A Clue!
There’s not a lot else to say about a system that takes up twenty or so pages in a small-format book. Four skills, a universal resolution mechanic, and a simple method for the GM to create difficulty: there aren’t a lot of moving parts to go wrong. Other systems have lots of fiddly bits that are easy to exploit, hard to master, and can blow immersion at inopportune moments. InSpectres is purpose-built: work as a group to create wacky monster mystery; have fun.
However, the core concept around which the game is built is easily transferable to pretty much any other system: you can’t really get stuck in an investigation because the players are inventing the clues and giving them meaning. Most mystery games have a justified reputation of being really easy to screw up unless the GM is excellent and the players are in sync with his or her style. It all comes down to how it’s nigh impossible to make scenarios without a breadcrumb trail of clues (that may look suspiciously like a railroad if done really wrong), and missing enough of them (or getting them and not understanding them) is sufficient to completely, well, derail the adventure. It’s such a problem that the Gumshoe system (used in Esoterrorists and Trail of Cthulu) is designed around a method to ensure clues in mysteries can’t be missed by bad rolls.
InSpectres turns the problem on its head. While I have no actual data on the subject, my strong suspicion is that typical RPG mysteries are way more interesting to the GM than to the players. It’s very easy to go from “players feel clever for figuring this out” to “players are grudgingly collecting their plot coupons so they can get to the fight scene.” InSpectres invites full player investment through the simple expedient of giving them complete agency over the plot. There’s no worry that players are going to be bored by the clues they find, because they’re inventing them. Sure, they trend toward the wacky, but it’s wacky fun, and that’s something that can be much more hit or miss in traditional investigative games. With a more serious setting, crunchy system, and play contract, you might even get rid of the wacky while keeping the fun.
InSpectres is a purpose-built game engine around an intriguing core concept. It works really well in and of itself, but the really cool thing about it is that it’s basically a low-impact testing method for an idea that could be easily ported to virtually any other game with minimal difficulty. Why don’t we just let the players define the clues? After a couple of sessions of InSpectres, you’ll have fewer objections to the idea than you might think.
Apr 27, 2011 @ 11:54:21
For me at least, InSpectres would not remain satisfying in multiple-session play, I have to admit. The reason for this is that discovery and working out a mystery are intellectual accomplishments that I find rewarding. Making up my own clues is to mysteries as buying presents for myself and handing them to someone to give to me is to surprises.
A one-shot game that has no other goal than to be wacky is fine, but turning this into a non-wacky game would (seem to me to) require named, ongoing threats, made up by players initially and recurring only because of players’ decisions. That seems to me like it would undercut any feel of actual threat from those entities.
The problem, I think, is that mysteries are hard to write. If they were easy to write, it would be my name on the cover of the Vlad Taltos novels, not that Brust fellow. This is an area where good games come from good writing ability, and there’s not a lot that GMing advice books (such as, you know, each edition’s DMG) can do to make someone a good writer.
Apr 27, 2011 @ 12:13:27
You and I are both of the “enjoy feeling clever figuring this out” school to an extent beyond a typical player, I think. We should do an informal poll to try to get honest answers as to how most players really feel about deep mystery plots.
I suspect that, though it’d be more work, you could balance the drive to feel like you’re accomplishing something “real.” Part of the answer may be limiting the scope of clues you can create such that they slot into the over-plot and provide color rather than completely defining what’s going on. The trick is to get into the mindset of collaboration.
And, to answer your analogy: buying a present for yourself and pretending to be surprised may not be a the greatest thing, but it’s certainly better than getting a difficult-to-open gift that turns out to be an ugly sweater that you have to pretend to like. I wouldn’t advocate this method for awesome mystery GMs that can come up with complex yet accessible plots that leave players stunned at the fiendishness of it all as it slowly unravels… but at some point a GM should take a hard look at his work and wonder whether he’s really providing a fun mystery, or the players are just treating it like having to eat their greens to get at the other parts of the game they actually enjoy.
Apr 27, 2011 @ 13:20:24
While I’m willing to accept being above average (just like all of the gamers here in Lake Woebegone, ahem), I think that a lot of people like feeling clever when they figure things out. I hear Portal did okay for itself, you know? I am very interested in getting better at writing puzzles that have one or more valid solutions.
I’d agree that GMs, like all writers, need to figure out their strengths and play to those. Figuring out one’s weaknesses and improving those areas is a good idea too. The reason I don’t run more mysteries in games is that I don’t tend to do a whole lot of advance planning, and I think of my games as more explicitly responsive to player ideas and motivation. That, and also my general laziness…