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Murder and Trials :: How to make both more Interesting
Oct 19, 2017 10:40:52 GMT -8
Post by The City [EclipseZwolf] on Oct 19, 2017 10:40:52 GMT -8
Murder and Trials
This thread is sparked by an IRL discussion I had about how we can make trials more interesting. I think it is reasonable to say that, at the time of posting, trials are less enjoyable than the other content available during MMG. Immediately the follow up was, "well are the murders complicated enough to be interesting to solve." After some discussion we had a few ideas and I wanted to toss them onto the forum for people to comment on and discuss.
Murderous Day
Mechanic Type: Hosting Style
Real Time or Not: Semi-Real Time
Intent: All for more complex murders to be constructed and executed without as much danger of someone just randomly walking in on a complicated execution.
When and How: A player desiring to murder presents a basic plan to the host. The host approves and schedules the Murderous Day. The plan is executed in semi real time with the host during the Murderous day to create more realistic alibis and challenges to overcome as the killer.
Explanation: Murderous Day(final name TBD) falls in the vein of the Eclipse Time mechanics. Specifically that when started, the way in which the host accepts and responds to PMs changes as well as some player mechanics. As a baseline, players will have to perform all actions, movement included, through PMs to the host. In addition, this style effectively runs for 24 hours of in game time, hence the DAY bit. During this time players, excluding the murderer, make very general PMs about their daily actions. Instead of moving themselves and manually examining things they choose to "Wander between the Arcade and Kitchen eating and playing at their leisure" or "Running through the outdoor areas looking for a way out of the complex" for example. The host determines how long a single period lasts, say 1-4 hours in game. The Murderous player gets to be more in depth, working directly with the host to walk through their murder plan. This also affects how long each PM segment is since the murderous player may need to spend a long time setting things up before actually executing the deed and then cleaning up. The murderous player will have to resolve more immediate events, like how to sneak past the person who is sitting in the cafeteria. These one off events and encounters help determine clues and alibis for the murder later. Periodically all the regular players will renew their actions and the process continues until 24 in-game hours pass or the body is discovered.
Murderous day takes a step back to when the entire murder plan was pre-submitted and executed invisibly by the host. Essentially the killer still has to deal with the real time decisions of other players but the actions are more vague, so the host can spin and twist them into problems the culprit has to resolve to commit the crime versus just praying a player isn't paying attention or walks in at random. Obviously a downside is everyone knows somebody is planning murder when the mechanic starts, so it would take some effort from players to not just hide the entire time because of the OOC mechanic. I think its a potential candidate for making murder more interesting to perform and to resolve later on.
The Protagonists' Trial
Mechanic Type: Investigation Style
Real Time or Not: Real Time
Intent: By containing information regarding the murder to prevent any single player from amassing ALL the evidence themselves this aims to make trials more entertaining as players have to act with limited info and pull information from other players.
When and How: Upon body discovery players are split into roles for the murder. A few protagonists and everyone else. Protagonists investigate as normal and can collect almost all information. Each other player is provided with a subset of the evidence and potentially important or misleading evidence.
Explanation: The Protagonists' Trial is a way of handling Investigation for murders to force people to talk more in trials and make more broad assumptions initially based on limited evidence. Essentially for each investigation only a few players investigate as normal, between 3-5 most likely, who are interested in investigating. They can of course be the culprit as well, which is why 3 is the minimum, that way the culprit can't establish complete dominance of the protagonist side of the trial. Everyone else does not need to investigate and their actions are assumed. The host gives each other person varying evidence as if they found it normally. This allows those who aren't interesting in investigating to participate in the trial with something and leaves things open to more interpretation. The protagonists can find most if not all the evidence, but may have to rely on the various others to provide key pieces of information or context in trial. This would hopefully increase the amount of discussion required early on and allow wilder theories to appear since people lack information thereby leading to a more back and forth trial with interesting discussion before concluding.
This style of investigation and trial could potentially lead to some more discussion being involved in trial, but has several flaws. First is the whole protagonist and everyone split. If alot of people want to be the protag there can be potential problems as well as if too few want to be it. Plus if the protagonists are just bad at their job they could cause a trial to be nigh on unsolvable without MM intervention. If the mastermind hands out the free evidence based on how much the protagonists find then it could prevent this, but it is still a potential problem with AFKs and so on. I find it may work, with how the games tend to have a few active active people and then alot of passive active people it may help people enjoy the game based on the time they want to and are able to commit.
