The Simple Art of Mystery

After this weekends Detectives & Daredevils game, I was talking with the game's creator and our GM, B. Portly, and the man from Kaijuville, Steve, about running mystery-based games. This is something I've put a bit of thought into as most of my Weird Adventures games are mysteries in one way or another. Here are some things I feel like help make a mystery genre game (as opposed to game that just happens to have mystery elements or a mystery setting) successful and enjoyable:

1. Get players' buy in. To create the feel of a specific genre, everybody needs to be on the same page about what you're doing--at least if it's going to be fun for all involved.
2. Plan, but leave some blank space. You need to know the "who," the cast of possible "whos," and at least have a good idea of the "why," if you're going to be able to effectively lay clues for the PCs to uncover. There needs to be some fuzzy areas though, as the player's are going to suggest interesting details either purposefully or through their actions during play. So long as you're not changing the fundamental facts of the mystery the PCs are trying to uncover, this only enhances things.
3. The PCs always find the important clue. This one is borrowed from Robin Laws' GUMSHOE, but it can be employed in any system. If the PCs look, there going to find the critical clues. If they don't look, be on the look out for alternate ways they can discover the information. There can always be some details players' might miss, but if it's really important, don't make it hard to get.
4. Repeated interviews yield new information. As Raymond Chandler pointed out in "The Simple Art of Murder," one of the "unrealistic" things about the murder mystery is that it features a close-knit group of people. Going back to those few NPCs with new questions will get new information, because they will have thought of things since last they were interviewed or new things will have occurred as the malefactor's "plot" precedes.
7. Keep things moving. To again quote Chandler's "The Simple Art of Murder": "When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand." If the PCs have hit a wall or their just not connecting the dots, they shouldn't flounder too long. Their investigative actions are going to make the villains react or (related individuals with something to hide), and the reaction will often be to try to kill the PCs or throw them off the trail. Maybe the villains don't come after the PCs, but after someone else they think might give the PCs information. Their actions shouldn't be random; they should make sense, but their exact timing can be when the game needs it.
8. Everybody has got secrets. Even when someone isn't the killer/primary criminal, they may have something to hide. Hints at these provide good red herrings and discovering them gives the PCs a feeling of accomplishment while they're slowly chipping away at the big case. Be careful not to let these overwhelm the main mystery or make them too hard to discover, lest the PCs spend too much time on a tangent.
9. It's not necessary to be Sherlock Holmes. In The Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade does very little investigation. He mostly reacts to people coming after him; he thinks on his feet, keeps the other guy talking so they give up a lot of information for relatively few questions, and uses violence judiciously.

That's what I've got. Anybody else got any pearls of wisdom from their gaming table?

Mapping Hyperspace

Star charts of the Strange Stars exist, but they are not as usual for travelers as diagrams of the area hyperspace network. The travel distances through hyperspace have only a slight association with the distances in regular space and the spatial relationships of two systems matter not at all.

Above is a simple, 2D download of a hyperspace map of the primary member worlds of the Alliance. By convention, worlds are typically named for the primary habitation (either natural or artificial) rather than the star, though there are exceptions--Altair being one here. The connections between nodes are typically color coded, based on the baseline human visible spectrum. (Other colors or other sensory stimuli are employed by beings with differing visual discrimination.Some spacer cultures refer to the two ends of the travel time continuum as "hot" and "cold." ). For a given length, redder connections indicate faster travel times and bluer ones slower. Red connections, for example, typical denote average travel times between 18 and 90 ks, depending on length of the connection and other variables. Violet connections might take 7 Ms or more.

For comparison, the normal space distance between the primary of Smaragdoz (Lurline, a K0V star known in ancient records as Alsaphi) and Altair is approximately 5.54 parsecs, taking 18.09 years or 570,490 ks for light to travel between the two. The sublight trip from a habitation to the terminal station (typically located at the edge of systems) in many cases takes longer than traversing a red connection.

Smaragdoz's hyperspace node is unusual in that it has multiple connections. This does not require a separate gate for each connection; there are only two pairs of gates in this case. Connections are accessed on a rotating timetable. The delay in access is typically in the range of 1-1.5 ks before a new connection can safely begin to be used, however delays 2-3 times that are not unheard of. The connection timetable can be changed on the fly, but this is seldom done as periodicity in connection changes has been found to lead to shorter stabilization delays and fewer "dropouts" (requiring a hard reboot of the gate).

Making A Living in the Far Future

Helluva way to make a living.

The whole "post-scarcity" thing hasn't really panned out in the Strange Stars, and not everyone gets to do something glamorous like being a starship pilot or sim star. At  the same, in the most advanced societies a lot of people just aren't needed in the work force and live off social services, making a bit of money through social media or oddjobs. Here are a few interesting things those in the working world are doing:

Data Prospector: There's a lot of valuable infomation buried in the depths of a planetary or system noosphere. Data prospectors mine the infospace either for clients or as freelancers.

Lawyer: In most places, law is the province of low-sapience infomorphs, but some jurisdictions require a physical presence in court and juries often harbor unconscious biochauvinism, so biosophont attorneys still have a role.

