As the title says. I eventually want to run an impostor scenario/murder mystery in my World of Darkness game at some point, and would like some pointers.
I wrote an article with my thoughts on running mysteries here:
https://slyflourish.com/running_investigations_and_mysteries.html
Don’t put important details behind failable skill checks and just dead end it there.
Like if they find a book with ciphered text, you might be tempted to be like “make an intelligence + investigator check to decipher it”, and if they fail be like “you can’t figure it out”.
It’s better to do some sort of degree of success or succeed at a cost so the game keeps moving forward.
Like, on a bad roll they translate it but whoops awaken an angry spirit that’s now attacking them. Or they make some progress, but realize they need the key to fully crack it. The note in the margin says it’s at such-and-such flophouse, owned by the PC’s most annoying rival group.
I’ve done too many “you rolled … 0? Ok. Well you have no idea what this altar means” and then later regretted it because the players didn’t have a vital clue.
@Atlas48 First off, know from the outset whether you want to run a genuine mystery scenario, with an actual truth under the hood where the point is to overcome the challenge of finding that truth, or engage in mystery-*shaped* storytelling where the goal is to end up with a tale that resembles a mystery from the outside while not actually taxing the players’ brains. Advice varies wildly depending on which you’re doing.
I wonder, in a mystery-shaped storytelling, if starting the adventure by secretely telling a random player “you’re the murderer, you killed that person at this time with this weapon at this place” could help you build the mystery part since it would eventually result in having sometimes contradicting information and fake evidence planted by the culprit
Nah, Mafia/Werewolf is actually a third option, and served by games that exist outside “our” roleplaying industry. Look into murder mystery party games for that.
By “mystery-shaped storytelling” I mean more stuff like Brindlewood Bay, InSpectres, Technoir… stuff where even who did it and how just isn’t decided at the start.
I know. I played Brindlewood Bay, and we felt that the endings were a little off because of the gameplay rules. That’s why I was wondering about throwing an impostor out there to see what would come of it.
@Rhaxapopouetl That doesn’t really seem compatible with “roll to see if your theory is correct at the end”…
True, but OP wants to run an impostor/mystery, so i feel i’m not completely out of touch, there.
