OK. So I ran my second (fairly short) session of MotW last night and I’m really struggling with the “Investigate a Mystery” Move. As I consider myself a decent * World GM/MC (I run Dungeon World and Monsterhearts mostly) the fact that I’m not getting this move bugs me. Can someone help? Here’s the setup from last night for context.
I’m running the sample Mystery from the MotW book. The one about the O’Connell house. After getting the case file from the Agency Director and then discussing for a bit about how to approach the Hadley family, the Hunters finally drive to the house. The information they have so far (contained in the file they were given) is that about 45 years ago, Marie O’Connell disappeared and two years later her husband, Damian, committed suicide in the house. It’s been empty since then, until the Hadley’s moved in about six months ago. The Hadley’s have called the police three times about break ins and missing items, but in every case the police found absolutely no evidence of anyone entering the house. The “stolen” items were also always found a few days later, simply having been moved to a different location in the house.
The Hunters asked about connections between the O’Connells and the Hadleys, and as they probably have (or can obtain) access to all sorts of records, they discovered that Andi Hadley is the daughter of Agatha Blackthorn, who was the younger sister of Damian O’Connell. So they realize there’s a family connection, as Damian O’Connell was Andi Hadley’s uncle.
When they get to the house, the Professional, the Spooky, and the Wronged try to talk their way in, running up against a skeptical Mark Hadley. Meanwhile the Flake walks to the side of the house and, using the information in the police reports contained in their case file, Uses Magic to observe the master bedroom around the time the item was stolen. They see a large leather-bound book float off the shelf and slide under the bed, before a multitude of tiny red eyes block out the vision. The other three Hunters manage to talk to Andi, the Spooky rifles through her mind with telepathy, and discovers that every item that has been moved is connected to Marie O’Connell. Also, simply by talking to Andi, the find that the family moved here after her mother died a few years ago, leaving the house to the family.
The convince Mrs. Hadley to take them to the master bedroom. The Spooky pulls the big leather bound book from the shelf and flips through it. It’s an old photo album, obviously belonging to Marie. The player ask to make the Investigate a Mystery Move to look for clues. Here’s where the game ground to a halt. Which was OK, because we had to call the game to make our last trains home.
That was a longer setup than I intended, but I wanted people to see exactly what clues the Hunters were dealing with before they made the IaM Move. Looking at the list of IaM questions, I am confused. Firstly, I don’t see how the Hunters can answer any of the IaM questions based on their current actions. Leafing through an old photo album will not be able to tell them what happened, what type of creature they’re dealing with, what it can do, what can hurt it, where it went, what it was planning to do, or if anything is being concealed.
I’m not trying to stonewall the Hunters (or the players) here by not providing them with clues. But I kind of felt like I was. On the other hand, it seems very unsatisfying if the Spooky was able to leaf through the photo album, make the IaM Move, ask “What sort of creature is it?” and just get a direct answer from me. If this were a TV show, only about 10 minutes would have elapsed so far. Should the Hunters really know, with absolute certainty that they’re dealing with a [monster] that early in the episode? That feels kind of cheap.
Which leads me to the questions the Hunters can ask via the IaM Move. It seems like each of those questions, will simply end the investigative part of the mystery. As long as the Hunters (and players) can provide a reasonable explanation as to how their actions allow them to get an answer to the question they are asking, they should get the answer. That seems to be how the move works.
So am I missing something here? Can someone help me with this?
Okay, so firstly: the Investigate a Mystery move is there to answer the questions that are listed. If they ask you something else, it’s just a judgement call as to whether you answer it or tell them they don’t know. Plus, it says there in the rules that if they can’t find out things if they couldn’t find out – so in your photo album example, I would just reveal a piece of the backstory from the mystery that might appear there.
Second up, if they ask “what is it?” and you tell them “it’s a ghost”, that doesn’t just end the game. Each MotW game has its own rules for how to deal with ghosts), and the hunters probably don’t know them all yet. Even if they’ve dealt successfully with others, this one could be different.
If you can manage it, looking at some of the Supernatural episodes from season three or later. The Winchesters have slain plenty of demons, vampires, and ghosts by this time, so there’s no excitement for how to deal with these monsters. The real story is in the particulars of each situation and the choices they make.
