Phryne Fisher in an RPG? Or CYOA?

September 24, 2015 11:08 AM

Where would you go for an interactive experience in the world of Phryne Fisher, or something like it? The only licensed Phryne Fisher game I know of is the Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries Cluedo variant, which I haven't sought out, as it's not what I'm thinking of (though I probably will play it one day).

I was thinking about this partly due to watching Season 3 right now, and partly from a post on the blue a few weeks back. Ideally I'd like a Phryne Fisher CYOA, an Infinity Engine CRPG, or something in that vein. A licensed Phryne Fisher game would be lovely, but I'd be interested to know of anything with even a bit of the feel.

If there are homebrewed pen & paper RPG materials floating around, I'd be happy to hear about and read them, too, either as standalones or as mods for existing systems. Though I don't game regularly anymore, I could easily see Miss Fisher-style adventure in a modified version of Call of Cthulhu, d20/OGL, etc. There are some options listed over at BoardGameGeek for Australian RPG settings, but none of them feel quite right.

posted by cupcakeninja to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (5 answers total)

I have talked with friends about this but have never actually gotten around to trying it, but this is exactly the sort of thing that I think could be played well with The Window, a system that's deliberately intended to be pretty loose/flexible and more about storytelling than anything else. I have also heard of people using adapted rules from either FATE or World of Darkness with better results than d20 for things that are more story-based, but that's the sort of thing that I usually leave to the kind of person who'd prefer to spend more time designing the system than actually playing it.
posted by Sequence at 12:11 PM on September 24, 2015

If you want to roll your own Pen&Paper RPG, you might want to start with GUMSHOE. They have liberally licenced System Reference Document that you can download.
posted by fings at 12:22 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

I tried Googling around for 1920s detective flapper RPG (and, just in the off chance, Phryne Fisher RPG), but it doesn't look like there's anything quite like that out there. You might need to homebrew something if you ever intend to play it.

I was actually going to suggest Call of Cthulhu before I even read the end of your post. I don't think I've ever played it in a Lovecraftian horror setting--we've only ever played investigation scenarios using the 1920s skill set character sheet. It looks like those are free on Chaosium's website, though you have to sign up for a store account.

The modification should be as simple as only using characteristics, hit points, and investigator skills, and ignoring magic and sanity points. I feel like the investigator skills should be sufficient for PCs to navigate the game; you or whoever is GMing would have to come up with a mystery scenario of course. Something involving kidnapping, piloting, communists, navigating high society parties for favors/hints, and so on. You might want to create some new skills for the list that are specific to Australian flappers and communist cabbies; maybe something that involves social navigation, or you could probably just roleplay that.

I dunno, that might be too loose though, and would probably leave a lot up to the GM. The Window and GUMSHOE that Sequence and fings suggested may be more suitable. I wish I had something more definitive to suggest. I really hope you succeed in finding or making something. Phryne Fisher is great; that setting would make for a great RPG for sure.
posted by branduno at 7:32 PM on September 24, 2015

I found some other possible candidates -- there's a GM-less 4-6 player RPG called "A Taste for Murder", which is set in 1930s English country house, not 1920s urban Australia, but sounds fun, kind of Fiasco-ish.

But looking up things about that lead me to another game, "Wicked Lies & Alibis", advertised as "Whodunit roleplaying in the age of Art Deco."

The twist in that game is that The Great Detective (such as Poirot or Miss Fisher) is an NPC, and the players are all possible suspects.
posted by fings at 8:38 PM on September 24, 2015

Response by poster: Thank you, all! I hadn't heard of most of these, so they look like excellent fodder for the quest.
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:22 AM on September 25, 2015