Setting a crime scene

[GoldfishBowl]

Hello playground. I'm running a short game for my group on off days using the Occult Adventures playtest for Pathfinder. Everybody's a gestalt Kineticist, and we're playing in the Avatar: The Last Airbender world. Lots of creative problem solving using bending alongside the expected cinematic combat.

Anyway, I need a little help with how to present a crime scene to the players without making everything either painfully obvious or frustratingly obtuse.

The situation. Small village in the earth kingdom, after end of Last Airbender, but before the founding of Republic City. The mayor's daughter has a boyfriend, a firebender. This does not sit well with the mayor. The kids decide to run away together, taking some of the mayor's money to fund a new life, and they hatch a plan. They will have a very public argument, where he tries to convince her to run away, but she rejects him saying she can't leave ber family. She ends it with him, and cries on dad's relieved shoulders. A few days later, she trashes her room, knocks out the couple guards by surprise, and runs away leaving a ransom note written by her boyfriend demanding a sizable amount of money. When the mayor pays, they take the money and run.

When it happens, the mayor is in a state, and eats it up, summoning the Party to deliver the ransom, or take a shot at capturing the offender. But what I want is a chance for the PCs to pick up on a number of clues hinting that the kidnapping is not what it appears to be on the surface.

I'm having trouble planting clues that are good, but not immediately obvious. Things like the note being in her handwritting is too easy, but everything else I come up with seems ridiculously obscure.

Any experience running an investivation focused scenario, or just suggestions for this case?

[Maglubiyet]

Someone recently posted this link to the Three Clue Rule (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule). It's so good (and relevant to your question) that I'm going to repost it here.

[Keltest]

Lets see...

A good one is always that the direction of the shattered window/door is outward from the room, indicating someone broke out rather than in. The destruction could be specifically from non-valuable objects. Perhaps a careful assessment would note that her jewelry is not among the debris, even though the box it was kept in is.

[Radar]

He's a firebender and she isn't. This means there won't be any signes of fire in her trashed room or on the guards and I think any bender would instinctively use his abilities in a fight.

One of the guards could have seen or heard something that might help as well - this is one of those adjustable clues, where you can change the information given almost on the fly, since there are many guards and they concievably could have trouble remembering all the details immediately or dismissed some thoughts, because they didn't seem relevant or possible.

[Lord Torath]

The PCs note a lack of personal items in her room (no diary, no hair brushes, no jewelry, and that sketch of her and her boyfriend is missing, too.) The problem with this is it's hard to notice an absence of something if you didn't know it should be there in the first place. Maybe have a bunch of empty shelves that are knick-knack sized?

How about, the guards are laid out on their backs with their feet toward her door with their weapons still in their sheaths (hear the noise she's making, then turn around to see if she needs help, then knocked backward by her air bending).

[Gritmonger]

Room not trashed for valuables - things that might hide valubles are not overturned, while easily broken items are broken. Anger rather than avarice motivated the breaking.

Order of things. Say there is a broken window, inward, but the glass is overtop of other displaced items in the room: struggle or trashing took place before window breakage, not after.

Spillable object, glass, or food not overturned in the midst of other overturned items. People can make a mess but can draw the line at a filthy mess.

Order of overturned objects. If done by wind, will all be jumbled together rather than in order of a standard search. Disaster versus trashing.

[Beta Centauri]

Tell the players what the mystery is and what the pacing should be, and then have them tell you what the clues are. If you want there to be at least one incorrect theory that leads to hijinks, tell them and - if that sounds like fun to them instead of the aggravation it would normally be - their characters will not only find a clue that leads them on the wrong path, but will believe it utterly.

[GoldfishBowl]

Thanks folks! That article was a valuable read, and a lot of these suggestions have helped clear the creative block.

Keep them coming by all means though :)

[Maglubiyet]

Most players I know wouldn't bother to go back and investigate the crime scene. They would consider that backstory and focus on their mission -- capture the boyfriend.

You could start their involvement earlier, before the girl disappears, so they have time to piece it together. That might be kind of boring and they may actually thwart the later "kidnapping" by capturing the boyfriend before the events unfold. PC's are resourceful like that.

Or, you could have them figure it out as they go. Like, if the ransom was paid where is the girl? Why are there two sets of footprints on the trail they're following? Why was their camp ambushed in the night by an airbender and not a firebender.

Maybe the PC's could be the delivery guys for the ransom. They go to the arranged spot, leave the loot, and then go a little ways off to wait and watch. The bag gets suctioned up in a vortex and deposited on the other side of a chasm -- clearly not within the abilities of a firebender.