Slow playing a mystery is hard.

[CrazyCarppy]

I am the dm for a group of 5 players of varying levels of experience. The world they are in presents them with a mystery. And man is it hard to drop clues that they actually pick up on, are useful, but doesnt just give the whole thing away.
Basically they were plucked from Forgotten Realms and brought to this plane apparently by kobolds sorcerers. There are layers to the mystery of why, as well as lies and deception to mislead them.
I asked the other night if they jad picked up on any clues they thought useful, to judge how i was doing, and they could only mention a couple. Now the clues I have dropped were small. But put together they paint the picture that the plane they are on is very weird.

Anyone else have a hard time with slow playing big mysteries? Any general advice? If you want more detail i can safely do so as im confident noone in my group reads here.

[Tawmis]

First thing to remember, you - as the DM - have all the pieces and know the whole story.

So a subtle clue TO YOU may seem obvious because you already know how WHAT that clue means and how it ties into something.

That clue may not be obvious to the players, because they don't have the whole picture yet.

Depending on what you're doing - there's different ways to handle this. The easiest is creating NPCs. And giving them some depth and background. Some of which may want to help the players, some who may not care about the players, and some who may want the players to fail. This gives the players NPCs to interact with (Insight, Persuasion, Intimidation, Bribe, etc) and piece together who is and who isn't helpful.

So keep in mind - what's obvious to you - the mighty DM who knows the whole story dropping "small" clues - may not be enough.

[rel]

Make the finding of essential clues automatic.
Always provide at least 2 other clues pointing to each conclusion.
Ensure that each clue is delivered at least twice.
Keep some more obvious clues in reserve to drop if people get stuck

And accept that sometimes the mystery won't run smoothly and prepare a few combat encounters just in case.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Make the finding of essential clues automatic.
Always provide at least 2 other clues pointing to each conclusion.
Ensure that each clue is delivered at least twice.
Keep some more obvious clues in reserve to drop if people get stuck

And accept that sometimes the mystery won't run smoothly and prepare a few combat encounters just in case.

This is wht I do, as well.

Plus I try to put myself in the party's shoes and try to imagine how they might try to solve the mystery. I don't run it unless I can come up with at least three viable strategies that are available for them.

I've been going hard into mystery for one of the groups I run for currently, and it's actually gone really smoothly. It's helped a lot that they write down everything I say on a virtual whiteboard, including post-it notes with outstanding questions as they occur to them, names of all the locations they visit and NPCs they meet, and a timeline of events. They havn't missed anything I've set down, but 14 sessions in I've still been able to maintain the central mystery.

[BigDumbYak]

Make the finding of essential clues automatic.
Always provide at least 2 other clues pointing to each conclusion.
Ensure that each clue is delivered at least twice.
Keep some more obvious clues in reserve to drop if people get stuck

And accept that sometimes the mystery won't run smoothly and prepare a few combat encounters just in case.

Same here. In regards to social interactions I use a less 'the player has to say the right thing for me to tell them the hint' and just let them roll a skill check (if the group isn't super into RP), or derive a result off of their dialog line. Essentially its going to fall into 1 of 3 camps, Positive (crit), neutral (pass), negative (fail). Allow each camp to deliver a clue, but in different manners, maybe the negative result causes the NPC to say 'By the foul sorcerers of lizard-flesh I curse you!'. They annoyed that character but learned something about lizard-flesh sorcerers. Players often pay more attention to these transactional type encounters than they would more fluid and ambiguous scenarios.

Also, you can use environmental design to help push the lore/clues. Great examples of this that I have used are a notice board that has hints on it phrased as jobs or write a bunch of rumors, which also contain hints, and pass them out to players during tavern scenes. Something that is tangible also draws a bunch of attention, plus if the players can keep these they may reference them again and again, trying to apply them to different situations.

[Keravath]

I think the hardest part of this type of adventure as a DM is being able to see the clues from the character/player perspective. You know every detail that is important and every one that isn't. When you throw in both with some deception intended in the plot line, it is no wonder that the players can't recognize clues.

For example, if you mention that all the creatures are wearing black boots and you know that the cult members all wear black boots but the PCs do not know that then the comment about black boots is meaningless to the PCs and is a "clue" to the DM. It will only become a clue for the players later when the players have sufficient information ... however, by that time, which could even be sessions later, the players will have entirely forgotten the DM remark since it had no significance to the players at the time. It might feel like a big clue and rarely some player who picks up on the DMs tone of voice or the oddity of them mentioning a detail like that might figure out it is a significant clue but this is often for meta gaming and player reasons not related to the mystery at hand.

