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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 9625827" data-attributes="member: 6785785">They’re not totally different. There are differences, yes. I think there are similarities, also. And I think those similarities are more important than you seem to think. For example, the bolded above could be describing either approach. When you as GM create a mystery scenario for play, you do so without the constraint of cause and effect. You make up all the details you like, and you can edit freely. As you design your scenario, you are crafting it exactly as you want it, then afterward you apply the illusion of cause and effect. You are creating the solution to a crime that has happened (in the game world, I’d add). Nothing in the scenario happens as a result of other things in the scenario. Everything in the scenario happens because you choose it to happen. Then you make up details why or how it happened that “fit”. I would say that both involve the creation of a mystery and its solution. Both have the illusion of causality. The difference is when the mystery and its solution is created and by whom. The players aren’t solving anything in either game. They are pretending to solve a mystery in both games. To put it another way, I think that players making moves with characters and prompting the GM with questions to reveal his answers of who done it and why has much more in common with players making moves and prompting the GM with questions to determine via play process who done it and why than either of the above has with actually solving a mystery. Sure, for some people, the idea that there’s some predetermined answer to the questions will feel more like they’re “really solving the mystery”. The idea that there’s not some predetermined answer would make this feel somehow lesser to some folks. But for others, the fact that they know there’s one participant who knows all the answers and has constructed this mystery and is running the game will make it feel somehow lesser. Especially the more the game shifts away from the what might entail skilled play of the game and more toward a test of the players’ skill at figuring out the GM’s puzzle. That they know it’s the GM’s puzzle makes it lesser in some way for them. This is before we even get into the quality of the mystery that has been constructed by the GM. Make it too easy, and it won’t seem very satisfying. Make it too hard, and play may stall out. We’ve all seen these kinds of games stall out… the players shrug, unsure what to do as the GM stares at them like they’re idiots. Then inevitably, the GM makes some kind of decision to help prod things along… he gives a new clue or lets the players make a roll to get a hint, or something along these lines. Because when it’s all said and done… this is the scenario he designed, and he clearly did so with the intention that it could be “solved”… so if that doesn’t happen… well, that could be a problem for a lot of GMs. A problem not all will know how to handle. I’ve played in tons of mystery games that absolutely sucked. Most of the time it was because the resolution of the mystery was too much of the focus of play. The best mystery type scenarios that I’ve played were not the ones where I figured out who done it (or whatever) but instead were ones that were thematic and engaging in ways beyond the central mystery. This is why Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green tend to be my go to examples for games like these that I’ve had fun with. They’re more about the vibe and theme and who can make it out and how intact will they be.</blockquote>

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