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What makes a mystery scenario work is, ultimately, the structural revelations: The PCs need to find a lead that will take them to the SS Brittany and they need to find the clues that reveal how to defeat the ento-parasites from Planet X.

Using the Three Clue Rule, node-based design, and similar scenario-building tools, therefore, we make these structural revelations robust and distribute them throughout the mystery in interesting and effective ways. Ideally, the result is a mystery scenario that’s more likely to succeed than to fail, and is also compelling for the players from beginning to end.

But not every possible revelation in a mystery scenario is load-bearing.

For example, while investigating strange murders in the Welsh countryside, it might be really cool for the PCs to discover that the coven of witches responsible for the killings is descended from a cult of Isis worshipers who escaped from Egypt during the final days of the Ptolemeic Pharaohs. And it’s probably even cooler if they realize the goal of the multi-generational ritual killings is to bring Cleopatra herself back from the dead!

Such revelations might even feel essential for the players to fully appreciate the scenario. Strictly speaking, however, these background revelations aren’t required. The PCs can follow their leads and find the subterranean passages which serve as the coven’s base of operations, and even puzzle over the Egyptian-style murals painted on the walls there, without ever truly realizing the coven’s long history. They might even fight (and defeat!) the lich-pharaoh without ever realizing that she’s Cleopatra!

Understanding and being able to recognize the difference between structural revelations (the PCs must know where the coven’s HQ is to finish the scenario!) and background revelations (it would be really cool if they knew who the lich-pharaoh was!) offers a lot of practical advantages when it comes to both designing and running mystery scenarios.

First, I recommend keeping your background revelations on a completely separate revelation list from your structural revelations.

Having a revelation list for background revelations is useful for design: Since you do, in fact, want the PCs to learn that the lich-pharaoh is Cleopatra, you’ll want to use the Three Clue Rule and make sure the clues pointing to that revelation are positioned for maximum effect.

On the other hand, since these background revelations are nonessential structurally-speaking, you don’t actually need to track them during play: If something goes wrong, it only means that the identity of the lich-pharaoh becomes a source of enigma. That may or may not be ideal, but it’s a perfectly cromulent outcome.

Note: As discussed in the article on Enigma, the fact these background revelations are structurally nonessential may also mean that you don’t care about them being robust, either! You can use the Three Clue Rule to make background revelations robust, but technically the rule only applies to structural revelations.

Conversely, by removing these nonessential revelations from your main revelation list, you effectively declutter your list of structural revelations: These are the revelations you DO need to keep track of during play so that you can troubleshoot them if something goes wrong, and getting rid of the clutter will make that mid-session tracking much easier to do!

THE PURPOSE OF A BACKGROUND REVELATION

If background revelations aren’t required for the success of a scenario, though, why include them at all? Wouldn’t it simplify everything and declutter the entire experience if you got rid of them entirely?

The short answer is that man does not live on bread alone.

Structural revelations may be how the PCs navigate their way to the scenario’s conclusion, but it’s background revelations that give the scenario meaning. Background revelations are also how you “show, not tell” when it comes to historical research and worldbuilding.

This isn’t just about delivering memorable “oh wow, that’s cool!” moments for the players rather than generic lich fights that will be forgotten before the next session (although it is that, too!).

Plus, from a purely practical standpoint, you often WANT a little clutter in your mystery scenarios: Remember that when the players first discover a strange clue, they’re likely going to be trying to figure out how it fits into the overall pattern of clues (and other strange things) they’ve discovered so far. The clues and details associated with background revelations help to fill up your scenes with cool stuff that can be uncovered via investigation.

Along these same lines, background revelations can also be very good at delivering small victories even while the big questions remain elusive to them: They may not know where the cult is located, but figuring out that they’re Isis worshipers feels like a win! Wins like that are what will keep the group motivated and moving forward in their investigation.

In other words, just because they’re structurally nonessential, it doesn’t mean that background revelations are meaningless. To the contrary: They’re packed full of meaning! Their entire existence is to provide meaning!

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A completely reactive mystery — in which the characters simply explore scenes, discover leads, and follow those leads to new scenes (and then repeat) — can make for a perfectly lovely scenario.

