>>97910070
I can't tell you what your mystery should be but the most important advice is don't make a location or tree for you clues.

make a list of clues and whenever it's relevant to reward the players with a clue choose the most appropriate.

Next you need 3-5 clues for every fact you want the players to discover.

Start from the end of the mystery / inciting incident then just remove information, mix it up so order of events is unknown and there are people with different pieces out of order.

bonus points for giving each person / clue holder 3 clues about them to figure out where, who, or what their angle is. This makes them feel more alive in the setting and creates red herrings.

>>97910070
>what are your methods to create a mystery for the players to investigate?
I have none.
But if I had the inclination, I'd read older mystery literature or watch older mystery movies. Avoid anything past the turn of the millennium.

>How do you employ the NPC to deliver information?
I don't.
But if I would, I'd use the tropes and behaviors I learned from my personal research.

>Or create set pieces?
I don't.
But if I would, I'd use patterns established from what I learned from my research.

>How do you make investigating FuN?
I don't, nor do you, nor does anyone else.
You don't "make something fun", you find someone who has fun with something. You make a group of people who have fun with something. If you don't know what your group finds fun, you ask them what they find fun.
You don't ask a bunch of strangers who will never play your games or ever be in your group what they find fun; that's the worst way to learn what your group has fun with.

inb4 another fucking faggot screeches at me for answering retarded questions.

>>97910751
Looking at your answer is easy to know why this board has the fame of only be able to run dungeon crawlers or endless battle simulators.

>>97910630
This is solid advice. Thinking about clues as the information you want the players to have and then decoupling them from specific NPCs or locations allows your mystery to be much more flexible.

>>97910070
I copy the plot of TV shows and movies that I like

>>97910913
This board hates combat and dungeon crawling.
Lurk moar.

>>97910070
>what are your methods to create a mystery for the players to investigate?
I usually think of a big set piece and work around it. Maybe a gruesome crime scene a la Seven, or a final confrontation with a supernatural evil, or a final walk though a huge empty hospital where the final victim is being treated. Then I think what could lead to that happening. Usually as I expand that one thing I liked improves because now I can give it extra meaning.
Otherwise investigation games can have decent generators. I used it for Midnight of the Century and it gave me a lot of interesting stuff for the players to connect I would had improvised without tables proposing it before the players did.
>How do you employ the NPC to deliver information?
I usually make NPCs as needed. I have the info they could get in my head, give them a quirk from what's around, and then improvise.
>How do you make investigating fun?
Have multiple clues, don't give them red herrings because they will spend all their time on that. Make the ticking clock very evident. Have a good ending.
After that, it depends on the players. Some will love the shittiest bare bones investigation, others will do the same task over and over and get mad that they don't progress things. I usually inform them if they're doing pointless shit, like asking them how they think that would help, because I think they'll hate the frustration more than the meta. Down time is also very important, consider how Blade Runner RPG explicitly forces players to take downtime and roleplay their personal life too.

>>97911199
So what does this board like?

>>97911403
History, literature, settings, and worldbuilding that have nothing to do with playing games. Sometimes they like flavor of the day anime, and whenever that faggot Rich Burlew pumps out another comic, they post it here.

>>97910070
Hello i have run multiple investigative style Call of Cthulhu games.
I dont know how good this advice would work for you but here is my opinion:

RULE 1: CODDLE RETARDS / HAVE SMART PLAYERS
Sometimes your players are fucking stupid, abandon all hope of a real investigator style situation if you dont have at least 2 smart players (or at least genre-savvy).
You can coddle the retards by giving them things to bother with. Such as occult magic stuff for the intellectual characters and brutality for the strong characters, the kind of things you can just roll for.

RULE 2: SIX CLUES THREE PATHS
Give 2 clues for each of at least 3 of the following: who or what did the incident, why did it do the incident, how did the incident happen, where did the perpetrator go.
Also add a couple meaningless details to fill out the scene (crumpled clothes, torn curtains, paper in the fireplace) these shouldnt be useful to the investigation but help the player feel like a detective.

