Gumshoe
Gumshoe Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1.01 Game Components
Case and Clue Book: This book contains the Daily Introductions to the cases, the daily Clue Point Pages and the corresponding Clues.
Map of San Francisco: 1933 map of San Francisco to be used by player for reference. Blocks are labeled with street numbers. Example: 420 Hayes street will be on block labeled 400. The insert in the lower right provides an expanded view of the lower Market street area. See Index to Streets and Alleys on page 42 of Bay Counties Telephone Directory.
Map of Bay Area: Reference map for player. If you wish to travel out of San Francisco look for the desired destination on the Clue Point Page for the appropriate day. See Index on page 41 of Bay Counties Telephone Directory.
Bay Counties Telephone Directory: An alphabetical listing of people and businesses by city. May be used by player at any time.
Classified Telephone Directory: Listing of people and businesses by category. May be used by player any time.
Fingerprint File: A set of 14 cards arranged by fingerprint classification (see section 2.01) containing all fingerprints used in GUMSHOE along with their four-digit fingerprint numbers. The classification abbreviation appears in the upper right in the form "L3" or "W4," indicating a Loop with ridge count of 3 or a Whorl with a ridge count of 4 respectively.
Mug Shot Cards: The Mug Shot Cards (27) contain the photos, fingerprints and criminal records of characters you may encounter during the game.
Autopsy Reports: Bound booklet of autopsy reports of selected victims (14). Each report contains a date and a time at which the doctor performing the post-mortem completed the report. Each report is available to you as soon as it is completed, i.e. anytime after you have reached on your Time Sheet the time recorded on the autopsy.
Laboratory Reports: Criminal laboratory reports (9). Used in same manner as Autopsy Reports.
Newspapers: The Call-Bulletin is a morning paper. The day's paper is waiting for you at the office each morning. There is a separate paper for each of the nine days of the game.
Time Pad: Used to keep track of the time as you go about your day's investigations.
Report Book: Questions and answers pertaining to the cases. At the end of each day, the Old Man gives you a series of questions he wants answered. Of course, you cannot answer all the questions the first time. You will have to play the game over many times, but that's the fun.
Rules: An attempt to explain how to play the game, as well as several important corrections and additions.
1.02 Game Set Up
At the start of each game place the maps, directories, fingerprint file and mug shot cards so all players have access to them. Give each player a sheet from the time pad. We suggest that you begin by reading Clue 117. There is a Daily Introduction (Daily) which should be read at the start of each day. Open the Clue Book to the first day, July 3, 1934. One of the players should read the Daily aloud to the others. After this has been read, the players may look at the Call Bulletin, a morning newspaper, for that day. Thus, on the first day everyone should look at the July 3, 1934 newspaper.
During this phase of the game players can and should discuss the case. Plan your day! Work with your fellow operatives. Once you leave the office you will only be able to communicate with other operatives when you are in the same place at the same time.
1.03 Clue
To find a clue, turn to the Clue Point Page for the appropriate day. You will find a listing of names, addresses and locations. Each of these listings is followed by a clue number. This number refers you to the appropriate clue in the Clue Section.
Turn to the clue and read it. At the end of each clue you will find a Time given. All clues will have a time associated with them. The player who chooses and reads that clue should advance his time sheet by the time shown. Occasionally a clue will be followed by additional information in the form of a Clock, an If Situation, or a Fingerprint clue. These are explained below.
1.04 Sample Game
We will go through a sample game with three players, Players A, B and C. Player A reads the Daily Introduction aloud to the other two. After the Daily Introduction is read and the players discuss their plans they are now ready to start their investigation. Players A and B decide that they will go to 850 Oak street to interview a suspect. Player C decides to go to Oakland and check some court records. Player A looks up 850 Oak street on the Clue Point page which refers player to Clue 85.
Clue 85 is read by Players A and B. At the end of Clue 85, we see Time: 30 minutes. Players A and B mark off 30 minutes on each of their Time Sheets.
Player A now decides to go to the Police Station to see Lt. Joe DaCosta. Player A will look up City Hall on the Clue Point page and go to the clue number indicated. Player B decides to go to the Bellevue Hotel where a client is staying. The clue for this location might be listed under Bellevue Hotel or it might be listed under its address, 505 Geary.
In the meantime, Player C has looked up Oakland on the Clue Point Page. (See section 1.07.) After looking up the clue, Player C will know how long it takes him to get to Oakland and will adjust his Time Sheet accordingly. He will now look up his Oakland destination and read the designated clue, again adjusting his Time Sheet.