With that being said, when you’re designing a mystery scenario, I strongly recommend including proactive nodes: Stuff that can (and will!) come to find the PCs even if they’re standing still. These elements put the world in motion, implying that the world exists and things are happening beyond what the PCs can immediately see. Even the lightest spicing of these elements can add a ton of dynamic life to a scenario.

These proactive elements don’t necessarily need to be (or, more accurately, contain) clues, but in a mystery scenario why would you pass up the opportunity?

This, in turn, makes proactive nodes the single best troubleshooting tool you can have when running a mystery. As discussed in the Three Clue Rule, if you end up in a situation where the players are stuck, dithering, or have decided to hide from the adventure, you can simply trigger a proactive node to bring the next scene to the PCs and keep the adventure moving forward.

But troubleshooting isn’t the only reason to trigger a proactive node.

Another option is to advance the timeline. This assumes that the antagonists in the scenario are actively pursuing an ongoing agenda (e.g., another bank is robbed; the serial killer targets another victim; the Death Star blows up another planet). You simply trigger the next step in their plan (or the next stage of the parasite’s life cycle).

The trick, however, is that the bad guys’ plan may have nothing to do with the PCs, and the next stage of the plan may happen completely offscreen without the PCs being aware of it. What you want to do, therefore, is to think not only about what happens, but also how those events end up intersecting the PCs.

This maybe straightforward. For example, if the PCs are FBI agents investigating the serial killer, then their boss can simply contact them and send them to the new crime scene. If they’re superheroes pursuing high-tech bank robbers, on the other hand, you might want to have them spot the robbery in progress while they’re patrolling the streets or, alternatively, they could spot a news broadcast mentioning the most recent crime.

Along similar lines, you can also raise the stakes. For example, the bad guys have finished building their death ray and now they start using it. Or the parasite begins transforming the residents of Evergrove into horrible monsters.

Proactive nodes can also be used to create consequences: Did the PC super-spies tip their hands and let Le Élcarlate know they were investigating him? Then it makes sense that he’d send some thugs to dissuade them! (Or a femme fatale to seduce them.)

This technique can work even if the players are clueless about what they did to earn the payback. (“Well… we clearly pissed somebody off.”) But it’s usually even more effective if they can see the connection between what they did and the proactive node that landed in their lap. It reinforces that their choices are meaningful, as are the repercussions of their successes and failrues. (If it’s unclear, you might consider including some clues or hints to help them figure out why the fish-people suddenly tried to blow up their hotel room.)

You might also employ proactive nodes simply for pacing. Are the players getting a little listless? Does the session seem to be lagging a bit? Nothing a squad of android assassins can’t fix!

TIME PASSES

Something I’ve discovered is that proactive nodes work best when the players have a clear sense of time passing in the game world.

There can be a tendency in an RPG for stuff to just kind of happen, one thing after another after another, in a sort of amorphous temporal void. It can be surprisingly easy for an adventure to start in the late afternoon and then have the PCs do eighteen different things, drive back and forth multiple times across town, and yet never have the day come to an end.

When you get stuck in this timeless state, it can become difficult to properly trigger a proactive node. (“If it’s only been an hour so since they found the body, does it really make sense that the bad guys could figure out where they lived and planted explosives there?”) And consequences can also feel capricious instead of consequential.

This can also be true if things become untacked in time: If it feels like only a few hours have passed, it can feel unfair or unhinged when a proactive event suddenly reveals that days have passed.

What you need is both a clear internal sense of how much time is passing for the characters and to clearly communicate that to the players so that their mental image of the game world is accurate.

For the first part, what I find useful is a mental model that roughly divides the day into four parts:

• Morning
• Afternoon
• Evening
• Overnight

(If the PCs are particularly active at night, you can also split that into two parts.)

Generally speaking, the PCs can each do one thing in each “slot” of the day. When they change location or tackle some completely new and time-consuming task, you can move things forward to the next slot. (If any PCs haven’t done something in the current slot, this is also a good time to ask them what they were doing while “Bob spends the afternoon at the library” or whatever.)

