Last time, I shared about the intro session of the mystery campaign I've been running. Here's session two, with my prep notes and how the players acted. I'm going to be spending special attention on the skills I talked about in my gaming philosophy, which is heavily dependent on improvisation.
First off, here are the prep notes I went into the session with:
Secret to discover:Someone from the Above wearing a purple turban has been witnessed slinking around
Lyssbettonk
Cogswagon’s studio last night.
Developments: Aaron Brown is going to visit the Briscoe Inn about his missing shipping manifest
Setup: After Montana’s second performance, Portia reports to the group that a stablehand named Dulk Sart (half-orc) reported a trenchcoat-and-turban-wearing figure ran down the street in the direction of the murder scene late last night. She recommends they interrogate Sart to gather evidence.
Characters:
First Guard - Portia Rockhammer, 160 dwarf, fighter
Stablehand witness - Dulk Sart, 32 half-orc, commoner
Inventor - Lyssbettonk Cogswagon, 189 gnome, wizard/artificer
Above charity owner - Riviel Jassimir , 712 elf, sorcerer/rogue
Clues:
Dulk Sart reports that the turbanned figure made strange clinking sounds as they ran through the
streets.
Templar of Corellon Larethian (Sorildyn Eleris, 1114 elf) reports seeing the turbanned figure lurking
around the area near the round building at a three-way intersection in the late hours last night.
Stargazer (Quinn Goodbarrel, 105 halfling) reports that clinking sounds came from the three-way
intersection heading north toward murder scene just after she set up her telescope on the rooftops
last night.
Baker (Kyra Winnow, 23 human) reports that as she began work on the following morning’s goods,
she witnessed a turbanned figure run north from the three-way intersection after hearing the sound
of breaking glass, which caused her to look outside.
Additional information:
Lyssbettonk Cogswagon reports that several devices were destroyed and some were stolen.
Riviel Jassimir is to be found giving out food to the Below as an act of charity.
Bonus for keeping personal secret this session: +1 Investigation checks
You'll notice that this time around, I have included a section called "Developments." This is a section for notes on things that should happen given player actions in previous sessions. This note about Aaron Brown is a continuation of the players finding his coinpurse in the intro session; although I didn't note it previously because it was a minor action, the players reported that they had found Brown's coinpurse, and so I decided he would come to reclaim the coinpurse in a future session. As it happened, the players didn't get around to meeting Brown in this session; instead, they met him in session three, which will be chronicled in a future update. But it's important to note things like this so that player actions have consequences.
Another tweak in the information I have presented here is that time had not yet passed enough for Montana to play his show at The Unicorn's Advice, so I needed to move Portia's report up in time. So instead of appearing after the show, Portia approached the party at the beginning of the session and reported that Dulk Sart had witnessed the suspect from session one fleeing in the direction of the murder scene. This is a minor change, but it illustrates that a bit of improv can save you from sitting around for your plans to kick in.
The small list of characters vital to this session is pretty spare. It includes names, professions, ages, races, and classes. This is just enough information to direct these characters without giving them too much--if these characters had entire agendas, then the party would be in a position to divert their attention to the characters instead of the mystery. This is, in a manner of speaking, closing a potential door for the players, but it doesn't mean the characters in the list have nothing to add. If the players want to probe these characters, give them depth and issues to address, and let the players get involved with them. But we don't want to open the floodgates; we just want to present options. It's a delicate line to walk, between distraction and railroading, but the important thing here is to allow the mystery to move forward without forcing the players to walk down too many possible roads.
The characters in the clues section are similarly sparse. Trust your instincts and consider where each NPC is coming from, but again, the emphasis is on moving the mystery forward. Each of these characters has witnessed something that could move the mystery along, so the players will ask guiding questions that either advance the mystery or don't. If you see your players sticking to the mystery, add a few details to the NPCs' lives to keep them realistic; if your players are getting more interested in the NPCs than the mystery, have the NPCs be more willing to talk about what they've witnessed and less interested in talking about themselves. It's a balancing act. Just treat each sentence spoken as keeping your in balance with a real world versus a story.
Another addition to this outline is the "Additional Notes" section. In this session, they reveal that Cogswagon has an inventory of gadgets which are stolen/destroyed. (You can find that list here, complete with descriptions of each gadget and a story development.) They also introduce Riviel Jassimir, a wealthy elf who uses her resources to help the poor across the city. These are story beats that I knew would be included; the party will inevitably cross paths with Cogswagon, and they will inevitably meet Jassimir. Keeping these story beats included in your notes will ensure that these important moments happen and that you get the vital information out as intended. There's a lot to keep in mind as a GM, so you'll benefit from keeping these moments organized.
