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Morning,

I recently began running a campaign with my usual gaming group where the PCs are Police Officers, not normal beat cops but detectives who deal with the super powered / aliens, they want to have more of a crime solving feel to it all. bit of background, heroes unlimited, more future tech bordering on aliens unlimited.

Has anyone here ran that type of campaign before? How were you able to add in clues without making it feel too obvious or that you were leading the PCs too much?

I have not run a forensic/detective style campaign. If I were going to, I would probably watch a hundred or so hours of Law & Order (which I enjoy anyway) and crib clues from it. I'd steal story-lines and NPCs wholesale from the show, but I'd also evaluate the different tasks that the characters on the show perform to gather evidence (skill checks for investigation, forensics, interrogation, etc.) and what factors increase or reduce the difficulty (cleaning up the crime scene, people lying, coincidental passers by that can be misidentified as the perp, etc.).

Panomas wrote:You might try Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files" for ideas too-

Seconded. And there is a lot of literature out there along the same lines.

As for how I have handled similar situations, I look to the Star Trek games I have run (very high on the tech scale) or the Rifts games. Super powers, psionics and magic can be opposed by the same. High technology makes gathering evidence easy, unless the bad guy has it too. For the most part, it comes down to how the characters handle the investigation and where you decided the bad guy slipped up enough for them to get that one piece of evidence that puts them on his trail.

Another good show to watch would be Dexter. It shows how a smart killer (who happens to be in forensics) can cover his tracks well.

Some anime shows like A.D. Police, Angel Cop, Appleseed, or Ghost in the Shell might help if you're looking for a hi-tech angle. They may be a bit action heavy for what you're looking to do, but there is some good material in there as well.

Thanks for the tips guy.

I am a bit of a law and order junkie already so it is helping a bit.

My first adventure I ran they tracked down a pirate vessel and disrupted pirate activities in the area. Next I am thinking attempting to run a kidnap scenario, followed by tracking down who was the real force behind the pirates.

Trying not to do the weekly murder mystery theme and mix it up a bit.

Mix in some political intrigue from the "district attorney" and inter-office drama from NPC cops. Run multiple cases that appear to be independent (or connected) on the surface, but aren't. Or embrace the episodic nature of the cop drama and don't worry about becoming predictable. As long as everyone is having a good time, that's all that really matters.

Well I was going to say most of the examples everybody else already gave, so I will stress the episodic nature of the sessions. Oh I don't remember if anybody mentioned the show Bones. Take out the cheesey underlying romance tones, and you can get some good stories. I like to do my game sessions in an episodic fashion. It lets me almost always complete a story during a session, even with all the usual BSing that happens during game night, and allows me to go on even if somebody doesn't show. Works great when players are in a military unit, but would also work for a cop campaign.