MotW should be the same: the story isn’t in the hunters uncovering the mystery, it’s in how they deal with what they have to do to stop the monster. The principles do not include “Slowly reveal clues about your mystery” on purpose. Instead, if the hunters come up with a way to find out and make their roll then you should just tell them. Do they have to find an exhume the ghosts remains? Do they need to do a horrible black magic ritual? Must they convince a priest to exorcise it? Investigate a Mystery is your way to give the hunters those dilemmas, and then you can watch (as a fan!) while they try to resolve them.
Does that explanation help? Feel free to ask for more on any piece of it!
Thanks for the reply Michael Sands . It appears as if the short answer to my question is simply that I and my group are assuming the game does something it is not really intended to do. That being presenting complex mysteries that then have to be unraveled before facing the monster behind them.
I totally get that the Investigate a Mystery Move can only answer the seven questions listed with the Move. If the Hunters want to know something that can’t be answered by one of the questions on the list, I have to make a judgement call as Keeper. Can their question be rephrased to fit one of the seven IaM questions? Is there another Move that could give them the answer? Or is their question something they already know, or could find out without making a Move (saying what honesty demands).
I also realize that the Hunters knowing what type of monster they’re dealing with doesn’t end the game. As you point out, they still have to then deal with the monster. However I, and at least one other of my players, still can’t shake the feeling that getting to ask “What is it?” is, in our opinion, a very large and rather unsatisfying shortcut to the end of the investigative part of the game. It feels like, well, cheating.
I had intended to have the monster not be a ghost (hence me asking on Twitter for suggestions), but ran out of prep time before the game. I wanted to throw the players a curve ball by making the monster a fairy, a demon, or something else that wasn’t entirely obvious. But I’m kind of not seeing the point in doing that now. If the Hunters can simply make the Investigate a Mystery Move, ask “What is it?” and be told the answer, doesn’t that make unique creatures less special? I mean, if the Hunters do something in the fiction to gather up all these clues, piece them together and then realize “Oh, it’s not a ghost.” that’s pretty cool. Doesn’t making the IaM Move rob them of that moment of awesomeness when they, the players, figure out what is going on?
Or an I just not getting something?
Well, another thing is that your answer to “what is it?” doesn’t have to be the whole answer.
Sometimes it might make sense to say “it’s something incorporeal” rather than “it’s a ghost”, or some other partial answer like that. So you can have those mysteries where the creature appears to be one thing and turns out to be another.
Have a read through the stuff on what to always say (p104) – I think that your questions are cases where you might be letting one thing (what the rules demand) override others (what the prepared mystery demands). There can definitely be a tension there.
But you’re right that Monster of the Week is not about the players piecing together clues until they work out the answer. If that was what the game was about, the investigate a mystery move would not be in it!
If you want to play that way, I think tremulus might be worth a look. The moves in there for poke around and puzzle things out could be substituted into Monster of the Week without much trouble, and might give you more of a structure of collecting clues until the mystery is solved.
(I had a look but couldn’t find an available summary sheet 🙁 Hopefully you have access to a copy you can check out)
Aw man. My comments got eaten before I posted them. Bummer.
I’m waiting on my #tremulus book to arrive. I backed the KS, but international shipping times are a real pain. I’ll make sure to look at the Moves in there.
I do like to play my games as the designer intended them to be played however. So I really would like to get into the proper mindset for “original” MotW. You’ve been really helpful so far Michael Sands, but could you tell me how you would handle the situation I’ve described above? I’m sure you’re run the O’Connell House Mystery several times (and other Mysteries, seeing as ho you made the game). What were some of the fictional actions Hunters took to Investigate a Mystery, and what IaM questions did they ask?
Actually, I haven’t run the O’Connell house mystery – that one’s designed to illustrate how to build them more than anything else.
I’ve certainly had hunters come up with ways to discover that sort of information right away. I just tell them the answer and ask what they do next.
In the past, when asked what a monster is, I’ve given best guesses from the character’s perspective as to what it could be, categorically.
Them: What is it?
Me: Well, judging by the form and depth of the gouges, we’re talking big scary nails — not claws, like that other Hunter was saying. So something canid or hominid, I guess. Plus, its probably huge and strong from the size of these tears.
Them: Bigfoot? Sasquatch? Yeti? Wendigo? Werewolf? Hyena-man? Zombie Gorilla?
Me: None of the clues here really clarify that — other research could narrow it down though.
Alfred speaks great wisdom.
Oh, and I just looked over your situation again and I have to revise my answer on what I would have done in that particular situation (leafing through the photo album).
In that specific case, I’d have said “How could you possibly find out anything from looking at old photos?” After all, none of them will be likely to show the ghost or open up any of the details. In this case, there’s no move and no roll. You could give the hunters other information – what the people looked like, things like that, but those details don’t need a roll either.
