The GM Advice thread: Killing your players quickly

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > The GM Advice thread: Killing your players quickly

Panzeh: Nov 27, 2006; "..The high ground"

LurchinTard posted:

running a miami vice/80s crime campaign in GURPs soon for 4 people. What i'm needing to know is how do I run mysteries? the introduction mission is just "go after a lead on drug manufacture, arrest associate, get lead and tip from the arrest in exchange for being let off easy, lead a raid on a warehouse(introductory to combat) and make some arrests." but I'm trying to make it more complex than that. I don't wanna rip straight off from the show, does anyone have any good reading or links about running mysteries?

I think one of the big things to get at is trying to gauge how much your players are interested in truly doing mysteries- some people are down for really trying to search out and put clues together, and some people are more interested in investigation as a vehicle to do adventurey things rather than being able to go on red herrings and get things dreadfully wrong.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2022 09:59

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# ¿ May 7, 2024 23:05

Panzeh: Nov 27, 2006; "..The high ground"

I think it's fine to have players spit the party for tactical reasons- or for small scale downtime things, but for example, anything big, i want everyone together for. I actually think there's a lot of potential in situations where the party's split up, but not for more than a little bit.

# ¿ May 25, 2023 23:12

Panzeh: Nov 27, 2006; "..The high ground"

Pollyanna posted:

Would it be too much to ask any groups I play with to use this rule? As a GM, I worry about overreaching if I house rule it, and as a PC, I worry about fitting in and being a team player if I ask. And if I do use this as a GM, how do I ensure that each player gets their say and a satisfying amount of in-game focus?

No, i think it's entirely reasonable- it's also a good way to make sure everyone's involved in the game. It's a method traditionally used for larger tables but having someone prompt each player for their actions and it not necessarily being the GM does a good job of getting the more passively inclined players feeling like they can contribute without making a weird cacophony.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2023 12:42

Panzeh: Nov 27, 2006; "..The high ground"

Morrow posted:

It's my turn to DM in a few months and I'm trying to do an actual mystery: the Werewolf of Monte Cristo. The format is rather than having a long-running campaign we reset and do something different for the better part of a year, which lets us shuffle around schedules and rosters a little.

The idea is there's a cabal of powerful dudes (a wizard, a priest, a banker, a noble) who ruined some poor schmuck's life and had him shipped off to fantasy Australia as a prisoner, where he was turned into a werewolf and now like fifteen years later he's coming back to fantasy London as a superpowered serial killer. The players get roped in because they work for/are suspects in the murder of his first target and need to piece together the conspiracy so they can get ahead of the killer.

Is there a good guide to running a mystery online in D&D? As opposed to my usual format of "go to place, kill dude", or "choose which place to go to, kill dude, then go to other place" there's a lot more moving parts where things can go off the rails. I expect I need to really flesh out the social roster and keep track of which NPCs know what, like a social instead of geographic sandbox.

I think it's probably important to gauge if your players want to really do the deducing or do they like mystery as a vibe.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 19:49

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