adds +3 to the damage.
This assumes a trained, targeted strike intended to disable or cripple. You may narrate some
other crippling strike to suit your own specific martial arts idiom, but the modifiers remain the
same if you want to do the extra damage.
If, after this damage is dealt, the victim is already Hurt but not Seriously Wounded, you may
then pay an additional 6 points from the fighting ability you are using to reduce the target to -6
Health. If the target is already Seriously Wounded you may then pay an additional 6 Shooting,
Weapons, or Hand-to-Hand points (whichever applies) to kill the target outright.

Combat Options
[Games featuring extensive fight sequences may benefit from the addition of combat options.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 44
Examples include Nights Black Agents and the Special Suppression Forces series frame for The
Esoterrorists.
Combat options provide extra benefits during a fight. They require:
that the character meet a prerequisite rating in one or more fighting-related General
abilities
and/or
the expenditure of points from one or more fighting-related General abilities.

Example Combat Option: Mook Shield

Prereq: Hand-to-Hand 8+
If you have a Hand-to-Hand rating of 8 or more, you can drag a convenient mook, henchman,
or minion into the path of incoming gunfire. Spend 3 Hand-to-Hand points and then make a
Hand-to-Hand attack against any mook in Point-Blank range, or 3 Hand-to-Hand and 2
Athletics and then make a Hand-to-Hand attack against any mook in Close range. (Those points
do not add to your attack.) If no mook is closer than Near range, you cannot use Mook Shield.
If you succeed, all ranged attacks that miss you hit the mook instead until your next turn; the
mook can do nothing. Additionally, the mook provides -4 Armor against incoming fire, losing 4
points of Health for each bullet that hits you. Holding a mook up in front of you gives you full
cover, and increases your normal Hit Threshold by 1. On your next turn, you may fire a weapon,
but must either drop the mook (or, more likely, his corpse) or spend 3 additional Shooting points
to fire from under his arm.
[From Nights Black Agents]

[Many combat options and cherries allow an immediate ability pool refresh. For example:]

Example Combat Option: Martial Arts

Characters with a Scuffling rating of 8 can specify that they are trained in one or more martial
arts. Once per fight, their players may gain a 4-point Scuffling refresh by uttering a brief,
evocative narrative description of his or her elegantly bone-crunching moves:
With a flowing Kata Gurama, I try to sweep him up onto my shoulder and down to the
pavement.
Using my krav maga training, I target the back of his knee with a pivoting, angled kick.
Remembering the sweat and humidity of that sweltering Bangkok gym so long ago, I
summon up all my strength to tag him with a ferocious cross jab.
At the GMs discretion, especially poetic or believably obscure descriptions may fetch a 5-
point refresh.
These utterances neednt be improvised; players can prepare key phrases in advance, then
adapt them to the situation at hand.
[From The Esoterror Fact Book.]

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 45
Running Away
Fleeing from an ongoing fight requires an Athletics test. The Difficulty is 3 plus the number of
foes you're fleeing from: to flee one enemy is Difficulty 4, fleeing two enemies is Difficulty 5,
fleeing four enemies is Difficulty 7. On a success, melee ends and you flee; if they intend to chase
you, your foes must roll first in the ensuing full contest of Athletics. If you fail, the opponent
with the highest damage value automatically deals one instance of damage to you. Melee still
ends, but you must roll first in the ensuing chase.
In situations where it seems appropriate to make flight more difficult, on a failure, any directly
engaged opponent might spend 3 Athletics to block you from fleeinginterposing himself
between you and the exit, tackling you, slamming the garage doors, or whatever the narrative
description warrants. In this case, your enemies forgo the damage they would otherwise deal.

Stability Tests
[Not all genres require a system for psychological resistance. In horror games, Stability marks the
downward spiral of your diminishing faculties. In Mutant City Blues, its just a resistance to
mental attacks. Ashen Stars doesnt use it at all. Adjust as needed for your setting.]
Mental stresses can take you out of commission, temporarily or permanently, as easily as
physical injury.
When an incident challenges your fragile sanity, make a Stability test against a Difficulty
Number of 4.
If you fail, you lose a number of Stability points. The severity of the loss depends on the
situation. As with any other test of a general ability, you are always permitted to spend Stability
points to provide a bonus to your roll. However, its never a good bet to spend more points than
you stand to lose if you fail.
Your Stability loss from failed tests is capped at the worst incident in that scene. Points spent
on providing bonuses are still lost.
Incident Stability
Loss
A human opponent attacks you with evident intent to do serious 2
harm
You are in a car or other vehicle accident serious enough to pose a 2
risk of injury
A human opponent attacks you with evident intent to kill 3
You see a supernatural creature from a distance 3
You see a supernatural creature up close 4
You see a particularly grisly murder or accident scene 4
You learn that a friend or loved one has been violently killed 4
You discover the corpse of a friend or loved one 6
You are attacked by a supernatural creature 7

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 46
 You see a friend or loved one killed 7
You see a friend or loved one killed in a particularly gruesome 8
manner

GMs should feel free to assess Stability Losses for other incidents, using the examples
provided as a benchmark. Some especially overwhelming creatures may impose higher than
normal Stability losses when seen from a distance, seen up close, or ripping your lungs out.
Characters make a single roll per incident, based on its highest potential Stability loss.
Groups craving an additional point of complexity can occasionally alter Difficulty Numbers for
Stability tests depending on the characters attitude toward the destabilizing event. Characters
who would logically be inured to a given event face a Difficulty of 3, while those especially
susceptible face a 5. A character whose daytime identity is that of a surgeon or coroner might, for
example, face a lowered Difficulty when encountering gruesomely mutilated bodies. A stock car
racer would get a better chance against car accidents. No character type gets a break when
encountering supernatural creatures.

