My players have just returned to their town they've been operating out of to find it destroyed. They'll need to conduct an investigation to learn different things about the attackers, towns folk who escaped, townsfolk who were taken etc. However, I'd like to make it more interesting than just a series of different skill checks or a skill challenge. Any ideas on how to make this investigation more interesting?
D&D basically boils down to talking (roleplay), rolling dice (checks/challenges), and sometimes a little problem solving. Everything else is just flavor and pacing.
The most interesting thing you can probably do, is to let them discover things that aren't directly related to what their looking for. Don't make the investigation linear.
For example, searching an abandoned tavern might reveal a secret hidden torture/interrogation chamber. The players will likely debate how it connects to the town being destroyed, but the truth is simply that the town has a few skeletons in its closet. In the process of trying to do good, the players may inadvertently air all of the town's dirty laundry.
Additionally, there might still be people to save. Buildings might be in the process of collapsing with people inside, fires might be spreading from home to home, and scavengers might have occupied the town to take advantage of vulnerable individuals. The players will need to protect themselves and conduct a rescue operation at the same time as their investigation.
A lot of drama manifests where events overlap, so try to decomposed them into smaller chunks, and let significant story points bleed into the past/future. ("Town Destroyed" becomes "Infiltration/Assault/Collapse" where you can foreshadow the town's destruction before they leave, and then have them struggle with the fallout when they return, but after it is too late to save the town.
Skill checks only work if there’s something to learn. If they find and help a survivor, that doesn’t mean the survivor saw anything, or anything useful “It all happened so fast!”
Maybe one person remembers hearing horses, and there’s tracks from horses. It’s ok if some clues double up. Another just remembers a lot of yelling, but they didn’t know the language.
And it’s ok for someone to have a false memory. Like they are certain the raiders were wearing red bandannas. But the bandannas were actually green, or weren’t there at all.
In short, don’t info dump. Have some people know little bits, while others know nothing.
I think there are several ways you could go to make a investigation interesting... though in the end I think you'll be as good a judge as any if your players seem bored with it and when to move things on... some off the cuff ideas
The nature of the attack itself is somehow intriguing... I'm reminded of netflix castlevania someone was burnt at the stake and the consequences were catastrophic. The inhabitants themselves seem to have become crazed and rabid destroying everything, everyone and finally themselfs
The clues themself are some how relatable to the players and point to prior events/adventures they have had... that arrow sticking in the dead villager has the same fleching as those used by that Warlord Gobber Gobsmacker we encountered all that time ago...
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
I'm not sure if this advice is redundant to you or not, but here's my basic thoughts on this sort of thing...
Let's say your players come back into town and someone just says, "I want to Investigate to see what happened." Well, that's not really how that works, but the simplest way to get more details is to just ask players some questions. Like, "Okay... where do you investigate first and what are you looking for?" Just ask questions like that and narrow it down. If something they're looking for would be obvious to see they might not even need to roll. I find it really helpful in most situations to simply ask players how they intend for something to work. I'll do that even with things like combat.. it can help players to start treating combat more like part of roleplay as well, instead of just relying on pure mechanics. Although it depends on your group... sometimes it helps to have someone just throw down a bunch of dice, say "I'm attacking that guy three times. Two of them hit and it deals 22 damage", and finish their turn quickly, but I generally prefer more in-depth combat than that.
If I had this situation I'd try to make the investigation as organic as I could-- meaning I'd let the players drive the investigation through RP and not let the dice determine the outcome.
I would have a list of locations and people and what 'information' they would reveal to the players and some of those would lead to other locations and people, etc. With that list in hand let the players 'find' this information through their own exploration of the destruction.
You could give the players a starting point but let them drive the narrative of how deep they get into the investigation.
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My players have just returned to their town they've been operating out of to find it destroyed. They'll need to conduct an investigation to learn different things about the attackers, towns folk who escaped, townsfolk who were taken etc. However, I'd like to make it more interesting than just a series of different skill checks or a skill challenge. Any ideas on how to make this investigation more interesting?
D&D basically boils down to talking (roleplay), rolling dice (checks/challenges), and sometimes a little problem solving. Everything else is just flavor and pacing.
The most interesting thing you can probably do, is to let them discover things that aren't directly related to what their looking for. Don't make the investigation linear.
For example, searching an abandoned tavern might reveal a secret hidden torture/interrogation chamber. The players will likely debate how it connects to the town being destroyed, but the truth is simply that the town has a few skeletons in its closet. In the process of trying to do good, the players may inadvertently air all of the town's dirty laundry.
Additionally, there might still be people to save. Buildings might be in the process of collapsing with people inside, fires might be spreading from home to home, and scavengers might have occupied the town to take advantage of vulnerable individuals. The players will need to protect themselves and conduct a rescue operation at the same time as their investigation.
A lot of drama manifests where events overlap, so try to decomposed them into smaller chunks, and let significant story points bleed into the past/future. ("Town Destroyed" becomes "Infiltration/Assault/Collapse" where you can foreshadow the town's destruction before they leave, and then have them struggle with the fallout when they return, but after it is too late to save the town.
Skill checks only work if there’s something to learn. If they find and help a survivor, that doesn’t mean the survivor saw anything, or anything useful “It all happened so fast!”
Maybe one person remembers hearing horses, and there’s tracks from horses. It’s ok if some clues double up. Another just remembers a lot of yelling, but they didn’t know the language.
And it’s ok for someone to have a false memory. Like they are certain the raiders were wearing red bandannas. But the bandannas were actually green, or weren’t there at all.
In short, don’t info dump. Have some people know little bits, while others know nothing.
I think there are several ways you could go to make a investigation interesting... though in the end I think you'll be as good a judge as any if your players seem bored with it and when to move things on... some off the cuff ideas
The nature of the attack itself is somehow intriguing...
I'm reminded of netflix castlevania someone was burnt at the stake and the consequences were catastrophic.
The inhabitants themselves seem to have become crazed and rabid destroying everything, everyone and finally themselfs
The clues themself are some how relatable to the players and point to prior events/adventures they have had... that arrow sticking in the dead villager has the same fleching as those used by that Warlord Gobber Gobsmacker we encountered all that time ago...
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
I'm not sure if this advice is redundant to you or not, but here's my basic thoughts on this sort of thing...
Let's say your players come back into town and someone just says, "I want to Investigate to see what happened." Well, that's not really how that works, but the simplest way to get more details is to just ask players some questions. Like, "Okay... where do you investigate first and what are you looking for?" Just ask questions like that and narrow it down. If something they're looking for would be obvious to see they might not even need to roll. I find it really helpful in most situations to simply ask players how they intend for something to work. I'll do that even with things like combat.. it can help players to start treating combat more like part of roleplay as well, instead of just relying on pure mechanics. Although it depends on your group... sometimes it helps to have someone just throw down a bunch of dice, say "I'm attacking that guy three times. Two of them hit and it deals 22 damage", and finish their turn quickly, but I generally prefer more in-depth combat than that.
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If I had this situation I'd try to make the investigation as organic as I could-- meaning I'd let the players drive the investigation through RP and not let the dice determine the outcome.
I would have a list of locations and people and what 'information' they would reveal to the players and some of those would lead to other locations and people, etc. With that list in hand let the players 'find' this information through their own exploration of the destruction.
You could give the players a starting point but let them drive the narrative of how deep they get into the investigation.