When investigation skill rolls fail…

[mrloucifer]

I’ve written up an expanded “GM advice Section” from BTS book 1 that I planned to include in the “Victims” book that’s nearing completion. One of the sections I’ve added is on dealing with failing investigation/perception rolls as they can completely grind the game to a halt. But as I keep coming across gm’s who ask about this issue (both on the forums and in person) I thought it would be worth having a few words about it here. This is NOT a reprint of what I’ve written, its very abridged and off the cuff.

Those of you who’ve been hangin’ out with me on the BTS forum for awhile know that I’m very pro “planning ahead” when it comes to a BTS adventure. For those who don’t, let me say that horror RPG’s in my opinion are THE hardest types of games to just “wing it” and go by the seat of your pants (and I’ve played/gm’d all sorts of genre’s to know). The “investigation” aspect is also one of the most important parts of a BTS game as well. So that all being said, putting all your investigations materials and clues together before hand is one of the greatest services you can do for yourself as a GM and the players will love you for it as it makes them feel more like investigators and part of the bigger picture.

But what happens when the players find a mangled body that contains important clues to the progression of the story and the forensic guys fail their skill roll? That’s what I’m going to talk about here. But to do this right, I’ll set up a simple example scenario of the clues the players need to progress.

“Jimmy ‘The Stool Pigeon’ Jones” was an informant for the police/FBI, etc. who’s been working on uncovering an illegal dog fighting operation. But Jimmy gets in over his head as he not only has found a well established and well managed underground dog fighting club, the manager’s have gotten bored with using dogs and have upgraded to using hell hounds!
As Jimmy is on his way to reporting the details to his superiors (cell phones aren’t allowed in the club), the manager of the club (who is also a practicing mage/shifter type) is onto him and sends a few hell hounds to track him down and kill him. And indeed, the hounds find him as he made his way into an old auto mechanic shop, within a few feet of the phone. Due to the bizarre nature of the mauling, the PC’s are asked to help investigate (or whatever situation is appropriate to get your party looking at the scene). The forensic expert in the party with an 85 % on the skill rolls 98%, what next?

Well, don’t fret… there are many ways with skin this cat. Below are but a few possible suggestions to help get the players on track.

-Make all the PC’s at the scene make a perception roll. The highest roll gets awarded with seeing/understanding the key parts to move on. Example: “Marty, you may not be a forensic guy by any means, but looking at the body, you can dictate by the tooth marks on the bones that they seem very canine-like, and yet too sharp and misshaped to be ordinary.” Or “Marty, you’ve seen bite and claws marks like this before… they look very similar to wounds inflicted by Hell Hounds”.

-Present them with the “dry” facts and let them try to fathom it on their own. Example: “The victim was found face down. The victims knees and elbows are recently bruised, and the first and mostly likely lethal bite came from the back of the neck (the lead hound lunged and knocked him to the ground from behind as it got his neck). The investigator “pulls out a book of matches and a pack of a unique brand of cigarettes from the victims coat pocket. The pack of cigarettes has been opened and 2 or 3 cigarettes have been removed. The outside of the matchbook reads “Chu’s Chinese Cuisine” restaurant. Opening the flap of the book reveals that three matches have been pulled out, and on the inside of the flap there is an address.”
This address will lead them to an abandoned and empty warehouse; this is where the dog fights take place. They can confirm two cigarette butts with the unique logo on them is found by the front entrance (Jimmy watched the fights close to the door and smoked as he watched). A stakeout of the place or use of psionics should help them determine the significance of the location/address from here.

- Use their psychic talents in place of the skill: A medium might see a recreation of the victim run into the warehouse and get mauled by chasing hell hounds, or the victim’s spirit could still linger in the mechanics garage and tell them to “check the match book” and may mention “hell hounds” (never let the ghosts give all details unless it pivotal to the story). A Diviner might see a sign from the way the remaining matches in the match book are bent or warped from use in the book that tells him that the address was freshly written down (in the last few hours) on the inside flap. The diviner could follow the trail of the hell hounds with their divining rod back to the warehouse. A Latent Psychic might get a vision of hell hounds fighting amongst themselves as spectators look on. A sensitive should get the appropriate “feelings” or insights of the hell hounds involved and the like.

-An NPC tips them off: one of the police/FBI investigators says out loud “He looks like he was mauled by wild animals. I’d say dogs, which makes sense as he was working for us, trying to find where the illegal dog fights are held. But if they’re really dogs, then their teeth are sharper than anything I’ve ever seen, and their jaws are abnormally large and powerful as well. What the hell kinda dogs are these sicko’s using?”

-The easiest method is to simply give the PC’s the important details to move on to the next act, regardless of that they rolled, but ONLY the minimums… let them figure out the meaning of the “colorful” clues on their own as they find them. This one is only encouraged when you have no other viable option as doing it all the time removes the importance of the investigation related skills (“So what if I failed all my rolls, the GM’s will tell me all the details anyway”) and removes some of the potential ambiance of the game.

I’ll post more as I get time, but this should get you a step in the right direction.

[Cybermancer]

The last point is similar to how I run my games, not just BtS.

I have basic information that's available to anyone who looks (no perception roll or skill required).

