I think it does capture the essence of the beats more strongly than "Pass/Fail".
I think this also helps explain some of those times when the Pass/Fail cycle in HQ2 feels "off" - we're reacting to these beats that aren't connected to rolls.
I like Hope/Dread, and I certainly think the beat analogy is more apt than "turning points," since beats are easily applied to both ludological and narrative stories in a way that "turning points" (which strikes me as being too like "decision point" or something involving branching, except there's no branching in Hamlet) doesn't so much. Also, for whatever reason, I think beats are more clearly something that can be riffed on during story creation, played with, and are more subject to whims and immediate need
( ... )
I still like Pass/Fail. Though, I've also been thinking about this, and what you seem to be working to account for is a Raising of the Stakes. When Claudius schemes against Hamlet, it more often makes us aware of the risks that Hamlet has taken - and how isolated he is - than portraying a procedural defeat. Each time the stakes are raised, there could be an up arrow. This may better facilitate a graph of the rising dramatic tension.
A GUMSHOE/Trail Qarmadillo_kingOctober 15 2009, 19:31:51 UTC
Speaking of rising dramatic tension (or a lack thereof), I ran into a problem in my Trail of Cthulhu game last night. The PCs had tracked down the cultists to their ritual site. Only, they let the cultists leave the site and went in later to investigate. Inside, the PCs found a mythos entity, then they promptly went to the police.
This brought the game to a stumbling conclusion as I portrayed the foot-dragging police and attempted to steer the players back toward the cultists (which was only fair as the PCs only had circumstantial evidence and the police had a suspect who they had beaten into confessing). I'm not sure whether I hadn't given the players enough clues or whether it was just getting late.
Do you have any tips for how to guide players back into an investigation and confrontation with the Big Bad when they want to just let the police handle it?
Re: A GUMSHOE/Trail Qrobin_d_lawsOctober 15 2009, 20:12:38 UTC
That's what Drives are for. Whenever it looks like the investigators are unready to behave like proper horror protagonists, mercilessly use their Drives to keep them in genre.
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I think it does capture the essence of the beats more strongly than "Pass/Fail".
I think this also helps explain some of those times when the Pass/Fail cycle in HQ2 feels "off" - we're reacting to these beats that aren't connected to rolls.
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This brought the game to a stumbling conclusion as I portrayed the foot-dragging police and attempted to steer the players back toward the cultists (which was only fair as the PCs only had circumstantial evidence and the police had a suspect who they had beaten into confessing). I'm not sure whether I hadn't given the players enough clues or whether it was just getting late.
Do you have any tips for how to guide players back into an investigation and confrontation with the Big Bad when they want to just let the police handle it?
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Thanks!
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