Play continues in the above manner until a player reaches 9 p.m. At that point that player stops and waits for all other players to finish their day at which time players may read and discuss the Old Man's questions in the Report Book. (See section 1.10.) Play resumes with the next day's Daily Introduction and a new Clue Point Page.
1.05 Time Clock
Whenever you see the clock face you will adjust your time sheet to correspond to it.
1.06 Hazards
During the game you may become involved in dangerous situations which may lead to injury or even death. Such situations could come about due to carelessness, or simply leading with your chin when you should have perhaps been picking up other warnings. For example:
I enter the room where I think the killer is trapped. It is dark and quiet, too quiet for my liking. I grope for the light switch on the wall to my left and flip it. The lights come on, but a second later my lights are put out.
When the lights come back on they are bright and unfocused. In fact, everything is blurred. I wonder how long I've been out. My eyes are starting to focus, but the light remains bright.
"How do you feel?" A face comes into view, a face of a man who is shining a light into my right eye. "Is your head still sore?"
"It feels like it was used as a football in the Army-Navy game."
"You've had quite a nasty blow. A little higher and a little harder and you might have been killed, but, as it is, you'll have a headache for a few days, nothing more."
"How long have I been here?"
"You were brought in yesterday afternoon."
"Yesterday afternoon! When can I get out of here?"
"I would like to keep you tonight."
"Look, Doc . . ."
"Doctor Foster."
"Look, Doc, I have to get out of here. I feel fine," I lie.
"It's up to you, but come and see me if you're having any problems."
My vision is normal as I walk out of San Francisco General, but my head feels like a bruised cantaloupe.
Time: 3:00 p.m., July 5
The player will adjust his time pad to coincide with the stated time and date. In a multiplayer game, if one player gets a day ahead, he should wait until at least one of the other players catches up to him in time.
1.07 Traveling the Bay
During the game you may have occasion to travel outside of San Francisco and throughout the Bay Area. Look up the destination city on that day's Clue Point Page. In most cases you will be referred to Clue 100 where you will find a chart listing normal traveling times between twenty-eight Bay Area cities. In some cases, however, you will be referred to another clue which might describe a delay due to car trouble, a traffic accident or perhaps an encounter with an unsavory character, a potential client or the police. In either case, you will now know how long it takes to get to and from your destination. Adjust your Time Sheet accordingly. Once in another city, you look up clues in the normal manner.
1.08 If Situations
After some clues you will be presented with If Situations. For example:
I enter the Frisco Cafe and find myself an empty table near the back. I order a cup of coffee and a stale doughnut from a bubble-gum chewing waitress. I am in the process of dunking the doughnut into my coffee when James comes in with a woman. And what a woman! I mean no disrespect to my mother, but James's companion is that type of woman who attracts men's eyes like a magnet pulls nails. She's the type of woman who reminds you less of your mother and more of the type that mother didn't want you to bring home.
They sit at an empty table by the front window and both order coffee, no stale doughnuts. They ignore the coffee and the gum-popping waitress as they engage in deep conversation. As I watch them I see the woman's attitude go from intense concentration to anger. Before her anger can boil over they are joined by another man.
He immediately rejects the waitress's offer for coffee, or anything else, and jumps into the argument. The woman is on the verge of tears as she reaches into her purse and pulls out a large envelope. She throws it onto the center of the table. James grabs it, looks inside, smiles. He places the envelope into his inside jacket pocket, pats it, and rises from his chair. At a nod from James, the other man rises also. Without a word to or from the woman, they make their way to the door. They stop there for a moment and exchange a few words as they move out the door. James heads up Sixth toward Market while the other man heads toward Mission.
The woman removes a handkerchief from her purse and daintly pats her eyes.
Time: 45 minutes
If you want to follow James go to Clue 208 If you want to follow the other man go to Clue 289 If you want to watch the woman go to Clue 123
The first thing you do after reading any clue is to adjust your Time Sheet by the time listed, in this case 45 minutes.
Let's examine each option. If you want to follow James you turn to Clue 208. Clue 289 will allow you to follow the unknown man. If you wish to stay in the Frisco Cafe to watch the woman, or to have another cup of coffee, go to Clue 123.
