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View Full Version : My players are hunting down some killer thieves in a city: How should I conduct this?



MonkeySage
2018-07-08, 01:17 AM
These killer thieves stole some spices, and either kidnapped or butchered the crew of a ship that docked yesterday- the same ship the spices came on. The Barkeep recommended that the players follow the spice trail, while the Guard Captain warned them that these thieves are a well organized and dangerous bunch the guard's been dealing with for months.

So, start of next sesh, my players are paying a visit to this newly vacant ship. How might I conduct this session?

Elanasaurus
2018-07-08, 01:48 AM
Do you mean, how do you make the thieves seem well-organized and dangerous? :confused:
:elan:

MonkeySage
2018-07-08, 02:01 AM
I'm not very good at running investigation scenarios. This isn't a murder mystery, but my players are trying to determine where they could possibly find the thieves by investigating the scene of the crime.

The thieves took care to get rid of the bodies, but they left the shipping manifest.

Normally, they leave a calling card for the guards to find- because they want the city to know they exist, and are a force to be feared.

The players have two goals:
The Barkeep wants his spices- they were very expensive.

The Guard Captain is offering a reward if they not only survive an encounter with the thieves, but manage to nail down the leader.

MrSandman
2018-07-08, 02:27 AM
Maybe if you tell us what happened, we can help you decide how to give your players the information better. Did they kidnap or they murdered the ships's crew? If they kidnapped them, someone may have escaped and the players may meet them. Did they leave the ship by magic or by mundane means? If it's magic, there should still be traces.

MonkeySage
2018-07-08, 03:00 AM
The cog itself had a crew of around 12 people, including 3 mercenaries. A small group of thieves ambushed the first workers to disembark as they were unloading cargo. They tried to use clean-ish methods to kill the workers as they boarded the ship, being careful not to leave a bloody mess.

After the crew was killed off, the thieves got to work on the cargo, emptying the cog and dragging the bodies into an old access they found to the catacombs beneath the city, not too far from the docks. This access was originally intended as part of an escape route from the castle at the far end of the city.

The thieves use the catacombs to travel undetected to their base- it's not in the catacombs themselves, presumably it's above the catacombs. This city has an extensive terracotta sewer system, their base is probably hidden there. It's a storm drain, but also drains from the latrines and public baths throughout the city.

The group that attacked the cog is part of a much larger syndicate.

MrSandman
2018-07-08, 04:15 AM
Well, then one easy way is that somebody might have seen something. You can have your players ask around the docks and come to someone who saw the fight or the robbers taking the cargo. You could also leave some blood marks on the ship, not obvious ones, but marks that if the characters do a meticulous search they might find.

The key thing, it seems, is to lead the players from the ship to the catacombs. There are several ways to go about this. They could hear that the catacombs are a nasty place where bandits gather, someone who lives nearby might have heard sounds, there could be some sort of symbol left in the ship and above the doors in the catacombs. There might be a way for a character with the appropriate background to contact the organisation, there might be something of the bandits left on the ship that the characters can use to magically locate the bandits...

Blymurkla
2018-07-08, 05:10 AM
It sounds like you've set yourself up for a great mystery adventure. This is absolutely doable, and I think we can help you have a blast.

I'll start of with linking to The Alexandrian's three-clue rule (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule) and the follow-up, the inverted thee-clue rule (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/7985/roleplaying-games/node-based-scenario-design-part-3-inverting-the-three-clue-rule). They're meaty articles, especially the first one, but they are worth the read if you're new to running mysteries (or aren't new, but haven't had much success yet).

A very big key to making mysteries work is to have a lot of information (or call them clues). The Alexandrian has it right when he says that you should prep 3 clues for every step forward the players need to make. There are two reasons for this:

First, your players will fail to find clues, even if you don't hide the clues behind skills checks. And even when they find them, they will fail to recognize their significance or draw the wrong conclusion on where to go next. Thus, having multiple clues pointing in the same direction lessens the risk that the session grinds to a halt

Second, having multiple clues, a lot of information, and sorting in through is what makes a mystery challenging and exciting. It brings in choice and thought, makes the players feel like they're doing something. You might think that you should keep information back, because a mystery is per definition a lack of information. And you might want to keep your mystery simple, thinking a single clear-cut clue forward means your players won't chase red herrings. But that's wrong! Minimizing what the players know will make it impossible for them to make their own conclusions and feel smart. And following a single trail of bread-crumbs isn't nonconducting an investigation and will likely not feel fun.

However, I differ from The Alexandrian in one point: I say you should bombard the players with clues in the first (few) scene(s), give them a couple of ways forward and a bunch of clues which aren't relevant right now (but will be later on). As the investigation progresses, you give them fewer new clues but the one's you still give them are, together with eariler clues, more crucial. And in the end, they make the final conclusion (»The syndicate has their HQ on Silver Wharf street behind the derelict inn!«) and go have their showdown.

