Quote from: Sigmund;733338I don't agree. You might think it makes them "stupid" when you haven't played that way, but at the actual table it doesn't come across that way at all. If it's too much of a stretch for you, then by all means, play whatever you want. I'm saying I don't need the kind of mechanics Gumshoe has to run or play an investigative RPG and have fun with it. If that means the "suspects" are "stupid", then I'm 100% down with that, although it's not how I would describe it.

Sorry didn;t mean to come across as harsh.

What I mean is if I was actually going to kidnap and murder someone I would be very careful to leave no trace evidence, not pick a victim who was known to me, pick a remote location, use a car purchased in cash from a bloke that was leaving the country the next day etc etc . Now none of this is very realistic but 99% of murders are either gang related or betweens friends and familys in a fit of passion so the fact that you are investigating a weird serial killer type thing is in itself stretching that reality.

when I run investigatiosn the nature and type of clues left behind depend on the person that commits the crime. Very few of my criminals are super careful genius planners so they leave gaps, plenty of trace evidence links to victims etc. The ones that are super genius planners don't leave a lot of clues but they generally provide the long term plot arcs not the short term adventure arcs, they are the Red Johns and the Moriarties as opposed to the weekly perps (based on an edisodic play style with a "muder of the week" police procedural kind of game). Generally in my games these type of perps have a psychological aspect that leads to their undoing, victims take on a certain profile, they start killing more frequently, they insert themself into the case or try to establish a connection with the investigators.

In reality if I wandered round the US killing random folks for fun its very unlikely I would be caught.

As an aside in the police investigation style. I usually have the PCs run the first sweep for clues and only give them the clues they actually find. However, I then use a CIS/SOCO unit to gather all the other evidence off camera and then later in the game they get given all that evidence as well. Obviously this doesn't work in a private investigator setting very well but ....

Quote from: jibbajibba;733348Sorry didn;t mean to come across as harsh.

What I mean is if I was actually going to kidnap and murder someone I would be very careful to leave no trace evidence, not pick a victim who was known to me, pick a remote location, use a car purchased in cash from a bloke that was leaving the country the next day etc etc . Now none of this is very realistic but 99% of murders are either gang related or betweens friends and familys in a fit of passion so the fact that you are investigating a weird serial killer type thing is in itself stretching that reality.

when I run investigatiosn the nature and type of clues left behind depend on the person that commits the crime. Very few of my criminals are super careful genius planners so they leave gaps, plenty of trace evidence links to victims etc. The ones that are super genius planners don't leave a lot of clues but they generally provide the long term plot arcs not the short term adventure arcs, they are the Red Johns and the Moriarties as opposed to the weekly perps (based on an edisodic play style with a "muder of the week" police procedural kind of game). Generally in my games these type of perps have a psychological aspect that leads to their undoing, victims take on a certain profile, they start killing more frequently, they insert themself into the case or try to establish a connection with the investigators.

In reality if I wandered round the US killing random folks for fun its very unlikely I would be caught.

As an aside in the police investigation style. I usually have the PCs run the first sweep for clues and only give them the clues they actually find. However, I then use a CIS/SOCO unit to gather all the other evidence off camera and then later in the game they get given all that evidence as well. Obviously this doesn't work in a private investigator setting very well but ....

It's ok JJ, I over-reacted a touch too. Still, I do disagree because even though I might think up and plan out 10 clues (and that would be an extreme, it's usually more like five or six when I run games), it is unlikely the PCs would uncover more than one or two of them. It only means that I will most likely be prepared for most of the directions they might go in from the info they already have. This means that from the perspective of the players, the clues might have been hard-won and give the illusion of a very smart, but not perfect criminal. It's all about illusion after all. If the players are having fun with what they perceive to be a challenge, and I am having fun watching them figure it all out, it's wins all around.

The three clue rule again. One gets missed, the second one misinterpreted.

I found something interesting in Deadlands Noir. Building a mystery.

1. Start at the end. There are different types of clues. Physical, witnesses and documents. And clues are meant to be found. Never roll for it.
2. There is a case generator. Using six steps. Hook (how did you get the job), event (aka crime), perpetrator, motive, evidence. Sixth step (optional): location and a twist.

Really cool.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;733497The three clue rule again. One gets missed, the second one misinterpreted.

I found something interesting in Deadlands Noir. Building a mystery.

1. Start at the end. There are different types of clues. Physical, witnesses and documents. And clues are meant to be found. Never roll for it.
2. There is a case generator. Using six steps. Hook (how did you get the job), event (aka crime), perpetrator, motive, evidence. Sixth step (optional): location and a twist.

Really cool.

Again I am not sure I follw this path at all.

As I noted I have been running a Murder mystery company for about 17 years and I ahve run a lot of mysteries in that time.
I always build the mystery from the front. Means motive opportunity. I build the crime scene by walking through the murder as it occured and then putting my self in the position of the murderer. What would they do at this point, what might they forget to remove from the scene, what would they make sure they did.
I put clues where they would end up though actual acton, although I have a detective who guides the guests and will point out stuff they don't spot and I give them a written autopsy. But if the murder is hinding in the closet and they don't open the door of the closset more fool them.
I run investigations on the tabletop in the same way and sometime the PCs don't solve them but that doesn't matter if the game has been fun. I can always revisit a crime later if it is particularly of interest to the PCs. In fact I would quite like to run a cold case game with the same players set 5 years later and re-open the same cases.
I find in the tabletop games the players are much more familiar with the genre and have drunk less wine so they often ask me questions that I haven't thought of and I need to decide on the spot what the murderer would have done. These can clinch the case almost immediately at times because its something the murderer simply couldn't logically have predicted or altered.

I don't think this is actually that much different what is written in Deadlands. I just don't think they want you to roll to look through a drawer. If a player looks in the drawer he finds the diary of the assassin. Period. It's more about figuring out what the clues mean. Or roll for it and give them a penalty if they fail. They find the clue, but have to find an expert for the clue for example.

And it start at the end, meaning with the murder. And the motive, method and with evidence. It's really helpful. Again I don't think it's that much different from what you do. It's about constructing a realistic crime with a perpetrator, a location, a method and a motiv.

Which murder mystery company do you run btw?

Quote from: jibbajibba;732776The best Conspiracy game is Amber.

Fuck yes.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;733885I don't think this is actually that much different what is written in Deadlands. I just don't think they want you to roll to look through a drawer. If a player looks in the drawer he finds the diary of the assassin. Period. It's more about figuring out what the clues mean. Or roll for it and give them a penalty if they fail. They find the clue, but have to find an expert for the clue for example.

And it start at the end, meaning with the murder. And the motive, method and with evidence. It's really helpful. Again I don't think it's that much different from what you do. It's about constructing a realistic crime with a perpetrator, a location, a method and a motiv.

Which murder mystery company do you run btw?

Okay that makes sense and yes I agree with that. However, if they analyse the blood and fail a chemistry/biology/medicine:haematology/forensics roll then I might tell them the blood is unusual and defies analysis but I won't tell them it contains octopoidal lymphocytes

The murder mystery company is called Conspiracy Ink, but I have taken down the website and scaled back stuff whilst I am in Singapore. My sister is running it while I am out here just covering one hotel The Langtry Manor in the UK.