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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8144483" data-attributes="member: 42582">On running mysteries in RPGs.Upthread I posted this:This was a GM-driven experience. The players' contributions were entirely saying where their PCs went (inside a starship where I as GM had already decided what the floorplan was, what - of interest - was in each stateroom, etc) and speaking as their characters.We didn't use any mechanics. Predominantly physical actions were resolved via description with me saying yes to the task performed (I return from the Starlight Lounge to my stateroom; I look in the cupboard) and then just describing the upshot (OK, you're in your room; You see that in the cupboard there are two of each set of clothes).Talking to NPCs happened by the players speaking to me in character, and me deciding what the NPC said in reply and then saying it. For scene-setting this was fine. When it came to interrogation of a key NPC I felt the weakness of this approach. The NPC in question was part of the conspiracy to murder, but the players hadn't worked this out and I wasn't going to have her just confess (thus defusing the mystery and ending the scenario). I am not a terribly good actor, and so performing evasiveness to some appropriate degree was not too easy.The whole experience was fun enough, but it certainly didn't involve very much player agency! And for me it drew my attention to the limits of GM decides and narrates social interaction.A very different way to run a mystery is what I've done in <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/cthulhu-dark-session.653231/" target="_blank">two</a> <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/cthulhu-dark-another-session.658931/" target="_blank">sessions</a> of Cthulhu Dark. In these sessions there was no pre-planned mystery. I worked with the players to establish opening situations and we played those through - using the (very simple) action resolution framework when "saying 'yes'" wasn't appropriate - with new elements being added into the fiction as an outcome of resolution and as I built up new framing. I kept a close eye on pacing, and at the end of each session used my power over framing to bring things to a head.The stories were unexpected, a bit wacky, and there was plenty that was unexplained - no doubt because human consciousness is too frail to contemplate the truth!</blockquote>

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