LISTEN, if it works, it's not stupid. What's a little uwu talk if it means luring the guards all into position for flawless sneak attacks?
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in game I yeet all the guards into the pit one by one but in this version we're trying not to kill all the true souls and having to lie like you're not responsible for a growing pile of knocked out bodies is funnier lmao.
"You don't seem to understand, my entire philosophy on how ttrpgs should work is taken from a TikTok clip of Brennan talking to another actual play DM that assumes D&D5e is the only ttrpg system in existence"
"What Brennan does differently" Brennan is a sell-out who plays 5e incorrectly to keep viewership up. It is in his and Hasbro's best interest to convince you there is no correct way to play D&D. He is lying to you.
I was listening to an interview with a CSI investigator wherein she said that blowflies are often the most helpful evidence when investigating a crime scene. I mixed up "blowfly" and "bowel fly", and started picturing a fly in your art style dressed as Columbo. > u<
On that note, do you think any of your monks are into mystery-solving? I've been trying to find a good book about monastic mysteries for AGES, but no luck thus far. Ah, well...
Have a blessed day!🌻🦡
"now one thing that confuses me... you say the victim died suddenly yesterday but there's a bunch of fourth-instar calliphorid maggots in their clothes, and if there's one thing i know it's that kids may grow up fast but they don't grow up THAT fast"
anyway to your question, Brother Mort is loosely based off of Cadfael which i've only watched the show of but i hear the books are good murder mysteries. i'm actually not sure from your question if you're looking about actual historical monastic mysteries or fictional mystery books set in monasteries, but if it's the latter then the book/movie The Name of the Rose is also one to check out for sure.
Go read check out Unchained Mysteries by Jesse Burneko
An Alternative To Clue-based Scenario Design.
I recently was altered to and read a treatise called Unchained Mysteries, and it’s incredible that I had never heard of it before. It’s not a TTRPG, but it is a treatise about TTRPGs, particularly mystery investigation TTRPGs, and how bad they have been for the past 50 years at actually doing investigation gameplay.
For the roughly two years since we went public with Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, we have been fighting a war, an idealogical war on TTRPGs as an artform declared by monopolistic corporations, parasocial “”actual play”” shows, content mill YouTube channels and the loyal adherents of the above. The generals of this vast army, whether they consciously realize it or not, have a financial incentive to teach you that game design is not real and that it doesn’t matter. A consumerbase that understands game design or what a TTRPG is on even the narrowest, shallowest level is one where some people might sometimes choose to play something besides the most popular and heavily advertised game on the market when they are able to recognize that it does not suit their needs.
To this end they teach you “just ignore the rules when they get in the way of the story,” and “a good GM can make anything work.” They task the GM with putting on a one-man show so that people who do not like the kinds of experiences created by the rules of the most popular game do not ever have to engage with the experiences of playing the most popular game, but still buy all the most popular game’s products, and most importantly never buy anything else.
It’s been an uphill battle, but we have been able to carve out a little outpost for ourselves, convert others to the Game Design in Real faction, and occasionally make contact with like-minded individuals who fight for TTRPGs to be treated as a unique and meaningful artform and game, not just an annoying book that gets in the way of your improv session, as most self-identified fans of TTRPGs have been taught to treat them.
Unchained Mysteries is one of those times we discover a powerful ally, and it has been some real wind in my sails, lemme tell you.
As a TTRPG game designer, it really wears on the mind to get the same comments over and over and over from people who don’t even know enough about gleeblor to understand the position they’re taking, that all boil down to the same thing: Telling me that my work, and the work of others trying to design TTRPGs, is, at best, completely meaningless, because the rules we write shouldn’t be assumed to affect anything, that the right way to play TTRPGs is to just ignore the rules and make it up as you go. At worst, they get offended, and demand to know “why I’m trying to tell them how they should play the game” in the instruction manual for the game. And come at me with shonen hero monologues about how as an artist I have no right to even want people to engage with my art the way that I intentionally designed it to be engaged with, let alone have the audacity to express that desire. People’s right to not think about anything and put in the least possible effort for the quickest, shortest gratification is sacred, especially because game design isn’t real, so there’s no way that following the intent behind the design could lead to a more meaningful experience than just running off vibes.
And all this with the financial stress of being unable to keep a “normal” job due to disability, making my art my main source of income on top of the constant reaffirmation that large amounts of potential customers have been taught that the kind of art I’m best at and most passionate about, art that is really really trying to provide a particular experience through its design and intent, is the most undesirable kind of art, if they even know that kind art exists within the medium of TTRPGs at all.
Sorry about all that.
Anyway, it would have been cool to find such a well-written piece of writing that agrees with Eureka’s stance on investigative TTRPG gameplay on one point.
It would’ve been really cool to find such a well-written piece of writing that agrees on two points.
The points made, the problems highlighted, and the solutions proposed within Unchained Mysteries are about a 90% overlap with Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy’s, and presents them even more convincingly. (Which is to be expected, since it exists only to make these points rather than also being a whole game.)
If you’re interested in the arguments Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy makes and demonstrates about game design, give Unchained Mysteries a read.
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