3 Approaches to Mysteries

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Hello, Adventures, the podcast for
role players and game masters to help level

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of your game. We are your
aventuremasters. Jason Platina, I'm Joe McCall

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and Jim Crocker. So today,
Jim, you left me a cryptic message

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on what we're going to do today, and I think we should all band

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together and figure out what it is
you want to talk about. Yes,

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yeah, yeah, I when you
were asking for topics here, when you're

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asking for topics, I wanted to
talk about a thing that there's different approaches

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for, but that I see a
lot of new dms asking about, and

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even some experience dms, and that's
how to run mysteries in their D and

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D games. Because of the way
D and d's past fail resolution system works,

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it's not necessarily great at running who
done It's and you've got to kind

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of tweak things a little bit to
make them work. I have got a

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couple of questions that you can ask
about the kinds of mysteries that you can

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run, and then three different approaches
for how you might put together an interesting

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mystery over a session or a couple
of sessions. That's great. All the

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all the advice I've seen on running
mysteries in D and D as can be

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summed up in one word, don't
yeah, or at least at least band

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zone of truth. Yeah. And
that's the thing that we're going to talk

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about, is is diven and in
particular divination and how you handle some of

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those things that that that you can
that might feel like ways around that you

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know, you're like you're flying and
your dimension, doors and all this kind

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of stuff that that that might pose
barriers to that. And I've got some

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approaches to that, and you know, ways that we can think about how

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we might use those or you know, put some boundaries around them and make

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them interesting, make them tools that
help you solve the mystery, as opposed

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to you know, shortcuts that allow
you to skip the mystery entirely and get

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straight to the solution. Awesome,
let's let's get straight to the solution then,

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all right. So I think the
first thing that we want to do

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is decide if in this mystery,
when we watch mystery shows on TV,

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when we watch procedurals. There are
two kinds of procedurals, and one is

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what we might think of as as
a who done it right, as an

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Agatha Christie, where we're not sure
who committed the murder, and we're trying

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to figure it out and piece that
together and gather clues and stuff like that.

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And that's you know, where you
get your like your knives out,

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your glass onions and stuff like that. Murder, she wrote, murder,

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she wrote maybe murder, she wrote
yeah. Yeah. But the other kind

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of show that we get is something
like the sent Natasha Leone, the one

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from Natasha Leon series poker Face,
where at the beginning of the show you

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see the crime happen. You know
what the crime is, you know who

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did it, but the challenge is
to prove that they did it right.

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So we might call something like that
like a how done it right? Or

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you know or but but the challenge
there is not that we have no idea

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who committed the crime. It's putting
together the evidence to prove who did it

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and get them put away or you
know, arrested, or essentially you know

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that the you know, maybe that
the mayor of the city or the head

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of the thieves guild gives you the
go ahead to go after that person,

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right, and you can do either
of those. And I think the advice

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I'm going to give for these three
different approaches that you can take. And

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it's not to say that these three
approaches are exhaustive, but they are the

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ones that I tend to use if
I want to get this kind of story

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across. It's what I look to. You can kind of use that for

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either of those approaches. So let's
start. I've got three methods here,

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and I've kind of given them names, but well we'll talk about what the

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what that looks like. The first
one is what I call the pool of

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clues, the pool of suspects,
where the solution is confined to a certain

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number of suspects, but as the
DM, you don't decide in advance who's

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guilty right or what their method was. So maybe you put together you have

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half a dozen possible suspects that you
present to the party, and you say,

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you know it can be this guy
who is you know, we've got

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a victim here. So this is
like your knives out approach, right where

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you've got these this group of suspects
and you know that one of them did

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it, but you're not sure which
one, and the goal is to go

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around and figure out together enough evidence
to prove that it was one of those

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people that did it, So in
this case, you might introduce four,

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five, six subjects. One of
the things that's really good with this is

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you introduce enough suspects to match the
number of party members that you've got,

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right, So if they want to
split up, you can have each one

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go investigate one of these suspects,
if you want to do that. And

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then you put together a pool of
clues, and you want to make that

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like maybe three times the number of
suspects you've got, right, if you've

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got five suspects, maybe come up
with fifteen clues or something like that.

