Pre-Game FAQ
From DoctorWhen
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.