So I ran a game of Problem Sleuth the other day.
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| The game, as drawn by www.instagram.com/vanfarmer |
Cast:
Buster, a constantly burning man with some pain pills.
Shaggy, with a sandwich.
Speed Buggy, a cat with some car keys.
Daphne, a bouncer made of candy with a glow stick.
The moon shines down on the city on this Halloween night. In the bar downstairs, ghouls and gremlins party the night away, but your office has been a ghost town for weeks. As you tally the score in your ongoing thumb-twiddling competition, the buzzer at the door buzzes. The sound of trouble, if you’ve ever heard it.
The face of trouble? A local PUPPET MAGNATE. Wants you to investigate the family mansion for some mysterious goings-on. Started a few weeks ago. Not a lot to go off of, just a strange feeling that things move when he’s not looking, or the faint sound of voices in the night, or that he falls asleep on one part of the mattress and wakes up on another. Maybe trouble this time just means looking around and confirming there’s nothing there. Either way, this trouble pays big, and the office piggy bank is getting hungry. You're to find the cause of the disturbances and report back to the PUPPET MAGNATE at his hotel room.
That was about an hour and a half ago. Now you stand outside the MARIONETTE MANSION, just outside of the city.
> Enter the mansion
There's a garden between you and the door.
> Enter the garden
The garden is decorated with a variety of hedges, surrounding a massive fountain containing huge statues of Punch and Judy beating the shit out of each other. The large double-doors to the front of the mansion has a massive lock on it, easily two feet wide. Embossed on the lock are an image of those stick things with the strings that marionettes have.
> Daphne: Use glow stick to pick the lock
You cut the lock, and most of the door, in half with your lightsaber. As the lock falls to the floor you can see it was a solid piece of metal, and wasn't holding the door closed.
> Enter the mansion
The interior of the mansion has fine, dark wood paneling on most of the walls. The entrance room has a set of double doors across from the entrance, and two red-carpeted staircases leading up to a balcony with another set of double doors above the first one. There's also a smaller wooden door to the right.
> Buster: Split the gang up, then take the door on the right
You split up the gang into evenly sized subgroups, paired off by skillsets and personality, then everyone follows you through the door on the right.
This hallway is so long and dark that you can't see the end of it. About every 8 feet, there's a suit of armor with a frogmouth helm on the right wall, and a painting of Kermit the Frog wearing Edwardian finery on the left wall. Between each suit of armor is a curtained window.
> Buster: Check inside a suit of armor for surprise knights
It's empty. Right as you realize this, however, its gauntleted arm reaches out and grabs you by the bicep!
You pick up a mace and start charging.
> Buster: Take some painkillers in case Shaggy misses
Just as Shaggy begins distracting the armor with a mild bludgeoning, you pull out your uzi and begin firing wildly - completely failing to control the recoil. The bullets spray randomly, and somehow manage to sever each and every thread that had been controlling the suit of armor.
In the rafters, a shadowy figure in a red hood drops some marionette stick things and slinks out of sight.
>Progress down the hallway
The Kermit paintings and armor stands continue for a ways, ending at a different painting, one of a mildly spooky barn. Inside the barn is a table with a large bowl on it.
> Shaggy: Check the Kermit paintings for eye holes
Every single one of the Kermit paintings has had its eyes cut out, with a painting of human eyes covering each hole from the back.
> Shaggy: Remove a Kermit painting from the wall
Behind the painting is a hallway, running behind each Kermit painting.
You gain 1 painting of Kermit the Frog.
> Daphne: Remove the barn painting from the wall
As you remove the painting from the wall, you realize it isn't a painting, but rather an open window that has been framed like a painting.
You gain 1 window to a barn.
> Buster: So she took the frame off the wall?
No she took the window off the wall.
> Buster: So it's like a portal?
That's not an action, but no, it's just a window.
> Buster: Oh, you're describing something impossible as if it's normal
That's still not an action, but yes. Anyways, you see a dracula wandering into view inside the barn.
