Investigation sequences

[gsoylent]

This is taken from the Actual PLay thread Star Wars d20: Is this Sim vs. Gamism http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=16489.0

The problem in question was in a Star Wars adventure in which the players were meant to find a missing Jedi Master based on the traditional sort of method of a few GM provided clues. For reason not pertinent to this specific disucssion, the player did not catch on to the clues and ending up going around fruitlessly in circles for a long time.

What caught my attention was a quote by Eero

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If I may offer a suggestion, your frustated hour and half seem to stem from the GM not realizing that he could give you OOC information. A pretty functional technique for that kind of play is to simply tell the answer to the puzzle (where the jedi master is) to the players, and ask them to come up with the way their characters find it out. A kind of reverse deduction where the answer is already known. It's also very pleasurable and natural to figure out the procedure that gets the character to the goal. Is he the kind of hero who gets by on luck? Or encyclopedic knowledge? Or keen awareness? Just pick something, throw out some pittoresque images, and get on with the game.



I find this approach fascinating, but I'd wonder if anyone could expand on it, maybe with examples. Bear in mind I am a Forge neewb, thus far most of my experience with investigation style sequences have either been old school "if you don't get the puzzle just right you are stuffed" or some sort of illusionism. A "functional technique" for running investigations bits in games would be worth a lot to me.

[Albert of Feh]

InSpectres. InSpectres. InSpectres.

The game is based around the investigative-type scenario, but involves no force or illusionism of any kind. Success on a roll doesn't mean the GM gives you some choice bit of information, it simply lets you narrate the outcome. A classic InSpectres moment:

Player: I'm going to examine the clues and try to discern a pattern. *rolls* A success!
GM: Great! What pattern do you find?
Player: *makes up some pattern which provides the clue to lead them to the next scene*

This setup lets you run a full investigation that exposes itself step-by-step to everybody, not just the players. It's a lot of fun, and joyously easy to run.

Admittedly, InSpectres doesn't work so well if you, the GM, have a specific end-point for the investigation in mind. InSpectres-type investigation wouldn't integrate so well into the structure of a 'normal' campaign. For that, you should check out the recent Complications Instead of Failure thread. If they don't catch on on their own, you give them the answer... but it costs them.

-Albert

[Eric Provost]

I wrote about something like this in my blog recently, so I may have something useful to say.  Mind you, most of what I've got is based strictly on personal preferences and should not be taken to mean that I'm presenting the one and only good way to run a game.

I came to the conclusion that hunting for clues tends to suck while having clues in hand tends to be fun.  

Let's take a simple investigation-type scenario as an example.  I'm gonna start the game off with a scene where the PCs stumble onto a corpse.  Someone who's been murdered.  Recently.  Then, I come up with some clues, like a matchbook that reads "The Black Lantern Club" and a bus-locker key.  Those clues are really my way, as the GM, of saying that I want the story to have scenes in the Black Lantern Club and the bus station locker room.  Let's not worry about where the Club scenes or the locker room scenes might take us, but rather let's examine the scene where the PCs (and the players) discover the corpse.

Being that I, as the GM, NEED the players to find those two clues to further the story, then it'd be just darned silly for us to make any rolls at all about finding them.  I mean, if they roll and fail then either I have to cheat and give them the clues anyway or they don't get the clues and the game stops like a car wreck.  So, rolling for clues = poo.  So, we know that the PCs will find the body and the clues.  What don't we know about the PCs and their relationship to this scene yet?  What we don't know yet is how finding the clues and the body with affect the players and change the PCs.  Some games have good mechanisms already in place for such a thing.  Like, in Dogs in the Vineyard (or pretty much any other game with open Conflict Mechanisms) I could present the question;  "Does the sight of the murdered corpse have any form of emotional impact upon your character."  Of course, I could present that question anyway, but some games support that question and the answers as well without having to fudge.

In a more direct form of Forge-speak, I feel that clues are a valid way to frame a scene before you get to it.  But!  I feel that a scene that's about hunting for clues is doomed to be boring.  Even if the scenes are framed exclusively by means of planted clues those scenes still need to be about something interesting and relevant to the story.  Something which has nothing to do with hunting down clues.

That's my theory, and it is as yet unproven.  

-Eric

[Josh Roby]

Take a look at [PtA] Badge or another tale of woe and frustration (long) for another take on this dilemma, in which a lot of the discussion revolves around discussing how getting the clues is not only not actually fun, but it's not really the focus of the scene.

