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<blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 8677082" data-attributes="member: 19857">This is true.&nbsp; And it's true of many of the people who write and publish mystery adventure scenarios as well. In published scenarios the writers get stuck on coming up with a clever mystery that nobody has seen before and end up making things convoluted sometimes to the point of frustration for everyone.&nbsp; When in fact IME most players are not Sherlock Holmes and so a dead simple mystery with a single twist and maybe a single red herring is usually sufficient to generate hours of play at the table.And if you're not going to publish it just watch any murder show, change the murderer to have some supernatural method or motive, and you're probably good.&nbsp; Mostly you just need an event to investigate, a handful of clues, a red herring, and a twist.&nbsp; Any mystery procedural is going to have all of those (though the &quot;event&quot; will always be &quot;a murder&quot;, so sometimes you have to think a lot how to reskin it into something else if your players are getting tired of murders).&nbsp; Your players are unlikely to realize you ripped off an episode of Psych to create the scenario for the night, and even if they eventually do they won't care.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jer, post: 8677082, member: 19857"] This is true. And it's true of many of the people who write and publish mystery adventure scenarios as well. In published scenarios the writers get stuck on coming up with a clever mystery that nobody has seen before and end up making things convoluted sometimes to the point of frustration for everyone. When in fact IME most players are not Sherlock Holmes and so a dead simple mystery with a single twist and maybe a single red herring is usually sufficient to generate hours of play at the table. And if you're not going to publish it just watch any murder show, change the murderer to have some supernatural method or motive, and you're probably good. Mostly you just need an event to investigate, a handful of clues, a red herring, and a twist. Any mystery procedural is going to have all of those (though the "event" will always be "a murder", so sometimes you have to think a lot how to reskin it into something else if your players are getting tired of murders). Your players are unlikely to realize you ripped off an episode of Psych to create the scenario for the night, and even if they eventually do they won't care. [/QUOTE]

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