I have additional information that is available from unskilled perception rolls.

I have additional information for successful skill rolls.

The most information is available from successful skill rolls and perception rolls.

So the players always have at least the basic information they need to go forward and have the tools to gain additional clues to help them move things along faster or easier. And if they're stuck, they can usually get an NPC 'second opinion'. Taking the evidence to another expert in the relevant field. While this usually works it's not their first choice because one, they have (legitimate) concerns that I might place red herrings in this manner and two because they gain no experience points for insights provided by NPC's.

[gaby]

good to known.

[Lord Z]

This thread makes me look forward to Mista Lou's sourcebook all the more. But why is this in the Victim's section of the book?

In addition to the above solutions, two other come to mind for me.

Tokens -- The Gumshoe System is a set of rules designed specifically to solve this problem. The Gumshoe solution is to give the players points to spend during the game in order to gain clues. The Gumshoe games use different types of points to generate different types of effects, each tied to a specific skill I think, but we can be much simpler for our purposes. Give each player a small number of tokens, all identical. When the players are stuck, one may spend a token to uncover a clue. There should be some other use for tokens so that they aren't used too freely. Perhaps unused tokens can be used for re-rolls or horded and traded in mass for an attribute boost. From my point of view, the token method removes challenge from the investigation in exchange for more strategy in other aspects of the game.

Clue Counting -- This is a method of adventure prep I discovered while writing for Boxed Nightmares 2. It involves not relying on any one to two specific clues but littering the game with many clues. When the PCs gather a certain number of clues (3 for a short or easy investigation, 5 for normal, 7 for hard), someone has a flash of inspiration, a Sherlock Holmes moment, and solves the mystery. To make the game more challenging, try this variation -- Instead, each clue when found allows the PC to make difficult roll to solve the mystery immediately. A good goal would be (100 - IQ)% or higher on percentile dice, +10% for Parapsychologists, +10% for detectives, +20% for Natural Geniuses, +10% for each additional clue found by anyone on the team beers this roll. The Clue Counting method can lead to some awkward roleplaying if the GM isn't careful and the clues don't match the solution, so many groups will prefer Loucifer's methods. I like the Clue Counting method because it makes adventure writing much easier.

[mrloucifer]

This thread makes me look forward to Mista Lou's sourcebook all the more. But why is this in the Victim's section of the book?

In my mind, "A Game masters guide to Beyond the Supernatural" portion of the 1st edition of BTS was just as important to the book as was the "Victims" portion of the book and so I figurred if I am to expand on the Victims sections, I should also do so for the GM section. Besides, BTS has gone too long without and updated GM guide, dont cha think?

[Lord Z]

I am sold on the concept. It's the placement that still puzzles me.

[mrloucifer]

Let me try to sell it in a more logical & financial sense.

The last 2 dead reign books were about 64 pages each. I may be able to get 30-40 pages worth of good Victims material(without art). You can really only write so much about the victims setting (without starting to beat a dead horse) and then throw in a few adventure ideas and so on (the BTS 1st edition Victims section covered less than half of this space).

So I figured that could easily add in an updated GM section in this book as it would apply to the victims as much as it would normal game sessions, fill the other 20-30 pages and it would keep the costs down to one book (I think the DR books sell for $13.00 or so.)
They are also able to avoid the wait for the other 2 books (tome grotesque and beyond arcanum) as they are not reliant on the magic and bestiary info. If anything, they add a new avenue to explore in the game. So there is a real potential of seeing this book published not too long after its submitted, pending that Kevin & co are willing to publish it before the other two books are out.

[Lord Z]

Okay, that works. I might just call the entire book a BtS Gamemaster Guide and include the Victim material as one section of that, but your plan works just as well. What is the working title, anyway?

[mrloucifer]

Okay, that works. I might just call the entire book a BtS Gamemaster Guide and include the Victim material as one section of that, but your plan works just as well. What is the working title, anyway?

Calling it a "BTS game masters guide" is an idea that's so crazy that it just might work!

My working title has been "DAD, DONT GO IN THE BASEMENT!" in honor of Erick Wujcik's GM section (starting on page 193 of BTS 1). In fact, I've put Erick's name in the "written by" section (in front of my own name no less) as this project would not exist without the wonderful materials he'd written in the 1st edition. In honesty, I'm not changing much of what he'd written, I'm more or less adding to it.

[sasha]

Yep he had good BtS GMing advice (among many, many other things of course).

[Lord Z]

Oooh, I really like Elfgirl's suggestion of allowing the investigators to temporarily fail. It isn't appropriate for all situations of course. If the game isn't part of a longer campaign, or if the PCs tend to change often, or if one of the players just won't let a plot thread go, the GM may have to introduce that second mauled body much sooner. 80% of the time, I think this method would work without a hitch.

Another option with limited (much more limited) application is the Why Did You Fail. If a PC fails at any task, it is usually better to ask the player what happened rather than dictate what happened. The shortcoming is that in a mystery, the player doesn't usually know any more than the PC. The player can't use the failure to advance the story is the player doesn't know where the story should go. Our play through of Windows to Another World is an exception because all gamers participating already know what is happening behind the scenes.