GMing help wanted: Coming up with clues and paths of investigation

[StormKnight]

There are a lot of things I'm very comfortable about GMing, but investigations are a bit of tough spot for me. I often find I don't quite know how to prepare for or handle an investigation in an RPG well.

Most of the advice I've seen centers on avoiding bottlenecks; making sure clues are available in multiple places, or that a failed skill roll won't block an investigation. Which is good advice, but not the problem I usually run into.

The problem I usually have is with what the clues are in the first place. And how are the PCs going to find information? If THEY come up with an idea for how to get info, that's great. But sometimes they don't have ideas, and if I went in without ideas myself, I can't provide much for help and suggestions.

See, usually I see investigations come up mostly as part of the natural flow of the game. It's not like I say "I'm going to make a mystery!" It's just that the characters have things they want to know. I know what they want to know, but that doesn't mean the NPCs have nicely set things up so they can know these things. Ya know?

(Please, someone tell me you have any idea what I'm talking about here!)

Let's take an imminent example I'm dealing with. The PCs in a modern super-hero type RPG have learned that a captured NPC who is working with a "demon" (technically, it's an alien being with abilities to manipulate energy that fall into the category of what humans call "magic", but that's mostly semantics) went to a certain place to have her powers enhanced by the demon. They are going there to investigate and learn stuff.

This has been a secret of the demon's for a while know; how he manages to communicate with his allies. There's a group of people in a little retreat/commune area who are in possession of a device that they think lets them talk to "spirits". It is really, basically, a cosmic communicator. And the demon regularly has some of them set it to talk to whoever he wants to talk to. But most of them are in the dark about what's going on.

So, the PCs go there...and then what? If they just go up and say hi (likely) they'll be welcomed in. But...what kind of clues do I put there? What would logically be around for them to find? How do they find out what the device does? What sort of clues can I put in? Why would the people who do know anything share the info with the PCs?

That's a fairly specific example, but any more generic advice is really appreciated as well!

 

[GMMichael]

Let's take an imminent example I'm dealing with. The PCs in a modern super-hero type RPG have learned that a captured NPC who is working with a "demon" went to a certain place to have her powers enhanced by the demon. They are going there to investigate and learn stuff.

This has been a secret of the demon's for a while know; how he manages to communicate with his allies. There's a group of people in a little retreat/commune area who are in possession of a device that they think lets them talk to "spirits". It is really, basically, a cosmic communicator. And the demon regularly has some of them set it to talk to whoever he wants to talk to.

So, the PCs go there...and then what? If they just go up and say hi (likely) they'll be welcomed in. But...what kind of clues do I put there? What would logically be around for them to find? How do they find out what the device does? What sort of clues can I put in? Why would the people who do know anything share the info with the PCs?

First problem: you're designing from the PC's point of view. They're not there, they don't know...so don't expect any answers from their perspective. Flesh out your commune. Ask yourself, "I'm a person who uses a cosmic communicator to talk with a demon. Where does this happen, what does it look like?" If you design from another perspective - the side that has all the answers - things will go easier.

Now that you have the area, routines, and communicator fleshed out, put yourself in a communist's shoes and ask, "what would I do if strangers showed up? Or the po-pos?" They might make some common-sense decisions, or even have a drill for when the wrong people show up.

One of your LAST steps is going to be: what will the PCs see when they get there? And you'll know the answer by deciding what the NPC responses are to trouble, and the timing.

For example:

- PCs get to the boundary of the commune. Timmy, the one-legged sentry, calls in an emergency.
- Commies hide all their illegal stuff - but PC X has X-ray vision and PC Y has super-speed. So PC X can see a couple extra clues, and PC Y can choose to catch the commies in mid-danger-drill, provided he doesn't mind speeding ahead of the party.
- Everyone else arrives, and the drill is done - all the demon-speaking stuff is hidden. But the commies missed one or two clues that the PCs can find - a key is an easy one, or an iPhone with an incriminating video...

