Mystery Games

A mystery is the one adventure format where a nine year old and a grandparent can play the same game at the same table and both matter. That is not an accident of the theme. It works when the clues are different kinds of job: one is a color match, one is a code, one is a timetable to reason through, one needs a mirror. Nobody is good at all four.

The test of a well built mystery is what happens when you remove a clue. If taking any single clue away still leaves one answer, the other clues were decoration and the fastest reader in the room will finish it alone. Each clue should cross off one or two suspects and no more, so the group has to pool what they have.

Six suspects is the sweet spot. Four is solvable by guessing, eight and the board stops fitting in anybody's head. Give every suspect a reason to look guilty, including the innocent ones, and keep the confession on a page of its own so the host can hand it over at the moment somebody says the name.