Losing It
Like Health, your Stability pool can drop below 0.
If your Stability ranges from 0 to 5, you are shaken.
Difficulty Numbers for all general abilities increase by 1, and it becomes more difficult to use
investigative abilities.
If you want to make an Investigative spend, make a test with the absolute value3 of your
current Stability pool as your Difficulty. You may deliberately strain yourself, voluntarily reducing
your Stability pool by an amount of your choice. For each point you reduce it, add 1 to your die
result. The Difficulty of the Stability test is based on your Stability pool before you make this
reduction. If you fail, you still make the spend, but you should roleplay this failure.
If your Stability ranges from 6 to 11, you acquire a mental illness.
This stays with you even after your Stability pool is restored to normal. See below for more.
You also continue to suffer the ill effects of being shaken. Furthermore, you permanently lose 1
point from your Stability rating. The only way to get it back it to purchase it again with build
points.
When your Stability reaches 12 or less, you are incurably insane. You may commit one last
crazy act, which must either be self-destructively heroic or self-destructively destructive. Or you
may choose merely to gibber and drool. Assuming you survive your permanent journey to the
shores of madness, your character is quietly shipped off to a secure Ordo Veritatis psych facility,
never to be seen again. Time to create a new character.

3
In other words, treat the negative number as a positive. For example, if your Stabilty pool is
at 3, the Difficulty of the roll is 3, and so on.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 47
Mental Illness
[Alter as needed for the flavor of your setting.]
If the incident that drove you to mental illness was mundane in nature, you suffer from Post-
Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD.) You are haunted by dreams of the incident, and spend your
days in a constant state of anxiety and alert, as if prepared for it to repeat itself at any moment.
Whenever your senses register any input reminding you of the incident, you must make a
Stability test (Difficulty 4) or freeze up. If you freeze up, you are unable to take any action for
fifteen minutes and remain shaken (see above) for twenty-four hours after that. Tests to see if
you show symptoms of PTSD do not in and of themselves lower your Stability pool.
If driven to mental illness by a supernatural occurrence, you face a range of possible mental
disorders. The GM rolls on the following chart or chooses a disorder based on the triggering
circumstance. The player is then sent out of the room, while the GM and other players
collaborate on a way to heighten his sense of dislocation and disorientation.
1. Delusion. The other players and GM decide on a mundane detail of the world which is
no longer true and has never been true. For example, there might be no such thing as a
squirrel, a Volkswagen, or orange juice. Maybe John Lennon was never assassinated, or
never existed in the first place. PCs and supporting characters deny knowledge of the
chosen item, person, or event.
2. Homicidal Mania. The GM takes the player aside, tells him that he knows one of the
other players is a supernatural creature, and tells him just how to kill the monster.
3. Megalomania. When the character fails at a dramatic moment, the GM describes the
outcome of his ability attempt as successful, then asks the player to leave the room. Then
the GM describes the real results to the other players, and invites the megalomaniac
player back into the room.
4. Multiple Personality Disorder. At moments of stress, another player is assigned control
of the character, speaking and acting as if hes an entirely different person.
5. Paranoia. The other players are instructed to act as if theyre trying to keep straight faces
when the affected player returns. Occasionally they exchange notes, make hand signals to
the GM, or use meaningless code words, as if communicating something important the
player is unaware of.
6. Selective Amnesia. The group decides on an event that did happen in the world that the
player has now forgotten all about. Hes married, or killed someone, or pseudonymously
written a best-selling book. Everyone he meets refers to this new, verifiable fact that he
has no knowledge of.

Psychological Triage
A character with the Shrink ability can spend points from that pool to help another character
regain spent Stability points. For every Shrink point spent, the recipient gains 2 Stability points.
If a character is acting in an erratic manner due to mental illness, a another character can
spend 2 points of Shrink to snap him into a state of temporary lucidity. He will then act rationally
for the remainder of the current scene.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 48
Head Games
Mental illness can be cured through prolonged treatment using the Shrink ability. At the
beginning of each scenario, in a prologue scene preceding the main action, the character
administering the treatment makes a Shrink test (Difficulty 4.) After three consecutive successful
tests, and three consecutive scenarios in which the patient remains above 0 Stability at all times,
the mental illness goes away.
However, if the character ever again acquires a mental illness, he regains the condition he was
previously cured of. Permanent cure then becomes impossible.
A successful Shrink test undertaken during the course of a scenario suppresses its symptoms
until the patient next suffers a Stability loss.

