I have this idea, based upon the board game "cluedo", the novels of Agatha Christie, the TV series and films based off her novels, and every other great detective novel, film, story, and let's not forget that wonderful recent innovation, the "Murder Mystery Weekend".
I'm sure that murder mysteries have been tried here before with varying success. I can see that it would be a difficult scenario to RP properly.
But I have an idea, a twist, if you like, that might - and I stress, might - make it work.
What I need is a house full of suspects (house, island, train, boat, aircraft, whatever - some means of isolating the suspects from the outside world.
One of the suspects will be the murderer, and an unspecified number may or may not be accomplices.
Oh, and I need a detective.
Does that surprise you? Was everyone assuming I (as GM) would play the detective? Well, I've given this some thought, and the way I see it, if I play the detective, it's too easy, because the GM needs to know what is going on and this the GM needs to know who the murderer is. If the GM knows, and the GM is the detective, then the detective knows...
The way I see it, only two people know who the murderer is. One is the murderer, the other is dead.
To have the GM play the murderer is also too easy, so I figured I would play the victim.
I am assuming that every one of the "suspects" - that is, anyone who expresses an interest in playing, is willing to be the murderer. So I will designate one of you at random, probably using the dice bot, to be the murderer. Every "suspect" character needs to have a motive for the murder, as anyone with no motive is obviously not a suspect.
And don't worry, I will make my character someone that you will all want to kill. *snigger*
I need ONE detective, or possibly one detective and a bumbling assistant. This role will not be first come first served. I will pick someone I think will do the role justice.
Oh, one last thing: No cross-gendering please. If you are male, please play a male, if you are female please play a female - of course, you are welcome to play a male character that likes to dress as a female and vice versa, but that's it. Oh, and no necrophilia... Once my girl is dead, she's out of it!
So what will I be doing? Well I will be posting clues, and asking people to make dice rolls, also controlling the non-player characters. (these will be the characters with no motive, and possibly any uniformed police that happen to arrive on the scene).
Anyone interested? Thoughts for how this could work better? Ideas for settings?