Flashbacks and overlapping investigations

In The Dead Undead, I created a flashback. The investigation starts with a dead vampire, at which point I tell the PCs that this is very similar to an unsolved case a few weeks ago.

At which point we skip backwards in time and pick up that investigation. 

This worked really well – except the players forgot that this was an unsolved case. That was my fault – we played the flashback over a couple of sessions, and because the flashback was effectively no different to how we normally play, the players forgot that this was an unsolved case, and I had to remind them.

(Perhaps we should have played in black and white, or something.)

I’m thinking about this because the next case, The Orphan Room, also has a flashback. Or at least, it could have a flashback, and I’m thinking about how I want to run it.

(I suspect both investigations have flashbacks is because I started The Orphan Room ages ago, and while I was mulling it over, The Dead Undead dropped into place and I pinched the flashback idea from The Orphan Room.)

It takes me time to craft an Other London investigation, and so my regular group plays Other London only rather intermittently – between games of Kingdom, Good Society and more. So we do one investigation, then the next. And so on.

Overlapping investigations – probably a bad idea

Real life is rarely so ordered, and part of me would like to run an Other London game where the investigations overlap.

So the flashback from The Dead Undead occurs before (say), Murder of a Templar. And then the second murder in The Dead Undead occurs as Murder of a Templar is wrapping up. (And the flashback in The Orphan Room might even happen before all of that…)

But.

The problem with the flashback in The Dead Undead was that the players found the lack of leads frustrating. (Obviously, it didn’t help that they had forgotten we were playing a flashback. I should have reminded them.)

I suspect it would be equally frustrating if I started overlapping investigations.

We’re not good at leaving things unresolved, so there’s an inherent danger in trying this.

While unsolved cases are a feature of everyday policing, I can’t think of any examples in fiction. I’m sure there’s a reason for that.

So, I think for now, this remains an idea for the shelf.

I’d still like to do it, but it will need the right group of players. And I’ll explain what I’m doing – and hope they trust me enough to go through with it!