With that in mind, let's look at your scenario.

You've got two goals. This is great! They're intertwined, but the players should still be able to chose which one they're most interested in. It's a fun choice. If I where you, I wouldn't place the stolen spices at the same location as gang leader. That way, the player's choice on what to focus on gets meaningful and you can allow for (partial) failure - you want to (almost) make sure that the players have some victory to celebrate at the end of the session. Mysteries are the worst to fail, because unlike a TPK at the hands of a dungeon boss, there's not even a negative resolution - a mystery risks just resulting in a big nothing. Unfun. But an adventure with guaranteed victory isn't great, either (it's a real conundrum when planing mysteries).

However, you've got two victory conditions - finding the spice and finding the leader. By separating them, you can allow for the players to fail to find one of them. Superb. You sacrifice not having a good climax (but rather two, or one and then a failed one), but it's worth it.

The gang leader, holding up in an HQ, is pretty straight forward. The PCS follow the clues and finds out where it is. It's likely to end up in an assault by the PCs on the hide-out, giving you a nice good fight. Great scene.

The spices are trickier. It could be just another gang hide-out, stuffed with rogues to fight. But you don't want two of those. How about a twist? The spices are held in a warehouse until they're sold on the black market, but that's not all that's held there. There's also a monster the gang holds in a pen. An monster that's unusual to find in a city. And the cog is related (either the ship carried the monster in addition to the spices, or the spices or other cargo is food (or stimulating drugs) to the monster). That gives a different fight as a likely outcome of PCs finding the warehouse. Sprinkling hints about the monster in the investigation will be a rewarding reveal.

Both the gang HQ and the warehouse should contain clear clues to each other - find one, find the other. This is where the sessions enters it's final stages, and you want to move the action on. But you also want that possibility of failure. It makes sense the gang flees if one of their locations is compromised. So you introduce a time limit - the PCs need to find to the other location fast, otherwise the remaining gang members escape.

If the PCs find the HQ first and then take to long to move, the warehouse gang members with the spices. But they leave (or release!) the monster, still leaving a cool and surprising scene. Play up the success of having found the gang leader afterwards by really having the guard captain congratulate the PCs and perhaps promising to compensate the inn keeper for the lost spices, so that failure only hurts a bit for the players.

If the PCs find the warehouse first, the gang leader (tries) to escape. If they fail to catch him, that's a real failure. You can have the inn keeper be really thankful for the returned spices, but still let the failure feel like a failure. Because you're setting up a great recurring villain. The eventual victory over the gang leader will matter so much.

The first scene - the cog in the harbor, is an important one. You should have 3 clues leading to the entrance of the sewer system and the pile of corpses. For example: blood trails from the cog to the opening; a witness hanging out by the docks saw the thieves emerging; there's a faint but musky smell of sewer in the cog that shouldn't be there.

You also want to hint on the presence of the monster. There's a trace of either the monster, or the weird cargo aimed for it (or a Knowledge check reveals that a particular spice isn't only fine-tasting, but also linked to necromancy/artificers/alchemy or something). You obviously don't want to 'show' the monster here, just hint that's something's amiss. And you don't need 3 clues here, it's okay if it goes unnoticed. You'll include additional clues in other locations (and maybe finding all/most of them actually tells you what monster it is).

That's a start, but perhaps it's not enough information for a first scene (though you'll probably be able to squeeze a wealth of information into the pile of corpses, which are a logical next step for the players). I want something that points in the direction of the HQ, and something that point's in the direction of the spices.

I'll introduce a harbor official - the one that gives the PCs access to the ship. The gang bribed her to keep the pier empty of trouble when the attack went down. She, however, aren't the best at keeping up appearances and the PCs are likely to pick up that she's fishy. Perhaps she squirms and only gives the PCs access to the cog after they mention guard business or intimidates her. She continues to act strangely when the PCs investigate the ship. Perhaps she's also carrying something out of the ordinary that was part of the bribe.

Under pressure, she immediately cracks. She gives the PCs two clues: she knows a merchant who buys black market spice (this is a clue that, if followed, eventually leads to the warehouse) and she gives a description and hint to place of residence (like, 'he smelled of tanneries' or 'he had the black-swamp lingo') of the guy who bribed her (this is a clue which eventually points to the HQ).

I'd place one final clue in (or around) the cog, either to the warehouse or the HQ. Perhaps a document listing a few customers of spice (the inn keeper being one, the are merchants who can reveal who'd be interesting in buying spice from the gang).

In the pile of corpses, I'd place another monster clue or two, one clue for the trail towards the warehouse (because we have 2 clues in the cog, making for 3 in total) and two clues pointing towards the HQ (again making 3 in total).