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And you make these clues fairly general, but that point to something to do

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with the victim. You know,
if the victim is like a wealthy smuggler,

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right, maybe one of the clues
is a list of contraband deliveries.

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Maybe one of the clues is a
counterfeit custom stamp, right. Another one

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might be if you've decided he's poisoned, then you know a mortar and pestle

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with a deadly night shade crushed in
it or something like that. But what

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you want to do is make sure
that you kind of distribute these clues around.

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You encourage the players to interact with
the locations of the mystery, places

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where you know, the actual scene
of the crime and other places where people

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might have been, and with these
suspects, and you want to make sure

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they create a situation like you would
in a good mystery novel, where all

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of these suspects have reason to be
guilty, all of them have means,

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motive and opportunity, and then it's
sorting out who was responsible and what you

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did. And so then what you
do is you kind of put the players

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in contact with these suspects in these
locations and have them make appropriate skill checks

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to gather information. If they are
roughing somebody up, you can roll intimidate,

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if you know, I mean literally, you could have the good cop

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roll persuasion and the bad cop roll
intimidate, right, and success in that

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produces one of those clues. And
you can also have clues that say something

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like a suspect admits to being there
the night of the murder or something like

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that, right, And then you
can attach that to whichever those suspects you

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want, And then you decide on
the number of clues that they have to

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gather. You know, maybe it's
two per player character, right, that

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gives them the opportunity to go around
and do different stuff. And once they've

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collected that, you know, that
number of clues, then you say,

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okay, you guys, put your
heads together and do the detective thing where

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you go, well, this clue
means that, and that means that,

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and that points to him and this
this was a red herring. You know,

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that doesn't mean anything. And then
once you've gathered that number of clues,

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you tell me who you've decided the
suspect is based on this information,

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and you're correct, that's who did
it? Is murder on the Orient Express.

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It was all of them, yes, spoilers well or yeah, but

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but I mean and and like you
know, I have heard objections to the

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idea that, like you know,
this is just the quantum ogre thing where

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you don't know what's going on.
But it's what you've done is it's not

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like it could be anybody, right, you know, it's this defined group

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of suspects and you're narrowing down.
You know, this is like actual police

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work, right, But all you're
doing is you're imposing this you know,

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this structure, this framework on it. And Jason, you know, when

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you start asking about like zona truth
or divination or something like that. What

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you're going to say is, look, you can get information using those spells,

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but what that will do is that
will produce a clue. There's no

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single action you can take that will
shortcut this process, right, you know?

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But yeah, you know, and
you know, all zona truth tells

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you is that someone is lying,
not what they're lying about. And that's

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why I go back to that at
that Poker Face show where the fun thing

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about that and if you get the
chance to watch this show's amazing. But

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Natasha Leone's character has a like,
basically a bullshit detector. And we'll see

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a crime play out at the beginning
of the show and she'll be somehow kind

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of on the periphery of it.
You know, somebody gets murdered in a

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bar. She's working there as a
cocktail waitress, right, and she'll you

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know, and then we'll see how
she's connected to that character, and she'll

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kind of move around through the people
that might be responsible and someone will say

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something she'll go bullshit and she goes
like, he's lying about that, but

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I don't know why, right,
but he's lying, right, And then

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the show is about her figuring that
out and making those connections and things like

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that, and you could do that
same thing in your D and D game.

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That was a common thing in the
If you've played the Phoenix Right games,

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if you have Fantastic games, they
were originally on the Attendo ds.

