Using Nested Revelation to add mystery to your plots

Previously, I went into how to use the Sandbox with Prompts technique to run a game in a way that lets the GM run an active storyline in a game while still giving the players as much agency as possible in determining how their characters engage with the story. Today I want to look at one of the techniques I use for building such a story. I’ve used this technique, which I call Nested Revelation, in conjunction with the Sandbox with Prompts technique to create deep and engaging stories even in a sandbox-style game.

Nested Revelation is a technique most of us have encountered in fiction, often in suspense or mystery plots. When it’s well-executed, it creates a story that keeps the reader or watcher involved by gradually revealing elements of the story, like peeling back the layers of an onion. A lot of successful novels, TV shows, and JRPGs use this technique. There’s a narrative driving the plot, but the protagonists (and viewers) only start with a piece of it, a glimpse of part of what’s going on. As the story goes on, the protagonists learn more, sometimes finding out that the real story is much different than they first thought. To use the example of my City of Lies campaign that I cited in the Sandbox with Prompts article, the PCs started out investigating the cause of a fire, then learned of its connection to a series of murders, then through several steps learned the murders were being carried out by a black magic cult led by a corrupted witch hunter.

The first step in building a plot using Nested Revelation is to start at the center and build outwards. At the center of your story is the kernel being obscured by the layers further out. The king is possessed by a dark god. The witch hunter is using black magic himself in a desperate bid for revenge. The party in control of the government is covering up its members’ involvement in spreading the plague for their own profit. The center of your story is a big, dramatic, and dangerous secret, something that will (hopefully) make your players gasp in surprise when they learn it. In a TTRPG, this revelation will often lead to a final confrontation as the culmination of a campaign.

Decide how many layers of story you want to use based on how long you want your campaign to run. Each layer is a new level of information that the PCs have access to, allowing you to reveal the shape of your story to them gradually. In order to give a sense of progression through the plot as more of the picture is revealed to your players, you want to create at least 3 layers of information access. If you want to get elaborate, or you want to slowly reveal your plot over the course of a long campaign, you might create 5 or even more.

Once you’ve decided how many layers to use, it’s time to determine what each layer looks like. Each layer is defined by the new information that reveals it to the players, hence “Nested Revelation.” A 3 layer structure might look like this: first, people are being kidnapped off the street. The story begins with an investigation of the kidnappings. Upon learning about the targets, the players are able to determine who the next victim will be, or where the victims are being taken. Either of these pieces of information will lead them to the first revelation and the second layer: the victims are being kidnapped by a vampire that is keeping them alive in a secure location. The second part of the story will involve freeing the victims, stopping further kidnappings, and tracking and possibly confronting the vampire. These activities will lead the players to the second revelation, and to the third and final stage of the story: the vampire is in thrall to the city council and is kidnapping people who know about some malfeasance the council is committing. Here, the final stage of the plot is likely confronting the council and bringing the guilty parties to justice.

A key piece of this technique is controlling the flow of information to the players. The GM needs to know how the players will get the information that leads them to each revelation. If you’re using this technique in a sandbox campaign, it’s important to be sure that there are multiple paths for the players to learn key information. In my example above, they can jump from layer one to layer two by either determining who the next victim will be or finding where the victims are being taken, either of these courses leading to initial contact with the vampire. If you want the players to experience specific scenes or plot checkpoints before moving to the next layer, you’ll want to embed information they need for progress in those scenes. For instance, say I want the players to meet the vampire’s familiar during the investigation but before discovering there’s a vampire involved. I’ll pick a likely event, such as investigating the last known location of one of the victims, and put the familiar there. Perhaps our familiar is posing as a concerned party or an investigator themselves, and they start stalking the PCs to spy on them for the vampire. In any case, consider carefully what any NPC the PCs talk to knows, what information they’re willing to give (including if they mean to deceive the PCs), and make sure the players have access to the information they need when you want them to move to the next plot layer.

If you want to use this technique to create a deeper story (that is, not just a longer one), you can use multiple revelations in some layers, each tied to the main plot in some way. In my City of Lies campaign, the cult was murdering people who were involved in a theft and misuse of black magic materials from the witch hunter. Each murder investigation pulled back a little more of the curtain and revealed another bit of information leading to the revelation of the witch hunter’s crimes. In one instance, a bunch of ogres broke into a gambling house to murder one of the victims, and while everybody else fled in terror, one disguised samurai walked out very calmly. He was of course a cult member, and part of the investigation then focused on revealing his identity and connecting him to the other crimes. In another, PCs were pursuing a fleeing suspect and the witch hunter showed up and killed the suspect, claiming that he was involved in black magic. This cast obvious suspicion on the witch hunter, but he was acting with legitimate legal authority and the PCs couldn’t accuse him without evidence connecting him to the murders - some of which he had just put out of their reach by killing one of the people who could provide that information. When one of the thieves led the PCs to the location of the cache the black magic materials had been stolen from, the PCs were in a position where they had to execute the thief for being involved in black magic - and because of his low social station, the thief’s testimony couldn’t be used in court against the witch hunter. Each of these complications got the players a little closer to the heart of the story, but no single piece of information was enough to solve the mystery on its own.

Whether your plot involves suspense, mystery, or high fantasy, Nested Revelation is a technique you can use to tease your story out and give the players the feeling that they’re on a journey of discovery.