And then you're nearly there. You can vary the length of the trails, but they probably doesn't need to be very long. One or two more scenes in each trail, the last one which gives the location of the warehouse/HQ.

jayem
2018-07-08, 07:20 AM
Majorish clues

The other robberies all have a connection
The same person is connected with each in some way (who you can then interrogate)
They all take place (more or less) equidistant from the sewer (giving a wide area to start looking)
They each all take place very near a different sewer outlet ()

The authorities already suspect (rightly) something
The catacombs already have an unsavoury reputation
There's someone with unexplained wealth
Someone arrested has a little bit of the spice
A missing corpse of someone who (it turns out) saw 'something'

The gang get angsty
They try and steal a clue
They murder someone you hadn't thought of as a witness (so you lose the exact detail, but the clue has a bloody bright red flag on it)
Assassination attempt
A direct confrontation


Minorish clues sources (orange herrings)
A survivor
A beggar
A fellow inn-resident
The merchant has a rival, nothing directly to do with the case, but...
Someone seen/deducibly in the area, again nothing directly to the case, but...
A small time crook, again nothing directly to the case, but...

Minorish clue contents
Random gossip that hints something was happening somewhere
Random gossip that reveals a lie
Random gossip 10 chains of connection down
Protection money
Someone trying to sell something

Keltest
2018-07-08, 11:16 AM
Something else to consider, and the first thing that popped into my mind when I heard "thieves" is, where are they unloading this stuff? Its not any sort of immediately practical equipment, so they cant have stolen it for themselves. That means it was either a commissioned raid (and therefore somebody knows how to contact them) or they have a buyer lined up. Spices in particular are good for this, because the number of people who could actually use it are fairly limited, and the people who could reasonably afford it even more so.

So what are these spices used for? Alcohol of some sort presumably, if a barkeep wants them. That in turn would mean a brewer of some kind commissioned the hit, and large scale breweries that would use enough spices to raid a ship for them cant be too common or terribly well hidden.

Theophilus
2018-07-08, 12:05 PM
As others have said, you have multiple opportunities to develop this situation. Unless the thieves used magic (Prestidigitation does the trick in a pinch), or they are skilled in the art of neck snapping, they will leave behind some blood--killing creatures is messy business. However, it is just as likely something slipped from a rogue's pocket: a trinket, a bauble, a key, a note, etc.

Alternatively, the cog is TOO clean. It sits pristinely, if empty of occupants and items. This indicates magic (such as the cantrip I mentioned) and magic leaves a residue: Its strength, its nature (arcane or divine; school), and may lead to a trail of Detect magic sleuthing. While D&D is filled with magic, most of its towns and townspeople are not magical. Looking for an arcane source can lead to interesting conversations with shady characters, 'reputed' (charlatan) mages, and eventually cascade into the seedy underworld where riches and magic are rumored to exist. This will force them to interact with the citizens and then the sewers--eventually, you may even move them toward a tough decision: The shipment is getting moved to another town where there is no heat on the goods, while the leader is making a move to remove a pesky magistrate who sent the Captain of the Guard to find the thieves' guild. Thus, they have to choose between two good ends very different rewards, or they surprise you by being somehow resourceful enough to solve both mysteries.

LibraryOgre
2018-07-08, 01:16 PM
Someone knows the thieves. The thieves went places, talked to people, bought and sold things.

All of these people might talk to the PCs, or they might lead to another person.

So, I would sit down and write out a few different "webs", and have them intersect at a couple places.

You might have them start at the ship, and give them three clues... A, B, and C

A leads them to D or E, D can lead to F or G, and F might lead to H or I... but E might lead directly to I or J. G is a dead end. B leads them to R and S, S will take them to Q, which will take them to T, U, or V.

Write out your web. Know what clues are there, and where each will lead. The players can choose their route through the mess, but you don't have to improvise every single thing.

MonkeySage
2018-07-08, 02:07 PM
A rare monster... Already got one in mind thanks to that suggestion! Hippogriff: They're rare, valuable, and not too deadly for a new party to deal with! :)

My family even suggested leaving a pile of dead rats on the ship, possibly with a feather from the beast near the pile.

Hmm... Perhaps one of the clues that could be found on the cog leading to the black market might be a unique coin used on black market- like a token that represents an amount of gold coins.

Blymurkla
2018-07-09, 04:21 AM
A rare monster... Already got one in mind thanks to that suggestion! Hippogriff: They're rare, valuable, and not too deadly for a new party to deal with! :)

My family even suggested leaving a pile of dead rats on the ship, possibly with a feather from the beast near the pile. A hippogriff makes a few questions pop up into my head. If it's fully grown (and you wanted a fight against it), shouldn't the cog's crew have been aware of it? I would have assumed the monster (or monster-related cargo) was smuggled among the spices. But perhaps the crew where in on it. Though, then why where they killed?

