Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Get Your Kids Into The Mystery Business
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="robowieland" data-source="post: 9255746" data-attributes="member: 7026452"><p style="text-align: center">[ATTACH=full]345077[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>“Spoopy” has become one of my favorite new words in recent years. It describes stuff that has the trappings of horror like haunted houses or skeletons but plays those things for cozy vibes and humor. <em>Scooby-Doo</em> is a perfect example of this. The kids wander into a location allegedly haunted by a ghost, run into manifestations of the spirits and eventually piece together what’s behind it all. Designer Greg Leatherman wrote an RPG love letter to these stories with <a href="https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/467710/the-mystery-business?affiliate_id=408896" target="_blank"><em>The Mystery Business</em></a>. Was the crusty old amusement park owner behind the whole scheme? Let’s play to find out.</p><p></p><p>Play in <a href="https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/467710/the-mystery-business?affiliate_id=408896" target="_blank"><em>The Mystery Business</em></a> is structured around a group of teenagers or young adults and their talking animal companion as they travel around solving mysteries. Players choose one of five character archetypes that sound familiar to anyone that’s watched <em>Scooby-Doo</em> or any of the other attempts by Hanna Barbera to copy the formula. There’s the Athletic One, the Social One, the Intelligent One, the Cowardly One and the Unusual One. The archetypes set the players skills and abilities and how they’ll best go about contributing to solving the mystery. The system is a percentile roll over with skills framed as difficulties to help keep things straight. One of the most important stats that goes down is the character’s Fear. As the players pick up clues, their fear of the monster goes down. If they encounter the monster before their fear gets to a manageable level, they have to hide from it. If they’ve got enough clues to remove their fear, they can chase the monster and lead it into a trap.</p><p></p><p>Here lies one of the most interesting concepts of the game. It’s not structured around combat. Instead, players chase (or get chased) by the monster. If they get caught, they spend a near miss point to describe how they get captured or trapped but not harmed by the monster. It’s an interesting way to frame conflict resolution. One of the advantages of being The Cowardly One is that you have more near misses than everyone else. Fortune favors the fool, after all.</p><p></p><p>The game also does some interesting things to emulate the genre and encourage teamwork. Larger groups are encouraged to choose a preferred partner to work with when everyone splits up to look for clues. Working with your partner gives you a bonus to rolls while mixing things up gives everyone more luck to spend to affect dice rolls.Players also work together to build the trap that catches the monster at the end of the game. This offers whoever is playing the Intelligent One a chance to shine but everyone contributes ideas and rolls to get the monster into the cage.</p><p></p><p>While the game is laid out in simple terms it also discusses rules options for players who want a little more depth to their characters. These options include ditching the archetype structure for more specific character creation, adding real monsters to the mix instead of just people pretending to be monsters all the time and even some meta options like episodes where the gang solves a mystery with the help of a real-life celebrity either as an NPC or as a visiting player sitting in for a session.</p><p></p><p>I really liked <a href="https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/467710/the-mystery-business?affiliate_id=408896" target="_blank"><em>The Mystery Business</em></a> as a way for kids to dip their toes into horror without going too far. Kids love spooky stuff but as a parent I want to be able to explore this in a way with my kids that isn’t going to cause them to stay up all night. I could spend time hacking <em>Call of Cthulhu </em>or something like that for these purposes but this game has done a lot of the heavy lifting. For adults, this game offers a chance for a one shot or two that’s a little less serious when the full group can't show or as a way to change things up between longer campaigns. Heck, it could even be a guilty pleasure that your vampires and werewolves watch when they aren’t scheming against each other.</p><p></p><p><a href="https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/467710/the-mystery-business?affiliate_id=408896" target="_blank"><em>The Mystery Business</em></a> provides the resources for <em>Scooby-Doo</em> spooky gaming that both parents and kids can enjoy together.