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Message: <blockquote data-quote="IanArgent" data-source="post: 4676818" data-attributes="member: 21673">I've been reading a couple of threads on the subject (<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/250819-campaign-types-covered-various-editions.html" target="_blank">here is the respawned hopefully non-edition-wars one</a>) which asks (among other things) what system would be best for:"1) An Investigative, Non-combat game (Murder mysteries, CSI, X-Files, etc.)"My answer would be, "it doesn't matter." In this type of game (and I spent most of a decade running a Shadowrun game with a strong bent towards this) the rules are simply in the way. The conflict (not necessarily antagonistic, GM vs players) is entirely in the mental space between the GM and the players. This style of game (in my experience and opinion) boils down to the GM providing what happens, and the players respond with what their characters do (at which point the GM has to figure out how to resolve) or the other way round (the players provide what their characters do and the GM responds). The mechanics of a game system tell the GM and players how they can do things, but the important part of this game style isn't how it's done, but what is done. IE - the important part isn't the mechanics of looking for a clue, but that the players are looking for clues, the GM is placing clues, and how the players interpret that clue. Rolling perception is the mechanic, but saying "I look around", "you find a piece of cloth in the corner; it looks like is could have been torn off a cloak", and the player saying "OK - lets keep an eye out for someone with a ragged cloak" are all the important parts of that "encounter". That can be done in any game system, and everything after finding the scrap of cloth itself is non-mechanical.This kind of game is the hardest (again IMO) to separate the player from the character - if the player is incapable of reasoning and deductive and inductive logic, the character will not be. Watson would never be able to run Holmes as a character without significant assistance from the GM. And vice versa is almost as hard, a little slip of a smart player playing a dumb character can have unexpected consequences.</blockquote>

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