Book Review: Red Planet Blues

Wow. That was the darkest book I've read in a long time. It's also one of the better books I've read in a long time.

Robert Sawyer's novel Red Planet Blues is a mashup of the Hardboiled Detective and Science Fiction genres. With regard to the latter, the book draws inspiration from Mars Fiction(Burrough, Heinlein, and probably others), as well as post-humanist Cyberpunk. That said, despite the broad base of inspiration, Sawyer has crafted a story with a character all it's own.

But back to the darkness. Hardboiled Fiction is all about the Hardboiled Hero and Alex Lomax is just such a hero. But there is no Hardboiled Hero without a Hardboiled World, and it is a dark dark world indeed.

Raymond Chandler defines the Hardboiled Hero as a man of honor in a honorless world. Indeed the Hardboiled Hero's heroism is one that springs from the very corrupt world it stands distinct from. It is this very paradox, that Vice can breed Honor, and Corruption Truth, that gives the Hardboiled tale it's redemptive quality.

In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption...But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man...He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man...He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things. ...He is a common man or he could not go among common people...He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness...He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. ("The Simple Art of Murder", Raymond Chandler)

The world that Alex Lomax lives in is a bleak one indeed, though Sawyer has a way of understating it's bleakness. It is the small world of the Martian Frontier, which draws desperate people, hungry for a new start, certain that they won't get one on Earth. The narrator doesn't shove this point down your throat. Yet everyone we meet seems to be in a state of quiet desperation.

Not only that, but many of Mars' inhabitants Transfer. The post-Humanist angle of the book is that the technology exists to "Transfer", to copy your mind into a cybernetic brain and install it in a robotic body of more than Human ability. This sounds nice, but the law forbids two copies of the same mind to exist, so the final step in the "Transfer" process is to euthanize the original biological copy(though the Marketing types breeze over this point, as the book points out). And many people on Mars do transfer to overcome the harsh environment, so the ultimate implication is that Lomax is living in a society of mass-suicide, with the only caveat being that those suicides are replaced with robotic copies. That said, the narrator doesn't shove this idea in the reader's face. Rather, Lomax finds himself in one situation after another that accentuate this perverse reality. Each time, the the reader's cognitive dissidence is heightened, leaving him, like Lomax himself, wondering why only he seems to be bothered by this state of things.

Anyway, bottom line, really bleak novel, though Sawyer manages to lighten the mood somewhat in the story's denouement. Sawyer is a master craftsman of mood and it's really a wonder to watch him ply his trade...on you, the reader.

Tales of Blood and Glory: Short Horror Roundup

This edition of "Tales of Blood and Glory" is a double header, with two pieces of short horror fiction: William Gibson's rejected Alien 3 script, and Michael Chabon's Lovecraftian tale "The God of Dark Laughter".

Gibson Alien 3 Script

Regarding Gibson's entry, I found the script to be a surprisingly easy read, as compared to other scripts and plays I've read. As for the story itself, in addition to the aliens themselves, which I personally find terrifying, there is a good deal of subtle horror craftsmanship worth taking note of.

One instance of this is the Cold War between the two Human alliances(an interesting twist on Gibson's "Red Star, Winter Orbit"). The message is that, for all the characters' concerns with Human politics and bureaucracy, these problems are dwarfed by the uncontainable destruction and virility of the Aliens. This is spelled out explicitly in the dialog between Hicks and Bishop in the final scene.

You can't, Hicks. This goes far beyond mere interspecies competition. These creatures are to biological life what antimatter is to matter.

Another point is the centrality of the android Bishop in combating the aliens. Gibson repeatedly emphasizes Bishop's inhuman movement and thought, mentioning his "robotic tic", the "certain effortless regularity evident" to his run, not to mention his emotionless reactions to the horrific, and his inability to understand human logic, like Hicks decided to save Ripley.

At the same time, Bishop is the hero of the film. While the Humans are trying, at best, to survive, Bishop kills a ton of aliens, sets the station's core to melt down, and ultimately saves the last few survivors with his "robotic accuracy, the rifle pivoting like the barrel of an automated gun turret." Compare this with the Humans who spend their time complaining about political ramifications, whose big counterattack ends up ruining the station's air supply, and who die in droves. Even Rosetti's big epiphany is immediately followed by his horrific death, rendering it moot. The point is that Humans aren't the real actors in this conflict. They are ultimately upstaged by those two superior forces-- the aliens and the androids.