The other comment is that many of these mystery plots draw on common elements and themes. Sometimes all it takes is one or two clues that remind the player of a similar plot line for them to suddenly come up with the entire mystery including the solution ... people do this all the time when watching a TV show and predicting how it is likely to turn out. I've seen it happen in a few D&D games leaving the DM wondering if they have to change the adventure on the fly when a player guesses who the ultimate villain likely is or how the DM originally intended for it to play out. This is more common when the DM and players read and watch similar material.

[Mercureality]

I am the dm for a group of 5 players of varying levels of experience. The world they are in presents them with a mystery. And man is it hard to drop clues that they actually pick up on, are useful, but doesnt just give the whole thing away.
Basically they were plucked from Forgotten Realms and brought to this plane apparently by kobolds sorcerers. There are layers to the mystery of why, as well as lies and deception to mislead them.
I asked the other night if they jad picked up on any clues they thought useful, to judge how i was doing, and they could only mention a couple. Now the clues I have dropped were small. But put together they paint the picture that the plane they are on is very weird.

Anyone else have a hard time with slow playing big mysteries? Any general advice? If you want more detail i can safely do so as im confident noone in my group reads here.

The City of Mist rpg book is all about constructing mysteries for your players to unravel, since that's the theme and focus of the game, in addition to mythic noir fable shenanigans. It's a good pick up just for that lengthy chunk of the book, but here's a nutshell version.

You build an inverse pyramid of scenes and encounters for your players. At the inception of the investigation, the players must know that a mystery *exists* and that there's a central question to answer. Provide them with leads to several different "top layer" encounters. The top layer of the pyramid might be four or five different encounters, each of which contains a clue that leads down to the next layer of the pyramid, or to different encounter(s) on the same layer. The clues become less subtle and lead inoxerably toward the solution for the central mystery, layer by layer, provided that your players don't screw up egregiously. A shallow mystery is about 3 layers deep. A more complex mystery tends to go 5+ layers deep. You can probably go deeper, since you probably aren't expecting your mystery to be solved in a few sessions? More of an add-on as part of a longer campaign?

Some tips: you can gate encounters behind combat, social, skill, or knowledge checks, but avoid gating acquisition of a clue behind such a check. That is, if they beat up the suspicious thugs, they automatically get a clue leading to the next layer. Perhaps an investigation check is required to interpret that clue, and the players might need NPC help if they fail.l, but either way they know they have a clue. Also, if the players fail to get a clue that leads to the next layer down, then feed them a lead to a current layer clue or remind them of other existing leads. An occasional dead end is okay, but, BIG red flag here: red herrings are not. It's always better if they feel like they've earned it, as long as they're not constantly frustrated. Spending a whole series of sessions chasing down a fake clue will make the players feel betrayed.

Personally, I find constructing engaging mysteries that make sense MUCH harder than a standard adventure. I do recommend breaking down your clue pyramid and major encounters into a flow chart or bullet points for each layer. Keep notes. Make sure your players keep notes.

[MaxWilson]

I am the dm for a group of 5 players of varying levels of experience. The world they are in presents them with a mystery. And man is it hard to drop clues that they actually pick up on, are useful, but doesnt just give the whole thing away.
Basically they were plucked from Forgotten Realms and brought to this plane apparently by kobolds sorcerers. There are layers to the mystery of why, as well as lies and deception to mislead them.
I asked the other night if they jad picked up on any clues they thought useful, to judge how i was doing, and they could only mention a couple. Now the clues I have dropped were small. But put together they paint the picture that the plane they are on is very weird.

Anyone else have a hard time with slow playing big mysteries? Any general advice? If you want more detail i can safely do so as im confident noone in my group reads here.

General advice: read everything the Alexandrian has written about game structures, especially mysteries. https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-Clue-Rule

Another tip: use treasure to drop clues. http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/99/treasure-tells-a-story/

Final tip: be flexible if the players turn out not to care about the mystery and want to focus on something else. Keep dropping hints if you like, but make sure that it will still be a fun game even if the mystery turns out to be background knowledge that the PCs simply never learn. Gameplay should be about pursuing what's important to the players, which could turn out to be romance or treasure or power or a different mystery ("what caused the Blood War?").