1.09 Fingerprints
Identification by fingerprint has been an important tool in the difficult task of criminal investigation and the art of detection for many years. There are several situations in your life as an operative which could benefit from a familiarity and facility with fingerprint classification. After some clues you will be presented with the option to Fingerprint a location or object. If the opportunity to fingerprint does exist, the option will be presented in the form:
Fingerprint: Clue 339
When you turn to Clue 339 you will find one or more fingerprints and the time taken to find them. It is then up to you to classify the prints. (See section 2.01.) Once you have classified a fingerprint it should become an easy task to match it to one of the prints on the appropriate Fingerprint File card. That is, if you determine the print to be of the Loop type with a ridge count of four, you should take Fingerprint card number "05" for Classification "L4." When you have matched the print you will have the fingerprint number. Fingerprint numbers are the four-digit numbers which appear under each print on the Fingerprint File cards.
Occasionally the authorities are presented with unidentified corpses, John and Jane Does. In some of these cases it might be possible to identify the dead person by matching his or her fingerprints to those on record. The procedure for arriving at the fingerprint number would be exactly the same as in the case of any unidentified print. After classifying the print, you should match it to one on the appropriate Fingerprint File card. All fingerprints used in GUMSHOE will have a fingerprint number associated with them.
There are several ways to proceed once you have determined the number of a given fingerprint. Some of these involve going to additional clues on future turns. The Department of Motor Vehicles has fingerprint records for those people with driver's licenses. Look up the fingerprint number of the print you are trying to identify. Listed after the number will be the available name and address information. (Note: While all fingerprints used in GUMSHOE have fingerprint numbers, not all the characters encountered have fingerprint records. Thus there will be numerous people encountered who may have driver's licenses, but if their prints are not used, they will not be included in the DMV records.)
If you believe the print you are trying to identify may belong to someone involved in federal crimes, you may be able to discover pertinent identification information at the Bureau of Investigation. This information is also listed by fingerprint number.
In addition to these two locations, available from the Clue Point Pages, you might also be able to match a fingerprint with one from a Mug Shot Card. The prints on mug shot cards are not listed with their fingerprint numbers.
In some cases you will be able to determine the fingerprint number of a particular print, but that number will not be listed in either the DMV Fingerprint Division or the Bureau of Investigation nor will the fingerprints match those on available mug shot cards. However, you should be able to make logical deductions based on the locations of the prints themselves. For example, if you find three fingerprints in an apartment, but only one of them is found in every room, you might make the logical deduction that that print belongs to the person living there.
1.10 End of Play
Following a case to its conclusion is one of the principal objectives of an operative playing the game. Deciding when a case has been solved is one of the critical choices a detective must make. Isolating the central elements in an investigation, tracing leads, finding missing facts, and reaching conclusions which add up to a solution are the stuff of investigation.
The decision of when a case has been solved is left up to the players themselves, but the Old Man's Questions have served as a guiding hand, or perhaps an encouraging boot, to many ops over the years. The Old Man's Questions, which are located in the Report Book, are available at the end of each day. Each evening a new dated list of questions will be added to those previously asked. Players may refer to the previous questions at any time, but they should not look ahead to future questions.
It is possible, but very unlikely, that any one op might know the answers to all the questions when they are first asked. A team of detectives working together, able to follow a number of leads, cover a number of different locations and compare notes, may be able to answer quite a few of the questions. The Old Man, since he has to coordinate the workings of the San Francisco office of the Continental Detective Agency as a whole, is not concerned with only one active case at a time. His questions, therefore, may refer to several cases under investigation by the Agency.
The players will be faced with difficult choices during play as they may find new cases piling up on their plates. How they choose to solve them is up to them. If they prefer, they may try to nail down each case in turn. Alternatively, they may want to look at these nine days in July as a whole.
The answers to the Old Man's Questions are given at the back of the Report Book. Answers to all the questions can be found in the materials provided with GUMSHOE if the players apply their own logic with good detective techniques.
2.01 Fingerprint Classification
Human fingerprints may be broadly classified into several general patterns by their appearance. Of all fingerprints normally encountered, approximately sixty-five percent will have a "Loop" pattern, thirty percent will be "Whorls," and the remaining five percent will be "Arches." Many classification systems have been developed which can be of use to the advanced student of Dactyloscopy, but these simple categories are immediately recognizable and adequate for rapid field purposes.
