From: gbradley@uks197.Berkeley.EDU (Gary Bradley)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: cluelessness in mystery games (prep vs improv)
Date: 14 Sep 92 16:25:26 GMT
Reply-To: gbradley@uks197.Berkeley.EDU (Gary Bradley)

dleland@dante.nmsu.edu (LELAND) writes...

> Regarding the player's expereinces in "get the clues" kind of games, I can
> say this is sadly all too common. I have been in games where you have the
> famous "clues flying around like clouds of bats" and the PCs feel like total
> IDIOTS because they can't guess what's on the GM's mind. It is very hard to
> play this kind of game unless you know the GM very well, at least in my own
> opinion. Why? Because the GM will have his or her own ideas about what is a
> relevant clue, what you "should" do, and so on. You on the other hand
may have
> completely different ideas about it all.

    I have only ever seen this happen where the scenario is badly
written, or the players ARE incredibly stupid. Players who are into
hack'em up RPG'S very often fall into the latter rut (not because they
are stupid in the IQ sense; rather they just aren't used to RPGs which
do NOT revolve around combat). I think hack'n'slash players need to
learn role playing all over again when they try out a solve'n'speculate
RPG. I personally have been running Call of Cthulhu for many many years:
using plots that I make as intricate and clever as I am able and with as
little combat as possible. The players, as a collective group, have
never "felt like idiots" unable to spot the clues; on the contrary they
have had fun speculating over things and working out just what ARE the
importanat clues. However, I have spotted individuals in the players'
group being totally bewildered to the extent that I see them start to
look around for the best NPC to start shooting at (the "most likely
villain" syndrome). In general these have been the players who are big
on D&D-like games (no flames please, this is simply my observations of
the people I role play with). Incidently, it is the same people who tend
to complain CoC has a high PC mortality rate: only if you appoach it
with a hack'n'slay mentality it has! If the players play CoC cleverly
and shrewdly (the way it was intended) they should do okay.

> I think the most infuriating kind of game in this regard is the "You'd Better
> Take Notes" game. This is a game in which you randomly hear a vague reference
> from an obscure NPC in the game (or something similar) like "black is white."
> Well, you'd better take notes or have a real good memory, because 500
episodes
> later, this is going to come back to haunt you. This clue will dog you
forever
> if you can't remember the connection. "Remember the villian was holding a red
> tablet in that fight?" the GM sneers. "That was over a year ago, man!" you
> wearily reply, "I barely even remember the fight!" "Tooooooooooo bad!"

   You're example is rediculously extreme. If that was a true story you
were telling, it really was a bad campaign. However, I think the taking
of notes is vital to solve'n'speculate RPGs (like CoC). If the scenario
is so simple that notes are not required, you might as well be playing a
thoroughly rousing hack'n'slash. My scenarios are not that simple. Notes
will have to be taken, but in general most can be discarded a few
sessions later. The really important links (like your red tablet) would
have been stressed so much via additional clues that the players would
have deduced very quickly that it was significant.
   Honestly, you really sound like a victim of bad scenarios to me. My
scenarios are often as compex as, say a Sherlock Holmes or Agatha
Crystie (sp?) novel, but I never have the problems you describe.

+---------------------+------------------------------------------+
| Gary Bradley        |   "You receive a love letter from me and |
| ORACLE Corp, UK     |                  you're f*cked forever!" |
| Edinburgh, SCOTLAND |        - Frank Booth ("Blue Velvet")     |
+---------------------+------------------------------------------+
| "God damn the censor man"                                      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc