Pre-Game FAQ

Subject: Re: Conveying our conceit to the players

The week before the game, we would send the teams an out-of-character email,
where we would say things like (this is a super-brief summary)

* make sure all the players (not just the captains) read this!!
* safety is really important, especially in an immersive game like this
* stuff about role-playing - we'll try to be immersive, but call "time out" if you want to step out-of-character, are getting frustrated, etc.
* Understanding the story as it unfolds and thinking through its internal logic may help you with various challenges. And we hope that following the story is fun for you, too
* Also, there's no intro.  This is the intro.  The moment you arrive, the in-character event is running.
* this is mainly a non-competitive game; we encourage you to enjoy the flavor elements (and sometimes they'll be important for the puzzles too!)

 STUFF ABOUT PUZZLES, in which we would say things like:

We are experimenting with many things, and most puzzles won't follow a
mechanism of "GC member hands you an envelope with your team's name on it
and the title Puzzle #4".  We're trying to make our puzzles flow with the
story, which has many possible implications, such as

* We have "puzzles" that don't solve to simple words or directions.
* There is no standard "end" to a puzzle in this game - it will depend on
* context.  A puzzle may be "accomplish task X" or "find out information Y"
* We have flavor text and preamble text that is purely used to drive the
* story and doesn't contain elements useful for solving the next challenge.
* We have a variety of delivery mechanisms, both for teams getting puzzles
* and submitting answers.
* Puzzles are not all "self-contained". Information from previous puzzles or
* previous flavor elements may be secondary hints or even primary information
* for solving a later challenge.

I believe that being direct about this is the best approach because it's
likely to lead to the least confusion.  (There will still be some, but we
want to minimize it.)  I think the "let players figure it out" path is too
dangerous.  I vote for making it clear up-front that we have a free-flow,
immersive, unorthodox, non-standardized approach to puzzles and answers.

       Normal  0          false  false  false    EN-US  X-NONE  X-NONE                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              this is not a race; there is no prize; your pace will sometimes be controlled by GC; the story IS the experience, advanced step-wise by puzzles; and it will be clear when you've been given a goal, and what that goal is.  

       Normal  0          false  false  false    EN-US  X-NONE  X-NONE                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            We will always make it clear when you have a challenge to overcome.  How to overcome it may be less clear, but the goal itself will be clearly motivated ("help us do X").  Example: after players have solved a challenge and are watching a plot video, there aren't puzzles hidden in the video (because there's no outstanding challenge at that point).