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They were remastered on the Switch.
It's like twenty or thirty bucks for the

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whole trilogy and the If you like
like mystery games, it's it's it's hard

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to sell a game where you're playing
a lawyer as the hero, which is

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just feels weird. But you know, in a game in a genre where

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you're you can play as like,
you know, fantasy creatures and you can

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blow things up. You get the
biggest guns in the world. I'm gonna

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play a lawyer today. But they
are amazing games. The stories are fantastic.

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Even if you just like watch a
playthrough on YouTube. I'm a big

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game Grumps fan. They have an
excellent play through with that at the time

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of this recording, and they're in
the middle of and it's just hysterical to

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watch them play it. But there
is there's something to like interviewing someone and

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long story short, there's a mechanic
in the game where you can tell if

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somebody has like a secret to hide
and you have to drag that out of

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them, and it's not always for
guilt, In fact, very rarely is

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a for guilt, but they have
they just have their reasons to not be

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telling the full truth about this thing
at that time, whether it implicates them

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as being somewhere they shouldn't be.
Yeah, my wife didn't know that I

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was there, and they're putting something
as simple as that, or it's like

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someone's just embarrassment. I'm trying to
think of a really good I feel like

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modern but modern mysteries do that a
lot, right. It made you think

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somebody is really guilty, and then
you find out, well, they just

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cheated on their test or or they
were right their wife didn't know where they

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were. It's called a red herring, right, And it is one of

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the oldest tricks in the book literary
devices, the same thing literal device is

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literally a trick in the book.
Cannot be any more literal with the trick

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in the book. Oh god,
I hate that it made that joke.

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So but yeah, the the lying
for for a reason that is not because

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you're guilty is going to be key
here. Yeah, the other game that

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that used to play big the the
I think underrated rock Star game La Noir.

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I love that game. I was
just thinking about l A Noir the

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other day and a lot of that
thing. We have PlayStation now and I

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can't doubt. Yeah, Hello Adventurers, just stepping in here to remind you

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guys that we're actively looking for submissions
for our Hello DMS episode that gets reported

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every month. Send us your burning
D and D questions to Helloadventurers podcast at

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gmail dot com, or send us
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slash voice. Don't forget to begin
your message with Hello DMS. You can't

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wait to get your questions and talk
about them on the show. Send us

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your questions today. That's Helloadventurers podcast
at gmail dot com, poorly the voice

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at helloadventurers podcast dot com slash voice. Now let's get back to the show.

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So the second approach that I have
here is kind of a variant on

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the first, but I'm going to
it's what I call the emergent solution.

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And in that case, you don't
have to have a pool of suspects.

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You can just present it to the
players and give them a number of clues

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they got to figure out and leave
it in the hands of the players.

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Right, you just say to them, who do you suspect of this?

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Give me, give me the three
people you suspect of this, the three

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NPCs, or we can make up
somebody new that you know that you want

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to do this. And when they
find those clues, rather than having like

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a pool of specific clues they pull
from, you can say, okay,

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what's a clue that points at the
suspect you think did it? And you

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know, just put that bit of
the world building and the mystery construction in

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their hands and again decide how many
clues they have to collect before they can

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then prove that the person that they
want to pin it on actually did it.

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Now, this requires a lot of
trust right at the table. It

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requires that, as the DM,
you trust that the players are going to

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be reasonable about it. They're going
to do something interesting narratively, and this

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is a lot closer to the kind
of thing you might do and some of

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those like indie sty games that I'm
fond of. Right, you know,

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then then the much more kind of
procedural things of D and D that you're

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used to, and the other thing
that you can do with the with the

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emergent solution is you can decide,
regardless of what you do, you get

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a clue. And this is going
to kind of kind of go into my

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third approach, which borrows something from
a system called the gum shoe that some

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of you may be familiar with.
You can decide that you know, if

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you go somewhere or you talk to
somebody, you're going to get a clue.

