Investigation Mechanics

[ThiagoMartell]

Something I always wanted to add to my games was some mystery and investigation. This is very hard to do without railroading or sounding silly - it's about as much work as writing a good mystery novel. That sounds like too much work for me.
Does anyone know about any systems out there with good mechanics for investigation? I'm not looking for 'roll X to get clues' because that just dumps all the work onto the GM's hands, I'm looking for a system with built-in mystery resolution.

[Lord_Gareth]

Something I always wanted to add to my games was some mystery and investigation. This is very hard to do without railroading or sounding silly - it's about as much work as writing a good mystery novel. That sounds like too much work for me.
Does anyone know about any systems out there with good mechanics for investigation? I'm not looking for 'roll X to get clues' because that just dumps all the work onto the GM's hands, I'm looking for a system with built-in mystery resolution.

I know Legend's currently working on one; if you step into their IRC you might be able to get access to the beta version for playtesting.

nWoD sort-kinda does the 'finding clues' thing, but it mixes things up by having the Investigation rolls take a certain amount of time with penalties or bonuses for shortening or lengthening that amount of time. The idea is that the Storyteller will use those time frames to affect the drama of the scene.

[NichG]

Built in... thats really rough. A mystery will fall flat if the result doesn't make sense to people at the table. So if you want something that does it via built-in mechanics, what you're really looking for is something that can generate consistent stories. There has been some work in academic circles about this (as far back as the TaleSpin system in the 70s, a program that told various stories about pirates killing each other that all had some degree of internal causality and consistency). In general though its a hard problem...

Maybe the key is to flip the whole thing on its head? The important thing is that the table be satisfied that the story makes sense. So let the table decide the story. Do something like this:

You have a scenario with principle actors (suspects) that you as the GM still have to create. However, you do not decide who did it ahead of time. The players can roughly speaking do one of the following things during each 'scene' of the mystery:

- Interact with the background. This is asking questions like 'do you and Mr Appleby go back far?' or 'what is the history of the manor?'
- Search for specific clues
- Announce a solution

If the party searches for specific clues, one person is 'lead' for that scene and must propose OOC a 'test' of the situation and also a 'meaning' of that test. For instance 'if we find scuff marks by the stairwell, it means the killer had heavy boots - if we find someone with heavy boots and scuff marks, they must be the killer!'. The rest of the players and the GM secretly vote on what is found, and the GM announces the result.

If the party wishes to announce a solution, one person in the party again acts as the 'lead' (it could be a different person than before of course). They announce their theory of whodunnit, etc, etc. The rest of the party and the GM all vote in secret as to whether they believe this explanation or not. If there is at most one dissention, then that is what happened. Otherwise, the mystery is still unresolved (though if the characters agree with the analysis in character while not agreeing out of character, they can move on as if the murder is resolved and the culprit 'gets free' or 'kills again' or whatever).

This way a lot of the work is placed upon the players to tell the story of the mystery. It really seems like it'd be an awkward system to put into an existing game though.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

This way a lot of the work is placed upon the players to tell the story of the mystery. It really seems like it'd be an awkward system to put into an existing game though.

Most games, yes. However, you could look into something like Wushu Open to handle this.

Wushu Open is explicitly based around the "Principle of Narrative Truth": if you say it, it happens (unless it's vetoed by the other players as beyond the scope of the narrative). The dice are just there to tell you how cleanly it happens, and whether the events actually progress you towards your goal. (In other words, if you declare "I find Baron Schmarnom's glove at the scene." and fail the roll, perhaps you also find signs of a struggle on the glove, indicating that maybe the Baron wasn't the only person there.)

Also, John Wick's Houses of the Blooded, Blood & Tears, and Blood & Honor all operate off of a principle like this. It's explained particularly well in Blood & Honor.

[NichG]

Most games, yes. However, you could look into something like Wushu Open to handle this.

Wushu Open is explicitly based around the "Principle of Narrative Truth": if you say it, it happens (unless it's vetoed by the other players as beyond the scope of the narrative). The dice are just there to tell you how cleanly it happens, and whether the events actually progress you towards your goal. (In other words, if you declare "I find Baron Schmarnom's glove at the scene." and fail the roll, perhaps you also find signs of a struggle on the glove, indicating that maybe the Baron wasn't the only person there.)

Also, John Wick's Houses of the Blooded, Blood & Tears, and Blood & Honor all operate off of a principle like this. It's explained particularly well in Blood & Honor.

Yeah, this sounds a lot like what I was suggesting but in the form of an existing system.

[ThiagoMartell]

Someone suggested GUMSHOE as a system. It looks like it was built specifically for this. Just bought it from DriveThru, I'm checking it out right now.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Yeah, this sounds a lot like what I was suggesting but in the form of an existing system.

Yeah. Blood & Honor in particular was a massive "AHA!" moment for me. Rules summary below.

You assemble a pool of d6s and attempt to hit a target number. Seems easy, right?

That success doesn't get you much. In order to declare facts about the situation, you have to have "wagers". You get one wager for each d6 you set aside before rolling the dice. So, the more you risk, the more reward you get (if you have a success).

So I might have six d6es to investigate a crime scene. If I wager three of them, and roll 3, 4, 6, I succeed, and get to state three facts about what I find (or don't find!) in the crime scene. If I had rolled, say, 2, 2, 4, I would fail at the task, and get no wagers. The GM would get to narrate what is found (or not found).

[Totally Guy]

Inspectres does that sort of thing too. It just always seems to end up as a comedy.