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.  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.