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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vecnasaurus" data-source="post: 1723029" data-attributes="member: 23182">How about the Sherlock Holmes stories? They may still be the wrong time period, but at least there are no automobiles, and the stories are short enough to read several in an afternoon and pick out the elements you like.I find the absolute worst thing you can do is make the players roll skill checks for every aspect of the game. Avoid this at all costs:DM: The knight gives you a wary look, and returns to his wine. "Yes?" he asks, a hint of arrogance in his voice.PC: I got a 27 on my Gather Information check.DM: The knight tells you that on the 13th of March, he and his servant were...The feel of an investigative game demands that PCs do their own footwork when it comes to dealing with NPCs. The best thing to do is simply take the PC's skills into account when deciding how NPC's react, i.e., distraught murder witnesses calm down more quickly when comforted by a paladin with a high Diplomacy skill, the stonewalling innkeeper actually decides to talk to the bard with many ranks in Gather Information, the weasel spills the beans when confronted with the fighter with many ranks in Intimidate, etc. The further advantage of this method is that you want to avoid the reverse of the combat phenomenon. Just as a first level bard or wizard tends to feel useless in combat, its easy for a fighter or barbarian to feel useless if the entire investigation is based on skill checks. The most common complaint with this method is that not every >player< is a skilled speaker who can convince an NPC to talk, and its not fair to deny a player the skills their character posesses (although you're not, as long as you're aware of what the character can do). To this I would say 1) Give it a try, you may find it fun after all, and 2) You don't get to make an INT check to get past the dungeon puzzle, do you?  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":]" title="Devious    :]" data-shortname=":]" /></blockquote>

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