Hi /tg/, me and my friend are going to host a small gamenight for around 5 or so players, a detective/murder themed game with some D&D stats and rules, we are completely new to this. Now, he already created the story, the location, the killer, the rules, and everthing needed, but we ran into an issue where the existence of detectives makes no sense. You see, the background behind the player characters is supposed to be a special department in the local police force who was put in charge of finding a serial killer, but for the sake of gameplay, they have acess to nearly no information and are supposed to find it out via interrogation, dice rolls, intelligence stats, etc. That by itself is ridicilous as they are being treated as outsiders by their colleagues, who somehow still have the authority to investigate things and carry out normal police work. I have suggested to him to either change the setting from modern days to the 1800s, or make the player characters private detectives invited by police for it all to make sense, but he is reluctant to do either, does anyone have an alternative for this? PS: He is the GM.

>>96080980 (OP)
>a detective/murder themed game with some D&D stats and rules
>he already created the story, the location, the killer
>for the sake of gameplay, they have acess to nearly no information
>find it out via interrogation, dice rolls, intelligence stats, etc
How to NOT do an investigation game: 101
This really reads like list of "things only a complete newfag could came up with"

>I have suggested to him to either change the setting from modern days to the 1800s, or make the player characters private detectives invited by police for it all to make sense, but he is reluctant to do either
>PS: He is the GM.
No, he's a greenhorn retard that is now stubbornly defending a completely failed idea.
Change the GM.
>inb4 b-but friend
Did I stutter?

>>96080980 (OP)
Also
You all, both you, your GM and the players, should just give GUMSHOE a shot instead of trying to insert a square peg into a triangle-shaped hole.

>>96081044
We are all greenhorn retards, both us and the players. That's why I thought there would be no issue with this halfbaked approach, the players have zero familiarity with this kind of game. He wanted to do a classic D&D rpg, I mentioned detective themed games casually and didn't think he would commit to this extent, bringing me a semi complete game the next time we met. There is no alternative GM because we are all college age normies.

>>96080980 (OP)
>plot
get out theater kids and their frustrated author DMs

>>96081237
Like I've said, your initial post is like the bing of "Timeless Newfag Mistakes".
Don't do that shit. As described, this sounds like a disaster in waiting for the game day. The sole concept of "let's do investigation and build it on not giving players any initial intel" is five different flavours of "don't do this shit, ever". Like from the top of my head:
- it's a cold case, so they are digging through stale files
- the intel is worthless, because it was a big set-up/deliberately misleading by the real culprit
Even your own "they are private dicks, so police doesn't wont to co-operate" is better, if still flawed (because lack of co-op from cops doesn't mean lack of intel, clues and people to ask around).
I always tell people who want to run investigation to just go and read Chandler's "Lady in the Lake" or random-dial an episode of Colombo. Both are idiot-proof showcases of how to handle investigation on a level that a person who isn't in police or PI will grasp the concept of how this shit works, rather than "ok, so we deny them information and shovel it all on dice checks". Let me tell you a well-guarded secret, just don't tell anyone else: it never works and is just frustrating in very short run.

tl;dr go pick GUMSHOE, it covers all this stuff in retard- and newfag-friendly terms, while telling you how to run investigation games in general; also extra useful for newfags, before you get bad habits from using DnD as your multitool.

>>96081671
>t. faggot never-game

>>96081862
*bingo of

>>96081862
> it's a cold case, so they are digging through stale files
> the intel is worthless, because it was a big set-up/deliberately misleading by the real culprit
You got both of those right, although the second one is because his idea is a main serial killer and a bunch of copycats who pretend to be him. Fine I will go read about how the gumshoe system works, if the detective thing is hopeless I will just convince him to swap back to DnD instead.

>>96082034
It's not even about going back to DnD, you are just doing the bog-standard list of mistakes. Investigation games need one thing to work:
Giving players clues.
The more intel you deny to them, the more you base it on just dice roll, the more pointless and frustrating it gets in shorter and shorter time.
From the top of my head, general advice stuff you should try to avoid, both investigation and in general
>Obtuse, non-cooperative NPCs as default stance or tool to keep game on the rails
>Having entire game pre-planned, including how players will behave in given situation (with zero guarantee or even incentive they will)
>Over-reliance on successful dice checks to push the game forward, especially when it is investigation
>Using systems designed to do A to play a game about N, and trying to rework the system A to work for N while being a greenhorn at that
This stuff never works, is almost endless source of frustration and a great way to destroy your own group when people are new to this stuff.
There is also the fact that investigation requires good familiarity with any given system that does it and players that can play said system and are handled like people, not reared like cattle - all of which means it's usually beyond the capability of a newfag GM, because he simply lacks experience needed to make this shit work. Yet somehow "let's do investigation game on custom hack of the game we are playing so far" is like top three things newfags try when they get bored with the initial premise of the game they've picked. I mean I saw people trying to do investigation game while using Pendragon, so at this point nothing surprises me anymore.