All you need to do now is communicate that passage of time to the players. Fortunately, you don’t need to make a big deal out of this. In fact, asking, “What are the rest of you doing while Bob spends the afternoon at the library?” neatly takes care of the problem. You can also make a point of including time of day when describing new scenes: “As you pull into the hotel parking lot, the sun is setting…” or “When you reach Aunt Cass’ house, she’s in the kitchen making lunch for the kids…”

Collectively, this temporal awareness will give a concrete sense of structure to the events happening in the game world; it’ll help you balance spotlight time; it’ll impose a sense of urgency in the players (even if there’s no clear time pressure); and it’ll let you naturally slot in your proactive events.

Frankly, it’s just good praxis in general.

CRAFTING PROACTIVE NODES

Our discussion of proactive nodes has mostly focused on various forms of trouble: A crisis happens.  The bad guy’s do something horrible. A guy with a gun walks through the door.

But proactive nodes can also be opportunities. In fact, probably the most ubiquitous form of proactive scene is the scenario hook at the beginning of an adventure: The PCs are minding their own business when they see a damsel in distress. Or a patron offers them a job.

A key insight is that these kinds of opportunities can also be offered in the middle of an adventure: A local gangbanger hears the PCs have been looking into the recent disappearances, so when her friend goes missing she comes to the PCs hoping they can help. Or maybe the antagonist decides it would be cheaper to offer the PCs a payoff to go mind their own business.

(If you’re running a more complicated campaign structure in which scenarios can overlap with each other, you might even have situations where the players don’t immediately realize that the new offer is connected to the ongoing scenario.)

What if you’re in the middle of a session, discover that you need a proactive node to get things back on track, and then realize that you don’t have one?

You can improvise something, of course, but it may also be possible to repurpose a static node.

For example, maybe the PCs were supposed to track down the safe house where the vampires are keeping a bunch of blood-addicted Renfields. Now they’ve pissed off the vampires enough that it would seem to demand a response… so why not grab some or all of those Renfields and throw ‘em at the PCs?

The all-purpose version of this, for scenarios that have gone completely imploded, is to just have the Big Bad Guy show up wherever the PCs happen to be and trigger the final showdown. In practice, of course, this is insanely unsatisfying for the players. You’re almost always going to be better off using a proactive node loaded up with clues that point the PCs to the Big Bad Guy (wherever they might be), so that the players will have the satisfaction of “figuring it out.” (This is, ultimately, a form of Matryoshka technique.)

NEXT: Background Revelations

Go to Part 1

When we talk about mystery scenarios, we obviously spend a lot of time looking at clues. Broadly speaking, a clue is something that an investigator can use to reach a conclusion:

• The murders always happen on the night of a full moon; therefore a werewolf is responsible.
• The accounting records reveal that John Fairbanks has been making payments to the corporate saboteurs.
• The trail of footprints leads to Old Man’s Cave.

And so forth.

A hint, on the other hand, is similar to a clue, but DOESN’T point to a conclusion. They’re less specific than that. They’re suggestive of something more general or, perhaps, ephemeral. Another way to think about is that a clue provides an answer, but a hint suggests a question.

This doesn’t, however, mean that a hint is necessarily subtle. Stuff like

• A bloody handprint smeared across the wall;
• A portrait with the eyes gouged out; or
• The front door of Alicia’s house being ajar when you arrive

can all be very obvious and in-your-face, even if it’s not entirely clear what’s going on.

Other hints, though, might be so subtle that the players might not even realize they were significant until later, like:

• Broken pieces of glass on the floor of a dungeon corridor.
• “Silver snakes” being mentioned off-handedly or metaphorically in several different lore books.
• A slightly greasy residue on a door handle.

Hints are not just random set dressing, though. They are, in fact, hinting at something. (It’s right in the name.) It’s just that they are so fractured, partial, distorted, or incomplete in their nature that their true meaning cannot be fully perceived. The difference between photograph and a dim shape glimpsed murkily through a thick fog.

USING HINTS

Hints can be used to achieve a number of different effects.

They can set mood or tone for a scenario. Basic examples include simple signals that “something weird is going on here” or “something terrible happened here.”

