WoD Investigation ideas needed

[Braininthejar2]

I'm making an investigation adventure for a fairly novice player, and I'm stuck designing the mystery.

Long story short, the culprits moved a body from a house, taking it to a different location by car. Perhaps someone has seen it or something...

With living humans, that would be the next step - using the car's licence plate to gather information, and get the address of the owner. The player knows those tricks from her previous adventure.

The problem is, this time the culprits are vampires - the undead don't really register cars or homes on themselves, or appear in any data bases.

So what clues could have been left that would point the player at their current location? What would you use?

[iceman10058]

Maybe have the vehicle regestered to a ghoul the vampire uses.

[Segev]

Step 1: Determine how the vampires came by the car.

Step 2: Determine whether the car is reported stolen.

Step 3: Let them investigate the car. It should lead to somebody with connection to the vampires, or to a car theft they can investigate to find the vampires.

If the vampires ditched the car, where it's found might be a clue. Are the vampires tech savvy? Maybe the car has a lo jack that can be used to track where it's been.



In addition, consider evidence they may have left at the scene.

This really isn't any different than if it weren't vampires, except where their powers complicate things. If they used them.

[solidork]

It would be hilarious if they forgot and left Obfuscate running while driving around and someone called the police about a car with no driver. I don't actually play Vampire, so I'm not sure if that power actually works like that.

[Lorsa]

It would be hilarious if they forgot and left Obfuscate running while driving around and someone called the police about a car with no driver. I don't actually play Vampire, so I'm not sure if that power actually works like that.

Unfortunately it doesn't. All that would lead to is that people remember the car but never having spotted the driver.

[Lentrax]

If it wasn't a Ghoul, it would have been someone the Vamps Dominated.

So, the car could lead to a regular person who doesn't remember taking a corpse to wherever, but does remember a person(the Vamp) asking them to give their friend a ride.

[Braininthejar2]

The culprits are gangrel (animal empathy, toughness, transformation)

But I will use the dominate idea further down the line :)

[sktarq]

Actually, it should be based most on what your PC's can do and what your players like doing?

If they have poor social skills, and few social Disciplines then witness are going to be frustrating

If they have little to no way of turning Car Registration etc into useful names then unless you want to have a scene about them getting appropriate help it may not be as useful.

Depending on what they could do some ideas

Witness - Description of Car (Could belong to Witness/Dominated bystander, Ghoul, Mover, Victim)
Witness - Description of Body (Getting a good idea of the Victim may help figure out how they got there and who would have known they were there etc etc)
Witness - Description of Mover (seek out Harpies who may know who that describes-also choosing from suspects ID by other means)
Witness - Description of other Witnesses - were there other people in the House? Potential killers themselves? Note that some kids where seen making out in the bushes earlier (and note those bushes would have a great view).

Investigate Rolls to see if anything that the person who became the body left anything behind - that could for ID or explain why they were there (and thus who is likely to know or show up) Phones and stuff may be too helpful - but allowing to dig farther in the text/call histories can be a good source of reupping new ideas if the party is stuck

Investigate Rolls to see if the Killer or movers left anything behind. Tape with special fibers? A receipt in the trash with three Drop cloths and 6 rolls of masking tape-with a time stamp and video surveillance in the store? - great . . . boot prints from mexican/russian/french army boots? start talking to the guys who have Cartel Connections,The Mafiya star kneed guy, or Elder with a French Foreign Legion Veteran Ghouls hard squad. Dirt or substances tracked in by the movers that is rare somehow.

Research into similar cleaning jobs in the past - if the cleaners have an MO it could provide a clue (that went nowhere at the time) that when combined with a new clue gives a useful outcome.

Ping the guy's phone if they have an ID - track its tower pings until battery dies if they good Police connections (or can borrow them)

Search for CCTV cameras in the area - including private home ones. With a basic witness description for the car and a time stamp. Plus a Dominate or Obfuscate visit to the local paranoid whose camera reaches the street they can turn that into Reg numbers, basic look at the driver etc) - plus a potentially colourful NPC for funnzies

Watch a couple cases of Cop shows (CSI, NYPD Blue, Whathaveyou)

If they get stuck - have body/clothing/car be found

[Mr Blobby]

The investigation method is up to the PC's, not you [the ST].

Though bear in mind that that in today's world, it's very difficult for people to survive when they don't legally exist. So at least one of the vamps will have *some* form of paper-trail, be it their original mortal one [if v. young] or a fake one.

[WbtE]

I'm making an investigation adventure for a fairly novice player

Oh boy.

In my experience, players are not particularly good at working through mysteries and it's not that satisfying for the character to solve a mystery by rolling enough successes. If you've played with this person at all (or know them fairly well) you might have a good idea about what kind of scenes they enjoy. Rather than thinking about a mystery concretely, or on the basis of the character's abilities, it could be better to think about the kinds of interactions that the player values, and conceptualise some scenes around those.

