The Plot Thickens: Detective Edition

It's an interesting system for quick story telling, but it's very dependent on your group and can be dependent on your memory. I've only played it at 3 chapters and feel like that is far too short as the first chapter everyone is establishing their own character/story, second chapter everyone's crossing over for the sake of "points?" and it's on the third chapter that a coherent story is found...which is also the end chapter in a short game. So you really need to play more chapters to get a good story going while too many chapters may also spawn a mess of nonsensical characters and places that becomes hard to fallow.

This can be a fun game under the right circumstances.

1. Obviously, you need creative minds around the table, but you also need people who can keep an eye on coherence.

2. I would have liked to see game mechanics that support an overall act structure by, for example, explicitly guiding players towards a) introducing their characters and settings, b) followed by the introduction of tension, c) rising tension and d) conflict resolution. Without game mechanics to support this, players can ramble on and on, adding more and more layers until you end up with a confusing mess.

3. I think it would have helped if in addition to the cards for places, persons and items, you have a deck of 'events'--which players only start drawing from in the third chapter. Something along those lines. I think I might house rule something like this.

Overall, it's a decent game with lots of potential, but I think it would benefit from a touch more polishing here and there. Oh! You need to add note books. It's vital that people keep track of names etc.