Some systems that can do investigation well, some of them with build-in tools to make this work, others being very supportive for newfag GM:
>GUMSHOE
>FUDGE
>Broken Compass
>Pulp Cthulhu (no, not regular CoC, Pulp variant)

>>96080980 (OP)
https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule
Start here, keep reading things on this site pertaining to mystery games.

>>96082109
>Pulp Cthulhu (no, not regular CoC, Pulp variant)
Alright, care to elaborate on this? I'd think pulp, with it's somewhat greater moving parts, would be worse.

>>96082330
Pulp is geared toward players succeeding and surviving. Both of which is pretty important when doing investigations with any other goal than "and then your character clawed out his own eyes, cackling like a madman"

>>96082109
You got quite literally everything right, although he is being very paradoxical with player freedom. He wants players to be free but at the same time wants to pre-plan the game on its entirety, with prepared options for them to pick too, like a CYOA. His reasoning was that our players will not know what to do since they never played this kind of game, and the story won't progress, aka they won't look for clues basement or interrogate the right people, so it would be better to lay down a route for them. I see the issues with this now.

>>96082281
thanks, this helps a lot

>>96082362
Hm. Part of me wants to say that what you're describing has more to do with scenario design, but we are dealing with absolute noobs so you might have a point.

>>96080980 (OP)
Decent bait, but why are you using a dungeon crawler for a murder mystery?

>>96082699
We have not played any board games like this ever, and we wanted to do DnD but never actually got to it. Then he randomly gets inspiration to do detective stuff after I mention it but all he knows is a little about DnD so this happened, I don't know much either besides some vague knowledge(I don't even frequent this board). I really meant it when I wrote we are completely new, none of us know what the hell we are doing, just figuring this out as they go.

No, there's no way you don't know what sort of game dungeons and dragons is. You've heard of the game and you're familiar with it. Try again, and this time, tell the truth.

>>96082366
>He wants players to be free but at the same time wants to pre-plan the game on its entirety, with prepared options for them to pick too, like a CYOA
Oh great, you've got a vidya GM.
Seriously, change the GM. Not in sense that there is no redemption, the guy is probably good in structured stuff, but trying to run a TTRPG session of investigation in the style as described so far is just not feasible.

>>96082699
>Bait
Not OP, but I saw enough bullshit situations like this in my life to accept it as a real, sincere problem. Except in my newfag times it was Warhammer 1e that was "one system to fit all" stuff of nightmares.

>>96082910
>>>/gsg/ is that way
Also
>You MUST be familiar with DnD
Yeah, no. This bullshit statement however never gets old. Nigga, DnD didn't even came in my country until (utterly failed) launch of 3e, and we had a robust TTRPG scene. In fact, it didn't really came out until 5e marketing blitz and it's still not in top 5 most played games here.
So unless you mean "people must be familiar with DnD" as in "we call sticky bandages band-aid after BandAid brand", you are just fucking clueless. Or, which is far more likely, started yourself with WotC editions and think this is both norm and universal truth, on top of the assumption that "newfags know what they are into, because they have actual knowledge going beyond 'i recognise this brand'".

You are familiar with it.

>>96082910
I know WHAT the game is, but as mentioned before, don't know much about board games in general. I didn't really see any issues in using DnD stats like perpection to notice clues, charisma/something similar to convince and interrogate NPCs, agility for pursuing suspects, and so on. It didn't really sound that strange on paper.

Sure thing, liar.

>>96082977
I'm not even OP, you dense motherfucker.

Yes you are.

>>96082977
>>96082989
>>96083722
you talk like a passive aggressive beta bitch

Stay furious :)

>>96080980 (OP)

>That by itself is ridicilous as they are being treated as outsiders by their colleagues, who somehow still have the authority to investigate things and carry out normal police work.

Maybe there's a good plot reason, like someone higher up the food chain just doesn't want the killer to be found? (LA Confidential, A Few Good Men, etc) Or the department is just super underfunded and being set up for failure to justify privatization? (Robocop)

Honestly though, just roll with the campaign and see what happens. I know IRL police will call in tons of reinforcements at the drop of a hat but this just might be something you chalk up to fiction. You're the main characters, act like it.

>>96080980 (OP)
> You see, the background behind the player characters is supposed to be a special department in the local police force who was put in charge of finding a serial killer, but for the sake of gameplay, they have acess to nearly no information and are supposed to find it out via interrogation, dice rolls, intelligence stats, etc. That by itself is ridicilous as they are being treated as outsiders by their colleagues, who somehow still have the authority to investigate things and carry out normal police work.
Easy. The head of your department fucked the chief's wife. And though everyone is smart enough to not talk about it, this is his payback and it's screwing over your whole department.

Boom, done. This also gives you incentive to get back in the good graces of your colleagues during downtime in investigations or do favors for them on their own so that you can get a leg-up on info they were holding back on you.