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But the dice, the role that
you make for your skill check determines

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what's the cost of getting the clue, not necessarily do you get the clue

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or not, because at some at
some point it might be you know,

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it might just be not interesting to
just fail to find something. But certainly,

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you know, if failing to find
something means you know, if you

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find it but then you get in
but then that triggers a fight, or

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you know, you find it but
then that closes that area off to you

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or something. You can decide whether
that's going to work there. But you

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can make it completely open ended if
you want to, Like I said,

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if you trust the players and they're
creative and they're sufficiently interested in that,

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this is definitely a thing where you
know, if you have the kind of

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players that are like, we don't
want to do that much work, why

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are you laying this on us?
You're the dungeon master. You're supposed to

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come up with this stuff. This
approach is not going to work, and

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that's okay. It's not going to
work at every table, sure, but

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that absolutely is a way that you
can do a really interesting mystery that if

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you have the right kind of players, they'll be super engaged and involved because

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they're coming up with it as you
go and as you play through. So

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the third approach that I've got here
is what I call core clues fixed solution,

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Right, So this is where you
decide, you know exactly who you

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want to be responsible for it,
where as the DM you need it to

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be, you know, the comptroller
for the city that's been embezzling. But

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the interesting thing is how are they
going to figure this out? And in

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this case, essentially what the And
this is true of any RPG mystery,

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which is the clue gathering the investigative
process is acting as a timer and a

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narrative device that leads to the climax
of that story. Right of confronting whomever

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is responsible of sicking the cops on
them whatever it is that you're going to

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be doing in the story. But
it's always a timer that leads to that.

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And in this case, the clues
are there. You know what the

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clues are. You don't necessarily have
to have them in specific places. But

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again, whenever they go somewhere,
they're going to find a clue. And

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when you put all those clues together, they conclusively point to this person that

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you want. But again you're imposing
this structure that says you have to have

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at least x number of clues before
you can go to the magistrate and say

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this person did it, We can
prove it, and so we're going to

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go after them. And again that
requires a little bit of, you know,

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willingness on the part of the players
to have this system imposed on them.

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But if you're going to do a
mystery and you want it to be

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interesting and give everybody a chance to
use their different skills, you've got to

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set up a thing where you impose
on the structure the idea that they can't

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just shortcut it by using speak with
dead, by talking to the corpse to

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say, you know who killed you? And they go, is that guy

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there there we go. Mystery solved. And you definitely want to make sure

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that if you know that your players
have access to those abilities, that you've

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got like a reasonable way that they
can use it and get something effective but

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not shortcut the adventure. And the
best way to do that, of course,

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is to you know, you can
write in your notes if they you

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speak with dead on the corpse,
the corpse will tell them, well,

244
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I got stabbed eighteen times in the
back, and so you know that it's

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somebody that you know, or or
it was a single expert, you know,

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stab between the ribs and and and
I barely felt it before I was

247
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dead, So you know that clue
is that you know they were shanked by

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an expert or something like that.
I was going to suggest something a little

249
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more cryptic, whereas like, you
know, they could use a nickname that

250
00:18:19.680 --> 00:18:22.839
could apply to several people. There's
a lot of there's a lot of there's

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a lot of room for messing with
any of these structures, I think.

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And yeah, like I always liked
the idea of almost like you're giving clues

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to who it's going to be,
but you haven't necessarily introduced that character yet.

254
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Yeah, but so so funny enough
though, in just us talking about

255
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mysteries and probably the last the third, the third way to do a mystery

256
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that that Jim you were talking about
brought up something that I remember one from

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Sly Flourish that we talked about I
think a week ago, a couple of

258
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episodes ago. Yeah, we talked
about a couple of episodes ago. I'm

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gonna try to think that was the
last episode that we had talked about Slide

260
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Flourished. One of the things I
know he talks about a lot is mysteries.