They can also serve as a warning of danger. This can be highly situational, but whether it’s a bloody knife or a broken vase of flowers lying on the kitchen floor, PCs who take the hint might realize it’s time to draw their guns, call the cops, or activate their shielding charm.

Similarly, a hint can be a signal to investigate. A sort of, “Hey! Look over here!” Whatever the PCs find upon taking a closer look, of course, may have nothing to do with the original hint.

Tip: A hint suggesting the presence of a trap can be a fun combination of danger warning and investigation signal.

Hints can also more broadly serve as a form of foreshadowing. Why did all the toy soldiers have their legs ripped off? While initially being just a creepy-yet-enigmatic detail, the truth will become apparent when the PCs meet the legless zombie boy who’s been locked up in the attic.

Something to be aware of when using hints is that there’s not always a sharp distinction between a clue and a hint. Players can also be devilishly insightful, so don’t be surprised when they perform a bit of intuitive judo and somehow glean great truths from the most inscrutable details.

This is, of course, just fine: The goal of a mystery, after all, is for the investigators to acquire knowledge, and the players will likely be incredibly stoked to have solved such a fiendishly difficult riddle.

But it can be a useful reminder that, if there’s something the PCs absolutely must NOT know (for whatever reason), then even hinting at it may be dangerous. You might get some mileage from figuring out how to hint at the thing that hints at the truth. That ought to slow them down… for a few scenes, at least.

Next: Proactive Nodes

Go to Part 1

Let’s do some quick review.

The Three Clue Rule maintains that for any conclusion you want the PCs to make, you should include at least three clues.

Furthermore, we can classify clues as being either leads (which point to places where you can continue your investigation by collecting more clues) and evidence (which point to other revelations; e.g., the identity of the killer or the method for creating red mercury). This distinction is valuable because one is how you navigate the scenario, while the other is usually the goal (or goals) of the scenario.

(Plus, only leads need to obey the Inverted Three Clue Rule. See Node-Based Scenario Design.)

Now that we’re all up to speed, brace yourself because we’re about to go even deeper:

Leads can also be divided into two types: existential leads and access leads.

Existential leads literally indicate that the target node exists and/or that the PCs would find the target to be of interest (e.g., because they might find clues or treasure there).

Access leads, on the other hand, tell the PCs how they can go to the target node.

It’s not unusual for there to be little or no difference between these two types of leads because access to a node is often trivial: If the PCs know the Morning Star Nightclub is significant to their investigation, they can trivially use Google Maps to figure out where it is.

On the other hand, consider a runic inscription in some ancient ruins that says, “The Lost City of Shandrala is possessed of many treasures!” That’s an existential lead. It might get the PCs interested in Shandrala, but if they don’t know where it is, there’s nothing they can do about it. A map indicating the location of one of the Jade Portals that leads to the Lost City, on the other hand? That’s an access clue, allowing the PCs to go to Shandrala.

TROUBLESHOOTING

The distinction here might seem exceedingly esoteric, but it has practical applications.

First, it can be essential when troubleshooting a scenario. For example, you might look at your revelation list and say, “I’ve got three clues pointing to the Lost City of Shandrala! I’m good to go!” But if some or, worse yet, all of those clues are existential leads, then you haven’t actually fulfilled the Three Clue Rule.

This problem can even be hard to spot when it’s actively happening at the game table: If you think your players have all the clues they need, but they’re nonetheless spinning their wheels, it can be worthwhile to make sure that there aren’t roadblocks by a lack of access to the nodes they want to investigate.

The reverse can also be true: The PCs may have multiple leads giving them access to a node, but if they don’t have a reason to go there it may not matter! In my experience, this problem is much rarer because the dramatic nature of the game itself strongly implies that if something is mentioned, then it’s significant (e.g., I’m not giving you a random map with a location circled on it for no reason; therefore the location is inherently worth checking out). But particularly in a sandbox campaign, players not understanding the significance or value of a node may isolate material that you erroneously think is robustly linked to the rest of the world.

You can think of existential leads as pointing to existential revelations, and, naturally, access leads as pointing to access revelations.

