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Gnome Stew, the Game Mastering Blog. Roleplaying Games & More. Apocalypse World. Barf Forth Apocalyptica - Index. The Alexandrian - Misc Creations. Mystery scenarios for roleplaying games have earned a reputation for turning into unmitigated disasters: The PCs will end up veering wildly off-course or failing to find a particular clue and the entire scenario will grind to a screeching halt or go careening off the nearest cliff. The players will become unsure of what they should be doing.

The GM will feel as if they’ve done something wrong. And the whole evening will probably end in either boredom or frustration or both. Here’s a typical example: When the PCs approached a murder scene they don’t search outside the house, so they never find the wolf tracks which transform into the tracks of a human. They fail the Search check to find the hidden love letters, so they never realize that both women were being courted by the same man. They find the broken crate reading DANNER’S MEATS, but rather than going back to check on the local butcher they spoke to earlier they decide to go stake out the nearest meat processing plant instead.

A.K.A. The Alexandrian - Misc Creations. An Essay by Justin Alexander I think every GM probably has a story about the time that they spent hours carefully detailing some piece of lore or a particularly intricate conspiracy... only to discover that their players didn't really care. Or you complete a dramatic and powerful series of adventures featuring the unraveling of a conspiracy wrought by the Dark Gods of Keht... but three months later you mention the name "Keht" and are met by blank stares from the players. But often -- even as you're meeting with this kind of frustration -- the players are still having a great time. They'll tell all sorts of tales about the time that their characters did X... and do you remember that time that Y did Z? In discussing this problem with other GMs, I've seen many of them come to the conclusion that players just don't care that much about the game world.

Well, there's a grain of truth in that. Are you sure you actually want the players to know what's going on? "Third Lord of Castle Shard. "