A quick recap from last post:
Do they like the idea of being cogs in a mincing machine? A Pinkerton-style go-between, acting on behalf of less-than-innocent clients - perhaps even doing things that a more moral character would recoil at? ... Then their clients are going to be powerful, unscrupulous people who want what they want whether or not they deserve it, because in that kind of world nobody deserves anything. They only keep what they can take.
Do they like the idea of being the clever, morally centered Poirot, Marple, Monk or Rookie? ... Then their clients are going to be innocent people looking for something that rightfully belongs to them. No grey areas, only moral absolutes, and the adventure along the way involves solving puzzles, not playing several different gangs of crooks against each other and hoping to come out on top. In fact solving the puzzle is the only reason this kind of detective exists ...
I'm going to go one step further and borrow a writing trick used by Agatha Christie: no matter which fictional portrayal you shoot for, write the first chapter and the last chapter first, and then fill in the blanks in the middle.
Christie famously went so far as to write the last novels for Marple and Poirot years in advance - in the 1940s, decades before publication - sealing them in a bank vault until time came to publish them. She wanted to make sure she had the final chapters for their lives finished and ready for publication, so if she died in the Blitz there'd be definite endings for their narrative.
From your perspective as Moderator, what this means is you set down how you think it may end and how you know it will begin, and then work out the bits in the middle. An RPG is slightly different from a murder mystery, in that it's always possible the crime won't get solved. Or at least, that it doesn't get solved the way you think it will be.
In Night's Black Agents this final scene is sometimes called the Capstone, and is a climactic moment unto itself. It's an opportunity for the villain to prepare a final encounter, where the PCs prevail or die trying. In Mutant City Blues the PCs are less likely to die trying (this being a more heroic setting than NBA, with fewer fatalities), but they can still fail, and even dramatically fail.
In a Mutant City Blues game it may be prudent to prepare two potential Capstones, loosely described as Villain At Bay and Villain Triumphant. Villain At Bay assumes the main antagonist's plot is basically foiled and they're on the run; Villain Triumphant assumes the main antagonist's plot is on the verge of success, and only a last-minute Hail Mary from the PCs will get this done.
So with that in mind the base outline is this: prep an opening scene, prep two potential Capstones, and then work out the middle bits. In this example I'm not going to work out the middle bits; that's up to you. I'm just going to prep the opening scene and two Capstones. I will include a 'what the PCs don't know' section in place of the middle bits.
In this example I'm going to draw up two mysteries, one for the clever and morally centered, and one for the cogs in the mincing machine.
Maltese Falcon opening
Let's start with the cogs.
In that kind of game there are plenty of fish bigger than you, and they all have agendas that don't necessarily agree with your own. In the Maltese Falcon, for example, Sam Spade has to dodge the district attorney and the detective in charge of the case, Dundy. This isn't because the DA and Dundy are bad people, necessarily; they're just not on Sam's side.
In a regular MCB game, for example, the PCs may think Lucius Quade is on their side. Or they may give it no thought at all, and simply assume Quade isn't someone they have to worry about. In this kind of game, Lucius Quade definitely isn't on the PCs' side. That doesn't mean Quade's a bad person. He's just not a reliable ally, nor is he a neutral party. He has his own agenda, and he pursues it whether or not the PCs will get hurt as a result.
The same applies across the board, and applies double when actual law enforcement, whether federal or local, is involved.
Snatching Jimmy
The PCs are approached by a distraught father, Jamshid Mirwani, a restauranteur. He says his young son Jimmy has been kidnapped, and the kidnappers say they'll kill Jimmy if Jamshid doesn't pay them $400,000. Jamshid has an audio recording of the kidnappers torturing Jimmy, which he'll give the PCs. Jamshid is on bad terms with his ex-wife, May (formerly May Quade, Lucius' second ex-wife) but doesn't think she has anything to do with this. She'd never torture her own son. Would she?
Jamshid wants the PCs to act as his representatives, either to find Jimmy or to pay the ransom and get Jimmy back. Except Jamshid says he hasn't got $400,000; people always think because he married Quade's ex he must be loaded, but that just isn't so.
Villains Triumphant: This assumes either the kidnappers get paid or Jamshid gets his hands on the heroin somehow. The handoff takes place in a multi-storey car park in a neglected part of town famous for suicides and suicide attempts, sometimes called Jumper's Corner. After getting what they want the kidnappers will kill Jamshid as a warning to others, but they'll let Jimmy go. Jamshid's body will be dumped off the car park; it might look like a suicide at first, but he may have been blasted off the car park or influenced to jump.
Villains At Bay: This assumes Jamshid's shenanigans are revealed and the kidnappers traced before things get out of hand. Maybe May remembers seeing her errant husband with them, or can tell the PCs more about her ex's criminal past. Alternatively Jimmy, an emerging mutant himself with Dream powers, may contact the PCs remotely. This scene takes place at the kidnapper's safe house, a run-down biker bar with a lot of security cameras.