[CrazyCarppy]

Thank you all for the replies and advice. Between your posts and the articles suggested I feel much better prepared.

[Chugger]

Make the finding of essential clues automatic.
Always provide at least 2 other clues pointing to each conclusion.
Ensure that each clue is delivered at least twice.
Keep some more obvious clues in reserve to drop if people get stuck

And accept that sometimes the mystery won't run smoothly and prepare a few combat encounters just in case.

This is a good start. Now look to movies for pacing.

The most noobish pacing mistake DMs make is withholding way, WAY too much information until the very end or near the end. If you want to see a WotC published example of this, Google "Shadows over the Moonsea PDF" - it's free now - and read it. It's a hot mess. But there's a great backstory for this adventure - but it's a hot mess because everything just happens at the end. Boom. Players are numbed by this. A few key secrets should be revealed at the end, and then it should be "AHA, now I get it!!!" as opposed to "wth - I'm confused".

Let's think about the movie Sixth Sense. (spoiler warning for Sixth Sense).



In this movie something is amiss. We have all the clues, including the Bruce Willis character learning from the boy who sees dead people that the dead don't want to recognize they're dead. Finally, the big secret at the end is that Bruce Willis is also a _ghost_. That's all it is. It's that simple, but it's beautiful. And poor M Night Shamalamadingdong hasn't been able to write anything close to it since. Oh well. Think about it. You learn a lot as you progress through the movie - the only secret withheld is that Bruce is a ghost - and once you learn that everything falls perfectly into place, like dominoes falling. It's elegant and very impactful in terms of storytelling.

Don't be afraid to give answers to the players as they progress through your campaign. Again, too much back-loading is terrible story telling. You need to reward the players with answers as they advance - just have the answers they get morph into new questions.

A good story raises questions that make the participants really want to know answers, and they get answers, but answers morph into new questions, which get answered, which morph into new questions.

LOTR spoiler below.


Look at Fellowship of the Ring movie. You learn right away that the ring Frodo inherits is a powerful magic ring made may Sauron, and if he gets it back, the world ends. What? No no no no NO! We should hide that until deep in the story. There's this ring, see, and … that's the trap noob DMs and experience DMs making noob mistakes fall into - it's the main one.

LOTR works because the Ring is known right up front - they have to destroy it to save the world, but it's probably impossible to destroy it, yet we have to try, anyway. This is the major, over-arching question for the whole series. Every moment of these movies we are worried about this - it keeps us hooked - keeps us interested.

So the Hobbits set out to meet Gandalf at the Inn at Bree. We know black riders are afoot, so we're worried - it's a question - will the riders catch the hobbits? They hear a horse coming. Maybe it's Gandalf! No, Frodo says let's hide. But maybe they won't. Will they hide? yes, they hide - and yes, it is a black rider, not Gandalf. So the question morphs to will the rider sense them? Yes it does. Will it home in on them and kill them??? No - Frodo puts the ring away and it can no longer sense them, so it rides off - for now the Hobbits are saved. But this answer becomes a new question as the rider screams and three other riders answer his scream from the woods - how can the hobbits possibly escape 4 riders???

That's the question and answer aspect - or set-up and pay-off in its nitty grittiest. They're learning things constantly as they travel. Aragorn tells them all sorts of lore - tells them about Sauruman and all sorts of other stuff. They finally get to Elrond's and they learn a ton more - they learn how someone cut the ring off Sauron's hand long ago but couldn't destroy it. This is a major set-up. The ring possesses you and keeps you from destroying it is a major hint. You're constantly learning stuff - very little is withheld.

So don't withhold stuff. Just spread it out - break it down so they learn bits and pieces - then piece it together.

Keep in mind that with most movies you know Clint Eastwood or Arnold Snorkenator is gonna win - but you keep watching to see how he wins. You don't have to withhold secrets. It's better to give away more information, not less.

[HappyDaze]

Is the mystery important to the game? You can have a big mystery as a backdrop that matters not at all to the game. The players may not appreciate it even as they go on adventures and do the typical D&D things. This isn't necessarily an issue; I can recall several older modules that have tons of backstory that only the DM ever finds out--and it doesn't really impact the game table at all.