Again, you'll notice that the clues all give roughly the same information with a few tweaks between sources. This is done so that the information is uniformly helpful (no red herrings) but also provides for the fact that no two witnesses would have seen exactly the same thing. In this case, I gave four clues: Dulk Sart's testimony, as directed to by Portia, and three other clues. It's important in this case that there be plenty of options because asking around about something as non-threatening as running could be easily overlooked by potential witnesses. You'll notice that the witnesses in the clue section each add something to the observation of the suspect; clinking sounds, glass breaking, lurking around the area--things that would direct people to consider the suspect as more than just someone running.
So how did the session match up with these plans? Sort of, but with lots of digressions. To begin with, the party returned to Portia for more information, and so I had them find her in the act of interrogating Dulk Sart. The party observed and asked questions of Sart, who claimed to have seen the turbanned figure running away from an intersection the previous morning--just before Hildy was killed in the alleyway. But Dulk didn't just testify. Montana convinced him to accompany the party in tracking down the exact locations involved in the crime. This presented a problem for me as the DM. Sart had basic information but nothing that would progress the mystery past the point of turning the party on to a new clue. So I improvised his intentions: he was nervous about helping because he feared that his reporting the suspect would make him a potential target. Only because Montana rolled so well on his persuasion check did Sart agree to help, and only then on the condition that the party keep him safe. So from the beginning, we were off the basic script I had prepared.
But before the party had even left the guard headquarters, the party had another curveball in store. They asked about the murders that had been committed in Underhar Cuisine the previous day (a crime solved by Dirk St. Patrick), and they learned the identities of the victims (two half-elves) and the murderer (a dwarf named Isha Blackchain). I had not expected it, but the party chose to interrogate Blackchain for information about the murders under suspicions Blackchain was involved in Hildy's murder. And though I didn't foresee this choice, it directed the story for a while. They questioned Blackchain extensively about his past, his anger problems, his issues with half-elves, and anything related to Hildy. I wanted it to be clear that Blackchain was uninvolved in this case, but I had a hard time getting it across. Players in a mystery will dig and dig until they find something that fits the mystery, so I had to be careful to make it clear that Blackchain was not involved. I did this by answering questions in a way that showed clear cause-and-effect. Blackchain had an issue with "half-breeds" and so he killed the two half-elves, but he had been imprisoned at the time of Hildy's murder. The players went so far as to theorize that Blackchain had been magically forced to become violent, and it took serious explanation of his history as a violent man with alcohol problems before they bought he wasn't involved. This is one of the pitfalls of mystery-focused play; anything could be a clue, and so non-clues inevitably get investigated. The trick is to let these investigations play out and to offer suggestions in the right direction if possible.
Eventually, Sart led the party to the stable where he works and pointed out the path of the turbanned suspect. He did so while extremely nervous about being attacked. The players responded to his nervousness by trying to calm him. Beor introduced Sart to thumb wrestling in one such moment. Once Sart had told them all he knew and again mentioned his fear of being targeted, Beor sent him to stay in his cabin in the woods outside town until the heat had died down. Focused again on the trail of the turbanned figure, the party entered a tavern called The Lucky Lady, which lay at the intersection Sart had indicated. In the tavern, they spoke with Kyra Winnow, who shared that she had heard breaking glass and then seen the turbanned figure fleeing north (toward Hildy's murder scene). Outside in the intersection, Ais and Montana turned up shards of broken beneath a round building, though the pane of glass above it was entirely intact. They checked in at an apartment complex in the intersection and met Sorildyn Eleris, a Templar of Corellon Larethian; Eleris testified that the turbanned figure had been casing the intersection all day, particularly the round building. These investigations went smoothly, and the party now had three accounts to the effect that the turbanned figure had been in the area, up to no good.
Outside the apartment building, Riviel Jassimir was handing out food, medicine, and money to the gathered poor. This was a moment I had written down to play out this session, and I thought it was a good time to introduce it. The party had gathered all the clues they needed and were discussing investigating the round building, so I figured it was appropriate to interrupt them for this story moment. The players were suspicious of Jassimir--they had been in town long enough to know that the denizens of the Above were selfish and controlled the law, so they were of the opinion that Jassimir was likely performing acts of charity as a ruse to keep her profile high in the city. I had hoped that the scene would convince the players that not all members of the Above were outright evil, so I laid the details on thickly. The crowd that had gathered was made up of all sorts of people; Jassimir was almost over-the-top kind and service-oriented; every criticism from the players had an answer. "A central agency to distribute stuff like this would be more effective," said Beor. "I have a central agency as well, but we have found that localized outreach gets more people into our purview," she responded. (I hadn't decided ahead of time that Jassimir had such a central agency, but I wanted her to have answers for each point raised by the players, so now she has such an agency." Other criticisms were met with equal answers; it was clear that Jassimir had considered the best approach to how to help the poor. Here's a point where improv will help you: your players have a concern, and you have the answer for it, just like that. It builds the world and keeps the story moving, all at once.
