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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pedantic" data-source="post: 9629536" data-attributes="member: 6690965">I don't think it makes a lot of sense to partition this off into sides, given it looks like there's at least 4. If it helps, I'm solidly in the "a mystery is about deduction from a fixed set of facts" camp, but I think it's significantly more important to look at what that means for the players and then hone in on why you would do it that way. I think it's pretty clearly about the player's experience interacting with the problem; it's satisfying to eliminate possibilities and deploy strategies to get down to a hidden piece of information. To call it a "puzzle" is too reductive, because this isn't a sudoku: the players can make a lot more moves, and multiple combinations of moves might work to resolve the problem. The bit that's interesting and unique to RPGs is how unbounded the play space is and the potential that offers for unusual/unexpected kinds of gameplay to emerge, but that doesn't free anyone from the basic questions of game design; what decisions will the players be making and how do we make those decisions interesting and significant? How do we evaluate good and bad play in a such a broad space?Gameplay is all about trying to get from some here to a desired there by navigating interesting systems, and then getting feedback on how well you did. A mystery should present an interesting there to get to, with unique strategic options for navigation.</blockquote>