[fbelanger]

I am the dm for a group of 5 players of varying levels of experience. The world they are in presents them with a mystery. And man is it hard to drop clues that they actually pick up on, are useful, but doesnt just give the whole thing away.
Basically they were plucked from Forgotten Realms and brought to this plane apparently by kobolds sorcerers. There are layers to the mystery of why, as well as lies and deception to mislead them.
I asked the other night if they jad picked up on any clues they thought useful, to judge how i was doing, and they could only mention a couple. Now the clues I have dropped were small. But put together they paint the picture that the plane they are on is very weird.

Anyone else have a hard time with slow playing big mysteries? Any general advice? If you want more detail i can safely do so as im confident noone in my group reads here.

A mysterie in DND is very different from a novel or a movie. Players are on the blind side of it, and most of the time the guess badly wrong, but they still build a coherent story.
There is often a clash, when they finally get the answer, if they even get it.

[CrazyCarppy]

The mystery is the campaign. Until/unless the players decide they dont care how and why they were snatched from their home plane and brought to this one. Technically they might manage to remove the planar lock and travel home without learning why. But I think its unlikely. Simply because im going to ensure they know that there will be consequences for removing it.
The campaign ending will be a moral dilemma for the characters. If they free themselves they are releasing a great evil on the universe. But killing this evil may be impossible.

[MaxWilson]

The mystery is the campaign. Until/unless the players decide they dont care how and why they were snatched from their home plane and brought to this one. Technically they might manage to remove the planar lock and travel home without learning why. But I think its unlikely. Simply because im going to ensure they know that there will be consequences for removing it.
The campaign ending will be a moral dilemma for the characters. If they free themselves they are releasing a great evil on the universe. But killing this evil may be impossible.

Hang on a sec, that sounds like a potential problem. How do you KNOW the mystery is the thing the players care about most in this campaign? How much player-to-player dialogue is speculation about the mystery, and talk about their desire to get "home" (to a place the players have no emotional connection to because they've never even been there)?

Do they even WANT to solve the mystery? Or are they just looking for interesting stuff to do where they already are? Maybe they just want to make friends, kill monsters, and become rich and famous. How much do you know about their goals and how do you know it?

[Keravath]

The mystery is the campaign. Until/unless the players decide they dont care how and why they were snatched from their home plane and brought to this one. Technically they might manage to remove the planar lock and travel home without learning why. But I think its unlikely. Simply because im going to ensure they know that there will be consequences for removing it.
The campaign ending will be a moral dilemma for the characters. If they free themselves they are releasing a great evil on the universe. But killing this evil may be impossible.

Well I hope your players are open minded and like PVP.

Personally, I hate a campaign ending like this and once I understood what was going on I'd either walk out or end it definitively.

1) If you know or believe that the evil can't be destroyed. If you know that releasing it would have possibly negative consequences for many creatures across the multiverse and if you know that the only way you can escape is to also allow the evil to escape then there are two choices.

A) Those who believe in saving the universe have to kill the party members who would release the evil.
B) Those who want to escape and in so doing release the evil but free themselves have to kill the party members who would prevent them from escaping.

You've set up a situation with no middle ground. If the characters sit around in the demiplane then eventually those who want to escape will figure out a way to do so. The only way to prevent that is to kill off the characters who want to escape.

The only way it works out is if either everyone agrees that they must remain .. in which case they are essentially all agreeing to suicide or at the very least life in prison OR everyone agrees that they must escape.

You could have a situation in which the ones who want to escape outnumber those who remain and then attack and restrain those characters while opening the way out presenting them with a fait accompli. However, then the characters who were restrained will likely despise those who attacked them (at least in a reasonable role playing sense).

In either case, the scenario you have set will end the campaign (which may be the intent) as you know it possibly leaving at least some of the players dissatisfied with the resolution. Honestly, it might seem fun from a DM perspective but it feels like a disaster to me from a player perspective.

[Mellack]

Well I hope your players are open minded and like PVP.

Personally, I hate a campaign ending like this and once I understood what was going on I'd either walk out or end it definitively.

1) If you know or believe that the evil can't be destroyed. If you know that releasing it would have possibly negative consequences for many creatures across the multiverse and if you know that the only way you can escape is to also allow the evil to escape then there are two choices.

