Marvel Mysteries...

[thedragonmaster]

While on The Forge I ran across a thread about how to run a proper Holmesian mystery, so I decided to try it in the MURPG system.

My group consists of 2 (confirmed) players. When asked what type of game they wanted, one said an underworld/mafia-style game. The other said he wanted to blow things up... So we're going with distinct mob overtones.

This will be my first time writing up a campaign of this sort, so it may take me a little while to get this all into a clear format. I won't be able to run this this weekend, or next, but after that I will post to let you know what worked, what didn't, and what I'd have done differently.

That being said
...........................................................................................

The Adventure of the Stolen McGuffin

Part of the write-up includes an R-Map of major NPC's, but I'll have to post that here later.

Jacob Downing is the owner of a local auto-body shop (i.e, detailing, repair, painting, etc.) who has been acting as a shell company for local mob boss "The Promethian". As part of the deal, The Promethian brings his car in to get it detailed once a week. The car (a McGuffin LSGE*, lol) was brought in two days ago. When the boss sent an underling around to pick it up, it was no where to be found. Jacob has been given an ultimatum, Find the car, or disappear forever.

The Case
Who: The car was hidden by Frank Grimes, the assistant manager of the company.
When: Just after close last night.
Where: Franks garage.
How: Frank is a mutant with Teleportation (Travels through other dimension, leaves a blue dust behind)
Why: Frank wanted to take over the business, but couldn't afford to buy it outright.

Why Now: Last week Frank got a loan to take over the business, but was rebuffed by Jacob. An argument ensued and Jacob said that money or no, Frank could have the business when he pried it out of his cold dead hands.
Why this way: Frank knew about the ties to the mob and not wanting to bring the cops down on himself, decided to turn the mob on Jacob. Knowing that he'd never get the car past the camera's, he figured that he could teleport it away and no one would be the wiser, he'd simply come back in the morning and clean up the mess (i.e, the dust).

Clues
What are they: Frank is shown walking in that morning, but never passing by the camera's on the way back out. There is a fine coating of blue dust over the room. The shop owner next door has left his store every day at 8:15pm exactly for the last 40 years, and heard the sound of the car while he was locking up.
Why were they left: Frank hurried into work early, but the Goon had already stopped by to pick up the car.
What didn't he know: The boss needed his car first thing because of a meeting he was going to out of town.
How did he handle it: He feigned shock at the car's disappearance.

Bystanders
The R-Map will be posted here, just as soon as I get it from paper to an electronic form.

The Result
At 10AM on Wednesday morning, the car was brought in to be detailed. Normally it would have been picked up at 10AM on Friday Morning, but instead it was scheduled for a 9AM pickup. The deal is strictly between Jacob and the Promethean, and the only other person who knows of the change of pickup time, is the Nameless Goon (might just keep that as his name ;). Frank picks up the loan at 9AM on Thursday as the bank down the street opens, and makes the offer to buy the place from Jacob at 1PM. A fight ensues, and Frank leaves. The store closes at 7PM. At 7:45PM (after Jacob's car had left the lot) Frank returns, and sneaks into the back garage, teleporting** the car to the garage at his house. When he teleports, he creates a disk (think Star Gate) in front of him, and has to move things through it manually. It took him a little while to find the keys, and is 8:15PM before he starts up the car. He starts it up, fires up the portal, and drives through into his garage at home. A call was placed to the cops at this time by his neighbors complaining about the noise (outside). He comes in early on Friday, 9AM, in order to clean up before anyone gets there. When he arrives, he finds the Nameless Goon there talking to Jacob. Jacob and the Goon had found the garage locked, blue dust all over the floor, and hadn't at this point looked to the tape, when Jacob was given the ultimatum. Jacob isn't very tech literate, and doesn't know how to view the video, so he asks Frank to show him the tape for the night before. Frank rewinds back two nights. The only unusual thing is that the store owner on the other side is out walking his dog. He doesn't have a dog, and had watched his sisters on Wednesday, but returned it Thursday morning.

The Difficulty
No one knows that Frank is a mutant, and Jacob can't take the case to the police without endangering his deal with The Promethian.

I need to look over all of this and double check to make sure the R-Map still works, after all the changes I've made. I'll probably post that part up tomorrow (i.e, july 4th), as well as some editing for clarity.



*McGuffin being the term used for the item that starts off a mystery, and LSGE (Luxury Sedan Gangster Edition)

**When he teleports, he creates a gateway of sorts (think stargate). The blue dust is blown out of this gateway, coating everything on both sides with the dust.

[talismanhex]

sounds interesting to me.

[wargoth169]

Yes. Mafia based campaigns are a fun time.

My question though, are you keeping it the traditional american mafia or more modern street gang?

