Last time, I promised to cover session three of the mystery campaign and address the challenge of players ignoring the storyline. It has a surprisingly simple solution: let them. I'll get into why, but first, what happened. I'll start by posting my outline:
Secret to DiscoverAn Above citizen (Clover Loom) was heard drunkenly talking about how Cogswagon
deserves to die because of how the fledgling disease diagnoser could destroy their monopoly
on the healing business in town.
Developments: Aaron Brown is going to visit the Briscoe Inn about his missing shipping
manifest
Lyssbetonk Cogswagon is offering to repair one device to help the party seek the turban-wearer.
Setup: After Montana’s performance at Underhar Cuisine, Baldwin Weams reports that the
previous night, a high roller from the Above was overheard talking about having someone
killed, and he thinks he heard the name “Cogswagon.”
Characters:
First Guard - Portia Rockhammer, 160 dwarf, fighter
Inventor - Lyssbettonk Cogswagon, 189 gnome, wizard/artificer
Tavern keeper - Baldwin Weams, 29 human, commoner
Tavern Patron 1 - Quarsa Fielt, 145 elf, fighter
Tavern Patron 2 - Tane Stonehauler, 336, cleric
Tavern Patron 3 - Sally Cloudworth, 253, sorcerer
Clues:
Quarsa Fielt was at the table with Clover Loom two nights ago; she says, Loom was very drunk
and said she wanted to have many people killed, but her tone was more serious when talking
about Cogswagon. Fielt can be found at work as a bodyguard for Above citizen Khyrhm
Coleman, a quarry owner.
Tane Stonehauler was in the tavern two nights ago and overheard Loom say that she’d buy
drinks for life for anyone willing to “take Cogswagon down a peg or two.” He also heard
Loom use the halfling word for “assassin” a few times. Stonehauler can be found working
at a Loom Healing Center--he has become disillusioned about Loom’s profit-driven approach
to healing.
Sally Cloudworth was in the tavern two nights ago and says that Loom offered her money
to destroy all of Cogswagon’s devices. Cloudworth said no, and Loom spit on her. Cloudworth
can be found at her enchanting shop (Cloudworth’s Wares) in the north sector of town. She is
furious at Loom and would have attacked her if not for her status as a citizen of the Above.
Additional information:
If questioned, Loom is genuinely shocked that she is being investigated. She admits she has a
temper when drinking but can be caught up and forced to admit that she has paid a thief (Sippikup
Magee) to perform surveillance on Cogswagon to ensure that she is one step ahead. She willingly
admits the party to her tower because she has no belief she is guilty of anything wrong. There is a
magical trace that she has been mind controlled.
Bonus for keeping personal secret this session: +1 Persuasion/Insight checks
This information, as covered before, is enough to get our players from the clues of the previous session into the mystery of this session. The new clue is that Loom has threatened Cogswagon, and further, (as revealed in the "Additional Information" section) that she was mind controlled to do so. This is a step in a different direction for this campaign. Previous clues have been one part step in the right direction and nothing else. But this set of clues requires the party to target Loom and then discover the mind control. There is only one way to discover the mind control--I didn't set it up with the three-clue rule like before. That's not to force the players to discover the mind control in only one way. It's a vital clue--the players essentially have to find it, or else they will be pursuing Loom by way of red herring, and we don't want that. So instead, once the players are alone with Loom, I'll ensure that they discover the mind control. If they don't naturally find it, I'll suggest something to them. "You feel the strong presence of magic," I might say, or "Loom is straining against herself as though she is strongly conflicted." I will keep placing these clues until the party notices the mind control magic. (You might notice that this complex type of magic corresponds to the suggestions made by the players.) I don't want to beat the players over the head with this, but I also don't want to hang them out to dry. If you need your players to discover something like this, don't worry too much about railroading; as long as they progress mostly by their own choice, we're giving them the right experience.
