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ErosSenseHi, this idea has peeked my interests. I always love a good mystery solving :)
I think the easiest way to "run" a mystery solving roleplay is to have a roleplay where the GM has the role of what a dungeon master has in D&D. He's in control of the setting, enviroment and NPC's while the players try to uncover the mystery through interacting with the enviroment. So the culprit will be an NPC and the players will have to figure out which NPC it from a large group of NPC suspects. The player characters should be able to slowly uncover the puzzle by talking with NPCs, finding clues through specialists tasks (a coroner determining the time of death, CSI finding finger prints, stuff like that). Every clue should lead to the next and some are specificly designed to throw the players off-track. Eventually the players should be able to piece the puzzle together and find out who has done it.
The biggest challenge with solving mysteries is always that it relies on how the players think. What might be an obvious solution for the GM might be something the players never think about or a clue presented in broad daylight might be totally missed.
So in a game where you as a GM want to actively kill off people while the players actively investigate the murders at the same time you'd proberbly want to have those murders happen off-screen and the players simply finding the body.
I honestly don't see a sort of play by post Among US game work well where one player plays the murderer trying to kill off the others. If you do everything in forum posts you're alrady giving away the mystery and if you have one player DMing people that he's going to kill while at the same time interacting regulary with the others you're proberbly going to run in some timeline issues. Or you get the scenario where one player character is always in the bathroom, getting a coffee or eating donuts on his own when someone gets murdered. Then it's pretty easy to figure out on a meta level who's the culprit.
Anyway. I really dig the idea of getting locked in with a murderer in a police station :)
I think the easiest way to "run" a mystery solving roleplay is to have a roleplay where the GM has the role of what a dungeon master has in D&D. He's in control of the setting, enviroment and NPC's while the players try to uncover the mystery through interacting with the enviroment. So the culprit will be an NPC and the players will have to figure out which NPC it from a large group of NPC suspects. The player characters should be able to slowly uncover the puzzle by talking with NPCs, finding clues through specialists tasks (a coroner determining the time of death, CSI finding finger prints, stuff like that). Every clue should lead to the next and some are specificly designed to throw the players off-track. Eventually the players should be able to piece the puzzle together and find out who has done it.
The biggest challenge with solving mysteries is always that it relies on how the players think. What might be an obvious solution for the GM might be something the players never think about or a clue presented in broad daylight might be totally missed.
So in a game where you as a GM want to actively kill off people while the players actively investigate the murders at the same time you'd proberbly want to have those murders happen off-screen and the players simply finding the body.
I honestly don't see a sort of play by post Among US game work well where one player plays the murderer trying to kill off the others. If you do everything in forum posts you're alrady giving away the mystery and if you have one player DMing people that he's going to kill while at the same time interacting regulary with the others you're proberbly going to run in some timeline issues. Or you get the scenario where one player character is always in the bathroom, getting a coffee or eating donuts on his own when someone gets murdered. Then it's pretty easy to figure out on a meta level who's the culprit.
Anyway. I really dig the idea of getting locked in with a murderer in a police station :)