A Question Of Agency?

[AbdulAlhazred]

An answer everything here is exactly as it seems might be boring in many contexts, but in the context of solving a mystery might actually be helpful- and thus provide a +1 forward.

Yes, I agree. It is a different context. You might even make that argument now and then in DW itself.

In any event, in a mystery game of the sort Bedrockgames was describing we might be looking at different questions - eg he had the PCs asking the bystanders what they saw. This would be a version of what happened here recently?

Right, so maybe a move would be "Question the Witnesses". Another move might be "Analyze the Evidence" or something like that (for doing forensics or Holmes-style super acute observation). Then we get into the more nitty gritty details of how that would work, but we need to first establish the overall conceptual ground rules of our hypothetical game a bit better.

I think if this discussion were to go further it would have to, as I told @Aldarc, both establish a specific conceptual approach, and then get into the nitty gritty of an actual implementation.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Well, I think that's maybe unfair. A mystery only has so many pieces, and only so many clues that point in so many places. You can build some choice and agency into that scenario, but it differs from a lot of games because many possible player choices are counter to the desired player outcome, which is to solve the mystery. Maybe it's just that the term railroad has such a heavy negative load, and in this kind of scenario you need at least some linearity. Yeah, it might just be the term that irks me. Is it the case that every kind of plot that has linear elements, even if that's desire of all the parties at the table, needs to be labelled with a negative label, like there's something wrong with it? I'm not sure that's where we want to be. It stinks too much of badwrongfun for my tastes.

Also, players can ‘convict’ the wrong person in a mystery, they can fail to solve it, the murderer can start trying to murder other people (and their actions can impact the murderers behavior). An investigation isn’t a railroad just because it gets solved, it is only a railroad if the GM only allows for the outcome of it be to that they solve it. And I would even argue, given the premise of a mystery if people are playing in a way where solving us an expectation there is still plenty of space to freely move within that that it probably isn’t a real railriad. A railroad is ‘the adventure happens whether the players want it or not. If the players are fully engaged with the mystery, i don’t think it is a problem (whatever style of mystery one is running)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

As you present this, I find it hard not to see it as a railroad. That's not an objection as such, but does tend to push against the presence of player agency in play.

Right, but then you start to rub hard against the question about what sorts of 'agency' are compatible with each other. I mean, its a situation faced by the PCs. Sure, "all roads lead to Rome" but walking them is still the journey. I'm not saying RPG play must always be like this, as some seem to imply to a degree, but there may be times and places where that is going to get you your best mileage. Also, there might be a kind of middle ground. Suppose the motives and consequences of the action are all up for grabs in Story Now fashion, not determined up front, but the literal details of what happened are immutable. Then these 'meta-clues' would support this immutable element of the plot, but provide at least some of the opportunity to re-interpret things and put them into new contexts, which can be driven largely by the players.

I mean, I'm just brain storming really. Frankly I'm not good at mystery scenarios, so I am acutely aware of their pitfalls. I would want a system that had some firm 'guardrails' myself.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Also, players can ‘convict’ the wrong person in a mystery, they can fail to solve it, the murderer can start trying to murder other people (and their actions can impact the murderers behavior). An investigation isn’t a railroad just because it gets solved, it is only a railroad if the GM only allows for the outcome of it be to that they solve it. And I would even argue, given the premise of a mystery if people are playing in a way where solving us an expectation there is still plenty of space to freely move within that that it probably isn’t a real railriad. A railroad is ‘the adventure happens whether the players want it or not. If the players are fully engaged with the mystery, i don’t think it is a problem (whatever style of mystery one is running)

Yeah, I agree that it seems quite possible to provide other elements which take on the roles of player mediated degrees of freedom which would work for @pemerton and play out the central mystery part in a more fixed fashion.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Right, so maybe a move would be "Question the Witnesses". Another move might be "Analyze the Evidence" or something like that (for doing forensics or Holmes-style super acute observation). Then we get into the more nitty gritty details of how that would work, but we need to first establish the overall conceptual ground rules of our hypothetical game a bit better.

So the Bluecoats playtest for the Blades in the Dark system does some very interesting things along these lines. The Action Ratings....essentially Character Stats....for Bluecoats and Investigators are different than those of Scoundrels from the core game. So instead of Prowl and Skirmish and Consort, they have Actions like Patrol and Analyze and Subdue. It's an interesting distinction that helps shift the focus of play in a subtle way that supports the different approach.