Ummm just a suggestion for a curveball monster….why not say it’s a ghost but not ‘what sort of thing’ died? Maybe when the house was built they killed the spirit that lived in the tree? Or a mistreated animal was buried under the house….
Looking at the Move again, it seems like Investigate a Mystery is one of those mechanics that allows the players to know what the characters would know. The Hunters are able to put together the clues they’ve uncovered and, based on past experience with similar types of monsters, pouring through books, whatever, they have a flash of insight and know what kind of monster they’re dealing with.
But it seems like an all or nothing Move. What I mean is, giving the Hunters a partial clue, like the depth of the claw marks, seems to fall under the “Say what honesty demands” rule. That doesn’t seem to call for an IaM Move. Meanwhile, the Hunters taking action that would allow them to make a IaM Move gives them a solid answer that they probably would not have been able to get otherwise.
Does anyone have an example of the Investigate a Mystery in play? either from a Hunter’s or a Keeper’s perspective?
Could you go into a bit more detail on point #2 Dave Fried? Because setting a sliding scale about much detail the Hunters need to uncover about the monster before they can find and defeat it sounds very much like my initial question of how many clues they need to gather before they figure out what the monster is.
For example, if you set up a very simple, straight forward Mystery that requires the Hunters only uncover a few details before knowig all they need to defeat the monster, OK. The Hunters will be able to make an Investigate a Mystery Move very quickly, and the Keeper will give them a lot of information on a success. But what about a monster that requires the Hunters to gather a lot of details before they’ll have enough to piece together what it is? Can you give me an example of how you do that? Because again, I’m having a hard time picturing how partial information gathered from an IaM Move is different from information that they could uncover without triggering that Move.
I’ve started watching Supernatural in order to try and get a handle on this. Out of an hour episode, it seems like Sam and Dean usually don’t figure out exactly what the monster is until about 20 to 30 minutez have passed. They have theories and guesses based on clues they uncover, but it still takes them about half an episode before they have enough knowledge to go deal with the problem. Sometimes longer.
Having just watched the Wendigo episode from Season 1, I’m trying to translate that Mystery into MotW mechanics. When Sam and Dean first come across the wrecked campsite, that seems like a time when players would want to make an IaM Move. There’s ripped and bloody tents, gear scattered all over the place, bloody drag marks that abruptly end, and claw marks on trees. There are lots of clues for them to gather, but it seems to me that the questions from the IaM Move either can’t be answered based on ths situation, or they can be answered without needing to make the Move at all.
It’s because the moves follow the fiction around — investigate a mystery can’t do anything the fiction won’t allow. Often times it will take several IaM before the characters have enough info to go off of.
If it takes half the game to decode the monster because of how/what the Hunters investigate: fine! If they pick the exact right clues and figure it out in the first 10 minutes: also fine! Both make for fun games! I ran a game where they hunted a gargoyle as knew it was a gargoyle by the second encounter. They still had to stop it, so they had fun. I ran another where they knew it was a werewolf from the cold open — but they still had to decide whether to kill it or save the man!
The difference between telling them all about the claw marks because its true vs because they rolled for it is simple: honesty demands I tell them about the scratch marks, so I do. The game does NOT demand I tell them what made the marks, not until they start piecing together clues.
And finally, I guess, if you feel like you’re cheating your players in that situation, you can always ad lib clues. They’re looking at photos and suddenly a family picture begins to fog over mysteriously — every face is eclipsed, except one. And now the PCs have a lead… Who is she, how is she involved, what’s going on, time to go make more rolls.
That last section of your comment is extremely helpful, Dave Fried. I don’t want to come off as arrogant here, but I can run other * World games with no problem and think I’m a pretty decent GM. Moves like Discern Realities and Gaze Into the Abyss never caused me to throw up my hands in frustration the way Investigate a Mystery has. The direct nature of the IaM questions was throwing me off, and I think I know why. In other * World games, such as Monsterhearts and Dungeon World, solving a mystery is usually not a large part of the story. It can be important based on what’s happening in the story, of course, but it’s not a giant goal. However a MotW “episode” basically has two goals – finding out what the monster is, and then dealing with it.
Getting to simply make an Investigate a Mystery Move and very possibly achieving that first goal just by luck rubs me the wrong way. Now, I know that getting to ask questions from an IaM Move is not just luck. The rule of “to do it you have to do it” is still in effect of course, so the Hunters have to take appropriate action in the fiction that could provide them with an answer. The Hunters can’t just be sitting in their HQ doing absolutely nothing and make a IaM Move. They have to get out there, poke around, and actually do some investigating!
