Scenario and setting design, with GM and players in mind

[Lanefan]

It sounds weird, but I feel like you have to learn that "false information" is a particular kind of trope in the game your playing before you are attentive to these things.

I kind of agree, only I don't at all mind if that learning process is done via in-fiction trial and error.

So if I play with new players, or new players to a given system, I'll just 'metagame' comment on what happened in a scene in some way. But also I'm not exactly a thespian, so I'm likely not conveying a lot of things in any given npc interaction.

Fair enough.

Some systems allow rolls to see through deception; even if the players haven't picked up on it there's nothing stopping a GM from secretly making such a roll on behalf of the PCs (this to cover over one's lack of thespianism, which despite my best attempts I too much of the time also suffer from) and if successful slipping in an aside to one or more of the players that something isn't sitting quite right here.

 

[Lanefan]

This is so obviously true that I'm disappointed you needed to say it. (And it needed to be said!) There are a lot of investigative scenarios for various games out there that explain in full to the GM what's going on, but so much of it is going to remain hidden to the players that I can't help but think, "What's the point?"

The point is to cover eventualities and what-ifs in an open-ended scenario, as there's no way of knowing how the players/PCs are going to approach any given case or to what degree of detail they're going to follow up on any given element.

The author may have provided several different means of solving the case; that your particular group of players/PCs only needed one or two of them doesn't make the rest a waste, as a different group of players/PCs might follow a completely different path to the solution. The author has to account for all these*.

What you're suggesting seems analagous to a street map only showing the roads you're in fact going to drive on, instead of all the roads that everyone might want to use.

* - oddly enough, your quote above is the reverse of a frequent complaint of mine regarding traditional dungeon design; namely that many adventure authors don't go nearly deep enough into the what-ifs and thus leave the GM hanging if-when the players/PCs do something unexpected.

 

[Lanefan]

What's the point of that? What does it bring to the RPGing experience?

A sense, perhaps, of things not always being as they seem.

How are the players involved in the revelation?

In-character they have done something (or maybe numerous somethings) that has brought them to this point. Sometimes the reveal might be a direct result of their actions i.e. the reveal is or contains the specific info they were seeking, other times it can be a sidebar learned en route to trying to discover other things.

Why, over the last few years, has the Emperor become steadily more unpredictable in his rulings and actions? The GM knows. The players/PCs, however, will only find out if they specifically dig into it (i.e. take on as an adventure or mission the job of investigating what's going on with the Emperor). Otherwise, they might find out somewhat later if someone else does the digging and it becomes public knowledge, or they might never find out at all.

And the players/PCs may or may not care about any of it. For all I know it could just be background colour for them. That doesn't mean I'm not going to mention it now and then when appropriate.

Yes there can.

How? Thinking here of a situation where none of the players knew in advance what was coming nor had any hand in setting it up. How can there be a reveal without there being anything secret to reveal?

 

[John Dallman]

We can start with a precept - in an RPG, secrets that don't come out aren't of any value. They are pages the author wrote, but didn't publish.

Beg to differ. Facts about a setting that shape how it responds to the PCs are of value, even if the players never learn them. They make it easier for the GM to achieve verisimilitude, and thus make it easier for the players to relate to the setting, because it makes sense to them.

 

[pemerton]

Facts about a setting that shape how it responds to the PCs are of value, even if the players never learn them. They make it easier for the GM to achieve verisimilitude, and thus make it easier for the players to relate to the setting, because it makes sense to them.

I see far too much arbitrariness in plot summaries in pre-written adventures. The enemy bad guy is the love child of a vampire and a succubus, but the vampire kept pigs and so his offspring are vulnerable to bacon: it pretends to be 'logic' but it's actually completely spurious.

These two posts are in contradiction with one another. I think I agree with @chaochou.

 

[Umbran]

Beg to differ. Facts about a setting that shape how it responds to the PCs are of value, even if the players never learn them. They make it easier for the GM to achieve verisimilitude, and thus make it easier for the players to relate to the setting, because it makes sense to them.

If the players do not know those facts about the setting, those facts do not help the setting make sense. Those facts being secret create a gap, the crossing of which will seem arbitrary until that gap is filled in.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think the duplicitous NPCs should be treated like traps are in many games, as a hazard that is telegraphed in play. As mentioned upstream I don't think there's a lot of value in undisclosed secrets in RPGs.

 

[hawkeyefan]

In a game or campaign which all takes place in a single city this is great. Love it!

Not all - in fact I'd posit rather few - games/campaigns are like this, however. Many, following the LotR precedent, involve a fair amount of travel; and discovery of things as the PCs move from one locale to another. Few if any GMs will have several full nations detailed to the extent one can a single campaign-encompassing city.

Considering that the landscapes we’re talking about are fictional, I don’t know if the size of the setting (like a single city versus a galaxy) matters all that much. The amount of physical detail a GM has at his disposal for a single city could match the amount of physical detail another has for an entire planet.

What’s important is that the characters seem like they exist in the same place as the city or the galaxy. That they’re a part of it and not separate from it. That you give them details or allow them to come up with details that support that idea.

Im my view there's no difference between "discover" and "reveal" in this instance, assuming that the revealing of information naturally flows from the players/PCs' taking actions to gather it.

Discovery is something done by the player. Revelation is something done by the GM. I think they’re significantly different, and I think the distinction is relevant to the idea of giving players levers to interact with.

 

[pemerton]

Discovery is something done by the player. Revelation is something done by the GM. I think they’re significantly different, and I think the distinction is relevant to the idea of giving players levers to interact with.

This is intriguing. Can you say more?

 

[MGibster]

The point is to cover eventualities and what-ifs in an open-ended scenario, as there's no way of knowing how the players/PCs are going to approach any given case or to what degree of detail they're going to follow up on any given element.

Very often I find that there isn't an obvious point in the scenario to introduce this knowledge and the scenario doesn't provide the GM with any tips on where or how this might happen.

If the players do not know those facts about the setting, those facts do not help the setting make sense. Those facts being secret create a gap, the crossing of which will seem arbitrary until that gap is filled in.

As a player, if I don't know and am unlikely to learn what's really going on, then who cares? If that man robbing the bank was actually mind controlled by space slugs but I never find out, then it may as well not be part of the setting at all.