In practical terms, as described in The Secret Life of Nodes, it’s not unusual for my node list to directly double as a revelation list. Most of the time this works just fine because, as we’ve noted, your existential and access leads for a node are usually one and the same thing. But when they’re not, obviously, your revelation list can become a trap, artificially conflating revelations that are actually separate from each other.

The solution, of course, is to separate your existential revelations into a separate revelation list and supply the proper clues for both lists. (In this sense, the existential revelations act much more like evidentiary revelations, insofar as they are conclusions you want the players to make, but which do not allow the PCs to navigate through the scenario.)

PAYOFF

The distinction between existential and access revelations can also be used to your advantage when designing scenarios by creating payoff.

Take the Lost City of Shandrala, for example. If the first time the players hear about it is when they find a map indicating its location with a hand-scrawled note reading, “Home of the Jade Masters!” that works: The clue combines both the existential and access leads, and it’s quite likely that the players will check out the Lost City at some point.

But consider what happens if you instead spend several adventures dropping existential — and only existential! — leads to the Lost City of Shandrala. Now you’re building a sense of enigma: Each clue builds the rep of the Lost City a little more, and possibly gives the PCs more and more reasons for finding it.

This built-up anticipation then pays off when you finally start delivering the access clues that will let the PCs plan their expedition to Shandrala.

To generalize: Separate and foreshadow your existential leads in order to build anticipation and turn the ultimate revelation of access into a reward.

(Check out Getting the Players to Care for more along these lines.)

Another technique here is that you can sometimes nest your existential and access revelations:

• You need to talk to the Immortal Sorcerer. (Existential)
• To talk to the spirit of the Immortal Sorcerer, you need the jade amulet. (Access)
• The jade amulet is hidden in the Lost City of Shandrala. (Existential)
• The Lost City of Shandrala can be accessed through the Jade Portals. (Existential)
• A Jade Portal is located at such-and-such a place. (Access)

You can see how this thread of the campaign builds over time. In fact, you could also imagine separate existential revelations about the Lost City of Shandrala that are built up over time, so that when the PCs also learn that the jade amulet they need is located there it will just pump up their desire to reach Shandrala even more.

Next: Hints

Go to Part 1

Since writing the Three Clue Rule, I’ve spent just over a decade preaching the methods you can use to design robust mystery scenarios for RPGs that can be reliably solved by your players.

Now, let me toss all that out the door and talk about the mysteries that your players don’t solve. And that, in fact, you’re okay with them not solving!

These generally come in a couple different forms.

First, there are unsolvable mysteries. These are mysteries that you don’t WANT the players to solve. There can be any number of reasons for this, but a fairly typical one is that you don’t want them to solve the mystery yet. (For example, because you don’t want to reveal the true identity of the Grismeister until near the end of the campaign.)

Unsolvable mysteries are easy to implement: You just don’t include the clues necessary to solve them.

The other type of mystery we’re talking about is structurally nonessential. These are mysteries that the PCs can, in fact, solve. They’re revelations that the players are completely capable of figuring out.

But it’s possible that they won’t.

And that’s OK.

In fact, it can greatly enhance your campaign.

It’s OK because structurally nonessential revelations are, by definition, not required for the players to successfully complete the scenario: Knowing that the Emerald Pharaoh loved Sentaka La and arranged for her to buried alive after his death so that they could be reunited in the afterlife is a cool bit of lore, but it’s not necessary in order to complete The Doom of the Viridescent Pyramid.

Note: A corollary here is that structurally nonessential mysteries don’t need to obey the Three Clue Rule (although they certainly can and I’d certainly default to that if possible).

But if it’s a cool bit of lore, why wouldn’t we want to force the players to learn it?

When we, as game masters, create something cool for our campaigns, there’s a natural yearning for the players to learn it or experience it. That’s a good impulse, but it’s also a yearning that, in my opinion, we have to learn how to resist. If we force these discoveries, then we systemically drain the sense of accomplishment from our games. Knowledge is a form of reward, and for rewards to be meaningful they must be earned.

THE POWER OF ENIGMA

More importantly, the lack of knowledge can often be just as cool as the knowledge itself.