However, as written it seems as if the Hunters can just (continuing to use the Wendigo example) go to the wrecked campsite, investigate, make the IaM Move and, if they rolled well, ask two very direct questions. The example in the book pretty much supports this, as one of the Hunters tests blood with a chemistry set and the Keeper gives a very direct response of “It’s a vampire.” The Hunters still have to track down and deal with the monster, but a direct response like that seems to just kneecap the investigation part of the episode.
So I guess what I need to get comfortable with is how much and what kind of information to reveal when the Hunters ask an IaM question. Again, I’m fully aware that I’m not meant to withhold clues or make the Hunters jump through hoops to get them. I have to give them what honesty demands, just like every other * World game. It was also interesting that Michael Sands pointed out that “reveal clues slowly” is intentionally not one of the Principals.
So, to help me get better, does anyone have any examples of Investigate a Mystery situations and the questions/responses they’d like to share?
I realize that part of the difficulty in answering this question is due to the number of moving parts involved. The type of monster involved, if the Hunters have encountered this type of monster before, and what kind of time frame we’re looking at for the session all factor into it. Of course the biggest variable is what action the Hunter is taking fictionally taking to make the IaM Move in the first place. I guess it’s just a learned skill.
I’m currently thinking about this for an add-on, which would replace the investigate move.
Here’s my draft replacement, in case anyone wants to give it a try:
Look For Clues
When you look for clues where something happened, describe what you’re looking at and roll +Sharp.
– On a 10+ the Keeper will provide detailed information about what happened here.
– On a 7-9 the Keeper will provide incomplete, vague, or ambiguous information about what happened here.
This leaves everything much more open – it should be easier to manage, but it may put a bit more work on the Keeper.
There’s going to be one for interviewing people, too, but I haven’t written it yet 🙂
Dave Fried, the way you describe yourself using investigate is pretty much how I do it.
Note that this add-on (which is more about weird science mysteries, such as X-Files and Fringe) also removes Investigate a Mystery from the basic moves. Look for Clues and Interview will be replacements rather than additions.
Note: If the group’s having fun, that counts as playing it right (regardless of whether it’s how I would do it).
I like this. It reminds me of the Spout Lore Move from Dungeon World. Basically, on a 10+ you get something concrete and useful, while on a 7-9 it’s up to the Hunters to make what they learn useful.
I’ve been thinking about a “put the pieces together” type Move. As I’ve stated, the Investigate a Mystery Move seems to cover both looking for clues and puzzling out what they mean. That feels like two steps to me, when I think the Hunters should only get one. Maybe something like this:
When you try to piece together the clues you’ve gathered, roll+Sharp. On a 10+, the Keeper will explain how the pieces all connect and if your on the right track or not. On a 7-9, the Keeper will tell you what pieces are still missing. Get those and you’ll be able to figure it out.
No idea what will happen on a miss. I don’t intend the Move to be a substitute for player deduction. I’m intending it to be used when players hit that wall and don’t see what’s going on. As they sometimes do.
That should work fine, I’d say.
And investigate a mystery is definitely meant to be a substitute for player deduction, so it’s no surprise that it gets in the way of that.
Michael Sands Learning that the IaM Move is something of a substitute for player deduction really clears this whole thing up for me. I had assumed that it was in addition to the players figuring stuff out on their own, and was therefore struggling to figure out when to use it.
That brings up another question though. Since the Keeper is always meant to “say what honesty demands” I’m assuming that you would need to confirm a player’s theory (if correct) when they piece together the relevant clues all on their own.
Yes, definitely confirm correct deductions!
For the example where the players test the blood and get “Yep, it’s a vampire!” isn’t there a point where the player explains how they were checking blood samples of vampires in a previous episode of the series? Presumably, without that, they might not have gotten the direct answer? Or perhaps they would have needed to compare against a Monster Hunter’s Database/Journal in addition to taking the sample?
Seeing as Buffy is a strong influence, I’ve always seen it as a way of providing the “hitting the books” section, where the monster of the week is some completely invented demon that the players couldn’t have possibly have pieced together, because it doesn’t have a mythological basis. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts; there’s plenty of cultural sources to draw on for clues the players can piece together. When it turns out to be a Alpgathatack Demon, that’s something they need the characters to figure out with the IaM move…