Good investigative one shot needed

By TheShard, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

I'm running a start of a possible campaign tonight. One charecter already picked an investigator. Any good modules even old weg ones where it focuses on a a mystery or crime that has to be solved?

I don't think there are any in FFG, although I am missing a few books. How investigative a person is your player? My not-quite-gf is running a Pathfinder game, based in Faerun, and the group is somewhat stumbling through the 'investigation' part skipping in my opinion plainly obvious things to be asking. With all that said, I was a criminal justice major once upon a time and have a decent number of hours logged in a patrol car (front seat) so I think of the odd things they don't. Last session we had to investigate the death of a local cleric seemingly with no enemies, the crime was done by orcs using bone weapons. There are several orc supremacy groups in Waterdeep one of them is mostly younger orcs doing dumb things, smaller group, no one we've spoken to knows their base of operations. Next session we're going to approach one of these groups to see if they'll give us a location of the problem.

In my opinion do this: Decide on an investigation to have, preferably involving the entire party. Next if this player isn't naturally investigative suggest they watch/read detective shows/books for gathering evidence. Keeping in mind this person doesn't need to be a jack of all trades type, they just need to think up where to look for a thing. Set up encounters in doing so that takes advantage of the skills/traits of the rest of the PCs, eg if you have a slicer and this is a different char from the investigator, make it the investigators job to determine the slice is needed, let the slicer roll the dice for getting into the computer, then have the investigator roll dice to search for the data.

Were you for example to do a murder scene (for practicality we'll call it a hit from a local cartel): Party arrives. Make it the vesty's job to block off the scene so randos don't infest it and possibly destroy things (XP reward at end of session), then roll perceptions for varying things: blood, weapon, additional damage, general crime scene stuff. Next find leads to who may have done the killing, this is social skill time hit the cantina/bar/other **** hole and RP/roll dice for gathering data. Give out plenty of leads, several of the FALSE! Next make it the vesty's job to weed out the false ones and determine the legit ones then cross reference them. At this point you could potentially have a reaction from the Big Bad Guy (if he or she losses their cool) which can give additional details to who the order came from. Next we can start on slicing, possibly put out a fake job that needs to be done and see who answers then trace this back to a legit or a bad lead. Rinse repeat till you get to what you want and have dice on the table.

So a rough idea i have is some planet which is going through an imperial take over and something happens that needs investigating and forces the investgator to decide between advancing their career and doing what's right (siding with rebels).

Maybe an assassination or bomb explosion?

There was an episode of Rebels like this! A factory was being sabotaged on a regular basis for the equipment it was putting out. Thrawn shows up and does what he does and eventually he finds out that there is a rebel operative there. To clarify, you are talking about the Investigator from Endless Vigil yes? If so getting word during the investigation that the Empire is hunting force users could be the hook that pushes him over the edge.

Yes investigator from endless vigil.

Hmm...

Created this awhile ago. It’s just an outline, I never filled in details or actually ran the game.

Cold Ice, Cold Blood

The Glorious Final Story that the PCs will eventually find out: The Alliance for Independent Banking (AIB) is an organization trying to put the IGBC back in the hands of the Muuns, and out of Palpatine’s leadership. While somewhat successful, it is so secretive that many who wish support it cannot actually find it. The PCs’ employer is one such person. His wife is just the opposite, a strong supporter of Imperial control. As such, the AIB assassinated her. Suspecting that, their employer wishes to actually help those that he tells the PCs to “capture.”

Act 1: The players are sent to Scipio, where a wealthy man offers them a job in investigating the potential murder of his now-deceased wife. (Private investigations are a venerated tradition for the wealthy, capitalist, Muuns) He stresses the necessity for the privacy of the investigation, as well as the need for capturing the culprit alive and bringing them to him. A series of analyses and whatnot eventually reveal food poisoning as the culprit. Further research reveals a specific food shipped directly to their estate from a certain nearby planet. He explains that his wife is the only one to eat that food. They also are able to identify the poison, a rare oil from a nearby world. Any attempts to find break-ins to the estate or poisoning from within end up negative, suggesting it was poisoned before arrival.

