Setting Mysteries

[cczernia]

Some settings come with big mysteries that are usually twists on the setting that the players do not know and are meant to be discovered in play.

However, as interesting as some of these spoilers are I've never found them that engaging as a player or GM.

Has anyone had success playing in a game where one of these setting mysteries were the focus?

[Sadohara]

I like the idea of a fun mystery for PCs/players to unravel together. I am huge fan of revelation stories.*

However, keeping players in the dark is hard (occasionally mean), quality revelations require more build up time than the average campaign allows before dying and moving on to something else, and some players actually get pissed if the revelation isn't well fore-shadowed. (Expectations and all...)

Concept: 9/10
Execution: 3/10


*I also very much love Revelations stories, for those who still love them some In Nomine.

[cczernia]

[quote="Sadohara"]
However, keeping players in the dark is hard (occasionally mean), quality revelations require more build up time than the average campaign allows before dying and moving on to something else, and some players actually get pissed if the revelation isn't well fore-shadowed. (Expectations and all...)
[/quote]

Hmmmm.... I'm trying to think of a quality revelation that I experienced in a game and I'm coming up short. The best I can think of is a Deadlands game where we discovered that we (the PCs) were the evil that we were chasing.



Can you give an example of a mystery that you might slowly reveal to the players. A well done reveal can be amazing in other mediums (oh my god, he's a ghost, too) but can it be pulled off in an rpg?

[devlin1]

Y'know, I really wanted this from that Sundered Skies game we played, but by the time we got to the end only Andy and I gave a shit about the true nature of the setting -- and we'd already read the book and knew what it was!

[Sadohara]

I know that revelation <> mystery, but a few examples that I can think of:

L5R Canon - the revelation that the Emperor to whom all the players have sworn unflagging allegiance is not the selfish, capricious and weak child that everyone believes.

Fading Suns - the Suns are fading and no one knows why. I'm not sure that there was ever an canon answer, but the mystery behind remains one of my favorites, even if most players never ended up exploring the issues surrounding it.

Tribe 8 - Joshua's prophecy, the truth of the Fatimas, and .. well... the whole damn game felt like a mystery (in a good way) to me.

There are certainly more, but the concept of sinking a deep mystery into the core of a setting seems to have been a bit of a 90s thing.

Now I have 3 more games I want to run. DAMN!

[cczernia]

[quote="devlin1"]Y'know, I really wanted this from that Sundered Skies game we played, but by the time we got to the end only Andy and I gave a shit about the true nature of the setting -- and we'd already read the book and knew what it was! [/quote]

This was one of the games I was thinking about when I made the post. I remember Mord's story was revolving around this but it didn't get any in-game explanation and most of the players didn't really care.


[quote="Sadohara"]I know that revelation <> mystery, but a few examples that I can think of:



L5R Canon - the revelation that the Emperor to whom all the players have sworn unflagging allegiance is not the selfish, capricious and weak child that everyone believes.



Fading Suns - the Suns are fading and no one knows why. I'm not sure that there was ever an canon answer, but the mystery behind remains one of my favorites, even if most players never ended up exploring the issues surrounding it.



Tribe 8 - Joshua's prophecy, the truth of the Fatimas, and .. well... the whole damn game felt like a mystery (in a good way) to me.



There are certainly more, but the concept of sinking a deep mystery into the core of a setting seems to have been a bit of a 90s thing.



Now I have 3 more games I want to run. DAMN![/quote]

I love those games and have played/ran all of them but I never recall the main setting mystery coming up in play.



I have all the books for Fading Suns so there was no official explanation to the suns fading (though overuse of the jumpgates by humanity is one of my favs).



Tribe 8 is one of the most heavy metaplot games out there and the metaplot always seemed to push towards revealing the grand mysteries but never really got there.



I think part of the problem is suspense and anticipation. If you keep building the mystery eventually you'll get to the point where no revelation will satisfy the players (see Lost and Battlestar Galactica).



I'm kind of curious how one would incorporate these mysteries into a game.

[Sadohara]

In my case, I'm always suckered by the idea that in order to properly appreciate the revelation, you need to have perspective. Which means grounding the early adventures in the.. not the mundane, but the everyday and letting the mystery build up in dribs and drabs so that PCs can understand things shifting around them without having to be told explicitly.

