Emerald — Roleplayer Guild

The year is 1921, Scotland. The war has ended, though many wounds still need healing. Following the events of the war, many are still grieving over the death of loved ones, left with physical or emotional trauma, fallen into poverty or sought refuge in the north of Scotland, away from the epicenter of fighting. 

Untouched by war is Highwood Manor. The old, grande estate sits lonely on the isle of Brân, a small peninsula lodged between Scotland and Northern Ireland under Scottish regiment. Once the home of an influential lord, the manor has sat vacant for decades. 

But now, a small group of people travel to Highwood Manor. Each of them have recieved a personal invitation to board the ferry and reside in the manor for a number of days. Everyone was invited under a different pretense - f.e., nursing the senior resident, consulting in business, a formal networking dinner party, renovating the dilapidated tower - but all invitations were signed with the same initials: N.E.B.

Not long after the invitees arrive at Highwood Manor, a grizzly murder takes place. Is there a murderer among them?

General Mechanics

This roleplay may be a little different from most RP's. In this Whodunnit, it is the player's task to determine the murderer in Highwood Manor. They do this by navigating through the manor and progressing the storyline through roleplay with their characters. Yes, plural: more about that later.

There will not be one victim: slowly but surely, characters are killed off. This means that The Mystery of Highwood Manor has an ending: the killer is revealed and the curtain falls.

All events are rolled collectively by the players. This means that there is no single person - f.e., the GM - in charge of the murders or progression of the storyline. Even the murderer is determined by collective dicerolls. This will be explained further in detail down below.

The GameMaster (GM) - in this case, me - guides all the events and dierolling. The GM explains when players must roll and for what, and will clearly state that in their posts. The rules are (already) quite extensive and a bit complicated, but the GM will ensure that everything will stay as clear as possible.

Characters

All players intending to join create 2 characters. Why two? Because one of your characters will die. Each players' characters will be classified as either essential or non-essential. The essential characters cannot die - the non-essential characters can. This mechanic is constructed to ensure that if your character is among the first to die, you as a player are not immediately eliminated from the game.

Which of your two characters is essential is only known to you and the GM. Non-essential characters are not inelligible to be the murderer by definition - faking one's own death is an event that is possible to occur.

Determing essential and non-essential characters

At the start of the RP, the GM randomly assigns either the number 0 or 1 to your characters. Let's say, your characters are called John and Jane, the GM will send you a private message:

"John is 1, Jane is 0"

One of the first events to occur in the game, is determining which characters are essential. Another player will roll a die for you. This player will not know which of your characters has which number - only you, the murderer and the GM know. So, for example:

Player A rolls a 0 for player B. This means that the character bearing number 0 will be essential. Taking the previous example, this would mean that Jane cannot die, but John can.

Character description

When creating a character, there are some pointers:

The character must fit the given era (1921).
The character must have had some involvement in the war. This involvement doesn't need to be big - they don't need to be soldiers or generals, they may have just been a ration supplier, nurse, tailor or anything else - but your character has made a contribution to the war, big or small.
The character has a personal invitation to Highwood Manor - a specific reason why the character is invited to the island. This is public knowledge to all players.
Whether or not the character turns out to be the murderer, they must have a motive: a shady past, a twisted sense of vigilante justice, etc. This information is secret, even to the GM, but the motive must be incorporated in their character development during the RP. Psychopathic tendencies without clear reason are not accepted as a proper motive.

All the rest is up to you. They can be Scottish but don't have to be. Young, old, man, woman.

Statistics

Every character has a set of statistics that may help them in Highwood Manor. It may help them uncover the murderer or evade a murder attempt. These different features are:

Strength - plain and simple physical fitness.
Agility - the ability to run and dodge attacks.
Intelligence - useful to uncover mysteries.
Sanity - people dropping dead around you is sure to test your sanity, and thus this stat will be constantly affected by different events.

The player is given a set amount (which is still being determined) to be distributed among these statistics. Depending on certain events or items, these statistics may increase or decrease.

All things murder

After the essential and non-essential characters are determined, the GM will assign a new number to each character. This unique number is only known to the player and the GM, thus communicated through private message. Next, all players in turn roll a die. The sum of the collective dieroll determines which character is the murderer. The player who controls the murderer keeps this a secret, of course.

Attempting murder

As soon as a murderer is appointed, they may attempt to murder other characters. The murderer recieves a list of essential and non-essential characters: only non-essential characters may be murdered.

To attempt a murder, there is only one prerequisite:

The victim has to be in the same room or a room adjacent to the murderer (a map of the house will be provided)

Note that there may be multiple characters present during a murder. This means the murderer must be cunning in their murder attempts to ensure there are no eye-witnesses.

The murder itself & dying

Depending on the type of attempted murder, the murderer rolls (a) di(c)e, and writes an anonymous post of the murder attempt. They send this to the GM, who will post the murder attempt. The victim will then roll the appropriate dice for the corresponding statistics, to determine whether or not they survive the attempt. Should they fail, the victim writes their final post: a dramatic death sequence.

Types of murder

As of now, these are the possible types of murder:

Death by blade (knife, sword, cleaver, ...)
Death by blunt force trauma (candelabra, stone, bat, ...)
Death by firearm (pistol, shotgun, ...)
Death by freak accident (sabotaged chandeliers, explosions, ...)
Death by poison

This list is subject to change. Each type of murder will have corresponding stats linked to them, for which the murderer must roll their dice in order to increase their chances of a succesful kill (the exact details for this will be worked out later). The creativity of the murder attempt is up to the murderer, but it is up to the discretion of the GM to determine whether an attempted kill is too wildly unrealistic. Though, I greatly encourage whacky attempts!

Finding a body or witnessing a murder

If the murderer succesfully murders a victim in the presence of other characters, all those who were present in the same room (including the murderer) lose sanity (the exact amount will be determined).

Should no one be present, the body will eventually be found. The character that finds the body, loses sanity (again, will be determined but will be a smaller loss than being present for the murder). Of course, losing sanity is a bad thing, and you as a player may not be tempted to coach your character into a room with a dead body. Therefore, I am working out a mechanic that determines who finds the body. Suggestions are welcome.

Events, items & actions

The GM has a couple of events up their sleeve that may catapult the story into a specific direction. These events also include the determining of essentials and the murderer, but may also be the unlocking of a new area on the map or the dawning of a new day. All attempted murders will be posted - not written, posted - by the GM. Certain events will be triggered by collective dicerolling. This will all be explained by the GM when the time comes.

Actions

Characters may desire to perform certain actions that help them uncover the mystery. This may be observing a room to discover clues or hidden passages, or breaking open a new passageway. These actions are linked to a character's statistic. Physical actions will use strength or agility, mental actions require intelligence or sanity.

Items

Characters may find items that increase their stats or give out clues as to who is the murderer. These could be books, photos, weapons, et cetera. These items may be found during events or when inspecting a room, triggering a dieroll. These events are guided by the GM.

Prime suspects

Each character has a prime suspect - who they think is the murderer. Note that this is the character's suspicion, not the player's. Their prime suspect must be declared beneath each post. F.e.:

*** John's extensive actions and dialogue ***
Jane

If their prime suspect dies, the character loses sanity.

It may be a little soon to propose a new RP as a new forummember, but I thought a tabletop-based Whodunnit (based on Agatha Christie's And then there were None, for those familiar) would be fun :) I've conjured up a lot of mechanics already but am still working on some details. I'll gladly see your opinions, suggestions and comments!
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