In short, this script has the classic Lovecraftian theme of impotent Humanity at the mercy of powerful cosmic forces against which they can only score the most Pyrrhic of victories.

The God of Dark Laughter

Now on to Michael Chabon's story from the New Yorker. Here we have a classic Lovecraftian structure, with and investigator who comes to a horrible revelation. The twist is that the narrator is a Hardboiled-detective-type, so the story blends the two genres of Hardboiled and Horror.

Anyway we have some great technical Horror work here. First there's the rather macabre descriptions of the boys and Detective Ganz to set the mood. Then, as more and more is revealed, Chabon still manages to convey a feeling while leaving the gristliest details up to the reader's imagination, in one place explicitly so:

"I took enough of a peek beneath it to provide me with everything that I or the reader could possibly need to know about the condition of the head—I will never forget the sight of that monstrous, fleshless grin"

There's also this great thing Chabon does with the narrator knowing he's being watched.

I did not then, nor do I now, believe in ghosts, but as the sun dipped down behind the tops of the trees, lengthening the long shadows encompassing me, I became aware of an irresistible feeling that somebody was watching me...

Chabon continues to sell the hell out of this scene and ultimately the narrator's hunch is proven right, though it wasn't the inhuman horror he had imagined. That said, this tense scene comes back to haunt us later, when Detective Satterlee is all alone, poring over forbidden tomes, when again he senses a presence observing him--really scary stuff!

In short, a great little horror story in the Weird tradition. And once again, I'm finding that I really like Chabon's short fiction.

Running a Mystery: Chandleresque Clues

Another topic Raymond Chandler touches on in his essay "The Simple Art of Murder" is Clues.  He points out that Hardboiled stories, such as his own and those of Dashiel Hammet, are inherently different from the Classic Detective Story, such as Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories or the Locked Room Whodunnit.


Chandler defines the Classic formula as presenting the reader with a logic puzzle and then solving it ingeniously:

Two-thirds or three-quarters of all the detective stories published still adhere to the formula the giants of this era created, perfected, polished and sold to the world as problems in logic and deduction. 

On the other hand, he defines the Hardboiled story as eschewing such external considerations and just giving an "honest" story of crime and the detective who follows up leads and solves it.

A Tale of Two Mystery Games

So just like there are two types of mystery story, I would propose that there are two ways to run a mystery game.

1. The Classic-Style Mystery Game

The mystery is treated as a logic puzzle with the clues presented up-front and the players must figure out the riddle.

The problem with this approach is the problem with Gygaxian Traps, they are ingenious, funny, perplexing, but you don't have much chance of solving the riddle unless you're able to probe the DM's mind telepathically.

An example of this type of mystery game is the recent Schroedinger's Cat game of "Creatures!"  The players must figure out the nature of the monster and how to defeat it before it kills everyone.  It's very smart, but relies on some considerable Player Skill at cracking mind-teasers.  In the playtest, for example, the players were completely flummoxed by the riddle, ending  in a presumed TPK.

2. The Hardboiled Mystery Game

The mystery is treated more realistically.  There are still clues, but they lead to people who can shed light on the case.  Solving the case is less about solving a logic riddle and more about tracking down leads and following up on them.

Once the clue is found, it's a much more human exercise, figuring out if people are lying, withholding information, and getting them to admit what they know.  Cyberpunk 2020 is built for this, with a wide array of investigative skills like Interrogate, Intimidate, Human Perception, Interview, Seduction, Social, Persuasion & Fast Talk, Awareness/Notice, Library Search.  Also Streetwise for finding underworld contacts and science-skills for extracting clues.

An example of this type of mystery game is Masks of Nyarlathotep.  The clues are more "leads" to
follow up on than "riddles" to crack.  So skilled players may need to do less "footwork" following up leads, but it's less of an all-or-nothing game of "Guess what I'm thinking".

