Introduction to villains and clues

[kitsune9]

The Alexandrian Blog Archive Three Clue Rule will help you on the clue side.

I second this blog. This is a really good blog for an in-depth analysis on gaming and campaign structure.

 

[Memnoch3434]

The best introduction to a villian was in my friend's 12 game. We were in a generic town that suddenly was taken over by masses of varmin in all direction coming from a strange building that we hadn't seen the inside of.

When we entered the building a mass of 10 or so NPC's ran from the building screaming "12 has escaped!" We then discovered that this odd building was a prision that housed him. All that was left behind was a strange (and dangerous) book.

What made it even better was when we discovered that the map of the nearby countryside was in fact a town built on a massive 1 and 2....

 

[GhostBear]

1. Use a cut scene, just like they do in the movies. Personally I've not found these to be very effective.

These can be more effective if you give your players a secondary set of characters - some of the main villain's trusted men, perhaps, or some other kind of person who can get an inside look at what is happening. It can allow the players a unique way to interact with the Big Bad directly.

If you have players that aren't meta-gamey this can be pretty cool, and the players can even put obstacles in their own way! Unfortunately, for players that DO meta-game a lot, this is just a way to enable that behavior.

 

[Janx]

An idea about Clues that I liked from [MENTION=2]Piratecat[/MENTION]'s GUMSHOE thread was to automatically give the clue if the PC looks for it.

So instead of giving a medical clue if the PC succeeds his Medical skill at DC 20, just give the player the clue if the PC says "I examine the body, my medical background may help me determine cause of death"

That's my interpretation of the GUMSHOE mechanic in D&D. I'm not sure how one might incorporate PC skill level, except perhaps by modifying the quality of the clue based on skill level. A higher skilled PC gets a better, more detailed clue.

This in turn, should clarify that a Clue is not an Answer. Giving the players a clue shouldn't literally tell them who the murderer is. A clue should act as a pointer or reference to a suspect, which thus rules out other suspects.

This would be why in Gumshoe, it is okay to give away the clues, because the players still have to think about them and how they relate and how they qualify or disqualify a suspect.

 

[Gilladian]

Yeah, in a mystery, never EVER have the most important clues be ones that the PCs can miss through bad rolls. ALL the info must get to them, somehow. If this means giving it automatically, providing three or more ways to GET the clue, and reminding players of the clues they have found when they consistently overlook one or more, then do it.

There's nothing more frustrating to a PC to be told "you had all the clues to this mystery an hour ago, but since you forgot the main one, you can't solve it!" or "no you couldn't solve the mystery, ever, because when you interviewed suspect X, you never noticed clue Y".

 

[Bedrockgames]

This is, I think, the biggest non-mechanical problem I have with writing adventures. I've tried watching movies and reading novels, but they're no help when it comes to villains - they show the villain "off-screen" where the players aren't likely to see them in-game.

Anyone else have this problem? How have you introduced villains?

The advice I've gotten for introducing clues generally involves "keep it obvious".

I think the biggest issue here is in a game like D&D if you are using movies as a model for structure or presentation, you are bund to be a bit dissapointed (especially with something like villain intros which movies can pull off in a clear way). Play to the strength of the medium. Use the encounter to introduce your villains. In my experience players are not very responsive to the gm narrating a scene or lead in they have little impact over. So simply incorporate the villain's cruelty and personality into the encounter itself.

Also because its a game you dont control outcomes. In a film the director can make the villain pull off cool stuff and come out unscathed. In a game, if you are not fudging, the villain could be interupted or whiff. My advice is let this hapoen. In a game the role of villain has to be earned. Players resent nothing more than a dmnpc with script immunity (and villains can easily become that).

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yeah, in a mystery, never EVER have the most important clues be ones that the PCs can miss through bad rolls. ALL the info must get to them, somehow. If this means giving it automatically, providing three or more ways to GET the clue, and reminding players of the clues they have found when they consistently overlook one or more, then do it.

There's nothing more frustrating to a PC to be told "you had all the clues to this mystery an hour ago, but since you forgot the main one, you can't solve it!" or "no you couldn't solve the mystery, ever, because when you interviewed suspect X, you never noticed clue Y".

That approach works but i am not sure it is for everyone.

I think allowing for failure is important in a mystery though. If the players are assured the clues, that can take away some of the excitement. I think the trick is to remember that the adventure doesn't stop just because players failed to find clue Y. They can still make educated guesses and go on instinct (even with all the clues they often never know for sure if they are right). Npcs still act and keep things moving to a degree.

That said you dont want to have one and only one way to succeed at getting the clues. Players will come up with other approaches that could reasonably work even if you haven't thought of them yourself.

But for me the fun of a mystery is hunting down the right clues then putting them together. Even if you dont have all the clues, you can still explore the setting of the mystery. I think i prefer location,event and character driven mysteries rather than scene driven ones for this reason.

 

[Bedrockgames]

An idea about Clues that I liked from [MENTION=2]Piratecat[/MENTION]'s GUMSHOE thread was to automatically give the clue if the PC looks for it.

So instead of giving a medical clue if the PC succeeds his Medical skill at DC 20, just give the player the clue if the PC says "I examine the body, my medical background may help me determine cause of death"

That's my interpretation of the GUMSHOE mechanic in D&D. I'm not sure how one might incorporate PC skill level, except perhaps by modifying the quality of the clue based on skill level. A higher skilled PC gets a better, more detailed clue.