If you need help with the structure, I would be glad to help!

[thedragonmaster]

I'll be keeping with the traditional american mafia, at least as far as my (albeit limited) understanding of the subject takes me. Though there will no doubt be many modifications made to allow it to fit into the universe I'm crafting (mutants exist, but are kept under wraps).

Wargoth: the structure of what?

This "Campaign"* will include many Adventures where the PC's paths will cross with the Mob, but will mostly be solving problems for petty thugs who can't allow the police to get involved. This will be the first campaign that I've GM'ed (ever) so my direction may change as the campaign progresses.

*I say Campaign, but it will look more like the Sherlock Holmes stories. It will be a series of advantures with no time accounted for between them (probably).

[talismanhex]

So Jacob doesn't know how to use the video, but Frank does. He goes back a couple of days and finds their neighbor walking a dog, but he doesn't have a dog. Is this a little distraction?

[thedragonmaster]

talismanhex: I hope I understand what you are asking. I guess what I'm trying to do there is to draw the PC's attention to the tape, and that the man/dog isn't really necessary. I could just as easily just have the PC's called in before anyones looked at the tape. A big part of the problem I'm running into (I suppose) is that this way of writing starts with a crime, and works towards the difficulty, followed by figuring out which characters are involved/important. With this one though, I started with the notion of the business relationship between The Promethean and Jacob, and tried to work from there.
...
I'll have to come back to this one later I suppose. I'll leave that one up there, but next post I'll start with more of a bare-bones story and flesh it out from there. At least I still have another week or so till I have to have it done.

[thedragonmaster]

Let's try this again. Right now it is only partially finished, but I'll flesh it out more. I got as far as the Why and was stumped. Should be able to come up with something more later.

I'll be using this as a template for posting these up here. Posts will get more detailed as I get used to posting them up.

The Case
What:
Why:
Who:
When:
....Why Now:
Where:
....Why Here:
How:
....Why this way:

Clues
What are they:
Why were they left:
What didn't he know:
How did he handle it:

Bystanders

The Result


The Difficulty


Ah, forget it. For the life of me I can't make this work, just like any other campaign I've tried to write-up.

[thedragonmaster]

I give up. If anyone else wants to take a shot they're welcome to.

[wargoth169]

The organization of the mob.

mooks,associates,made-guys,capos,underboss,consigliere and boss.

Sorry, should have been a little more clear.

[thedragonmaster]

Alright, looks like dropping the idea allowed me to get past my writers block.

The Case
Who: Natisha H.
What: Prostitute being stalked by a John
When: For the last two weeks
Where: A few blocks from her house, and recently he's been right outside her front door.
How: Has been using Shapeshifting to avoid detection, and Pheremones to keep others away from her.
Why: He has become obsessed with her. Can't stand the thought of her with anyone else.

Why Now: He has been living in the apartment across the hall from her for the last few years. He has been nursing an attraction to her for most of that time. Recently he worked up the nerve to go to her "place of business" and become a "customer". She shot him down, but he couldn't take no for an answer.
Why this way: He felt the only way to get close to her was if she thought he was someone else.
Why Here:

Clues
What are they:
.....Hand rolled cigarette left outside the apartment - contains a sample of his pheromones, as well as a unique tobaco (has tobaco weavils and dirt), also has his fingerprints on the wrapper.
.....Birthmark on his left arm that he can't get rid of through shapeshifting
Why were they left: Wasn't planning on someone walking up to the apartment and dropped the cigarette.
What didn't he know: He didn't know that Natisha was planning to hire someone to get rid of the person stalking her.
How did he handle it: He pretended to be worried about her, and to not know about the stalking, just that she had been out of the apartment for a few days.

Bystanders
Didn't end up with any this time around. The hard evidence was enough for the team to solve the crime (this part wasn't intentional).

The Result
A musky scent that sharply stings the nose (pheremones that cause damage) hang in the air, she can sense (sense mutants) his "signature" (The unique combination of mutant abilities that differentiate one mutant from another in this world. To her this is as unique as DNA or Fingerprints). And a cigarette tying the perp to the scene of the crime.

The Difficulty
The cops tell her that if the people who show up don't look the same, then she isn't being stalked (i.e, "so last night he was 6'3" white with piercing blue eyes, and the night before he was 3'4" black with brown eyes... and you still say it was the same guy?") Mutants are basically unheard of in this world. Rejected by their families they end up in the back alleys doing what they have to in order to get by.

Actually ran this last night having gotten what I thought was about half of it finished. Hadn't gotten any witnesses written up and figured we'd just call game when I got to that point. Turns out the physical evidence was enough for them to find the guy and the whole thing took us maybe 2 hours. If you want to extend the length of time here's some advice: do not have him live in the same apartment building as her, and throw in a couple of other people who could have been stalking her.

