176 replies to this topic

[Dragonator]

Hello everyone. I am pleased to announce the beginning of EB's newest and hottest murder mystery, the mystery of Dragon's Retreat. Unlike the mafia games that have been running recently, this game requires skill, control, detective work, and a good sense of humour if you are to win. Participation is by invite only, however feel free to watch the clever antics of our EB detectives and see what interesting adventures they have. This thread is also open for general discussion, so if you want to make a comment, feel free to put it here. This thread has two rules however, which will be strictly enforced.

1. Do not post anything that could help or otherwise effect the judgement of those participating. Basically, this means do not discuss game content in this thread (or anywhere else for that matter).
2. Do not try to badger your way into the game! Sign-up is closed, and I will not be accepting any late entries, no matter how much I like you.

Thanks for looking, and feel free to comment on anything other than direct game content. Your cooperation is appreciated. If this game goes well, then I may consider running another one sometime in the future which is open to more people. We'll have to see how it goes. This thread will also act as the index, so if you are looking for the threads then you can always refer to this one.

The following are the rules of the game.

********************************

It is December the 1st, 2008. Dragon's Retreat, an old manor house dating from the time of the ancient Dragon Master's Kingdom, has been for decades the source of rumour and speculation for the people of Dratos. What treasures, what mysteries, does the old house hide? And what has happened to Lord Chester, the most recent owner of the large estate?

You have been selected as a member of a team of investigators who are to discover what has happened at the manor. One of you is hiding a dark and deadly past however, and would kill to keep it secret. You have been asked to enter the manor and collect clues to solve the mystery. Be wary however, as you do not know what you face.

Lord Chester is presumed dead, it is your job to uncover the circumstances of his death. You need to find the following:

WHO committed the crime?
WHERE was the crime committed (which room)?
WHAT was the murder weapon?
WHY was he killed (motive)?

Good luck, for you will need it to survive this mystery...

1. There are to be 11 participants. If you commit to the game you are committing to contributing to the story and sticking with it to the end. I am trusting you all not to drop out halfway through, as that is never any fun.
2. The winner will be the first person to answer all four questions correctly.
3. All attempts at solving the murder are to be sent to me by PM only. Do not post your answers in the game thread.
4. You may attempt to solve the murder at any time, however if you are wrong you may not make another attempt for a further 48 hours (excluding time between chapters). If you make three incorrect guesses you will die in some unfortunate way, so be certain before you try.
5. You must search for clues. This means that an action must be specified. For example, you wish to search a room for hidden objects. The following is an example of how not to go about this:
"I wish to look for suspicious or hidden objects in this room".
Instead, you must be able to specify what you want to do. For example:
"I would like to open the drawers of the cabinet."
It is not required for you to specify exactly what you are doing and what you are looking for, but a generalised statement will not find you anything. Act like a detective and you will be fine.
6. This game is meant to be fun, so enjoy yourselves!
7. Please be patient with me between chapters, I will be away a few times, so there will be a few small breaks of up to a week at most. I will make sure that my absence affects the game as little as possible.
8. Please try to avoid editing your posts, as it can lead to suspicion against you. Just consider what you want to say before you say it, and you'll be fine.
9. Remember that any one of you could be the murderer, even yourself. Be wary of everyone, and trust your instincts.
10. Failure to follow these rules will result in a warning. A second failure will result in the humorous death of your character.

Participants:
1. ImperialShadows - Peter Crawford; Lawyer
2. Sandy - Susan Greenwood; Receptionist
3. WhiteFang - Dr. Phillip Marshall; General Practitioner
4. Hinckley - Max Sinclair; Actor
5. Sir Dillon - Michael Dunne; CEO of Brick Plates
6. jipay - Bernard Knightly; President of the DHPT
7. ImperialScouts - Lieutenant John Spencer; soldier
8. Sir Nadroj - Dermot Stephens; University Student
9. Mr. Mandalorian - Dr. Gregory Grimsworth; University Professor
10. TheBrickster - Anthony Blackwater; Private Detective
11. Erdbeereis1 - Chef Frederick Valentine; Chef

Index:
Chapter 1 - The mystery begins
Chapter 2 - Mystery Cuisine
Chapter 3 - Knowledgeable Reading
Chapter 4 - The search continues...
Chapter 5 - The body of Lord Chester
Chapter 6 - Sleep at last? Only for the dead...
Chapter 7 - The plot thickens...
Chapter 8 - The Dragons Lair...
The Conclusion - All is revealed...

