Thread "A Drunkduck Murder Mystery" in forum "Networking & Community Projects*"

Posted at 6:03AM, Mar. 5, 2006

You see the Comic Jam? Have you ever played Mafia/The Werewolf Game? Have you ever played Cluedo?

Okay, this is like all of those. This is:

Crash of lightning.

The Drunkduck Murder Mystery.

It's a collaborative project which is part comic and part game. It's also a fairly long term thing, that would require input from participants maybe once a week. It's not quite like a Comic Jam in that participants won't have completely free reign with the story and the story as a whole is intended to be not quite as exuberantly random as the Comic Jams usually are. The tone would be largely serious, with the potential for irony, satire and dark humour.

Basically, we have a number of players and an Administrator. The Admin guy sets the scene, and describes general events through a once weekly comic (which may not even be fantastic artisitically, but then I'm pushing this more as a writing project than an artistic one). Throughout the week however, the players take turns to post a comic focusing on their character and his or her interactions with what's going on. One player is the killer (probably chosen at random), and they post comics similarly, slowly moving their way through the setting and offing other players in the most imaginative ways they can think of (setting traps, poisoning, whatever). The rate of murders would probably have to be limited for obvious reasons, probably once every 2 weeks.

There'd need to be restraints to keep something like this going steady, I'm going to say the following would be fair:

1. Your character doesn't know what you know. They know what they know.

2. No powergaming (or: The This Isn't Starving Artists Rule). Your character isn't a superhuman (or supernatural in any way). And while your comic entries can have other characters supporting, talking to you and performing actions, you should try and make those actions appropriate for that character. Try and be realistic. The exception to this is the murderer, who is assumed to be a competant killer and can get away with killing people's characters.

3. Cliffhangers are good. Dictating the plot is fine, we'll all be doing that. But dictating it to the point where other characters don't get an input into what you're doing to them is bad. Therefore it'd be necessary to leave things open ended to give others a chance to mix things up a bit.

Eg. You've cornered the murderer and have decided to fight him. You draw a knife your character picked up earlier and move to stab him.

GOOD: The last panel shows you moving towards him with the knife raised, giving him the decision of whether you hit or not.

BAD: You stab him repeatedly, kill him and declare yourself King of Spain.

This probably all sounds really pushy and arrogant. However, I'm just looking at trying to make this as fair and maintaining a semblance of seriousness.

This thread it basically an attempt to guage interest, the feasibility of my idea and suggestions for potential settings.

Posted at 2:03PM, Mar. 5, 2006

Hey, this sounds like it could be pretty fun! I might be sort of busy in the upcoming month, but I can try and participate!

Posted at 3:03PM, Mar. 5, 2006

Now this, this could be interesting. Quite different from most of the community projects. I`m up for it. Yes.

.: Myxomatosis :.