Regaining Pool Points

Spent points from various pools are restored at different rates, depending on their narrative
purpose.
Investigative ability pools are restored only at the end of each case, without regard to the
amount of time that passes in the game world. Players seeking to marshal their resources may
ask you how long cases typically run, in real time. Most groups finish scenarios over 2-3 sessions.
Players may revise their sense of how carefully to manage point spending as they see how quickly
their group typically disposes of its cases.
(GMs running extremely long, multi-part investigations may designate certain story events as
breakpoints where all investigative pools are refreshed. For example, a globe-hopping
investigation where the team meets a separate team of Esoterrorists enemies in five different
locales might allow refreshment of investigative pools after each group of enemies is
neutralized.)
Use of the Shrink ability permits limited recovery of Stability points in the course of an
episode. Full refreshment occurs between cases. It is possible only when the character is able to
spend calm, undisturbed quality time with friends and loved ones uninvolved in the shadowy
world of the Ordo Veritatis. In campaigns where the teammates personal lives are a matter of
background detail only, refreshment automatically occurs between episodes.
GMs who wish to add a soap opera element to their campaigns, in which the characters must
balance the everyday pressures of ordinary life against their activities as covert battlers of the
supernatural, can complicate this process. In this campaign type, the characters must work to
keep their support networks intact. If they fail, they regain no Stability between episodes. As part
of the character creation process, players must detail their network of friends and loved ones in a
paragraph or two of background text, which is then submitted to the GM for approval.
The Health pool refreshes over time, at a rate of 2 points per day of restful activity. (Wounded
characters heal at a different rate, over a period of hospitalization.) Use of the Medic ability can
restore a limited number of Health points in the course of a session.
Pools for the physical abilities of Athletics, Driving, Scuffling, and Shooting are fully restored
whenever twenty-four hours of game-world time elapses since the last expenditure. The
remaining general abilities refresh at the end of each case, like investigative abilities.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 49
[[[BEGIN SIDEBAR]]]

What Do Pool Points Represent?

Pool points are a literary abstraction, representing the way that each character gets his or her
own time in the spotlight in the course of an ensemble drama. When you do something
remarkable, you expend a little bit of your spotlight time. More active players will spend their
points sooner than less demonstrative ones, unless they carefully pick and choose their moments
to shine.
Remember, all characters are remarkably competent. Pool points measure your opportunities
to exercise this ultra-competence during any given scenario. Even when pools are empty, you still
have a reasonable chance to succeed at a test, and youll always get the information you need to
move forward in the case.
Pool points do not represent a resource, tangible or otherwise, in the game world. Players are
aware of them, but characters are not. The team members ignorance of them is analogous to TV
characters obliviousness to commercial breaks, the unwritten rules of scene construction, and
the tendency of events to heat up during sweeps.
We represent this most purely in the case of investigative skills, which are the core of the
game. Their refreshment is tied to a purely fictional construct, the length of the episode.
However, where a pool could be seen to correspond to a resource perceptible to the characters,
we handle refreshment in a somewhat more realistic, if also abstract, manner. Characters ebbing
Health scores are perceptible to the characters in the form of welts, cuts, pain, and general
fatigue4. Stability is less tangible but can be subjectively measured in the characters moods and
reactions. Physical abilities, also tied to fatigue and sharpness of reflexes, are also handled with a
nod to the demands of realism.
[[[END SIDEBAR]]]

Improving Your Character

At the end of each investigation, each player gets 2 build points for each session they
participated in. (This assumes a small number of 3-4 hour sessions; if you play in shorter bursts,
modify accordingly.) Players who had characters die in the course of the investigation only get
points for each session involving their current character.
These build points can be spent to increase either investigative or general abilities. You may
acquire new abilities or bolster existing ones. If necessary to preserve credibility, rationalize new
abilities as areas of expertise youve had all along, but are only revealing later in the series.

Opponent Statistics
You usually only need game statistics for characters, including ODEs, that the investigators in
some way have to overcome through general abilities. Most witnesses, suspects and non-
4
The publisher uses Health to represent the narrative plausibility of a character subject to
peril not dying. A GMC with 1 Health might be bad-ass, but drop the first time hes hit because
his not important to the narrative.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 50
combatants require only a text description, indicating for example which interpersonal abilities
theyre most likely to respond to.
Opponents use the same Hit Threshold and Weapon Damage rules as player characters.
When choosing Health ratings for dramatically unimportant foes, dont worry about
simulating their relative robustness in comparison to the general population. Focus on how
many hits they ought to be able to take before dropping, according to dramatic logic. If you want
a thug who falls to a single burst of automatic fire, give him a Health of 1 or 2.
An Attack Pattern is an optional game statistic suggesting how the opponent might spend its
Scuffling and/or Shooting points from round to round of a fight. GMs should always consult
story logic and dramatic needs first and resort to the attack pattern second. You might want a
vast lumbering creature to smash doors and walls around the PCs, and a small vicious ODE to
attack with unerring precision. These numbers are a fallback if you cant decide how the
opponent would spend, or are uncomfortable choosing to spend enough to guarantee a hit each
time. Dont use them just because theyre there, even if you find the pull of numbersoh, sweet,
beautiful numbersgenerally irresistible.
When you do use the Attack Pattern, increase the spends after each miss until the opponent
either starts to hit, or runs out of points. Once engaged, opponents figure out how hard the PCs
are to hit, and adjust their efforts accordingly.
Armor is subtracted from each instance of damage the opponent takes. Where a weapon or
weapons is listed in brackets after the number, the Armor reduces damage only from those
weapons. Some Armor may protect against all Scuffling attacks but not Shooting attacks, or vice
versa.
An opponents Alertness Modifier represents its ability to sense your activities, whether
through standard senses like sight and hearing, or exotic ones like echolocation, pheromone
recognition, or energy signature reading. When you try to sneak past it, the Alertness Modifier is
applied to your base Infiltration Difficulty, which is usually 4. It also applies to Surveillance tests
when youre trying to observe the opponent without being observed in turn. The Alertness
Modifier reflects all of the individuals sensing capabilities, both natural and technological. A
second number appearing after a slash represents the opponents Alertness if its gear is somehow
neutralized or taken away.
An opponent with a Stealth Modifier is either significantly harder or easier to spot with
Surveillance. It alters the difficulty number for that or similar tests.

