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Inspiration for an urban intrigue/espionage adventure
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<blockquote data-quote="Ralif Redhammer" data-source="post: 7171083" data-attributes="member: 30438"><p>As far as inspiration goes, I’d recommend reading Scott Lynch’s Gentleman Bastards series and watching the first batch of James Bond movies.</p><p></p><p>As much as I love the Sherlock Holmes stories, I don’t think they’re a good place to start for inspiration. Most players aren’t gifted with superhuman powers of observation, after all.</p><p></p><p>There’s also a wonderful blog entry on mystery/investigation adventures that I’ve found to be vastly useful:</p><p></p><p><a href="http://blogofholding.com/?p=6649" target="_blank">http://blogofholding.com/?p=6649</a></p><p></p><p>For my part, I think that the key to proper investigation adventures is to not have a set “go there, do this, then go there, do this” outline. Instead, come up with interesting characters, complications, dead ends, and events. Then let the players decide how they are going to try to unravel the mystery. The key is to make sure that even when they’re wrong, something interesting or fun is happening. I don’t need to know that they’re going to ask Gungmiles the Sage in the Tower District about the spell component residue, but I do need to know that informant #1 is a gnome, speaks in overly complicated terms, knows about the spell components used in the secret ritual, and wants his competitor embarrassed in return for the information. Who the informant ends up being lies with the players. Maybe they decide to ask that drunken wizard they helped out a few adventures ago. Or go to the cleric's elders.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ralif Redhammer, post: 7171083, member: 30438"] As far as inspiration goes, I’d recommend reading Scott Lynch’s Gentleman Bastards series and watching the first batch of James Bond movies. As much as I love the Sherlock Holmes stories, I don’t think they’re a good place to start for inspiration. Most players aren’t gifted with superhuman powers of observation, after all. There’s also a wonderful blog entry on mystery/investigation adventures that I’ve found to be vastly useful: [url]http://blogofholding.com/?p=6649[/url] For my part, I think that the key to proper investigation adventures is to not have a set “go there, do this, then go there, do this” outline. Instead, come up with interesting characters, complications, dead ends, and events. Then let the players decide how they are going to try to unravel the mystery. The key is to make sure that even when they’re wrong, something interesting or fun is happening. I don’t need to know that they’re going to ask Gungmiles the Sage in the Tower District about the spell component residue, but I do need to know that informant #1 is a gnome, speaks in overly complicated terms, knows about the spell components used in the secret ritual, and wants his competitor embarrassed in return for the information. Who the informant ends up being lies with the players. Maybe they decide to ask that drunken wizard they helped out a few adventures ago. Or go to the cleric's elders. [/QUOTE]
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