Help Needed With a Film Noir Adventure

[Gwaednerth]

So I have a campaign more or less worked out, but I've gotten to the stage where I'm fleshing out the exact details of each adventure and hit a roadblock. I want to build a film noir style adventure set in a small rural town (read sparsely populated countryside where no one can hear you scream) with aspects of a monster movie or a cosmic horror story (the monster is an Illithid) However, it seems to me that the plot of such a story is either radically too open (the players have so many options that they barely even have a place to start) or very much a railroad (the players want to go interview the local thug but feel the plot demands they go down the creepy staircase) So, how do I break down this style of story so that I can tread a middle ground and create plausible encounters that don't force the heroes to go to X place to work?
Thank you,
-T.

[Tokiko Mima]

I think what you're looking for is the Three Clue Rule. (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule) For every place the players must go, include at least three different clues directing them to the necessary location. If they need to go to the basement, plant at least three events/items/dialogues that point squarely to the cellar.

If you want to ramp up the tension, give them a timeline. For example, every night they spend searching, the illithid will acquire another villager at random for more cranium-based cuisine (bonus points if each murder scene provides additional clues). If they tend to wander too broadly, it would not be out of place to crib an idea from Ravenloft; for some reason leaving the village makes one confused, and wander in random directions through the mist until they return to the edge of town.