Ok, there are three kinds of mystery in stories--
Classic 'What's Gonna Happen?' Mystery (diegetic mystery)
This is a mystery to both the audience and the main characters in the story: They are wondering how events will play out (or, in the case of a Sherlock-Holmes-style-mystery have played out). What will happen to Jack, Wendy, and Danny in the Overlook Hotel is a 'What's Gonna Happen?" Mystery, as is who framed Roger Rabbit? and who did the murder on the Orient Express and what will happen when we have these two couples swap wives. It's often the basic engine of the plot.
This happens in RPGs all the time.
WTF is Going On Mystery? (temporary narrative mystery)
This kind of mystery is created not in the story but by the way of telling a story. These are things that are not immediately known to the audience but are understood by the characters involved and we only learn them by following the story. Nearly every first line of a first-person novel involves this mystery (Who is narrating? What kind of person are they?) It was the best of times and it was the worst of times? For who? In the first scene of Pulp Fiction where we see Jules and Vincent talking in a car about the Royale With Cheese we don't know who these guys are. We don't know what they're about to do. We don't know where they're going or why. These are WTF is Going On mysteries. When Luke Skywalker first talks to his aunt and uncle about Ben Kenobi, we don't know who that is yet. These are temporary narrative mysteries--things kept secret by the writer until they want you--the audience--to find out.
One hallmark of good writing is very careful control of this kind of mystery. A lot of lackluster writers tell you where you are and who everyone is right away and so waste a lot of the potential of this kind of mystery.
This one is rare in RPG sessions, since the whole point is players need to know enough of their characters' POV to make decisions.
Eternal Mystery (mysterious-vibes mystery)
This is a mystery that never gets answered in the story. It can overlap with the other two, but also not. The point of this mystery is that it is never revealed and is part of the vibe. The lady or the tiger? What's in the Pulp Fiction brief case? Why is a guy in a bear suit giving some dude a blowjob in the Overlook Hotel? Why does Agent Cooper keep dreaming of a dwarf? These things just are. They make the situation seem mysterious but will not be revealed in the story.
This is a bread-and-butter device in pulp storytelling and so is all over RPGs.
Some notes
- One thing sequels often do is take something conceived as an mysterious-vibes mystery and turn them into a temporary narrative mystery. In the original two seasons of Twin Peaks Agent Cooper keeps talking to a "Dian" on his tape recorder and that's just a thing he does. In the much later Season Three, we meet Dian--she's Laura Dern. Lovecraft stories are full of this--we hear a mysterious reference to the Pnakotic Manuscripts or Necronomicon in an early story and its just meant to be a mysterious name, but then in some later story (occasionally by another author) it is revealed what that thing is. The big alien "space jockey" in Alien had this done to it.
- One element of stories called "surreal" is the deliberate piling up of the second two kinds of mystery: we get a load of details and we don't know which are actually things that we need to pay attention to because they resolve and which are just weirdness. This tension is part of the excitement in these kinds of stories but if the proportions aren't right it can make someone check out because the mysteries begin to feel "hollow"--that is, there's no reason to wrestle with them.
- You can also pile the first type of mystery onto these two to make a Twin-Peaks-style mysterious mystery story mysteriously told, but unless you take care to highlight the first kind of mystery's importance (as Twin Peaks did by reiterating the question "Who Killed Laura Palmer?") the audience may not ever realize there is a plot to uncover.
- The massive part of the appeal of RPG campaigns is that everyone feels a great sense of the first kind of mystery as a campaign begins--unlike so many stories we don't who will live or die, how long the story will last, or often even what it will be about. We know more about a movie from its trailer or a book from its jacket than we do what will happen in a campaign with our characters--even if we know all about the characters at the start.
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23 comments:
I'd say that what's happening at the Overlook hotel is more of the second kind - we know from the start that a bad thing is going to happen, we're shown the monster with the hammer who's looking for Danny, we just don't know how it comes to this. And, okay, yeah, we don't know how it ends, so I suppose it's type 1, too.
In Vornheim, the Fortures table works like this. You know *what* will happen, but you don't know when (besides the "when x happens, y will follow", because we don't know when "x" will happen), how, and what will come of it.