What the PCs don't know: Jamshid is a drug dealer who was supposed to be arranging a shipment of heroin. The kidnappers are Jamshid's former business associates, a biker gang, and Jamshid ripped them off to the tune of $400,000. That's why they took Jamshid's kid. Jamshid didn't intend to rip them off, but the customs agent he thought he'd bribed demanded more money Jamshid didn't have. Currently the drugs are sitting in an impound depot, but if Jamshid could meet the customs agent's demands he could get the heroin, fulfil his promises to his former business partners, and get Jimmy back. The kidnappers are heightened (various combat-related abilities).
The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, starring Daffy as Duck Tracey
OK, now for those morally centered types.
The great thing about this kind of private investigator is you can fit one almost anywhere. You can't picture Miss Marple going head-to-head with Caspar Gutman; it wouldn't sell. Clean-cut teen sleuths straight out of BubbleGumshoe wouldn't last ten minutes in a film noir.
But if the characters exist in a broadly moral world, in which certain things can be taken for granted - cops represent the law, right triumphs over wrong, people are basically good at heart - then you can have stories where someone who bakes cookies for a living gets mixed up in a murder case, and solves the crime. You could have a lot of fun with Mutant City BubbleGumshoe.
These stories tend to be murder mysteries, probably because the earliest versions - the Christies, the Sayers - were murder mysteries. You could have a burglary or an art forgery as the center of attention, but somehow there isn't the same zing.
With that in mind:
The Missing Mandala
A mandala made of coral, gold, and turquoise, on loan from a British university museum, is stolen from an art gallery and an art student, Rachel Wu, murdered - presumably by the thieves. The owner of the gallery, Sandra Cohen, suspects it may have been a Chinese-backed heist-to-order, as the mandala was part of a collection of artefacts looted from China by the British in the 1800s. However, there's reason to think heightened criminals may have been involved. The university professor who delivered the mandala, Thomas Duncan, is very upset; this is the second time it's been targeted by thieves, and he only agreed to lend it on assurance that the gallery's security was top-notch.
The gallery was broken into shortly after 11 pm. The thieves clearly had detailed information about the gallery and came in via a skylight, bypassing security. There's not much to go on from the security cameras. What nobody can explain is why Rachel Wu was there at all. From the looks of things she interrupted the crooks as they were making their getaway, but although Rachel did work at the gallery there was no reason for her to be there at that time of night.
Rachel was a B-Category mutant (moving patterns on her skin that resemble cherry blossom tattoos) and was shot to death at close range - close enough for the weapon to leave powder burns. Whoever did it would have been spattered with gunpowder and minute drops of blood.
Villain Triumphant. Thomas Duncan has managed to avoid detection and is on his way out of the country. This scene assumes the PCs catch up to him at the airport, as he's about to board his flight. He's sent the fake mandala by FedEx to his university address and still has the receipt on him. He won't be quick to cause trouble, not in an airport full of people, but he does have that pesky self-detonation power ...
Villain At Bay. The gun's been found where Thomas hid it, in a vent duct in Sandra Cohen's office. It has sufficient forensic evidence to link him to the killing. The forensic remains of his self-detonation in a locked gallery storeroom might give away his escape plan. Thomas is desperate to get away, but can't fly out. This scene may happen at a flop hotel, an interstate bus depot, train station or similar.
What the PCs don't know: The mandala is a fake. Thomas had it made and delivered it to the gallery intending to steal it himself; he tried a similar stunt before, but it didn't work. His intent was to sell the real mandala and then cover up his crime with a phony robbery. The fly in the ointment was Rachel Wu. She noticed something was wrong with the mandala but rather than tell someone her suspicions she decided to inspect it closely after hours, to make sure she was right. She was, but she also caught Thomas in the act of 'stealing' the fake mandala. The gun was hers; she had a concealed carry permit. In the struggle she was accidentally shot and killed. In a panic, Thomas hid the weapon on-site.
Rachel has an uncle, Duncan Wu, who has low-level organized crime connections and who will actively involve himself in the investigation; Duncan's no criminal, but he looks suspicious enough to maybe fit the heist-to-order mold.
Sandra Cohen is deep in debt and owes money to some less-than reputable characters, which may throw suspicion on her, but Sandra has nothing to do with Thomas' heist.
As an out-of-towner with Dynamite powers Thomas had to register himself on arrival, so his abilities are a matter of record. His scheme was to use his inside knowledge to fake the theft (he insisted on learning everything there was to learn about the gallery's security system, and Sandra was happy to oblige) then explode, sending his particles off into the ether to reconstitute later.
That's it for this week! Enjoy.
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