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And I remember an article that I
actually just pulled up from the Alexandrian

262
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dot net that I'd found when researching
for a different way to do a Baldersgate

263
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Avernus adventure from from Watson to send
to Aurness the other then I had found

264
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the three clue rule. So yeah, you know about this, Jim,

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Like, essentially, for any clue
that you want to give a player,

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you have to have three that lead
to that clue that leads you to the

267
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next clue essentially, And like the
three is like the minimum. Really you

268
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might even want to have four or
five sure, because every time, like

269
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if you leave a clue then you're
like, my players are going to get

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this, They're not. They need
like three times the reinforcement essentially. Yeah,

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And this is also one of those
places where if you're running a mystery,

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one of the challenges and one of
the things, like you said that

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that can stemy DMS is what it
means to give the players, like and

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I'm gonna use scarequ's here a clue, right, And people's brains don't work

275
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the same way. And if and
you know, and certainly one of the

276
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other things you can do is if
you want a structure that leads players from

277
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one location to another location, to
another location to another location, and you

278
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just want to structure it that way, where it's you start at the docks,

279
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you go to the you know,
you you start at the docks,

280
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you go to the merchant quarter,
you go to the you know, the

281
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nobles townhouse, and you end up
at the magistrate. Then the clue can

282
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be, you know, you find
a perfumed letter which tells you the next

283
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place you need to go is the
merchant's quarter. You know, rather than

284
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like being subtle about it and having
them figured out, just go ahead and

285
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give them that information, tell them
where they're going next step out of care

286
00:20:59.319 --> 00:21:02.400
you know, you know whatever,
meta game a little bit. And that's

287
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totally fine because that's you know,
that keeps the game moving. That's the

288
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process. Tell them. Don't just
tell them what the clue is. Tell

289
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them what the clue means, because
as experienced adventures, they would be able

290
00:21:15.559 --> 00:21:18.839
to figure that out. My wizard
has a twenty intelligence, I do not

291
00:21:19.279 --> 00:21:26.000
sure. So you know, him
seeing you know whatever, like like some

292
00:21:26.119 --> 00:21:30.079
kind of alchemical code written on a
you know, on a piece of parchment,

293
00:21:30.200 --> 00:21:33.799
is going to tell him exactly where
to go. That is a player

294
00:21:33.839 --> 00:21:37.119
I might be going, Yeah,
I don't remember eight sessions ago when you

295
00:21:37.279 --> 00:21:41.720
described me seeing a paper like that
on the wall in the potion shop.

296
00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:45.559
Right. So so that's where there's
a couple of things with that, right.

297
00:21:45.640 --> 00:21:52.200
So One is when I'm recapping a
session, I am not. Sometimes

298
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what I'll do is I'll make sure
to mention those important pieces of information.

299
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Yeah, lipshade right on it.
Not unlike you know when you're watching a

300
00:22:02.079 --> 00:22:06.519
show and like something like three episodes
ago, like it's like three right right

301
00:22:06.559 --> 00:22:07.960
previously now, and you're like that
happened a while ago. Oh, we're

302
00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:14.400
going to get something about that,
like a classic classic cartoon cartoon TV.

303
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Yeah, especially mysteries. I feel
like that, like if it's if it's

304
00:22:18.039 --> 00:22:22.480
like a season long payoff for something, they are going to show you something

305
00:22:22.480 --> 00:22:26.680
from the first or second episode of
that season. If there's going to be

306
00:22:26.680 --> 00:22:30.880
a payoff for this episode, Yeah, exactly. And I feel like I've

307
00:22:30.880 --> 00:22:34.519
seen it, especially in like Game
of Thrones, where they like they previously

308
00:22:34.559 --> 00:22:37.359
on, they show you and you're
like, oh, they're going to talk

309
00:22:37.359 --> 00:22:40.680
about this now, sure, Okay, they're going to catch us back up

310
00:22:40.759 --> 00:22:45.960
with with this person or that thing. One two is essentially when I give

311
00:22:45.079 --> 00:22:51.279
clues to my players ear Muff Jason, I give cluse somebody players, I'll

