Jig

The Kidnapping [DELETED]

[EDIT]: Just in case anyone was wondering, we're in a fictional city named Kingston.

@Wade Wilson

Set in the US or the UK (or, indeed, somewhere else)?

The Kidnapping [FULL]

Ooooooohhh. Yeah, I'll probably bite. :)

Wolf Manor

I guess you guys like Mystery Games (although apparently not Wink Murder #loser #sadtimes #withfriendslikethese), so a surprise side-plug for this.

@McHaggis might be interested, too.

Gettin' Jiggy Wit' It

Game 2: Wolf Manor (In Progress)

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The Past Is In the Past

(or so you thought)

Wolf Manor

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Arrival

It could have been any other day. It should have been any other day. There was nothing out of the ordinary. The date was the 25th of May, 2015, and it was so mundane you should have known your life was going to explode around you. You woke up. You did whatever you did; you dropped the kids off at school; you pushed numbers around a computer screen at work; you sat on your sofa looking for jobs in the paper. It didn’t matter. Normalcy was the word of the day. Even the weather was bland, gently cloudy but, apart from that, beyond note.

And then, the briefcase. Quite how it got inside your house you’ll never know, but it’s lying there on its side precisely one foot away from the door obviously so that you would find it. There’s no evidence of your door being tampered. Who could have left it there?

You’re going to tell someone. You have to. You’re living in the modern world with terrorists and psychopaths running loose. It’s the only responsible thing to do.

... but you’re just going to take a quick peek inside first. Obviously.

You scurry into a room where you can investigate properly and you don’t know why, but your heartrate jumps up to the point where you can hear the blood rushing past the veins in your ears. Of all the things you were expecting to find, a letter, your own passport, and roughly five thousand dollars’ worth of your native currency hadn’t really scored highly. The party popper was a complete curveball, however.

Regardless of what you investigate first, inevitably your trembling hands prise open the letter from its envelope. It actually takes your eyes a moment to adjust to the cursive writing, but the penmanship is exquisite. It reads:

Dear ______

Congratulations! You have been chosen as the choice receiver of an all-expenses paid trip to the Wolf Manor! Located in Bavaria, Germany, this estate has been passed down from generation to generation. As part of the Wolf family's tradition, a lucky few has been selected to stay at the luxury home for ten days, from the 11th of June to the 21st, to celebrate the Summer Solstice.

Enclosed you will find your passport and some money that we hope will cover your expenses: in particular, be advised that there will be many events hosted at Wolf Manor over your stay and, as such, we recommend purchasing primarily formal wear. You should also find attached flight details: a private jet will be issued, and therefore a ticket is unnecessary. ID, such as the passport which will already be present, is all that will be required.

We hope you will accept our offer, as we very much look forward to meeting with you.

Sincerely,
Michael Aust

Gettin' Jiggy Wit' It

Game 1: Wink Murder (Unrun)

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Murder

A dilapidated theatre in downtown New York, 1923. A man lies on the stage; a bullet has punched a hole right through his head. From your seat, you meet the eyes of the other five in the auditorium. They're all alive, staring at you, staring back. You don't need to be able to read minds to know that most of them are thinking "Who killed Mr. Jig?". But if you could read minds, you'd know one of them is thinking
"It was me."

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Premise

• Murder Mystery
• 1920's New York
• One of you did it
• Interaction-driven
• Secrecy, shenanigans, and slaughter

Welcome to Wink Murder. You have been blackmailed by Mr. Jig, whom you have never met, and have been summoned by him to a theatre in New York for reasons unknown. At least one of you has come with the intention of killing him to keep your secret, whatever it is, safe. You find yourselves locked in a theatre with strangers, one of whom you know must be a murderer.

You the players will be completely in the dark throughout this. You don't know who the murderer is. Character sheets won't be published. Everything you and your characters know will be events and details you will experience and discover for yourselves. If you're lucky, you may survive - but everything is down to you.

How It Works

I'll accept a limited number of players onto this; probably six in total. Each of you will PM me a character sheet, including the reason your character is being blackmailed and a damning piece of evidence, and whether or not you would like to be the murderer. Among the candidates for murderer, I will choose one at random.

Your goal is to work out who the murderer is; that way, you can guarantee, maybe, getting out alive without being arrested. The murderer's goal is for themselves to decide. If you wish to do something in secret, PM me. Since I am non-partisan, I can give other players the relevant information without revealing that you are behind it. Although I won't write much in the IC, I'll be giving you secret information and clues that you may spot for your own use in the IC, mostly by PM.

Ultimately, I won't interfere. I will help guide you to create characters that will work for the setting, but, from there, my intervention will strictly be to keep the plot ticking over and to give you information only I know. I won't ever tell you what to do; that is for you and your character to decide. Every so often, there might be a 'Game Event' that will shake things up a little bit and influence the plot, but, otherwise, you have absolute freedom. Or, in other words, you're totally on your own.

The Players

• High casual writing. I expect accurate usage of spelling, punctuation, and grammar as a minimum.
• Open-minded. This may be a new type of game for you and you may die before the end and I really encourage the use of collaborative posts.
• Secretive. If it's not established in the IC, it's a secret.
• Reliable. RL comes first, but I expect to be kept in the loop if you're going to experience downtime.
• Commitment. There is a limited cast and setting to this, so if you drop out, you could quite easily ruin the game for everybody.

