Mystery City
A downloadable game
The city hides countless secrets, but secrets can’t stay buried forever.
Mystery City is a two page film noir-ish game that tells overlapping stories about investigators exploring the shadowy corners of a setting, sometimes working with or against the powerful power brokers of the city. The basic structure could be applied to any setting where you have lots of secrets to uncover, lots of shadowy motives and clandestine activity.
Version 0.1, completely unplaytested. Could be terribly broken.
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Very interesting. I also wrote a game about Noir Mysteries and I see similar intentions in this game but very different mechanics.
I cannot promise when I will test it but I definitively will do it.
Two remarks:
1- Why don't you add more classical playsets? I can make you suggestions if you're interested in.
2- The game could be modified for solo play or at least GMless mode.
What do you mean by "classical"? If you mean more straightforward noir sets, then it was just because I thought it was easy for a GM and players to create that sort of thing on their own. I was just throwing out lots of ideas to show a variety of possible settings.
You are right that it could be easily hacked to be a solo or GMless game. I might need think about adding some notes about that sort of thing.
Yeah exactly, Classic Noir but also variations like Urban Fantasy or historical Noir, but it's easy to make it.
Maybe in the future I'll write up some historical noir settings and add those to the playset pack. Lots of fun options there as well: Berlin 1948 with the ashes of WWII turning into the Cold War, Los Angeles 1937 with Bugsy Siegel and Hollywood corruption, Tammany Hall era New York City, Elizabethan London with Walsingham and Christopher Marlowe , etc. etc. Once you pick a setting, it's really fun and easy to flesh it out into a playset.
I'm thinking of surnatural retrofuturist Cairo, just thinking :D
Hi! So I tested the game with my solo tools (from my own Noir rpg) and built a world in a Cursed Cairo.
So here is Cairo 2020 but different. In 1949, British explorers opened a cursed tomb and unleashed old egyptian magic. Now mummies, demi-gods or priest of old religions walk among humans. But everybody acts like it's normal and nothing change. After all nothing change a lot since the cursed also slows down the Time itself. People look like they're 30 but are 70 years old! For the aesthetic, the city and the people still wearing clothes like in the 50's.
So here is Wassim, a measly journalist (D10) expert in common crimes (D8) and know all the dark alley of the city (D6). Wassim investigate the curious crime of his lover, beautiful girl named Nadia, and looking for revenge. I tried to have answers from Sobeki the cruel gang leader (Mars) but get hurt. The pretty nurse Aesis (Venus) take care of him and helped him to find the answer. Nadia were a friend of her and wanted to meet Raashid, the popular singer known for his good heart. After many defeats he asks for help with Khalid Noun, the ambitious police chief (Jupiter) and sell his soul to him beginning an informer for Noun.
The truth is: Young Nadia was a mummy, a very old princess reborn few years ago and immortal. But she lost her immortality and Raashid stole it to her. Finally Raashid admit he stole the power of Nadia to do the greater good but did not kill her. It was Athep, also a mummy, old general of the Pharao's army and former Nadia's lover.
In term of game design it worked well. In fact I hace only shitty rolls at the beginning (failed all my 4 first roll even using traits). My personnal die went quickly to D4 so I decide to accept a devil's bargain with the Saturn. This mechanic is very powerful because I had a total refresh and didn't had problems to finish the investigation then. The thing is, the more clues you find, the more quickly you solve the mystery (I made a final 15 with a 10 and 5 clues). So rolls are very important and could be a critic to your game. But my own game also is very hazardous and I think it really fit with the genre.
The only regret I have it's focused on only one objective. Your just the gumshoe looking for the truth. Perhaps it could be great to add some breaks between two investigation scene. Perhaps just narrative scenes or opportunity to refresh a dice.
That is a very cool setting.
And it confirms my suspicions on how the game would go. It feels very swingy right now: a few failures early on will cause a very quick death spiral, while a few successes can quickly solve a mystery. That is part of the reason for the devil's bargain mechanic, to give a player a way to escape the death spiral but at a cost. Over multiple mysteries, I hope it would work out to an interesting punctuated rhythm of play.