312
00:22:51.400 --> 00:22:53.680
escalate them, right, So the
first one might be like a real clue,

313
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the second one's like a little clue
with like a little nudge to it,

314
00:22:57.359 --> 00:23:00.599
and then the third one is what
you're saying, like, and this

315
00:23:00.680 --> 00:23:07.240
one is a perfumed letter, like
addressed from there's a return dress. Somewhere

316
00:23:07.240 --> 00:23:15.680
around clue seven or eight, we'll
start figuring out. Yeah. I was

317
00:23:15.720 --> 00:23:19.480
like, yeah, no you won't, but yeah, you kind of you.

318
00:23:21.359 --> 00:23:25.359
And I think that's where you have
to kind of gauge things as a

319
00:23:25.440 --> 00:23:27.359
d M and just say, Okay, they're never going to get for your

320
00:23:27.440 --> 00:23:30.319
knife. For your knife, clue
you find a paper in your back in

321
00:23:30.359 --> 00:23:36.279
their back pocket that says, go
to the bath house. Guys, what

322
00:23:36.359 --> 00:23:41.640
could this guys? What could this
mean? One of the other things that

323
00:23:41.680 --> 00:23:45.480
we want to keep in mind here
is that the higher level the characters get,

324
00:23:45.759 --> 00:23:51.039
the more resources they have and the
more ability they have to get around

325
00:23:51.240 --> 00:23:55.400
traditional methods of investigation. Right,
So this is something that I think is

326
00:23:55.440 --> 00:23:59.440
typically you're going to want to do
this in the you know, mostly in

327
00:23:59.480 --> 00:24:03.960
the lower lene levels. Once they
start you know, fighting demons and stuff

328
00:24:03.960 --> 00:24:07.519
like that, they've got more interesting
things to do than solve murders. So

329
00:24:07.599 --> 00:24:10.440
this is going to be relatively low
level, like kind of load to mid

330
00:24:10.519 --> 00:24:12.359
level that you're going to be engaging
this sort of stuff. But one of

331
00:24:12.359 --> 00:24:18.640
the things that this that this can
do is it can get into talking about

332
00:24:18.799 --> 00:24:22.960
because for the most part, if
you're going to have these kinds of investigations,

333
00:24:23.480 --> 00:24:27.400
typically they're going to happen in some
kind of an urban setting. This

334
00:24:27.440 --> 00:24:32.000
is where you can start to get
into if you have players that are interested

335
00:24:32.039 --> 00:24:33.599
in this kind of thing, if
you as a DM or interested in this

336
00:24:33.720 --> 00:24:40.000
kind of thing. How does the
law work regarding stuff like this? Regarding

337
00:24:40.039 --> 00:24:44.880
divination spells? You know, if
you go into you know, do they

338
00:24:45.039 --> 00:24:49.319
use zone of truth in the courts
or are the gods like no, that's

339
00:24:49.400 --> 00:24:52.240
reserved for like we're not going to
do that in service to the state.

340
00:24:52.599 --> 00:24:57.240
But that's nonsense, you know,
is divination Like do you have to be

341
00:24:57.279 --> 00:25:03.119
a licensed diviner of something? Find? You have almost for a court to

342
00:25:03.160 --> 00:25:07.720
accept what you found as evidence like
that, Yeah, I was gonna say

343
00:25:07.720 --> 00:25:11.119
something being illegal has never stopped any
of my party. But it won't be

344
00:25:11.960 --> 00:25:17.160
Essentially, it won't be admissible because
exactly you didn't. You didn't you didn't

345
00:25:17.240 --> 00:25:22.319
follow protocol in using that you had
to have not unlike you know our laws

346
00:25:22.319 --> 00:25:26.039
here that like just because you find
something like well, did you have probable

347
00:25:26.119 --> 00:25:29.880
cause? Did you have a warrant
or anything else? Because if you didn't,