Clue where PCs can follow-up on the names/locations mentioned

The "Masks" School of Mystery Design

1. The On-The-Fly Approach

I've mentioned before how I like to run a mystery:

1. DM develops a general idea of "what is going on"
2. Clues/leads randomly generated or made-up on the fly for the PC's as their investigation advances
3. These lead to further people/places with more clues/leads

2. The Masks Approach

But there's another approach: the Masks of Nyarlathotep Approach.  And it's all about Master Craftsmanship.  Here, the clues/leads are painstakingly prepared in advance, with actual pictures/text to cut-out and give to the players.  To give you an idea of the amazing design-work that went into this, here's a graph of clues and the people/places/things they lead to constructed by one dedicated fan.  Keep in mind that the adventure has 5 such locations:

My On-The-Fly approach is clearly easier to prepare/run.  But Masks' approach means that you can actually give players a physical clue to hang-on to, that they can analyse in detail and will actually remember between sessions.  Thus the game becomes less about killing stuff and taking their treasure, and more about putting together all the clues and figuring out the mystery.

3. The Player Skill Problem

As I mentioned recently, one of the difficulties in running a mystery is that of Player Skill.

Player Skill- solving mysteries can be difficult, and additionally, what seems obvious to the DM may not be to the players. So what does the DM do when the party is stuck, besides throw a tasteless Deus Ex Machina at them?

Both approaches above deal with this problem in different ways:

In the On-The-Fly Approach, I randomly generate clues for each location, so that even if the players miss a critical clue at some location, they may still find another one elsewhere.

In the Masks Approach, there are so many clues that even if the players don't find them all, they still have a good chance of finding some clue to advance them in their investigation.

Personal Motivation in Mystery Games

One topic I've been thinking about a lot is how to run a mystery game.  There are two unique challenges that running mystery games present:

1. Player Agency- this is a problem of all adventures with a pre-determined plot, but it is especially acute with a mystery focussed adventure.  The DM wants to steer PC's towards a certain goal, but when the players want something else(as they often do) then he must step on the toes of Player Agency to do so.  When the DM drags PCs where their players don't want them to go, they get frustrated/bored with the game.
2. Player Skill- solving mysteries can be difficult, and additionally, what seems obvious to the DM may not be to the players.  So what does the DM do when the party is stuck, besides throw a tasteless Deus Ex Machina at them?

Motivation to the Rescue

When I ran Polish Resistance, I dealt with the Agency problem by making the mystery totally optional.  And it worked okay--some sessions the PCs focussed on solving the zombie problem, while others they spent running around the sandbox pursuing their own goals.  Dave Sokolowski, in the "Keeping" Section of the "Masks Companion"(thanks TotGaD for the link), takes a different approach.

"My motivation?  To stay away from tentacles."

The Story
Deciding the investigators’ introduction point is the most important decision relating to character generation the players will make—how do they know Jackson Elias? And how does his death suck them into the mysteries of the cult? While this is discussed elsewhere in this book, one point must be made here: the further your investigators get from their original relationship to Elias, the more difficult it will be to keep them engaged. All investigators need motivation, and Elias’ death is ultimately only one part of the puzzle.

The point is that players will be much more motivated to solve the mystery if their characters have a personal reason to.  As DM you should take the time to connect each PC to the mystery and as the investigation progresses, more work will be needed to keep them connected.  This doesn't force players to take the path you have laid for them, but in practice you will have less of a disconnect between the plans of the DM and the actions of the players.  And a smaller gap means that it will be easier for the DM to improvise when the players do choose a path that he hasn't prepared for.

Examples from Shadows Over Bogenhafen

As an exercise, I'm going to brainstorm a few examples of how a DM could connect PCs to the mystery in Shadows Over Bogenhafen as per Dave's recommendation.  I chose Shadows because I'm not the only player who has observed that it has this Agency Problem.

1. Murder of a Friend

Like "Masks", "Shadows" also pulls the PC's into the mystery with an NPC murder, that of an Dwarven drunkard that they meet at the festival.  So I would attempt to connect the PC's more meaningfully to that Dwarf, so that they are more motivated to investigate/avenge his death.  For our recent game that should be easy, given that 3 of 6 PCs were Dwarves.  Upon meeting the Dwarven drunk, it would turn out that he was a well-known Dwarven hero, fallen on hard times, whose service to his race is a well known tale.  Additionally, he was the personal friend of one of the PC's fathers and even saved his life once, etc.

2. Saving a Friend

One of our PC's was a noble, so in that case one could say that one of the lower-ranking cult members(all high-ranking personalities) is an old friend of his.  The cult member confides in him that he's gotten in over his head and needs help.  Then he disappears.

