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Untitled Document
Roleplaying Tips Weekly E-Zine Issue #59
8 Tips For Creating Good Clues In Your Stories
Contents:
This Week's Tips Summarized
8 Tips For Creating Good Clues In Your Stories
- Understand What You Can Use Clues For
- Think Of Clues As Information Or Secrets
- Define What You Need Clues For & Why You Need Them
- Make A List Of All The Clues Ideas You Can Think Of
- Plant Clues Into Your Story, But Leave Some Free
- Make a List of Campaign Objects
- Use the 5 W's
- Use the 5 Senses
Readers' Tips Summarized
- Dry Erase Board Substitute
- Lamination Tip
Return to Contents
A Brief Word From Johnn
Request For Creating Clues Tips
I had the tough task of creating clues for my campaign recently. I have just finished
creating an overall campaign plotline which involves a combination of personally
created adventures and published modules. And I wanted to use clues planted in
each adventure to gradually reveal the "big picture". But, when I sat down to
write the clues I got writer's block.
Internet research revealed no "how to" articles. But I got a lot of good, indirect
ideas from the Internet and a few other sources, and this week's issue is all
about how I managed to create some great clues for my campaign and how you can
too.
If you have clue creation tips of your own, please share! Send your tips or advice
to me at: johnn@roleplayingtips.com
and I'll spread the word. Thanks!
Cheers,
Johnn Four johnn@roleplayingtips.com
Return to Contents
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Return to Contents
8 Tips For Creating Good Clues In Your Stories
- Understand What You Can Use Clues For
Clues are a wonderful game master tool. They help you to tell interesting
stories and create exciting adventures. They are great at capturing player
attention and imagination. And they can serve to keep the whole group focused.
Clues are also an incredible roleplaying device because they can create a
lot of conversation. Players will want to talk and try to piece the clues
together, figure out what they mean and wonder where they can find more. When
this happens, ask your players to always speak in-character -- you'll then
see roleplaying at its finest. :)
Here are some reasons to create and use clues in your campaigns:
- Any kind of mystery or secret (i.e. an NPC's secret identity or the
location of a special treasure)
- Use them as plot hooks
- Use them to reveal your game world's legends (much more interesting
than listening to the GM read out a long, boring history essay)
- Foreshadowing
- Reveal the powers of magic items or technology
- Turn a plotline into a character-driven story: rather than having a
bunch of scheduled events which lead the PCs through the adventure, plant
clues to generate player interest and desire to proceed
- Reveal special abilities of monsters or foes
- Use as warnings
Return to Contents
- Think Of Clues As Information Or Secrets
As I recently discovered, it can be hard to sit down with a blank sheet of
paper and say to yourself "ok, let's think up clues."
I found that it helped a lot to think about clues in one of two ways:
- Clues are just information in disguise. Your goal is to hand out information,
one little bit at a time, until all the information is revealed by the
end of the story.
To create clues then, you just need to come up with important little bits
of information that the characters don't know yet and can discover during
the adventure.
- Clues are simply small secrets. Your goal is to fill your game with
many small secrets that lead up to a big secret.
To create clues as secrets then, you simply break your big secret down
into several smaller secrets and then reveal those throughout your story.
Return to Contents
- Define What You Need Clues For & Why You Need Them
I started my own clue creation process by writing out what I wanted to make
clues for and why those clues would help the PCs. If your clues have no real
benefit to the characters, then your players will learn they don't need to
find them to be successful in your campaigns.
First, I wrote down a major secret that I've created in my campaign which
will take a few stories to fully figure out. I'd like to present a few clues
about this big secret to the PCs in each story. Once the PCs put all the clues
together they will be able to figure out who the real villain is behind all
the minor villains and conflicts in the land and proceed directly to his lair
for a final campaign climax (or take some other action to thwart him).
I also wrote down a minor secret about an NPC that will be revealed at the
end of the current story I'm telling. If the characters can figure out the
NPC's secret soon enough then they can save themselves a lot of trouble at
the story's end.
So, by having these secrets, or "topics", clearly defined for myself I was
able to focus better on thinking up the clues I needed.
Return to Contents
- Make A List Of All The Clues Ideas You Can Think Of
Next, for each topic item that I needed clues for, I started to write out
all the clue ideas I could think of.
I wrote them out in any order and didn't worry about their specific details
just yet. I got stuck several times, but see Tips #5-7 for
how I found ways to get more ideas.
When I finished my clue lists I reviewed and sorted them:
- Prioritized them (i.e. by story time line, geographic location, essential
vs. inconsequential)
- Combined clues into major revelations
- Broke some clues down into smaller clues
- Looked for clues too minor to be stand-alone and combined them with
others
Return to Contents
- Plant Clues Into Your Story, But Leave Some Free
After brainstorming my clue lists I found that clues fell naturally into three
groups:
- Clues which could immediately be linked to planned encounters
- Clues which could be easily left unplanted and added into the story
during play
- Clues that I had no idea what to do with
For Group A, I immediately slotted them into my plans. Using a new sheet of
paper (actually, a new page in my word processor) I made a new list of all
the linked clues and put their related encounter # in the left margin.
