Allistar
2019-07-21, 12:44 AM
So throughout the years my group has run a few mystery type games, but they always fell flat. I have a theory as for why but my justifications are pretty much entirely based on how the group felt about what was happening. I want to come to an understanding of this before I run my own mystery-ish campaign and learn from the mistakes of the past.
My theory
If you are running a mystery campaign it will end up in one of two ways. 1) way too easy and utterly trivial for your players. 2) The mystery is cloaked in 6 different layers of plot armor or DM related plot garbage and the players will feel cheated.
Context
- About a year ago the other long time DM in our group decided to run a campaign.
- Doesn't tell that it's a mystery based one (Pretty sure this is where it starts going downhill)
- I show up with my tranquility monk who for flavor reasons has undergone a few of the old school oaths like from 3.5
- The other players: an awakened mystic, a conquest paladin (there were tensions but nothing too bad), and a lore
bard. Overall a pretty good composition I thought
- We investigate the crime scene and try to figure out what's going on
- Context Clues as well as the DM's clues are pretty obvious and we narrow it down to a few people
- We later find damning evidence for one culprit and decide to get a warrent and search the guy's house
- DM gets a bit miffed that we narrow it down so quickly and decides to pivot to the other side of the equation (he admitted to it himself)
- While investigating the guilty guy's house I decide to do an investigation check to see if there are any markings on the walls or floors, all the while combing over the room to check for illusions, and the mystic used some kind of ability that was basically detect magic to see if there was any shenanigans about.
- DM says there there is nothing out of the ordinary, however there are a few magic auras
- The auras are not relevant to the search, but they will become relevant later
- After staking out the night before we find some more evidence and present it to the guard captain
- Guard captain doesn't recognize us at all even though we had gone with him on a few assignments beforehand
- Mystic can no longer mind meld, and the person who we're dealing with can somehow mind wipe people
- Mystic tries to do some more of his psychic powers, but those end up failing too
- We end up doing something else for a couple sessions because we're really bored of this plotline and also because maybe the culprit will think they can make a break for it
- We come back and try to sneak into the suspect's house and do yet another sweep
- DM is also getting bored of this plotline now and decides to reveal that the auras were being covered up with
Nystul's Magic Aura, and there was a secret wall made of illusion magic that had stuff behind it so I couldn't tell the difference from it an the wall
- Great, now we can dungeon crawl through this guy's basement
- Not so fast, this place has magic traps too that neither our mystic or bard can disarm
- The traps don't really do much other than force us to use our healing beforehand
- We get to the end of the dungeon and would you look at that it's the guy we suspected from hour 1 of the campaign
- A fight with an overleveled wizard/sorcerer mix later and we complete the adventure
- Close curtains for arc 1
In order to make the mystery "difficult" for us the DM pretty much had to plot armor every aspect of the investigation and that made us feel cheated. The mystic's entire deal was mind magic and divination esq effects, but they always failed, because plot. I wasn't really built for the purpose of mystery campaigns, but I had a great insight and could never tell that the guy was lying even though every single time it was greater than or equal to 20. The bard couldn't information gather because nobody really had any idea what was going on, and the 3 named NPCs that we did talk to had "said all they knew". And the paladin was... there. Once he finally gave up and got bored there were still traps that we couldn't deal, so we get taxed right before the boss fight and then we end the campaign feeling disappointed, but happy that we can move on to something else.
So, how do you make mysteries and traps feel like you aren't cheating. Without destroying player agency or your game how do you withhold information yet somehow give the players all the clues they need to come to a reasonable conclusion. How do you use red herrings and traps in a way that doesn't just feel like a waste of time for the party? How do you keep them going and motivated despite all these things? Again, I want to learn from the mistakes of the past so I can improve our future games, but I'm really drawing a blank here.
My theory
If you are running a mystery campaign it will end up in one of two ways. 1) way too easy and utterly trivial for your players. 2) The mystery is cloaked in 6 different layers of plot armor or DM related plot garbage and the players will feel cheated.
Context
- About a year ago the other long time DM in our group decided to run a campaign.
- Doesn't tell that it's a mystery based one (Pretty sure this is where it starts going downhill)
- I show up with my tranquility monk who for flavor reasons has undergone a few of the old school oaths like from 3.5
- The other players: an awakened mystic, a conquest paladin (there were tensions but nothing too bad), and a lore
bard. Overall a pretty good composition I thought
- We investigate the crime scene and try to figure out what's going on
- Context Clues as well as the DM's clues are pretty obvious and we narrow it down to a few people
- We later find damning evidence for one culprit and decide to get a warrent and search the guy's house
- DM gets a bit miffed that we narrow it down so quickly and decides to pivot to the other side of the equation (he admitted to it himself)
- While investigating the guilty guy's house I decide to do an investigation check to see if there are any markings on the walls or floors, all the while combing over the room to check for illusions, and the mystic used some kind of ability that was basically detect magic to see if there was any shenanigans about.
- DM says there there is nothing out of the ordinary, however there are a few magic auras
- The auras are not relevant to the search, but they will become relevant later
- After staking out the night before we find some more evidence and present it to the guard captain
- Guard captain doesn't recognize us at all even though we had gone with him on a few assignments beforehand
- Mystic can no longer mind meld, and the person who we're dealing with can somehow mind wipe people
- Mystic tries to do some more of his psychic powers, but those end up failing too
- We end up doing something else for a couple sessions because we're really bored of this plotline and also because maybe the culprit will think they can make a break for it
- We come back and try to sneak into the suspect's house and do yet another sweep
- DM is also getting bored of this plotline now and decides to reveal that the auras were being covered up with
Nystul's Magic Aura, and there was a secret wall made of illusion magic that had stuff behind it so I couldn't tell the difference from it an the wall
- Great, now we can dungeon crawl through this guy's basement
- Not so fast, this place has magic traps too that neither our mystic or bard can disarm
- The traps don't really do much other than force us to use our healing beforehand
- We get to the end of the dungeon and would you look at that it's the guy we suspected from hour 1 of the campaign
- A fight with an overleveled wizard/sorcerer mix later and we complete the adventure
- Close curtains for arc 1
In order to make the mystery "difficult" for us the DM pretty much had to plot armor every aspect of the investigation and that made us feel cheated. The mystic's entire deal was mind magic and divination esq effects, but they always failed, because plot. I wasn't really built for the purpose of mystery campaigns, but I had a great insight and could never tell that the guy was lying even though every single time it was greater than or equal to 20. The bard couldn't information gather because nobody really had any idea what was going on, and the 3 named NPCs that we did talk to had "said all they knew". And the paladin was... there. Once he finally gave up and got bored there were still traps that we couldn't deal, so we get taxed right before the boss fight and then we end the campaign feeling disappointed, but happy that we can move on to something else.
So, how do you make mysteries and traps feel like you aren't cheating. Without destroying player agency or your game how do you withhold information yet somehow give the players all the clues they need to come to a reasonable conclusion. How do you use red herrings and traps in a way that doesn't just feel like a waste of time for the party? How do you keep them going and motivated despite all these things? Again, I want to learn from the mistakes of the past so I can improve our future games, but I'm really drawing a blank here.