[MURPG] Marvel Mysteries - Session 2

[The Dragon Master]

The first post for this "campaign" is located here. This is being run in a very episodic manner (which is to say that each adventure begins when they are presented with the case, and ends when the case has been resolved). Now that's all well and good, but certain actions the players have chosen just scream for consequences and I don't know how to fit that into the current set-up.

Let's start with the last adventure (this took place a week ago so my memory may be a bit fuzzy). In-game-time it happened two days after the previous case. A one sheet write-up of the prep is located here. The PC's were woken up at 2pm (just after the most recent murder occurred) by the owner of The Wolves Den and one of her employees. A member of Los Lobos had been shot, the employee (named Stacey) had been the last person (other than the killer) to see him alive. Already angered that someone is hunting them down, much less on their own turf, the Lobos are furious at this latest culling which happened at what amounts to their Headquarters. They are out for blood, and Stacey makes an appealing target. The players were given two goals: protect stacey from the wrath of Los Lobos, and find the killer. I had also had a couple other things I wanted them to stumble across: The initiation ceremony of Los Lobos (which they never questioned), and whether or not Los Lobos are actually werewolves (which they also never questioned, even when I threw evidence their way that I though just screamed for a few minutes consideration).

First the players contacted the Lobos in order to make a deal with them. they'd trade the life of the killer for the life of Stacey.  This was followed up with a visit to the crime scene. I had made sure that the evidence was planted. Everything that pointed in any given direction was placed their intentionally by the killer and came across as a clear message (at least I thought so) that the killer believed them to be werewolves (which the players only considered for a moment) and that he was coming for them (which the players took hold of). This lead to the players checking on the deaths of other Lobos members, leading them back to a mishap at an initiation the month prior to the first murder (which again I thought would make them ask about the initiation, but didn't). They followed that up with questioning the family of (what turned out to be) the murderer(named Edward) and the one who died (named Michael). The family is at the hospital, the parents don't know anything about it as they have been at the hospital since before any of this started (Edward is capable of creating illusions and has done so to keep that added stress off of his parents).

Finally at this point the players decide to look further into the initiation, or at least into the death of Michael. They go out to the desert where Michael died, and collect a blood sample from his corpse, then break into a blood testing center to verify that Michael and Edward are related (which in fairness they've been told by everyone, this isn't new information but I figured it was a good spot to give them some extra information... which they promptly ignored). At this point they decide to hand Edward over to the Lobos, even though all they've proved is that he has motive, which everyone involved knew anyway. Before they proceed to that point I had a brief OOC discussion with them, expressing my concerns. They went over what they felt they'd figured out, but to be honest it all amounted to being a little lazy since they were dealing with "mad dogs" who, presumably, wouldn't care so long as they had a scape goat to place it on. They had decided that since the case their characters were being payed for was just to turn the Lobos away from Stacey, that the real answer, or at least any real proof, wasn't necessary. But after our talk they decided to tail Edward home and acquire further proof.

Now at this point less than 18 hours of in game time have passed. So Edward, as per information they had gathered, would be visiting his father in the hospital. So they go to the hospital, and wait for him to leave, then tail him home. The next morning they slip into his apartment while he is out at school. They find a gun there, but no sign of any capability to produce silver bullets of any kind (this evidence was elsewhere, but they didn't follow that particular line of inquiry). They take the gun and fire a bullet through it. Now due to the differences in the densities of the bullets, as well as the expansion/contraction of the silver bullet (I had done a little reading on MythBusters experiments with silver bullets prior to this session) the markings from the gun were not quite the same. This is where Josh had a great idea (that hadn't even occurred to me). He checks to see if there are any traces of silver on the lead bullet that had just been fired. So I think back, the gun had been fired pretty recently. This is the first bullet to be fired through since the murder, and while the gun would probably have been cleaned prior to this point, I want to reward them for this creative leap (besides, for all I know molten silver would stick to the barrel even after the gun was cleaned) so I say that yes, they find silver on the bullet.

Just prior to calling the Lobos, they have a discussion amongst themselves about whether or not to turn the 16 year old who is, so far as anyone can tell, avenging his brothers death over to the "mad dog's" who most certainly would kill him. I have to admit that this discussion wasn't as enjoyable as I'd have expected. Though I suspect that the fact that one of the characters is from another dimension and doesn't really have any... emotional connection to those of this dimension, and that the other only brought the point up so that the first character could act as his conscience may have had something to do with it. Also I'd bet that a larger group with more varied opinions on the matter, with at least some of them having an emotional connection to one side or the other would be more satisfying.

