Hi all. I am toying with some ideas for a Mystery. Would anyone like to have a crack at tying these together?
*A sleeping elder horror beneath a small town, a huge dead tree that acts as the conduit for its slumbering power.
*Townsfolk cultists empowered by the horror.
*Deranged ghosts and an alternate reality that enfolds the town at certain times.
That a lot for a mystery…enough for two or three really. I would explore one or two of these ideas; maybe write an arc…
I’d agree with Mark that you might have enough to branch this out into an arc. Perhaps run a Mystery set in the town, with the huge dead tree as a location, but don’t nail down the second and third bullet point as details just yet – let the game play of that first mystery determine whether you’ll get into the further details.
For the first Mystery, perhaps the monster is a sleeping horror “beneath” the tree, because the tree is a hellgate. The minions are the town leaders that built a playground in the shadow of a massive tree.
Your countdown would list what happens if nobody stops the minions:
Kids begin to flock to the playground, and while there engage in erratic play.
Parents of the playing children begin noting that they ALL begin talking to invisible friends.
Invisible friends encourage kids into increasingly bizarre/dangerous behaviors.
Kids begin disappearing/running away.
Depending on what happens during the mystery, this might develop into another mystery or an arc if it becomes interesting that the minions are more pervasive than initially thought, or if today’s adults turn out to have been previously corrupted by the tree in their own childhood. The Hunters are called back to the town when new weirdness happens.
If you’re hard-set to start at point one and make it to point three, you aren’t playing to “find out what happens” – for instance, you might be tempted to keep secrets / protect plot elements because you want to save them for your “big reveal” later. This might lead to evasive or dishonest answers when responding to player Moves – when they Investigate a Mystery or Read a Bad Situation, you need to be honest and open with them.
I prefer to leave long-term planning vague, so that I am not invested in protecting secrets that leaves me conflicted about answering players’ questions honestly.
I do let these ideas percolate in my head, and I use those ideas when responding to players’ questions, as appropriate. Once I or another player has asserted a fact about the world, it is fine to add that to my prep materials and roll it into future arcs/mysteries.
Great advice. Thanks. I love the bit about the playground and invisible friends.