For Group B, I added them to the new list right after Group A's clues. When
I use them during the session I plan on adding the encounter # or a note about
the encounter they were used in for future reference.
And, for Group C, I didn't stress out about them. I added them to the list
below Group B, and I'm just going to wait to see if there's an opportunity
to use them during play.
There was one clue in Group C, however, that I felt *must* be used during
play. That one I hi-lighted in yellow to remind me to look for an opportunity
to use during the story. And it is causing me a little stress. :)
Return to Contents
- Make a List of Campaign Objects
After brainstorming about a half dozen clues while making my initial clue
list I got stalled. But, I got things going again by thinking of clues as
fitting in one of three categories:
I went through my planned story and encounters and looked at all the people,
places and things in them for clue ideas.
For example:
- Important NPCs
- Minor NPCs
- Villains
- Dungeons, rooms, buildings
- Cities, towns, villages
- Magic items
- Unusual items
- Treasure
- Monsters
Just by going through all the "objects" in my upcoming story I found inspiration
for several more clues by turning an object into a clue or by adding a clue
detail to an object.
Return to Contents
- Use the 5 W's
Another killer method for coming up with clues, I found, was the 5 W's of
journalism:
Using Tip #2, I went through my list of items that I needed clues for and
followed this process:
- Took each object and asked one or more of the five W questions about
it.
- Considered each answer as a fact (or broke each answer down into its
facts).
- Turned each fact into a clue.
Return to Contents
- Use the 5 Senses
While placing my new clues into my story, I found that I was using the same
two methods over and over again:
- an overheard conversation between NPCs (i.e. revealing plans, names,
motives...) or
- discovered writings (i.e. notes, scrolls, books, wall scribblings...)
So, to make things more interesting (and to prevent the PCs from constantly
announcing "ok, we search the next room looking for scraps of paper and books
while listening at the walls") I changed the format of several clues to use
different senses:
- Sound
- Smell
- Touch
- Sight
- Hearing
- Sixth Sense (if your campaign allows it)
I also found that, when stuck trying to think up clues, I thought about the
five senses. This inspired a few more ideas. For example, for the item that
you need clues for, what kind of Smell clues could there be? Or Touch clues?
Return to Contents
Clues are fun to make and I hope these tips work for you like they did for me.
If you have clue making tips of your own, please send them along: johnn@roleplayingtips.com.
Thanks again.
READER'S TIPS OF THE WEEK:
- Dry Erase Board Substitute
From: Tim R.
Johnn,
I've found a much cheaper alternative to your typical dry- erase board: shower
board--the material often used instead of tiles in a shower. Most hardware
stores I've been to carry 4x8 sheets for around 15 dollars. There are many
colors to choose from (white and off-white I've found are easiest to read),
they take lots of abuse, and clean up much better than boards sold specifically
for dry-erase purposes. Additionally, the material is very thin and light,
so transporting pieces is no problem. I recommend a slightly glossy board,
as they tend to erase better when markings have been left to dry for a few
weeks.
[Johnn: I phoned our local hardware store and, in Canada at least, the suppliers
call it "barker board". It's $21CAN. Thanks for the tip Tim.]
- Lamination Tip
From: Kevin
Many have mentioned the White Boards and I agree... they rock... but, I was
a graphic design student through college and have come across a different
neat idea to add to the White Board idea making it a little better.
I laminate everything. Take all your favorite maps and prop images and laminate
them.
The lamination acts just as good if not better than a White Board. On the
map sides you can use markers to plot courses or draw additions, etc... And
on the other side (of most supplement maps and such) you can use as plain
White Boards. I've laminated most all my city maps I use, maps from supplements,
etc... You can even blow up images from books to poster size and laminate
often used floorplans to use them with Miniatures.
The cool thing - its relatively cheap. Go to Kinko's and have a poster sized
map laminated for $3-5 or a little more - they pay off in the long run. And
as a bonus it protects your maps from water/other damage.
If you use grids you can also go to an art store and find poster sized grid
paper to laminate.
[Johnn: our local Kinko's laminates any sized items for $1.50CAN per square
foot (12" x 12"). So, my new Greyhawk Gazetteer map that is 17" x 22" would
come to about $4.00CAN.
Our local Staples store laminates letter-sized sheets for $1.00CAN and 11"
x 17" pages for $2.50CAN. That's definitely worthwhile! I might print out
some grids and laminate them for battles.
Also, I might get my Greyhawk map colour photocopied (onto 4 letter-sized
pages) and laminate those for $1 a piece. That would make for easier handling
at the game table too.
Finally, Staples sells laminating machines and it might be worthwhile buying
one as a group:
- 8.5" x 11" laminator is $130CAN
- 11" x 17" laminator is $215CAN]
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