Quote Originally Posted by Allistar View Post
Snip
So i'll admit to not reading the whole sequence of events, because halfway through i can see the DM going wrong already. I think you can do a mystery without the players knowing that it's a mystery from the start, but it requires good DMing and not being petty. Adjusting the plot and using DM fiat to "make things harder" just because the players dealt with your challenges easily is almost never a good thing, no matter the campaign subject.

What i think is important for a mystery campaign is that the players have to feel out of their depth in terms of information gathering. When you have 5 different, likely valuable leads, it's not going to be hard, and it's not going to feel mysterious. It's just going to be a informational fox hunt to track down the truth. If you want a mystery, the players and their allies should almost have no leads and only a vague grasp on what's going on. Having to guesstimate, extrapolate, assume and such about what everything means, and then adjust their ideas for every scrap of information they find.

Of course, this means that the DM needs a solid picture of what's really going on, who's where doing what etc, so he can ensure that all the information lines up and there are no inaccuracies. I think that is the hard part, making sure the PCs have correct information, and the right amount of it (i.e. not enough for their tastes, it's what keeps them hungry to find out the truth).