Comments | inkylj: Mystery game, part 1

inkylj

Mystery game, part 1

Nov 05, 2005 15:55

Ok, so as mentioned on the mud, I ran a one-session mystery RPG, based on the principles discussed in this Forge thread.
( Here is some discussion of it from the GM's perspective )

rpgs

Comments 14

lpsmith November 6 2005, 04:25:32 UTC

First post!

OK, let's see. First off, I thought the plot (as eventually revealed) was great. A great mix of elaborate setups and several people that could have done it but didn't. My only minor quibble is that it turned out to be male-only: having one or two of the females involved might have been nice.

The gradual reveal of "Aha, it was one of these two people, no wait, it was neither" was also terrific, and made it really feel like a classic mystery plot.

About the clues: I think the premise of the Forge post is that you *don't* leave clues for the PCs to find. What you do instead is set up a situation, let the PCs form theories, let *them* determine what the clues would be if their theory was correct, then, if their theory is indeed correct, they find the clue in question (or if the truth is similar enough in the aspect they're testing, they also find the clue).

The GM actually doesn't have a lot of clues in mind beyond the initial setup, you see. He knows what the Case is, and the Result. The players must then invent ( ... )

lpsmith November 6 2005, 04:35:34 UTC

The handkerchief clue Gwendolyn got was great, because it determined that the culprit was indeed missing the handkerchief he had burned. I don't remember if we determined who *else* had hankies or was missing one--I guess that could have been more deliberate on our part. "I act dramatic around various people to see if they have a handkerchief" "William, Hypatia, and Chickering all do not have handkerchiefs" (well, role-played out ( ... )

inkylj November 8 2005, 01:09:24 UTC

We talked about this on the mud some, but just to write some of what we said down and expand on a few things ( ... )

inkylj November 8 2005, 01:09:50 UTC

[..Continued ( ... )

Thread 5

katre50 November 6 2005, 17:32:19 UTC

As far as the bit where it takes a long time for everyone to thrash out ideas and talk them over and decide what to do, that's pretty much exactly why I set up the forum for my Shadowrun game (and why I kept pushing people to use it rather than to ad-lib). I could see it being more difficult to do as a mystery game, since that's not as nicely divided into planning/action as Shadowrun. Also, of course, using the forum loses the ability to do chit-chat and wacky role-playing that we all love. But it's still something to consider.

Speaking as your NPC, I did get to read (well, quickly skim) the character notes, which was good. Of course, I had to keep asking Duchess "Okay, now who is Stanley again?" since I had missed when everyone was making PCs. Also, I had to keep restraining _my_ urge to get in wacky role-playing, since a good NPC is more like furniture than anything else, and I didn't want to accidentally mess something up for you. (Which I did anyway. Sorry!)

huskyscotsman November 6 2005, 23:50:48 UTC

I had to keep asking Duchess "Okay, now who is Stanley again?"

Yeah, I had the same problem figuring out which NPC was you and which was inky. But I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, since, you know, we were all role-playing and stuff. Not knowing who is playing whom is a weird side-effect of playing RPGs on the MUD, and I usually find that I like it a lot.

In this game, I found myself concentrating more on the role-playing at certain times, since other people were dealing with the mystery stuff, and then later on I toned down the role-playing so that the mystery stuff could progress properly. So my overall sense of involvement was not huge, although it was still really good fun. Hence my feeling that maybe this kind of game is best with fewer players.

huskyscotsman November 6 2005, 23:52:22 UTC

...or maybe if you have lots of players it's best for some of them to play NPCs. I'd really like to try this out in inky's next session.

inkylj November 8 2005, 01:17:19 UTC

Having reread the forge thread, it suggests only three people or so in the group, which probably encourages all the people to balance between role-playing and trying to solve the mystery. I certainly didn't have a problem with the ratio you found -- I hope it was ok for you. I'm definitely planning on having some more folks as NPCs for the next shot, yeah.

(For the record, I think katre was Edmund all the time once he showed up, and I was everybody else.)

duchez November 6 2005, 19:01:53 UTC

I enjoyed the wackiness that the plot involved, because it wasn't a "straightforward" solution. I kept imagining it was a straight murder, like the Speckled Band, or the Red-Headed League. So I completely missed the fact that the NPCs might not be aware of what was going on either ( ... )

emshort November 6 2005, 21:43:43 UTC

Hm, the link to the transcript doesn't actually link to a transcript.

inkylj November 7 2005, 01:06:04 UTC

Yeah, sorry, I should have put a note in -- I figured lpsmith should hold off on putting it up until next week. If folks want to see it now, lemme know and I'll mail a copy.

inkylj November 8 2005, 01:25:36 UTC

Everyone's comments have been helpful. Here's what I'm thinking about doing for next session ( ... )