[IC] Role-play mystery and/or puzzle scenario

This is not recruitment. I am not even sure I would be the DM for this. Still analyzing some of the issues in other games I'm DMig I'm wondering if anyone tried playing any RPG this way (system does not matter, but it feel like could be refreshing exactly the DnD experience):

We take a scenario/module where story is about solving a mystery, solving puzzles, realizing which NPC is a lair and who is the big bad.
But instead of players solving the puzzles we role-play PCs solving them, i.e.:
- DM spoil to the players all the secret door locations
- DM spoil to the players whoever of NPCs are telling the truth and what are their real motives
- DM spoil you even the puzzle solutions, trap design and what now

Players role-play their PCs struggling to solve the issues, often relying on a dice role to decide when party is mislead and when they manage to find the solution quickly.
For example, you meed the evil creature magically disguised as a young woman. After a conversation player asks roll an insight and rolls 1. Player plays his male PC falling in love with NPC...

Interesting. I've had the same concept rumbling around in my brain. Players know the "secrets" and use die rolls to direct the narrative. With the right table I think it would be an awesome experience. I've not yet given it a try but would be interested in doing so with a table of similarly interested people.

I've not played a game in exactly this style but I will say that Burning Wheel is a system that is designed to be played very "open handed".

It encourages players to have "secrets" that the other players know and actively play to, or against.

It encourages the GM to "broadcast"/foreshadow directly and openly the significant conflicts that are coming in the game (which are based off of the players/characters goals and desires).

You may not know all the secrets, but the game really "sings" when the whole table works mindfully to create a certain feel together. As it seems like you're proposing here.

The mechanics and it's "negotiated cause-and-effect" dynamic largely guide the path of the storytelling.

In my experience it works well with the right players and GM, the anticipation and suspense created by what you KNOW is coming, and the apprehension created by willfully walking your character into it not knowing exactly what the outcome will be - but that your character will be changed by it afterward, can be absolutely delicious.

It's a good system for investigative storytelling, maybe less so for mystery (there shouldn't be much actual mystery, if you're following RAW) and puzzles (not many systems do, but BW also does not have any built-in support for puzzle solving), but... kind of depends on what you mean by those words.

This feels like a cousin to the GUMSHOE system. In those games, the players don't necessarily know everything, but if they look for a clue, they get the clue. The GM is supposed to give the players all the information they needs to finish the investigation, though not all at once.

This isn't too far afield from various narrative games where the table is sourced, or the mechanics allow for the fiction to be highly formed, in the moment, but everyone playing. However, it is different, as it has the structure behind it and might feel a lot more grounded...

Good call, Tim. Fairly close to Gumshoe, too.

Interesting. Reading GUMSHOE systems it sound like exact opposite of what I was talking about. Looks like I need to provide a bit more context

1. The problem(s) I'm solving. There are a few of them:
A. Recently my players were solving a puzzle a WotC module. Players found the clues but failed to properly interpret them - at the cost of some damage to their PCs. PCs manage to break through. I feel like my players missed opportunity to discover what was the intended interpretation.

B. There are some secret doors in the module and secret rooms with exciting game-play content in them, but my players fail to ask for perception check and we just skip 2 great pages on the module.

C. I'm a player in a dungeon-crawl module playing not very wise paladin in the company of rogue-dungeon-dweller, wise cleric and intelligent wizard. While reading one of detailed environment description I figure out there is a hint in the description that suggests one of the objects may need to be interacted with to trigger something in the dungeon. I decide ro role-play my PC ignorance to the discovery I've done as a player. My PC should be the very last person in the team to ever consider that. And we stuck in the dungeon for a few months over PBP

D. Jet another player grabs a dice and rolls and insight and score 1. DM - narrate PC believes everything is fine with NPC. All the players whispers - aha that our big-bad. Thus a roll of a 1 appeared to work better than a roll of a 15...

2. My experience so far.
- I DMed LMoP (WotC official module) twice. Second time I have a player who knew the module pretty well. I was worried when he joined, but he promised to "focus on role play" and stay out of trap discovery, disarming. He played warlock careless about secret doors.
It turned out to be a wonderful gaming experience for everyone.

Consider that there is also another way to view each of these situations...This does not sound like a problem to me. This sounds like gameplay working as intended.

