The Anatomy of a Clue in an RPG Mystery
Understanding what makes a good clue as Part 1 of a series of how I intend to design a scenario.
What makes a regular dungeon, adventure, or module different than proper investigative horror? Hell, I don’t know. But I think a big part of that is attention to clues.
What makes investigators different from “adventurers” is that an investigator is a truffle pig for those things we call clues. And so, as I set out to write the kind of scenarios I’ve always wanted to write, I’m asking myself exactly how you write a good clue.
I’m also thinking of information design, because I think most mystery modules are a nightmare to read. I’m looking at point crawls, diagram dungeons, the notation of Gavin Norman, anything that can tell me how to help make mysteries — proper Call of Cthulhu mysteries with documents and news-clippings — easy to read and keep track of. So I’m making my contribution to the ink spilled on the subject.
The Three Parts of a Clue
A Clue is a trace of your mystery left behind on the world, the imprint the events of your mystery have had on reality.
Here is a taxonomy of a clue, top to bottom, from first impressions to last conclusions. A clue has three steps, or rather three layers of potential depth.
Display - Information - Meaning
Let’s take a look at each piece, and figure out what role they play. (I use hiking as an analogy)
Display
Display is the part of the clue that causes investigators to stop and say “Aha, a clue!” and begins a line of questioning and further examination.
This is first encounter with the clue, it’s most outward mask, it’s method of discovery. It is the how of the clue, its form, the thing that anyone would see even if they were not themselves an investigator. It is the material evidence of your mystery.
Examples include:
a tin full of letters hidden under the floorboards
a shattered heirloom
two close friends having a loud fight in public
Display includes both the material of a clue, and perhaps imply how it might be discovered. It might also present as a physical prop you hand your players at the table, particularly in the first moments you hand it to them.
The Display is the trailhead, a destination in their scavenger hunt, it begins a line of inquiry, it suggests they should look here for Details.
Information
Information are the details that make the players say “We should follow up on that…” and gives them a new direction.
The content, details, context clues, and other data that reveals itself upon further examination. Detail’s job is to point to something. It sometimes points to Meaning, or but often it points to other opportunities for more clues by identifying a new suspect, important location, or other avenue of investigation. A single clue can, and even should, have multiple pieces of Information.
A library book found at the scene of the crime with an address scrawled in the corner gives you:
an address to investigate
the identity of whoever checked the book out of the library (should they somehow pilfer the library records)
the topic of the book itself, which might be interesting, or perhaps the content of the page on which they made the note
Information can include context as well as content, and sometimes its Display contains Information. If the clue is a hidden portrait of the mayor, signed by the artist, there are several bits of Information…
two clear suspects: the painter and the mayor
the fact that they have at least spent time together
the knowledge that painter purchases clearly purchases lots of oil paint
Why is the portrait hidden? This is a good question, but the Meaning is unclear. Regardless, the players lots of new information they can follow up on.
Gathering Information is the substance of investigative behavior in a mystery scenario. They are trail markers that suggesting that they are making progress, and offering new directions to try.
Meaning
Meaning makes the players say “One more piece in the final puzzle, we’re one solid step closer to finishing this mystery” and help them understand how to bring the mystery to a close.
This is the truth underlying the clue, the essential knowledge that reveals the core details of the heart of the mystery: the identity of the murderer, the procedure for making the vaccine, the monter’’s weakness, the killer’s motive, or the hiding place of the buried treasure.
This Meaning — what other clues and investigative actions all point to — is always a description of reality. Meaning can be incomplete, but it cannot be false. Meaning might beg further questions, but must also be satisfying in itself to discover.
Meaning describes the major landmarks they are trying to reach, the satisfying pieces of the mystery, or indications that they are near its conclusion.
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What this means for Good Clues vs. Bad Clues
This schema — Display - Information - Meaning — clearly delineates the full package of what makes up a clue. If you have all three pieces articulated, you have a good clue. Go to a mystery you like, pick out a clue, and ask some question to see how it works:
What is its Display? Does it have an enticing presentation that draws the attention of the players? Does it allow for multiple possibilities of discovery? Does its very context provide its own interesting Information?
What is the essential Information? Is there only one piece of Information, or several? Do they all point in one direction, or does the data point to several new avenues of investigation? Are some pieces of info clear trails, while other bits are totally obscure and mysteries?
Is there Meaning, or are the fundamental answers your players seek just as elusive as before? Are the players getting any concrete facts about the solution to the mystery? Are those concrete facts conclusive, giving the players enough to bring the investigation to a close, or are they just getting the next piece in the puzzle?
When we find a good glue, the Display is enticing, and feels earned… Information is rich, multi-layered, and compelling… Meaning is elusive, and surprising. In a good mystery, there is mystery at every level, and even when they get what they need, players are still saying, “Whoa, haha, would could THAT be about?”
In a bad mystery, all the pieces are compressed and discovered in a single fell swoop. A bad clue usually has a fairly straightforward Display— a single document with the answer you seek earned through a skill check — contains a single piece of obvious Information, and the info’s Meaning is either boring or entirely obscure.
As a side note, it’s important to understand that although all mysteries involve gathering Information, not all information is found in a proper clue. Sometimes, if you need an address, you can look it up. Sometimes, the suspect’s identity will be discovered by interrogating a witness.
One last note, if you want to see how Brindlewood Bay puts this whole system into a unique perspective…
Brindlewood Bay and the Deconstructed Clue
Brindlewood Bay is instructive for this schema, because it totally deconstructs this concept of a clue and nests each piece in a different part of the session structure. Pre-written Brindlewood Bay mysteries give you a list of evocative-but-meaningless clues, the Keeper scatters them in the mystery improvisationally wherever players go poking about, and then the players get to decide the solution to the mystery at the end using a “Theorize” mechanic.
This is like the “deconstructed” restaurant dish: Where a hamburger puts the meat and cheese on a bun, the Brindlewood Bay hamburger puts bun, meat, and cheese all on separate plates.
So in a Brindlewood Bay mystery…
Display (maybe with a tiny context clue) is put in the prep — “An argument between two Suspects on the deck of The Regal Lady; the words they’re saying are unclear” is on the mystery sheet, to be placed wherever the keeper likes.
Information emerges in the play in the chemistry between player behavior keeper improvisation — A maven pretending to go birdwatching sees this fight happen between two specific siblings, Sarah and David, with the older brother pointing a finger accusingly at the youngest sister, when the rest of the family is ashore.
And the Meaning is determined by player invention at the end — The players decide that the reason they were fighting is because they collaborated together to kill the father.
Filling a mystery with clues
Stay tuned for Part 2, which will come eventually as I start to build mysteries. We’ve got unanswered questions, mainly:
How do you design a good set of clues from the bottom up?
How many clues does a mystery need? How will you know when you have enough, or the right kind?
Can you put the same information in multiple clues?
How can you improvise if players decide to investigate in ways where they may not find the clues you have designed?
How do you put clues on the page for an OSR/NSR-style module?
How can you spice up clue presentation?
Get into the comments and let me know what you think!