This in turn, should clarify that a Clue is not an Answer. Giving the players a clue shouldn't literally tell them who the murderer is. A clue should act as a pointer or reference to a suspect, which thus rules out other suspects.

This would be why in Gumshoe, it is okay to give away the clues, because the players still have to think about them and how they relate and how they qualify or disqualify a suspect.

I recently ran gumshoe for the first time and this is my reading of the rules as well. I think what you would miss in this transition to d20 is the spend mechanic (which is pretty important). It is a very clever design. And i think laws is a very good writer (i was playing esoterrorists). This approach isn't exactly my cup of tea but i do think a lot of people out there will like it and find it solves some of the problems inherent in mystery adventures.

My approach is a touch different. Not all clues require a roll. I only ask for rolls when there wiuld be a reasonable chance of failure attempting to use the skill. So if the bloody knife is right there on the breakfast table, i will nit ask for a roll to find it. If it is hidden beneath a loose floorboard in the basement i may ask for a roll. But even that depends, if the player calls in an evidence collection and they comb the house I think it is unlikely they wouldn't find the knife. I also allow players to bypass rolls by making specific requests.

Another area is npcs. Some npcs volunteer info, others dont. So i am not going to require a roll from the player if they ask a friendly witness what he saw.

For me investigations are more about challenging the players than the characters, so i also try to focus more on the actual interactions of npcs and pcs, and pcs and the environment and use stuff like social skill rolls when they try to elicit an unreasonable response from someone.

of course this approach isn't for everyone i find investigations need to be tailored to the group. Some players want to roll their skills and have their characters challenged, some players prefer the gumshoe approach which does a good job simulating the flow of a mystery series, and some people want to feel immersed in the investigation and be challenged directly by it. Kowing what group your players fall into (or that they fall into a combo of the three) is important.

I dont know if it has come up but the alexandrian has a great article on mysteries called "the rule of three" that some might find useful.

 

[Janx]

I think allowing for failure is important in a mystery though. If the players are assured the clues, that can take away some of the excitement. I think the trick is to remember that the adventure doesn't stop just because players failed to find clue Y. They can still make educated guesses and go on instinct (even with all the clues they often never know for sure if they are right). Npcs still act and keep things moving to a degree.

I see mystery adventures fail at a higher rate that other kinds of adventures. My default assumption is the format as applied to the standard rules causes additional problems.

An adventure can fail because the PCs failed to find the clues, and it can fail because they failed to apply the clues correctly. I'd rather it fail for the latter, which is mostly the players fault, than the former, which could easily be the dice's fault.

I also wouldn't interpret "give them the clue" too literally. If a PC simply walks into a room, you don't give them a clue. If they examine the body, you give them a clue about the body. If they don't think to examine the body, they don't get the clue about the body. Once again, failure is back in the player's court.

Dice randomness is eliminated as a source of problem when done this way. Incorporating a skill check to give a minimal layman's clue for failure, or better, more detailed clues for margin of success may work fine as well.

Concepts like the rule of 3 clues may help, but logically, what that idea is trying to do is give 3 dice roll chances instead of one, to reduce the impact of a bad roll on a clue-check.

It's also important to remember, a Clue is not the Solution. I think DMs resist giving away clues, because they think it gives away the solution. DMs always think the mystery is too easy. Possession of all the clues does not mean posession of all the information or ability to interpret them to qualify or disqualify suspects.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I see mystery adventures fail at a higher rate that other kinds of adventures. My default assumption is the format as applied to the standard rules causes additional problems.

An adventure can fail because the PCs failed to find the clues, and it can fail because they failed to apply the clues correctly. I'd rather it fail for the latter, which is mostly the players fault, than the former, which could easily be the dice's fault.

I also wouldn't interpret "give them the clue" too literally. If a PC simply walks into a room, you don't give them a clue. If they examine the body, you give them a clue about the body. If they don't think to examine the body, they don't get the clue about the body. Once again, failure is back in the player's court.

Dice randomness is eliminated as a source of problem when done this way. Incorporating a skill check to give a minimal layman's clue for failure, or better, more detailed clues for margin of success may work fine as well.

Concepts like the rule of 3 clues may help, but logically, what that idea is trying to do is give 3 dice roll chances instead of one, to reduce the impact of a bad roll on a clue-check.

It's also important to remember, a Clue is not the Solution. I think DMs resist giving away clues, because they think it gives away the solution. DMs always think the mystery is too easy. Possession of all the clues does not mean posession of all the information or ability to interpret them to qualify or disqualify suspects.

I agree this is a great solution for many, but my point is it is not for all. Personally I find te possibility of missing clues through rolls to be more interesting in a mystery adventure. For me finding the clues is just as exciting as putting them together and I am upokay with not being able to solve them on either front. I do think mysteries are more problematic for groups and part of the issue is understanding what the players expect in this regard. When people do get specific (i check the body, i open the drawer) i do usually bypass the skill roll. But if they are less targeted and just say i look around the house, i would rather have a roll for that case. One thing i learned a while back is the players dont have to solve the mystery to finish the adventure. As a gm the first thing i ask is "what happens if they miss all the clues?". This is going to be very specific to each adventure though. I would prefer to keep the adventure interesting even when the mystery goes unsolved, but that is just my preference. Again i think all the approaches described can work. It is just a matter of identifying what your group would prefer.