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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Philip Benz" data-source="post: 7884929" data-attributes="member: 6975782">There are three types of investigations:- Finding clues: today we think of CSI, fingerprints and DNA matching, but old-school clues could be anything from footprints in the flowerbed to an abstruse reference in a 300-year-old property deed lost in some city's house of records. You'll need to give some thought to the villain's backstory to come up with useful clues the PCs could follow.- Canvassing the neighborhood: people talk. See something, say something. Before the current situation with the villain, he must have had interactions with various people for various reasons, anything from grocery shopping to casing the site of his next heist. People will have seen him, interacted with him or even worked with or for him. These people may have talked with other people, creating rumors about who knows what about whom. Plan some of these interactions for people to stumble across, and improvise the rest.- In flagranti delicto: the PCs may actually themselves see the villain or some of his henchmen committing a crime, fleeing the scene or getting ready to act. Hot pursuit  or a set piece battle often ensues.So, my backwards goblin, take your twisted wizard and root around in his cellar. Maybe his mechanical cohorts don't need food, but the wizard himself may have a penchant for mulled chianti and fava beans that he needs to satisfy from time to time by picking up supplies from his old pal the bootlegger. Maybe last month or last year the twisted wizard was involved in a different plot in a nearby region before relocating here, and someone from that region just happens to be passing through. Maybe some detail from the twisted wizard's past comes back to haunt him. And maybe some of the local fisherman have seen or heard more than is good for them.These things are all fertile ground for an investigation-style adventure. Before you plan to run such an adventure, you need to give each angle some thought, come up with some concrete clues, and have enough backstory fleshed out that you can more easily and convincingly improvise from the players' initiatives.</blockquote>

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