 

[TreChriron]

You really need to read this PDF - GURPS Mysteries.

It's brilliant, filled with advice on running such adventures, and did I mention it's brilliant?

 

[Bawylie]

A mystery or investigation is a backward reconstruction of events which already have happened. Clues aren't merely hints or leads to an answer. They are Evidence Of a Fact. And they come in two forms. Direct evidence (such as a dead body) and indirect evidence (like a trail of blood and drag marks in the floor).

A mystery is "solved" when the relevent facts are pieced together to reconstruct the most likely series of events.

Therefore, when you design a mystery or investigation, you must first determine what happened - the who, what, where, when & why. Then you must create the evidence that proves the facts of what happened. Because your players are not likely real life detectives (and you're not Sherlock Holmes), the evidence must be 1.) Obtainable, observable, and accessible
(not hidden) and 2.) must clearly prove a fact OR lead to a fact (if followed-up).

Elaborate mysteries with multiple chains and clues are oversold. A single bit of evidence can be sufficient to prove a fact, but it doesn't have to be the only evidence that exists. And because players tend to have access to magic, you should be generous with the evidence you give.

Remember also that the "solution" to the investigation is the MID-WAY point of your plot line. "You've figured out the answer. Now what are you going to do about it?" (TV and movies can put it at the end because, again, the writer controls the placement of all required people and evidence. You don't.).

If you want to see this kind of thing done in an engaging way, look at some of the investigation side missions in Batman: Arkham Origins. Batman scans a crime scene for evidence, reverse-engineers the crime, identifies the perpetrator, and then locates and busts him. They only take 10 minutes of play but that's good pacing for that game.

Write evidence that actually establishes facts and GIVE IT TO THE PLAYERS. Don't make them jump through hoops. The point of a mystery is to solve it.

 

[StormKnight]

First problem: you're designing from the PC's point of view. They're not there, they don't know...so don't expect any answers from their perspective. Flesh out your commune. Ask yourself, "I'm a person who uses a cosmic communicator to talk with a demon. Where does this happen, what does it look like?" If you design from another perspective - the side that has all the answers - things will go easier.

That's for the suggestions!

I'm afraid that's pretty much backwards from what I'm experiencing. As mentioned, these tend to come up as part of the natural flow of the game. I haven't designed them from the PCs point of view. I've thought "here are these people, they are doing this stuff". I come up with what is going on in the world, who the people are, what they would be doing if the PCs weren't there... and I wind up without good places to go when the PCs interact.

This was an imminent question for me because I was running this last night. This was worrying question for me because it was a second play, and the first play went very badly!

Typing in the question helped to clarify my thoughts on it a lot; I adjusted a lot of things, this time from the approach of "what would make good points of interaction/clues for the PCs?" rather than "what are these people doing". Things went much, much better.

Some of the changes I made:

* Originally, there were several pictures of early members of the group hanging in the study; one being of a person the PCs recognized. These pictures were moved down to the lower floor room that the PCs were likely to see first. This immediately established that they were on the right track, and more importantly gave them a good conversation starter.

* Originally, most of the commune members had witnessed an 'incident' (the above mentioned captured NPC visiting - she's an insubstantial mutant who looks quite scary). Though they interpreted it differently (Ghost? Angel? Demon? Shared hallucination?), they all knew about it. Problem is, that makes it a bit of a shared secret among them, that outsiders would probably find a bit implausible. Not something you want to talk tp potential new recruits about (not without a lot of spin at least)
So, in the redone version, only a few people had seen the visitor. Some of them had been scared, and left the group. The others were the ones working with the demon. The rest didn't know what happened exactly; the person showing the PCs around had chalked it up to a practical joke that a few people had taken too seriously. This made him much more willing to talk about it, and gave the PCs info that the 'prankster' group were people they needed to look at more closely.

