mystery

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Originally posted in Why so little Scenario Oriented Design?

Do the "Host a Murder Mystery" games provide an example of a single-adventure RPG product & rules?

(I've never seen the inside of one of those boxes, so I don't really know the answer.)

In general, I would say no. The "How to Host a Murder" series from Decipher is not really role-playing as I define it, and most other companies imitate its approach. Notably, the player of the murderer doesn't even know that he is the guilty party for most of the game. The game is played in four rounds, and in each round new material is handed out. This often includes information which should have been known earlier. So it is more of a group mystery-solving game than role-playing.

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I would like to point out that How To Host a Murder-type games have been around for longer than Decipher. At least I think so. I recall playing one in the late 80's.

I have played two of these. One unfolded mostly as John describes. The other was different. I don't recall the entire way it played, but I do recall the murder's starting packet said "You are the murderer. Do not tell anyone and you get to lie like crazy to try to get away with it."

But thinking about it, it struck me that mysteries are sort of gamist is nature and even reading a mystrery novel or watching a mystery movie or TV show contains a similar gamist experience. The challenge is for the audience to solve the mystery before the movie (book, etc) ends. But it's a weird sort of balancing act. Because to actually "win" may be satisfying to outwit the author, but then you still have to sit through the rest of the movie. To be satisfying, the mystery still needs to surprise yet tempt us to figure it out anyway.

[Asrogoth]

Jack,

Great observation:  "Because to actually "win" may be satisfying to outwit the author, but then you still have to sit through the rest of the movie. To be satisfying, the mystery still needs to surprise yet tempt us to figure it out anyway."

But is there any reason you posted this beyond your thesis?  Are you wanting comments?  Ideas on mystery design?

I'm sorry if I'm sounding obtuse.  I really am curious as to where you want this thread to go, as it seems to have many possibilities.

[Callan S.]

Well, it spurs this comment from me:

You can actually see this being handled in a lot of movies. They have a bunch of smaller, almost no brainer mysteries. Then a bigger, hard one. And then, if the author is good, a really bloody hard one (the main one).

Sometimes you might crack the really bloody hard one, but miss a smaller one. It can still be rewarding sitting through. Not to mention, you can't be sure you got it right until you've seen the whole movie.

You can also get movies like Donnie Darko, which need multiple reviews to start putting pieces together, even after the end frame. In this case the movie doesn't fully explain itself. It becomes a game to optimise your understanding to a level that satisfies you/a win state (by game, I mean your going to have to decide some stuff is less meaningful than others, thus ignore/use less of this resource than other resources. Resource management)

Side note: Donnie Darko still doesn't make sense to me, as in a glitch way, not a mysterious way. Broken game.

[komradebob]

I was thinking about mysteries a while ago. Usually, the point is to figure out whodunit in some sort of enclosed environment.

What if you added another layer? Not so much, whodunit? but more like, who is gonna hang for it?

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I was thinking about mysteries a while ago. Usually, the point is to figure out whodunit in some sort of enclosed environment.

Well, mystery is an element that can be added anywhere and the nature of the mystery can vary greatly.

e.g. the movie Kindergarten Cop there was a mystery involve with figuring out which kid is the bad guy's kid and by exstention, which woman is his runaway wife. THe reveal surprised me, but this is because I simply wasn't paying attention.  The kid was given more screen time an an entire scene with Schwarzenegger. If I had thought about how movies usually play out as well as the amount of screen time and lines that kid was getting, I would have figured it out. So I felt a little dumb, but I got the surprise. If I had figured it out, I would have felt superior but not gotten the surprise. That is, I figured out Secret Window so the ending was not much of a surprise to me. Was even a little disappointing since I had to sit through the movie already knowing the secret reveal, although I got to notice stuff which I might have noticed only in a second viewing.

As to a point, I don't think there's much of a point of discussion here. Mystery as a genre and an element delivers a gamist experience, even in media other than roleplaying. I don't see what's to discuss, but we can, I guess.

[M. J. Young]

I think I categorized mysteries as gamist literature sometime last year or so, about the same time I characterized travelogues as simulationist. I don't have the thread link, but it's not really that important. I do agree that mysteries have that gamist aspect. In fact, I've read pieces by classic mystery writers that maintained it was a rule of the form that all the information had to be in the text for the reader to attempt to get the answer, and that there could only be one solution that worked. I had trouble with Clue as a film because it violated this rule.

I did not find Donnie Darko particularly complicated; but then, I eat time travel movies for breakfast, as they say. If you want my take, it's on my http://www.mjyoung.net/time/darko.html">time travel site.

Also, in regard to mysteries, one of the most successful mystery series on television was not a whodunit, but a howtogetem: Columbo. Everyone knew who did it, including the detective, right from the beginning; it was just a matter of figuring out how to prove it. Thus beating the game in that case amounted to spotting the murderer's mistake.

--M. J. Young

[Jack Aidley]

Putting aside the question of whether mysteries are gamist books for a second. I'd like to pose a related question: are mysteries in roleplaying games inherently gamist?

My gut reaction tells me no, but I'm not sure I can justify that claim.

[Ian Charvill]

If the creative agenda is to experience what life would be like for a homicide detective solving a murder - simulationist.

If the creative agenda is to prove your worth as a player by facing up to the challenge of solving a mystery - gamist.

If the creative agenda is to answer the question of whether or not it is OK for a homicide cop to use excessive force in order to solve a mystery - narrativist.

All of these can involve actor stance player engagement with the mystery - they will all place different stresses on what solving the mystery means for the players.