Act 2: Traveling to a processing facility/factory doesn’t give them any useful information, yet looking at the shipment is a bit more successful. They end up with a very long list of assorted ships and vessel that were nearby the cargo ship, close enough to potentially sabotage. Investigating the source of the poison provides a somewhat shorter list. Thankfully, there is a ship that is on both lists!

Act 3: They are able to track the ship as currently being on Mygeeto, and further snooping tracks it to an Imperial base that it is currently attacking! While siding with the Empire is the obvious option, it might create some issues afterwards in terms of who gets custody of the prisoners. (Perhaps their prisoners may have some conversation about how people support them but can’t find them) They should get some more hints as to their boss’s motives when they deliver whatever prisoners they may have. However exactly they want to deal with their boss’s treachery is up to them, of course.

Listening to Matt Colville, one of the mysteries he ran was from an old D&D module involving a village which the people think is cursed to the point that some of the shops are boarded up and abandoned. I think this may be out of scope of a one-off, but it could lead to an asset if your group sticks together. Outpost is seemingly abandoned for no reason, some odd holo-thingies left behind, and it's the partys job to figure out what happened.

The other day I was talking to a friend of mine about why I liked Dark Heresy (of the old Warhammer 40k RPG line) and he didn't. He said it lacked the epic things he liked about 40k: Space Marines, rampaging Orks, Eldar, and the like; that it was too much like Blade Runner. By contrast, that's exactly why I liked it. There is a slightly generic feel to Dark Heresy that means you could re-skin it for Star Wars if you have access to any of the books. As far as I know, all the published adventures for it are investigative, but they usually end up with the pc's fighting a daemon at the end (even the introductory adventures, for some reason), so you would have to change that to something else like the Sith or a dark side spirit.

41 minutes ago, bloody malth said:

The other day I was talking to a friend of mine about why I liked Dark Heresy (of the old Warhammer 40k RPG line) and he didn't. He said it lacked the epic things he liked about 40k: Space Marines, rampaging Orks, Eldar, and the like; that it was too much like Blade Runner. By contrast, that's exactly why I liked it. There is a slightly generic feel to Dark Heresy that means you could re-skin it for Star Wars if you have access to any of the books. As far as I know, all the published adventures for it are investigative, but they usually end up with the pc's fighting a daemon at the end (even the introductory adventures, for some reason), so you would have to change that to something else like the Sith or a dark side spirit.

Bet he enjoyed Deathwatch and Rogue Trader.

Man, if those games were still liscenced by FFG, I'd probably be swaggering around with a sweet cultist avatar right now.

Edited by Degenerate Mind
18 hours ago, Degenerate Mind said:

Bet he enjoyed Deathwatch and Rogue Trader.

Man, if those games were still liscenced by FFG, I'd probably be swaggering around with a sweet cultist avatar right now.

Deathwatch was his first RPG, and he loved it, as you guessed. He is a huge Space Wolf fanboy, but he could do without the Wolfy Wolf Wolfy Wolfen McFrostWulf Frost that seems to be modern Space Wolves.

Come to think of it, Rogue Trader adventures could probably also be re-skinned for Star Wars investigations. Less so Deathwatch.

23 hours ago, Degenerate Mind said:

Bet he enjoyed Deathwatch and Rogue Trader.

Man, if those games were still liscenced by FFG, I'd probably be swaggering around with a sweet cultist avatar right now.

I still have an Ork avatar, somehow.

I assume if I change it I'll lose access to it forever though.

Edited by Tom Cruise
On 11/5/2017 at 11:44 PM, Tom Cruise said:

I still have an Ork avatar, somehow.

I assume if I change it I'll lose access to it forever though.

You will, so don't lose that relic.