* Really big change. Originally, the conduit (the cosmic communicator thing) was controlled magically. You focus energy it in the proper way, it connects to different places. Problem is, while that's something one of the characters can do, it's not actually something the PLAYERS can interact with. So, in the redone version, the conduit had a visible piece, but also a hidden actual control panel. That's something the players could look for and interact with and figure out. It still required an infusion of magic energy to actually trigger, but that's how other magical objects have worked, so they knew to do that.
This also meant that the one person there who knew how to control the conduit had to do physical things to use it. He could tell the PCs had messed with it, but he needed to actually go manipulate it himself to figure out what they had done. And he can't power it himself, so he needed his associates for it, but needed to make changes to the controls while they weren't there (he didn't want to share that secret). This gave a lot more stuff going on for the PCs to spot, spy on and interact with.

* The conduit itself originally was mainly just voice. I changed it to create an image as well, which when the PCs activated it gave them much more information about who they were talking to (and gave who they were talking to more info about them...)

* One of the commune members became a big tabloid reader and conspiracy nut. This resulted in her recognizing a PC (who had wound up in a celebrity gossip bit as a celebrity's new girlfriend...long story!). This set her up as a good source of info and gossip; she was also in touch with what was going on within the group, like the people meeting at night for some secret reason. She was also fun to play; I made her familiar with a lot of stuff that had happened with the PCs, but drawing a lot of wild conclusions about them; her info was pretty good, but her connections and theories were wildly off!

* Originally, the demon had given a made-up name for itself to the people. Ditched that bit of misdirection; he's got a huge ego and was virtually unknown in this world when he made contact with the originally. There would have been no reason for him to use an alias.

* The guy who was in touch with the demon, this time, actually contacted the demon for advice. Said demon has been playing a "wise guiding angel" to them, but when the PCs stepped in and confronted him, they knew he had a really bad temper and goaded him into breaking his character and delivering a bunch of vicious threats that turned his two less knowledgeable followers against him.

* Part of the premise involved using the conduit to find a place to go for more information, but the original set-up left them without a really good reason to go to a potentially dangerous place. This time, after they had exposed the demon he bit, he had his still loyal follower set up the conduit to allow him to direct a bolt of infecting energy at one of the PCs. Now they NEED to follow-up to figure out what she's been infected with.

So, this time went very well. Fun bit of light mystery and interaction, setting up to a nice cliff-hanger and more upcoming adventure. Fhew (that's, err, a sigh of relief).

Now I'm trying to figure out how to generalize what I learned here.

* Worked better when approached from "how will I give the PCs info" rather than just "what are the NPCs up to?"
* Conflicting NPCs give the PCs a lot more to interact with.
* Be sure that some of the NPCs will be inclined to open up to the PCs, at least enough to give them clues as to who to talk to.
* Provide leads to follow early to direct the conversations.

"what would I do if strangers showed up? Or the po-pos?" They might make some common-sense decisions, or even have a drill for when the wrong people show up.

- PCs get to the boundary of the commune. Timmy, the one-legged sentry, calls in an emergency.
- Commies hide all their illegal stuff - but PC X has X-ray vision and PC Y has super-speed. So PC X can see a couple extra clues, and PC Y can choose to catch the commies in mid-danger-drill, provided he doesn't mind speeding ahead of the party.
- Everyone else arrives, and the drill is done - all the demon-speaking stuff is hidden. But the commies missed one or two clues that the PCs can find - a key is an easy one, or an iPhone with an incriminating video...

For the record, for this particular instance, none of this really makes sense. What they do with strangers is welcome them, be very friendly, and hope they'll be impressed enough to want to donate money and stay there. And talking with spirits/angels/demons may be odd or disbelieved, but it certainly isn't illegal.

 

[GMMichael]

Write evidence that actually establishes facts and GIVE IT TO THE PLAYERS. Don't make them jump through hoops. The point of a mystery is to solve it.

Evidence is a good choice of words. Don't give out "proof," that would make solving the mystery too easy.