[pr0visorak]

This game seems interesting! Good luck to the contestants! Good luck to you too Dragonator for hosting your first game! Hope it goes smoothly

[Dragonator]

pr0visorak, on Dec 3 2008, 10:55 PM, said:

This game seems interesting! Good luck to the contestants! Good luck to you too Dragonator for hosting your first game! Hope it goes smoothly

Second actually, my first was the one and only Mystery Castle. Although that was a Mafia game not a proper mystery, despite the title.

[WhiteFang]

pr0visorak, on Dec 3 2008, 05:55 PM, said:

Good luck to you too Dragonator for hosting your first game!

Actually, this is Dragonator's second attempt to host a game. The first one was Mystery Castle.

[pr0visorak]

Dragonator, on Dec 3 2008, 06:01 PM, said:

Second actually, my first was the one and only Mystery Castle. Although that was a Mafia game not a proper mystery, despite the title.

Oh, okay than. I wish you good luck on your 1st murder mystery game

[Trexxen]

Ooh, now THIS is new and interesting! I like this game - it's less "mafia" and more "mystery", like a detective game - seems like it'll be fun! (Shame I'm not invited =P)

Now, a question - other than the deaths after three wrong guesses, are there any other "incentives" to hurry up? Will the murderer still be doing his job? >=D

~Trexxen

[GloriusShadow]

Great I watched the last one eagerly!
Can I join?

[pr0visorak]

GloriusShadow, on Dec 3 2008, 11:33 PM, said:

Great I watched the last one eagerly!
Can I join?

Didnt you read what he said? He said participants are only allowed by invitation!

[GloriusShadow]

Eh,no sorry I left in a hurry and was really eager to join.Sorry
  

[Lego12]

Cool game Dragonator! I can't wait to see wait our members can figure out!

[Zepher]

Two things:

Firstly:  NO!!!!  Way could i not be invited... i thought... i thought we were friends!  I thought we had something special!  For real though, congrats to the people picked, and more importantly, good luck!  (Really, if you feel like throwing in a sexy young detective, I'm your man   )

Secondly:  NO!!!!! You took my idea almost exactly!  i was planning on hosting a real murder mystery in a old house (after reading and watching a performance of "And then there were none."  I was... i was building an old castle set!  NO!

Anyways, best of luck to everyone involved!

[Dragonator]

I'd just like to say that invitations to this game were only sent out to Fellows. I am running this game as my way of saying thank you to them for inviting me to join their group, so do not feel bad if you weren't invited, it's not because I don't like you! I may run another one of these sometime in the future (depending on how this one goes, of course), and that will definitely be open to the rest of you, so don't feel bad please, I still love you all.

[Lego12]

Dragonator, on Dec 3 2008, 06:06 PM, said:

I'd just like to say that invitations to this game were only sent out to Fellows. I am running this game as my way of saying thank you to them for inviting me to join their group, so do not feel bad if you weren't invited, it's not because I don't like you! I may run another one of these sometime in the future (depending on how this one goes, of course), and that will definitely be open to the rest of you, so don't feel bad please, I still love you all.

Look Dragonator is a Fellow! Way to go Dragonator! I just noticed that you were a fellow, sorry...... When did this happen?

[Erdbeereis]

Lego12, on Dec 3 2008, 06:16 PM, said:

Look Dragonator is a Fellow! Way to go Dragonator! I just noticed that you were a fellow, sorry...... When did this happen?

A little over a week ago.
I'm looking forward to playing my first Eurobricks game!

[Pickerel]

Congrats on becoming a fellow! This game looks great, I'll defiantly read it ( I'm a big mystery, crime and horror fan )!  
Will the players talk to one another like in a mafia game?

Zepher, on Dec 3 2008, 05:33 PM, said:

Two things:

Firstly:  NO!!!!  Way could i not be invited... i thought... i thought we were friends!  I thought we had something special!  For real though, congrats to the people picked, and more importantly, good luck!  (Really, if you feel like throwing in a sexy young detective, I'm your man   )

Secondly:  NO!!!!! You took my idea almost exactly!  i was planning on hosting a real murder mystery in a old house (after reading and watching a performance of "And then there were none."  I was... i was building an old castle set!  NO!