Sample Creature Stat Block: Lipovore

Abilities: Athletics 6, Health 18, Scuffling 12, Shooting 8, plus one shipboard ability at 8 and
another at 4.
Scuffling Weapons/Damage: punch +2
Shooting Weapons/Damage: disruption pistol +1
Hit Threshold: 3
Typical Tech: Disguiser, Personal Bluffer, Tether
Alertness Modifier: +2

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 51
 Stealth Modifier: +2
Savvy Modifier: +2
Special: At -12 hit points a lipovore falls into a deep coma that may be mistaken for death.
[From Ashen Stars]

Sample Creature Stat Blocks: Various Animals

Aggressive Herbivore, Cattle-Sized

Abilities: Athletics 8, Health 8, Scuffling 8
Scuffling Weapons/Damage: gore/trample +2
Hit Threshold: 2
Armor: 0
Alertness Modifier: -2
Stealth Modifier: -2

Aggressive Herbivore, Rhino-Sized

Abilities: Athletics 12, Health 12, Scuffling 12
Scuffling Weapons/Damage: gore/trample +4
Hit Threshold: 2
Armor: 2
Alertness Modifier: -3
Stealth Modifier: -3

Aggressive Herbivore, Triceratops-Sized

Abilities: Athletics 12, Health 24, Scuffling 16
Scuffling Weapons/Damage: gore/trample +6
Hit Threshold: 2
Armor: 3
Alertness Modifier: -3
Stealth Modifier: -3

Aggressive Herbivore, Sauropod-Sized

Abilities: Athletics 24, Health 36, Scuffling 24
Scuffling Weapons/Damage: trample +8
Hit Threshold: 1
Armor: 1

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 52
 Alertness Modifier: -4
Stealth Modifier: -4

Apex Predator, Lion-Sized

Abilities: Athletics 12, Health 8, Scuffling 8
Scuffling Weapons/Damage: bite +1
Hit Threshold: 4
Armor: 0
Alertness Modifier: +1
Stealth Modifier: +1

Apex Predator, Megafauna-Sized

Abilities: Athletics 16, Health 8, Scuffling 8
Scuffling Weapons/Damage: bite, swipe or claw +4
Hit Threshold: 3
Armor: 1
Alertness Modifier: +1
Stealth Modifier: -3

Apex Predator, Monster-Sized

Abilities: Athletics 16, Health 18, Scuffling 18
Scuffling Weapons/Damage: bite, swipe or claw +6
Hit Threshold: 2
Armor: 2
Alertness Modifier: +1
Stealth Modifier: -3

Pack Predator, Dog-Sized

Abilities: Athletics 8, Health 3, Scuffling 4
Scuffling Weapons/Damage: bite -1
Hit Threshold: 4
Armor: 0
Alertness Modifier: +1
Stealth Modifier: +1

Pack Predator, Wolf-Sized

Abilities: Athletics 8, Health 3, Scuffling 4

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 53
 Scuffling Weapons/Damage: bite +0
Hit Threshold: 4
Armor: 0
Alertness Modifier: +1
Stealth Modifier: +1
Tests and Supporting CharactersGame statistics in GUMSHOE are, whenever possible, player-
facing. When you as GM have the choice between making a determination based on a player test,
or on a test made by you on behalf of a supporting character, always choose the player. For
example, you may want to specify that theres a chance a harried relative of a kidnapping victim
might eventually lose her patience with the investigators and participate in a damaging press
conference. Rather than having her make a Stability test to see when and if this happens, set it up
so that a player makes a Reassurance spend to forestall her.
Likewise, if you want to have a supporting character steal something in a situation where the
PCs are in no position to affect the outcome, simply decree that it happens. Dont bother testing
the characters Filch ability. To do otherwise is to engage in false branching: you are creating
unpredictability for yourself in a way that remains invisible to the players. They dont get a
chance to alter the outcome, and thus gain no benefit from the uncertainty youve introduced.

Hazards
In or out of combat, the characters survival may be threatened by assorted hazards, from
electrical shock to poisoning.

Electricity and Other Shocks

Damage from exposure to electricity varies according to voltage. You can suffer:
Mild shock, equivalent to briefly touching an ungrounded wire or damaged electrical
appliance. You lose 1 Health and are blown backwards for a couple of meters.
Moderate shock, equivalent to a jolt from a cattle prod. You lose 2 Health and (if in combat
time) your next four actions. You always lose at least one action, but may buy off the loss of other
actions by paying 3 Athletics points per action.
Extreme shock, equivalent to a lightning strike. You suffer one die of damage, with a +4
modifier.
The GM should always give you some opportunity to avoid being shocked, whether it be an
Athletics test to avoid unexpected contact, or a Surveillance test to spot the danger.
If you are reduced to 6 or fewer Health, the current is assumed to have traveled through your
heart or brain, causing cardiac arrest or brain damage, respectively. The GM describes
appropriate symptoms and futuristic treatments during your sick bay convalescence.
Many other hazards can be emulated using the mild/moderate/extreme breakdown above.
Simply change the narrative description and side effects, keeping the Health pool losses.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 54
Example Hazard Description: Alien Fungal Infection
Mild: For the next two intervals, you lose 2 Health every time you make an Athletics test.
Moderate: Make a Health test against a Difficulty of 4. If you fail, you suffer an extreme shock
at the beginning of the next interval.

Example Hazard Description: Ion Storm

Mild: For the next interval, you lose all benefits from your cybernetic enhancements.
Moderate: Your cybernetic enhancements all go offline, returning after three intervals. You
may activate any or all of them before this time by spending 2 Health per enhancement.

