Personally, I find even the three clue rule a little bit too restricting in practice. Like, what if the players just never investigate the locations where those clues were placed? I find that if you prep options A, B, C, and mayyybe D, players will inevitably take a hard right over to Q like it was the only logical option. (Plus, even if everything works out, it's triple the prep vs whatever actually becomes relevant in gameplay.)
The approach I've found success with is to prep secrets, not plots or clues. Write out a list of a dozen or so things that it would be helpful for the PCs to find out, and then actively look to shoehorn in clues about at least one of those secrets no matter what the players decide to end up doing.
Like, let's say one of the important secrets is that the captain of the guard is a drunk. If your players go to the tavern? They see him passed out at a table in the corner, and the tavernkeep remarks on how sad it is that he's been like this so often lately. If they go talk to other random guardsmen? One of them makes an off-colour joke alluding to the captain being a drunkard, then they all get really uncomfortable and tight-lipped if pressed in seriousness. If they break into the guy's office? They find a bunch of empty bottles and a letter of condemnation from his superiors. Etc etc, you get the idea. The big mental flip is, instead of going "okay here's the scene, what does it make sense to do here (and would any secrets come up as part of that)" --> to instead go "okay here's the secret I want to share, how does it make sense to share here"... there's still no suspension of disbelief needed, it's just a somewhat more narrative attitude to developing things without breaking an overall more simulationist framework.
This method does admittedly require a bit of thinking on your feet, but I find that having the secrets prepped and listed out in advance gives enough of a framework to think within that it's not actually as much mental load as you might think. A++ would recommend all round. I've shaved off tons of prep time since I started going with this approach, and have actually made my sessions more dynamic as well (since I'm more actively looking for chances to feed them info, instead of more passively guarding my hoard of secrets).
Personally, I find even the three clue rule a little bit too restricting in practice. Like, what if the players just never investigate the locations where those clues were placed? I find that if you prep options A, B, C, and mayyybe D, players will inevitably take a hard right over to Q like it was the only logical option. (Plus, even if everything works out, it's triple the prep vs whatever actually becomes relevant in gameplay.)
The approach I've found success with is to prep secrets, not plots or clues. Write out a list of a dozen or so things that it would be helpful for the PCs to find out, and then actively look to shoehorn in clues about at least one of those secrets no matter what the players decide to end up doing.
Like, let's say one of the important secrets is that the captain of the guard is a drunk. If your players go to the tavern? They see him passed out at a table in the corner, and the tavernkeep remarks on how sad it is that he's been like this so often lately. If they go talk to other random guardsmen? One of them makes an off-colour joke alluding to the captain being a drunkard, then they all get really uncomfortable and tight-lipped if pressed in seriousness. If they break into the guy's office? They find a bunch of empty bottles and a letter of condemnation from his superiors. Etc etc, you get the idea. The big mental flip is, instead of going "okay here's the scene, what does it make sense to do here (and would any secrets come up as part of that)" --> to instead go "okay here's the secret I want to share, how does it make sense to share here"... there's still no suspension of disbelief needed, it's just a somewhat more narrative attitude to developing things without breaking an overall more simulationist framework.
This method does admittedly require a bit of thinking on your feet, but I find that having the secrets prepped and listed out in advance gives enough of a framework to think within that it's not actually as much mental load as you might think. A++ would recommend all round. I've shaved off tons of prep time since I started going with this approach, and have actually made my sessions more dynamic as well (since I'm more actively looking for chances to feed them info, instead of more passively guarding my hoard of secrets).