Fine Arts of DMing: When to Pull Back the Curtain

[Daern]

So, the discussion is this: How do you negotiate the middle ground between dropping clues to mysteries so that players can figure them out themselves and campaign exposition?

I've been DMing the War of the Burning Sky for 8 months now and I've recently had a thought that would be fun to discuss. Basically, in this campaign there are a ton of different plot threads and details that have accumulated, some core to the overarching story, and some the result of incidental improv. My players have taken to commenting recently on how confused they are by the whole thing (and this group is pretty clued in: they take notes, we have a wiki, etc).

I realized that it was time to pull back the curtain and tell them what was going on!

This seemed to come as a great relief as various parts of the adventures fell into place and the players could now make informed decisions about remainder of the campaign.

I imagine we've all made the mistake of being so mysterious that the players lost the plot, as well as giving away too much and weighing down the game with too much background. Discuss!

 

[Pbartender]

This sort of thing happens a lot. I despise flat out telling the players what's going on, but here's what I find exceptionally helpful if they're getting a little lost and confused:

I simply stop the action, and remind them of all the pertinent clues they've found so far... I just run down a quick list of them, and include any loose ends they might have discovered but have not yet investigated.

That's almost always enough to get them on the right track.

Also, when the players discuss the possibilities of an investigation or plot, I'll sometimes interject a little bit of a comment to help steer the course of the conversation... "That's right, Old Man Witherspoon was acting a bit cagey when you tried to ask him about the haunted fairgrounds."

 

[Umbran]

I try to remember that my players are not their characters. The characters are thoroughly immersed in the world, and have all their lives to consider in-game things. My players, on the other hand, spend a few hours a week in the world, and then not fully.

So, I often give small nudges based on that disparity, specifically when they are thinking out loud, or directly asking me questions. Never enough to completely solve a problem or puzzle, but enough to help point them in a constructive direction.

 

[Pbartender]

Here's a really good essay by Justin Alexander entitled Random GM Tips: Three Clue Rule. It's got some pretty decent advice for running investigations, mysteries and the like in role playing games.