3. Getting Back What's Mine

Our party spent a long time getting the run-around from town officials, but never really encountered any harsher sanctions.  Why not have them fine the party so that the party will want to prove their innocence.  For instance:

The party has to check their weapons at the door upon entering the town hall.  When they compain to a clerk, he offers to file a report for them that the official story about the Goblin was false.  When they then go to collect their weapons, they are told that they are being fined 100GP for having filed a false report, and that their weapons are being kept as collateral against the payment of the fine.  The PC's may pay the fine or not, but either way they now have a motivation to solve the mystery and thus prove their innocence!

4. Let's Rob a Cult

Our party was more interested in making some cash than bringing down a cult.  So if I were to run this, I would slip some hints of riches to be gotten in bringing down the cult.  For instance, in the message about the new temple being ready, I might mentions something about the Jewels for the altar having been delivered or something like that.

WFRP Empire Campaign: Sessions 8, 9

Picking up from the previous sessions it took two more sessions to wrap-up Shadows Over Bogenhafen.  My memory of the sessions is a bit of a blur(running, breaking and entering, arson, more running, more arson...) so I'll do my best to summarize.

Session 8

We started out breaking back into Steinheiger's offices and overheard his brother and heir looking frantically for the account books we had stolen.  We decided not to reveal ourselves to him at this time.

Then we went to meet Councillor Magirious, but then it turned out to be a setup.  He was already
killed, and a weird child called the watch on us and disappeared, so we lit the house on fire to confound the pursuers and ran(once again revealing my bias that for a PC, FIRE IS THE SOLUTION TO EVERYTHING!).

Then some Guild members started threatening us in the street and we figured out they were allies of OS.

Then we went avoided some rioters and went to some warehouse(don't remember how we found out about it) to await the ritual the OS was to perform.

Session 9

There was a magic circle, and virgin sacrifice, and some combat.  Siegwart decided to start a fire(THERE IT IS AGAIN) as insurance against the battle not going our way.  Then the weird child turned into a minor demon and then a Chaos God was mad that the magic circle was incomplete and vaporized or terrified all our enemies.

As for the party, we decided to skip town with our newly earned Insanity Points before the rioters or fire caught up to us!

Retrospective

So after 7 sessions in Bogenhafen(session 3-9), I certainly had fun, but it was a little too rail-roady, especially at the end. It didn't have to be this way, but I have a feeling that for many groups it is this way.  All the critical clues were spoon-fed to us.  And I'll be honest, I doubt we would have stopped the OS from doing their ritual if we had been left to our own devices--there were several time when we were just stuck in our investigation.  So the temptation for the DM to lead us along is great, since the stakes are so high and the player skill required so considerable.

This might have been improved if we had more time to investigate and if the format of the investigation was more flexible.  The entire first session(the fair) was spent on just getting to know the city without much happening., Also, several sessions in the middle were spent in fruitless investigation, following up one lead after another, very few of them advancing our understanding of the situation.  I think that for running a mystery, you want to be much more flexible.  If the players follow up a reasonable lead, you should generally reward them with some increased knowledge.  Otherwise it can get a bit tedious.  Of course, if your group is great at problem-solving, then they may prefer the "strict" approach.

So the last few sessions were a bit of a blur.  There was some great tension, but in retrospect I didn't feel like I, as a player, did much, except for run away a lot and blindly follow the clues that were fed to us.  Even the last battle was a bit of a let down, since it ended just as it was starting to really get good.

Overall, the game certainly had it's moments, with the section in the sewers being quite fun, some great planning and plotting of ways to bring down the Order, and some really tense moments towards the end.  And overall it was fun having the mystery revealed one step at a time.

Chandler on Escapism

So, with a Harboiled Detective Game on my mind, I started reading Raymond Chandler's 1950 essay "The Simple Art of Murder".  It's a good essay, and I recommend reading it in full, but I wanted to touch on one topic relevant to any gamer, that of Escapism.