[gsoylent]

First of all, sorry for the stupid formatting of the quote. Here it is again.

If I may offer a suggestion, your frustated hour and half seem to stem from the GM not realizing that he could give you OOC information. A pretty functional technique for that kind of play is to simply tell the answer to the puzzle (where the jedi master is) to the players, and ask them to come up with the way their characters find it out. A kind of reverse deduction where the answer is already known. It's also very pleasurable and natural to figure out the procedure that gets the character to the goal. Is he the kind of hero who gets by on luck? Or encyclopedic knowledge? Or keen awareness? Just pick something, throw out some pittoresque images, and get on with the game.

That said, InSpectres seem to be the kind of thing I am looking for.

[hix]

A relevant thread here is Mysteries: Step by Step Instructions (especially Clehrich's post).

Eero's suggestion in that Star Wars thread also gave me the idea of presenting choices to the  players even more directly. For instance, stuck on trying to figure out where the Jedi Master is, the GM could give players the option of either getting a clue to where the Jedi Master has been (and therefore get a deeper understanding of the dangers of the situation) or a clue to where they were going (and risk running unprepared into a situation).

These options are mutually exclusive and they have stakes attached to them. Conversations wouldn't be so much about "How do we find out stuff?" but "What do we as a group value most?"

[Nogusielkt]

I happen to think Player's framing a scene themselves is ridiculous and is to the same tune as many different authors all writing about Superman.  It's the reason Superman had no consistency.  One minute he struggles to stop a train or catch a bus, the next minute he is moving the planet and moving fast enough to travel back in time.  I agree with Mr. Provost in that rolling for clues is not a good idea.  Relying on a random mechanic to progress with the story is poor, in my opinion, and may be the result of many bad dealing.  However, I also feel that the problem isn't that the player's have trouble solving puzzles/etc... it's that many such things are reverse engineered and that 99% of them are the center of the plot rather than a part of it.

If you watch CSI then you should realize that people rarely leave a single clue, but a single clue does eventually lead to the solution.  A murderer might leave a bloody footprint, the murder weapon, a couple witnesses of sorts, as well as ties to the person themself.  Meanwhile a GM might only have a bloody note with a single word on it.  It's like trying to solve a numerical pattern with only a single number or pair.  The other point, that most plots revolve around the puzzle (such as the previous mentioned unknown whereabouts of the jedi master).  If, as the GM, you design the game around the whole story instead of a single point, you can make the story more modular.  Alright, so they failed to solve the puzzle to find the jedi master... now they need to find another way to hold off a sith lord during a planetary raid <*didn't read the original*>.  I usually place hard puzzles in optional places, as a reward for solving it.  Instead of being rewarded with advancing with the story, you are rewarded with an actual reward... and you progress with the story anyhow.  I'm all up for the chance of failure, just not random failure or failure from poor design.

Summary: Give more clues, make story more modular than linear, give me money.

[pedyo]

 Even if the scenes are framed exclusively by means of planted clues those scenes still need to be about something interesting and relevant to the story.  Something which has nothing to do with hunting down clues.

This here quote is interesting. Remember that scene in Seven, where Morgan Freeman and Brad-boy are sitting in a diner waiting for the clues from the library? That scene is not only relevant because of its relation to the plot (as a matter of fact, I suspect we as audience couldn't care less about the way in which these clues are found) - it's used as a way of showing the relationship between the two characters*. So, in other words, the clue-finding, mystery-solving bit is sort of a back-drop to a character-exposing (in lack of a better term) scene.
I think this is massively inspiring for the way to handle investigation in an RPG.
/Peter
* I think one can say that its also used as a way of showing the relationship between "the little man and the system" ...

[Eero Tuovinen]

My tin god of puzzle solving is Chris Lehrich. He wrote this incredibly analytic run-down of detective fiction about... a year ago? Explained in detail how to prepare a puzzle in No Myth fashion, so that any clues the players seem fit to validate will actually prove to be the right ones, while any other details will be inconsequential. Thus characters would always prove to be right, which might be a good thing if puzzles are color matter and not the point of play. I seem to remember it was at the RPG theory forum and had the words 'inductive' and 'deductive' in it. If somebody finds the thread, please post it here.

[gsoylent]

Eero,

I think the thread you are thinking of is here http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=13089.0. It's mentioned just 3 posts up.

[Eero Tuovinen]

So it is. Teaches me to skip link recommendations. Good work, carry on.