A) Those who believe in saving the universe have to kill the party members who would release the evil.
B) Those who want to escape and in so doing release the evil but free themselves have to kill the party members who would prevent them from escaping.

You've set up a situation with no middle ground. If the characters sit around in the demiplane then eventually those who want to escape will figure out a way to do so. The only way to prevent that is to kill off the characters who want to escape.

The only way it works out is if either everyone agrees that they must remain .. in which case they are essentially all agreeing to suicide or at the very least life in prison OR everyone agrees that they must escape.

You could have a situation in which the ones who want to escape outnumber those who remain and then attack and restrain those characters while opening the way out presenting them with a fait accompli. However, then the characters who were restrained will likely despise those who attacked them (at least in a reasonable role playing sense).

In either case, the scenario you have set will end the campaign (which may be the intent) as you know it possibly leaving at least some of the players dissatisfied with the resolution. Honestly, it might seem fun from a DM perspective but it feels like a disaster to me from a player perspective.


That seems to assume that anyone leaving releases the evil. What if it is only released if all of them leave? Then you just need to kill off one of them, and the rest are free to go. Still has all the problems of possible PvP, but now if someone dies during the campaign, (accidentally or otherwise), then the whole thing is already taken care of.

[MaxWilson]

That seems to assume that anyone leaving releases the evil. What if it is only released if all of them leave? Then you just need to kill off one of them, and the rest are free to go. Still has all the problems of possible PvP, but now if someone dies during the campaign, (accidentally or otherwise), then the whole thing is already taken care of.

Someone's been reading the Stormlight Archives. :)

[Keravath]

Someone's been reading the Stormlight Archives. :)

I've only read the first two ... seems like I should read the rest :)

To Mellack: The OP said " If they free themselves they are releasing a great evil on the universe. But killing this evil may be impossible." ... which I kind of interpreted in an all or nothing way in terms of "freeing" but I could easily be wrong about it. Either way, it's the OP's game so hopefully they have a plan to make it fun for the players. I find moral dilemmas can feel cool from a DMs perspective but often aren't nearly as much fun from a player perspective except for specific types of players or ones prepared for those sorts of in game decisions.

[CrazyCarppy]

There are multiple possible endings that I can foresee. And I am open to different outcomes should the players come up with something else. Which im sure they will.
The evil is two fold. Basically its a demon prince trapped in an illithid elder brain.
The plane is actually the demons layer of the abyss that was ripped from the outer planes and held in the prime material by 4 angels.
1. They find a way to remove the lock before they are even aware of the demon or the elder brain. It planeshift away to become a future villain.
2 They kill the elder brain, releasing the demon which is still restricted to this plane. But it will be at closer to full power and will be trying to put its plane back in the abyss.
3 they choose to stay amd not worry about leaving without knowing any of the background stuff. Each character is being given a reason this might be a reasonable option based on their back story.
4. They choose to stay for the good of the multiverse after learning what is held in this trap.

Having different characters wanting to make different choices will be part of what they need to work out. Based on the characters/ players i expect I know how that party split would go. And one of the players was prepared to lose his character to npchood as a potential antagonist from the get go.

[blackjack50]

I am the dm for a group of 5 players of varying levels of experience. The world they are in presents them with a mystery. And man is it hard to drop clues that they actually pick up on, are useful, but doesnt just give the whole thing away.
Basically they were plucked from Forgotten Realms and brought to this plane apparently by kobolds sorcerers. There are layers to the mystery of why, as well as lies and deception to mislead them.
I asked the other night if they jad picked up on any clues they thought useful, to judge how i was doing, and they could only mention a couple. Now the clues I have dropped were small. But put together they paint the picture that the plane they are on is very weird.

Anyone else have a hard time with slow playing big mysteries? Any general advice? If you want more detail i can safely do so as im confident noone in my group reads here.

Oh man! I have one. I did a game where my players were basically cops trying to shut down a drug ring. I had a few key pieces of information. My players locked in and laser focused on 2 members of the drug ring. They hadn’t gone far enough so I basically brought them in front of a grizzled veteran watch guy to instruct them on next steps. It looked like this:

https://youtu.be/-S__KDPuJPg

Don’t be afraid to railroad to push them forward as long as it is logical.

My game had my players suspicions about a guy who was just a tavern owner...so I just let them arrest him and come across more evidence later. Players are allowed to be wrong :)