> Mildly flip the fuck out
You all become slightly agitated at the presence of a dracula.
> Shaggy: Keep the Kermit painting and the barn window facing each other
You get 1 fancy Kermit painting barn window sandwich.
> Go down the hallway behind the Kermit paintings.
It is dark, only lit up by the dim burning light of Buster.
It ends in a door, like the kind that would lead into the alleyway behind a restaurant.
> Buster: Peer through the keyhole
You attempt to peer through the keyhole, but misjudge the distance, instead knocking three times with your forehead.
A weasel answers the door of the WEASEL SPEAKEASY. It seems put off that you're coming in through the back.
> Ask if they've seen any puppet ghosts
The weasel indicates that their neighbor does something with puppets, but they don't really interact with him.
> Enter the speakeasy
The WEASEL SPEAKEASY has quite a bit of activity, weasels all around drinking root beer. There's one other door.
> Shaggy: Put a round for the group on your tab
Everyone gets a mug of root beer.
> Daphne: Look out the little window thingy on the speakeasy door
The window thingy looks out on a familiar alleyway. One whose trash you've tripped over many times before. Indeed, the door to the speakeasy appears to be on the wall of a dumpster in the alley behind the Problem Sleuths offices themselves.
Which means this root beer isn't even in the same building as the haunting you're supposed to be investigating.
> Attempt to leave without paying
Maybe they think you'll close the tab later, or maybe they just don't see you leave, but you head back into the mansion with ease.
> Backtrack to the first floor double doors from earlier
The double doors from the entryway open into a large puppetmaking workshop. All kinds of tools and materials on all sorts of desks. No other doors though.
> Shaggy: Ask a marionette where the next clue is
The marionette does a little dance and says that the puppet upstairs is key to it all.
Then you put down the sticks controlling it and stop doing a funny voice.
> Head upstairs
The double doors upstairs lead to another hallway, this one with two doors on the left and a painting at the end of the hall of like, 13 guys sitting all at the same side of a table.
It's another window. Looks like the table has food on it.
> Buster: Supplicate
You do all the things you think might ought to help the eternal torment you feel end, but it doesn't seem to do much about the flames consuming your body. You feel a bit better about it though.
None of these guys seem to speak English, but they seem to get what your deal is anyways.
> Shaggy: Make a sandwich out of the food on the table
You get 1 sandwich.
You eat 1 sandwich.
> Daphne: Identify the traitor
With Buster’s help, you somehow manage to convince eleven of the guys that one of the guys did something to the last guy. Probably. Regardless, now those eleven guys are beating up that one guy.
> Daphne: Pull the underdog out of the window
You pull the lone combatant out of the brawl and into the mansion. Hardly seems fair odds. He runs off somewhere as soon as he gets to his feet.
Oh hey he dropped a bag!
You get 30 pieces of silver.
> Go to the first door in the hall
It's an office. There's a wooden desk in the room with a sealed letter and a puppet on it. The puppet looks like a bad bootleg of Jigsaw, and the letter has a wax seal with the insignia of those sticks for marionettes, whatever they're called.
> Daphne: Open letter
You don't have a letter opener!
> Speed Buggy: Use car keys as a letter opener
You aim your RPG at the letter...
And miss completely, sending a rocket through the window and turning a tree outside into toothpicks.
> Shaggy: Look through desk for a letter opener
No letter openers in the desk, but there seems to be a little door in the footwell.
It opens out of the fountain in the garden. Through it you can see Judas, catching his breath and checking his wounds.
> Check the last door in the hall
This is the bedroom. A 20 foot wide bed with bright orange sheets takes up a decent amount of the room, with a spiral staircase leading up and down in the corner.
> Shaggy: Look under the bed
There's a safe with a keyhole. You drag it out.
> Speed Buggy: Use car keys to unlock safe
The car keys clink against the keyhole. They are too big.