348
00:25:29.920 --> 00:25:33.240
then it's inadmissible. You cannot use
it, and they're they're free to

349
00:25:33.279 --> 00:25:36.920
go. And that's now you're you
just let a murderer off the hook and

350
00:25:36.960 --> 00:25:41.039
now you can And one of the
wonderful things about the fact that you're designing

351
00:25:41.039 --> 00:25:48.359
a fantasy legal system is you can
peeback you know, the way that fantasy

352
00:25:48.440 --> 00:25:52.240
legal system works on the mechanics that
you're imposing on that. So if you're

353
00:25:52.279 --> 00:25:57.319
like, okay, you need to
find seven clues before you can definitively point

354
00:25:57.319 --> 00:26:00.680
to a suspect, and then we
moved to the part where you take them

355
00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:04.160
down. You know, the law
of that city is you must present seven

356
00:26:04.279 --> 00:26:08.599
pieces of evidence before you know,
we will you know, sign the writ

357
00:26:08.640 --> 00:26:15.119
that authorizes you to, you know, pursue this this important citizen for whatever

358
00:26:15.160 --> 00:26:18.240
crime. The rule of seven exactly
there. That sounds like at quest,

359
00:26:18.880 --> 00:26:25.960
he said, those are the approaches
that I typically use. I'm a big

360
00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:29.200
fan of that first one of that
that pool of clues, pool of suspects,

361
00:26:29.480 --> 00:26:33.720
but kind of constrains the field of
play. It gives them specific directions

362
00:26:33.759 --> 00:26:37.640
to look at, but means everybody
gets a chance to do something interesting.

363
00:26:37.720 --> 00:26:42.480
You get to introduce some NPCs,
and those NPCs that you introduce the suspects,

364
00:26:42.519 --> 00:26:45.759
the ones that turn out not to
be guilty, they can become part

365
00:26:45.799 --> 00:26:51.480
of the campaign as well. And
I really like two that like there's a

366
00:26:51.519 --> 00:26:56.160
time limit on that that can that
doesn't like it doesn't have to be a

367
00:26:56.200 --> 00:26:59.640
set time limit either, because there's
no saying that. Essentially, if your

368
00:26:59.640 --> 00:27:02.759
player go down a rabbit hole and
they're really focused on that one person,

369
00:27:02.839 --> 00:27:06.200
like like you know, you got
to get going home, like yeah,

370
00:27:06.319 --> 00:27:10.640
no, you got it, let's
go yep. And it's a thing that

371
00:27:10.720 --> 00:27:15.480
also allows you to sidetrack in the
middle of it, right. So,

372
00:27:15.480 --> 00:27:18.079
so you know, if if you
find four out of the seven clues,

373
00:27:18.839 --> 00:27:22.359
but then you realize that there's this
whole smuggling ring that you want to break

374
00:27:22.400 --> 00:27:26.559
up, you can take a couple
of adventures, you know, a couple

375
00:27:26.599 --> 00:27:29.920
of sessions, go off the side, have them bust up that smuggling ring,

376
00:27:30.240 --> 00:27:32.839
and when they come back, they've
still got four out of seven clues,

377
00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:34.559
right, and they can just pick
right back up and you know,

378
00:27:34.640 --> 00:27:38.519
and proceed with it from there.
Yeah. So I guess the first question

379
00:27:38.519 --> 00:27:41.319
that you ask is this a who
done it? Where you're trying to figure

380
00:27:41.319 --> 00:27:45.480
out who's responsible for it? Or
is it what we might call a what

381
00:27:45.680 --> 00:27:49.279
done it? Where you know,
maybe is the DM you know, you

382
00:27:49.400 --> 00:27:53.039
do a scene where everybody says what
it is? Maybe the villain even sends

383
00:27:53.079 --> 00:27:57.400
you a letter saying wah, I
did this, but you'll never prove it,

384
00:27:57.480 --> 00:28:02.200
fools, Oh like Professor Moore,
Yes, yeah, exactly that kind

385
00:28:02.240 --> 00:28:03.359
of thing. You can totally do
that. So I know, I love

386
00:28:03.559 --> 00:28:07.200
I love all of Jim's big bats, and they're just selling eighties cartoon villains.

