Hey guys.

6 thoughts on “Hey guys.”

1. Investigation in PbtA is all pretty similar across games and doesn’t really need rules. It’s all about how and where they find Clues and what they mean.

   Follow the Rule of Three and provide 3 Clues for any conclusion you want them to draw. Don’t point to the end conclusion right away – use maybe two levels of Clues. And if they do the right thing, give them the clue, no questions asked – don’t hinge Clues in a die roll.

2. Yeah, absolutely don’t hinge clues on a die roll. Think about your favorite mystery episodes of sci-fi shows: how often are they honestly chancing finding a clue, and how often are they actually risking danger while getting that clue? You want to be solidly in the second camp. It’s not a roll to find the info the database… its a roll to access the database without being found out. It’s not an influence roll to get the clue… it’s an influence roll to get the clue without revealing that you’re GalSec. 

   A rule for thrillers, taken from Night’s Black Agents and applicable here: remember the flow of thrillers, their pattern. It goes: face danger to get information -> information threatens new dangers -> resting and recuperating invites new dangers -> revealing new avenues to information. You can see this in things like the Jason Bourne movies, which strikes me as the more proper tempo for an UW mystery than something Holmesian.

   If you look to Monster of the Week, that is a game all about mysteries but it doesn’t actually have you create any clues really at all. I would take inspiration from there. Know who your threat is, know what their plan is, and as the PCs engage with their trail and their contacts and investigate, let them find “arrows” that point towards your prep. You did the prep for a reason, let the players find out what is going on and let them make their own plans on what to do with it. If you want to keep things wild, avoid concrete plans like “the fugitive will take the 2300hr Shining Aurora tramp freighter to Zuko-6” and stick to “the fugitive will look for any cheap option to get off the station, after laying low for a day.” The former will make players go “okay, i guess we’ll go sneak onto the tramp freighter, since the GM said that’s where he is.” The latter gives the player’s room to respond.

   Also think about what makes Uncharted Worlds unique. In UW, unlike other PbtA games, one of your GM principles is to prompt the players for input through loaded questions. Suddenly, clues can be presented in a wholly unique way: “Player A, so you’re tossing this guy’s coffin apartment and you figure out… yeah, he’s definitely gone to see a data broker he knows. How do you figure that out? What clued you in?” I wouldn’t overuse this, but it is a nice way to mix things up when you want them to know something but you’re not sure how best to communicate it, or if you just want to see what they’ll throw your way.

   You’ll want to watch out for some of UW’s moves and how they’ll interact with the fiction of a mystery.

   Deduction wants to know who or what caused, is most dangerous, or is most vulnerable in a situation. A situation can be an empty and ransacked apartment. Be ready when they want to know who wrecked the place (the suspect when packing or his enemies when looking for him), what danger they can learn about here (he’s called the police before leaving and they’re arriving right NOW), or what is vulnerable to them here (he left his computer behind, or you discover a photo of a boyfriend he had off-the-grid).

   Surveillance lets you just track someone if you get into their personal systems. Respect the fiction, though, that it only follows public movements and so if someone goes off the grid then you’re out of luck. But also respect that a player took this skill. Consider that your suspect is human and he’s probably going to screw up and have at least one public interaction… and then give this player their reward.

   Contacts is going to be a really great way to know exactly who the big name criminal is that your suspect is going to have an interest in getting help from. Don’t fight this. That’s how it works. There’s no guarantee the Contact is going to deal fairly with the PC, though… just that they exist and that the PC has a way of making introductions to them. As long as your suspect is more profitable to them than the PCs are dangerous, let this Contact be an obstacle like they fictionally ought to be.

   Program could be used to make the local traffic system alert you when your suspect pops up on cameras, but of course there’s a time delay between the alert and when the PCs can arrive on the scene. Daring chase, go!

   Upload, combined with Data Points about the suspect, could be used to give him a lot of enemies quite suddenly by changing his known alliances and broadcasting them to the criminal public. 

   More generally, Assessment will likely see a lot of use from players who want a mechanical advantage to learning all about the suspect and getting inside their head. These Data Points will accrue and there’s a chance everyone will suddenly have a boatload of them to spend on their rolls. So keep in mind limits when it comes to Assessment: it’s okay to tell the players that there’s nothing more to be learned from a scene after one person scours the suspects computer and another goes through his personal effects… there’s nothing more to be gained from Assessing his socks over and over. Also keep in mind that Assessment isn’t instantaneous. The time spent studying up on your suspect, the suspect is following through on his plans… time is a real threat when you’re after someone on the run.

   Those are all of my thoughts right now! There is plenty of reason to believe that a mystery can easily be run with Uncharted Worlds.

3. Alfred Rudzki once again I’m left with the feeling that I want to play in your game 🙂

4. Have I mentioned how much I love Uncharted Worlds? 😀 😀

5. Thank you both for the info. I’m loving this system as well and am planning on running a few more one shots to test different aspects of Uncharted Worlds and then I think I’m probably going to run a once a month campaign.

6. Alfred Rudzki no, dude, you haven’t.  We thought you hated this game.  (grin)

   And a hat-tip to GUMSHOE thrown in for good measure!   Don’t think we didn’t see that. (bigger grin)

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