> Daphne: Use glowstick to unlock safe
The lightsaber enters the front of the safe, but then it starts to get hot and you drop the whole safe. It embeds into the floor of the room. Through the hole, you can barely make out that it contains two bills worth $7 total.
> Go down the spiral staircase
On the first floor is a theater, with a huge puppet stage. There's a long wall for people to duck behind and do puppets with.
> Shaggy: Duck behind the wall and do puppets
You duck down behind the wall and stick a puppet-clad hand up only to realize... Your puppet has been murdered. Someone left a letter opener embedded in this poor sap, then decided to sew on a bloodstain made of red felt to drive the point home.
> Shaggy: Remove the letter opener
You get 1 letter opener.
> Shaggy: Open the letter
You don't have a letter!
> Shaggy: Return to the office and use the letter opener to open the letter
You head back to the office, but cannot open the letter opener with your letter opener-shaped key.
> Daphne: Take letter
You get 1 letter.
> Shaggy: Go to the bedroom and unlock the safe with the key
You get $7.
> Head upstairs from the bedroom
In the attic, there's a lot of boxes covered in canvas, some more puppets, a fancy coffin, and a painting leaning paint-side against a box.
> Shaggy: Open the coffin
It's a dracula.
The dracula apologizes for intruding but it's awfully cold this time of year.
> Daphne: Turn around the painting
It's a window, actually.
> Daphne: Turn around the window
On the other side of a window is a bodega.
> Buster: Look for cake mix and kitchen tools
You find some cake mix and open it up to start baking a cake.
> Shaggy: Buy the biggest sandwich possible
You get the smallest hoagie ever for $7. It tastes almost flavorless, but what flavor there is is very bad.
You notice some dark red hoods for sale in the corner.
Buster no longer has money to buy cake mix.
> Shaggy: Ask if anyone's bought a dark red hood
The owner of the bodega says no, except for one person, who was that PUPPET MAGNATE or whatever.
> Ponder
You draw a card.
> Go back into the mansion, then through the barn window
The barn has a dracula and a mummy, as well as a crappy coffin, a table with a bowl of peeled grapes, a basin for apple bobbing, and a photo area with a fake tombstone.
The bowl of grapes has a key in it
> Hide in the shadows
You are multiple ninjas.
> Buster: Sneak the key out of the grape bowl
You grab the key, but apparently the grape bowl was rum raisins, and the liquid in it was rum, because it catches fire. The mummy and the dracula hurry over to try and put out the fire, more concerned with that than with whatever you're doing here.
> Buster: Use the apple bobbing basin to put out the fire
You drench the fire, mummy, and dracula with water as Shaggy devours the apples midair. The mummy's toilet paper bandages wash completely off, and the dracula’s grey facepaint was not waterproof. Their costumes are ruined.
They at the very least want you to pay admission, which is set at 30 silver coins.
> Pay up
Thank you, come again.
> Go back to the mansion
Gladly.
> Buster: Use the key to open the letter
The key-shaped letter opener pops open the letter, revealing its guts. The letter, already signed and sealed, was from the PUPPET MAGNATE to his head of marketing. It claimed that on Halloween, a team of detectives (you) had verified that the mansion was haunted, and that no haunted puppetmaker could make wholesome family puppets, and that their puppet business must pivot to making scary puppets.
Clearly, this was an attempt at a fake haunting, and you were the stooges meant to fall for it.
> Reveal this subterfuge to the board of directors
Straight to Speed Buggy’s car, straight to the corporate headquarters of Puppet Business Incorporated. Straight to the top floor. The PUPPET MAGNATE is immediately removed from his position - no company wants someone who faked a haunting on this most unhallow of nights representing them. And you are given the great reward of having done the right thing, probably.
As you drive off to figure out how you're going to eat with no money, a thud hits the top of Speed Buggy’s car. If it were a movie, the camera would pan back as the car drove away and we'd see Judas clinging to the roof. But it's not a movie, so we won't.
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