Character Applications

I should stress that this game is not first-come first-served. Because I put a lot of hard work into my games, and do ask a lot from my players, I will only consider going forward with the right cast; in short, people who ‘get’ the game and won’t just drop out. Anything less is unfair to me and unfair to everybody else. Therefore, please do consider seriously whether you’re in this game for the long-haul. It simply isn’t possible to replace players that drop out and a sudden disappearance could kill this off entirely and keep in mind that if you get a spot, the next person might not. The worst thing you can do is half-heartedly send in an application on a whim, deny somebody else a spot, decide you don’t want to/can’t take part after all, and kill the game off by dropping out. This will make me very grumpy.

Just below, you will find three hiders; one shows you what the character sheet looks like; one has the coding so you don’t need to write it all out yourself; and one has some guidance about how to fill it in. If you're a newbie to these boards and I haven't seen you around, you might want to send me a sample passage of text (perhaps whatever it was that your character did that's now their secret?) with your sheet so I can get a feel for you.

Note that I have one specific role that I need one player to fill. I can't describe it without spoiling, so if you're prepared to play any kind of character, please PM me. There's still plenty of wiggle-room in the character, so you'll still be able to be creative.

Character Sheet

Murderer/Innocent

Image

Name:

Age:

Gender:

Ethnicity:

Profession:

Personality:

Background:

Secret:

Objective:

Possessions:

• Thing #1
• Thing #2
• Etc

Character Sheet Code

[b]Murderer/Innocent[/b]

Image

[b]Name:[/b]

[b]Age:[/b]

[b]Gender:[/b]

[b]Ethnicity:[/b]

[b]Profession:[/b]

[b]Personality:[/b]

[b]Background:[/b]

[b]Secret:[/b]

[b]Objective:[/b]

[b]Possessions:[/b]
[list][*]
[*]
[*][/list]

Guidance

• Do not post these in public or discuss them with other players! Instead PM them to me.
• Please use the coding provided. It really does make my life easier, sifting through the knowledge.
• Be aware of the time-period for all of these details.
• “Murderer/Innocent” – delete as appropriate. If your character will come with the intention, or is prepared, to kill Mr. Jig, indicate that they are a potential murderer. If not, then they are innocent.
• "Image" - please upload an image of your character. Since these will be made public (by me), the more accurate it is to the time-period and your character's clothes, the better. The less explanation that has to be done in the OoC, the better (though I'll be flexible if you're struggling). Photos or photorealistic artwork only, please, and please also avoid well-known celebrities.
• “Gender” & “Ethnicity” – remember the time period. Opportunities available and attitudes to people differed according to gender and race. If you wish to play a woman or a person of colour, it may be worth bearing this in mind. Equally, it may be worth remembering this when playing white males; what attitude might you have to others?
• “Background” – notes on your character’s history, including relevant details from birth to the present day. This will probably encompass “Secret” as well. Don’t be scared of repeating information. This isn’t ‘write a passage that is a section from the character’s life’.
• “Secret” – your character has done something wrong, and Mr. Jig is blackmailing you. What did you do? What are the consequences of him leaking?
• “Objective” – your character has agreed to meet Mr. Jig, but why? Are they going to give into his demands? Negotiate? Murder him? Something else?
• “Possessions” – your character will have few opportunities to gain new items throughout the game, and so a clear list of what they take with them, including possible murder/self-defence weapons, will be useful.
• Since you are building characters for a mystery game, I may have to suggest that certain elements be tweaked so that your character works. Please don’t be offended if I do.
• If you’re stuck or have questions, talk to me! While I probably will not provide ideas for you, I’m quite happy to work with you to develop your character.
• Once the IC begins and you post your first post, these details may not be changed. You are limited to who you are, what you’ve brought, and the setting I provide.

Over to You

If you have any questions that aren’t related to character-details, ask away! If not, I think I’ve probably given you all the information you might need. As will always be the case in this, if you're uncertain, please let me know, and I'll do my best to help.

The eagle-eyed among you may have seen this game around before, either in the Casual Section recently (where it seemed only to get passing interest) or a couple of months ago where I just didn't do a good job of it. This time round, I've planned it properly, and hopefully it'll fare a little better in Advanced than it did in Casual!

Thanks,

Jig

x

Gettin' Jiggy Wit' It

The Jig Pile

The Kidnapping [FULL]

Awaiting more info. I do like games like these, but don't want to commit before I know more. :)

Project Rehab

I could be down for this. ^^

OOC's what is the best way to tackle/start them as a new person? (also an kinda off-topic question)

What part/s confused you?

There really isn't a single most important thing to work on. Some OoC's are heavily formatted and hugely detailed, while others are rather rougher around the edges. As I've said before, find an OoC in the section that you're working in and look at what they do. If you find one that you like, copy its structure but change the information so that it applies to your game.

I'm afraid that there isn't a right answer or any one way of doing it that's better than all the other ways, but, on the other hand, there's no real 'wrong' way of doing it. I've seen messy, badly-organised OoC's for hugely popular games and nobody's going to kick you off the forums because you made a messy OoC. Just look at what other people do and give it a go yourself. If it doesn't work out, you can always try again.

OOC's what is the best way to tackle/start them as a new person? (also an kinda off-topic question)

This is a good article on the subject.

A decent inventory for a standard OoC:

• Title
• Details about the plot
• Details about the setting
• Game rules (what you expect to see as GM)
• Character sheet (for players to fill in with details about their character

Maybe have a look at some OoC's in the section you're planning your game in to see what they do.

I don't think it's necessarily a taboo to use your game as a prologue story for making an actual game, but if you're planning on using anything that your players contribute, you should at the minimum double-check that your players know this and accept this, especially if you might ever profit from whatever you create in the end. You may also want to check the law on that subject.