Brindlewood Bay: The Jolly Bad Baking Show, final part

Part 1

Part 2 

Having been ushered away from the filming site the Maven opted to review the information they had gathered. 

There had a number of clues but the problem was fitting them into a coherent narrative. Rosemary and Margaret both came up with theories.

Rosemary' slightly outlandish theory was that the whole situation was a set-up by Sheriff Dalrymple, who was fed up with the Mavens showing him up all the time. He had gar as far as ensuring that all four of them had made it to the final of the show (which had admittedly been somewhat unlikely) and faking two murders and an attempted killing. Unfortunately, this theory did not explain why the trained medic Laura had not noticed that Paul Riviera was not dead.

The group were left with Margaret's more prosaic theory that Donna Riviera had plotted the entire thing to get rid of Paul, his ex-lovers (Scott and Melanie, the two contestants) and also to get a presenter job on the revamped show by getting Buck to shoot Timothy. Scott had been saved by Daisy noticing the deliberately frayed cable leading to his oven and Laura had saved Melanie. 

With the benefit of hindsight, this theory was not much less outlandish than Rosemary's. Nonetheless, Margaret went off to she the sheriff. He was unsure and reminded her of a case 120 years ago, when a local man had somehow escaped justice for murdering a dozen people despite the overwhelming evidence that he was guilty.

Eventually, he was persuaded and the suspects were gathered. Buck crumbled first, blaming Donna and it was fair to say that their affair was probably over. Donna was unable to run due to her stilettos but Buck tried to flee. However, he tripped over another stray cabled and they were both taken into custody. Luckily, the filming was in America rather than the UK, or else the HSE would have had a field day.

And thus, another mystery was solved. 

GM Notes:

I think this mystery went better than the first case I ran as everyone had a better idea what the game was about. We could have started a new Mystery but I thought we probably needed a bit of a break to recharge our batteries.

I we do continue at some point, then the Mavens will be invited to an event at the local museum.  

 

 

Brindlewood Bay: The Jolly Bad Baking Show, part 2

 Part 1

 The TV show continued with the cake round.

Rosemary made a Vietnamese cake to commemorate her husband’s death there (falling off a bridge while on holiday), Daisy made a version of her daughter-in-laws wedding cake, Margaret made a frightening black cake as a tribute to Paul Riviera and for some reason Laura made fish-cakes.

Margaret snooped around the tent and found a baking tray on a dresser to the side that was sprinkled with something odd. Spotting a nearby empty tub of rat poison she put two and two together but unfortunately was not quite careful enough and became a bit nauseous.

A makeshift judging team of Jane Leaf and the two presenters, Sue and Timothy, rated all of the maven’s cakes quite highly - Tim was especially impressed with Margaret’s got his cake, but in the end Daisy’s local baking rival, Melanie Blair, was judged to be the winner.

After filming ended, Laura and Margaret decided to question the other two contestants (Melanie and Scott) while Daisy decided to go back to investigate the tent. (Rosemary had gone home to sort out her phone)

Scott told Margaret that Paul’s wife Donna was apparently having an affair with Buck the cameraman but then Margaret’s nausea got worse and she had to visit the ladies restroom.

Meanwhile, Melanie started coughing up blood and collapsed. Luckily, she was saved by Laura’s medical training but a suspicious Sheriff Dalrymple arrived on the scene and misunderstanding the situation, arrested the maven.

Daisy entered the tent to search for more on the rat poison but only found a cake with “You’re next!” written in what she hoped was red icing. Still shaken from earlier events she retreated from the tent and finding everyone else gone, she decided to head home.

Laura managed to patiently explain the situation to the police who finally released her and drove her home.

Finally, Margaret had discovered she was locked in the restroom and everyone else seemed to have left for the night. Undeterred she attempted to escape via a small window. It seemed disaster would strike and that she would fall face first onto the concrete below but she was saved by a timely commercial break (for a local lumber merchant).

The next morning the mavens spent the morning reinvigorating themselves via their hobbies before heading back to do more investigating. This gave Laura the opportunity to remember she had picked up some paper that Melanie had dropped- it was the missing page from the cookbook.

Returning to the crime scene,  an eventful afternoon ensued talking to the cast and crew. Sue Mellon revealed that Melanie had asked her for money and a fairly fruitless discussion with Heath Hendricks, the producer, was interrupted by a commotion outside. In the excitement of leaving the production van, a smashed Britty award was spotted.

Margaret had been attempting to interview Timothy Boosh but just before he could reveal any useful information he was shot by persons unknown.

The police ushered the Mavens off-site for "their own protection" and they were left pondering what they had learnt.

TBC 

. 

 

Brindlewood Bay: The Jolly Bad Baking Show, Part 1

 Cast:

Rosemary, Margaret, Laura and Daisy

We started with Daisy received bad feedback on the Jolly Good Baking Show from judge Paul Riviera for serving him an underbaked pie which contained a live weasel with an eye in its mouth.  However, this just turned out to be a nightmare.