Example Hazard Description:Temporal Shock

Mild: For the remainder of the interval, you lose 1 Health each time you use an Academic or
Technical ability.
Moderate: For the remainder of the interval, the Difficulty of any general ability rolls
increases by 2.
[Hazard descriptions from Ashen Stars.]

Fire
Damage from exposure to fire varies according to the surface area of your body exposed to the
flame, and repeats for each round (or, outside of combat, every few seconds) you remain exposed
to it.
Minor exposure, most often to an extremity like a hand or foot, carries a damage modifier of
2.
Partial exposure, to up to half of your surface area, carries a damage modifier of +0.
Extensive exposure, to half or more of your surface area, imposes a damage modifier of +2.
The GM should always give you a chance to avoid being set on fire. The difficulty of
extinguishing a flame is usually 4, but might be higher for anomalous flame-like manifestations,
or when you are coated with a futuristic accelerant.

Suffocation
When deprived of air, you get two minutes before the nastiness kicks in. After that point, you
lose 1 Athletics every ten seconds, as you struggle to hold your breath. Once that pool depletes,
you start losing Health, at a rate of 1 point every five seconds.

Toxins
Toxins are either inhaled, ingested or injected directly into the bloodstream. They vary widely in
lethality. A dose of a low-tech cleaning substance may impose a damage modifier of 2, where a
viro-active nerve gas might range from +6 to +16. Inhaled toxins tend to take effect right away.
Injected and ingested toxins take delayed effect, anywhere from minutes to hours after exposure.
Their damage might be parceled out in increments, and may prevent you from refreshing Health

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 55
points until somehow neutralized. As with any hazard, the GM should always give you a chance
to avoid exposure to them.

Designing Scenarios
The GUMSHOE system supports a certain style of scenario design. The rules are less
important to the success of your game than the way you structure your adventures.

Clues
If a piece of information is essential to move the story on, its a core clue. It costs nothing. You
can also offer minor tidbits of information at a 0 points, if the information not consequential
enough to be worth a point spend.
If you have a piece of information that offers a fun sidelight on the action but is not essential
to move through the story, you can make this available with a 1- or 2-point spend. Choose the cost
of the spend according to the entertainment value of the information, not the game-world
difficulty of completing the task. The whole point of the system is to make clues easy to acquire,
so that players can get on with the fun of figuring out how they fit together. Facilitate this by
making choices that get information into the hands of players. Habits die hard, so make sure
youre not slipping back into the old paradigm and making the clues hard to get.
If an actions consequence of failure might be madness, death or injury, by all means make it a
test. If game world logic suggests that a supporting character will actively oppose the PC, make it
a contest.

Clue Types
Special clue types are as follows.

Floating Core Clues

It can be useful to structure a scenario with one or more free-floating core clues. These
typically advance the story from one distinct section to another. Where an ordinary core clue is
linked with a particular scene, a floating clue can be gleaned in any one of several scenes. The
GM determines during play which scene gives up the clue.
Floating clues allow you to control the pacing of a scenario. They allow the characters to play
out all of the fun or interesting experiences in one section of the scenario before the story takes a
dramatic turn. For example, you might want them to separately meet all of the suspected
esoterror suspects before they, and the Investigators, get locked up for the night in an old dark
house. To achieve this, withhold the core clue that moves the investigators to the dark house
until after theyve met all of the relevant supporting characters. That way, you prevent them from
leaping ahead into the narrative without getting all the information they need to fully enjoy what
follows.
Likewise, a floating clue allows you to perform like a ruthless editor, skipping unnecessary
scenes when you need to kick the narrative into a higher gear. Lets say youve chosen five
possible scenes in which the Investigators might logically get a necessary core clue. You figure

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 56
that this phase of the adventure should take about an hour. If the players breeze through the
scenes in ten minutes apiece, you can save the core clue for the last scene. If they linger, taking
twenty minutes per scene, youll want to make the core clue available after the third scene.
Player frustration level usually serves as a better trigger for a floating core clue than a
predetermined time limit. If theyre having obvious fun interacting with the vivid supporting
characters youve created, or being creeped out by uncanny phenomena, you can give them more
of what they want by saving the core clue for the final scene. On the other hand, if you see theyre
getting bored and frustrated, you can slip in the floating clue earlier.

Leveraged Clues
A staple element of mystery writing is the crucial fact which, when presented to a previously
resistant witness or suspect, causes him to break down and suddenly supply the information or
confession the detectives seek. This is represented in GUMSHOE by the leveraged clue. This is a
piece of information which is only available from the combined use of an interpersonal ability,
and the mention of another, previously gathered clue. The cited clue is called a prerequisite
clue, and is by definition a sub-category of core clue.

Pipe Clues
A clue which is important to the solution of the mystery, but which becomes significant much
later in the scenario, is called a pipe clue. The name is a reference to screenwriting jargon, where
the insertion of exposition that becomes relevant later in the narrative is referred to as laying
pipe. The term likens the careful arrangement of narrative information to the work performed
by a plumber in building a house.
Pipe clues create a sense of structural variety in a scenario, lessening the sense that the PCs are
being led in a strictly linear manner from Scene A to Scene B to Scene C. When they work well,
they give players a eureka moment, as they suddenly piece together disparate pieces of the
puzzle. A possible risk with pipe clues lies in the possible weakness of player memories,
especially over the course of a scenario broken into several sessions. The GM may occasionally
have to prompt players to remember the first piece of a pipe clue when they encounter a later
component.

