My group is light one member tonight, so one of our GMs, Don, is running a one shot for myself and one other player. He won’t tell us what it’s going to be, and I love that — it’s a totally appropriate level of mystery for a one-shot. It piques my interest and makes me wonder what we’re going to play, and those are both good things.
But what about for a more traditional multi-adventure campaign? I’d argue that maintaining at least some mystery about what’s going to happen is absolutely vital, and probably preferred by almost 100% of players. How much mystery is appropriate, though?
Take character creation, for example. That’s not an area where you want any mystery at all for a long-term game: your players should know exactly what to expect, and you should help them create PCs that will be fun to play.
When it comes to plots and story arcs, though, things can get a bit muddier. Take secrecy too far in one direction, and your players will spend all their time flailing around, trying to find the storyline (which will only fall into their flashlight beam at random). Too far in the other direction, and it’s like accidentally seeing a movie spoiler when you’re not into spoilers: not much fun at all.
How do you find that balance? And where’s the line for your group?
This is one of those things that requires “active GMing”. You need to constantly have your hand on the “clue sensitivity” dial, making sure they get enough clues to figure it out, but not so many that there’s no mystery at all.
As an added bonus, if they manage to find a cooler way to do things, and if you’ve been “vague enough”, you’re free to run with their idea.
The sense of mystery is one of the things I enjoy about playing in new games. I’m currently playing in a Werewolf game, and I know nothing about the World of Darkness (especially since this is a 1st edition game). It’s literally all new to me, and whatever problems that may exist with the game are invisible to me.
The line for my players is very simple. They need to have something to do. It is perfectly ok to have no idea where the storyline is going, as long as they know what the next action should be. It doesn’t matter if it is a dozen possible actions or only one, they don’t like being left on clueless. Thus things that are heavily player dependent like riddles must be carefully used, or they lead to dead ends and frustrated players.
Telas: I also enjoy the sense of mystery that comes with playing a new game. I find that another bonus is that I’m less encumbered by my own baggage (good or bad) about how to play it, and that can be a lot of fun.
lebkin: That’s a good line to draw, and you summed it up well. I’m in the same category as a player, pretty much — nothing bugs me quite like being clueless about how I’m supposed to be having fun.
The DM for the game I’m playing in has really struggled with this one. He has a VERY high mystery campaign going, with lots of important NPCs and, as we’ve recently figured out, time travel (eek!). We players started to independently and collectively complain that we’ve been gaming for months (real time) and still have basically no clue what’s going on in terms of the big picture. He keeps dropping names and little hints, but we still have yet to get anything like The Big Reveal. I guess he’s siding against Orsen Wells’ statement that “Suspense is stronger than surprise.”
In what I must admit is at least a bit of back-lash from this situation, I plan on running my campaign a bit more on the suspense side: the players will find out pretty quickly who the mysterious bad guy is and what his plans are — the trick will be coming up with a way to stop him.
I suppose a lot of the difference between those two approaches depends on how long you expect the campaign to run. I know my DM friend is an old-schooler, and loves to envision a campaign spanning many (real time) years. (He also hates the D&D 3.5e fast-track experience train, and regularly cuts the standard exp reward in half.) Me, I just want to have fun. If the campaign I’m running ends up coming to an end over a period of just a few months, no biggie. I’m sure I’ll get a chance to use any unused side-encounter material elsewhere.