387
00:28:07.240 --> 00:28:12.720
Just the guy from Bullwinkle at the
top, slightly relash. I'm a

388
00:28:12.799 --> 00:28:18.440
dude of a certain age, my
friend. So absolutely, But determine whether

389
00:28:18.440 --> 00:28:19.680
it's a who done it or what
done it? That's the first thing you

390
00:28:19.720 --> 00:28:22.599
do. You know, what is
it that the players are trying to figure

391
00:28:22.599 --> 00:28:27.079
out? And then put one of
those structures over it to make sure that

392
00:28:27.160 --> 00:28:30.559
you get a compelling story, a
compelling narrative that gives everybody a chance to

393
00:28:30.640 --> 00:28:36.640
use their various different skills to get
at the true And we've got our our

394
00:28:36.680 --> 00:28:41.519
pool of suspects approach, we've got
our emergent solution approach, where you just

395
00:28:41.559 --> 00:28:44.359
put it all in the hands of
the players. They but they just need

396
00:28:44.400 --> 00:28:47.839
to, you know, come up
with a certain number of successful tests in

397
00:28:47.960 --> 00:28:51.240
order to do that, something like
you know, a version of sort of

398
00:28:51.240 --> 00:28:53.119
the old fourth Edition Skill Challenge,
right, we kind of kind of make

399
00:28:53.160 --> 00:28:57.119
that into our mystery and the third
approach is something similar to what we might

400
00:28:57.160 --> 00:29:02.680
have in the gumshoe system. You've
got core clues, and those clues are

401
00:29:02.759 --> 00:29:07.480
always going to get found, and
they're always going to lead to your you

402
00:29:07.519 --> 00:29:11.160
know, your preferred solution that you've
said in advance, but they just need

403
00:29:11.200 --> 00:29:14.880
to find a certain number of them
before they can actually act on that solution.

404
00:29:15.160 --> 00:29:17.559
But it will always lead them to
where you want to go. And

405
00:29:17.640 --> 00:29:19.839
those are three approaches to mysteries.
And I would love to hear if anybody

406
00:29:19.880 --> 00:29:23.200
else has had success with trying to
do it differently, love to hear about

407
00:29:23.200 --> 00:29:27.160
that. You can tell us about
your attempts in a mystery, hopefully successful

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attempts if you've gathered enough clues.
Tell us about your mystery games. That's

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Hello Adventurers podcast at gmail dot com
or tell us yourself helloadventures podcast dot com,

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slash Voice. There's a couple of
cool pre made games that that I've

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used that or that that are great
mysteries. I've brought up d M.

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Dave a lot. He has one
called Doppelganger City that is very much a

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a who Done It? That uses
they use the doppelgangers in shape Shifters and

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like, it's a pretty cool approach
to not even knowing who the characters even

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really are yet, which as a
whole in different way or two is that's

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a very fun one. And of
course this cant keep mysteries, which is

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a compilation of one shots that do
internect with each other, and there is

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an overarching mystery to that. Cool. So if you want to see how

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it's how someone else already did it, start there and see how it goes.

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But I think that's all we got. Anything else, no, great,

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thank you, yeah, so,
thank you so much for listening to

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Hello Adventurers. We're your hosts Jason
Portiso, Jim Crocker, Andrew McCall,

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Produser editor Engineer Jason Portiso. Music
by Nixt Starrier, artwork by Kristen Broderick.

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You can reach out to us with
any feedback for suggestions by emailing Hello

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Adventurers podcast at gmail dot com.
Hello Adventures is a JTP audio production.

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Goodbye Adventurers always is it Crue