</p><p></p><p><em>If you found this review helpful, please consider purchasing it using one of the affilte links above. Thank you for supporting your Friendly Local Game Reviewer.</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="robowieland, post: 9255746, member: 7026452"] [CENTER][ATTACH type="full" alt="1706872930659.png"]345077[/ATTACH][/CENTER] “Spoopy” has become one of my favorite new words in recent years. It describes stuff that has the trappings of horror like haunted houses or skeletons but plays those things for cozy vibes and humor. [I]Scooby-Doo[/I] is a perfect example of this. The kids wander into a location allegedly haunted by a ghost, run into manifestations of the spirits and eventually piece together what’s behind it all. Designer Greg Leatherman wrote an RPG love letter to these stories with [URL='https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/467710/the-mystery-business?affiliate_id=408896'][I]The Mystery Business[/I][/URL]. Was the crusty old amusement park owner behind the whole scheme? Let’s play to find out. Play in [URL='https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/467710/the-mystery-business?affiliate_id=408896'][I]The Mystery Business[/I][/URL] is structured around a group of teenagers or young adults and their talking animal companion as they travel around solving mysteries. Players choose one of five character archetypes that sound familiar to anyone that’s watched [I]Scooby-Doo[/I] or any of the other attempts by Hanna Barbera to copy the formula. There’s the Athletic One, the Social One, the Intelligent One, the Cowardly One and the Unusual One. The archetypes set the players skills and abilities and how they’ll best go about contributing to solving the mystery. The system is a percentile roll over with skills framed as difficulties to help keep things straight. One of the most important stats that goes down is the character’s Fear. As the players pick up clues, their fear of the monster goes down. If they encounter the monster before their fear gets to a manageable level, they have to hide from it. If they’ve got enough clues to remove their fear, they can chase the monster and lead it into a trap. Here lies one of the most interesting concepts of the game. It’s not structured around combat. Instead, players chase (or get chased) by the monster. If they get caught, they spend a near miss point to describe how they get captured or trapped but not harmed by the monster. It’s an interesting way to frame conflict resolution. One of the advantages of being The Cowardly One is that you have more near misses than everyone else. Fortune favors the fool, after all. The game also does some interesting things to emulate the genre and encourage teamwork. Larger groups are encouraged to choose a preferred partner to work with when everyone splits up to look for clues. Working with your partner gives you a bonus to rolls while mixing things up gives everyone more luck to spend to affect dice rolls.Players also work together to build the trap that catches the monster at the end of the game. This offers whoever is playing the Intelligent One a chance to shine but everyone contributes ideas and rolls to get the monster into the cage. While the game is laid out in simple terms it also discusses rules options for players who want a little more depth to their characters. These options include ditching the archetype structure for more specific character creation, adding real monsters to the mix instead of just people pretending to be monsters all the time and even some meta options like episodes where the gang solves a mystery with the help of a real-life celebrity either as an NPC or as a visiting player sitting in for a session. I really liked [URL='https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/467710/the-mystery-business?affiliate_id=408896'][I]The Mystery Business[/I][/URL] as a way for kids to dip their toes into horror without going too far. Kids love spooky stuff but as a parent I want to be able to explore this in a way with my kids that isn’t going to cause them to stay up all night. I could spend time hacking [I]Call of Cthulhu [/I]or something like that for these purposes but this game has done a lot of the heavy lifting. For adults, this game offers a chance for a one shot or two that’s a little less serious when the full group can't show or as a way to change things up between longer campaigns. Heck, it could even be a guilty pleasure that your vampires and werewolves watch when they aren’t scheming against each other. [URL='https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/467710/the-mystery-business?affiliate_id=408896'][I]The Mystery Business[/I][/URL] provides the resources for [I]Scooby-Doo[/I] spooky gaming that both parents and kids can enjoy together. [I]If you found this review helpful, please consider purchasing it using one of the affilte links above. Thank you for supporting your Friendly Local Game Reviewer.[/I] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Get Your Kids Into The Mystery Business
Top