So after a bit of a cosy montage of the Mavens preparing for the show we moved onto the mystery. All the mavens had somehow made it to the televised final of popular British TV programme, "The Jolly Good Baking Show" and they were working through the pie round.

A pear, walnut and blue cheese pie

Daisy's Pork and Apple pie was obviously a triumph (as baking is her cosy move) but Rosemary's pumpkin pie also went down well with the judges due to the large amount of rum included. Unfortunately, Margaret's custard pie had a soggy bottom and was deemed to be a bit of a disaster even though judge Jane Leaf said the fruit preserve was delightful. Finally, Laura's fish pie was also marked down because she had missed the brief that it was meant to be a fruit pie.

Cast, crew and contestants broke for lunch but then disaster struck. Paul Riviera had been found dead in his trailer by producer Heath Hendricks . After a bit of snark about which person's pie had killed him it was determined that he had been murdered by person's unknown. Most of the crew had left the site for lunch, taking Daisy's pork and apple pie with them.

The suspects plus the late Paul Riviera (from the Brindlewood Bay card and dice set)

The mavens sprung (as much as elderly ladies can) into action. Laura grabbed her medical bag as an excuse to examine the corpse. It appeared Paul had been poisoned despite also being tied up and his face covered in flour. She was then ushered from the trailer until the authorities arrived.

Margaret went to the perimeter to determine that the local police force, led by Sheriff Dalrymple had done a surprisingly competent job of keeping people out of the site, limiting the suspect list to the remains judge, two presenters, the contestant, the producer, a cameraman and Paul's wife Donna.

Rosemary went to comfort Donna, who seemed to be taking events in her stride although in need of a stiff drink of cooking sherry plus a ciggie. 

Finally, Daisy went to check on the main marquee, where she found cameraman Buck setting up some establishing shots. Looking around she found that one of the electrical cables in the tent looked dangerously frayed.

She then moved off to the judge's tent but upon entering a mysterious figure attempted to push a dresser on her before fleeing the scene. Visibly shaken she was comforted by Jane Leaf who also revealed that Paul had been putting in unreasonable contract demands that was putting the future of the series in doubt.

Rosemary attempted to find more information about Paul using her phone but it ran out of charge.

Margaret had arrived at the scene of the crime with Sheriff Dalrymple. She scouted around the trailer and discovered an abandoned recipe book. It was authored by Jane and Paul but one of Paul's recipes was missing.

Heath had wandered off but was eventually found to allow Laura to view the outtake footage. He was slightly suspicious of her motives and insisted the Sheriff accompanied her. It seemed despite the perceived friendliness of the show, there was a lot of needle between various cast and crew members.

At that point is was time for the final round of the show (hey, if they won't stop cooking shows due to sexist behaviour of the hosts, why stop when one dies. Plus think of the ratings!). So the bakers prepared for the cake round.

To be continued... 

Part 2

 

Day 7: Journey

 It’s better to travel hopefully than to arrive.

Whoever said that obviously never had to use a rail replacement service bus or had to commute to work.

Let’s face it most journeys are tedious and soul destroying . So that’s another thing that The One Ring gets right with its journey rules.

Otherwise, it’s best to decide on some events for a journey and leave it at that.

In case you had t realised, I don’t really like travelling.

Day 6: Motive

As every amateur detective knows, any scenario needs three things: means, opportunity and motive.

Means: the actors and resources that are in place to challenge or aid the characters.

Opportunity: where and when the scenario occurs, i.e. the setting and timeline.

Motive: why is all this happening? What will happen if the players don’t go blundering through like bulls in the china ship.

Not a bad little theory that I’ve knock up in 5 minutes….

Day 5: Ancient

 What would RPGs be without ancient things?

There’s hardly any games where Ancients don’t feature… Twilight 2000? James Bond?

But otherwise, Sci-Fi (Twilight’s Peak), Fantasy (lost shrines, hidden valleys, dread isles, stupidly long histories), Horror (most stuff for Cthulhu) - Ancients have  been there since the hobby started.

Let’s face it, investigating places or finding things or fighting things that are hundreds,  thousands or even millions of years old is what drives many great adventures. 

As an aside this also reminds me of the bit in one of the new Star Wars films where Han says it’s all true, like it wasn’t just 30-odd years ago. Thatcher, Reagan, Deeley-Boppers… it’s all true…

And of course ancient civilisations feature in my favourite D&D adventure Night’s Dark Terror.

Plus ancient things make me feel less old…

Day 4: Message

This prompt reminds me of the message the players get near the end of Shadows over Bogenhafen, which takes them to the man who tells them what’s going on and where to go, thereby rendering all the investigations they have done so far rather pointless.

Otherwise, I've not got much for today's prompt.