News Contextualizer: Where most events are uploaded to the noosphere by citizens, the job of the news aggregrators is to deliver concise and contextualized news. They rely on contextualizers who are savvy at finding the "angle" or finding the stories to fill out an already established angle. Contextualizers work with stringers or news hunters who sift the raw social media for stories.

Pest Control Specialist: An interstellar society leads to the introduction of invasive alien species. Large-scale infestations call for a governmental response, but smaller ones lead to a call to a local private specialist.

Re-enactor: Re-enactors are a special breed of sim performer. They cater to a market for "historically accurate" simulated experiences. Re-enactors undergo memory (and sometimes bodily) modification based on extensive research of a specific era or individual to provide those experiences.

Scientist: Science is a different sort of endeavor in a civilization following in the footsteps of more advanced civilizations who long ago pushed knowledge as far as it would go with human-level intelligence and perceptions. Most modern scientists are more like archaeologists or historians: they sift the remnant noosphere and data storage of the ancients for lost experiments or not yet fully mined veins of inquiry. The best scientists spend as much time in the field as they do in laboratories.

Super-voter: In cyberdemocractic or demarchist polities, some voters are always going to make better decisions that others, so complicated algorithms will tend to weight their votes fractionally more. Political interest groups and parties track these super-voters and try to court them due to their influence. They're given consultant fees or even gifts, so long as there isn't a direct quid pro quo (buying their votes wouldn't be effective in the long term in any case, as biased "incorrect" decisions would soon make the infosophont vote tabulators decreased their votes' weighting.)

Surgeon: Surgery is actually preformed by bots that look something like giant, artificial Hydra with surgical tools attached to the end of their appendages, but nicer surgical centers employ friendly public faces to consult with patients or their love ones. Surgeons explain the procedure and make any last minute (minor) adjustments to the bots' programming.

Creature Commandos

Long before rpgs got to the idea of making World War II a "weird war" (here and here) comics books had stormed that beach. There were Pacific islands of dinosaurs, G.I. robots, and whole platoons of ghosts and undead. The weirdest of the weird warriors may be relative latecomers to the game: the Creature Commandos, whose adventures are now helpfully available in a collection.

When writing Weird War Tales in the late seventies, J.M. DeMatteis took an idea to editor Len Wein that Wein reportedly though was "so silly" that it would work. That idea was a special forces unit comprised of characters resembling the Universal Monsters.

It's 1942: American scientists are delving into psychological warfare. They devise a program to realize certain cross-cultural archetypes of fear in the flesh. Thus, Project M (for Monster) is born Warren Griffith, a sufferer from clinical lycanthropy, is turned into a werewolf for real. Looking to avoid jail time, Vincent Velcro allows himself to be injected with some vampire bat derived chemicals and becomes a vampire. Marine "Lucky" Taylor just had to step on a landmine to get patched up by military surgeons into sort of a Frankensteinian monster.

I imagine Project M spawned a number of Congressional hearings and lawsuits, by the seventies. In 1942, the brass is utterly disgusted by the Creature Commandos, but sends them against Nazi Germany, anyway--and that's only the beginning. They drop in on Dinosaur Island, fight super-strong children (products of Nazi experiments), tangle with Atlantean survivors, and tussle with Inferna, daughter of Hades and Persephone. Along the way they team up with G.I. Robot J.A.K.E. (two models), and get a female team mate: Dr. Myrra Rhodes, who has snakes for hair thanks to inhaling strange fumes.

So, yeah. A lot of gaming inspiration to be had.

Warlord Wednesday: A Chronology

One minor element I liked about Warlord as conceived and written by Grell was that it progressed somewhat close to real-time. Sure, in the timeless world of Skartaris characters didn't age, but time went by in the outside world. Here's a timeline of dates given directly or easily inferred from the series:

1926, prior to April 15: Travis Morgan is born. [Warlord #6 gives the date as April 15, 1977, and Morgan bemoans that it means he is 51.]

1943: Time displaced, Morgan, Shakira, and Krystovar visit the U.S.S. Eldridge during the Philadelphia Experiment. [Warlord #79. This could be an alternate past, as it is related to an alternate future.]

1959, after June 16: Jennifer is born to Rachel and Travis Morgan. [In Warlord #38, Jennifer says a man arrived on her 10th birthday to tell her that her father had died, so it must have been shortly after his crash on June 16, 1969.]

1967: After the death of his wife, Travis Morgan sends Jennifer to live with her aunt. [According to Warlord #38, Jennifer is 8 at the time.]

June 16, 1969: Morgan is shot down and crashes his plane in Skartaris. [Date given in First Issue Special #8.]

1973: Danny Maddox is thrown in the gulag. [According to Secret Origins #16.]

April 15-16, 1977: Morgan returns to the surface world and meets Mariah at Macchu Picchu. [Date given in Warlord #6.]

1980: Jennifer Morgan arrives in Skartaris. [In Warlord #38, Jennifer says that she was told her father was a traitor "3 years ago" which would be after the government discovers that he's still alive in Warlord #6.]

1989, after June: Morgan visits the surface world and winds up meeting Green Arrow in Seattle. [In Green Arrow (vol. 2) #28, Morgan comments his flight was "over 20 years ago" after seeing the date on a newspaper.]

