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)