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[tinag222]

What To Do With This?

[konamouse]

IMHO:
A lot depends on the context of the presentation of the puzzle.

And often one can surmise how to approach a puzzle based on what has been used by the PM in the past (one of the best hints is to "know thy PM" if you can). And the character providing this puzzle is another clue to what sort of cipher is used. A good PM keeps the character consistent (if he/she used vigenere in the past, they probably would use it in the future).

Cold delivery of gibberish? You try different common code techniques. Some codes appear familiar in their format (numbers??? letters only??? format of how the letters are lined up???, etc).

Grassroots games tend to use more common methods of coding. Rabbitholes also tend to avoid obscure codes so more people can fall in.

Some of our more experienced PMs (*cough* Dave S. *cough*) have challenged us with new methods of puzzles time and time again. But the have showed up deeper within a given game. That is when the community brain really helps. We all see something different and bounce ideas off eachother to solve.

[thebruce]

I think this touches on a similar issue as the alternate puzzle game question...

A PM needs to decide how they're going launch their arg, and to whom -would that method be effective for the person you're dealing with? Someone who's never played an ARG before likely won't respond to 'gibberish', where a veteran most likely will. OTOH, they might respond to a plea for help from a person (unknowingly fictional) they've been interacting with for a while in a subject they're familiar with and enjoy. The question of what a puzzle is in an ARG sense is raised then, because you've got run of the mill puzzles and codes that are obviously something needing to be decoded, as opposed to mysteries with clues and pieces that need to be put together... the mix of these types of puzzles will be a factor in determining what kind of people will be attracted to it and want to play (or, vice versa if you want to reach a certain demographic).

If I were launching an ARG to 'new' people attempting to draw more people in, I definitely wouldn't send an encoded message that could look like gibberish...

To catch and reel in a fish, you need the right bait

[FLmutant]

Ideally, though, even gibberish should cough up a little bit of its secrets if you poke it. You might have been just keystroking, but p234 looks like a page number ... and the string at the beginning smells anagrammable. The sweater needs one loose thread so that once the pulling starts the whole thing will naturally tend to unravel.