An unsolved mystery creates enigma. It creates a sense of inscrutable depths; of a murky and mysterious reality that cannot be fully comprehended. And that’s going to make your campaign world come alive. It’s going to draw the players in and keep them engaged. It will frustrate them, but it will also tantalize and motivate them.

Creating enigma with strategically placed unsolvable mysteries can be effective, but I actually find that having these enigmas emerge organically from structurally nonessential mysteries is usually even more effective:

• What’s the true story of how the Twelve Vampires came to rule Jerusalem?
• How did the Spear of Destiny end up in that vault in Argentina?
• What exactly was Ingen doing on Isla Nublar in Jurassic Park III?
• Who left these cryptic messages painted on the walls of the Facility?

The technique here is simple: Fill your scenarios with a plethora of these nonessential mysteries. (You can even create a separate section of your revelation list for them if you find it useful, although it’s not strictly necessary since you have no need to track them.) At that point, it becomes actuarial game: When including a bunch of these in a dungeon, for example, it becomes statistically quite likely that the PCs won’t solve all of them.

The ones they don’t solve? Those are your enigmas.

In my experience, the fact that these mysteries are, in fact, soluble only makes the enigma more effective. I think that, on at least some level, the players recognize that these mysteries that could be solved, and that invests the enigma with a fundamental reality. It’s not just the GM choosing to thwart you. The reality of that solution — and the fact that you, as the GM, know the solution — also has a meaningful impact on how you design and develop your campaign world.

(Which is not to say that there isn’t a place for the truly inexplicable and fanciful in your campaign worlds. Check out 101 Curious Items, for example. But it’s a different technique, and I find the effect distinct.)

ADDING MYSTERY

In the end, that’s really all there is to it, though: Spice your scenarios with cool, fragile mysteries that will reward the clever and the inquisitive, while forever shutting their secrets away from the bumbling or unobservant. When the PCs solve them, share in their excitement. When the PCs fail to solve them, school yourself to sit back and let the mystery taunt them.

You can, of course, make a special effort to add this kind of content, but I generally take a more opportunistic approach.  I don’t think of this as something “extra” that I’m adding. Instead, I just kind of keep my eyes open while designing the scenario

• Here’s a wall studded with gemstones that glow softly when you touch them. Hmm… What if pressing them in a specific order had some particular effect? What could that be?
• This was a laboratory used by Soviet scientists engaged in post-Chernobyl genetic experimentation. Can the PCs figure out exactly what project they were working on here? And what WAS that project, exactly?
• This Ithaqua cult was founded in 1879. Hmm… Who were the cult founders? How did they first begin worshiping Ithaqua?

In the full context of a scenario, these aren’t just a bunch of random bits or unrelated puzzles. They’re all part of the scenario, which inherently means that they’re also related to each other. Thus, as the PCs solve some of them and fail to solve others, what they’re left with is an evolving puzzle with some of the pieces missing. Trying to make that puzzle come together and glean some meaning from it despite the missing pieces becomes a challenge and reward in itself.

This also means that, as you work on this stuff, you’re refining, developing, and polishing the deeper and more meaningful structure of the scenario itself.

On a similar note, this can also help you avoid one of my personal pet peeves in scenario design: The incredibly awesome background story that the PCs have no way of ever learning about.

This has been a personal bugaboo of mine ever since I read the Ravenloft adventure Touch of Death in middle school: This module featured what, at least at the time, I thought was an incredibly cool struggle between the ancient mummy Semmet and the Dread Lord Ankhtepot. I no longer recall most of the details of the module, but what I distinctly remember is the moment when I realized that there was no way for the PCs to actually learn any of the cool lore and background.

In practical terms, look at the background you’ve developed for your scenario: If there are big chunks of it which are not expressed in a way which will allow the players to organically learn about it, figure out how the elements of the background can be made manifest in the form of nonessential mysteries. Not only is this obviously more interesting for the players, but actually pulling that back story into the game will give the scenario true depth and interest.

If you put in the work, you win twice over. And then your players win, too.

Everybody wins.

Next: The Two Types of Leads

This article has been revised from Running the Campaign: Unsolved Mysteries.