2009: Morgan encounters Ned Hawkins, the self-styled Golden God, and several other arrivals from the surface world. [Warlord (vol. 4) #4. Morgan says he's 82 when McBane tells him the year is 2009. Either Morgan somehow knows it's prior to his birthday, or he's off by a year. McBane continues to repeat this number throughout the next few issues. Given the timelessness of Skartaris, it's unclear how much time passes between this issue and Morgan's death, but since there seems to be very little time for breaks in the action, it's likely 2009-2010. If we go be publication date, it's 2010.]

Danny Maddox (a post-Grell creation) poses a few problems for the "publication year approximates year of occurrence" of the Grell years. He is the same age as Morgan, but he's spent most of his life on the surface. But Maddox doesn't seem to be in his 60s when Mariah meets him in the Russian gulag. Given that the Soviet's aren't surprised the Mariah hasn't aged either, it seems like it's the early 80s at the latest. Maddox still doesn't appear to be in his fifties either, and it's hard to square with the rest of the saga, but it's the only real explanation.

I also didn't include the two alternate futures in the above timeline. Neither is specifically dated, and they're just two of an infinite number of possibilities, in any case.

Smoke and Mirrors

Yesterday's Weird Adventures game found Rue, Jacques, Rob, and the Professor still exploring Urst's mansion. The party got separated last time by the biggest of separations: the divide between life and death. The gents (on the side of the living) had left Rue's body on the table in the refectory and taken their explorations upstairs. Meanwhile, Rue's spirit had moved downstairs looking for them.

The guys found several bedrooms. One of them had a sleeping, cross-dressing ogre. The ogre, scandalized at their intrusion chased them away. They were only happy to leave. The next bedroom was part of a suite. In the sitting room beyond they encountered a couple that seemed to be formed from smoke. These ghosts or spirits attacked, and they sucked enough life from Professor Pao to knock him unconscious.

Rob and Jacques took shots at them. The bullets perhaps dissipated them a bit, but it was going to be a slow way to take them down. Noticing the glass doors opening on to a balcony, Jacques got the idea to open them, maybe letting a wind in to blow the spirits away. But he and Rob manage to avoid getting hit and make it out the door. The wind (at least them wind they've got) isn't enough to disperse them, but they notice the spirits seem to shy away from the unfiltered sunlight.

They get the idea to break the glass doors and use pieces to try to reflect sunlight onto them. This helps hem the spirits in, and Rob is able to make dash to grab a mirror off the wall. He's able to focus the sunlight more directly and burn holes in the ghosts, finally dissipating them.

All this time, Rue is following--haunting, maybe--the woman, Camilla that dealt her the card. Camilla isn't sympathetic and finally runs away from her. Rue also finds her body where the guys left it and sees a cat-headed man in a fez inspecting it. She stays hidden, waiting for him to go away.

Then, she sees something really weird: Pao's spirit dangling from the ceiling by his silver cord. It allows her to find the rest of her gang, including the unconscious Pao, whose spirit is drifting a bit, but still firmly in place. They manage to bring him around, and he fixes up his only Yianese herbal healing remedy.

Rob is occupied by a lockbox he found in an alcove behind the mirror. It's got gold coins on the inside. Rue begins formulating a plan to get her spirit back in her body, while Jacques decides to make torches.

It's getting dark all of a sudden.

Captains of the Strange Stars

Given the myriad of worlds and vessels, it's no surprise spacecraft commanders are a varied lot. Here are three examples of those who make their living in space:

Art by Yuan Cui

This is Rhona Tam, privateer and custom enforcement contractor. She has letters of marque from several habitats, but her customs duties are concentrated in the system of Circus. She commands the cutter, Moral Hazard, most often transponder identified as registered in Interzone. Tam is shown dressed in nanoarmored clothing in the dark colors and stylings common to the "serious" space mariners (and poseurs) of Interzone's low port. Her braids, however, suggest her origins in the nobility of Hy Brasil habitat. The rings in her hair are actually devices: a data buffer and vigilance control for her brain backup, and a smart multi-tool in sleep mode. Her belt pouches hold mission-useful equipment and her current favored blend of local recreational drug powders.

Art by Moebius

Garn Singh Hardraker, captain of the Brave Ulysses, is an explorer who has led numerous expeditions to open up trade beyond newly re-discovered hyperspace network nodes and participated in several minor trade wars. He is dressed here in the ornate style popular among independent habitats in Alliance Space, recalling the courtly dress of the Belle Époque of the High Lonesome Confederation. He wears his hair and mustache long and carries a ritual short sword, suggesting an affinity for the ancient memeplex, Bushisikhism. What appears to be an old fashion peg-leg is actually programmable matter, capable of transforming into a more functional prosthetic when needed.

Prudence Myung-sun-115 pilots a combat drone swarm based on the carrier Clown in the Moonlight. Vis already heightened bioroid nervous system has been grafted to cybernetic enhancements, allowing multitasking capability far beyond that of the baseline neuroform. Sensor data from the drones are fed directly into sensory processing areas of vis brain by the control helmet.