OOC chatter

[Vardaen]

Can we still blame trogdor, just because of his faulty gall bladder?

[Bitom]

Sure. it's Trogdor's fault!

I'll post Edward in as soon as I get a little more free from work.

[Trogdor]

Blame the gall bladder all you want. I expect by the end of next month it'll be gone.

It's the perfect scapegoat!

[Bitom]

This is just too hard to do, and I'm really not that into it for some reason.

The line between too easy to figure out and IMPOSSIBLE to figure out is thin. I probably should have realized how thin by the number of times I've thought that the solution to a mystery novel came out of nowhere and left me unsatisfied.

So in order to satisfy the curious:

The Killer was Edward Lastrange. He did indeed fight against Vincent in the war, and saw the worst side of Karnathi tactics: His own brother was animated as a Karrnath Zombie and sent after him to fight, for which he blamed the enemy leader: Vincent. Ironically, it was exactly this practice that caused Vibncent to desert Karrnath.

Edward is a sorcerer who turned to thieving once Cyre was destroyed. He used his rogue skills to pick the lock, then cast "Rope Trick" to hide in the room until Vincent was in bed. The excessive strength was bulls strength, the dagger was Vincent's, taken from his gear in the closet and used to kill him. Edwards bloody clothes were handled with a prestidigitation spell. The reason that Edward did not show up when the commotion began is that he was still in the room, inside his rope trick. The think about silence is a bolfaced lie... Silence is not on the sorcerer spell list.

The reason he was the ONLY one who didn't show up was pure GM error. (See? there's that line between too easy and too hard)

od pointed out that Edward must have been the one because he was the only NPC that was fully characterized, plus a bunch of other OOC reasons.

So that's it. The game was an experiment, and I don't think it was a good one, even though the characters were great.

[Trogdor]

Mysteries are always a crapshoot in a game. I've tried in a few table top games and played in some as well. As you say, the line between too easy and too hard is razor thin.

But you get kudos for giving it a try.

[Vardaen]

I dont' think I would have gotten any of that at all.

It was a great set up however, and I did enjoy trying the game style out.

Just an FYI, Denamere was actually a Cyran Changeling Bard posing as Denamere a noble he once met in Cyre but who died during the Day of Mourning.

[Trogdor]

Magic also makes mysteries tougher, since there are tons more explanations for things. This was giving me a headache as I thought of all the ways that someone could have used magic to commit the murder - Invisibility, Silence, Dimension Door, Prestidigitation, Knock, Images, Disguise Self, Fly, Levitate, and so many more. I hadn't considered Rope Trick, and might have missed that one. But even without that, there are a ton of spells that could explain away almost any inconsistency.

Oh, and FWIW, I figured he had a bloodline feat or something that gave him Silence as a spell. Again, there are so many possibilities with magic that you can hardly ever eliminate anything.

I'm not sure how you do a proper mystery in a magic-rich fantasy world.

[od]

If you ever have a chance the 2nd (I think) adventure in the old Council of Wyrms module was a sort of a mystery. It ran pretty well, the key was everyone of the clues involved a skill roll with details on what was found based on level of success rather than a pass or fail for all information And clues tended to lead to other clues rather than directly to the answer.

After all that, there was a combat at the end after the mystery was solved.

[Vardaen]

The Eberron Mod, Flight of the Golden Dragon is a mystery.... instead off the Lighting Rail you are on an Air Ship over the ocean on its way to Stormreach. It has some great prelude combat that lets you get to know some of the people, then a pretty well designed mystery, with small bouts of fights that reveal things (a brawl in the bar as tensions rise), oher NPCs have their own opinions on what is going on and start fights and as the players try to break them up or take a side they learn more that they might have missed themselves. In the end, well we haven't got this far yet in the group, so I'm not eager to give it away.... but it all shoudl work out nicely I think in the end.

All in all, what's suposed to be a Vacation trip, turns out to be a nice murder mystery adventure.

[od]

I should dig around and see if I can find my old masque of the red death module. I believe all three adventures in there are mysteries...and the game is actually built around the gothic/noire setting you'd see int he old time horror and detective movies.