If you must give the evidence to the players, you can still make them think that they jumped through hoops - there's more sense of accomplishment that way:

Player: This room looks awful strange - almost like rituals are performed here. I want to investigate that strange sconce you mentioned.

GM: (Knowing the sconce is just a decoration) You tug on the sconce, and a small key falls out from behind it. It looks like it might fit into the small keyhole you found earlier.

 

[Hand of Evil]

For me I do the following:

• The end result - I write out what I want the last page to be, what the players solve, the who done it, the McGuffin.
• List of NPCs - these are just NPCs that will have some connection to the McGuffin.
• List of clues - these are the things or events I leave for my players to find and how they relate back to the McGuffin. The players may never find some of them or even relate them to the McGuffin, some are basic, the weapon, the location, the NPCs. Remember to ask; why is this a clue.
• Flow Chart / Time Table - events have to happen, having a flow chart and time table helps.
• Action and Reaction - for every clue/event/action, just ask yourself what is the result.

 

[Ratskinner]

IME, the greatest problem with investigations is the players not being very good detectives. That is, nowadays I usually double the number of clues available from what I think would be necessary, and I've gotten into the habit (from Gumshoe) of signaling when they've dug what they can from a scene. I can't tell you how often my scenarios have gotten derailed when the PCs go charging off after information that was just color. Don't be afraid to help players along with their characters' impressions, either. It can be very hard for a player to construct an impression of a scene from just a sensory description.

If investigations are coming up during play, man that's a tough one. I can't think of something more difficult to improvise scenario-wise. Maybe give yourself a chart or deck of very general clue types that might be in your gameworld and start drawing from them as inspiration when they get into these scenes: "hmmm... Damning Paperwork ah maybe they'll notice a shipping manifest on his desk that points to the warehouse." or "Strange Vibes ...as your walking around the warehouse, you all start to feel uneasy, like you're repeatedly running into cobwebs that aren't there." ...heck maybe somebody has something like that on RPGnow or something.

As others have mentioned, start with the perpetrator's side. Then ask: what did they overlook? What did they just miss? What disturbance did it leave when they tried to cover their tracks? What went wrong? Who else got involved or is putting pressure on them? Often times, its those little connections that help your investigators put the pieces together.

I hope that helps some.

 

[Janx]

I see a lot of different angles to talk about here. Let's start with the situation itself.

Per your description, I envisioned a "circle" of believers at this worship place (perhaps a new age retreat or shop).

The demon's artifact is hidden there, perhaps in plain site, and perhaps unrealized to the worshippers.

Due to its nature, some of the people in its presence are receiving flashes of telepathic insight. So when the most respected "sensitive" says "I see many images" she really means it.

Thus, all the demon has to do is attend an event at this place, and because he actually is attuned to the device, he talks to whomever he needs to on the other end. Nobody else is the wiser.

Let's say this device is really a crystal. Biggish, so the demon doesn't want to tote it around. He's stashed it at the retreat (perhaps as a fixture). The believers may be using it in their rituals. They believe the crystal helps focus their psychic energies (as believed by some in the real world). This is actually a clue you can use for the players, the fact that the NPCs value this object unusually (and its not for sale).

So let's say the PCs get to this place (call it a New Age shop with a worship space in the back that regulars gather for events). They are all friendly, got nothing to hide (which is true). If asked about what they do, talk about selling talismans and crystals to help people focus their energy, receive messages from the other side. Also invite them to attend an event this weekend where people will take turns sharing their visions in a joint vision quest ritual. This event is in the back room where the device is. one of the players (the most psy-sensitive) may even get a vision. In any event, the device will be present, and PCs might see NPCs acknowledge its importance. That's the clue.
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I can't say that's the best way to outline an investigation, but it is one way I see the situation being setup with some hooks for the players.

If you like the setup, use the ideas from other folks for fleshing out the trail of breadcrumbs, etc.