Quick one… here is the link to my new game!
Sweet Sad Song

So, I had this sort of crazy thought concerning they confusing nature of Noir plots. Hillariously enough, this line of thinking actually came about through the original challenge that I issued… which caused this duel (namely, creation of mystery plots with an ACTUAL answer that could be investigated without resorting to a centralized GM type figure)

As I see it, most Noir plots have so many twists and turns that it is almost silly to expect a single person to come up with them. Famously in ‘The Big Heat’, shooting ground to a halt because no one (Raymond Chandler included) could figure out who killed a particular character. So I thought to myself… self, you should let EVERYONE come up with plots (this is for detective noir specifically, for dramatic noir things are a little different).

So, I have this vision of people each creating one of a series of notecards at the beginning of the game… each divided into a specific set of categories, say:

• Suspects
• Motivations
• Connections (I’ll explain this one in a bit)
• Places
• Crimes
• Clues

For each card (with the exception of connections, which are a bit of a special case) the player should write a Name and assign it one to three notes (along with the standard Note Aspects… which I probably haven’t talked about yet) 

For instance, if I was writing a “Clue”, I might put on my index card:

“The Scent of Perfume” – Key Note: Sex; Chord Notes: Corruption

Characters CAN be suspects (there needs to be some benifit to entering into the whole shebang) and in a one-shot or traditional Noir story they will be (although they did not necessarily do it… in which case they should be entered as Red Herrings, see below) 

Once all the cards have been written, the players put them down in a series of seperate piles. Then they draw a card (preferably one that they didn’t write, but if they get shuffled up then that is okay) from each stack. Then they put their initials on the back of each of those cards. This represents a single line of ’cause’ and effect.

In ‘Clue’ terms – Through the Clues, we learned that Suspect did the Crime in the Location because of Motivation.

What about ‘Connections’? Well, I am imagining that once that is done, everyone will mix the cards up again and draw a whole new set. On the front of that card they will either write their initials or the initials of the person listed on the back of the card.

They will probably also create two new cards with JUST their initials on the front (or the initials of one of the other cards they have). These are red herrings.

Everything is placed back into their seperate piles.

The person who is playing bass (superficially he is sort-of the GM, but his main job is to force conflict, settle disputes, and keep things rolling rather than express creative control) then gives a general structure to the whole shebang by organizing how they are revealed and helping close up faulty interpretations.

Basically speaking, until you have ’solved the card’ (and flipped it over) investigative questions will be resolved by the person with initials on the front of the card. He can give you the truth or lead you to other cards.

Sounds confusing right? Well that is Noir for you.

I am thinking of allow characters with a high ‘Secrets’ score to be able to unravel some of this mess (by flipping cards)

So, it looks like I have a pretty firm version of the 7 intervals/notes (based, as you will note, on the seven deadly sins). The positive versions are much rougher but they are starting to come in as well:

• Line 1: Money (greed) / Soft Spot

• Line 2: Sex (lust) / Love

• Line 3: Violence (wrath) / Cool

• Line 4: Secrets (envy) / Innocence

• Line 5: Corruption (sloth) / Loyalty

• Line 6 Power (pride) / Law

• Line 7: Addiction (gluttony) / Hope

You’ll note that they are pretty much the same as the last version (dropping one and with some tweaks here are there) but I am generally happy with it.

Of course, I am note sure exactly what purpose these things serve on the character sheet… yet. I am kind of looking at a token system where depending on your raiting in each note, you recieve a number of tokens to do some modifications to the rules. I like that because I can allow attacks or temptations on one of those subject areas to result in the victim recieving more tokens.

 Other than that, I could do a whole note/half note/ fourth note/ sixteenth note system to indicate the character’s proficiency in that area and add that to any attempt to narrate results. Specifically if we are rolling with some sort of dice pool system, that very nicely seques into how many dice a character gets to roll 4/3/2/1.

Now to start thinking about those virtues…

Part of the problem, of course, is that the dark and bitter world of Noir provides so few positive virtues (especially in the male characters); so, things like “not being a criminal” end up practically making people saints *shrug*

 So, everything in this world (locations, characters, actions, the plot, everything) is going to be made up of a series of ‘positions/notes’ from those categories above. To broaden things a bit, each ‘note’ has a positive and a negative side (sharps and flats, respectively). Although I want to constrain the use of sharps… otherwise that should nicely constrain things within a Noir frame of mind.

Some other mechanical notes: I think I have hammered out the core of the music system… it is pretty wordy, so stay with me. So, the basic sheet has seven lines (we are counting the black lines as seperate white spaces) and they are labeled from A to G. On the left side is a colum where a counter can be placed indicated which note is the ‘key’ note.

Basically, the closer you are to the key note, the easier it is to play that particular note (whatever that note represents). However, part of the conflict (seperate from harmony and discord) will be the ability to change the key note… which in practice will change the availability of certain options. When changing the key, you will also have the ability to introduce sharps and flats by going into a ‘major’ or ‘minor’ version of the key (you can play those notes at any time, anyway… it is just easier to do so if they are placed on the scale).

I have eliminated the importance of positions on harmony and discord and have let the person who plays the bass note determine whether an element is contributive or destructive (and base the conflict on that). Otherwise, the rules concerning harmonious cords remains… ie. you are required to contain at least one note from the previous cord in the next one to remain harmonious. Otherwise you introduce discord (exactly as if you had played a discordant note in your original chord). Discord must always resolve into a harmonious cord.