ESCAPE THIS PODCAST Game Master’s Notes The notes below are a guide for game masters. They contain all required information to run the specified room, including: All room items All puzzles and solutions All correct (and some incorrect) player actions Full room introduction and conclusion Additional notes and tips Do not read these notes if you intend to play the escape room; there are spoilers everywhere. These notes are for people playing the rooms with friends, family, enemies or strangers. These notes are not to be used to create recordings, videos, or other media featuring the escape room. If you want to use these notes to make something cool or creative, please send us an email at [email protected] to let us know. These notes are free. If you paid money to obtain these notes, someone was being very rude to you. I’m so sorry. 1 The bar Notes If it comes up – and it well might – players do NOT have their own phones during this room. Our special Patreon donor for this episode is Scott Weiss, who has very generously elected the wonderful Molly to take his place as a character in the room. But because I have this power, Scott, you can have a tiny cameo, too. Thank you so much for your support. [Secret GM note: the pool table puzzle means your players' maps will be VERY important. If you want, it mightn't be the worst idea to draw one yourself they can reference.] Introduction You're tired. You're cold. You're a little bit wet – but that's just from the rain, thankfully. You've been sitting in this gutter for hours, your hands in cuffs, waiting for the police to let you go. It's totally unfair. They're clearly making an example of you. All you did was find yourself unable to get past the bouncers at Magnetic, the best bar in town, and decide that the best solution was to sneak around the back and 'accidentally' break a window and climb in through the bathroom. Okay, not your best idea. Especially since you know nothing about breaking windows properly and ended up getting stuck as you tried to clamber over glass shards. The police were called, and now you've been waiting for them to hand down your sentence for so long, the bar's closed. The policeman finally approaches you and tosses back your confiscated licences. He gives you the glare of a man who has seen this sort of thing so many times, he's almost annoyed at how predictable you were. “The breakage and the trespassing are going to come out to quite a hefty fine. Possibly even jail time if you have any priors. You don't, do you?” He eyes you suspiciously. After you respond, he pauses for a moment. “On the other hand, there is one way this could all go away. A favour for a favour. How would you like to do a little investigative work?” He explains what he means. Apparently, this bar, Magnetic, has staff that are suspected of being involved in the fencing of illegal goods. The evidence is all circumstantial but very damning. The police just need something concrete – the illegal goods themselves, recordings, proof of shady meetings, whatever. And they're certain the proof is somewhere inside the bar. Since this might be your only chance to get inside Magnetic, you agree. And this time, you don't have to go in through a window. The place is totally empty. You take a look around: you've entered through a door in the centre of the south wall, and directly to your left is a bin. Off in the near left corner is a pool table, and in the bottom right corner is a DJ booth. The upper left corner has a roped-off couch, a VIP 2 area. Between this couch and the pool table is a pinball machine and a dartboard. Against the centre of the north wall is a single table with empty glasses stacked on it. Most of the right wall is taken up by the bar, but towards the upper corner you see a box labelled 'lost'. Suspended from the ceiling in the very centre of the room is a disco ball. And finally, attached to each wall, you see a funny little black box. You aren't sure what it is, but it looks like something to do with lighting. Right as you're about to get started, the policeman's phone rings. He groans and says, “I have to take this. You... look around, but don't do anything stupid.” Stupid? You? Honestly. Observable items Bar: There's nothing of note on top of the bar except for a single coaster. It doesn’t move, like it’s been glued to the surface, but written on it you see the words, DRINK OF THE DAY. Underneath the counter are shelves packed with clean glasswear, and behind it is a cabinet with bottles of every kind of alcohol and non-alcohol you can imagine. Posted on the wall behind the bar is an enormous cocktail list. Bin: You take a look inside the bin. Surprisingly, there isn't any rubbish in here: what there is, is a stack of driver's licences. Confiscated for being fakes, maybe? Ah, yes: there's a piece of paper taped to the side of the bin that says, “Reminder: hold licence to bright light to test authenticity”. Well, you don't need a bright light to see that there are things wrong with these licences. Some have cartoons instead of photos, licence numbers without enough digits, birth dates in the 1700s... you're not surprised they got taken. On another note, there is one other item in the bin: a CD single of 'Stairway to Heaven'. Oh, wait; it’s just the case, not the CD itself. Black boxes: There are no identifying words or markers on these boxes at all. They're just plain, shiny black. If there's a way to get them open, you can't see it. All you have is your sneaking suspicion that they're related to lighting. Cocktail list: It's a huge list. There must be at least fifty drinks described here, with a full list of ingredients. It's not an instructional recipe for bartenders, just a rough guide for customers, so it doesn't go into detail about amounts of ingredients or anything. Here's an example: MANHATTAN Rye whiskey Sweet red vermouth Angostura bitters (Garnish: Maraschino cherry Optional rim: orange) Dartboard: It's a normal dartboard as far as you can tell, with several darts sticking out of it. The darts seem normal, except each one has 'cL' painted on it. [Show players supplementary dartboard image; GMs, be familiar with the scoring rules of darts.] Disco ball: This isn't one of those old school disco balls that just hangs from the roof and sparkles; sure, it is still mirrored so it will reflect, but it's also electronic. It 3 doesn't spin and properly shoot pretty lights unless it's turned on. DJ booth: It looks like a fancy yet idiotproof setup. Everything is labelled so you know exactly what each button, switch and dial does, and there's an input for anything from iPhones to USBs all the way to vinyl records. Taped to the front is a handwritten sign saying, “Sorry we can't play S2H. We've had complaints about backmasking.” [If players get truly stumped by what this means, you can hint or outright say that it's when a message is secretly recorded into a song and can be heard when it's played backwards. But it might be better to let them guess.] The one thing this station doesn't seem to have right now is music. Must be stored somewhere else, or the DJ must take it home every night. Whatever the reason, there's nothing here for you to play. Door: The door itself is normal, but there is one thing you didn't notice as you came in (because the door itself was in the way): on the wall right by its hinges, there's a small keypad of letters. You can't see what it controls. Empty glasses: There are about a dozen glasses littered over the table, all of them empty except for a few dregs and the little garnishes that you don't actually eat or drink, and the decoration around the rims (like, sweet drinks often have a sugar rim, but tequila often has a salt rim, or sometimes bartenders get creative and use chocolate or coffee or something). Lost box: Apparently the only thing that gets lost in this place is phones. There are dozens, dozens, of mobile phones lying in here. Pinball machine: Not only is it working, it's flashing a message of 'FREE GAME!' This is your lucky day! Pool table: It's s standard-sized rectangular pool table with six pockets (one in each corner and one each at the midpoints of the long sides), with all the different-coloured balls scattered across the surface. There are no cues in sight; you must have to pay to get those. VIP area: Until some cleaners get in here, you don't really want to be a VIP. This special area is just a single booth, and it's been very well used. It's dirty and sticky, the seats are scratched and worn, and there's a pile of used, scrunched-up napkins in the middle of the table.