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Ruling Out Extra Evidence

Lily Keene
Lily Keene

Mar-11-2023 11:36

If you have a case with multiple pieces of physical evidence (say 3) and you discover 2 of those belong to suspects with real alibis, does it mean that the 3rd piece of evidence MUST belong to the killer?

(I'd found a chart for pieces of evidence/difficulty of case, i.e. 2/Easy, 2/Intermediate, 3/Hard, 3/Really Hard, 3/Really Really Hard, 4/All Others,)

So if I use the above chart to make sure I've found every evidence available, am I able to conclusively say that the last piece of evidence has to belong to the guilty suspect?

To further clarify, I'm to the point where I have enough skills to sometimes know if a hair is curly or straight, for example, but not enough skills to keep all my suspects/townies from clamming up before I can get their alibis. Trying to figure out if I can use deductive skills in cases like these where the alibi is unknown but it would make logical sense for it to be this suspect.

Replies

Lady Jas
Lady Jas
The Chosen One

Mar-11-2023 11:51

There are 3 rules in this game. As soon as you have one of these you can accuse:

PE + false/stated no alibi = GUILTY!
WE + false/stated no alibi = GUILTY!
2 WE = GUILTY!

A clam is NOT the same as a no!

Lily Keene
Lily Keene

Mar-11-2023 12:25

I'd been able to find those rules, I just can't find a conclusive answer for the evidence question.

Can we assume that if you've found all evidence on a case, one of those pieces of evidence belongs to the killer?

Or is it just a percentage chance that a clue will belong to one of your suspects, and they may or may not be guilty?

I know you can't count on PE + WE if you don't know alibi. This is more of wondering if the game definitely assigns one PE to the killer every case.

and if you've found all PE for a case, and ruled out the other PE, and aren't able to determine the alibi of say 2 suspects but the last remaining PE can only belong to one of them, does that mean that one suspect has to be guilty?

Or is it more random than that, and the only absolute given rules are those 3?

Felix Fances
Felix Fances
Pinball Amateur

Mar-30-2023 07:18

My understanding is that one piece of physical evidence will match a guilty suspect (someone with fake/no alibi).

I don't think there are any cases where all of the physical evidence will be for innocent suspects, which is what I think that you're asking.

Cro Magnon
Cro Magnon
The Tome Ranger

Mar-31-2023 13:51

First of ... you seem tot think that cases above the level of really really hard always have 4 pieces of evidence. This is not true.

If you have the basic detection skills (hair/thread/handwriting/footprint) you will always know how many pieces of evidence there are when you check the crime scene. You will however not always know the specifics like straight/curly hair etc.

Always check with the fortune teller if you have a complete list of suspects.

Then if you were able to identify 2pieces of evidence to someone with a real alibi you can safely assume the 3rd piece belongs to the killer. Provided of course you have all the detection skills.

Cordelia Falco
Cordelia Falco
Battered Shoe

Apr-4-2023 09:56

Agree with Cro.

RRH cases and above will have either 3 or 4 pieces of evidence. One of them - and only one - will always belong to the killer.

This is one of the reasons I enjoy this game: you can use logic and deduction to narrow things down. For example, if I'm doing an IH case I know that I'll either have 8 or 9 suspects, and 3 or 4 pieces of PE. If it's a case where there are 8 suspects, I know that three of them will have true alibis, and the rest false. If there are 8 suspects and 4 pieces of PE, I also know that everyone with a true alibi will have a piece of PE - because there's only ever one piece of PE which belongs to the killer. I call these 'minimum' and 4' cases - the minimum number of suspects, and 4 bits of PE. Sometimes in these cases there's only one piece of PE that someone with a true alibi can have, so it saves you having to ask about it. On rare occasions it also saves having to check an alibi - if it's not possible for someone to have a piece of PE, given their handedness/hair type/weight/gender, then you know they must have a fake alibi.

Lily Keene
Lily Keene

Apr-8-2023 21:38

Thank you all so much! That is really helpful.


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