A Question Of Agency?

[Fenris-77]

@Fenris-77 That's an impressive piece of work. I didn't work things out in anything like that much detail, at least not before I started. I think that whatever layers emerged at my table came from answering questions from one session while prepping the next.

Its really just a mind map and some point form notes. I just already knew I needed faces, places, movement, and physical clues. Once you start I find new ideas tend to pop up as an organic part of the process.

 

[Fenris-77]

Also, the random clue tables can be a life saver because they can be used in any other location that makes sense, should the players go off script.

 

[aramis erak]

Now, the 'CSI RPG' I mentioned before (is there one?)

I've not seen one tied to the CSI lineage of TV shows, but...

There are a bunch of games where the process of solving mysteries is a major expected avenue of play...
Including L5R, Crime Fighters (the late 80's one from TFG), Dresden Files, and Call of Cthulhu, amongst dozens of others.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I've not seen one tied to the CSI lineage of TV shows, but...

There are a bunch of games where the process of solving mysteries is a major expected avenue of play...
Including L5R, Crime Fighters (the late 80's one from TFG), Dresden Files, and Call of Cthulhu, amongst dozens of others.

Yeah, I was just thinking of a format where there is ongoing solutions of cases or something. That would make 'solve this specific mystery' not so big of a deal. I would point out that many games that have had mysteries as an integral part have actually had NO real solution for how to handle them. CoC is a poster child for this, it is really no help at all. The rules are actually more in the way than helpful. Never played or read L5R, but what I understand of it is a pretty classic 90's RPG. Likewise no knowledge of Crime Fighters. Dresden Files is based on SotC is it not? I'd hope that it can basically handle this in a Story Now sort of sense.

 

[Aldarc]

So this is an interesting look at it. And it kind of raises a question in my mind. And this is just something that popped into my head reading the above, I don't mean this as a question specifically for you, @Bedrockgames , though I am interested in your take, too!

How does a player feel like Sherlock Holmes? How do we try to portray that in play?

There's the idea with this kind of mystery that there is information that's been intentionally obscured, and Holmes is going to find it, right? That's kind of the essential element.

Is the best way portray that in a game to be to try and replicate it? By that I mean, have the players be searching for the clues that are hidden in hope of finding them?

Or is there some other way? Because to be honest, Holmes stories sometimes require major intuitive leaps made by the character because he is a fictional character allowed to make those leaps......it's all the product of one author, and so Sherlock can make these crazy proclamations and he seems amazingly intuitive and observant. But it's all artifice.

I would think that trying to replicate that would either see the players fall short because their crazy intuitions will not likely be right, or the mystery itself would be simple in comparison to those of the kinds Holmes tends to get involved with.

Would that still make for an engaging game? Very possibly.

Or would it feel more Holmesesque if the players had some kind of ability to steer things beyond simply finding what's there? Would that feel more like Holmes?

If we think of his deductions as being class abilities and Doyle as his player......maybe there's a case for approaching mysteries in another way.

Not that I have any idea how you would do that. But just some thoughts.

The problem is, for a lot of players this isn't actually solving the mystery, this is helping to write a mystery story. Which is fine, but it isn't what someone who wants to have a go at the challenge of being a detective is looking for. And in such a case, I think having a concrete mystery external to the player is crucial. That said, it shouldn't mean there is only one way to solve. There may be one true event that occurred, but there ought to be many paths to arrive at the truth of that event, and the GM should be open to pathways that would realistically yield clues to the truth (even if the GM has not foreseen those pathways). In this sort of scenario, the GM is basically doing his or her best to run a holodeck Sherlock Holmes scenario for Data. If the GM just allows Data's theory, even if it is wrong, to become the truth, it isn't really beating the challenge (and players in this style want to genuinely win or genuinely lose)

I would possibly consider something akin to a solo play of Clue with the various cards regarding perpetrator, weapon, motive, etc. being selected face down and then placed away in a sleeve. Maybe something akin to Ironsworn could work, though with "solving mysteries" rather than "fulfilling oaths." You could then set up "easy," "medium," and "hard" mysteries that require various effort to solve.

Dresden Files is based on SotC is it not? I'd hope that it can basically handle this in a Story Now sort of sense.

Yeah, it's the Fate engine. There was a Dresden Files RPG that I believe used something closer to the SotC rules, but Dresden Files Accelerated is comparatively lighter, using the Fate Accelerated engine, but with the added complexity of playbook-like Mantles.

 

[Lanefan]

Yes, but there are difficulties. The 'walls' of this 'maze' are invisible, which is a big problem. I have a section in my 'classic dungeon' where there is a whole sub-level with invisible walls (they also shock you if you touch them, just to be even meaner). Nobody gets through that. Trying to navigate that stuff is just super nasty. There are almost no landmarks, it is hard to orient, even if you invent some tricks to (partially) map it.

Side question: is this invisible shock-maze something you designed yourself, or did you get it from a published source?

I ask because as a player I've met something very similar; which means if you designed your version yourself then you and my DM must share a hive mind or something.

 

[pemerton]

If someone was shot in the street, and I have two witnesses who are in custody who are the noted clue bearers for the attackers identity or description, but my players decide instead to go to every single house and see who saw something (and I think to myself, yeah, I guess somebody would have seen something----I live on a street with houses and look out the window when something sounding like gunfire makes a noise), I think it is reasonable and fair to say they can get the information from this path rather than going to the suspects in custody.

