Mystery Game, discover your sheet as you play.

[Tegu8788]

So, I ran part 1 of a one off session tonight, and I'd like to refine it some and run it again, possibly here.

So, game starts with everyone waking up on stone slabs, unable to accurately perceive themselves or anyone else in the room. You can see them, hear them, but not describe them in any way. Because magic, that will be revealed later.

My challenge, is to get them up and going faster. In the center of the room was a pillar with 4 locked doors, basically a locker for their gear. There was a magical riddle they could solve to open it, just pick the locks, or just smash the locks off. My players choose the later, and in doing so, knocked all the gear onto the ground, so it got all jumbled up.

Which lead to an hour and a half of trying on clothes to see if they got benefits or penalties for wearing different armors, and who could hold which weapon better. They did do one very clever thing, tried to pick each other up to get relative ideas of their own strength, and comparative sizes. There was also some awkward running around, and shooting each other in the foot with crossbows to see who could do what well.

Everyone eventually gears up, and I do a brief fight to let them learn a little more about what they can do. Everyone had fun, and are excited to continue playing next session for the close of this experiment.


Two things I want to work on. First, how much info should I give them for relative free if I do it again in order to get stuff moving quicker. Secondly, I had placed three magical mirrors in the room, with limited uses, that would answer questions honestly, but vaguely. Truth, but not always useful truth, if the question wasn't well phrased. Now, I'll totally admit on me that the doors didn't prompt the players very well, but I want to work on ways to make them more useful. Each mirror would ideally reveal a different kind of information, but I also don't want to reveal anything too blatant to the players that soon.

Things I considered, letting them know their highest stat, power source, role, lowest stat. Race, Class, Gender, these are things I want them to have to discover as they play, but I need some way to get them from nothing to enough to fight quicker, especially if I run this here.


So, anyone have any thoughts, suggestions, ever run or play something like this before?

[Duff]

Signs on the mirrors, visible runes and mix of languages.
"Oh!, I can read the runes! I must be a dwarf or a Runepriest!"
The character who can read the ugly looking script which looks like it was written in blood gets handed a note by the GM...
Include some target dummies so they can play rough to work out their abilities.
Allow them to instinctively use powers, when they do, describe the power or tell them what happens rather than tell them what it is.

[Tegu8788]

I let them make Int checks to see if things felt familiar to them, which is something that I'm not particularly happy with, but it was something that worked since they didn't use the mirrors until 2 hours in. I avoided languages, since it's really easy to learn almost any language in 4E.

[Duff]

I let them make Int checks to see if things felt familiar to them, which is something that I'm not particularly happy with, but it was something that worked since they didn't use the mirrors until 2 hours in. I avoided languages, since it's really easy to learn almost any language in 4E.

Yeah, I'd skip that as a roll which doesn't add to the fun. Maybe the more inteligent members of the party don't have to be a familiar with things to recognise them or maybe they get more info.

The dumb Paladin picks up a broadsword. "It's not familiar". He uses a longsword.
The clever Swordmage picks up the longsword instead of his usual broadsword. "It seems a little lighter and quicker than you're used to, but you could wield it OK

[Tegu8788]

The other thing I've considered was starting them off mid combat, but I fear that might be too dangerous/let them learn too much to quickly.