Restricted Clues
Certain clues which are necessary to the solution of a mystery will not be known to everyone
with the ability required to access them. Instead, these are restricted cluessecret, esoteric or
otherwise obscure facts which one member of the group just happens to know.
Only a select few people know about OPERATION CORNWALLIS, but if it is necessary to the
completion of an investigation, an investigator will be one of them.
To preserve the sense that the group has access to little-known facts, only one group member
knows the information in question; its revelation comes as news to all of the other investigators,
even those who have the same ability. The first character with the relevant ability to take an
action that might trigger the clue is the one blessed with this fortuitous knowledge. Where no
clear first actor exists, as in a clue provided as soon as the investigators enter a scene, the GM

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 57
chooses the investigator with the highest current pool in that ability (if applicable) or the
investigator who has had the least recent spotlight time or most requires a positive reversal of
fortune. Alternately, the GM may allow applicable background considerations to determine the
possessor of the restricted clue: for example, a character with high Bureaucracy might recognize
an esoterror suspect from back office work.
Timed ResultsThe following structural technique applies to any GUMSHOE game where the
characters have access to the services of a forensic lab, and rely on tests performed by others.
You can shape the pacing of a case with a timed result. This occurs when believability
requires a suitable interval between the submission of evidence to forensic experts and the
results of the testing they perform. In police procedurals, it is common for the direction of an
investigation to be suddenly changed when the lab results come in. The scientific evidence may
exonerate the current top suspect or point the investigators toward new witnesses or locations.
Alternately, it can change the meaning of previously gleaned information, causing the
investigators to conduct re-interview previous witnesses, or conduct closer searches of crime
scenes.
A timed result can serve as a delayed-reaction core clue, directing the PCs to a new scene.
These are useful devices in cases where the scenes can be connected in any order. If the PCs get
bored or bogged down in one scene, they can receive a phone call from the lab techs calling them
in to receive some much-needed exposition, which sends them in a new direction.
The arrival of a timed result can also change the players interpretation of their current case
notes without moving them to a new scene. They might dismiss a suspects alibi, alter their
timeline of events, or reject information provided them by a witness whose perceptions are
revealed as unreliable.
News of a lab report requiring the teams attention can also be used to cut short a scene that
the players wont abandon, even though theyve already collected all available clues.
[[SIDEBAR]]

Records are your Friend

In addition to your adventure notes, there are two other documents you need to run the game.
When you are creating your adventure, make a note of the investigative abilities youve used
on the Investigative Ability Checklist. Its a good idea to add clues for as wide a range of abilities
as possible. You can also use the Checklist during character creation to ensure all the abilities are
covered, and that redundant abilities are left out.
Secondly, during character creation, have your players note their choices of investigative
abilities on the GMs Investigator Roster. This enables you to pick out which characters might
notice obvious clues, and ensure spotlight time is evenly spread.
When you prepare your next session, you can use the Investigator Roster to see what interests
your players. If someone has a 3-point rating in Art History, you could add a some forged artwork
or a menacing sculpture to your notes. This is particularly useful in an improvised game.
[[SIDEBAR]]

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 58
Scene Types
Having planned out your mystery, its time to arrange it into scenes. Each of these takes place
in a different location or involves an interaction with a different supporting characterusually
both. Under the title of the scene, write the scene type, and the scene or scenes which lead to the
current scene, and scenes which lead from it. Here is an example scene header from the
introductory adventure.

The Good Reverend

Scene Type: Core
Lead-In: The Briefing
Lead-Outs: The Visionary, The Skeptic, Newshounds of Sequoia City
Scenes fall into the following types.

Introductory
This is the first scene of the episode. It establishes the premise of the mystery. If its the
characters first meeting, have the agents first rendezvous with one another. Then, they meet Mr.
Verity in a second secure locale where you provide the briefing and answer questions. When sent
to deal with an emergency already in, they go direct to the scene and are briefed there by Mr.
Verity. You can extend this scene if its your first session of the Esoterrorists. See the Introductory
scene in Operation Prophet Bunco.

Core
Core scenes present at least one piece of information necessary to complete the investigation
and get to the climactic scene.
Each core scene requires at least a single core clue.
A core clue typically points the group to another scene, often a core scene.
Avoid hard sequenced core clues, which can only lead to one another in a single order.
Youre constructing one way to move through the story to another core clue, not the only way.
In play, you may find yourself placing the core clue from one scene in another, improvised scene
inspired by the logical actions undertaken by the players. (This is also true of published
scenarios, by the way.) The scene structure guarantees that theres at least one way to navigate
the story, but should not preclude other scene orders. By following the structure you also ensure
that youre creating a branching narrative driven by player choices. This avoids the syndrome of
the story driven by the actions of supporting characters, which the players observe more or less
passively.
[[[Begin Sidebar]]]

Placing Information
A core scene typically includes many pieces of information in addition to its core clue. Facts
may provide understanding and context. Or they may obscure the mystery, by focusing attention

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 59
on irrelevant details. Creating a scene is about anticipating the questions the players will ask and
figuring out which answers ought to be available to the investigative experts their characters
happen to be.
Dont make all non-core clues spends. Add spends when:
you think of facts that seem enjoyably arcane
a piece of information is tangential or obscure
lasers might get information more quickly than they otherwise would
they might secure some other practical advantage
If a spend doesnt make the character giving up his points seem more impressive, or confer
some other advantage, it shouldnt be a spend.5
[[[End Sidebar]]]

Alternate
Alternate scenes provide information which may be of some use in understanding and solving
the central mystery, but arent strictly necessary to reach the conclusion. They often provide
context and detail. Or they might provide the same information as core scenes, but in another
way. As a third option, they might allow the group to eliminate a red herring possibility. These
exculpatory facts are valuable; they let the lasers narrow their search to the real answer, even
though they dont strictly speaking, lead to another core clue.