Story Mode
Mechanic Type: Murder Style
Real Time or Not: Not Real Time
Intent: The intent of Story Mode is to allow several people to come up with a interesting murder which is INTENDED to be fun and interesting to solve.
When and How: Players would inform the MM that they would like to murder and one will be selected. That person then selects a victim who will join together with the Culprit and Mastermind. The three people will then work together to discuss and come up with an interesting murder, motive, and story. Once a final thing is decided upon, the host will implement it on the gameboard and play will shift into regular play until the body is discovered.
Explanation: Story Mode is a way of hosting Murders with the intent of them being solved and progressing the games story in an interesting way. It effectively changes the goal of Murder from Winning to Being Interesting. The host sends out a call for a culprit and someone steps forward. Together they decide on a motive and a victim. The victim is informed and brought in on the conspiracy. I would include a one-off Paranoia charge where any victim can politely refuse to be the victim once. If everyone uses their charge it comes back around to the first person selected. The three then discuss and come up with an interesting motive for the murder and decide how the murder happens. Once these are decided on, it is the Mastermind's role to set it all up in game and, if necessary, run any buildup events so that the rest of the players can witness events unfold and determine alibis. After this the game goes as normal, with body discovery, investigation, and trial. The other rule I would add is IF the murder goes unsolved, the Culprit AND the Victim are considered the winners of the season. There may be special considerations if the culprit wants to kill multiple people and they are all brought on.
Story Mode is a potential choice of murder style for a host who is looking for a game that is very serious about the plot with unavoidable murder situations. The murders become more realistic in their execution and motives making them more interesting and emotional to solve. I don't think its for every season since it does for the most part INTEND for the murder to be solved and the culprit caught. The downside here is that this setup COMPLETELY removes the real time execution of murder. Alibis and evidence are more tightly controlled and created which could feel binding to some people. I think its a good choice for someone who wants to have a murder mystery plot that will be resolved, but doesn't want to just include murder and end up with their game's story to be seemingly forgotten after a random shank kill leaving people salty.
This thread is sparked by an IRL discussion I had about how we can make trials more interesting. I think it is reasonable to say that, at the time of posting, trials are less enjoyable than the other content available during MMG. Immediately the follow up was, "well are the murders complicated enough to be interesting to solve." After some discussion we had a few ideas and I wanted to toss them onto the forum for people to comment on and discuss.
Murderous Day
Mechanic Type: Hosting Style
Real Time or Not: Semi-Real Time
Intent: All for more complex murders to be constructed and executed without as much danger of someone just randomly walking in on a complicated execution.
When and How: A player desiring to murder presents a basic plan to the host. The host approves and schedules the Murderous Day. The plan is executed in semi real time with the host during the Murderous day to create more realistic alibis and challenges to overcome as the killer.
Explanation: Murderous Day(final name TBD) falls in the vein of the Eclipse Time mechanics. Specifically that when started, the way in which the host accepts and responds to PMs changes as well as some player mechanics. As a baseline, players will have to perform all actions, movement included, through PMs to the host. In addition, this style effectively runs for 24 hours of in game time, hence the DAY bit. During this time players, excluding the murderer, make very general PMs about their daily actions. Instead of moving themselves and manually examining things they choose to "Wander between the Arcade and Kitchen eating and playing at their leisure" or "Running through the outdoor areas looking for a way out of the complex" for example. The host determines how long a single period lasts, say 1-4 hours in game. The Murderous player gets to be more in depth, working directly with the host to walk through their murder plan. This also affects how long each PM segment is since the murderous player may need to spend a long time setting things up before actually executing the deed and then cleaning up. The murderous player will have to resolve more immediate events, like how to sneak past the person who is sitting in the cafeteria. These one off events and encounters help determine clues and alibis for the murder later. Periodically all the regular players will renew their actions and the process continues until 24 in-game hours pass or the body is discovered.
