Barendd Nobeard
Explorer
Sure - all roads lead to Rome.Mercule said:
Or, in other words, set up several different investigative avenues that all lead to the same source (which eventually leads to the final encounter).
The trick is to have a bunch of clues that only reveal the final location when the PCs have most of the clues in their possession. Plus whatever knowledge and items they need to have a chance of survival.
There was a great Living Death module called "Insomnia" that did this.
Set in the 1890s (as all LD mods are), the PCs are sent to a small town. From there, it's almost totally free form, with the author putting in *time sensitive* information (as opposed to the more traditional *location sensitive* information). Clues at each obvious location point to other locations, including one that's a veritable clue gold mine--which ultimately holds clues which point to the final location.
Halfway through the mod, the text says: "Calmly take up a PC's sheet, and lightly cross off a skill. If the player asks what's going on, simply explain that he doesn't remember having that skill any more." This has a very disturbing effect on the player--players hate losing abilities!
In addition to memory loss (which spread to other PCs, too), there were "vingettes" that could take place almost anywhere, at almost any time: a cryptic message in a mirror which only one PC can see; partial deafness (-2 to Listen checks); a sensation of being watched; a vision of a little girl saying something menacing (in this case, "They're going to eat you. They're going to eat you"); a stranger stopping the PC to say, "They're right behind you." An important note for running the mod, is that only a few (2-3) of these vignettes happen, and they're just to set the mood--don't let PCs get side-tracked by them.
Then, as the mod progressed, the NPCs started acting stranger and stranger. When I played this mod, eventually the inn-keeper did not even remember that my PC had a room at the inn.
Basically, the mod involved ethereal alien beings that ate memories and took possessions to "catalog" the objects. So, if the PCs went to encounter #1 early in the mod, the NPC had one reaction ("my wife is at our antique shop"). But, if they went to encounter #1 later in the mod, the reaction was very different ("I'm not married; I'm not related to the people who run the antique shop--we just share a surname") and some things were missing from the house. This sort of thing worked great when we went back to "re-interview" an NPC, saw furniture missing, and got totally different answers to the interview questions!
There was even a sort of red-herring location--the local asylum, where the PCs can't really help, or learn much--just waste time.
This was a one-round (four hour) RPGA event which was almost *all* investigation. But creepy as hell, too. And I think it worked because of the location (small town--not too many options to explore), and the exposition of the story wasn't dependent upon learning the clues in order A-B-C-D.
Halfway through the mod, the text says: "Calmly take up a PC's sheet, and lightly cross off a skill. If the player asks what's going on, simply explain that he doesn't remember having that skill any more." This has a very disturbing effect on the player--players hate losing abilities!
In addition to memory loss (which spread to other PCs, too), there were "vingettes" that could take place almost anywhere, at almost any time: a cryptic message in a mirror which only one PC can see; partial deafness (-2 to Listen checks); a sensation of being watched; a vision of a little girl saying something menacing (in this case, "They're going to eat you. They're going to eat you"); a stranger stopping the PC to say, "They're right behind you." An important note for running the mod, is that only a few (2-3) of these vignettes happen, and they're just to set the mood--don't let PCs get side-tracked by them.
Then, as the mod progressed, the NPCs started acting stranger and stranger. When I played this mod, eventually the inn-keeper did not even remember that my PC had a room at the inn.
Basically, the mod involved ethereal alien beings that ate memories and took possessions to "catalog" the objects. So, if the PCs went to encounter #1 early in the mod, the NPC had one reaction ("my wife is at our antique shop"). But, if they went to encounter #1 later in the mod, the reaction was very different ("I'm not married; I'm not related to the people who run the antique shop--we just share a surname") and some things were missing from the house. This sort of thing worked great when we went back to "re-interview" an NPC, saw furniture missing, and got totally different answers to the interview questions!
There was even a sort of red-herring location--the local asylum, where the PCs can't really help, or learn much--just waste time.
This was a one-round (four hour) RPGA event which was almost *all* investigation. But creepy as hell, too. And I think it worked because of the location (small town--not too many options to explore), and the exposition of the story wasn't dependent upon learning the clues in order A-B-C-D.
Sorry to ramble on so much. Hope this helps.
