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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mneme" data-source="post: 5586761" data-attributes="member: 59248">@<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/members/quickleaf.html" target="_blank">QuickLeaf</a> -- The form of "freeform skill challenge" I mean here isn't the unpublishable "just make it up as you go along" (though frankly, that isn't unpublishable either if you give the GM enough to make it easy to run), but that rather than framing possible actions by the PCs, you instead map out where the various clues are and how they lead into one or another, building a clue trail.  Rather than proceeding towards a linear "success", PC successes instead push them further along the clue trail and make the mystery easier to solve (so a success on talking to the guard reveals that a victim visited an unusual clergyman a few days before his death; a success on talking to the clergyman gets him to talk about his other penitent who complained of similar symptoms, wheras a great success in conversation (or a success on searching the clergyman's house) reveals a book -- and the players can investigate the book, the other victim, or both, etc.Rather than having a very linear set of clues, each one leading to another, you can have a much larger set of clues that the players choose to follow.  This does result in some clues leading to the same place, but as long as the destination is still the real killer, they should be able to follow multiple paths while getting to the same destination eventually (or failing to do so before events close in around them).</blockquote>

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