A situation puzzle hands you the end of a story and hides the part that makes sense of it. You get that part back by asking questions that can only be answered yes, no or irrelevant. Dark riddles are the same game with a death somewhere in the scene. You need two people and one story, nothing else. Here is how a game runs, from choosing who knows the answer to calling it solved.
In this article
One story, two roles
One player is the narrator, the only person who knows what really happened. Everyone else investigates. There is no equipment beyond a statement to read aloud and its solution, from a card deck, a book or a collection. Two players is enough. Three to six is better: enough ideas at the table, and few enough that everyone gets to ask.
The game is cooperative. Investigators work together against the story, not against each other, and the narrator is on nobody’s side.
A game, step by step
A riddle can fall in five questions or hold out for forty. The order of play stays the same.
- Choose the narrator. They read the whole solution in private and make sure they understand it before the first question. The solution stays out of sight, illustration included: the moment it clicks only happens once.
- Read the statement aloud. Read it twice, or leave it where everyone can see it. The exact words matter, and people will want to go back to them.
- Ask closed questions, one at a time. The narrator answers yes, no or irrelevant. A question that can’t be answered that way gets sent back to be rephrased.
- Tell the story. When someone thinks they have it, they explain what happened and why the opening scene looked wrong. The narrator confirms once the essential facts and the links between them are there. Nobody has to match the wording.
- Read the solution aloud. Everyone hears the full version, then someone else takes the narrator’s seat for the next riddle.
On this site
Ask one thing at a time
Start with a question that separates two versions of events. Did this happen before the person arrived? Does the location matter? Was the action deliberate? A useful question changes what you would ask next, whichever answer you get.
Don’t put a whole theory into one sentence. If you ask whether someone arrived late, took the wrong object and caused an accident, a no tells you almost nothing. Split it into three questions, keep the part that holds and drop the rest.
Irrelevant is a useful answer
No rules out a claim. Irrelevant tells you a detail doesn’t help explain the story. If a person’s eye colour doesn’t matter, you don’t need to try every colour. Move to a different part of the scene.
When you get stuck, read the statement again and separate what it says from what you pictured. A familiar word makes you imagine a place, a relationship or an order of events the text never gave you. Questioning that picture is the lateral thinking the game runs on.
Give the narrator room to be precise
Stay consistent and don’t invent facts. When the solution says nothing about a detail, the honest answer is irrelevant. When an answer would mislead, ask for a clearer question instead. If the group wants hints, agree on that together before giving one, and point at a detail of the statement rather than a piece of the answer.
Someone who already knows a story is a natural host for it. They still have a game to play: listening closely enough to answer without giving away the next discovery.
Winning, giving up and house rules
By default nobody wins. The table solves the riddle or it doesn’t. If your group wants a score, give a point to whoever tells the story, or set a limit on questions or time and try to beat it. Decide before the first question, not halfway through.
A group that is well and truly stuck can ask for the solution. That’s a fine ending, and a good reason to pick an easier riddle next. Dark riddles deal with death, sometimes bluntly, so think about who is at the table. With younger players, choose the gentler stories.
Playing alone with Post Mortem
A situation puzzle needs someone who knows the answer, which is why it is usually played in a group. In the Post Mortem app, on iOS and Android, the narrator takes that seat. You type your own closed questions and it answers yes, no or irrelevant. The story’s facts start out hidden and appear as your questions find them. Find them all and the case is solved, and the solution is yours to read. The statement stays on screen the whole time.
The app works at a table too: if you own a pack, you can read its solutions in advance and narrate them to your group yourself. On this site, the library has the free statements, each on its own page without the answer. Pick one that bothers you. You don’t need a grand theory to start, just one question worth asking.
