Hosting looks like the easy seat. You already know the answer, so what is there to do? Quite a lot, as it turns out. The players never see the solution, only your answers, and one careless yes or one invented detail changes the story they are trying to rebuild. Host, narrator, game master, riddle master: every group names the seat differently, and the job is the same. Here is how we think it should be done, from the first read of the solution to the moment you call it solved.
In this article
Before the first question
Read the solution alone, twice. The first read is for you: the surprise only happens once, so enjoy it. The second is work. Put the text away and tell yourself the story. If you trip over a why, read it again. Nobody can answer forty questions from a solution they half remember.
Then list, for yourself, the few facts the table has to find. Usually three to five: who, what really happened, and the link that makes the opening scene make sense. Everything else in the solution is set dressing. That list does three jobs later: the recap, the hints, and deciding whether the story someone tells you holds up.
Last, decide what the solution leaves open. Ages, weather, the time of day, the name of the town: if the text doesn’t say, those questions get irrelevant, tonight and every time you host this one. Settle it before anyone asks. A detail you make up on question six will clash with one you make up on question twenty.
Three answers, used honestly
Yes and no are about the story. Irrelevant is about the investigation: this detail won’t help explain it. That makes irrelevant the honest answer more often than people think, even when no would be accurate. If the solution mentions a grey coat and someone asks whether it was red, no is true, and the table will now try every colour in the box. Irrelevant tells them what actually matters: the coat isn’t the lead.
Some questions don’t fit any of the three as asked.
- Two questions in one. “Was she alone, and did she know him?” Don’t answer half of it. Say “split it” and let the table choose which to ask first.
- A question built on something false. If nobody was killed, “Did the killer come in through the window?” has no honest yes or no. Say “that question assumes something that isn’t true” and leave it there. Don’t say which part.
- A word that could go either way. A man dies in the hallway outside his apartment. Did he die at home? Either answer misleads someone. Ask what they mean by home, then answer the question they meant.
- A question the solution can’t answer. Irrelevant, even if you can guess what the author would say. You answer for the text, not for yourself.
House answers
Some tables add answers of their own. Wikipedia’s article on situation puzzles lists a few: “yope”, for yes and no at once, or “irrelevant, but assume yes” when the story comes out the same either way and assuming one side saves time. They’re fine if everyone agrees before the first question.
We’d rather keep three and make people split the question. A yope rewards the vague question. Three answers take a minute to learn and leave nothing to argue about.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Situation puzzle (checked )
Keep the table’s memory
Twenty questions in, nobody remembers whether the location mattered. A table that forgets its own answers asks them again, or worse, builds on a yes it never got. Every ten questions or so, or whenever someone asks, recap what’s been settled: the yeses, the noes that closed a line, the details that turned out irrelevant. Only what was actually answered, in the table’s own words, and nothing from your list they haven’t earned yet.
If recapping breaks your focus, appoint a scribe. Writing the answers down is a job that isn’t guessing, which suits a late arrival or someone who likes to watch. It’s the table version of what the Post Mortem app does on screen: each fact of the story stays blacked out until the questions find it, then stays readable for the rest of the case.
Hints, one rung at a time
Settle hints before you start. Some groups want none, and a hint nobody asked for takes the solve away from the table. Wikipedia’s article says hints may or may not be acceptable depending on the setting and the difficulty. Our rules say the same thing in fewer words: agree first.
When the table does want help, climb one rung at a time, and let a few questions go by between rungs.
- Read the statement aloud again, slowly. Often that’s enough, because someone hears a word they skipped.
- Point at one word of the statement. “Look at ‘alone’ again.” Don’t say what’s wrong with it.
- Name the ground worth asking about: a place, a moment, a person. “You haven’t asked much about what happened before.” The ground, never the fact buried in it.
Strict, and the same every time
A piece of the answer is never on the ladder. Once you say a fact the table didn’t find, you’ve solved the riddle for them, and they know it.
Geeky Hobbies’ review of black stories puts the host’s problem plainly: give out too many clues and the mystery is too easy, be too stringent and players get frustrated heading nowhere. We think inconsistency does more damage than strictness. A strict host who answers the same way every time is easier to play against than a generous one who bends the rules whenever the room goes quiet. A table can work around strict. It can’t work around unpredictable.
Sources
Calling it solved
A riddle is solved when someone can tell the essential events and explain why the opening scene looked impossible, in their own words. That’s the line our rules draw, and it’s why you made that list: check the story you hear against it, not against the wording of the solution.
Let them finish before you react. A host who nods at every sentence of a theory is answering a dozen questions nobody asked. If the telling is close but a link is missing, say so and let the table keep asking. When it’s all there, say so clearly, then tell or read the whole story. That’s what everyone was waiting for, including the details nobody needed to find.
Now and then a player tells a story that isn’t the author’s and still fits every answer you gave. Check it honestly. If it really holds, say so, give them the credit, then tell the written version. The riddle let two stories through. That’s on the riddle, not on them.
On this site
The people at the table
Fast talkers take over. If the same two voices ask everything, go round the table, one question each, and let anyone pass. Some people think better with the statement in front of them, so keep it within reach, on paper or on a screen.
The player who already knows the story is either your best ally or the biggest risk of the night. Offer them the host’s seat. If it’s taken, hand them the log: they write down the answers and say nothing else. A knowing grin at the wrong question is a hint too.
Change host with every story. It stops whoever knows the most riddles from running the whole evening, and anyone who has hosted once asks better questions afterwards. They’ve seen from the other side what an assumption costs.
Hosting a Post Mortem story
To host one of our stories you first need to read its solution, and that happens in the app, not on this site. A solution opens once you’ve solved that riddle yourself. Owning a pack opens the solution to every riddle in it, and All of Post Mortem opens them all. Reading a solution doesn’t count as solving it, and you can’t unread it, so pick a story you’re willing to give up playing.
Read it in the app, alone, before anyone arrives, the way the first part of this guide describes. If it’s one of the free riddles, send everyone its page on this site: the statement is there in full, with its picture, and the answer isn’t. Everyone can reread the exact words on their own phone while yours stays face down on the table.
And on nights when you’re on your own, the app’s narrator takes the seat for you, on your phone. It answers yes, no or irrelevant, and sends back any question that can’t be answered that way.