How to Build a Mystery: Rumor Cards

Back in February, I ran a one-shot session of Vaesen and absolutely loved running it. As I start thinking about putting together a more complete campaign using the same system, I've been thinking about how to support designing more mysteries. While I think that the system provided a fun method of investigating, I do wish that there was more opportunity to tie together clues. While my players did a good job at connecting the dots in A Wicked Secret, as I think about structuring a campaign where the opportunity to prepare for a mystery and research are far more valuable than in a one-shot, how can I meaningfully support the process of "research" in a way that doesn't give away the mystery? Plus, I'd like to use that research and/or downtime time to seed plot hooks for the future, so that player characters are not always in the position of reacting to an invitation to a mystery, but can seek out and initiate plot elements themselves.

The conclusion that I've struck on--unplaytested as of now--is to build out a set of available rumors that the party has heard of. This concept is not really treading new ground, but I got the idea from thinking back to my article on improving backstories and the structure that backstory cards provide during character building.

The Mechanics

The basic mechanic of a "rumor card" is that it is a specific plot hook or clue or important piece of information. In a traditional-style D&D game, you could use rumor cards to be jobs on a town notice board. In a game like Vaesen or GUMSHOE, these could be premises for a mystery, but also an unanswered question from a past case that is generated by the players.

The police commissioner's DNA was at the crime scene; it seems unrelated to the specific case we just solved, but that's weird, right? Maybe let's circle back to investigating him when we have time.

A big part of this structure is just externalizing things in an organized fashion. Putting stuff on paper is way better than just trying to keep track of every dangling plot thread in your mind--and that goes for both GMs and players. So even if it takes a month to circle back to that one unanswered question, having it externalized somewhere allows you to go "oh, right!"

There are two things that a rumor card should do that simply taking notes doesn't.

1) Rumor cards can be directly handed out by the GM as a reward. Sometimes, doing a whole scene with an NPC where I detail a plot thread can feel really railroad-y. Especially if it is a plot thread that I do want the players to know about, the conversation becomes an info dump--because the choices are to gate that information behind persuading the NPC to share, in which case I as the GM am put in an awkward place if they don't successfully open that gate; or to simply spill the whole story out to the players without it really mattering how they interact with the NPC. Either way, it feels like some of my clunkiest moments in campaigns have been trying to hand out a plot thread organically. Having rumor cards is an easier way to do that: here is a thing that you heard around town.

2) Some rumor cards should be false. This comes with a word of warning: a lot of players are not good at actually solving mysteries. I'm in luck that my players are really good at piecing together information. They take notes and think a lot about the campaign, but it is a common complaint in the general RPG space that sometimes you really have to dumb down puzzles to make them accessible to players. But having a sort of "two truths and a lie" approach to writing rumors can keep things feeling like they are actually still supposed to investigate the claim, rather than just being hand-delivered a plot hook.

Using Anchoring to Your Advantage

Rumor cards can be a way to provide key information about NPCs or other PCs. I'm thinking of having each player generate two truths and a lie--rumor cards--for their PCs to hand out to the other players for "what stories have you heard about me? What is my reputation?" The same would work for an important NPC.

Having rumors or character reputation conveyed on these cards, handed out individually to players, can be a great space to differentiate what the characters know. If one player has the "lie" card, how will that impact their response to meeting another PC? How will it impact their suggestions about dealing with an NPC? Even if they share the information on their card, no one knows which card is false, and so they will be left wondering whether the local lord is the sort of person who poisoned their own wife, or whether that is mere hearsay.

Humans have a cognitive bias towards information that they learned first. Providing players with different information first– and then letting them sit on it--can leverage this bias to differentiate character opinions about an NPC, rather than all the information being thrown into a collective pot simultaneously and then rationally analyzed.

This information asymmetry is how you can have one player convinced that the lord is evil and killed their wife even if they later learn that he is a generally just lord, while another believes him good and kind, even if they later are told that he killed his wife. And that is exactly how residents of the town should disagree about the reputation of their ruler.

As Downtime

I'm working on an article about the D&D Bastion system, Vaesen's bases, and downtime. The basic premise is that there should be buildings in your bastion--or locations in a hub town, such as the local tavern--where you can generate rumors or information. Rumor cards fit nicely into this framework, on which there'll be more detail next week!

Town Mode

In Vaesen, specifically, that can be plot hooks or informational research. For example, having a library in your base could generate lore about a Vaesen of the player's choice. The Vaesen rules as written just say that a library can generate "clues" without mechanical specifics for that. Using rumor cards, if you take a downtime action to research in the library about werewolves, for example, you can then just get a rumor card about the lore surrounding that creature.

However, to preserve the mysteries of these creatures, surrounded by folklore that can be inaccurate, you should keep the "two truths and a lie" model of rumor cards. Provide plausible yet inaccurate information about the nature of the werewolf or how to defeat it, presented as equally as possible as other information, and you've got a structure that does not give away all the details of the mystery. It provides information for the players to try to confirm or deny when they actually get into the mystery.

For example, Vaesen's core rulebook outlines three ways to defeat a werewolf: to shoot it with silver until it becomes "broken", to address it by its true name under the light of a full moon to break the curse, or for it to break its own curse by finding a pregnant woman and eating her unborn child in solitude. Simply add a plausible fourth option to this stack, and provide each of the four randomly as a research reward. Part of the mystery can then be about confirming which of these options would work. Unquestioning players might try that option and have it not work, but that is ok too, so long as the opportunity to refine their information is presented in the mystery itself.

In addition to helping with research, you can tie these cards directly into generating invitations and plot hooks. While the rules as written do not have a room in the base for this, you could easily add a sort of "war room." Spending a downtime action there generates an invitation or a mystery of some sort. Again, some of these might be red herrings, potential traps laid by rivals or enemies of the party, while others are legitimate opportunities. You can use this to vary the sorts of opportunities given to the players, and by making it clear that some of these may be traps, you give the players a chance to thwart a trap before it is sprung on them. This helps players avoid feeling railroaded into a situation where they're ambushed; it is their own fault for taking the mission.

Conclusion

While you should adapt the details and opportunities available to the specific needs of your campaign--maybe you don't need a research phase, for example--the rumor cards are a tool that I think will really enhance downtime as a fully fleshed-out form of play. It gives you something to hand out as a reward for whatever downtime action that players want to do, without it just being a guaranteed "truth". It encourages the players to think about the rumors they get, rather than just hitting a reward button in downtime mode.

I can see adapting this structure for crafting or things like "spell development," something that I've always struggled with putting rules to in my D&D campaigns. And I think it is certainly going to be a key ingredient when I get a full-length Vaesen campaign up and running because I want to emphasize the role of research as something really useful.

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