Im dredging this up again, because Im about to GM a game that will have some mystery in it, which I guess all games do to a certain extent, but some more than others.  Mystery assumes there will be some sort of investigation, so its relevant, but in my game, the investigation wont be the focus of play.

Im just thinking of how to handle it.

Basically I dont want the players to have to guess whats going on, so I want the 'investigation' to be colour that leads to dramatic situations.  I dont want it to BE a puzzle that needs to be solved before the next dramatic situation can occur.

The best dramatic situations involve NPCs, either in conflict with the PCs or perhaps having to be persuaded/bargained with to help.  Troublesome PC decisions are also good.

I dont want the stakes of such conflicts to be 'do you find a clue  or even do you understand what the clue means'  that is taken as granted.  What I want the conflicts to be about are 'what is the cost of finding the clue and its meaning?'

Does this sound reasonable?  Any advice?

Hey,

I think it's a perfectly reasonable way to play. In my experience, the best advice is to be up-front about this particular feature. The players shouldn't be under the mistaken impression that they have to dope out everything (or anything) or be stalled.

Now, exactly how you communicate this is up to you and this particular group of people. Some people like it stated right out, and others will be happier to see it expressed through play in some way, but my call is that however you do it, make it unambiguous.

Best, Ron

Hi Ron, I hope that is made explicit by the player-agreed premise of the game about what the aims of the players are and the ways they achieve them.  If the premise is about solving mysteries using investigative skills, then I suppose the approach would be different than I have described above.  But I dont think my game is well-suited to that sort of premise.

In this case its 'win the war against the axis using the secrets of the supernatural' which isnt an investigative focus, but may involve 'mystery' as the players try to work out what the nazis are up to and the methods they are using, in order that they can counter them.

Erg.  On further thought, what I wrote previously sounds easy on paper, but maybe not so easy in practice.

In my game you have story phase and challenge phase.  Challenge phase is where you roll dice that resolve player-set goals, and story phase is more of a narrated part, although players still express their characters concerns and they can be resolved by the GM.  Its just that this happens without dice rolling.  In other words, challenge phase is supposed to be high drama and story phase not so much.

So if a player sets a short term goal of 'find a clue to the murder'  or 'determine the significance of the glyph ' in a challenge phase, which I think are reasonable goals for characters to have, then by the rules of my game, that becomes the focus of the drama of the challenge phase for that character, and whether or not they achieve that goal is very much in doubt.

I guess I need to rephrase my previous post to say that finding clues and uncovering significance CAN be in doubt, but that the failure to do so cant be allowed to halt progress for any significant period. 

But how to achieve that?

OK, let me rephrase that babble in a general way.

How can the results of an investigation be dramatic?  As in, if what is at stake is the success of an investigative activity = success means you succeed in the investigative activity and fail means you dont.

When you phrase it that way, as long as dramatic stakes are tied to the result, then you are right.  Its only when one of the options is boring you have a problem.  i.e.  fail means nothing happens at all.  fail means 'sorry, try again'  as in 'youll have to wait until I drop another clue on you and then investigate the new clue before anything happens'

So although the goal of the character might be stated as "Find a clue", there has to be some dramatic consequences to not finding the clue, such that the goal could just as easily be stated as 'Prevent the dramatic negative consequences from occurring'

See, there is no "investigation" in the generic sense. I don't know what you mean by saying it, you don't know what I read when I see it, and now we're in no-communication land.

This is clearly an Actual Play topic begging to be split. Please think of any concrete play-situation in your experience which brings up any aspect of this question, positively, negatively, even ambiguously. Write it out, say what happened. Then I can get to your questions.

Best, Ron

In fact, I'm splitting it now. All the above have been pulled from No investigations?

Best, Ron

stefoid wrote:
How can the results of an investigation be dramatic?  As in, if what is at stake is the success of an investigative activity = success means you succeed in the investigative activity and fail means you dont.

We're waiting for an actual play account for crucial orientation purposes. Let's everyone hold off until it arrives.

