[quote=w00t]I'd like to see something like;<br /><<redbox,*,color:white>><b>Murder on the Truane's Star Express</b><br /><i>A who done it adventure for 2 to 4 characters.<br /></i><<//>>[/quote]<br /><br />woot posted this once and rather than resurrect and old thread I'll post it here.<br /><br />biggest hurtle to writing this adventure that I had was that my original table top adventure was on a massive 20 deck star liner inspired by a big ocean liner. I used full sized maps and miniatures and it was unweildly.<br /><br />Well poking through old thread looking for something I noticed this comment from the robow00t and it struck me that you just dont need a huge liner, even something frigate size would work<br /><br />1. frigate size will accomodate like 70 or so personalities, crew and passengers, though I had about 30 to track in the original adventure. (and Agatha Cristie mystery seems to have about 6-8 suspects. <br />2. a frigate can in therory land on a planet which could be useful in this or further adventures<br /><br />having recently caught the end of murder on the orient express then watched another story by Agatha Cristie I also come to a conclusion about this adventure:<br />As per the Agatha Cristie style: most every one present must have a motive to kill the victim and the bulk of the adventure is eliminating the red herrings almost like a RPG version of the game Clue (Professor Vrusk in the engine room with the laser welder...)<br /><br />Further considerations: its called the Truane's Star Express because it doesn't stop in Dixon's star but just passes thru while the astrogator works up a jump solution for Truane's sTar. This gives the PCs about 5-7 days or so to solve the murder. <br /><br />and it may be the best way to run this adventure may be not as a party but each Player is out for them self- pretty much like a game of clue.<br /><br />I'm thinking that a Gm will have to have a bunch of encounter cards on hand to hand out to a player when they ask the right question of an NPC or investigate the right detail. The card will have a paragraph for the player to read before handing it back. the paragraph is a clue or bit of NPC dialogue. miniatures or counters or even paper standies are moved around the ships decks and players may move also and quiz NPCs in there location but they cant talk to people who are sleeping etc. <br /><br />on top of that other events happen according to a time line. passenger's panic and try to storm the life boat and must be stopped. animal gets loose in the cargo hold. sabotage? etc.<br /><br />The key thing here is the deck plans: they need to be small and managable but still believable as a star liner<br /><br /><b>Edit:</b> a more managable scheme for running this game might be several decks scaled down so that 4 fit on an 8.5 X 11 paper and that paper is mounted on cork (or maybe even foam core) then tape little flags onto pins with NPC and PC names. Color code the flags blue for crew, yellow for passengers, red for players. keep it to 6 or 7 crew and maybe 20 or less passengers and the PCs. <br /><br />there is a reward for who solves the murder and the players can work together or separate for this. exp points awarded thus 1 for slack investigation 2 for active investigation 3 for solving the crime. In game reward is a cash award.<br /><br />
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