Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed - Unreadable Handouts

This came up as an interesting question. A handout was written in cursive, but the Player (not the PC, but the Player) born in the digital age wasn't able to read the handout. Cursive was unfamiliar to the Player and apparently, some schools have stopped teaching cursive. As an aside, how do you sign checks and legal documents then? Digitally?

For the above case, the PC would be able to read the document. So, the GM should have had prepared an easy to read version of the handout. Problem solved.

But this brought up a more interesting question. How hard should handouts be to read and should you do this deliberately?

In more than one published scenario, I found the cursive font used was impossible to read. So, what should you do?

1. You can give out the handout, but on the back use an alternative font like Times-Roman that's more readable. That way, you keep the flavor of the handout, but make the life of your Players easier as the handout was a reward and was meant to help the Players advance in the investigation.

2. You tell the Players that's what you get and if you don't want to read the clue, that's tough. Sort of fun the first time, but when no one reads the clues, why hand them out? Or they spend half an hour trying to read it and everyone but one Player gives up. This isn't fun as everyone winds up just hanging around chatting or on their phones waiting for that one Player to figure it out.

3. Make them roll English (or the foreign language) skill. If they succeed, give them the alternate font version. If in English, every PC would roll and most likely one will succeed. This is sort of fun the first time, but do you want to do this every time for every clue? This works more for handouts written in a foreign or archaic language. Again, you expect the PCs to figure this out, otherwise you wouldn't have made a handout for this. I can see a scenario where there's a ticking clock, so the PCs must decide where to spend their time and getting a translation which might help them in the end would eat up their time. I've seen PCs hire a language expert to do the translation while they follow other leads. Of course, sometimes the translator either goes insane, gets mugged, or refuses to translate after a few pages.

4. Give them the alternate version, but for words that are questionable put various interpretations. Such as "The sacrifice requires [flood/fool/foal/foul/soul] to banish ye beastie." I think this would be fun to do and further clues or research would help clarify the ambiguous word or phrase.

Lots of options, I generally just do option #1.

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Q (IT): Getting ready to run CoC for the first time with a published scenario. In the very beginning of the scenario the investigators are given a lot to read, and I was just wondering how you as a Keeper handle that? Do you just throw it all at them and sit back and wait while they sift through it? Do you read it out loud or ask another player to read it out loud? Do you just hand it to them and continue to play, letting them read it at their own pace?

For this scenario in particular it doesn't seem like the handouts matter too much for actually solving the case, just adds some backstory information and context, but I worry for future scenarios my players won't actually take the time to read this much text and miss some clues.

A (MH): Veteran Players read all the handouts. I generally give it all to them and let them read it at their own pace. You can set everything up, handout the handouts, then take a 10 minute break where you let them read it at their own pace and discuss it. A good time for a bio break. But big multipage handouts are not a good idea unless it's a long campaign and they can read it later between sessions.

The new style of handouts are short excerpts of important details, not the full letter or page. This shortens unnecessary reading time. Not only that, the PCs would read the whole thing, but the Players might not. So, why not just give the ones who say they're reading the whole thing the summary. And depending on the level of success (do an English die roll, or History, or Occult, or whatever is related), give them additional info (on failure, still give them the summary).