Murderous day takes a step back to when the entire murder plan was pre-submitted and executed invisibly by the host. Essentially the killer still has to deal with the real time decisions of other players but the actions are more vague, so the host can spin and twist them into problems the culprit has to resolve to commit the crime versus just praying a player isn't paying attention or walks in at random. Obviously a downside is everyone knows somebody is planning murder when the mechanic starts, so it would take some effort from players to not just hide the entire time because of the OOC mechanic. I think its a potential candidate for making murder more interesting to perform and to resolve later on.
The Protagonists' Trial
Mechanic Type: Investigation Style
Real Time or Not: Real Time
Intent: By containing information regarding the murder to prevent any single player from amassing ALL the evidence themselves this aims to make trials more entertaining as players have to act with limited info and pull information from other players.
When and How: Upon body discovery players are split into roles for the murder. A few protagonists and everyone else. Protagonists investigate as normal and can collect almost all information. Each other player is provided with a subset of the evidence and potentially important or misleading evidence.
Explanation: The Protagonists' Trial is a way of handling Investigation for murders to force people to talk more in trials and make more broad assumptions initially based on limited evidence. Essentially for each investigation only a few players investigate as normal, between 3-5 most likely, who are interested in investigating. They can of course be the culprit as well, which is why 3 is the minimum, that way the culprit can't establish complete dominance of the protagonist side of the trial. Everyone else does not need to investigate and their actions are assumed. The host gives each other person varying evidence as if they found it normally. This allows those who aren't interesting in investigating to participate in the trial with something and leaves things open to more interpretation. The protagonists can find most if not all the evidence, but may have to rely on the various others to provide key pieces of information or context in trial. This would hopefully increase the amount of discussion required early on and allow wilder theories to appear since people lack information thereby leading to a more back and forth trial with interesting discussion before concluding.
This style of investigation and trial could potentially lead to some more discussion being involved in trial, but has several flaws. First is the whole protagonist and everyone split. If alot of people want to be the protag there can be potential problems as well as if too few want to be it. Plus if the protagonists are just bad at their job they could cause a trial to be nigh on unsolvable without MM intervention. If the mastermind hands out the free evidence based on how much the protagonists find then it could prevent this, but it is still a potential problem with AFKs and so on. I find it may work, with how the games tend to have a few active active people and then alot of passive active people it may help people enjoy the game based on the time they want to and are able to commit.
Story Mode
Mechanic Type: Murder Style
Real Time or Not: Not Real Time
Intent: The intent of Story Mode is to allow several people to come up with a interesting murder which is INTENDED to be fun and interesting to solve.
When and How: Players would inform the MM that they would like to murder and one will be selected. That person then selects a victim who will join together with the Culprit and Mastermind. The three people will then work together to discuss and come up with an interesting murder, motive, and story. Once a final thing is decided upon, the host will implement it on the gameboard and play will shift into regular play until the body is discovered.
Explanation: Story Mode is a way of hosting Murders with the intent of them being solved and progressing the games story in an interesting way. It effectively changes the goal of Murder from Winning to Being Interesting. The host sends out a call for a culprit and someone steps forward. Together they decide on a motive and a victim. The victim is informed and brought in on the conspiracy. I would include a one-off Paranoia charge where any victim can politely refuse to be the victim once. If everyone uses their charge it comes back around to the first person selected. The three then discuss and come up with an interesting motive for the murder and decide how the murder happens. Once these are decided on, it is the Mastermind's role to set it all up in game and, if necessary, run any buildup events so that the rest of the players can witness events unfold and determine alibis. After this the game goes as normal, with body discovery, investigation, and trial. The other rule I would add is IF the murder goes unsolved, the Culprit AND the Victim are considered the winners of the season. There may be special considerations if the culprit wants to kill multiple people and they are all brought on.
Story Mode is a potential choice of murder style for a host who is looking for a game that is very serious about the plot with unavoidable murder situations. The murders become more realistic in their execution and motives making them more interesting and emotional to solve. I don't think its for every season since it does for the most part INTEND for the murder to be solved and the culprit caught. The downside here is that this setup COMPLETELY removes the real time execution of murder. Alibis and evidence are more tightly controlled and created which could feel binding to some people. I think its a good choice for someone who wants to have a murder mystery plot that will be resolved, but doesn't want to just include murder and end up with their game's story to be seemingly forgotten after a random shank kill leaving people salty.
