Your Clues Aren’t Easter Eggs

You've hidden the cult's address inside a false-bottomed drawer in a locked desk behind a secret door. Your players spend forty minutes questioning the gardener because he has a funny name.

Congratulations. You've prepared two completely different adventures, and only one of them involves a gardener.

If the party needs a piece of information to keep playing, give yourself several good ways for them to find it. Save the truly obscure hiding places for optional treasure and embarrassing family portraits.

Start with what they need to learn

Write down a conclusion in plain language: The missing courier was taken to the old bell tower.

That gives you something useful to build around. “There are clues in the village” gives you a village full of small objects and a headache.

Justin Alexander's Three Clue Rule is a great tool here: support an important conclusion with at least three clues. Make them discoverable in different ways, so ignoring one kind of investigation doesn't wipe out the whole trail.

For our unfortunate courier:

• Search the abandoned cart: a delivery slip lists the bell tower as the courier's last stop.
• Talk to the night watch: a guard saw someone carrying the courier toward the tower.
• Follow the physical evidence: the courier's distinctive red scarf is snagged on the tower's broken gate.

Each clue independently gives the players somewhere sensible to investigate. They don't need to collect all three like pieces of a password.

Let a good approach find something

When a player says, “I empty the cart and check the delivery papers,” you can simply give them the delivery slip. They've described a reasonable action that finds an ordinary, available object.

A check can uncover something extra: the signature is forged, the delivery time was altered, or somebody used the same blue wax as the mayor's office. Use your table's rules for uncertain tasks; you don't need to make every useful observation uncertain.

If a check does go badly, decide what failure means before asking for the roll. Perhaps searching quietly is difficult, and a nosy neighbor notices. Perhaps the guard wants a favor before sharing what she saw. Choose a consequence that fits the action, rather than quietly deleting the only way forward.

Make the clues worth remembering

Players are listening, taking notes, eating pretzels, and trying to remember whether they told you about the rope. Give an important detail a little room.

“You find some papers” is easy to lose. “The final delivery slip says OLD BELL TOWER, and tomorrow's date has been crossed out” invites a question.

You can also hand over a short written note. It keeps a detail on the table after your voice has moved on. A scrap of paper works beautifully; nobody needs you to acquire a wax-seal hobby before Friday.

Keep the answer steady

Suppose the players decide the gardener did it. Let them investigate. His suspicious midnight deliveries might turn out to be vegetables for his sister's tavern.

Their theory doesn't have to become true, and they don't have to be punished for testing it. Give them honest answers to sensible questions. If they're stuck, recap the evidence they already have and ask which lead they want to follow.

Before your next mystery, check the one conclusion the session depends on. Give it three different routes, then leave the players room to put things together. There's plenty of mystery left when finding the adventure doesn't require guessing where you put the drawer.