Anyways, best of luck to everyone involved!

Hmm... I had this idea too! Not that it will ever happen (by me)! It seems to be popular! Maybe I'll get some ideas from Dragonator!  

[ptdapen]

I cry discrimination against non-fellows!  

Anyways, this looks rather nice.  Reminds me of Clue, although I don't think its going to work out that way.  I suppose the murderer will have memory loss or something, if he or she doesn't even know if they are the murderer!  I'll be sure to read this along with Witch Hunt Mafia...

[Zepher]

I've solved it already.  I'd post the answer, but that would be unfair to the players.

First day looks nice.  How is it going to work though.  Does the Murderer know who they are?  Will people be killed?  If there's no night actions, what's the point of chapters?  And what's the rush?  No trying to be annoying, just trying to figure out the rules!

[Dragonator]

Zepher, on Dec 6 2008, 12:48 PM, said:

I've solved it already.  I'd post the answer, but that would be unfair to the players.

First day looks nice.  How is it going to work though.  Does the Murderer know who they are?  Will people be killed?  If there's no night actions, what's the point of chapters?  And what's the rush?  No trying to be annoying, just trying to figure out the rules!

If you want to have a go at the answer then you could always PM me, but I doubt you've got it quiet yet.

This works differently from a mafia game, in that you work your way through the mansion to try and figure out who the murderer is. This is made more complicated as the murderer does not know who s/he is (like in Cluedo). Nobody is killed unless they break the rules or use up all three guesses. Or unless they annoy me. The aim in this game is to solve the mystery first, and to try and do it without letting anybody else beat you to the post. All answers are sent to me by PM, so nobody will know if you make an incorrect guess.

Theoretically this entire game could be run in a single thread. I chose to split it into chapters though for a number of reasons. Firstly, to help break up the flow of the game, giving the players time to think on what they have learnt, and me time to get the next chapter ready. This also helps to keep interest as it makes it easier to read; people can find what happened when much easier than searching through all the pages of a single thread. Lastly, I am going to be away over the holiday season a couple of times, and the use of chapters means I'll easily be able to have breaks for this without interrupting the flow of the game. Most of my away time will be only a few days, however I will be away for just over a week after Christmas and also a 5 day period in late January. The participants already know this, and do not mind having these small breaks (at least they haven't complained yet...). There is no rush, but I do want to get the first couple of chapters done before Christmas, so that they all have something to think on while I'm away. I might set tem a puzzle or something to crack while I'm gone.

Hope that answers all your questions!

Note: The first chapter is more of a confirmation thread. The real mystery begins in Chapter two.

[Zepher]

I do plan on somewhat reading the clues and having a whack at the solution, but not yet  

Thanks for explaining, that clears up a lot of things that I was wondering about.  I would, however, only changed one thing, as in the Murder's role is to cover his trails for X number of days.  To late now, but it would of been nice!  Made them panic and maybe have worked harder, and also made one of them evil!  Thanks for explaining!

[Scouty]

Zepher, on Dec 5 2008, 06:17 PM, said:

I would, however, only changed one thing, as in the Murder's role is to cover his trails for X number of days.  To late now, but it would of been nice!

But since nobody knows who the murder is (or even the murder doesn't know it's him/her), that wouldn't really work.

[Zepher]

Right, which is why I said "to late now"

[JimButcher]

This sounds like a neat thing, good luck and congrats to invited players. And congrats, Dragonator, for becoming a Fellow!   (It's about time!).

[Sandy]

I'd like to make a suggestion: could you please put the roles of each of the player next to their names in the list. It's a bit tiresome to constantly go through the introductions to be reminded who plays who, so having them all listed in one place would save a lot of time and effort.

Thanks in advance!

[Zepher]

I agree with Sandy.

[Dragonator]

Sandy, on Dec 8 2008, 10:24 AM, said:

I'd like to make a suggestion: could you please put the roles of each of the player next to their names in the list. It's a bit tiresome to constantly go through the introductions to be reminded who plays who, so having them all listed in one place would save a lot of time and effort.

Thanks in advance!

Most certainly Miss Sandy, how could I refuse such a charming smile!