Advice needed: Mystery adventures

Echoes · Jan 23, 2002

Re: divination spells: I agree that I should be prepared to face their usage, and at the same time I'm going to have the villains use them back, once they have any reason to belive the PCs are on their trail.

I don't intend upon letting the PCs abuse their spell abilities, but I'm definitely not going to have the wizard (who, by the by, is a diviner) be useless. I'm sure most of the group will be counting on him to gain them some insight upon the situation, so to let his powers go unused would be horrible and horribly unfair.

Also, as far as knowing what the NPCs are doing, in general, that's the plan. I'm setting up a flow chart for the mystery/plot in general but I've also got it in my head to have three seperate actions going on for all the major NPCs/townspeople (depending on whether they are encountered in the morning, day, or night).

Thanks again for all the responses.

Laters,
-John-

Jack Haggerty · Jan 23, 2002

If you want helpful examples from Lovecraft, read...

Dreams in the Witchhouse An ancient witch and her rat-like familiar kidnap children and sacrifice them to demons twice a year. Everyone in town suspects evil-doing, but no one knows anything for certain. A college mathematics student stumbles upon the secret, but nearly goes insane before his death.

Shadow over Innsmouth A town makes a deal with sea-devils to bring properity. The deal involves child sacrifice, and inter-breeding with the fish-men.

There are probably many other of his that are good for ideas... But these I've read recently, and relate to your plot.

Pielorinho · Jan 23, 2002

Well, dang! Roleplaygames.about.com used to have a fantastic article on running mystery adventures; now, however, the link to it is broken.

Still, you may want to check out the articles at http://www.roleplaygames.about.com/library/weekly/topicmenu.htm -- some of them may be useful to you in running a mystery adventure.

Meanwhile, I'll email Johnn Four and see if he can dig up that article. If he gets back to me, I'll post the URL here.

Daniel

Darkness · Jan 23, 2002

Pielorinho said:
Well, dang! Roleplaygames.about.com used to have a fantastic article on running mystery adventures; now, however, the link to it is broken.

Still, you may want to check out the articles at http://www.roleplaygames.about.com/library/weekly/topicmenu.htm -- some of them may be useful to you in running a mystery adventure.

Meanwhile, I'll email Johnn Four and see if he can dig up that article. If he gets back to me, I'll post the URL here.

Daniel

I'd be very interested in that, too, Daniel...

Jezrael · Jan 23, 2002

"Don't believe his lies..."

Something else you may want to try is, as the PC's are getting close to solving the mystery, have a few people come to the player's with "helpful" information, have one of the people actually be helpful (they disagree with the sacrifice and want to see it stopped but don't want to go up against the whole town alone); have all of them say things such as "You can only trust me.", "Don't believe the others lies." etc etc, watch paranoia run rampant. Rinse. Repeat.

Make sure the Bad "stoolies" give misleading info ("I'm sure our Lord is in on it", when he isn't; "You can't trust ol' Gromke." with reasons why, except Gromke, or whoever is really the good one.) Paranoia makes everything better.

Have fun with it.

BenBrown · Jan 23, 2002

The thing about running mysteries, is that you never have the right amount of clues.

Sometimes the players will pick up on clues much much faster than you anticipated. Sometimes you can throw clues at them all day and they'll either go off on some wild goose chase or not pick it up at all.

If they're looking frustrated, shove another clue towards them. If they're having fun, let 'em run.

Also, don't worry about consciously giving them that many red herrings--especially if your flavor text already has a fair amount of detail. You mention moss growing on a rock, they'll spend the next half hour trying to figure out what it is about the rock that made you mention it in your flavor text, up to and including digging it up and taking it with them.

Pielorinho · Jan 24, 2002

Okay, folks, here's the article I was talking about earlier:

http://www.roleplaygames.about.com/library/weekly/aa020201.htm

It's pretty great, if you ask me.

One thing I'd add to it, if I've not already said it (it's late): remember that you control the pacing, to a large degree. If you dole out the clues as generously or as stingily as you need to to keep the story moving without being shortcircuited, the players will appreciate it. It's no fun to get stymied, and it's hardly more fun to solve a potentially labyrinthine mystery in half an hour.

Daniel

Darkness · Jan 24, 2002

Yay! Thanks, Daniel!

Echoes · Jan 24, 2002

GREAT article. Thanks a ton for posting that, it's printing as I type this. If anyone has more suggestions, they're more than welcome to keep 'em coming!

Laters,
-John-

Zhure · Jan 24, 2002

Flowcharts

Yeah, you heard me. Flowcharts.

Make a flowchart of what you expect to happen and what can branch off from there.

The players find Clue #1, which should logically lead to Clue #2, etc. You basic flowchart will look like this:

Clue1 -> Clue2 -> Clue3 -> Solution.

Now you need to make branches and loops. What if the PCs just don't "get" Clue1, or take a completely different tact? Maybe some helpful bartender can drop Clue1.1. Repeat with Clue 1.2 and so forth until you've got an idea or two how to get the PCs back on track. Do this for each "stage" of the mystery.

I've found that mystery adventures break down into about four parts.

The situation.
The event happens that leaves the mystery. Getting the PCs involved is fairly simple. Make sure you plan on having an in-game reason for the PCs to be interested in finding out the solution.

The clues fly
Lots of suspects, suspicions and stuff. Here's where a few fight scenes come into play as informants and subsidiary agents of the perpetrator(s) try to distract or foil the PCs.

Red Herrings
Usually a couple of different answers seem to be the final answer. Only some kind of conflict will overcome the doubts. The PCs confront the town guard who they think is the mastermind. He tries to run, they capture him and he confesses to taking bribes, but not being the real criminal they were seeking. Only do this once or twice. Too many times and the PCs get disheartened.

The final battle
A showdown between the perpetrator and his minions. Usually he won't go peacefully. All the better. More XP for the XP-eaters.

Hope that helped,
Greg