Investigations Draft

1 Gameplay

There have been dynasties with a theme of murder mystery before, notably Kevan VI and Kevan XXIV, so I'm trying to approach this from a different angle, with a focus on discovering the "correct" set of clues among false leads. Less "Clue - The Board Game" and more "Mastermind" or similar logic puzzles. Players guess who committed a crime, with what weapon, where it was committed, and the motive for the killing, but they get rough answers as to how many of those things they got right.

The Crime Scene generates a "deck" of Leads, some true Leads and some false Leads, and randomly selects from that deck to place in an Investigation. The Investigators debate amongst themselves who gets which Lead, and once there's a quorum of agreement, the Crime Scene reveals each Lead's content to the Investigator assigned to that Lead. The intention is for the Investigators to use the Leads they collect over time to build up the likely Crime, submitting Guesses to the Crime Scene to determine the truth.

2 Hypothetical Rules

I would probably propose "Clue Type", "Crime", and "Guesses" together as my first Proposal, and "Leads" and "Investigations" together as my second Proposal.

I would also eventually want to see a way to keep a count of how many times an Investigator guessed the Crime correctly. I'm envisioning multiple rounds of Crimes, so that even if someone gets lucky once, they're unlikely to get lucky again without some Leads.

2.1 Clue Type

A Clue Type is a set of similar items. Clue Types and their possible values are described in the table below:

Clue Type	Possible Values
Suspect	Caitlin Hastings, Hugh Lane, Nadia Gordon, Sofia Chambers, Edison Bates, Marcus Webb
Item	Letter Opener, Brass Fitting, Flour Sack, Piano Wire, Leather Gloves, Fireplace Poker
Location	Tobacconist, Chemist, Book Binder, Boarding House, Market, Pub
Motive	Robbery, Hatred, Jealousy, Revenge, Debtor, Politics

2.2 The Crime

The Crime is is privately tracked by the Crime Scene, and is either empty or a combination of one Suspect, one Item, one Location, and one Motive.

Perpetrating is an action in which the Crime Scene sets the Crime to a Suspect, Item, Location, and Motive, each privately randomly selected from the list of possible values.

2.2.1 Leads

A Lead is a combination of two Clue Types. The valid Lead combinations are:

• Suspect and Item
• Suspect and Location
• Suspect and Motive
• Item and Location

Possible Leads is a list of Leads privately tracked by the Crime Scene and defaults to an empty list. If Leads is empty and the Crime Scene has performed the Perpetrating, at their earliest convenience, the Crime Scene should set the Possible Leads to the following list entries:

• A Suspect and Item Lead where each are equal to the ones from the Crime
• A Suspect and Item Lead where the Suspect is privately randomly selected from the possible values and the Item is equal to the one from the Crime
• A Suspect and Item Lead where the Item is privately randomly selected from the possible values and the Suspect is equal to the one from the Crime
• A Suspect and Location Lead where each are equal to the ones from the Crime
• A Suspect and Location Lead where the Suspect is privately randomly selected from the possible values and the Location is equal to the one from the Crime
• A Suspect and Location Lead where the Location is privately randomly selected from the possible values and the Suspect is equal to the one from the Crime
• A Suspect and Motive Lead where each are equal to the ones from the Crime
• A Suspect and Motive Lead where the Suspect is privately randomly selected from the possible values and the Motive is equal to the one from the Crime
• A Suspect and Motive Lead where the Motive is privately randomly selected from the possible values and the Suspect is equal to the one from the Crime
• An Item and Location Lead where each are equal to the ones from the Crime
• An Item and Location Lead where the Item is privately randomly selected from the possible values and the Location is equal to the one from the Crime
• An Item and Location Lead where the Location is privately randomly selected from the possible values and the Item is equal to the one from the Crime

2.2.2 Investigations

An Investigation is a Story Post where the title of the post starts with the text "Investigation:" followed by the current date. An Investigation is either Open or Closed, defaulting to Open.

If there is no Open Investigation, the Crime Scene should perform Start Investigation, which is an atomic action with the following steps:

• Privately randomly select as many Leads from the Possible Leads as there are Investigators and assign a number to each one with its Lead type, where the number is unique among the other Leads selected, e.g. "Suspect and Item 1"
• Post an Investigation, and in the body state the Lead Types and Numbers selected, but not the contents of the Lead itself

While an Investigation is Open, any Investigator may comment on it with a proposed assignment of Lead Types and Numbers to Investigators, where each Investigator is assigned exactly one Lead Type - Number combination.

If an Investigation has been Open at least 24 hours, and a quorum of Investigators have commented in that Open Investigation with the same set of assignments of Lead Type - Number combinations in each of their most recent comments on that Investigation, the Crime Scene may perform the End Investigation, which is an atomic action with the following steps:

• Post the comment "This Investigation is Closed"
• For each Lead in that Investigation, privately communicate that Lead to the Investigator assigned to that Lead from that set of assignments
• The Investigation is now Closed

2.3 Guesses

If they have not done so in the past 48 hours, as a Virtual Action an Investigator may send a Guess, selecting any Suspect, Location, and Item of their choosing as part of the Guess, none of which may be empty. At their earliest convenience, the Crime Scene should privately reply to a Guess with one of the following

• If all of the Suspect, Item, Location, and Motive match the respective values of The Crime, reply with "Irrefutable"
• If only two or three of the Suspect, Item, Location, and Motive match the respective values of The Crime, reply with "Strong"
• If only one of the Suspect, Item, Location, or Motive match the respective values of The Crime, reply with "Weak"
• If none of the Suspect, Item, Location, or Motive match the respective values of The Crime, reply with "None"

3 Imperial Styles

• Gardener: Beyond the initial setup, I'd be open to players adding their own ideas or even changing the format completely. The initial set of rules is just a starting point, not a guardrail.
• Preservationist: I'd want to try to keep things fair to all players
• Powerhouse: I'm willing to process any number of actions to keep the dynasty going
• Scam-Neutral
• Servile: I like to keep things accurate and timely
• Methodical

4 Design Space

As mentioned in the Imperial Styles, while the initial set of rules may appear heavy handed, it's only to set up an initial structure. If players want to rip that apart and do something different, I'm ok with that.

If they just want to add to the existing structure, there's plenty of ideas to explore:

• Items that might assist an Investigator or allow them to hinder other Investigator. Items added to the Investigation would be assigned out along with Leads, such that an Investigator might be willing to not get a Lead in favor of an Item
• Investigator stats. Maybe some Investigators get better information than others, or have a way to tilt an Investigation to get a better deal out of it.
• Leads that aren't as concrete as the ones I initially provided. The Clue Types in the Leads could be more vague, like "X or Y Suspect was seen at A or B Location".