See Page XX: Who Does the Talking?

A column on roleplaying

by Robin D. Laws

GUMSHOE players sometimes clutch when they realize that one of them has to go talk to someone. Break through that moment of indecision by following these simple steps.

Interpersonal abilities exist to help make this decision.

Start by asking yourself what you know about this person, and match that to the various Interpersonal Abilities shared among the group.

These abilities vary from game to game, but can be broken down into four sub-categories: positional, emotional, leverage, and improvisational.

(Interpersonal is already a sub-category of investigative skills, making this a sub-category of a sub-category, which I why this breakdown doesn’t appear in the books. As a devoted Page XX reader you are here for a deeper dive.)

Positional investigative abilities relate to the potential informant’s position in society. When you have a relevant positional ability, you know how to put people of a given strata at ease and appeal to their interests. They think, “this person is like me” or “this person understands how things work.” This may note the investigator’s familiarity with or membership in a specific social class. The abilities Demimonde, Streetwise, Lowlife, and Downside all mark the PCs’ comfort with the etiquette of the shady, criminal, and skeezy. Salt of the Earth, from Yellow King: The Wars, shows your affinity with honest, hardworking folk. Other positional abilities relate to specific occupations, all of them positions of power: Officialdom, Bureaucracy, and Cop Talk.

Other investigative abilities relate to an informant’s emotional needs. Meet that need, and they open up to you. The most common emotional need of an innocent bystander is Reassurance. You’re here to talk about trouble they want to stay out of. They provide the info after you convince them they’ll be able to do that. After that you get such abilities as Bonhomie, Flattery, Flirting, Inspiration, and Respect. Oral History, from Trail of Cthulhu fits here too, as you appealing to the informant’s desire to tell their best stories. These are the play nice abilities, where you get information in exchange for making the witness feel better. Though you might butter up a master criminal or exchange smoky glances with a rival spy, mostly you’ll be using these with the mystery’s sympathetic, non-hostile GMCs.

Leverage abilities depend on a power differential between you and your informant. They’re your subordinates (Leadership), prisoners (Interrogation), or might have reason to fear you (Intimidation / Steel.) Or you have something material they want, like money, as in the case of Negotiation. Impersonate also usually grants you leverage; you’re assuming the power, position or presumed obligation that belongs to a possibly fictional, possibly actual someone else.

Finally you have the improvisational abilities, where you wade in and play it by ear. Bullshit Detector / Assess Honesty gives you a red flag when the informant gives off the telltale tics of deception. People Person lets you stumble onto a connection in mid-conversation and build trust from there. Intuition gives you a flash of insight apart from anything the informant purposefully tells you.

All this categorization boils down into a simple question set:

Might we have leverage? Send the person with the ability keyed to that.

Does one of us know this type of person? The PC with the relevant positional ability leads the conversation.

Can we imagine what this person needs from people? Pick the investigator with the matching emotional ability.

Are we stumped? The PC with the improvisational ability starts talking and takes it from there.

GUMSHOE always distributes investigative abilities to ensure that at least one investigator has each of them. If everyone’s present, every ability is represented. Remember that when a player is absent, other PCs can access their abilities by invoking a connection to them:

“Normally we’d send Riana to the cotillion, but I’ve spent enough time reading her etiquette books to fake it for one evening.”

The system is meant to get you the information, and the GM wants that too. You may pick an ability other than the one the GM or published scenario had in mind. If your choice makes the remotest sense, expect the GM to adjust the scene to get you the clues and keep the story moving forward. Like your character’s counterparts in fiction, you can expect some pushback but should press on despite them. You won’t get in trouble.

But when you do, the GM will make sure that the trouble is fun and exciting.

GMs can help their players with this decision process by customizing this cheat sheet to the particular abilities available in the GUMSHOE game at hand.

Who Does the Talking Cheat Sheet

Do you have leverage (including a bribe)?

Send the PC with Interrogation, Leadership, Impersonate, Intimidation, Negotiation

Do you know this sort of person?

Send the PC with Bureaucracy, Cop Talk, Officialdom, Society, Blueblood, Credit Rating, Salt of the Earth, Demimonde, Streetwise, Lowlife, Downside

Can you imagine their emotional need?

Send the PC with Reassurance, Bonhomie, Flattery, Flirting, Inspiration, Respect, Oral History

None of the above? Start by winging it.

Send the PC with Assess Honesty, Bullshit Detector, Intuition, People Person, Impersonate

---

GUMSHOE is the groundbreaking investigative roleplaying system by Robin D. Laws that shifts the focus of play away from finding clues (or worse, not finding them), and toward interpreting clues, solving mysteries and moving the action forward. GUMSHOE powers many Pelgrane Press games, including The Yellow King Roleplaying Game, Trail of Cthulhu, Night’s Black Agents, Esoterrorists, Ashen Stars, and Mutant City Blues. Learn more about how to run GUMSHOE games, and download the GUMSHOE System Reference Document to make your own GUMSHOE products under the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution Unported License.