Best, Ron

Hi the actual play concerning mysteries and investigations that I am familiar with is CoC which has been run like I described in the previous thread:

"Personally, this is a style of play that I dont like.  Its basically the players guessing what the GM wants.  Its kind of like a more involved version of 'guess the number Im thinking'  Is it 4?  no.  Is it 17?  no, but Ill give you a hint, its less than 15 and more than 2.  Is it 9?  no.

Yes, it isnt as random and arbitrary as that, but its still a bunch of players (not characters) trying to guess/deduce what the GM thinks the clues should mean.

No, I dont know the solution to that if someone does , please tell me. Even in games that arent supposed to be investigation games, there are often periods of play where the characters are trying to work out what is going on or why something is happening, so I think the situation is broadly relevant."

My concern is to avoid this style of play where if the payers dont  (a) find the clues  and/or (b) guess correctly what the clues mean, then nothing happens.  The story does not advance, which is boring and frustrating, rather than dramatic and satisfying (whether you find the clue or not, something interesting happens)

Here is the actual play I am anticipating:

something happens that the players cant ignore, lets say in my upcoming game that the nazis are suddenly taking previously impregnable allied positions, and the PC squad is called in to such a battlefield where the allies just managed to be repulse and attack at great cost -- to find out how the nazis are doing it.  Ultimately Id like this to lead to some realisation that the nazis are using supernatural forces to aid their war effort, such as using reanimated soldiers or something, and who is behind it.

So essentially its a mystery that requires successful 'investigation'.  And Im thinking of how to handle that.  How to make it dramatic.  OK, the use of undead soldiers will be easy to 'solve'.  This corpse has been dead for 4 months!, and a few hysterical soldiers relating pumping magazines of bullets into nazis who keep advancing... pretty obvious.  That can be narrated in response to PC actions, its low drama stuff.

But how to proceed from that realisation to which particular nazis are behind the reanimation?  Do I continue to drop 'clue scenes' on the PCs and resolve them in a low drama fashion, as above, leading them by the nose to to the villains?  where do my challenging , dramatic scenes come from when the players are involved essentially in an 'investigation' process?

stefoid wrote: But how to proceed from that realisation to which particular nazis are behind the reanimation?  Do I continue to drop 'clue scenes' on the PCs and resolve them in a low drama fashion, as above, leading them by the nose to to the villains?  where do my challenging , dramatic scenes come from when the players are involved essentially in an 'investigation' process?

Im starting to think that there isnt really any way to make the 'investigation' a high drama process.  It can still happen, the players can still choose to go places, check shit out, talk to people etc... but its the circumstances surrounding the investigation activity that has the tension.  What is at stake if the investigation isnt resolved? 

As for the challenging situations, I dont see how they can be integral to the investigation process either.  Play must proceed towards confrontation with the nazi antagonists, and that progress cant hinge on dice rolls.  I guess the progress must move more smoothly if characters are winning the challenging situations and with a lot of collateral damage if they arent. 

stefoid wrote:
Im starting to think that there isnt really any way to make the 'investigation' a high drama process.  It can still happen, the players can still choose to go places, check shit out, talk to people etc... but its the circumstances surrounding the investigation activity that has the tension.  What is at stake if the investigation isnt resolved?

What if: the point of the "investigation" isnt to discover that the Nazis are using the occult - the characters are already "believers" - the aim is to collect enough evidence to persuade Allied VIPs of the occult danger.

NN wrote:
What if: the point of the "investigation" isnt to discover that the Nazis are using the occult - the characters are already "believers" - the aim is to collect enough evidence to persuade Allied VIPs of the occult danger.

It's very wasy to handle.  Computer games do it all the time; dump data x, assign mission y.  In this context the CRPGs provide an excellent baseline, as they are in practice one GN talking to one Player.  Data dump leads to combat mission.

If you really need advice on how to do this, then you need to concentrate on NPC's who will provide info and missions.  There are countless examples from TV.  The only diffuculty, in as much as there us any, is constructing a trusted relationship with said NPC's, such that if they are told so-and-so is conspiring to nuke the Vatican* they believe it.  All the rest is combat adventure staging.