Antagonist Reaction
This is a scene of danger or trouble in which supporting characters opposed to the groups
success take action to stop them or set them back. This might be a fight scene, but could just as
easily be a political hassle, act of sabotage, or other less direct challenge. If it helps you keep
track, you might note in brackets that the enemies faced are tangential rather than primary
opponents. Antagonist reactions can be floating, that is, you can use them to kick up the pace if
things are flagging.

Hazard
A hazard scene presents the crew with an impersonal obstacle to their safety or ability to
continue the investigation. It must typically be overcome through tests or contests.

Sub-Plot
A sub-plot scene gives the characters an opportunity to wheel, deal, explore and interact
without directly altering the course of the investigation. These may arise from personal arcs, side
deals, public relations efforts, or simply the curiosity of one or more agents. Where the central
mystery provides structure and forward momentum, the sub-plot adds flavor and character.
Sequences arising from it may be what the group remembers long after the mystery has been put
5
The publisher goes out of his way to make sure that players consider every point spend to be
worthwhile.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 60
to bed. Sub-plots are more suited to long-running campaign play.

Conclusion
The conclusion brings the group to the end of its investigation and often confronts it with a
moral dilemma, physical obstacle, or both. Functionally, its a final hazard or antagonist reaction
scene, although it may be initiated by the players busting in on esoterrorists or ODEs. The classic
conclusion of an RPG mystery is a big fight. Your group may insist on a climactic scrap, or prefer
to avoid it through quick talking and clever thinking. Its easy to make a fight or other action
scene feel exciting and conclusive. In The Esoterrorists conclusions tend to be gory and sanity-
threatening.

Hybrid Scenes
Some scenes double up, most often when a general challenge leads to an information
opportunity. Its okay to give out a core clue as a reward for overcoming an obstacle only if that
core clue is also available by other means. Otherwise you risk creating a situation where a core
clue becomes unavailable, violating the central tenet of the GUMSHOE system.
[[[Begin Sidebar]]]

Scene Diagrams
To check that player choice matters in your scenario, diagram its scenes. Connect them with
arrows, checking to make sure that they can be unraveled in any order. Its acceptable to add
unpredictability and variance with non-investigative scenes (antagonist reactions, hazards, and
sub-plots), but better form when the players can connect the core and alternate scenes in more
than one way.

Activating Players
A common complaint about investigative scenarios is that they railroad players into tightly
following a slavishly predetermined story path. Although you rarely see the opposite complaint
voiced, a significant number of groups flail in confusion when not steered in an obvious
direction.
Let players weigh options for as long as the discussion seems lively and fun. If you see the
group get frustrated and unable to make a collective choice, gently insert yourself into the
discussion. Summarize the various suggestions made and direct the discussion toward a
conclusion. Guide the players in eliminating choices without nudging them to a preferred
answer. This detachment is easier to attain when you dont settle on one.
Remind the players that the only way forward in a mystery scenario is to gather more
information. When things get static, refer to the characters drives. Ask them which choices
before them most suit their specific drives.
Be ready for moments where players feel overwhelmed, either because there are too many
choices to choose between or, more likely, no obviously risk-free choice. Nudge them onward by
invoking their drives. Remind them that theyve been trained by the OV as problem-solvers.
Perhaps unlike the players, the characters are used to forming hypotheses, testing them by

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 61
gathering information, and revising their theories, and moving forward. They respond to
dilemmas by breaking them down into steps. With a little coaching, theyll quickly internalize
this problem- solving methodology. Your players will learn to take the initiative, abandoning the
wait for clues passivity trained into them as they were run through more predetermined
scenarios.

Avoid Negation
When running a mystery scenario, it helps to think two or three scenes ahead of the players.
Its often useful to have a possible climactic sequence in mind, too. That allows you to
foreshadow enough to make the ending appear to be a logical outgrowth of the scenes that
preceded it. (For more on this, see the next section.)
Dont let the possible plot forks you have in mind become too fixed in your imagination.
Instead, keep them provisional, so that you can turn away from them and substitute new choices
more in keeping with player input.
This is a long-winded way of restating the basic principle of improvisation used by stage
actors: never negate. If, as a sketch unfolds, one performer identifies the other as his mother, the
second performer must embrace and build on that choice. To simply swat down the choice and
say, Im not your mother, is extremely poor form. It stops the story dead and punishes the other
participant for attempting to advance it.
In a like vein, train yourself to respond to unexpected possibilities by embracing them and
building them into the ongoing storyline. You may have decided that the pathologist Elsa Hower
is an innocent dupe in an esoterror scheme which requires fresh corpses. However, the players
heavily invest themselves in seeing her as a villain, you might consider setting aside that planned
revelation, so they can feel a sense of unmitigated triumph when they bring her to justice.
You dont have to accept every piece of player direction at face value. Keep the story surprising
by building twists onto the elements you do incorporate. When in doubt, make the player half-
right. Perhaps Elsa has been parasitized by an ODE which can be extracted and subjected to an
emotionally satisfying comeuppance, allowing the team to both save an innocent and punish the
guilty.
Its not necessary to turn the narrative on a dime with every piece of player input. The key is to
avoid a scene in which nothing happens, or in which your scene is less interesting than the one
suggested by the player. When a player says that the computer archive in the ruined citadel must
have a holographic librarian, its a disappointing to rule it out, or prevent the players from
finding it because they havent the right skill to spend from. Extracting useful information from a
holo-character is more fun, and more plot-advancing, than not. This doesnt mean, however, that
there the program shouldnt afterwards spring a nasty surprise on them.