The game functions in the same way, and has the same components like Stress and Pushing and so on, but the focus is different. So the Playbook Abilities are similarly altered. Rather than helping with being sneaky or cunning and other things that a scoundrel may need to be, the Playbook Abilities for the Bluecoats are based on diffusing a violent situation, or resisting the effects of skullduggery, or cutting through red tape.

The game is very investigation based, but I don't think that the expectation would be for a straight up whodunnit such as a Holmes story may offer. But I think there's likely some overlap, where elements from this game would work well in a game more specifically aimed at solving mysteries.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So the Bluecoats playtest for the Blades in the Dark system does some very interesting things along these lines. The Action Ratings....essentially Character Stats....for Bluecoats and Investigators are different than those of Scoundrels from the core game. So instead of Prowl and Skirmish and Consort, they have Actions like Patrol and Analyze and Subdue. It's an interesting distinction that helps shift the focus of play in a subtle way that supports the different approach.

The game functions in the same way, and has the same components like Stress and Pushing and so on, but the focus is different. So the Playbook Abilities are similarly altered. Rather than helping with being sneaky or cunning and other things that a scoundrel may need to be, the Playbook Abilities for the Bluecoats are based on diffusing a violent situation, or resisting the effects of skullduggery, or cutting through red tape.

The game is very investigation based, but I don't think that the expectation would be for a straight up whodunnit such as a Holmes story may offer. But I think there's likely some overlap, where elements from this game would work well in a game more specifically aimed at solving mysteries.

Interesting. I think that is what I would mostly expect in this sort of game. The PCs are 'police' and the focus is on their activities as a whole. A given 'adventure' might be a 'case', but there are probably various things going on at any one time. So, mysteries or 'detective work' is there, but it is just one element. And obviously BitD has a lot of just plain player/PC focused stuff. That would seem like the general structure of play would lead to players coming up with a fair amount of the plot. Anyway, definitely interesting stuff to think about.

 

[Aldarc]

Sure, but how does Clue's mechanics, such as they are, inform us about how to do this? There is no 'clue' in Clue, no fiction at all, aside from naming the variables and the puzzle in a suggestive fashion. Looking at Clue doesn't help us develop an RPG process. It is divorced from fiction and from RP at all. Saying "model your game on Clue" doesn't even get me one iota closer to an RPG solution to a mystery game. I mean, yes, we could cloak Clue's core mechanic in a more open world type of game where you RP going from location to location, and perhaps you actually need to find a murder weapon instead of just guessing them. But how do you explain the 'process of elimination' part in game world fictional terms? It doesn't really make sense. The "I need to guess the murder weapon" is a nonsensical and utterly gamist construct. MAYBE we can more carefully build other constructs, but the core issue remains. In Clue you simply blurt out "Mr Mustard did it in the Study with the Knife" but in an RPG you'd have to play through finding some evidence for those assertions, and then some process by which making them would lead to either their validation or refutation. None of that process is informed by modeling on Clue.

The "clue" in Clue are the cards that you have in your hand. It's the deductive process of elimination. It's the "cross-examination" of your fellow players regarding their own set of clues. I'm not suggesting that Clue is a perfect working model, but it is a model. Of course guessing murder weapons and the like are gamist, but it's not as if we should regard that as a flaw in a RPG, which are chock full of gamist constructs that we choose to overlook.

In regards to the matter of "guessing," it could work just as easily as something like Spout Lore in DW. Your success may provide you the ability for the GM to answer certain questions truthfully. It may not be all (i.e., "who dun it?") but it could be pieces (e.g., "What substance is on the pipe?"), though it may come with complications (e.g., GM: "It's blood, but you are not sure whose blood. Also you see street lamps cast the images of shadowy figures."). The District Attorney or judicial system may require that the accuser present particular evidence of certain things for trial.

OK, but if the particulars of the case are determined by oracles (as I understand it these are random tables) how does this work? The real issue here with mysteries in particular is nuts and bolts. How do you go from the initial idea of playing a mystery, through the conceptual maze of what that means in game structural terms, and then down to the final level of actualization of a specific mystery story in play. We've all discussed a few proposals in the first 2 areas, but I don't think we can go further in that discussion without bringing it all the way down to the "what exactly happens at the table" (and obviously to work out which proposals 'gel' in actual play would require testing them, but I am confident we're not going to do that in a thread here).

