While thinking about it, I was wondering if a deduction system like clue was really the feeling I was looking for. I wanted to simulate a situation where:
You are doing your simple routine life activities when an event happen in the city. What is your reaction? What do you do? Do you go to the place to get more information, do you check the news, do you call one of your contacts, do you infiltrate the area, etc.
The idea behind deduction is to be able to find an answer without all the information. I don't mind having a bit of deduction in my game but I don't think it is the primary goal.
I think My goal would be more: Where can I find the information I need? As a library technician, I have learned a bit about searching procedures and I think it looks close to that: What kind of information do you need, where do you think is the best place to find it.
Here are some concepts related to information searching.
--- information source ---
This is the place where information can be found, according to the source, you will find various kind of information. For example, if you need information about recent events, you will check news paper and magazines. For my game I thought there could be:
Personal knowledge gained from the past experience
Public sources like newspaper
Private source like contacts
Direct location, go on place.
--- Information content ---
What kind of information do you want to find or did you get. For my game I thought about:
Information about past events
Information about future events
Information about somebody's activities
Information about somebody's ressources
--- Investigation method ---
The how would you acquire the information. Each method has it's own risk and will supply various kind of information. For my game I thougth of
Interrogation of people at a location where an event occured
Observation of a location where an event occured
Analysing information (to create deduction)
Infiltrating a suspicious location
Talk to contacts
etc.
This information system is an idea I could have used in a shopping game I once tought of. Buying the best thing at the lowest price is all a matter of information acquired by public sources (newspaper) or by searching the stores.
------------------------------
Mechanic wise, I am not sure how it would work. I would probably remove the deduction elements and players will probably need to collect clue cards and maybe match set of cards to get information.Only the final location would use deduction elements.
All information sources would be stacked differently making the player decide where it's best for them to search.
The main different with Arkham horror clue mechanics, is that all the clues are not the same, and you must decide where it's best to search to get the information you need for the goal you want. Else you'll end up with many clues that does not fit your objective or that simply does not match together to make any deductions. here is the interest to trade clues with other players.
----------------------------------
For the theme, there will be 1 master bad guy for the evil plan and 4 underlings which works for him. Capturing bad guy or blocking their activities will lower the ressource of the master bad guy which makes him les effective, but it does not completely break apart the master plan, it just makes it more difficult for the mastermind.
