[Possible spoilers?]

Are event cards retroactive? Ex. The first scenario, first event card says something like: "If Clue 3 has not been found all players take 1 horror; otherwise the following action takes place..."

If the players find Clue 3 in the future, does that event play out? I ruled that it would not.

However on another note...

I've noticed that if players are slow in finding clues, they're usually at more of an advantage than to the times where they actually find those clues quickly. Which does more damage: 1 horror, or a flaming zombie running through the house? It seems the more clues they find, the worse off the investigators are, which then encourages the investigators to avoid the clues.

I've only played the first story a few times, but I don't see why the investigators should bother trying to find the clues? Once the 4th event card is flipped and the objective revealed, nothing else really matters. Getting to the 3rd clue was a large feat, and they never managed to make it there, but why does it matter? In the end all they had to do was kill Walter and win. This felt a bit unsatisfying for everyone involved. The investigators were confused as to how the story was supposed to fit together and were questioning their reasons for getting clues in the first place. I didn't really have a rebuttal. In the end it seemed like it didn't matter if the players uncovered 1, 2, 3, or 0 clues, the end objective is always the same. It takes roughly the same amount of game time to get to the third clue as it does to passively reveal the objective.

It's like playing Risk, if 10 turns into the game the rules tell everyone that whoever controls Tunisia wins the game in 2 turns. It seems random for those who didn't see it coming, and feels like an arbitrary and meaningless win.

So, what's the purpose of the clues?

I think the idea of spawning the zombie if clue three is found gives a slight shift in balance back in the required direction: if they are going through really fast, the Keeper has a nice option to slow them down slightly. I think it also depends on the end goals to a certain extent: certainly finding the clues gets you to know the required outcome a little bit quicker and from some of the games that have come down to the wire, even one extra turn knowledge became the difference between success and failure. For the escape goal in particular, discovering the clues prior to the last event card is a huge benefit: there's no lock on the front door to solve in order to get out!

Yeah, I guess that's the way FFG intended. Either to slow them down by spawning monsters, or by going easy on them by "only" dealing 1 horror. Which kinda made me sad, because using 1C they ended up spawning 3 more zombies by finding the clue, although the 4th event card was already played. (I don't know why they explored for it - I told them, that the game might be over when the last event card is revealed and that I don't know WHO will win by that time. Still, they decided to enter the garden. Well, if they WANT to...)

Elbi said:

That's sort of what I mean. Finding the clues seems to be a detriment towards the investigators goals.

I guess clues usually are useful and/or necessary to reveal the objective (still only read through the first story)?
In that one single case it was counterproductive, but really, it was a poor choice. Regarding the single case I know, the objective is to reach a certain point ASAP, so lingering ANYWHERE or, basically, NOT RUNNING even once is not a good idea. The approaches I see are these:
- They're faster than the events and manage to reveal the objective by finding clues very quickly. If something bad happens because they found the clue, they aren't expected to be THAT quick and whatever happens is basically there to slow them down, in order to increase the balance.
- They are not faster than the events and make a "heel face turn" as soon as they are told where to go. It even says so on the event, later on - finding clues isn't important anymore, now it's about survial
If they try the third path, "follow the way you're not supposed to follow anymore", well... here be dragons?

As Elbi said, the goal of the investigators is to reveal the objective. The fastest way for that to happen is for them to find all the clues.

Some scenarios/objectives time is against the investigators, sometimes it is for them, and sometimes it's against both (everyone loses). In general, though, it is best for the investigators to get all the clues ASAP.

Also, the endgame objective in Scenario One might not involve Walter at all...

I believe that it is important to get the clues quickly, so you can determine what you need to do (or not do) to win the game. Getting to the final clue will reveal the objective, and the players then know how to win. Some Objectives can be revealed at any time, or whenever a certain "event" takes place. If the players are just milling around waiting for the events to count down to the final event, the Keeper can use that time to her advantage. So what if a burning Zombie appears. A player only takes fire damage if they stay in the square, which will only be on fire if the Zombie is killed (the FAQ actually address this burning zombie issue).

And sometimes, worse stuff happens to the players if they haven't found a certain clue by a certain time.