King also pulled the sequel trick inside out and made Tony more mysterious in the sequel - in the Shining he was just this "imaginary friend" manifestation of Danny's own powers, but in Doctor Sleep, Tony... becomes another kid's friend? WTF is going on here?
Knowing "that something bad is going to happen" is not knowing what's going to happen.
Sure. Han Solo having a bad feeling about this is not the same as Danny having a vision of a hammer-wielding monster looking for him. And then there can be the "hmm, I wonder if the kid is clairvoyant or insane" musings, like the creators planned for Child's Play, in which case you don't know if there's going to be a monster at all, but that's more of the spectator's perception.
Speaking of mysteries, I've a memory that years ago you wore up a unique graphical method for presenting mystery scenarios. I've been searching the old posts and striking out finding it. Search engines also fail me. Would that post ring a bell?
@dogstar
Its in Demon City. If you want a copy email me: zakzsmith at hawtmayle dawt calm
Oh, thanks! It's the same one. I should have figured that out.
Good take on mysteries. No doubt, there is a delicate balance required to maintain mystery in roleplaying games.
Very thoughtful.
The second type of mystery are imo the most interesting for a DM but it may be difficult to involve the players in. In a pathfinder campaign (ROTRL), I failed miserably in getting the players interested about the mysteries of a pre-cataclysm civilization (alas, I thought it was the most interesting part of the adventure...)
I really appreciate your work but I think sometimes you’re using a bit too much of the mysterious-vibes mystery in the modules you write. With my fellow players, we often say (in wonder) : « what a strange (item / guy) ! what is he doing here ? » But after 10 times, it’s more like : « (yawn), one more big mystery : who wants to solve that one ? I refer specifically to F&B (but we’re the kind of adventurers who want to explore / solve everything)
@Peggy
F&B?
Sorry. I meant Frostbitten and Mutilated.
@Peggy
This seems like a contradiction:
-Want to solve everything
-Too many mysteries are boring
I usually let the players make and figure out the mystery. Although they haven't figured how big of a mystery they just solved by finding some ancient history of the dungeon e.g a lost expedition
I was on the onyx path discord a few months ago and they were talking about different types of mysteries and how to run them. in trying to be helpful I posted a link to this blog post. It was up for maybe an hour before it was deleted. On the plus side, I'm still allowed to post there, and I received no reprimands. I'd like to thing some people read it rather than just looked at who wrote it and reported it to be removed.
I'm probably deluding myself in thinking that.
I have no clue how to run the 3rd type effectively for more than a short period. It's almost always the 1st type- this I can run pretty well, I think. I can sprinkle the 3ed type and later connect the dots and incorporate it into a 1st kind mystery with a solution too, but that's pretty much it
that's a great way to systematize mystery, although much more useful for writing narrative than rpg i think. although the third type might be good for concocting interesting NPCs.
how would the second be easier for you if i may ask?
It doesn't involve either plot engineering or an aesthetic effect
true but it also emphasizes (as you noted) the divide between PC and player knowledge, that at least to me looks harder to manage and more damaging if it smh fails, as it wrests hard the players from the fiction inducing frustration. although maybe such downsides are minimal if such mysteries are short lived, and kenobi is introduced one to three scenes later
Interesting read. I find "running" mysteries in games is really hard because of the need to dole out clues at a rate that keeps the players interested without making it just a connect the dots routine. For me, the best moments at the table are when the mystery is not even intended, but the players find it or create it on their own.
I think the "what's going on" mystery can be used when introducing players to something new. Easy in a sci-fi type game where you go to different places and have to work out how they work, assuming you make them unique and different.
I think Tekumel, one of the earliest RPGs, used the device as well. I think they had PCs arriving to the Northern continent from a Southern continent they never saw.
I feel like Eternal Mystery is a cop-out. Lost is a good example. It's just a bunch of non-sequiturs. It's inevitably disappointing when they try to close the loop.
I didn't think about dividing the mysteries into categories. Interesting. I'll try to work with mysteries in my games more meaningfully, armed with this knowledge.
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