Once Jassimir had left, the party headed for the round building. The door opened to reveal a purple-pigtailed gnome named Lyssbetonk Cogswagon. I designed Cogswagon to be a central feature in the mystery, so I took my time developing the details of her personality and her laboratory. She initially resisted being questioned, but perked up when the players mentioned someone breaking into her lab, at which point she came clean. Someone had ransacked her lab and jumped out a window they had broken; Cogswagon had replaced the window in the hopes that guards would not come to investigate. I used this moment to establish that Cogswagon was agoraphobic and hadn't left her lab in years after being harassed and attacked by a guard (a human named Quint Randolph) in the past. Because the party was composed of outsiders like her, she trusted them to investigate her break-in. Cogswagon gave the party a tour of her lab and an inventory of the stolen and damaged inventions, offering to repair one of the broken devices as a reward for helping her cause.
It's worth pausing for a second to point out that Cogswagon's agoraphobia was a moment of inspiration, completely improvised. I mention this because I had tentatively outlined each of the sessions I had planned for this campaign. I thought ten sessions would be enough to develop and investigate the mystery, or at least ten secrets would collectively lead the party to the solution. Session four, in that outline, stipulated that the party would discover a possible motive for raiding Cogswagon's lab: she owed considerable gambling debts to a denizen of the Above. But I realized after session two that Cogswagon would neither venture to the Above nor invite a ring of gamblers into her lab with the agoraphobia I was describing. So I had to return to the campaign outline and revise each of the clues involving gambling debts. Ultimately, this was a good thing. The first two sessions taught me that any ambiguity with clues means the potential for unintended red herrings, and the gambling debt stuff was all implication. It would mean the party would be wandering between implications and I would have to hope nothing would point them in the wrong direction. It's better this way, having to rewrite some steps with a revised understanding of the background of the mystery. It's always better to shape things relative your players' direction than to try to redirect them to what you want.
The session ended with another surprise for me. While I had envisioned Cogswagon as a very friendly NPC, one who would go so far as to work feverishly to help the party, the players were as suspicious of her as anyone else. Their first action after leaving Cogswagon's lab was to return to Portia and investigate Cogswagon (in addition to sharing their discoveries from the day's investigation). They asked about the guard Quint Randolph, who it turned out had been found sliced in half in the street with a crushed mechanical device. The party requested the crushed device from evidence and considered Cogswagon a suspect in Randolph's death.
You might ask why, if I wanted Cogswagon to appear to be nothing but a friend, I would plant the detail that Randolph had been found dead with a mechanical device. The answer is twofold. First, I liked that the players were suspicious of Cogswagon. I resolved that I would establish in a future scene that Cogswagon would be completely innocent of any crimes--this would allow the players to theorize about Cogswagon and potentially focus less on the other potential culprits. This is narrative tension. As the party and Cogswagon interact more, they will be forced ever closer to reckoning with their suspicions, and discovering that a potential foe is actually a friend will be a fun moment. Second, I have been aiming for a reveal that Cogswagon is to be framed for various crimes. The truth will be that Cogswagon is uninvolved with the crimes, but someone out there wants her to seem guilty. Figuring out that Cogswagon is being framed is a complex story beat, one that requires the players to sort through enough evidence to be sure of something. And when the time comes for that discovery, I will do what I can to make it dynamic and exciting, something that surprises the players. We as GMs have the ability to do this: we shift attention here and there and ultimately lead our players somewhere they didn't expect.
It probably sounds like I'm breaking my own rules. "First you say to not allow for confusion, then you plant confusion," you're saying. And you're right. The key is, confusion about the steps required to move forward aren't fun or productive. Confusion about the mystery itself is part of the experience. I'm not allowing my players to get confused about whether Isha Blackchain had something to do with the murder--that takes the players away from the story we're telling together. But if they get confused about whether Cogswagon is a suspect, when she is meant to be a central figure in the mystery, that means that the story gets more complex and more driven by the players' choices.
Deciding in the moment whether a decision will lead to good confusion or bad confusion can be tricky. The key is in considering it from your players' perspectives. Use all the empathy you have to gauge where your players are and where they're going, and complicate the road between the two. But don't build new roads. You want them to do what they want to do, with your input as decoration on the shape they've chosen. Trusting your instincts goes a long way. You've got experiences with stories: every book you've read, every game you've played, every movie and show you've seen--they all influence what your internalized version of a story is, and trust that story. Tell the party a hybrid of the story you'd want to play and what you think the players want.
That's all for now, but session 3 is soon to come. Coming soon: session three of the mystery campaign, but first, a guide to turning player input into a campaign that your players help you design.
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