Mad_Jack
Legend
Disregarding the larger meta-game conversation, one thing to keep in mind is that you've had the party officially deputized - as members of the city police, they don't necessarily need to find information on their own... At any moment, a hot lead or some new rumors with sketchy details could come in from the several hundred other cops in the city and/or one of their informants.
(Which means that someone else took all the (real or imagined) risk involved, and suffered any possible consequences.)
You have several ways available to point them straight at the clues you want them to find and to give them the information you want them to have.
And if their needs to be a slightly greater sense of urgency at some point, there are many ways to poke the horse:
An informant turns up dead, which means that somebody knows somebody talked about something and that might mean sudden changes to the way business gets done...
Dead dealers/other employees of the BBEG turn up, indicating a possible rival or even possibly some lone vigilante taking justice into their own hands. Other folks declaring war on the bad guys, whether organizations or single nutjobs, isn't good for the party's work...
Someone wants to talk, but either they want some outrageous payoff for it or some ridiculous level of safeguarding from the repercussions. Which means the party may need to pull off some shenanigans to get the person what they want or to convince them to be more reasonable...
Someone's decided Something Must Be Done to end the "scourge of these drugs plaguing our streets" and has begun organizing protests and more importantly putting pressure on the party's bosses to make progress. Starting out with a gentle nudge (the team gets called in for a progress report) and slowly building up to the "I don't care how, just get this S.O.B.!!!" speech from their boss's boss allows you to test the waters to see if the party is just taking their own sweet time about things or if they're actually lost...
(And, if you want to, to introduce a shortcut - the mysterious and/or shady npc (or group thereof) who can solve their problems for them - but always with a cost (rarely ever just money) that may or may not be worth it. Adding more or less pressure to get the job done can influence how willing the party might be to take advantage of the potential shortcut and deal with the guy. Which also sets up some interesting scenarios regarding the possible repercussions later on of dealing with them...)
Sometimes rotating the board slightly can give you a new perspective on the game, but if you turn the board a little this way and a little that way and the players are still playing the same game, then just shrug and carry on the status quo.
(Which means that someone else took all the (real or imagined) risk involved, and suffered any possible consequences.)
You have several ways available to point them straight at the clues you want them to find and to give them the information you want them to have.
And if their needs to be a slightly greater sense of urgency at some point, there are many ways to poke the horse:
An informant turns up dead, which means that somebody knows somebody talked about something and that might mean sudden changes to the way business gets done...
Dead dealers/other employees of the BBEG turn up, indicating a possible rival or even possibly some lone vigilante taking justice into their own hands. Other folks declaring war on the bad guys, whether organizations or single nutjobs, isn't good for the party's work...
Someone wants to talk, but either they want some outrageous payoff for it or some ridiculous level of safeguarding from the repercussions. Which means the party may need to pull off some shenanigans to get the person what they want or to convince them to be more reasonable...
Someone's decided Something Must Be Done to end the "scourge of these drugs plaguing our streets" and has begun organizing protests and more importantly putting pressure on the party's bosses to make progress. Starting out with a gentle nudge (the team gets called in for a progress report) and slowly building up to the "I don't care how, just get this S.O.B.!!!" speech from their boss's boss allows you to test the waters to see if the party is just taking their own sweet time about things or if they're actually lost...
(And, if you want to, to introduce a shortcut - the mysterious and/or shady npc (or group thereof) who can solve their problems for them - but always with a cost (rarely ever just money) that may or may not be worth it. Adding more or less pressure to get the job done can influence how willing the party might be to take advantage of the potential shortcut and deal with the guy. Which also sets up some interesting scenarios regarding the possible repercussions later on of dealing with them...)
Sometimes rotating the board slightly can give you a new perspective on the game, but if you turn the board a little this way and a little that way and the players are still playing the same game, then just shrug and carry on the status quo.
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