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Author Topic: I messed up — advice? (d&d)  (Read 1481 times)

mAcular Chaotic

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Re: I messed up — advice? (d&d)
« Reply #15 on: December 27, 2020, 05:15:01 PM »
Yeah basically.

I just wonder how people would've salvaged it, or what they would have done. If you were going to go back in time and wave a magic wand to change one point, what would the point that fixes everything be?
Battle doesn't need a purpose; the battle is its own purpose. You don't ask why a plague spreads or a field burns. Don't ask why I fight.

HappyDaze

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Re: I messed up — advice? (d&d)
« Reply #16 on: December 27, 2020, 05:37:24 PM »
Yeah basically.

I just wonder how people would've salvaged it, or what they would have done. If you were going to go back in time and wave a magic wand to change one point, what would the point that fixes everything be?
Remember when you decided you'd start the game before the murder? That was the moment.

Two Crows

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Re: I messed up — advice? (d&d)
« Reply #17 on: December 27, 2020, 07:48:31 PM »
Yeah basically.

I just wonder how people would've salvaged it, or what they would have done. If you were going to go back in time and wave a magic wand to change one point, what would the point that fixes everything be?

The poster above is correct.  You start the game AT the murder, or it is the first scene where anybody has an opportunity to do anything other than speak (exactly how this sort of thing is handled in film).


Some ideas for after-the-fact salvaging:

The Player finds out they were wrong, and failed to kill the NPC. Two versions of this one:

1. Switch the murder and the victim's ID's.  So in this case, the dead NPC was the target all along.  Upon examining the body, it is discovered they were already doomed before the PC became involved (poison usually works here), and whatever the PC did simply sped up the process by a few minutes.

2. The NPC did NOT die, despite what the PC believes.  The believed-to-be-dead NPC frames his would-be murder for the actual death of whomever you had originally planned.


Before the incident, you could have prevented the death easily.  PC's don't simply succeed at everything via declaration.  When the player announces his intent, mention others are close by and could hear or see, describe the NPC as being physically intimidating and give the player the impression they may not be able to take them out.

It's impossible to tell you what you could have done differently without knowing what exactly happened.  Where did he kill him?  How did he kill him?  Did you know he was going to harm him? 

Also, sorry if I missed it, but did you say the group knew this was a Murder Mystery?  What kind of RPG were you running?  Horror?  Fantasy?  What?



If I stop replying, it either means I've lost interest in the topic or think further replies are pointless.  I don't need the last word, it's all yours.

mAcular Chaotic

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Re: I messed up — advice? (d&d)
« Reply #18 on: December 27, 2020, 08:12:34 PM »
Yeah basically.

I just wonder how people would've salvaged it, or what they would have done. If you were going to go back in time and wave a magic wand to change one point, what would the point that fixes everything be?

The poster above is correct.  You start the game AT the murder, or it is the first scene where anybody has an opportunity to do anything other than speak (exactly how this sort of thing is handled in film).


Some ideas for after-the-fact salvaging:

The Player finds out they were wrong, and failed to kill the NPC. Two versions of this one:

1. Switch the murder and the victim's ID's.  So in this case, the dead NPC was the target all along.  Upon examining the body, it is discovered they were already doomed before the PC became involved (poison usually works here), and whatever the PC did simply sped up the process by a few minutes.

2. The NPC did NOT die, despite what the PC believes.  The believed-to-be-dead NPC frames his would-be murder for the actual death of whomever you had originally planned.


Before the incident, you could have prevented the death easily.  PC's don't simply succeed at everything via declaration.  When the player announces his intent, mention others are close by and could hear or see, describe the NPC as being physically intimidating and give the player the impression they may not be able to take them out.

It's impossible to tell you what you could have done differently without knowing what exactly happened.  Where did he kill him?  How did he kill him?  Did you know he was going to harm him? 

Also, sorry if I missed it, but did you say the group knew this was a Murder Mystery?  What kind of RPG were you running?  Horror?  Fantasy?  What?
It was D&D 5e. The player was playing a Sorcerer using subtle casting metamagic so the spell that killed the NPC was essentially undetectable, as far as who had done it (this was relayed to me privately, since it was an online game, so the other players wouldn't see passing notes or anything). So for all anyone knew, it could have been anyone that did it, even other NPCs.

I didn't think the particular details were that important since they could have just as easily killed them any number of ways, but they catapulted a metal fixture off a wall into the father-in-law's head at the wedding altar, using the catapult spell. It used metamagic so nobody could tell who did it, it just happened, which makes it ideal for sneakily killing people. Everyone was seated in the pews getting ready for the vows to be said by the bride and groom.

They didn't know what the exact kind of game would be, but this is what we do for our Halloween game -- last year I ran a version of The Thing in D&D, basically, and it worked out amazingly. That was a lot harder to mess up though...
Battle doesn't need a purpose; the battle is its own purpose. You don't ask why a plague spreads or a field burns. Don't ask why I fight.

Two Crows

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Re: I messed up — advice? (d&d)
« Reply #19 on: December 27, 2020, 08:23:59 PM »
If it was fantasy, you have ton of options.

Version of my above suggestion #2, as an example:

Murderer was a Necromancer, and returns as Undead to wreck vengeance (on both his target AND his Killer)!


To be honest, though, these types of mysteries don't really tend to function well in High Fantasy settings, nor High Tech, because information barriers are key to the story.  Divination (magic & tech that may as well be magic) tends to cause a lot of trouble.

If I stop replying, it either means I've lost interest in the topic or think further replies are pointless.  I don't need the last word, it's all yours.

mightybrain

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Re: I messed up — advice? (d&d)
« Reply #20 on: December 27, 2020, 08:33:36 PM »
However what ended up happening is they basically did nothing after that

So I think this is where it went wrong. The question is why? It sounds like you played it how I would have. Did the players not buy into the idea of a murder mystery in the first place? If not, even if it had gone to plan, surely the result would have been the same.

Mistwell

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Re: I messed up — advice? (d&d)
« Reply #21 on: December 27, 2020, 11:54:16 PM »
I would have probably taken one of two approaches.

1) When the player says he's going to kill that target, tell him "OK, you can do that, but let's you and I have a quick private sidebar and then you can make your decision." In the private sidebar, I would tell him what was up, ask him if he's willing to buy-in and call off his plan, and if he isn't that's fine but you as the GM will need to take 10 to re-jigger some things, or

2) Just skip that step and take 10 and re-jigger things. Figure someone else out to be the villain, and run with that.

I mean, it's OK. We all screw this kind of thing up sometimes, particularly with a one-shot. If I have a tight plan like that, I usually like to get buy-in privately from some players before play begins on something.
« Last Edit: December 27, 2020, 11:57:05 PM by Mistwell »