Story Design: Mystery Stories
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Add more thrills and dramatic tension to your mystery adventures!
Story Design Volume 7 - The word mystery carries a lot of cultural baggage. From a genre point of view¸ it's typically associated with murder. The story goal is to discover who did it¸ although more modern variations focus on figuring out how it was done¸ in order to prove who did it. A mystery doesn't have to be significant or serious. It doesn't have to be about murder¸ or even crime. The story can be centered on any type of question that needs an answer¸ or any problem that cries out to be solved.
Examples of the mystery plot include And Then There Were None¸ The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo¸ The Maltese Falcon¸ The Moonstone¸ and Murders in the Rue Morgue.
Story Design: Mystery Stories covers all of the elements you need to prepare in order to tell a question-driven story. It's based on concepts explored in Story Structure and the Lighthouse System games¸ also published by Dancing Light Press. It's a big book that goes into greater detail on how to get the most out of the three-act structure¸ as well as developing a three-phase series (campaign¸ if you prefer) with a clear beginning¸ middle¸ and end. If you want to use your favorite roleplaying game system to tell stories with more depth than kill monster¸ get treasure¸ repeat (not that there's anything wrong with that)¸ it is worth looking into.
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