[thedragonmaster]

This is one I'm going to try for next game (next thursday). So Gene, Josh, if you're reading this, stop here. I'm hoping for this one to make better use of the players social skills, so I will have there be very little real physical evidence.

***********************************************
The Case
Who: The "victims" are members of a local gang known as "Los Lobos" (yes, I stole this idea from another post in this forum, I'm just modifying it to work for this style of adventure). The "perp" is the brother of someone who once tried to join the gang. His name is Edward, he is a 16 year old student at (insert name of local highschool).
What: Members of the Los Lobos gang are being killed off, one by one.
When: One killed during each full moon
Where: Wherever he finds them. In the most recent event, the victim was separated from the rest of the gang when he went to answer a phone call while they were out at a club that is (more or less) run by them.
How: Shot "execution style" with a silver bullet, with a tuft of wolfsbane placed in the mouth
Why: During the initiation ritual*, his brother died. He is seeking revenge on those who were part of that event.

Why Now: When his brother died he felt that his brother had died too soon. When he learned how/why his brother died, he felt that those responsible had to pay, and the police weren't doing anything about it. As for why on the night of the full moon, that is the time of the gangs initiation ritual* and along with being the most poignant time for him, also is the time the gang is at it's weakest due to the werewolves not being around.
Why this way: He is sending a message to the werewolves, mostly saying he knows they're there, but also that he is is coming for them.
Why Here: He is trying to take the fight to them. By killing them on their own turf, he is hoping to show them that there is no where they will be safe from him. Also, the werewolf members are generally not on their turf in the city at this time, and so it is about the safest place for this type of activity.

Clues
What are they: Silver Bullet, shot execution style into the back of the Lobos' head. A tuft of wolfsbane placed in their mouth. A trail leading off out behind the building through the empty lot behind it.
Why were they left: These were left as a message to the gang members that he was coming for them.

Bystanders
"Chery" Chambers - owns the brothel that sits on the second floor of the building (illegally, in case it matters). Is effectively the one in charge of the whole building, but only at Los Lobos will.

Stacey - One of Chery's... employees. She is the girlfriend of Edward Mort-de-Garou (a.k.a. Wolfsbane, a.k.a. the killer) and the one who led the Lobo to his death. She was confronted by a junkie looking for a fix, and dirrected the lobo to him. She was the last person to see him alive, and has no idea who the junkie was.

Mr. & Mrs. Mort-de-Garou - Parents of the killer, and his brother. They own a local jewelry store, the silver of which has been stolen to make the bullets. They are unaware of this because Mr. is on his deathbed and has been through this whole event, and the Mrs. hasn't left his side.

Jose Lobos - Head of Los Lobos. The task of getting this fixed falls to him, though he isn't particularly well suited to it. His opinion on the whole thing can be summed up as "blood for blood". One of his has been killed, and he will have blood for it, whether it is that of the killer, or of the girl who led his boy to the killer.

I have posted the character form for the generic members of Los Lobos here. Also, I've updated the above post to reflect the current status of the project. It may be beyond me to prepare these in the two weeks I'm being given.

The Result
A member of Los Lobos, was found shot execution style behind a local club called The Wolves Den. There was the illusion of a streetlight shining down on his body. He had a tuft of wolfsbane in his mouth, and a silver bullet it his head. There is $20 worth of drugs on his person, and a look of terror on his face. There was a trail leading away from the scene, but it was heading across the empty lot behind the Den, and ends before it reaches the other side.

The Difficulty
Los Lobos don't want to call anyone in. The club the murder happened at isn't the kind of place that wants the spotlight of the cops shone down on it, and doesn't want to let too many people take a look backstage, so to speak.

********************************************

*Initiation to Los Lobos: Also known as "running with the wolves", the initiates are all gathered on the night of a full moon, and "sample" some of the werewolves blood. Now the mutation itself isn't transferable in this way, but the mutation causes certain hormones to be created by the werewolves body, which can impart some of the wolfen nature to the imbiber (details will be posted later). These changes are permanent, and the abilities imparted in this way are available to the werewolves at all times (though the hormones, which are at their strongest under the full moon, are what trigger the transformation. Control of the hormone release is learnable for the werewolf). Immediately following the consumption (which happens at Los Lobos' bar) the initiates and their mentors take to the streets to carouse till the effects fully kick in, after which they take to the desert to run with a pack of mexican wolves which roam nearby.


EDIT: I've finished this one, ran it last night and it went over well.