This session though left what in (almost) any other way of writing adventures/campaigns would be plot hooks. But I don't really know how to bring such things into this campaign. To avoid confusion I told the players up front that it would be a series of cases that the PC's had faced. That the possibility of failure would exist, that we wouldn't be dealing with a lot of the time between cases. And the players have certainly taken to that. As an alternate entry to the case (though I didn't mention as much to the players) I offered to start things the night before the case was presented to the PC's (which would have equated to about 6 hours difference) but they said they didn't want to, that they wanted to start with the "knock on the door". With so much time not being accounted for, I don't know how to insert... An example: Last session they ended by scaring the criminal (a stalker) into leaving his victim alone. I told them that he would disappear for a week of in game time, but that he would reappear. Not in his original role, but now with them as a target. That one is easy enough to handle. Just have Phil (the aforementioned stalker) kill someone on their front steps, while framing one of them. But what about this latest case? They broke laws they didn't have to in order to solve the case. They sent a sixteen year old to his death. The initiation I can, I suppose, reuse. Still. If this were being run the way our normal games are, then I'd have the cops show up at their office asking about some piece of evidence left at the scene of one of this sessions many break-ins, or something along those lines, but that isn't really an option here.

Should I just let those types of plot hooks go? I've noticed that in the Holmesian stories this style is based on there aren't too many consequences for this type of thing that don't come in the "new case to solve" variety.

Or is there some option I've missed?

I don't want to throw too many unrelated details into the session that might be taken as red herrings (especially as new as I am to all this), or is that really something I need to worry about?

[FredGarber]

Hi!  Welcome to GMing.  You're made it to the second adventure, so take comfort in the fact that you don't suck so hard that people didn't show up to game two.  Long rambling post ahead, so sorry.

It seems there is a disconnect between what you mean by "episodic", and what the players heard as "episodic."   It seems that the players heard "each of these will be stand along adventures, and will have little or nor spillover to the next one."  You heard "this will be like episodes of a Cop TV show, where each case is closed at the end of the hour, but there's fallout from week to week."

I think the reason they didn't investigate the werewolf angle is it didn't matter to the case.  Whether Los Lobos were a vicious gang of killers or a vicious gang of werewolf killers didn't seem to change the fact that someone turned over to them would be in for a world of death, just the style of that death.   

Hindsight is 20/20....
If I wanted to force them to confront the bad of turning over a (good guy) werewolf killer to the werewolves, I would have had Stacey (who was the girlfriend of Edward?) refuse to go along with their plans.  As soon as Stacey figured out her boyfriend was the killer, she would have asked them to save him too.   Have them collect two fees.  Have her pull on whatever sense of decency or greed runs them (have Stacey be able to give them an invite to the Kingpin's next dinner party: everyone who's anyone in the Underworld will be there).  I also would have made Los Lobos a lot more of a bigger ego threat.  The heroes might be able to take out the bikers, but the bikers certainly would have disrespected them a lot, to make the players emotionally want to screw over the werewolves.

That said, I think you'd be better off letting this one go, and giving give them other jobs where there is a moral dimension.  Trying to fix a single episode could be more trouble than it's worth.   Holmesian mysteries, though, sometimes didn't really have a moral argument.  Holmes was ruthless when it came to Watson's Victorian sensibilities.  Holmes accused good women of terrible crimes, told lords and peers that they were scum, etc.  Many a Holmes mystery ended with a good family destroyed, but the truth revealed. 

You should check with your players to see if they want to play an underworld/Mafia game where they are faced with morality choices, or not.  Sometimes "Mafia" games are a "codeword" for saying "We want to break the law, noisily, and not worry about getting caught." Mafia (fictional) are held together by honor, not by law.   So you should reward the players with higher underworld reputations when they are honorable, and lower them when they are not.  Whether or not they break the law becomes irrelevant.
I would have, if they ever get caught by the police, the police to have a very sketchy file on them, so that they can see that they have a reputation. It should all be circumstantial, because all you want to do is let the PCs know the more laws they break, they can't pretend to be honest citizens and go to the cops for help.

-Fred

[The Dragon Master]

Thanks for the reply. I think you may be right about that so I'll just have to discuss it with my players to make sure that we're all on the same page.

[The Dragon Master]

Alright, last night I went over the points of possible miscommunication with my players (who really seem to be getting sick of me asking them what they want to see in the campaign lol).

Moral Questions - While they don't want that to be part of every adventure, they say they actually do want to have moral issues come up during play. Seems they figured that would be a necessary part of it.

Fallout - They want to have what they referred to as "casual fallout". Basically, they do want some of their actions to be used as plot hooks (I think one of the examples that came up was: they let a thief go because they believed that it was the right thing to do, and he murders someone later.).

Mafia - Turns out they weren't using this as code for "criminal activity with impunity", they just wanted a game where the mafia would turn up and where they were dealing with criminals (go figure).

I'm going to try to work with what the players say they want and will post the AP for our 3rd session some time after we play next (So probably next weekend). It's just hard to get these guys to talk about what they want to have in the game. Due to a few dysfunctional players in our group, we have fallen into a play-what-the-GM-wants-to-run-whether-you-want-to-or-not groove so when I ask if there is anything they want in the next game, or anything they didn't like in the last one they respond with statements like "we'll play whatever you prepare". On top of which, any question I ask them which is aimed at designing a scenario that fits the style of play they are looking for (such as the entire discussion about this last night) is treated as a request for advice on generic GMing techniques (when even they will admit that this is a vastly different way of writing up an adventure than has been used in the group before). But each time we discuss the game, I get a little more useful information so I suppose it's worth it.