Spy and Gossip to Catch a Killer in Solo RPG No-Tell Motel
Untangle a mystery and put your own safety on the line in this murder mystery RPG
Last night, one guest of the Stellar Motel killed another. No one knows who did it, and no one seems much interested in finding out.
No one except you.
In No-Tell Motel, the new solo TTRPG from the designer of the ENNIE Award-winning VOID 1680 AM, you take on the role of the overnight clerk at a sleazy motel on the edge of town. Saints and sinners alike frequent your establishment, and you observe their comings and goings to put together enough circumstantial evidence to finger the killer.
"I grew up near the Como Motel, a minor legend in the annals of true crime," said game designer Ken Lowery. "I wanted to pay tribute by making a sandbox of roadside motels that soured into something strange and darkly glamorous."
No-Tell Motel uses a standard deck of playing cards and a six-sided die to create the events and conflicts of your nightly shifts at the motel. The game includes art and motives for 16 NPCs, rules for randomly generating the victim and circumstances of their murder, and methods to create a web of gossip, histories and entanglements.
Crucially, No-Tell Motel introduces an element to give every playthrough an element of true danger: the possibility of getting it wrong.
"In No-Tell Motel, all your evidence is gossip, hearsay, stolen observation - it's all circumstantial," Lowery said. "And the longer your game goes on, the muddier the truth gets, the more likely it is you'll accuse the wrong person. Disaster almost certainly follows."
After concluding a successful crowdfunding campaign, No-Tell Motel is now available to the general public as a PDF. Pre-orders for the print edition are expected to ship by mid June.