Which leaves the story open to the previously-mentioned pitfalls of gaming: loss of interest or undignified plot acceleration to achieve the revelation.

This, however, does remind me of my favorite revelation/non-revelation of any game I've run, in which one of dnd3player's character background's arose as a mystery in 2006, reared its head in 2007 and culminated in 2008, with the simple nods of acknowledgement, samurai-style. Which was also very much dnd3eplayer-style.

Kudos, bruv.

[Skyman]

JC's deep space nine game comes into mind as a nice mystery with a setting relevant twist. I love the moral implications and it was fun

[jimmy corrigan]

i've had some time to think about this one. i don't have any examples of setting mysteries at the moment. but for successful mysteries and twists *in general*, i would say cczernia's mage game featuring teenaged pc's presented some great twists-- like the one hinted at in the third post, where my character ended up being a ghost (eat your heart out, bruce willis). in the same campaign there was an artifact that looped time, groundhog's day style, and the pc's had to figure it out or else be stuck in that loop forever. another great in-game twist was the revelation that a noble npc was in fact one of the pc's incognito (devon = elery = ishana) in mordraine's ptolus campaign. of course, we as players knew what was happening, but the character's minds were blown that day. that was epic! i could probably think of some more...

i agree with what people here have already mentioned, and think some key ingredients for a good mysteries recipe are:
1. good foundational work. setting up the rules and expectations about the world is important.
2. non-heavy handed, foreshadowing is critical as well.
3. and of course, meeting the anticipation of players and having them interested in every incremental reveal leading up to the game changer is crucial.

like others have said, it's important to tease the audience in an engaging way, as to not defer the payoff for longer than the players can stand to wait, or worse, lead them on without any substantive, personally affecting closure. it's a delicate dance, but when it's pulled off, it's magic. a measure of success for any mystery is genuine surprise during the final reveal, the aha! moment.

btw, thanks for the props skyman! i've had fun running the ds9 adventure in its different iterations, both for my weekly group and at cons.

[cczernia]

[quote="jimmy corrigan"]i would say cczernia's mage game featuring teenaged pc's presented some great twists-- like the one hinted at in the third post, where my character ended up being a ghost (eat your heart out, bruce willis). in the same campaign there was an artifact that looped time, groundhog's day style, and the pc's had to figure it out or else be stuck in that loop forever.
[/quote]

It is funny that you mentions these because in a way those two games were a lot like the Deadlands oneshot game I was in. Each one of the shticks (I'm dead, time loop) were only relevant to the adventure they were in. They were also character relevant. Most of the examples of great revelations are all in oneshots.



1. Mage: JC played the dead guy and only John's character could see him

2. Mage: Only one character was aware of the time loop

3. ST DS9: hmmmm, I won't give it way in case you run it again.

4. Deadlands: the characters were the evil they were tracking.

5. L5R: The big reveal involved a PCs background.




[quote="jimmy corrigan"]i'another great in-game twist was the revelation that a noble npc was in fact one of the pc's incognito (devon = elery = ishana) in mordraine's ptolus campaign. of course, we as players knew what was happening, but the character's minds were blown that day. that was epic! i could probably think of some more...
[/quote]

This also had nothing to do with the setting as it was a real strong character moment that had been set up since the beginning of the game. However, it was not relevant to any of the secrets of Ptolus.



So, in addition to JCs and other peoples' suggestions maybe you should make the setting mystery relevant to the PCs.

[devlin1]

[quote="cczernia"]So, in addition to JCs and other peoples' suggestions maybe you should make the setting mystery relevant to the PCs.[/quote]
If possible, make [i]everything[/i] relevant to the PCs. And I certainly think it's more than possible to have everything that happens in a game be relevant to at least one PC. Otherwise, there's just no investment.

[Skyman]

[quote="jimmy corrigan"]
btw, thanks for the props skyman! i've had fun running the ds9 adventure in its different iterations, both for my weekly group and at cons.[/quote]

It was the best example that came to mind JC...Chris baited me. [img]http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/697/undefeatable2.gif[/img]

[jimmy corrigan]

while not addressing cczernia's initial query, i thought that this was amusing.