> I played in a partially free-form game at Contraption 1 where a group
> of Lunars and a group of Pavisites were independantly investigating the
> death of a merchant: he had been decapitated, and immediately (nearly)
> every player said "Thanatari!" We were criticised as, in the opinion of
> the people running the adventure, we were using player knowledge not
> character knowledege. I disagree: since Thanatar is a feared and hated
> cult, I would think most people would immediately link them to decapi-
> tations (in the same way that murders in which large amounts of blood
> are lost would be popularly attributed to Vampires).
The important thing to remember is that your characters could very well have been wrong:
o some old-fashioned Orlanthi are headhunters;
o an assassin might take a head as proof of success;
o a Humakti might decapitate his foe with a single blow.
So Thanatari are one of the suspects, perhaps an obvious one, but not the One And Only Suspect. Any rich merchant is going to have plenty of enemies, whether or not he deserves them. Likewise, you and I know that murders in which large amounts of blood are lost are not *necessarily* caused by Vampires.
If the scenario actually depended on players not suspecting that Thanatari might be responsible (or on the *characters* not expressing the *players'* suspicions, which is a far trickier thing to do), then IMHO it was flawed. You could introduce a workaround in any such situation:
o as GM, by having NPCs suggest alternative explanations. "The murderer must have wanted it to look like a Thanatari head-job, to distract us." "Did he ever trade with the Dinacoli? They used to be head-hunters..." "Could it have been the Cannibal Cult brain-eaters at work?" o as a player, by proffering them yourself: Lhankor Mhys should enjoy this especially. And it's usually more fun going "over the top" (in character) than trying to "solve" a problem: look at Tostig on Dwarfs!
If you're writing a Gloranthan murder mystery (something I'm trying my hand at soon), I imagine you'd need to make sure there are plenty of suspects, and also do something to prevent an irritatingly well-timed Detect Lie or Sense Chaos from scuppering the whole plot. Heaping suspicion on the effectiveness of such techniques would be a good start: we shouldn't insist that all murderers be Illuminates, when finding other ways to get around these skills and spells is More Game Fun. A scenario which falls down if one (reasonable or not; predictable or not) action is taken early on would be Not Much Fun.
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