How about this: the hippogriff on the ship wasn't an adult individual. But it isn't the first hippogriff the gang have laid their hands on - they've already got a big one. Their intent was to form a breeding pair, making big money on selling eggs. So they smuggle in another one on the cog, but it had to be a young one for safety and stealth.

With a young hippogriff, you can throw around a couple of confounding clues: really small horse tracks, a feather that aren't from any known species of eagle or owl, despite it's size (but it's too small to be easily identified as coming from a hippogriff), a mentioning of the word 'breed'.

Perhaps the gang had an inside man on the cog, who looked after the hippogriff during the journey and wasn't killed in the attack. The PCs can find the ships log (or (and) harbour documents from when they docked) indicating the crew size - and the players might notice that the number of corpses hidden away doesn't match.

_____


A piece of general advice for running mysteries: Don't gate your clues behind mechanics that can result in failure. The GUMSHOE games, while having their faults, got that right. The players need to find an ample amount of clues (since they're likely to misunderstand some) and a botched die roll shouldn't be allowed to grind the session to a halt.

However, you want player input to matter, so don't just give out the clues. The players need to state that they're searching that area or that they want to interrogate this person. (If the players have their PCs walk right over clues without searching for them, but PC expertise should allow them to notice the clue anyway, you can use the mechanics for that).

You can use mechanics (skill checks or what-ever your game has) for bonus clues and deeper understanding. Such clues aren't necessary to solve the mystery, but can be fun in their own right, allow the players to leap-frog scenes or allow them to prepare better for up-coming scenes.

The clues left by the hippogriff-business could be considered such bonus clues, but I would still try to make sure the players find at least some of the clues. The reveal in the warehouse isn't nearly as rewarding if it just blind-sides the players. In fact, it's probably better if you give a chance for enough clues to actually figuring out that there's a hippogriff (as long as you don't actually tell them exactly what it is, this should be something for the players to figure out). Making the conclusion and having that confirmed when the hippogriff appears is cool. The »we should have guess this«-moment is also cool.

A better example: the tracks to the catacomb/sewer opening should be found is the players just have their PCs search outside the cog. But a Survival check (or similar) could reveal something about the number of attackers, that they where making multiple trips and/or a small print of a horse hoof that feels off.

You should try to engage multiple skills with these bonus clues, that increases the chance that multiple PCs gets to shine a bit. And don't use Perception or similar unless absolutely nothing else fits, that skill is probably over-used as it is ;)


___


Next piece of advice: pacing is important. You've got two investigations running in parallel. That's awesome, what with the player's choice mattering and all. But you don't want the PCs finishing one of the investigations without having made any progress in the other. If they locate the HQ and then head to the warehouse, they'll risk being blind-sided by the hippogriff. And if they find the warehouse and then head to the HQ and the defeat the gang leader, that victory is a bit hollow if they haven't hunted for the leader.

So you want the players to spend at least a bit of time on both investigations, before finishing one. You'll do that by having some scenes/clues unavailable if the players have run to far down one investigation. They'll have to wait, which hopefully leads them to follow the other trail during (and if they stubbornly refuse and just ask you to fast-forward, then it's on them that the session will lack a good narrative).

The most obvious way to make scenes unavailable is social scenes where the NPC is temporarily away or occupied. For example: the shady merchant selling the gang's spices. Say the players want to see the merchant, but haven't yet found any clues in the gang leader-direction, perhaps because they missed them on the cog and haven't been to the catacombs and found the corpses yet. That risks them missing the entire find-the-HQ investigation. So you make the merchant unavailable for a day or two. He's away (and any staff that could give the same clues are with him) but he's expected back soon.

You also want a pacing tool if the players dawdle because they're stumped on what to do or if they're following a red herring of their own invention. The obvious choice is a greeting from the gang - a simple threat or a full on attack both work. You insert some action and leave additional clues, so the players can find their way again. You can also have the gang threaten the inn keeper or kill the blabbering, bribed harbour official. That'll speed up the players (but if they're doing their thing effectively already, you don't need to motivate them more).

___


A final, short advice on the catacombs/sewers and the pile of corpses. I fear your players might go into dungeon mode and expect the session to be about navigating the tunnels until they find the gang. You'll need to clearly communicate that that isn't going to work. There shouldn't be tracks to follow (except, perhaps, for a short way until a split in the tracks - showing that the attackers split up (hinting on the HQ and the warehouse). That can be a bonus clue gated behind a skill check). You should describe the tunnels as labyrinth-like, easy to get lost in. And if all else fails, break into meta and ask your players to focus on the surface.

If you're struggling on how to place clues in the pile of corpses (after all, how many clues towards the gang could be on the sailors?), have a fallen gang member among them.