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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9829831" data-attributes="member: 42582">In CoC, the players are definitely playing characters who (try to) solve a mystery.In some CoC play, that's the bulk of what the players are doing. The rest - consequences, victory/defeat, etc - is really colour that is provided by the GM and provides context for the players' play of their PCs. I've played this sort of CoC, at conventions, with varying degrees of player ability to actually shape what comes next. It can be a lot of fun with a good GM, because CoC lends itself to compelling colour and characters.In some CoC play, the players - while playing characters who try to solve a mystery - are also trying to solve a puzzle, in the sense that they know the GM has authored a mystery and placed clues to it, and they are trying to use the methods of the game to (i) oblige the GM to disclose the clues (in CoC this is normally fictional positioning-based) and then (ii) use those clues to infer to the answer that the GM pre-authored. I haven't done much of this sort of play in CoC, but have done a bit of it in other systems (including D&D).Of the two processes I've identified, (i) goes back to the beginnings of classic D&D play, and using fictional positioning (eg listening carefully at a dungeon door) to oblige the GM to reveal pre-authored backstory. A lot of complaints about how investigation scenarios can fail to work as hoped revolve around this issue - basically, what if the players don't put themselves into the right fictional position? - and related issues, like using the fictional position to trigger a die roll, which if it fails means the players still don't get the backstory information they were fictionally positioned to obtain. GUMSHOE is one solution to this; fairly hard railroading of players through the fictional material is another one, that is not necessarily incompatible, and (from my reading) is pretty common in D&D scenarios with mysteries.The second process, (ii) above - that is, using the clues to infer the GM's pre-authored answer - seems to me to have as its closest non-RPG relative some sorts of parlour games. That's why I think the comparison to Agatha Christie is not inapt.</blockquote>

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