I MOSTLY play d20 based RPGs (shut up, I know I'm behind on transcribing). It's not because it's my favourite system, it's because that has the settings I like and what has the most source material released for it.
Anyway, as I was listening to Ken and Robin Talk about Stuff I got to thinking about what the Gumshoe system
brings to roleplaying games - that is, you don't
gate clues to a skill check. If you have the skill and the clue is
there, you get it. Furthermore, if you want MORE information than a
basic "I know about this" brings, you can spend an investigation point
to allow you to get MORE information. If there isn't more, you don't
lose the point. I've played a little bit with some of the concepts "I
want you to get this plot point" when the players need the Clue-by-Four
to get the information.
There is a Pelgrane Press supplement Lorefinder
that does a great job of bringing Gumshoe into d20. Sadly, it
has some limitations when applying to anything but vanilla Pathfinder.
If you want to use it but a player wants to play a Gunslinger, you have
to rebuild the class from scratch. Heck, if you want to do this in
Starfinder or Mutants and Masterminds - you have even more building to
do.
Since every d20 game I've been playing of late has a Bennie/Action Point/Hero Point
mechanic introduced by the GM (My Pathfinder game uses Eberron's Action
point/Mutants and Masterminds uses the Hero Point/when I run PF, I use
the Heroe points in Advanced Player's Guide), I figured one could tack
on the following house rule for skills.
Optional Skill usage:
When
a player invokes an Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma based skill, they
are automatically assumed to have taken 10 on the role. If the player
wishes to improve this, they may take 20 by spending a "bennie". The
time taken to use the skill doesn't increase. If taking 20 doesn't
provide more information, then the bennie is not lost.
In this case, the GM isn't needlessly gating the information AND it still provides an incentive to raise a skill.
Caveats to rule:
1. The GM CAN apply these to physical attribute based skills.
2. The GM doesn't have to apply this rule if it doesn't help the story.
3.
If your game uses "bennies", this increases the reasons to use the
bennie. The GM should increase the number of bennies provided to allow
for this.
4. You need buy in from your group.
5. This is not for use while in Combat. Pathfinder allows you to make knowledge checks during combat to identify qualities of monsters. I don't think this usage fits for this mechanic. Note, however, I'm not a professional game designer, so YMMV.
In
Pathfinder/Starfinder, I was thinking of starting with 5+(Current
level/2 round up) number of bennies every time the character levels.
This may or may not be enough. This formula means you have 6 bennies at
1st level, 8 bennies at 5th level, 10 bennies at 10th level, etc.
I'll continue thinking about this and when I can start using it, I may change this up a bit.
P.S. if you like the rule - use it! Consider it OGL.
P.P.S If you REALLY like it, bring back Futurama.