Speaking of railroading, this session was very much the opposite. Fans of the fantastic D&D podcast Dungeons & Daddies (Not a BDSM Podcast) might refer to sessions like this one as a "five-footer," one in which the players advance a tiny bit but accomplish nothing major. And this is okay! I wanted the players to start collecting clues, but they had other agendas. And this is fine. It's good, actually. When players begin to interact with the gameworld in detailed ways, ways that suit their characters, things are going well. It may be frustrating as a GM to not see your hard work preparing for the session come to fruition, but trust me: players doing what their characters would naturally do means that the players are engaged and enjoying themselves. Sit back, be ready to improvise, and don't cut short the options your players invest in.
So what actually happened in this five-footer? To begin with, Montana owed Baldwin Weams a musical performance at Underhar Cuisine, so the party headed back to the restaurant. Montana used magic to grant himself a dramatic entrance, wind blowing and heads turning. He performed a series of songs. Consider this. Montana's player did not just say, "I play some music." Instead, he described in detail the types of songs he played and in what order, wooing the crowd and controlling their energy. He rolled a different perform check for every song, adding further characterization to the performance. Montana's player was having a good time describing each song, and he even played music that was meant to inspire Beor and Ais in particular. Nothing much was happening, but it was a rich character moment. Moments like these are powerful for players. They allow the players to determine who their character really is and how they interact with the world besides the confrontation of the campaign's story. Similarly, Beor decided to drink heavily. But a chaos storm in the previous session had made him immune to the effects of alcohol for a series of days, so nothing happened to him. And again, this was a great moment. Beor was confused and irritated, but the world was affecting him in a somewhat meaningful way. He was learning to live in the chaos of the city. As DM, I would not want to curtail these moments. They give the players agency to do as they please.When the show was over, the party spoke again with Weams. He reported the clue information: an Above citizen had loudly called for the assassination of someone, and Weams remembered the name as something like "Cobswaggle"--Ais quickly realized this was Cogswagon, and the party resolved to investigate the Above citizen (Loom). Weams referred the party to the three regulars outlined in the character/clue sections, and the investigation was ready for the next step.
But the party had other fish to fry. Montana wanted to play another show at the inn where he was staying. On the way, another chaos storm struck, this one causing Beor to go invisible and inaudible for one minute. After the shock of losing and finding Beor, the party made it to the Briscoe Inn where Montana was staying, and he again created a customized musical performance for the patrons of the tavern there. When the barkeep delivered drinks after the show had concluded, he mentioned that Aaron Brown was waiting to see the party. You'll remember from the outline for this session that Brown was investigating the theft of a shipping manifest, and that the party wasn't sure whether Brown had been party to Hildy's murder based on the location of his coinpurse. The location the party had given for meeting with Brown was the Briscoe Inn, and I wasn't sure when the party would next be there, so I threw Brown into the mix. I did this for a few reasons. (1) Consequences are vital in TRPGs, otherwise it loses the appearance of reality. If the party contacted Brown through proxies as they did, Brown must eventually show up. (2) The party was already off doing non-storyline-related things, so allowing them to tie up a loose end wouldn't hurt. It might even direct the party back to the mystery. So why not? And finally, (3) the party was still suspicious of Brown, and I did not intend him as a major figure of the mystery. This is to say that I don't particularly want the party to be using their time and resources to investigate him. So I could use this moment to indicate that Brown was not a suspect. Taken together, it's only natural that Brown appear at the inn, so there he was.
The party was anxious of talking with Brown. They had only circumstantial evidence to link him to the crime and had lured Brown there with misinformation: they had not a missing shipping manifest, but his coinpurse. But the notion that Brown would personally investigate a missing shipping manifest piqued the suspicions of the party, so they doubled down. Beor and Ais distracted Brown, including tying his shoelaces together, while Montana created a forgery of a shipping manifest. When they showed it to Brown, he voiced doubts that the manifest was his, but then decided it was a forgery. At this point, the party told the truth: they had his coinpurse and suspected he may be involved in Hildy's death. I had a choice to make at this point. Brown could cooperate as much as possible despite the dishonest method the party had used to talk to him. He could also become furious and hold a grudge against the party. I settled somewhere in the middle: Brown cogently explained why such a tactic was improper, asserted his innocence, asked the identity of the person who had stolen his coinpurse, and explained that he intended to end their conversation and leave. The party again pushed their suspicions and accused Brown of being uncaring toward the city's poor. At that point, I felt Brown had had enough, so he tried to storm away. But of course his shoelaces were tied together, so he tripped down a flight of stairs.