The players found the clues, great! They had a success and got to shine!

They failed to interpret them correctly? That sucks, but sometimes player skill is the thing being tested. Particularly old school modules rely on this approach. But so the player skill failed, and they reaped appropriate, non game ending consequences?

Why is this not exactly how it's supposed to work?
I mean, this is on you. You decided as a player to not solve a problem, thereby creating a bigger one. Nor even to talk to the other players about it, ooc or ic(?), it sounds like, to help them solve it?

That's a failure to collaborate. Period. That's a failure as a storyteller.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. As the saying goes. There are ways to roleplay your not smart character so that they could have discovered or at least lead others to the clue. You chose not to do that.

This is not a problem of the game.

This is a problem of the player.

Sorry to say.

But this is very similar to what you did in my Middle Earth game GreyWord, when I gave in game plausibility for your character to know what was going on, but you chose to roleplay ignorance, which lead to your PC walking away from a fight missing out on the encounter.

These are choices you're making as a player, when there are other choices you could make that lead to a better story. It's not the system that compels you to do this.
This sounds to me like the roll was only an attempt to confirm player suspicions.

It failed but you all still have your suspicions.

You're allowed to have suspicions that aren't confirmed or formed by a roll.

There is no problem here with the system, imo.

You all still don't have confirmation from a roll, only your suspicions. The roll of 1 didn't work better. You're still where you were before, only suspecting.

Player skill, which is what those suspicions are, is another, different valid part of the gameplay that is appropriate and allowed to be followed.
This is what good collaborative roleplay looks like, yes. The players knowing what's really going on is not a bad thing. The desire or belief that things must be a surprise and a big reveal is frankly often more about the DM's ego and wanting to seem clever and a good storyteller.

Yes, players often like surprises, but more often they like feeling clever themselves and knowing what's going on before they "should". It's all a part of the dance. And when everybody dances together - collaborating mindfully toward telling a good story as a group, leaning into the things that they know and or do not know - that's when the magic happens.

Back to original question - anyone have experience or interested in this type of game.

And not just dice, but the players can direct the narrative. A game where player is allowed to narrate PC walking away from combat or falling in love with the big bad.

I'd be up for playing something like this! Theoretically. I remember you prefer faster games, which is beyond my capabilities. :')

What you're describing reminds me of all the games and systems where the line between player and GM is blurred - all the ones where there is no GM, or where all players are equally GMs. Almost every duet game I played had both of us plan the secrets and traps and then roleplay characters separately from this knowledge; that's along the lines of what you're thinking about, correct? (Sans the planning if it's a module.)

A question I do have: what would the GM be doing in such a game, aside from role-playing all the NPCs? Not that role-playing NPCs isn't enough work, of course, but I'm just curious. If players know all the behind-the-scenes, then they can roleplay outcome of their actions on their own, making the GM role less necessary.

(Also, I don't need an excuse to ship my characters with the big bad! Why must you tantalise me with all the talk about it. XD)

This sounds like a fun concept. I'm as a player really bad at solving mysteries but I enjoy playing into things my characters don't know. I could certainly see the appeal in a game like this that focuses on PC skills over player skills.

so you did it already @FlyingSucculent :) good to know it worked for 2. I'm almost convinced I want to try
No DM sounds feasible on PBP (at least for me switching hats between enemies a table would be a problem)

I can't say I did exactly this, as none of those games were based on pre-written modules and most weren't necessarily focused on puzzles, but it's probably pretty close! I certainly don't mind roleplaying separately from player knowledge. You should totally try it, if only to know for sure if you like it!

Thinking of it, it would be very interesting to do a detective story this way - pre-plan the mystery, with all players knowing the ways the culprit hid their tracks, then see if characters solve it through mechanics, and what shenanigans will happen in the process.

It just triggered in my mind. We played here on gamersplane a few chapters from from the golden vault (5e). It was fun experience, but always felt like eating porridge without a salt.

Our story were far from heist movies I'm found of. Very far from. maybe, just maybe, if players have that meta knowledge, then their PCs could do something just as crazy outstanding as we see in the movies?

Chapter 4 in that module is free. That would be sufficient for a test run. Anyone bites?