At one point in the essay, Chandler responds to a fellow Crime Author who claims that Detective Fiction is inherently Low Art since it is "literature of escape" rather than "literature of expression":

In her introduction to the first Omnibus of Crime, Dorothy Sayers wrote: "It (the detective story) does not, and by hypothesis never can, attain the loftiest level of literary achievement." And she suggested somewhere else that this is because it is a "literature of escape" and not "a literature of expression." I do not know what the loftiest level of literary achievement is: neither did Aeschylus or Shakespeare; neither does Miss Sayers. Other things being equal, which they never are, a more powerful theme will provoke a more powerful performance. Yet some very dull books have been written about God, and some very fine ones about how to make a living and stay fairly honest. It is always a matter of who writes the stuff, and what he has in him to write it with. As for literature of expression and literature of escape, this is critics’ jargon, a use of abstract words as if they had absolute meanings. Everything written with vitality expresses that vitality; there are no dull subjects, only dull minds. All men who read escape from something else into what lies behind the printed page; the quality of the dream may be argued, but its release has become a functional necessity. All men must escape at times from the deadly rhythm of their private thoughts. It is part of the process of life among thinking beings. It is one of the things that distinguish them from the three-toed sloth; he apparently–one can never be quite sure–is perfectly content hanging upside down on a branch, and not even reading Walter Lippmann. I hold no particular brief for the detective story as the ideal escape. I merely say that all reading for pleasure is escape, whether it be Greek, mathematics, astronomy, Benedetto Croce, or The Diary of the Forgotten Man. To say otherwise is to be an intellectual snob, and a juvenile at the art of living.

Chandler argues that the desire to escape is part of being a "thinking being" and part of the "art of living".  But why is that?  Why should we relate to escapism as being more than just a base desire for entertainment?

Escapism as Redemptive Act

Chandler answers this question implicitly later in the essay when he talks about the thematic role the Hardboiled Hero has to play in the mind of the reader:

In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things. He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness. The story is his adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in.

Chandler sees the Detective Story as being in the tradition of the Classical Tragedy.  When reading the story of the Hardboiled Hero we are meant to feel Catharsis, in the Aristotelian sense.  He lives in a dirty world himself, a product of that world, yet a man of honor who is unrelenting in his search for truth.  And ultimately he is successful  though he may pay a steep price for that success.  In this way, the Detective Story is redemptive for the reader, reassuring him that his own strife is not in vain, that he too may flourish despite life's many downs.

A Hardboiled Detective Game

I've been thinking a lot about how run a mystery game.  When I ran Polish Resistance, there was a lot of mystery and intrigue around the cause of the zombie outbreak.  But that was in the background--there was a lot of other stuff to do, that had to be done, related to everyday survival.  That kept most of the sessions exciting, but not due so much to the mystery.

On the other hand, the Shadows over Bogenhaffen campaign I'm playing in is starting-off really slow.  There's been only a single combat so far over 4 sessions.  Mostly it's talking to people, each of them with their own angle, and trying to figure out what's going on.  So here the mystery is at the center, but it's a bit boring.

So are mystery games inherently boring(at least to my gaming group)?  I don't think so.  I think that one issue is the pacing.  When a mystery is spread over many sessions, so the individual sessions don't feel rewarding.  At the end of the session, the players don't feel like they've accomplished anything.  On the other hand, if there are shorter-term goals being accomplished, then it's okay that I didn't solve the mystery yet.

But I've been thinking about a third option: short mysteries that can be completed in a single session.  Or an overarching mystery with smaller, somewhat self-contained parts.  That way the game can be about the mystery, but the pacing won't be too slow.  I'm still not sure how to incorporate this into an existing RPG, so here's a stand-alone game I came up with as a first step.  You can think of this as Hardboiled Clue.

Pulp Detective Game

Character Creation

Players create a character and pick a profession: PI, Cop, Bouncer, Doctor, Boxer, Wrestler, etc.

DM Preparation

Since the DM will have to improvise a lot, it might be helpful to prepare with a bit of setting info.  For myself, this would mean making a short list of NPC names and descriptions, as well as a few locations around town.  This list will likely need to expand during gameplay.

Roll a Mystery

The game begins with the DM rolling up some of the facts of the mystery.  He will have to improvise the details himself over the course of the game.

Who got Killed and Who did it(2 rolls):

1. Mobster
2. Petty Criminal
3. Dirty Cop
4. Escort
5. Relative
6. Pimp
7. Con-man
8. Bookie
9. Lover
10. Business Man

How?