RULE 3: HAVE AN OVERARCHING PLOT
if your investigative journey is jimmy murdered steve because jimmy hates him thats no fun. Make a web of connections that pull apart to show a larger conspiracy, and do this prior to starting the game. For example Jimmy killed steve because jimmy believe steve was part of the gang behind the disappearance of his wife who are connected to human trafficking scheme run by the mayor and the mayor works with the gang due to money given to him because he is blackmailed by a cult who work with the gang to recieve the victims. And so on and so on. The players should feel like they are pulling apart the veil on the dark underbelly of their society
[1/2]

>>97910070
>>97913357
RULE 4: DONT FOLLOW FALSE LEADS
dont let your players waste a lot of time following their misguided misunderstandings. You have 3 choices, have them meet the end of that path quickly, introduce a clue that guides them to the right path, or shift the plot slightly to support their path. Never tell them ooc that their path is wrong, the intrigue will be over then and they will be discouraged. I recommend closing the path quickly as it is the easiest.

RULE 5: FAILURE IS GOOD
the second the player feels like he can win regardless of his action he stops caring. Failure should PCs in a hospital or kill them. I prefer maiming a character as a permanent reminder of their failure. Give the player a chance to retire characters, some players dont like playing characters when they "break".

RULE 6: ABANDON TYPICAL TTRPG ADVICE
For example "dont overprepare". This is false in investigative ttrpgs, prepare, prepare again, and then prepare more. "Dont railroad characters" if the players dont follow clues or ignore the mystery just cancel the game (unless you are still having fun ofcourse). A lot of other things lile that, they are made for combat games.

RULE 7: NURTURE YOUR SKILLS
read detective literature and understand how the writer thought (agatha christie is good for this).

I hope this helped, this is for me mostly, but i hope it can help you too

>>97913402
>>97913357
This is good

>>97910070

Read (and play) Trail of Cthulhu. Hell, most Gumshoe games.

>>97913402
I'd almost argue that you shouldn't ever plant false leads at all. Usually players supply them all on their own.

>>97911057

Yeah it makes the game flow much better and more organic. I also really like the 3 clues per one fact bc the players will debate the clues and what they are pointing to.

We play a lot of conspiracy and heist games. It works great for my group.

>>97910070
forget the puzzle for a second. look at Twin Peaks vs Lost. Twin Peaks is the GOAT because the mystery is just a lens to make you look at normal things with fresh eyes. Lost turned to crap because it relied 100% on a mystery to hide that it had zero substance

a good investigative game works despite the puzzle, not because of it, like the mystery is just bait to get your players to soak in the vibe and poke around.

>>97910070
Over the years, I've concluded that, if you tell the players exactly what's going on and couch it behind one level of figurative language, they will spend weeks trying to figure out what you could possibly mean. Do with that what you will.

>>97914357
I'd cut the word "almost" here. Players WILL decide on some random fact within the first five minutes of the investigation that will color every subsequent detail that they encounter. And, like the pharyngeal jaws of a moray, it takes a lot of delicate work to get them to release it without some pain.

>>97915399
I had a little city mishap in a game when I was a teen where the way out of the scenario was to catch the NPC lying. It was obvious they were, and they just had to use some logical reasoning like a professor layton thing.

It turned out terrible, bc none of them could figure out the lie and lay it out. This is why I don't use clue / social trees. Just have a list and give the most reasonable one when they do something worth rewarding.

>>97911403
It's a fair question. The truthful answer is that the /tg/ zeitgeist doesn't like anything. It's toxic negativity all the way down nowadays. It didn't used to always be like this. But it is now.

>>97910630
FPBP
>>97918018
I skim more than I used to, because a large portion of the posts these days is just moaning and shitflinging. Still, /tg/ isn't an individual and therefore has split opinions on everything. I can't remember a time when we weren't, but I do remember people being slightly more civil about it.