** or an orphanage, etc., whatever.

Investigation in role-playing games is always a hard thing to work as, at the very least, it is several people working to figure out something only one person has created.

I tend to find that the player’s and their characters should be in on some of the secrets, to some extent, so that not only do the players have a handle on what is going on, but they’re able to act that out too.  (Plus when players aren’t totally in the dark I tend to find that they help create more detail and flavour for what is occurring, but when they’re clueless there’s a limit on how much they can help out that way.)

Also, depending upon how involved they are in the investigations, failure should be just as dramatic as success.  If you are planning to pretty much predetermine success on areas of investigation then one way could be to pre set-up a seemingly impossible situation down the line (or invincible bad guys etc), and the success gives them a way to overcome this immense obstacle without trivialising it. 

Equally though, certain parts (especially early on) could be set up so that they could see the ‘downside’ or ‘cost’ of failure (handy for establishing drama and personal stakes in a story, but tricky in that players can get disheartened/ annoyed if it comes across as too rail-roaded).

Lastly I would say that investigations that involve interacting with NPC’s to gather info, find secrets and so on, tend to come off better than ones where the players are attempting to interact with a passive scene, as the NPC element gives you more control of the situation and a more ‘living’ atmosphere to the investigation (also if worst comes to worst you could have the NPC 'slip' up in a way that gives the players a new angle on the investigation).

Oh!  Just thought; if the players are aiding a professional investigator (or group thereof), who are looking into something.  That way the players can get some direction as to where to go/ what to look for, and it’s the NPC investigator that can ensure success if the players fail to sort out whatever, but then equally (probably about half-way through or maybe little earlier), the NPC needs to become overshadowed by the players (perhaps the NPC is captured/ killed, leaving some clue for the players to latch onto and follow).  Of course the problem here is ensuring that not only is the focus staying with the players all the time, but they do not feel the NPC’s are ‘better’ than them, it needs to be clear that the NPC is only a holder of some specialised info, but in other ways inferior.  (Of course another spin on this could be a game whereby the players –are– inexperienced assistants to some great Sherlock Holmesian fellow).

Investigative games can be frustrating if the game effectively comes to a standstill while the party look for/try to interpret the clues. However it doesn't have to be that way. An investigation where the question is "who is the bad guy, and where is he so we can progress with the plot" is one thing, but an investigation where the question is "Why do these ninjas, gangsters and corrupt cops keep trying to kill us" is another kettle of fish. Mysteries don't have to block progress, nor do they even have to be resolved by conventional investigation. After all, you can always just capture one of the bad guys and ask him "Spill the beans, or swallow a bullet!".

Here are some mysteries you might use:

The party find secret papers ordering the re-capture of a monastery. Why do the Nazis want the monastery so badly? It's a mystery, but it motivates action - stop the Nazis taking the monastery, while trying to find out what they are after. Ways to resolve: Capture a bad guy; Research about the history of the monastery; Don't bother, just blow up the monastery.

The party discover that the Nazis have a secret agent among the allied ranks. Who can it be? Ways to resolve: Capture a bad guy (I like this one); Feed misinformation to various suspects and see which misinformation the Nazis act on; If you know how the Nazis feed info to the spy, send him a bogus message and trap him (or her).

Mysteries should impulses to action, not obstacles to progress. If the players don't come up with ways to resolve them on their own, just have NPCs suggest them or hint at them - that's fine because at the end of the day it's carrying out the actions that matter, not necessarily figuring out what to do. Especially if you provide them with several options, as above, it's up to them to choose which approach they take, so they are still in the driving seat.

Simon Hibbs

I like your thoughts there.  There is a difference between mystery and investigation. 

You could look at it this way, one is a noun and the other a verb.  Situation and action.

But its not really 'action' in the high-stakes conflict sense.  Its more just about decision making, as you say, which can/should lead to high-stakes conflict down the track.

This actually does fit in well with recent thoughts I have had with the game I am designing and playtesting at the moment.  Breaking play up into descision making and high-stakes conflict phases is a lot better description than low and high drama phases.  After all, decision making can sometimes be dramatic.