So, if the player enjoys a "batman" approach, be sure to let them rough up and intimidate a snitch who can reveal some important information. A player who would rather be seductive probably deserves to charm their way into a clue or two. Hopefully you get the idea! I'd suggest putting a clock on the mystery and using both the character dice rolls and player interactions to determine how quickly the mystery is solved.

[Braininthejar2]

I know the players aren't good with investigations. Which is why I need some extra clues to make sure the adventure progresses smoothly.

And the player chose a nosferatu - learning stuff is their thing, and she's done reasonably good in tutorial scenarios.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I know I link this too much, but check out a handful of The Alexandrian's articles on mystery plots. Specifically, the "Three Clue Rule (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule)". I'll give a summarized version below.

The basic problem you have it "The players are not Sherlock Holmes".
The solution is, "For any conclusion you want the PCs to make, include at least three clues." "The PCs will probably miss the first; ignore the second; and misinterpret the third before making some incredible leap of logic that gets them where you wanted them to go all along.".

His example makes it clear that by "conclusion", he realistically means "initial clues". His example is of a local village butcher turning into a werewolf and murdering his former lovers. Those are the three "initial clues" that lead to the perpetrator. Each of those "initial clues" has itself three "secondary clues" that lead to it. In the end, you have nine clues leading to the perpetrator. Again, the players will miss a third, misinterpret a third, and ignore a few, but eventually they'll catch on.

He then has a few corollaries: Permissive Clue-Finding says that you should add clues as rewards for good investigation practices. Have a great understanding of every level of the crime, but don't make a set list of "these are all and only these are the clues". If someone comes up with a clever way to find a clue, and there could conceivably be a clue for them to find, give them one. Treat the 3-clue rule as listed above a as a safety net, in case your player is being stuck.

Corollary: Proactive Clues. If they're really stuck, bash them in the head. The Vampires decide they're getting too close, and decide to deal with the players.

Corollary: Avoid Red Herrings. Your players will create these on their own.

Corollary: Nothing is foolproof. No, even that clue isn't obvious. Nope, that's not too obvious either. That conclusion isn't an easy one to make. Everything seems foolproof when you're making it up. Nothing is when you're searching for the answer.

A few other articles are great for plotting modern scenarios. I recommend the Node-Based Scenario Design (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/7949/roleplaying-games/node-based-scenario-design-part-1-the-plotted-approach) article. Especially important here is the inversion of the Three Clue Rule:
Given ANY three clues, the players will reach at least ONE conclusion.

The tl;dr of this approach is simple: Create 5 'scenes'. These are going to be your starting scene, three other scenes are each going to be the equivalent of the three "conclusions" that allow them to reach the final scene. Your first scene is your crime scene, A. It has three clues in it, each one leading to one of your three "investigation" scenes, B, C and D. Each of the "investigation" scenes has another three clues, two leading towards the other "investigation" scenes, and the last clue reaching towards your concluding scene, the "we found out who dunnit and we're going to get them" scene. Visually, this looks like this (stealing Alexander's own images.)
http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/node-design/node-design13.jpg
You can further extend this design:
http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/node-design/node-design14.jpg

He goes into a LOT more depth over the course of that series of articles, and has a lot more great articles on all aspects of running games, listed in the Gamemastery 101 (http://thealexandrian.net/gamemastery-101) page. But those two articles combined, the Three Clue Rule and Node-based Design Scenarios, will give you a guide of how to structure your investigation. They'll tell you what clues need to lead to what conclusions, and after that filling in what those clues are will be easy.

[Braininthejar2]

I know of the three clues rule - It's finding good clues that I was struggling with :smallcool:

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Ok, so how are your players going to first discover that there IS a mystery? That's your starting point, and that'll help us with WHERE the clues we should focus on are going to be.

Secondly, what conclusion do you want? Are you wanting them to discover the body, or discover the vampires?

You make a good point that a Vampire may not have the car registered. But that still raises some good clues and avenues. A car with no license plate is very noticeable, and instantly triggers the "something is very wrong" instinct in whoever sees it. Makes for easy witnesses. A car with a stolen license plate can lead to its own bevy of clues, as the theft of the car becomes a new source of clues linking to the vampires. If the car is licensed to someone, it's likely someone close to the vampire, if not emotionally than perhaps physically. Perhaps its licensed to a ghoul, perhaps to an unwitting neighbor. A car not leading directly to the vampire doesn't mean it can't be a useful clue.

Another scene of interest is the original site of the body. Who was the body? Can we find the vampires by tracing the man's personal connections? A note in a calendar? Cryptic messages in a journal? A mis-placed piece of clothing that a vampire left? A nail that scratched a vampire, leaving already-dried blood on it? Oooooh, I really like the last one. Have one of the vampires injure themselves in one of the locations, leaving a whole pile of blood that, while really quite fresh, seems to be ancient. You'd want there to be a LOT of dried blood, to make them ask "why has nobody cleaned this up in the past months?" The answer being, of course, "it only got there yesterday".

