Mysteries within mysteries

 Working on the phonecrawl adventure - a murder mystery setting for Mothership, mapped as d100 working phone numbers. Twin Peaks in an airport mall.

Once again it’s being rebuilt from the ground up, but progress is still being made from before as I’m using a lot of the same Lego pieces. Folks who supported the project by buying the ashcan version way back when will still get the final thing when it comes out. Also idk if it’s still called Odai 57. We’ll see.

Anyway. Update number one is that I’m shifting the campaign frame slightly. A maintenance worker being drawn into these cases as auxiliary mysteries to their main job is a fun conceit and would be great for a short story or two, but in game it’s an unnecessary layer between the players and the juice of the thing.

So now they’re insurance adjusters, getting to the bottom of android accidents and malfunctions and finding someone to blame so that their bosses don’t have to pay out. This has a more cynical MoSh feel and gives us some great actionable verbs for each case: Find fault, recover assets, prevent further losses. I’m this close to calling them the Android Claims Adjustment Bureau or something lmao

Right now I’m building out some of these cases. The structure here is vital as this adventure doesn’t have one otherwise - all areas being theoretically available at all times negates classic dungeon exploration, and I’m avoiding combat scenarios almost entirely  - though they still make a great failstate.

One of the main inspirations for the setting is the Phoenix Wright games. In those you examine a scene until you find all the clues, then the game unlocks the next scene and you can travel between locations freely. Obviously there are key differences between mediums, here players decide when they’ve found enough clues and where they want to go next, but the flow is similar enough.

Looking into how this flow is built in these games is proving helpful for organising my own cases. The above image comes from a presentation by the series director and covers the progression of a case in-game. You don’t need to understand the text, the key bit is that little loop in the middle. There’s a similar diagram in the Warden’s Operations Manual. Basically, the body of a case is a series of smaller mysteries, little question-answer loops that build until the denouement and climax.

These loops are crucial to play in a mystery-focused game. The overall solve can, and should, feel huge and out of reach, so players need these little victories that propel things along. Structurally I’m thinking of them like rooms in an exploration game or fights in a combat based one. They’re not the treasure or boss at the end of the dungeon, which the players might not even get to, but without them there’s really no adventure at all.

The difference is in the verbs. Players fight a monster and explore a room, but what they need to be able to do with clues is make connections. Everything has to point to something else, building up the staircase of little answers to hopefully get to the big one at the end. As the WOM says, the game also has to work if they fail, but ultimately this is a game of connecting dots. I’ve just got to write a whole load of dots.

Will try to keep posting as the project develops. Don’t want to give too many answers away though x