That sounds interesting. I haven't been able to come up with a solution to the problems I was having with investigation in Air Patrol, but these last two posts have gotten me thinking again. I like the idea "mysteries should impulses to action, not obstacles to progress." Also decision making phases and conflict phases being separate. In AIr Patrol I wanted to have the focus on the 'cool scenes,' which sounds to me like the conflict phases with the decision making phases being what leads to them. Or something like that. Have to think on how it could apply to the game structure I wanted for Air Patrol.

Pat

Hi, Im right into that in my game, you can check out the second draft here, with the more complete first draft in my sig.  Let me know what you think.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B5W32IfgIIkrOWYxNjg2MDEtZWQ0OS00YmIxLTk5ZTYtNDVmZjY0NWMyYjY3&hl=en&authkey=CLaJ4P4J

I was remembering the Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis video game. On the first part of the game there was a clear goal: to get inside a local and speak with an npc. Yet there were more than one way to accomplish the goal: you could either solve a puzzle of boxes and objects to climb to the roof, talk your way inside or defeat the guard with your bare fists. Each way had the same level of complexity in its own way.

I've used that system to create campaigns before: providing players with a goal, leave to them the way to get there, but then adding key elements that let them get to the goal faster, better prepared or both, and reflecting that on the status of the final conflict: If players got lucky rolls on a "preliminary investigations" stage, PCs could arrive in time and surprise the enemy. If they got the info later, they could find the enemy prepared but there anyway. They could also fail all the rolls and find themselves facing the enemy in the worst situation possible.

The "guess what number I'm thinking" mechanic is actually the only way to keep the players with the feeling that there's a mystery to unveil. All I can add is that if you make more mechanics available for the players to beat the game, then players themselves will keep the story from stalling. Yet be sure to show them the investigation option first and reward them if they beat the game that way, or they'll keep kicking the doors, shooting first and asking questions later.

stefoid wrote: Ultimately Id like this to lead to some realisation that the nazis are using supernatural forces to aid their war effort, such as using reanimated soldiers or something, and who is behind it.

What I want the conflicts to be about are 'what is the cost of finding the clue and its meaning?'

Callan wrote:

stefoid wrote: Ultimately Id like this to lead to some realisation that the nazis are using supernatural forces to aid their war effort, such as using reanimated soldiers or something, and who is behind it.

Does 'who is behind it' matter the most (for your design)? Or is it

What I want the conflicts to be about are 'what is the cost of finding the clue and its meaning?'

I mean, suppose the character never get to the nazi's, but in the process of not getting there we find they will sacrifice something dear to them for information, or at other times when we thought they might sacrifice, they say 'I'll do anything for love but I wont do that' (heh).

Would that be sufficiently engaging as a session and the zombie nazis, despite how gamers often seek high concept mash ups, not actually all that important to the play group?

I think what is dramatic (an ambiguous word) involves event depictions in the game linking back to some real life issues we have in real life. And basically in a way that could, depending on how play goes, have game events which do not match the mainstream media conclusions or zeitgeists inertia.

It's hard to give an example because what might be a RL issue to me might not be to you (and vise versa). For example, a real life issue to me is how the jobs system simply discards you to starve should it care to, there's also the heavily pushed idea of 'you can get a job' when you don't have control over that (barring hypnosis or mind control abilities I'm not aware of) and yet although it'll discard you, it's declared all the lands its own and will use martial force if you were to try and sustain yourself (via growing food) without it. Tack on the just world fallacy for good measure.

Okay, long example, but issues don't always fit in a neat slogan. What is dramatic is what links in to our own real life immediate fears (no, that you would be afraid of being eaten by a tiger if confronted by one doesn't mean it's a fear you carry from day to day (assuming your in a country without tigers, that is)).

That's what I think is dramatic - or atleast how I use the word 'dramatic'. I'm not insisting anyone else does, just describing it in case you think 'Oh yeah, that seems a good description of what I'm aiming for'.