These are things that I would obviously look were I to take the serious work of adapting Ironsworn to the mystery genre. But I would tentatively suggest Ironsworn as a possible place to look for modeling a mystery due to my aforementioned reasons, particularly along the lines of Sherlock Holmesian "solo play." (Watson doesn't count.)

Interesting. It is a genre I've really not had a lot of contact with. Kinda stuck more with the 'Cthulhuoid' sort of modern fantasy. Most of the 'elves exist in the real world' sort just never seemed to push my buttons that much (and don't get me started on all these Vampire stories, Anne Rice was compelling fiction back in the day, but I don't see much value in what came after).

I'm sure plenty of people would say the same about Cthulhuoid fantasy, that it was "compelling fiction back in the day," but with not much value afterwards. I'm not particularly invested though in defending urban fantasy or Dresden Files as a genre.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The "clue" in Clue are the cards that you have in your hand. It's the deductive process of elimination. It's the "cross-examination" of your fellow players regarding their own set of clues. I'm not suggesting that Clue is a perfect working model, but it is a model. Of course guessing murder weapons and the like are gamist, but it's not as if we should regard that as a flaw in a RPG, which are chock full of gamist constructs that we choose to overlook.

In regards to the matter of "guessing," it could work just as easily as something like Spout Lore in DW. Your success may provide you the ability for the GM to answer certain questions truthfully. It may not be all (i.e., "who dun it?") but it could be pieces (e.g., "What substance is on the pipe?"), though it may come with complications (e.g., GM: "It's blood, but you are not sure whose blood. Also you see street lamps cast the images of shadowy figures."). The District Attorney or judicial system may require that the accuser present particular evidence of certain things for trial.

I think you could certainly make a game with some RP elements which was a lot like Clue, sure.

Yeah, so there would be 'facts', and then there would be 'evidence'. There is definitely a difference between the two, and you could imagine entirely different processes for establishing each one, given that there is obviously a relationship between the two.

These are things that I would obviously look were I to take the serious work of adapting Ironsworn to the mystery genre. But I would tentatively suggest Ironsworn as a possible place to look for modeling a mystery due to my aforementioned reasons, particularly along the lines of Sherlock Holmesian "solo play." (Watson doesn't count.)

Solo play certain is something they have addressed. I should really go through a solo session and learn the game better.

I'm sure plenty of people would say the same about Cthulhuoid fantasy, that it was "compelling fiction back in the day," but with not much value afterwards. I'm not particularly invested though in defending urban fantasy or Dresden Files as a genre.

Yeah, I am not really down on Urban Fantasy, and I know some of it is pretty good. Like any popular genre it seems like it got flooded with a lot of mediocre work at some point, particularly certain themes... Same can be said for traditional fantasy, etc. I only mentioned Cthulhuoid "existential horror" since it also happens to often be set in a modernistic setting and relies on some similar tropes (IE 'the truth about the world is hidden' which is pretty common in Urban Fantasy).

 

[hawkeyefan]

Interesting. I think that is what I would mostly expect in this sort of game. The PCs are 'police' and the focus is on their activities as a whole. A given 'adventure' might be a 'case', but there are probably various things going on at any one time. So, mysteries or 'detective work' is there, but it is just one element. And obviously BitD has a lot of just plain player/PC focused stuff. That would seem like the general structure of play would lead to players coming up with a fair amount of the plot. Anyway, definitely interesting stuff to think about.

Yes, there is meant to be a core Mandate that the unit is assembled to deal with. In our case, it was "Investigate the influx of the drug Third Eye into Nightmarket by the gang known as the Steel Syndicate". Some of the tension of the game comes from the fact that the entire city and its institutions are largely corrupt, and so investigations will eventually lead into conflict with other institutions. The idea is how do you administer justice in such a place when there are many forces that will be working against you.

There were certainly elements that were kind of mysteries that needed solving before the unit could move further in their investigation, but there was also lots of related action and drama of rival factions and institutions and so on. As you say, any mystery type of situation was one element of many.

 

[pemerton]

I thought having mechanics around something prevented DM force and thus prevented railroading.

What mechanics?