Leading and Following

Improvising is a technique, not an ultimate goal. Occasionally youll find that its more
entertaining for all involved if you seize the narrative reins and steer them in a particular
direction. This will tend to happen more near the end of a scenario, when youre trying to wrap
all of the threads together into a coherent and satisfying conclusion.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 62
 Again this is a matter of responding to the mood and attitude of the players. When theyre
actively engaged in the story and throwing out fun suggestions, follow their lead. When their
creativity hits the wall, pick up the slack. Improvisation is an organic process of give and take.

Running Scenarios
The GUMSHOE Rules System covers much of what you need to run The Esoterrorists; this
section supplements that with additional GM-centric advice.

Giving Out Clues

To give out information, the PC needs to be in the right place, with the right ability, and use
that ability. This section deals with each of these preconditions. In short though, whatever youve
done in other games, you should always err on the side of giving out information, not holding it
back.

Having the Right Ability

The rules offer a number of way to call on abilities, depending on the situation. Choosing the
right way to call on an ability is crucial to the forward momentum of your investigative plot.
Make this choice according to the consequences of failure.
If the consequence of failure is that a character fails to get a piece of crucial information,
success should be automatic provided that the character has the ability in question, and the
player thinks to ask for it. However, any credible attempt to get information that would
yield a given clue yields that clue, whether or not this is the ability youve specified in the
scenario.
(Even at that, you may need to improvise during play if no player steps up to claim the needed
clue, bending the details of the scenario so that the same information can be garnered with a
different ability, possibly by another player.)

Using the Right Ability

You can give out clues both actively and passively. By default, though, GUMSHOE assumes
that the use of interpersonal abilities is active; the players have to correctly choose an appropriate
ability and describe how theyre using it to open a contact up to questioning. When you see that
players are hesitant, tell the player with the relevant ability that his experienced OV character
can sense that it will work here:
You get the feeling that this guy will crack if you lean on him a little.
(Intimidation)
He seems kind of smitten by you. (Flattery)
The squeal of a police scanner tells you youve got a wannabe cop on your hands.
(Cop Talk)

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 63
Being in the Right Place
GUMSHOE procedural series require their own conceits in order to keep the story moving in
an entertaining manner. They require the audiences complicity in looking the other way. Here
GM and players handwave certain elements that break the rules of realism in order to keep the
game running smoothly, just as TV scriptwriters. For example, the conceit of primacy in shows
such as Law and Order ensure that the lead characters get the juiciest cases and more action than
any cop is likely to experience in a lifetime. Just as the aforementioned devices arise from the
requirements of TV drama, GUMSHOEs conceits grapple with the limitations of a roleplaying
session.
The major device youll want to adopt, needed for all but the smallest groups, is the conceit of
elastic participation
Use the concept of elastic participation to ensure that there is always a PC in the right
place.
GUMSHOE works best when you assume that everyone is kind-of sort-of along for every scene
without squinting too hard at any resulting logic or staging absurdities.

Rolling for Clues and the GUMSHOE Style

Just as in games where you roll for clues, players always have to describe a logical course of
action that might lead to their getting information, directly or indirectly suggesting the ability
you use to get it. In the traditional model, theres a roll; you supply the information on a success.
In GUMSHOE, this step is skippedbut its the only step skipped.
Traditional style:
Player: I examine the body looking for a cause of death .
GM: Roll Forensic Anthropology
Player: I succeed.
GM: Its blunt force trauma to the back of the skull. There are traces of a slimy residue
GUMSHOE style:
Player : I examine the body looking for a cause of death.
GM: [Checks worksheet to see if the players character has Forensic Anthropology, which she
does.] Its blunt force trauma to the back of the skull. There are traces of a slimy residue.
In neither style do you see players grabbing their character sheets as soon as they enter a new
scene and shouting out Anthropology! Archaeology! Art History! Evidence Collection! They
dont do this because it would be weird, boring, and stupidand because in neither case does it
fill all the requirements necessary to get information from a scene.
The only difference between GUMSHOE and those systems is the lack of a die roll. You know
your group. Give out information in the same way you would usually give out information,
actively, passively: GUMSHOE doesnt care. Your players will solicit it, or you will give it our, just
as you always do. There will be a strong effect on your gaming, but from a subtle change.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 64
Ending Scenes
In a novel or TV episode, writers can freely cut to the next scene when their characters have
acquired all of the clues available in the current one. The characters might stick around for hours
tying up loose ends and pursuing fruitless questions, but this doesnt happen on screen. We, the
audience, are not forced to sit through such sequences.
This kind of concise editing isnt so easy in the roleplaying medium. Players dont know when
theyve got all the clues.
Heres a simple trick to gently steer them onwards, without unduly breaking the illusion of
fictional reality:
Before play, take an index card and write on it, in big block letters, the word SCENE. As soon
as the players have gleaned the core clue and most or all of the secondary clues in a scene, and
the action begins to drag, hold up the card. When the players see this, they know to move on. (Of
course, you have to explain the cue to them before play begins.) Easy, efficient, yet somehow not
nearly as disruptive or jarring as a verbal instruction.
Even better, use one of the musical stings available from the Pelgrane Press website for just
this purpose.

GUMSHOE SRD / p. 65