Investigative Adventures, Tips, etc

[EccentricOwl]

I love running investigative games. I've managed to get at least one non-gamer into my games after their exposure to events like murder mystery parties. I feel that a good GM can adapt adventures on the fly, and the opportunity to roleplay mysteries has been a joy for me ever since I saw Picard and Guinan trying it on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Mutant City Blues, Ashen Stars and the rest of GUMSHOE's line are unique, flavorful, and genre-savvy.

I also enjoy a few of Nicholas Logue's adventure-oriented modules, though they were more mystery in flavor than practice.

And, of course, Lorefinder by Pathfinder is a lovely supplement.

But... is that truly it? Is that all I'm going to find out there for investigative role-playing? I personally prefer fantasy settings, but I'm willing to read and buy most anything that has some good material - be it modules, tips, or ideas - for investigation-based adventures.

[BRC]

An Investigation based adventure is tricky because it relies more on the Players than on the Characters for success. If it all comes down to a single skill roll, you're doing it wrong. You really have to know your Players, know what steps they would take and where they will go.
Of course, you know more about the world than the PC's. It's always tempting to go with "Search Check to find the knife, Knowledge Check to identify the blacksmith that made the Knife". Search and Knowledge certainly have their places in an investigation, but ideally you can do better than that.

In my mind, the ideal Investigation is not a binary scale of "We Know Whodunit" vs "We don't know Whodunit". It's a matter of degrees, with each degree of success reaping greater rewards. "We Know Whodunit, but not before they got away" for low success. "We Know Whodunit, and we caught them" "We know Whodunit, we know who helped them, and we know where they hid the goods". Investigation adventures also work better for smaller groups. While a group of basically any size can fight (It gets unwieldy after a while), eventually you hit a "too many cooks" situation when everybody is trying to figure out the same mystery.

[scurv]

Ok How ever you decide to run this, Make props you can give the players!!!!!!
If the players have the clue in their hands, regardless if it is simply a printed description they are hundreds of times more likely to figure it out on their own with out being spoon fed.

As lame as it sounds. The best method I have found to make some of these is to find a partner and have them dm you though committing the crime (Or you can do it your self if you are so inclined) Then with those notes in hand you can easily generate the clues that the pc's might find.

[Fri]

Investigatives game are my favourite kind of game. I ran two of detective games here, and most of my other games have lots of investigation to do too.

I find the three clue rule really helpful. Read this article, it's good tips on running investigative games.

Another tips that I can give is, as though you'll be tempted to do it, don't make it too complex by giving too many red herrings or giving too little clues. Believe me, your players will complexify and red herringed themselves.

[Craft (Cheese)]

I'm actually going to go against the grain here and suggest something completely different: The best way to run an investigative adventure is to explicitly not decide ahead of time exactly what happened. Lay out a bunch of pieces of contradictory evidence all over the place and let the players try to piece together whatever they think is the truth for themselves.

[Fri]

Ah, the schrodinger mystery game. I've been tempted to run it a couple of times too. Let your players theorize on what happened, and run with your favourite one. I never tried it yet though.

[scurv]

Downside to not deciding ahead of time what happened is the campaign is opened up to favoritism, and opened up to people who only think like the DM solving it.

[mjlush]

Downside to not deciding ahead of time what happened is the campaign is opened up to favoritism, and opened up to people who only think like the DM solving it.

Well its rather like that at the moment as the GM sets the mystery the person who thinks like the GM has the best chance to solve it.

The thing about a Schrodinger game is that its rarely one player who comes up with the whole answer.

Speaking as a GM who tends to set the problem without knowing the answer. I feel a little cheated doing a Schrodinger murder mystery I'd like to set them the puzzle and watch them solve it.

[scurv]

I tend to be a people watcher, and in situations like this one I have often noted (Due to having nothing else to do at the time due to the dm back-burnering players for the session) that it will be one or maybe one plus their best friend who the ones cares about that will get most of the attention when the plot line is amorphous in the dm's mind. Sometimes that can not be helped when plots develop on the fly. But when it is the point of a campaign it is best to keep it so every player has a fair chance at input.

As a side note I tend to be a note taker in cases such as the above mentioned and I have noticed that when they are not pre-planed that retcons tend to happen with increasing frequency as the session goes on.

A rough from the waist formula that I use in this situation is that for every hour you put into setting it up expect that plus 2 hours from the players as viable plot material. But keep in mind this formula works for my style and i make no promises on how well it will translate to others.

[mjlush]

A rough from the waist formula that I use in this situation is that for every hour you put into setting it up expect that plus 2 hours from the players as viable plot material. But keep in mind this formula works for my style and i make no promises on how well it will translate to others.

I would allow about 1 hours game time for every clue. It may be worth having an NPC to eventually move them along when there obsessing over something they cannot possibly solve at the time there discussing it.

[Rhynn]

But... is that truly it? Is that all I'm going to find out there for investigative role-playing? I personally prefer fantasy settings, but I'm willing to read and buy most anything that has some good material - be it modules, tips, or ideas - for investigation-based adventures.

Call of Cthulhu, although the game is so old and old-school that it doesn't really tell you how to run a mystery. Even the Keeper's Companion mostly provides background information (about law enforcement, medical examinations, etc.).

GURPS has a wonderful supplement, GURPS: Mysteries (by the inestimable Lisa J. Steele, author of the related GURPS: Cops and the wonderful systemless medieval feudalism supplement Fief). It's mostly about how to structure and run mysteries (and, indeed, how to write mysteries, although obviously writing them for RPGs is a specialized subset).

Also, investigation is more about content than systems. You can make systems that support specific content, and if done well that can be really great, but many games are not made to support any specific style of play, and therefore work fine for any style.

[Calinero]

Call of Cthulhu is great for mysteries. I'd follow the advice in that Three Clues article, it's pretty spot on.

Schrodinger's Mysteries can work, but there is a caveat--never let the players realize that they're in one. It takes away a ton of the suspense, as well as feeling of reward.