Where are they taking the body? That's another place they might leave clues. Tire marks in the dirt? Footprints by a newly dug grave?

If they can identify the car, perhaps it was seen in another locale the vampires frequent, a haven, or a favourite feeding-spot.

Also, is this WoD proper, or nWoD/CoD? If the latter, Auspex is a useful power that any investigator wants to get their hands on. Consider the uses of that power, and how a player might use it on various key objects.

[Braininthejar2]

Okay, so to answer your questions:

Old WoD

The player: An adult, fairly new to RPGs but enjoying herself. She'd already created one Nosferatu character, and ran a couple scenarios, but found it hard to play in a group (her co-player was much more experienced, and playing a Malkavian), so she decided to get some more gameplay experience in one player games.

The character: A young journalist who made a hobby of investigating weird cases, and ended up as a Nosferatu after learning too much. She's still legally alive, working a couple hours each night as a late night radio host (officially, she was disfigured in an accident and hates being seen - the guys she absolutely has to interact with are ghouls). Since snooping is like a sport to Nosferatu, that part of her hasn't changed a bit.

The setting: the Polish city of Cracov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak%C3%B3w
The current situation vampires-wise is as follows:
The Prince is a very old Nosferatu, an unusual situation resulting from some Malkavian scheme in the middle ages.
The primogen has four members besides the prince - Brujah, Toreador, Ventrue and Malkavian.
The brujah hold the sheriff position, the toreadors have the Elisium host, the Ventrue have neither, and are scheming to change it. The Malkavian elder very rarely appears, due to rampant paranoia, but is more influential than anybody suspects.

Of the other two Camarilla clans, The Gangrel are present and still a fair bit of the kainites combat strength in the city, but they've been bled out in fights during WW2, and right now don't have a proper elder, or the numbers to attract one from outside town. As the result, they are not properly represented in the primogen, a fact they deeply resent. The Tremere are not welcome to stay ( the prince does not deny that this is due to some old political commitment he has made) and those who do stay tend to attract 'accidents'. They keep trying anyway.

The crime: Some gangrel have decided to work on increasing their numbers. When they met a tourist from a different city, visiting the city on his way to the mountains, they had a few drinks with him, and once they established he was an orphan, and won't have anyone looking for him, they decided to embrace him - they were going to introduce him later as a Gangrel coming from another city. They used one of their temporary hideouts, a small, abandoned house in the suburbs.

Unfortunately, the prospective neonate had a very traumatic transformation (perhaps he was an unaware garou kinsman?) and frenzied on waking up - he made a lot of noise, and they ended up beating him into torpor (he'll be back to his senses in a couple days, his humanity isn't bad) before carrying him into a car and switching hideouts - just in time, because one of the neighbours called the police. The policemen knew the building to be frequented by drunks, so took a donut-eater approach to the case, and quickly left, but the guy was adamant that something had happened there - and called the player's late night show to tell about it.

Goals: the player is to learn about the local setting (we used to play in Lodz before), and learn enough to get a solid proof that the two gangrel embraced a kindred without the prince's approval - either to use as blackmail material, or to instantly bring it to the elders' attention for some immediate bonus. She should also interact with local nosferatu, hopefully gaining an ally who could accompany her on physically oriented tasks - she's not much of a fighter.

Clues so far:
- witness - the guy who called, can be called back - will give a simplistic description of the car.
- witness - a rat living in the building. the player loves talking to animals, so I'm sure she'll use this one. It won't be able to give any good descriptions, but will give vital clues to what actually happened there.
- signs of a fight, including a claw mark on a wooden door - a clue that clearly points to the Gangrel signature discipline.
- a watch of one of the Gangrels, lost in the fight, and kicked under a cupboard.
- a receipt from a gas station shop, with several products, but no food (no actual fuel, sadly, so no car number - she'll have to ask another Nosferatu to help her get the gas station camera records.

[Segev]

Given the PC's place in this society already, what information about the vampire society and the Gangrel in particular might she have? The clues are a good start. Some other things may be stronger if she has the right background information.

How much does she know about local politics? What is the Gangrel goal in getting a new member of their Clan in town? There are risks associated, so clearly something they want must be strong enough to take them.

What of this information might she reasonably know, and how well can you bury it in other information she'd know, if you have to tell her about it (rather than her already knowing it OOC)?

[Braininthejar2]

The general idea she'd get through introduction. The names and other details will be filled in as the story progresses.

[Segev]

Then I'd just turn her loose. Make sure you know where all the clues are, what evidence is there, and how you're going to get it to her attention. Don't make finding it a thing she has to roll for. At worst, just make it something she has to think to go to the place it is to acquire. It is highly likely that she'll find challenge just in interpreting the evidence and clues properly.