1. Shot
2. Stabbed
3. Beaten to death
4. Hit by car
5. Poisoned
6. Strangled
7. Pushed from height
8. Hired a killer

Why?

1. Money
2. Jealousy
3. Hush them up
4. Revenge

Did they do something to Avoid Getting Caught?

1. No
2. Hid the body
3. Made it look like an accident
4. Made it look like a suicide
5. Made it look like they took a trip
6. Frame someone else
7. Left Town
8. Faked own death

Running the Game

Start out by rolling up the Hook on the table below.  Then describe to the players how their characters are introduced to the mystery.  The Hook might be only given to one character, who then calls his buddies for backup.  The PCs can turn down a mystery they aren't interested in.

Mystery Hooks(How the PCs find out about the case)

1. Client hires you to investigate something
2. Acquaintance asks you to look into something as a favour
3. Overheard conversation in Bar
4. Crime witnessed in street

Mystery Sandbox

As with running an RPG Adventure Sandbox, the goal here isn't to lead the PCs through a predetermined list of scenes in sequence.  It's also not to pre-determine a list of events at specific times/places for the PCs to discover, as in Shadows Over Bogenhaffen.  Rather, it's to get the players to come up with intelligent and unique ideas of how to investigate and to shape the facts around that.

This is so that the game will be about creative problem solving, rather than the often aggravating "guess what I'm thinking".

As such, if the players decide to investigate a location, there should be some sort of clue or relevant character there.  But the characters will need to discover it either by player skill or character ability checks.

You can invent a clue that makes sense for the location or you can use a clue generator to determine what clue will be available at a given location.

Clue Generator

1. The Killer left something here
2. Accomplice left something here
3. Person who knows something
4. Records that shed light on the case
5. Item that sheds light on the case
6. Red Herring(false clue that send detectives in the wrong direction)
7. Body
8. The Killer
9. Accomplice
10. Rival Investigator

PC Skill Checks

When PCs want to perform an action that requires skill(combat, find clues, interrogate an NPC, dive to avoid a bullet...) then should roll a D6.  Results are as per Ghost Echo:

• 1-2 Failure and opportunity is lost
• 3-4 Goal is partially achieved and opportunity remains
• 5-6 Goal is achieved

PCs performing an action for which their profession gives them an advantage(PI searching for clues, Cop shooting, Boxer punching) can roll two dice and take the highest value.  Very difficult checks can similarly use two dice, taking the lowest value.

Concluding a Mystery

The mystery is over when the PCs solve it and catch the guilty party, when the guilty party escapes, or when the PCs give up on solving it.

World Building

Players should keep track of significant NPCs and Venues, which may help them in future mysteries.  Similarly the GM should write down material that he may re-use.

And one more for the road...

Random Clue Generator

One of my favorite Random Generators for running a sandbox is the Random Clue Generator. One option for presenting adventure hooks is to have NPCs who offer the party jobs. This is certainly straightforward, but not very engaging.  Another option is to drop leads and clues that the players can choose whether or not to investigate.  Of course, this changes the style of the game, making the party not just adventurers but detectives.

Random Clue Generator for Polish Resistance

For example, this is my random clue generator for my Polish Resistance game.  To determine the clue's relevance, I'll either pick one of the various plots floating around in my head, or I'll roll up a mission on the Random Mission Generator.

Die Roll	Form
1	Note
2	Diary Entry
3	Photo
4	Book
5	Ticket-Stub
6	Overheard Conversation
7	Coin
8	Painting/Statue
9	Telegraph
10	Business Card
11	Advertisement
12	Letter
13	Pamphlet/Program
14	Map
15	Article(Newspaper/Journal)
16	Body
17	Body Part
18	Key
19	Tattoo
20	Radio Report

I recently used this generator to get the business card in session 5.

An Example

So continuing from my post about The Fugitive, let's say the youth doesn't make the jump and the party searches his body.  Let's roll up the clue they may find:

17- Body Part

And on the random mission generator(I'll have to do another post with that at some point) I got:

15 German Officer, 15 Frame, 7 Entertainer

So we'll say that the party finds a severed finger, and if they investigate, they may find that this guy is a trombone player who a German officer framed for kidnapping a German pilot(that's whose finger it is) who recently went missing.

There ya go. Instant pulp.