In resolution structure, how is that different from the AW or DW moves which oblige the GM to answer a question like What here is not what it seems? or Who is in charge here?

The players are making a move that obliges the GM to author new fiction that answers a question the players have posed.

 

[Bedrockgames]

In resolution structure, how is that different from the AW or DW moves which oblige the GM to answer a question like What here is not what it seems? or Who is in charge here?

The players are making a move that obliges the GM to author new fiction that answers a question the players have posed.

i don’t know AW enough, so you may have to answer that. But this is just a pretty standard GM technique. Perhaps it is more formalized in AW. so possibly the difference is in the formal ways moves operate in those games. The one possible difference I see is in my situation the GM is working if the facts established about the mystery and answering as logically as possible when the players go into unexpected territory or take unexpected action. But a question like what here isn’t what it seems appears more likely to be changing material of the mystery that wasn’t there before (not sure, just going by what the question suggests). Not sure why it would matter here though if they are similar or the same

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I would possibly consider something akin to a solo play of Clue with the various cards regarding perpetrator, weapon, motive, etc. being selected face down and then placed away in a sleeve. Maybe something akin to Ironsworn could work, though with "solving mysteries" rather than "fulfilling oaths." You could then set up "easy," "medium," and "hard" mysteries that require various effort to solve.

Yes, but interestingly you don't 'solve a mystery' in Clue. There is actually no explanation of what the clues are. In fact, amusingly Clue has no clues at all! You simply reveal cards without the slightest explanation of how the investigation is carried out, or what it consists of. Why is it not possible that Mr Mustard did it in the Study? We have no idea, this is not addressed. So Clue is not a model for a mystery game at all, and in fact it is a pretty silly game with as much sophistication as Tic, Tac, Toe when you get right down to it.

I don't really see how Ironsworn helps much either. It is a thoroughly narrativist game in which the players invent the fiction, or else it is generated via 'oracles'. The 'fulfilling oaths' part is a structured set of GOALS that the players, through their PCs, construct, but the rules don't really address how you achieve them, except through the mechanics of play. It is in these actual mechanics that a pure mystery story game would have to deal with a mystery. In order for that game to achieve success by the criteria of the 'traditional' non-narrativists in this discusion it would have to involve a fixed answer to a mystery which can only be revealed by either specific player declarations "I search the dresser." or mediated through skill checks which resolve those actions "I do a thorough search and roll an X on my Search skill check."

Frankly, I don't see that the above approach will ever avoid the pitfalls of "its too simple" or "its too complicated." Any given mystery MIGHT manage to fall in the 'sweet spot', but that spot is going to be different for every set of players and GM. So writing one would be pure hit and miss. Thus any rules which would produce reliable success at a session would need to 'calibrate'. However, the mere fact of that calibration is anathema to some, as it implies a game architecture in which there is some roughly fixed overall probability of success which doesn't map too closely to the approach taken by the players. This undermines any goal of building a system where the players both reliably enjoy solving a challenging mystery, AND feel like solving said mystery was a genuine challenge and not a pretense.

For these reasons I conclude that the most sensible design paradigm for such a game (or subsystem of an existing game if you will) would be a narrativist approach, a kind of Story Now in which the focus was moved from purely "can we follow the clues and solve the mystery" to some kind of social and psychological, or political/other implications and ramifications arise in the course of trying to solve this particular mystery. I think we've already discussed some examples of such story lines.

Yeah, it's the Fate engine. There was a Dresden Files RPG that I believe used something closer to the SotC rules, but Dresden Files Accelerated is comparatively lighter, using the Fate Accelerated engine, but with the added complexity of playbook-like Mantles.

Ah, given that I was never really sucked into that whole genre much I guess I never knew there were TWO different RPGs covering the same IP. I remember the earlier SotC based one as being favorably received. I've never played any SotC-based games, but I did read through the core rules way back when. It seemed like a fairly reasonable system core for this kind of thing.

I'm thinking that a PbtA might work pretty well too. You could spin that a few different ways. Focus on the social conflicts, on the 'police procedure' aspect, or perhaps on the internal mental state of the 'detective' (ala a lot of 'film noir' detective pictures). I'm sure there would be other possibilities as well that would work with a playbook centered system like that. It sounds like the 'playbook-like Mantles' you mention would be pretty suitable to this kind of psychological 'grey area' sort of game.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Side question: is this invisible shock-maze something you designed yourself, or did you get it from a published source?

I ask because as a player I've met something very similar; which means if you designed your version yourself then you and my DM must share a hive mind or something.

Yeah, I invented it, it is in a huge dungeon that is 'explained' as "Ancient ruined dwarf city that various squatters have hacked on." I guess one was a particularly sadistic evil wizard... I don't recall an inspiration from other material for this part. I also don't tend to read a lot of modules/dungeons since I like making up my own stuff, so I am not sure where I would have gotten an idea for it. Anyway, it was definitely something I invented before about 1994, since it was part of at least one 2e campaign I ran with people I lived with back then.

I also doubt anyone copied it from me. A bunch of people have had the pleasure of stumbling into that maze, but I don't think any of them have gone to the trouble of publishing any RPG material, nor writing about it, etc. There is one person on EnWorld that was in the 4e campaign where it featured, though I don't think she's very active these days.