TIPS: This one also played out for us in about 2-3 hours. One thing that could be done to stretch this out more (which I keep forgetting to do) is to give more than one person motive. For example, the players immediately latched onto the thought that, given that this all started after one of the initiates died, the killer was probably family. If we rewrite the bystanders list, and make the killers father a cop, now we have a second person who has motive, and potentially opportunity. By the time it had occured to me to do this, I had already stated that the most recent victim was the son of a cop, and didn't want to mislead the players too much.

[thedragonmaster]

Sorry this weeks hasn't been posted yet. I was going to run one yesterday, but didn't get it finished because I needed to talk to the players about the type of adventures they wanted to play. In the meantime, I've been working on a "Random Mystery Generator". Basically, you'd roll some dice* to determine the Who/What/When/Where/Why/How (or at least most of those) and figure out the rest from there. I have the What done (or as done as I can imagine it getting) and am working out a list for the Where based on places that have been mentioned/visited in the current game world before I try to come up with a generic list of places.

Anyway, I'll have the next mystery posted up around next Thursday, and will post up a link to the "Random Mystery Generator" as soon as I get that far enough along to be of any use.

*I've got an idea for making it work with stones, but dice are just so plentiful, and I haven't had a problem yet with using dice.

[thedragonmaster]

The Adventure of the Jade Catspaw
This is the first one made using (in part) my Random Mystery Generator. I already had the what figured out, but couldn't get the rest nailed down, so I used an online die roller to get the rest. I had it reroll 7 times (the default) and looked at the numbers that occured multiple times to see which best fit.

The Case
What: Theft of a rare artifact (from someone who'd stolen it in the first place
Why: The item is worth a lot of money, and Leonard is strapped for cash. He's being blackmailed and had nothing of value to trade for the evidence, until the blackmailer suggested the Jade Catspaw.
Who: Stolen by one of the guards (Leonard).
When: 1 week after it was stolen by it's current owner, two days after it was transfered to it's new location
....Why Now: It had just been moved here, and would be being moved to a more secure location just as soon as some preliminary tests had been completed on it
Where: Stolen from a secret laboratory, hidden inside an abandoned mine, on land owned by Promethean Industries.
....Why Here: This was the least secured area the gem was being held in
How: The Chameleon (Leonard) used Invisibility, before walking in front of the entrance to the building, then he jumped up to one of the walls, and Wall Crawled inside, waited till someone walked out of the lab, and slipped in. He entered, and went for the catspaw without becoming visible. When he grabbed the catspaw, it went invisible, setting off the alarm. He waited for someone to come in and check on the alarm, then fled. He ran out to the other end of his gaurd route, became visible again, and ran back (thus establishing that he was the furthest from the scene).
....Why this way: Just making use of his advantages

Clues
What are they: Smudged footprints where he leapt/landed, a blur across the monitors, gravel fallen from the wall he'd crawled on
Why were they left: He was in a hury

Bystanders
Catspaw - (normally an item wouldn't turn up as a bystander, but I don't see anywhere else to describe it) The "catspaw" is a large green gem, that is effected by mutagenic fields. When connected to a computer system designed to read it's response it can be used to determine what super powers a person has.

Mutant Liberation Front (MLF) - An organization who are seeking to force awareness of the presence of Mutants onto a world that is unaware of them. They are the ones blackmailing the gaurd. They know that he is a mutant, and have evidence, and he hasn't told anyone else, nor is he particularly aware of other mutants (SEP and all that).

The Promethean - Millionaire industrialist, and mob boss to the southwest, he had the catspaw stolen in the first place. He is aware of what it is rumored to be capable of, as well as of the gaurds (gotta come up with a name for him) nature, though not of who stole the item. He also is the one hiring the team to find the thief and catspaw.

The Chameleon (Leonard) - Doesn't want anyone to know he's a mutant, and isn't aware of other's.

Los Lobos - Spotted in the area, not connected, were just checking on their territory, and are hostile at what they feel is an invasion into what is clearly their territory (everything west of the city). Saw The Chameleon reappear.


The Result

A large gm disappeared from the camera's. The thief isn't on film, and only appears as a blur at best.




If anyone wants to post a mystery of their own up here, feel free.

EDIT: As always, new information is in italics, and the italics will be removed as soon as I've run the game.

[thedragonmaster]

The RMG is, tentatively, finished. The link should be two posts above this one, and a link to the die roller is in the post above this one.

Has anyone else tried to run any of these? How has it worked out for you?

[thedragonmaster]

I'm probably done with these for a while. The only really fun mysteries for me are of the "Locked Room" variety, which doesn't work well in MURPG. My proof? A character with Manipulate Body Density, Invisibility... and that's really all the powers he'd need, can commit any locked room crime. And any PC whose been around would know of such people, taking away the mystery (not to mention that if the abilities exist then there isn't a mystery at all). I'll probably post some detective style stories, prepared the same as these, just as soon as I come back to this campaign.