Fingerprints used in this file will be listed according to type, Arches first, then Loops, then Twin Loops, then Whorls. The two largest categories, Loops and Whorls, will be broken down further by ridge count. Thus, L3 would mean a Loop pattern with a ridge count of three, likewise W4 would indicate a Whorl pattern with a ridge count of four. Operatives who become adept at this classification process will narrow the choices down considerably, saving much time.
Arches
The Arch pattern is the least complicated of all the types. Ridges enter from one side and exit on the other. Figure 1 shows samples of the Arch pattern (diagrams 1a and 1b). Note the "tenting" effect in Figure 1b. Since the Arch configuration represents only five percent of all fingerprints, it can be quickly identified once it is recognized.
Loops
The basic Loop fingerprint must have at least one ridge which enters and exits from the same side of the pattern. In Figure 2a, ridges x and y satisfy this requirement. Note that the inner loop in Figure 2b enters and exits on the same stem. (Figure 2 shows diagrams 2a, 2b and 2c.)
Twin Loops
Some ridges cannot decide whether to be Loops or Whorls, as shown in Figure 2c. We classify these as "Twin Loops." Operatives should recognize this pattern easily. Twin Loops will be found at the end of the Loop section immediately preceding the Whorls.
Counting Ridges within the "Loop" pattern
Once a print is identified as the basic "Loop" type it will be necessary to locate the "Delta" and the "Core" inside the "pattern area."
In Figure 3a the ridges drawn in broken line are called "type lines" and they define the boundaries of the "pattern area" (shaded). (Figure 3 shows diagrams 3a and 3b.)
At the approximate point (circled in Figure 3a) where these boundary ridges begin to diverge will be found the "Delta" (see Figure 3b). The "Delta" can be anything from a mere dot to a large section or combination of ridge structures. Figure 4 shows various delta configurations likely to be encountered (diagrams 4a, 4b and 4c). Notice in Figure 4b the delta ridge is attached to the upper type line. In this case the "Delta" (circled) will be at an approximate midway point between the two boundary lines x and y.
Now locate the "Core." As the name implies the "Core" will be at the center of the pattern. Figure 5 shows several methods of determining where the "Core" lies (diagrams 5a, 5b, 5c and 5d). In Figure 5a the "Core" is located on the innermost loop on the shoulder opposite the "Delta." When a single rod exists of sufficient height to reach the shoulder (dotted line) of the innermost loop, the tip of that rod will be the "Core" (see Figure 5b). When two such rods are present, mentally connect them, as in the dotted line of Figure 5c, and the situation in 5a will now apply. This principle works with any even number of lines, simply connect the inner two in your mind and the side opposite the "Delta" will be the "Core." If there are an odd number of ridges as seen in Figure 5d, the tip of the center one will always be the "Core."
Once you have located the "Delta" and the "Core" it will now be an easy matter to count the ridges between them. Figure 6 shows examples of several likely patterns with ridge counts indicated: 6a is L1, 6b is L2, 6c is L3, and 6d is L4.
Whorls
In this pattern there will exist at least one ridge which makes a complete recurvature around the "Core" or center of the fingerprint. Whorls can be spirals or concentric circles as seen in Figure 7 (diagrams 7a and 7b).
Counting ridges within the Whorl pattern
To get a ridge count with this type of print simply find the uppermost delta, then locate the ridge immediately below it and follow it along until you are in proximity to the other delta. Now count the ridges as shown in Figure 8a. Figure 9 shows examples of "Whorls" with appropriate ridge counts given: 9a is W0 and 9b is W3.
General Visual Identification
Once the operative has achieved ridge count from a latent print at the crime scene it should be quite easy to visually identify the suspect print from among the twenty or so which fit the category. Figure 10 shows some obvious characteristics to look for: gaps in ridges, dots and dashes, enclosures and bifurcating ridges; Radial (slanting toward thumb) or Ulnar (slanting toward little finger) Loops; warts or blisters; and scars, cuts and mutilation.
It is also a good idea to arrange the mugshot cards according to type and ridge count.
3.01 Errors and Omissions
We confess, we've bungled a thing or two in putting this baby to bed. We're not getting out the crying towel over it, and we hope you won't either. We've caught a couple of our screw-ups but we've surely missed just as many more. You should take a gander at the following and remember to check back with these corrections when the time comes.
Autopsy Reports
July 7, 1934: Aloysius Wade — Time: 11:15 p.m. (The autopsy report is available to the player the morning of July 8.)
July 9, 1934: Jackson de Young — Remarks: Time of death estimated to be approximately 2:30–3:30 p.m., July 9.