Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7327053" data-attributes="member: 42582">Sorry, I didn't answer this in my earlier reply to your post.A mystery needs facts, agreed. But those facts don't have to be secret facts written by the GM in advance. <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?299440-Exploration-scenarios-my-experiment-last-Sunday" target="_blank">This actual play post from several years ago now</a> describes how I ran a mystery scenario in my 4e game. The only secret bit of content I had settled on in advance was that the wizard whose manor they were exploring had gone made with the strain of the gnoll invasion of Nerath and killed all his apprentices. The broader backstory (the timelines, the gnoll invastion of Nerath, etc) was all known by the players already (having been established in earlier episodes of play). The details (eg what, exactly, caused the conflict between mage and apprentices) and the clues (eg some invisible ink on a scroll) were all established during the course of play, as the players took various steps (making checks, using rituals) to trigger GM narration and to confirm their various hypotheses.From the point of view of establishing the setting, the most important thing was the freeing of the apprentice - she turned out to have an <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?309950-Actual-play-my-first-quot-social-only-quot-session" target="_blank">interesting</a> <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?313724-Actual-play-the-PCs-successfully-negotiated-with-Kas" target="_blank">descendant</a>, and herself became the bronze lich <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?484945-Session-report-the-Mausoleum-of-the-Raven-Queen" target="_blank">Osterneth</a>.I would say that that session was at the GM-heavier end of the spectrum of my play, in terms of the degree of content contributed by the GM as prompted by player triggers (the checks and rituals mentioned above and in the actual play post). I would say that it was not a strict railroad, though, for three reasons: (i) the players were able to establish some (overall relatively minor) outcomes in relation to the clues (like the invisible ink); (ii) the details of the mystery itself fed into the thematic concerns that the players had established for the game and for their PCs (in this case, both the fall of Nerath and the Raven Queen); (iii) the most important outcome - ie the freeing of the apprentice - was an outcome that was introduced by the players (the module doesn't contemplate it, and I hadn't thought about it in advance).And there was no point that I can recall during the session where an action declaration fail. For example, I didn't declare it impossible to free the apprentice from the mirror, and when the PCs talked to her we resolved this via a skill challenge; I didn't declare it impossible to find something hidden and interesting on the scroll, although I had no notes about any such thing in advance; I didn't declare it impossible to keep the library from being wrecked by the fighting within it, although from memory I don't think their checks to save it all succeeded; etc.</blockquote>

Verification