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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8416557" data-attributes="member: 6696971">The last time this happened in a game I ran it was in a prior Blades in the Dark game where [USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER] was in Barrowcleft investigating a shut down of the ward (this is the breadbasket of Duskvol) because someone had killed a large number of people (a serial killer...a terrorist attack...unclear) and the Spirit Wardens and their Deathseeker Crows weren't able to get the job done of locating and securing all the corpses in time to electroplasmically cremate them in the Bellweather Crematorium (thus, the spirits overwhelmed Barrowcleft).  So hawkeyefan's PC (a Leech) investigated the now haunted and cordoned off ward while [USER=6993955]@Fenris-77[/USER] worked the kill pool in the gambling den and played "the man in the chair" via a runner to and from he ward (kind of a "coms" scenario).  To answer [USER=16814]@Ovinomancer[/USER] 's questions:Why are they investigating a crime scene?  What's the tension here, what do they hope to get form this, why is it important to them?1)  The players rolled a Demonic Notice Entanglement related to this (A demon approaches the crew with a dark offer. Accept their bargain, hide until it loses interest (forfeit 3 rep), or deal with it another way).2)  The PCs were in debt to a dangerous individual (a Faction Clock) and they had to figure out a way to pay him back.  They (a) arranged for a "Prop Bet Pool" in a gambling hall and for several Crews to have representatives go into the haunted ward and find out who the killer(s) was/were among other bets.  They then (b) used the dangerous individual's muscle to give him credit for the win and arrange for him to make a killing in the prop bet pools.  3)  There was an NPC that had family die in this that hawkeyefan's PC was somehow involved with (whether it was sympathy or friend of a friend or whatever, I can't recall).  He was able to secure the ghost of this person from one of the two (there were two...a union hall and a grain silo) sites of carnage.4)  They earned no Rep or Coin on this Score (the Coin all went to the dangerous dude and the setup of him winning the pool meant they couldn't earn the Rep for the job because his Crew got the credit), but they resolved their Demonic Notice Entanglement, their dangerous Clock, gained assets, gained helpful Faction (Spirit Warden tech for a Longterm Project and a Contact with the Sparkwrights - engineers), and ensured no bad Faction with the Dimmer Sisters (who are dangerous and Tier 3 while this Crew was only Tier 1).[HR][/HR]These are the sort of things that players have to initiate before even taking up or getting into the "what do you do" portion of a mystery in a Story Now game like Apocalypse World or Blades in the Dark.  There is "System's Say" and "Player's Say" before there is any "GM's Say."Going into uncovering the Barrowcleft Mystery Score I had no hard & fast idea of (a) whodunnit, (b) why, (c) or how.  If this was a game of Clue, there was nothing in the envelope.  It was stitched together through play (System Say meeting Player Say and obliging GM's Say).</blockquote>

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