As a DM, I felt a little unsure of what to make of this moment. The party had spent considerable time and energy pursuing something that I did not intend to be a lead, and it had blown up in their faces. Now they had a powerful foe, were no closer to answers, and had divided themselves. Tensions boiled over; the party spent half an hour arguing in-character about which tactics to use with suspects and when--they agreed that they needed to be more organized in future efforts. This was a hard moment as a DM. I couldn't solve the inter-party issues for them, and I couldn't reasonably provide them evidence that this was a path to nowhere. But I trust my players (and so should you!). I stayed in the background and let them work things out. Before long, the party had patched things up, eaten a good meal, and resolved to get back to the mystery in the morning. It had been a long day--three sessions' worth of material, all beginning with their being strangers roped into a murder investigation that morning. And letting them solve the problem themselves did more than give the players the agency to act on their own. It also made them feel empowered when they worked things through. It's almost certain that there will be further missteps and party tension, but I know that if I give the players the room to work on it, they can resolve it all themselves. It was a powerful, important moment, and the players needed it.
At my out-of-game urging, the players stopped by Cogswagon's lab on the way back to Ais' house, where they planned to crash for the night. I mention that I urged them to because I wanted to give them time to take Cogswagon up on her offer; as you can see from her list, Cogswagon wants to repair a chosen device from her inventory to help the party. So if they ended a day by selecting one, then the morning of the following day, that device would be ready. This is a sticky issue. I could resolve that if the players don't take the initiative to obtain any inventions, that's their prerogative. But I wanted to introduce some of the suggestions from our brainstorming together. One person requested steampunk style inventions, and another had requested high magic shenanigans. These inventions cover both bases. So I put a bit of pressure on them to advance that storyline, very much to their advantage. This kind of nudging is not elegant, but it can help in the middle of a five-footer.
Finally, after Cogswagon had handed off the list of inventions, the party headed home for the night. Beor's player asked me what time it was, and I said it was about 9. A few minutes later, the same player asked me how clear the night sky was. It took two hints, but I did get it. Beor is a werebear. I had forgotten amidst all the clues and improv and misdirected investigation that he was a werebear. And so, there in the middle of a busy intersection under the moonlight, Beor transformed into a hulking bear. I asked Beor's player to describe the transformation, which I think is more satisfying than doing it myself. (I deferred to Beor's player on the rules of lycanthropy--is it a full moon or any moon? Can he control the transformation? Does he retain awareness of his time as a bear? Does he become aggressive? These are all questions that I have homebrew answers for, but it's more fun for Beor and his player to determine these for himself. So I opted to have Beor's player provide the description of his transformation.) A few bystanders screamed and ran, and so Montana and Ais cast invisibility on Beor and guided him home.
The players did not investigate even one clue. They made time for other things instead. And that's not a problem. You'll find in GMing that your players pick up side quests, for lack of a better term: things that require some time and commitment which don't really have anything to do with the main story. And while you could drop these moments from the game since they don't work towards the end goal, I think it's better to indulge your players when they want these moments. Use your role as GM to make them as colorful and interesting as possible. There's no value in curtailing the fun of your players just to have a concentrated story. You're not writing a screenplay; you're providing a world full of possibilities to your players, and they should get the full range of those possibilities.
Another benefit of exploring these extra moments is that it allows your players to rest a bit after the fatigue of tirelessly investigating a serious crime. Just like you might watch a few hours of tv after a hard day, the players want to have some shenanigans between the weighty beats of your story. Don't take it as a preference for the silly stuff over what you're working on necessarily; treat it as moments you can add to reward your players for being diligent otherwise. And at the end of the day, it's all about fun, right? Have fun.
Next time on the mystery campaign, the players get even more freeform and start to develop their characters' dynamics. Good luck with your own campaigns, and remember to honor what your players want.
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